#Allen W. Dulles

[bracketsoffear]

Stranger Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Stranger Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse Blish, James & Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc. Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There? Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Dahl, Roald: The Witches Damico, Gina: Wax Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

French, Tana: The Likeness

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

King, Stephen: Battleground King, Stephen: The Outsider Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

Martin, Ann M. & Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host) Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall Poe, Edgar Allen: William Wilson Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld Robinson, Justin: Everyman Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: Harold Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet Sleator, William: Among the Dolls Sleator, William: The Duplicate Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

Ames, Alison: It Looks Like Us

Shy high school junior Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. She joins five student volunteers, a company-approved chaperone, and an impartial scientist to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.

Riley has anxiety--ostracized by the kids at school because of panic attacks--so when she starts to feel like something’s wrong with their expedition leader, Greta, she writes it off. But when Greta snaps and tries to kill Riley, she can’t chalk it up to an overactive imagination anymore. Worse, after watching Greta disintegrate, only to find another student with the same affliction, she realizes they haven’t been infected, they’ve been infiltrated--by something that can change its shape. And if the group isn’t careful, that something could quickly replace any of them.

Benton, Jim: The Frandidate

Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist, has always had her eye on world domination, and she has to start somewhere...like her class elections! If people vote for her, they’ll be giving her all the control she wants.

But Franny’s platform doesn’t have the same appeal as her competitors who are offering new playground equipment, so she creates The Frandidate. Made of DNA samples from a dog, a chameleon and a parrot, along with a scrap of carpet (so she’ll know where people stand), Franny’s special suit helps her say and do exactly what people want! But when The Frandidate starts making promises she knows she can’t keep, Franny realizes she might have gone too far…

Berger, Terry: The Haunted Dollhouse

On her thirteenth birthday, Sarah wishes that she would wake up inside of her dollhouse -- and her wish comes true. The book follows her throughout her day, with pictures that show the increasingly disturbing nature of the world in which she now exists.

Blish, James and Robert Lowndes: The Duplicated Man

The central premise of this novel concerns a cloning device that requires six different people, one for each duplicate to be created, to be hooked into the machine. Turns out while the memories are copied the personalities and appearances are affected by the subjective views of the various individuals. E.g., one copy is actually a bit shorter and more cowardly than the original because that's how its creator perceived the original while another due to her hero worship was a physically and mentally perfected version of the original.

Bradbury, Ray: Marionettes, Inc.

A man acquires a robot to stand in for him at home while he goes away. (A very sophisticated robot that eventually develops sentience, but still one that, if you place your head to the chest, you can hear a clock ticking instead of a heart beating.) However, the robot decides that he likes the original man's life and doesn't want to be stored away in a box in the basement. The solution? He betrays his owner by locking HIM in the box forever while he (the robot) lives the life of the owner, his family completely unaware of the switch. Meanwhile, another man considers doing the same, only to discover that his wife has already replaced herself.

Brooks, Mike: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

As this post--https://www.tumblr.com/bracketsoffear/718600953914327040/wasnt-here-in-time-for-the-stranger-poll-but--says, "Alpharius is the Primarch of the [...] Alpha Legion, and aside from the ones that have been fully expunged from all Imperial records, he's the primarch we know the least about. We're fairly confident he's actually two twin brothers pretending to be the same guy, Alpharius and Omegon, and that he specializes in infiltration. Beyond that, all bets are off. Literally every event in his life has at least two versions that have been printed in official books and directly contradict each other. The book that compiles his backstory in a neat and sensible manner that doesn't have any internal or external contradictions opens with the blatant admission that all of it is a complete fucking lie. Supposedly, he died at the battle for Pluto, but then he is reported to have been killed several centuries later somewhere else by a completely different guy. Only complicating matters is that pretty much every member of his legion undergoes extensive plastic surgery to look exactly like him. Most of them introduce themselves as Alpharius. It might very well be that both of the times he supposedly died, it was actually just a body double and he's still out there, pretending to be a normal legionary. Every single member of the Alpha Legion is Alpharius, and an alarming number of them actually believe themselves to be him." Anyway, this is the backstory book in question.

Calvino, Italo: If On A Winter's Night A Traveller

The book is a story about reading the first chapters of multiple books that appear to be If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, but are not.

Campbell, John W.: Who Goes There?

A group of American researchers, isolated in their scientific station in Antarctica towards the end of winter, discover an alien spaceship buried in the ice, where it crashed twenty million years before. They recover an alien creature from the ancient ice. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the appearance, memories, and personality of a living thing it devours, while maintaining its body mass for further reproduction. Unknown to them, the alien immediately kills and then imitates the crew's physicist, a man named Connant; with some 90 pounds of its matter left over, it tries to become a sled dog.

The crew discovers the dog-Thing and kills it midway through the transformation process. Pathologist Blair, who had lobbied for thawing the Thing, goes insane with paranoia and guilt, vowing to kill everyone at the base to save mankind; he is isolated within a locked cabin at their outpost. Connant is also isolated as a precaution, and a "rule-of-four" is initiated in which all personnel must remain under the close scrutiny of three others. The crew realizes that they must isolate their base and therefore disable their airplanes and vehicles, yet they pretend that everything is normal during radio transmissions, to prevent any rescue attempts. The researchers try to figure out who may have been replaced by the alien (simply referred to as the Thing), to destroy the imitations before they can escape and take over the world. The task is found to be almost impossibly difficult when they realize that the Thing is shapeshifting and telepathic, reading minds and projecting thoughts. A sled dog is conditioned by human blood injections (from Copper and Garry) to provide a human-immunity serum test, as in rabbits. The initial test of Connant is inconclusive, as they realize that the test animal received both human and alien blood, meaning that either Doctor Copper or expedition Commander Garry is an alien. Assistant commander McReady takes over and deduces that all the other animals at the station, save the test dog, have already become imitations; all are killed by electrocution and their corpses burned.

Everyone suspects each other by now but must stay together for safety, deciding who will take turns sleeping and standing watch. Tensions mount and some men begin to go mad, thinking that they are already the last human, or wondering if they could know if they were not human any longer. Ultimately, Kinner, the cook, is murdered and accidentally revealed to be a Thing. McReady realizes that even small pieces of the creature will behave as independent organisms. He then uses this fact to test which men have been "converted" by taking blood samples from everyone and dipping a heated wire in the vial of blood. Each man's blood is tested, one at a time, and the donor is immediately killed if his blood recoils from the wire. Fourteen men, including Connant and Garry, are revealed to be Things. The remaining men go to test the isolated Blair, and on the way, see the first albatross of the Antarctic spring flying overhead; they shoot the bird to prevent a Thing from infecting it and flying to civilization.

When they reach Blair's cabin, they discover that he is a Thing. They realize that it has been left to its own devices for a week, coming and going as it pleased, as it is able to squeeze under doors by transforming itself. With the creatures inside the base destroyed, McReady and two others enter the cabin to kill the Thing that was once Blair. McReady forces it out into the snow and destroys it with a blowtorch. Afterwards, the trio discover that the Thing was dangerously close to finishing the construction of a nuclear-powered anti-gravity device that would have allowed it to escape to the outside world.

Christie, Agatha: Dead Man's Folly

So, the entire propaganda section for this one will be a spoiler because to explain why this book works as a stranger Leitner is to reveal a major plot twist. So as a start here is the book's description from goodreads:

Whilst organising a mock murder hunt for the village fete hosted by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, a feeling of dread settles on the famous crime novelist Adriane Oliver. Call it instinct, but it's a feeling she just can't explain...or get away from. In desperation she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot -- and her instincts are soon proved correct when the 'pretend' murder victim is discovered playing the scene for real, a rope wrapped tightly around her neck. But it's the great detective who first discovers that in murder hunts, whether mock or real, everyone is playing a part.

In this novel a young girl Marlene is killed during a village fete at Nasse House, a home owned by Sir George Stubbs and his wife Hattie. After the murder, Lady Stubbs goes missing just in time for a visit from her cousin, whom she hasn't seen in years. At the end of the novel, it transpired that both Sir George and Hattie were not who they seemed. Sir George being a fake identity of James Folliat, son of the family that owned the Nasse House for centuries, who was thought to be dead. His mother, Amy Folliat, introduced him to the original Hattie, a wealthy but naive girl. James stole Hattie's money and had her killed and replaced by his actual wife, who later spent years pretending to be Hattie with only Amy Folliat aware of the replacement. Due to the news that real Hattie's cousin, who could uncover the ruse, was going to visit. Fake Hattie again transformed to blend among the tourists that came to the fete. To me, this works great as a stranger Leitner due to the book antagonist both pretending to be somebody else and the strong element of kill and replace.

Crowley, Nate: The Twice-Dead King

Fundamentally about alienation from one's own sense of self and how in order to become yourself you have to become someone else; the main character goes through a major identity crisis and it involves flaying people and wearing their skin

Dahl, Roald: The Witches

A dark fantasy, the story is set partly in Norway and partly in England, and features the experiences of a young English boy and his Norwegian grandmother in a world where child-hating societies of witches secretly exist in every country.

Damico, Gina: Wax

Wax is a young adult mystery novel by Gina Damico (author of Croak). It was published in 2016.

It takes place in the fictional town of Paraffin, Vermont. Our hero is Poppy Palladino, a teenage girl who wants to be an actor, but is haunted by memories of being humiliated multiple times in the past, especially by a bully named Blake Bursaw. Paraffin is home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory, a popular tourist site. While taking a tour in the factory, Poppy wanders off into a secret workroom where she meets Madame Grosholtz, an eccentric maker of wax sculptures. Soon after, the factory mysteriously burns down, but not before Poppy is given a living wax sculpture, who she names Dud, and a candle engraved with a strange message.

Things just get stranger from there, and Poppy must save the entire town from a sinister conspiracy that stems from hundreds of years ago. She becomes unsure of who she can trust, but with the help of Dud, her best friend Jill, and her school theater club, she must make a plan.

***

Paraffin, Vermont, is known the world over as home to the Grosholtz Candle Factory. But behind the sunny retail space bursting with overwhelming scents and homemade fudge, seventeen-year-old Poppy Palladino discovers something dark and unsettling: a back room filled with dozens of startlingly life-like wax sculptures, crafted by one very strange old lady. Poppy hightails it home, only to be shocked when one of the figures—a teenage boy who doesn’t seem to know what he is—jumps naked and screaming out of the trunk of her car. She tries to return him to the candle factory, but before she can, a fire destroys the mysterious workshop—and the old woman is nowhere to be seen.

With the help of the wax boy, who answers to the name Dud, Poppy resolves to find out who was behind the fire. But in the course of her investigation, she discovers that things in Paraffin aren’t always as they seem, that the Grosholtz Candle Factory isn’t as pure as its reputation—and that some of the townspeople she’s known her entire life may not be as human as they once were. In fact, they’re starting to look a little . . . waxy. Can Poppy and Dud extinguish the evil that’s taking hold of their town before it’s too late?

Dick, Philip K.: A Scanner Darkly

"The main character, Bob Arctor, leads a double life as an undercover police agent infiltrating a drug dealing ring. As a part of his cover he starts taking the drug and becomes addicted, and the drug causes the hemispheres of his brain to function separately leading to the emergence of two separate personalities - 'Bob' when he is a drug dealer, and 'Fred' when he is a police agent. both of these personalities do not recognize each other, so for example when he is reviewing footage of him as Bob, he thinks he is spying on some other man. Also, in this world there are 'scramble suits' - special coats that make it impossible to distinguish anything about the wearer's appearance or their voice, and the protagonist is required to wear one of these when he is not undercover. That worsens his split personality, as he has no one who remembers his appearance as 'Fred', and he forgets he was undercover at all and just starts acting as a genuine drug dealer. The distortion of memories, erasure of appearance and the personality swap from Fred to Bob reminds me strongly of not!them. Fred not!themmed himself."

Dick, Philip K.: Upon the Dull Earth

Short story in which a woman dies, and her boyfriend makes a deal to bring her back. Trouble is, he brings her back... too much. It'd be a funny old world if we were all the same, wouldn't it? Link

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Double

In Saint Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin works as a titular councillor (rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great[3]), a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed.

Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his physician, Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behaviour is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters a man who looks exactly like him, his double. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

At first, Golyadkin and his double are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz.

***

Constantly rebuffed from the social circles he aspires to frequent, the timid clerk Golyadkin is confronted by the sudden appearance of his double, a more brazen, confident and socially succesful version of himself, who abuses and victimizes the original. As he is increasingly persecuted, Golyadkin finds his social, romantic and professional life unravelling, in a spiral that leads to a catastrophic denouement.

French, Tana: The Likeness

A detective assumes a dead woman’s identity and moves into her shared house, believing one of the housemates to be her killer. She is accepted as the victim (!!!) and becomes obsessed with her doppelgänger, trying to stay in character and live the life that she would have lived. She ends up getting psychologically consumed by the part she’s playing, losing track of her own identity. Once she’s completely confused, only person knows for sure who she is—the killer.

Gaiman, Neil: Coraline

The presence of another world that resemble the one you know but different, the Other Mother whole deal and the fact that she spies on people using dolls and sews buttons in place of her victim's eyes.

***

A short novella that focuses on 9-year-old Coraline Jones as she fights to restore her family from the clutches of the evil Other Mother.

Hendrix, Grady: How to Sell a Haunted House

Synopsis: "When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…"

Ito, Junji: The Enigma of Amigara Fault

You see the hole which perfectly matched you. It haunts you. You can’t resist the urge to climb inside.

It’s your hole, it was made for you.

Once you enter, you keep going, and your limbs begin to lengthen and contort. At the other side of the mountain, you emerge. Miserable, in pain, and spaghetti’s to the point you barely look human.

It’s your hole, it was made for you. But you have to be changed to fit inside. And you will.

(People have been memeing this story but it’s actually excellent body horror. Highly recommend!)

Ito, Junji: Uzumaki

It’s about a town cursed by spirals that corrupt you and drive you mad, but can’t be ignored forever

Jensen, Ruby Jean: MaMa

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little dolly. Her porcelain like face was so smooth, just like a baby. Her mouth even had a tiny hole so she could eat and breathe. But her one beaded glass eye gleamed with mischief and evil. She had waited a long time in the attic for someone to set her free...

Once upon a time there lived a sweet little girl. The only place she was happy was in the attic with her dolly. If she could have seen her little doll's legs kick, she would have been frightened. If she could have felt her little doll's arms squeeze, she would have been shocked. But if she could have read her little doll's thoughts she would have run from the attic forever--for her sweet little dolly only had killing her on her mind...

King, Stephen: Battleground

A toymaker gets his revenge on his killer with a battalion of toy soldiers that invade his apartment.

King, Stephen: The Outsider

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

Krulik, Nancy E.: Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo (series)

Katie is an ordinary third-grader-except for one very extraordinary problem! She accidentally wished on a shooting star to be anyone but herself. But what Katie soon learns is that wishes really do come true-and in the strangest ways... When the magic wind blows, watch out! Katie switches bodies with someone or something else and hilarity and havoc ensues.

Lovecraft, H.P.: The Outsider

There's nothing I can say here that won't ruin the twist. Link: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/o.aspx

Martin, Ann M. and Laura Godwin: The Meanest Doll in the World

Annabelle Doll and Tiffany Funcraft are two dolls who have been best friends since they met in Kate Palmer's house at 26 Wetherby Lane. In this sequel to The Doll Peopl e, they hitch a ride in Kate's backpack and find themselves in the biggest adventure of their lives, a day at school! But when an attempt to return home lands them in the wrong house, they're in far deeper trouble than they imagined. Along with a host of new doll friends, they also encounter Mean Mimi, the wickedest doll of all. Mean Mimi is mean-really mean-and she's determined to rule all of Dollkind or else destroy it. Will the world ever be safe for dolls again?

The main horror aspect of this series is the threat of 'Permanent Doll State' -- a divine punishment that will transform violaters permanently into nonliving dolls, though possibly with their sentience still intact.

Miles, Lawrence: This Town Will Never Let Us Go

This is the source material of Tiffany Korta: ""Pop star. Her image was carefully maintained and groomed by her bosses, the skull-masked Executive/Faction Paradox. She became haunted by the concept of her uber-self, the variety of ways in which her image was used -- officially and otherwise -- and the impassible divide between her identity and the perceptions that other people had of her. She began to see her image on screens moving out of sync with her, or saying things that she could not remember saying, as the image she presented to the world evolved beyond her comprehension and control. Eventually, when she confronted the Executive about their plans for her, they destroyed her and replaced her with a different version of herself that went on to destroy her credibility, Not!Them-style. Meanwhile, other versions of her went on homicidal rampages around the world."

Nettel, Guadalupe: El huésped (The host)

A story about a girl who feels she has a "sister" that lives within her. She haunts her constantly and devastates her life. We never know whether that sister is real or not, but the mere thought of her drives the girl to paranoia and madness. Her main goal is to destroy her, and to do that, she must become just like her.

Nix, Garth: The Ragwitch

Ten-year-old Paul and his sister Julia are on vacation at the beach one day when they find a shell midden on the shore. When they climb it, they find a crow's nest with a creepy little ragdoll in it. Paul distrusts it immediately, but Julia is entranced, and brings it home, where their parents don't seem to be able to see it. The next morning, Paul hears someone moving around, and follows the sound out to find his sister, possessed by the doll, building a strange blue fire on top of the midden. She freezes him helplessly in place, then jumps into the fire and disappears. Paul rebuilds it and follows Her through, determined to rescue his sister.

So begins a quest to stop the Ragwitch and save his sister (and maybe the world he finds himself in on the side). Throughout, the narrative switches between Paul's journey and Julia Fighting from the Inside despite the Ragwitch's attempts to control her mind.

Peck, Richard: Secrets of the Shopping Mall

Trying to escape the vicious King Kobra gang and troubled life at home, eighth graders Barnie and Teresa flee the city. With only four dollars between them, they hop a bus, hoping to find a new life at the end of the line. Destination: Paradise Park. But Paradise Park turns out to be a cement-covered suburban shopping mall--not quite the paradise they had hoped for.

With no money and no home to retum to, they are forced to stay. And paradise park takes them in--in more ways than one. Barnie and Teresa spend their days and nights in the climate-controlled consumer paradise of a large department store. And just when they think they can live there unnoticed forever, Teresa and Barnie find that even Paradise Park has its secrets. Even in the dead of night, they are far from alone...."

(Spoilers: It's not actually living mannequins, but dispossessed and mildly insane teens who dress as mannequins and stand perfectly still all day to avoid detection! Which... I'm not sure is much better.)

Poe, Edgar Allen: William Williamson or William Wilson

The story of a doppelganger. A man with William Wilson's same name and face. A man who begins to act and sound more like him over the years. A man who becomes hostile. A man who haunts him.

***

William Wilson is about a man named William Wilson (or something similar to it) who meets a man with the exact name as him. Gradually, the double begins to resemble him more and more. The double keeps being a general nuisance to him until eventually he kills his double. Only to look in the mirror to see “ mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood”.

"In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”

To me, William Wilson is a perfect example of a Stranger Leitner because it conceptualizes the fear of the other through fear of the self. There is no stranger more unknowable than the stranger in the mirror, staring back at you.

***

The story follows a man "of noble descent" who goes by William Williamson because, although denouncing his profligate past, he does not accept full blame for his actions. William meets another boy in his school who has the same name and roughly the same appearance, and who was even born on the same date. William's name embarrasses him because it sounds "plebeian" or common, and he is irked that he must hear the name twice as much on account of the other William. The boy also dresses like William, walks like him, but can only speak in a whisper. He begins to give advice to William of an unspecified nature, which he refuses to obey, resenting the boy's "arrogance". One night he steals into the other William's bedroom and recoils in horror at the boy's face—which now resembles his own. William then immediately leaves the academy and, in the same week, the other boy follows suit. William eventually goes to university, gradually becoming more debauched and performing what he terms "mischief". For example, he steals from a man by cheating at cards. The other William appears, his face covered, and whispers a few words sufficient to alert others to William's behavior, and then leaves with no others seeing his face. William is haunted by his double in subsequent years, who thwarts plans described by William as driven by ambition, anger and lust. In his latest caper, he attempts to seduce a married noblewoman at Carnival in Rome, but the other William stops him. The enraged protagonist drags his "unresisting" double—who wears identical clothes— into an antechamber, and, after a brief sword fight in which the double participates only reluctantly, stabs him fatally. After William does this, a large mirror suddenly seems to appear. Reflected at him, he sees "mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood": apparently the dead double, "but he spoke no longer in a whisper". The narrator feels as if he is pronouncing the words: "In me didst thou exist—and in my death, see ... how utterly thou hast murdered thyself."

Pratchett, Terry: Maskerade

‘There’s a kind of magic in masks. Masks conceal one face, but they reveal another. The one that only comes out in darkness …’

The Opera House in Ankh-Morpork is home to music, theatrics and a harmless masked Ghost who lurks behind the scenes. But now a set of mysterious backstage murders may just stop the show.

Agnes Nitt has left her rural home of Lancre in the hopes of launching a successful singing career in the big city. The only problem is, she doesn’t quite look the part. And there are two witches who would much rather she return home to join their coven.

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg have travelled to Ankh-Morpork to convince Agnes that life as a witch is much better than one on the stage. Only now they’re caught up in a murder mystery featuring masks and maniacal laughter.

And the show MUST go on . . .

Rayner, Jacqueline: EarthWorld

Synopsis: "Anji Kapoor has just had the worst week of her entire life, and things aren't getting any better. She should be back at her desk, not travelling through time and space in a police box with a couple of strange men.

The Doctor (Strange Man No. 1) is supposed to be returning her to Soho 2001 AD. So quite why there are dinosaurs outside, Anji isn't sure. Sad sixties refugee Fitz (Strange Man No. 2) seems to think they're either in prehistoric times or on a parallel Earth. And the Doctor is probably only pretending to know what's going on — because if he really knew, surely he would have mentioned the homicidal triplet princesses, the teen terrorists, the deadly android doubles (and triples) and the hosts of mad robots?

Anji's never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again... "

Why it's Stranger: The setting alone is uncannily bizarre -- a theme park on one of Jupiter's moons devoted to Earth history, with research drawn from mistranslations, myths, and popular fiction. Sinister androids populate the place, and everyone is hiding the most terrible secrets. Meanwhile, Fitz Kreiner is having an identity crisis about being a clone, which is only made worse when he has to battle an Elvis impersonator to the death.

Robinson, Justin: Everyman

Ian Covey is a doppelganger. A mimic. A shapeshifter. He can replace anyone he wants by becoming a perfect copy; taking the victim’s face, his home, his family. His life. No longer a man, but a hungry void, Ian Covey is a monster.

David Tirado is a massive, hideous colony organism, a gestalt entity. The sum of Covey’s discarded parts. A roiling, chaotic patchwork of vast and varied personalities, memories, and physical forms that used to be a man − many men − David Tirado is a monster.

Sophie Tirado’s identity has been eroded by the tides of a long relationship, and now the man she gave herself up for has been stolen away and replaced by a mimic. Caught between the Doppelganger and the Gestalt Entity, she will try to save her husband, but there might be nothing left of him.

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask, and evil a thousand faces.

Ross, Louise: Collective Imagination: Goncharov (1973) (2022) as a Model for Communal Filmmaking

Schwartz, Alvin: "Harold," Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill your Bones

Two cow farmers, Thomas and Alfred, were bored with their monotonous work one day, so they decided to make a scarecrow out of old sacs stuffed with straw. They based its appearance after another farmer they both hated, even giving it the name: Harold. They tied it to a pole and made fun of it, doing impressions of what his crazy voice might sound like or even just taking their cruelty out on him by kicking or punching him, or smearing food over the sac that was its face. One day they heard a grunt that could only have come from Harold. Thomas suggested throwing him in the fire, but Alfred insisted it was nothing to worry about. Then, Alfred noticed that Harold was growing bigger, but again told themselves it was just their imagination from being in the mountains too long.

Then one day, Harold stands up, walks out of the hut in front of Thomas and Alfred, then climbs up onto the roof and starts stomping around on it like a horse on its hind legs. Terrified and wanting to get away from Harold, they leave with their cows that same day, but halfway there they realize they forgot their milking stools and have to go back. The farmers convince each other that there really is nothing to be afraid of and draw straws to see who will go back. It is Thomas who drew the shorter straw, and now has to go back to to the hut, telling Alfred that he will catch up with him later. When Thomas does not return, Alfred returns to look for him, and sees Harold on the roof of the hut laying out Thomas' skinned corpse to dry in the sun.

Scroggs, Kirk: Tales of a Sixth-Grade Muppet

It's a series where a boy turns into a Muppet, and things only get wilder from there. It only really hits proper mind and body horror by book 4, as the entire world begins to undergo MUPPETMORPHOSIS!

Sleator, William: Among the Dolls

When her parents give her a gloomy old dollhouse for her birthday instead of the ten speed bike she's expecting, Vicky is disappointed. But she soon becomes fascinated by the small shadowy world and its inhabitants. The hours she spends playing with the dolls is a good way to escape from her parents's arguments. As Vicky's life becomes more troubled, she starts to take out her frustration on the dolls, making their lives as unhappy as hers. Then one day, Vicky wakes up inside the dollhouse, trapped among the monsters she's created. Bewildered, Vicky is sure she's dreaming. Can she find her way out of this nightmare world?

Sleator, William: The Duplicate

When David finds a mysterious machine that can copy living things, he thinks his problems are over. Now he can be in two places at once: at his grandmother's and out on a date. While the other David is in school, the real one can spend the day at the beach. The possibilities are endless. And they turn terrifying. David's duplicate has a mind, ideas, and desires of his own--and one of them is to see the real David dead.

Spark, Muriel: The Only Problem

So, in this novel, the main character, Harvey Gotham's estranged wife, Effie, apparently joins a terrorist organisation, which causes no end of problems for him. One of the problems being that Harvey refuses to believe that the person in the organisation really is Effie. When shown photographic evidence and even when shown her corpse he remains doubtful that it's her. Nobody else, with the sole exception of his semi-crazy aunt, has any doubts that Effie really is terrorizing Europe. This could be explained by Harvey lying to himself for various reasons or maybe... maybe Effie was replaced by the Stranger and only Harvey can tell. I propose that The Only Problem is really a Stranger's Leitner describing the torment Harvey suffered at the hand of the Stranger.

Spatola, Mike: The Monstrous Makeup Manual

Springer, Nancy: Possessing Jessie

Quiet, cautious Jessie had always lived in the shadow of her dynamic younger brother--her mother's clear favorite. His recent death leaves Jessie and her mother numb with grief. That is, until the morning Jessie cuts her hair and dresses in Jason's clothes, swaggering out of the house in an uncanny imitation of her brother. Her mother is visibly cheered, and for once Jessie is the center of attention at school. But each day Jason takes over Jessie more and more. Can she escape his power?

Starling, Caitlin: Last to Leave the Room

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before - and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world. As her employer grows increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads…

Stevenson, Robert Louis: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious—during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. More than a hundred years later, this tale of the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll and the drug that unleashes his evil, inner persona—the loathsome, twisted Mr. Hyde—has lost none of its ability to shock. Its realistic police-style narrative chillingly relates Jekyll's desperation as Hyde gains control of his soul—and gives voice to our own fears of the violence and evil within us. Written before Freud's naming of the ego and the id, Stevenson's enduring classic demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the personality's inner conflicts—and remains the irresistibly terrifying stuff of our worst nightmares.

Stine, R.L.: The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight

Evil scarecrows terrorize a small farm.

Stine, R.L.: Night of the Living Dummy

Lindy Powell finds a mysterious ventriloquist's dummy and Lindy decides to call him Slappy. Lindy uses her dummy to gain popularity, and her sister Kris quickly becomes jealous. Lindy and Kris's parents ask the two girls to share the dummy. However, when Kris tries to take Slappy from Lindy, Slappy hits Kris in the face. The next morning, Mr. Powell reveals that he has bought a ventriloquist dummy for Kris from a pawn shop. She decides to call him Mr. Wood. Various strange incidents of Mr. Wood apparently doing horrible things happen, which are eventually revealed as a prank by Lindy. She was tired of Kris being a copycat, so she decided to pull this big prank on Kris. Kris finds a small card in Mr. Wood's pocket that reads, "KARRU MARRI ODONNA LOMA MOLONU KARRANO,". After reading the card out loud, Kris thinks she sees Mr. Wood blink. That night, the Powell's elderly neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Miller, come to visit them. Lindy and Kris's parents ask that their daughters perform a ventriloquist act for their neighbors. Lindy decides to go first, and hers is a success. Before Kris can perform her act, Mr. Wood begins to insult the elderly couple, making fun of their appearances and their breath. Because of this, Kris is grounded but still allowed to attend the school's spring concert the following day. At the concert, while Mrs. Berman is adjusting a microphone for Kris, Mr. Wood begins to insult the teacher for being overweight. Mrs. Berman demands an apology, but Mr. Wood responds by spewing a green substance on the teacher and the audience. Mrs. Bergman tells Kris that she will be suspended from school for this, possibly for life. Mr. Powell announces he will return the dummy to the pawn shop on Monday. Kris locks Mr. Wood in a closet and goes to sleep. Kris is awakened by the sound of footsteps. When Kris decides to investigate, she discovers that Mr. Wood is alive. Mr. Wood tells her that she and Lindy are now his slaves and that the magic words brought him to life. Kris tries to fight the dummy, but Mr. Wood hits her fiercely in the stomach. Kris crawls away from Mr. Wood and screams for help. Lindy hears her sister and goes downstairs to find out what has happened. While Kris tells her sister that the dummy is alive, Mr. Wood surprises the girls. Lindy manages to pin the dummy to the ground and keep him from fleeing. When the girls' parents arrive, Mr. Wood stops moving. Lindy and Kris try to explain what has happened, but their parents refuse to believe the girls. Mr. and Mrs. Powell begin to question Kris's mental well-being, suggesting that they should take her to a doctor. As soon as the parents leave, Mr. Wood comes back to life, insisting that Lindy and Kris are his slaves. The girls try to decapitate the dummy, but they are unable to harm him. Next, the girls trap Mr. Wood in a suitcase and bury him in the backyard. Since they are exhausted, Lindy and Kris go to sleep. When the girls wake up the next morning, they discover that Mr. Wood has freed himself and is waiting for them. Lindy and Kris seek help, but their parents have gone out. To show how serious he is, Mr. Wood begins to choke Barky, the family dog. In an attempt to separate the two, the girls drag Mr. Wood and Barky outside. When Mr. Wood releases Barky, the girls chase the dummy into the path of a nearby steamroller being used for construction at the house next door. Mr. Wood dodges the first steamroller and tells them that both will be his slaves forever. He doesn't notice the second steamroller, however, and it crushes Mr. Wood. A mysterious green mist rises from the smashed dummy's body. The alarmed driver of the steamroller rushes out, thinking it was a kid he ran over, but the kids assure him it was nothing more than a dummy. Lindy, Kris, and Barky return home. When the girls get to their room, they find Slappy waiting for them. Slappy asks if the other dummy is gone.

Topping, Keith & Martin Day: The Hollow Men

Well to start with, doctor who aside, doesn't the title just sound like a stranger leitner? And getting into the plot, it heavily features animate scarecrows made from people. And the main reason I'm submitting this is because it fucked me up real bad. It's thematically way darker and more mature in content than I was expecting from a doctor who novel when I read it at the tender age of 14.

Vida, Vendela: The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

The whole plot is about a woman who goes on vacation, loses her documents and decides to roll with it, acquiring new identities through a series of questionable decisions. She gets someone else's passport and credit cards, moves into a different hotel, gets hired as a double of a famous actress, introduces herself with false names, and is very paranoid about being found out. We never learn her actual name, but we do learn that she has always disliked her face and has always tried to choose activities that would draw attention away from her face, so she can pretend it's not even there.

Wells, H.G.: The Invisible Man

The opening of "The Invisible Man" focuses on outside perspectives of the titular character, and the narrative itself refers to him simply as "the stranger". His looks are unusual: he wears large clothes and covers his eyes with tinted glasses, and underneath those, he's covered in bandages, as if he's had some sort of horrible accident. His behavior is strange, too. He's rude and reclusive, holed up in his at an inn and working with bizzare chemical concotions, causing accidents and damage constantly.

Throughout the story, the man, Griffin, becomes increasingly erratic. His attempts to reverse his condition all fail, but the things he can do when he goes unnoticed are increasingly violent and cruel.

When he finally becomes fed up with everything, he reveals himself to the proprietors and patrons of the inn, who are prepared to see anything under the bandages, any manner of injury or disfigurement, but instead, run screaming from the establishment, when he reveals nothing at all.

***

The way other characters interact with Griffin the Invisible Man really reminds me of The Stranger. Throughout the plot he's treated as some sort of impostor/invader/not human anymore. Doubly interesting since we see the uncanny-valley-assigned person's POV, meaning it could work even better as a Leitner that makes a statement giver experience something similar

[zeroducks-2]

ooooh I love that dark ask game! how about prompts 8 or 11 or 21 + C or Q or W with Eobarry or Sladick? :)

Thank you for the prompt vexic! I’m going to go with Eobarry because there’s a lot of Sladick in my inbox :3

8. Intimate Torturer + W. “Don’t bite” - Eobard Thawne/Barry Allen

(TW: NSFW, blood and head injury, Eobard being his own content warning)

There’s something fascinating about watching his own blood dripping from the side of his face, the steady drip of it creating a quickly drying puddle on the floor below. Barry doesn’t entirely see it, vision going in and out and sort of tunneling, his focus not really there when a palm cups his jaw and makes him look up. 

His head lolls into the grip. He’s vaguely aware of more blood pearling on the wound on his head and then going down along his temple, touching the other man’s wrist and ending up falling after a semicircle on his forearm. 

«Look at you.» A familiar voice says, but Barry has been hit on the head way too strongly to make any sense of who it belongs to. «You poor thing… it really doesn’t take all that much to put you out of commission, Flash.» Something dabs at his head and Barry flinches, pain spreading from the open wound. He tries to retreat but doesn’t get to go anywhere, the hold on his jaw sufficient to keep him right there. 

He still finds himself held against another body, kept still while pressure is applied to the side of his head. It doesn’t take long for him to stop fighting it, he lost a lot of blood and everything is so fuzzy already. He’s leaning his weight forward soon enough, eyes closing by themselves now that he doesn’t need to fight to keep his balance while kneeling down, and he’s pretty sure he heard a quiet “tsk” but pays it no mind. 

Arms surround him more tightly, hands reach his bound wrists behind his back, and then there’s a click like a lock opening. Something heavy is lifted from his forearms and just like that Barry feels like he can breathe again, electricity suddenly coursing through him and filling him up and it’s so soothing he groans quietly, the pain of his injuries immediately starting to grow dull. 

And then he’s hit with the fact that he needs to get away. He needs to get away right now, before-

The shackles click back in place and cut the connection with his powers again, his attempt to struggle through it prevented by how securely Thawne is holding him against his chest. It was just a minute but Barry finds himself lucid, the wound on his head regenerated enough to have stopped bleeding albeit it’s still raw, his body throbbing and shaking in the renewed, painful distance with his lightning. 

He’s still breathing hard when Thawne stands on his feet, a hand fisted into his hair to keep him looking up. «Couldn’t let you bleed out.» He says in a casual tone, taking back the folded napkin to wipe blood from Barry’s cheek. He tries to jerk his head away with a grunt but he’s held fast. «Now, now… » Napkin discarded, steel strong fingers dig into his jaw to pry it open and then three of them fit past his lips. «See that you don’t bite. If you do, I'm just going to bash your head open again.» 

Barry feels his eyes growing hot but closes them shut and forces himself to keep it together. It’s been a day of this already, maybe something more. He’s tired. He can tell the other is getting worked up by how he’s forcing him to swallow around his fingers, and just makes an effort to tune himself out.

Here's the ask game! Feel free to prompt me again or reblog it yourself :)

[usafphantom2]

The mission of the Blackbirds, the very essence of its life and breath, was the need for knowledge that was verified to keep us safe from enemy invasion. You must look back at history to understand why America rose to the challenge to create the incredibly fast and high-altitude Blackbirds(A-12 and SR-71 ) so technically advanced that our enemies could not shoot them down. It also helped that Kelly Johnson was an avionics genius who lived in the United States. Our very lives depended on knowing what the enemy was planning. Many men risked their lives. They understood the mission and were willing to put their lives at stake to protect their country; They volunteered for this duty. I am sure that my father, Colonel Richard “Butch” Sheffield, would’ve flown over Russia and China. It was the first question he was asked when being interviewed by Colonel Doug Nelson for his position as the first RSO in the SR 71.

On July 3, 1956, President Eisenhower approved a ten-day slot for the overfly of the Soviet Union. His decision was made not knowing about the A-100 radar, which provided early warning for the SA-1 guide surface-to-air ( SAM) missiles located around Moscow. It was thought the Russians could not have any capability above 60,000 feet.

President Eisenhower made it clear to Richard Bissell and Allen Dulles that He needed to be informed on any tracking or attempted interceptions. Bissell and Alan Dulles went to the White House and told them that it would be at least 36 hours after each mission before receiving the first reports of detection tracking and attempted interception and that it could be as long as several weeks! General Goodplaster, Eisenhower‘s aide, told them that he understood the President wanted the mission to go forward at the maximum rate until the first tracking evidence was received. On July 4, the Soviets did detect the U-2; it wasn’t until July 10 that Goodplaster informed Eisenhower about his meeting with Dulles and Bissell, adding that there had been some indication of tracking. Eisenhower, at this point, was still woefully uninformed. Later that day, the USSR delivered a protest note about the previous day's flights to the US Embassy in Moscow. It was clear that the Soviet air defense system had not only detected each flight but had tracked them for a considerable distance.

The President was extremely annoyed that the assurances given by Bissell and others were proven false. They had told him that the flights would hardly be detected, let alone tracked. Eisenhower never again gave the CIA carte blanche for a series of U-2 flights overflying Russia. Ironically, the CIA U-2 planners similarly implied to the President that if a U-2 crashed or were shot down over the Soviet Union, the pilot would not survive a claim, which they eventually came to regret to Eisenhower‘s embarrassment on May 1, 1960. According to Harvey Stockman‘s nephew ( Stockman flew the U-2 over the USSR), he was told to take the poison cyanide pill if his airplane was shot down.

Stockman was told that in 1956, by 1960, when Francis Gary Powers overflew and was shot down in the USSR, it was an option, not a command, to take the poison pill. According to Power's son in his book “Spy Pilot.”

On our Independence Day, July 4, 1956, Harvey Stockman of New Jersey took off on Mission 2013 in a U-2 from Wiesbaden, West Germany; he flew near Leningrad and Minsk, covering targets nearby. Stockman, looking through the aircraft site, saw MiG fighters climbing in unsuccessful attempts to intercept him. Undeterred, Stockman continued his mission as planned, passing over Soviet bomber bases in the Baltic states an eight-hour and 45-minute flight. What a fearless man Stockman was. Here is the link to learn more about his amazing life .roadrunnersinternationale.com/stockman.html

Written by Linda Sheffield

My sources are Paul Crickmore’s Lockheed Blackbird Beyond the Secret Missions, the missing chapters, see page 33

The Roadrunner associations webpage

@Habubrats71 via X

[docterdenseif]

In this alternative timeline, does the Cold War still happen, and major conflicts like the Korean War, Algerian War of independence, Vietnam War, and the Soviet-Afghan War?

Plus, the collapse of the Soviet Union, along with the rest of the Eastern Bloc.

Right before the War of Reformation, the Soviet Union was wiped out by the U.S. in 1960 during Operation "Falling Star," which was run by the CIA. The Korean War still happened, but Vietnam did not. The eastern bloc unraveled as soon as the Soviet Union was gone. The Algerian War of independence also happened with similar results to real history.

Bellow is a classified document detailing the operation.

Intelligence Report - Falling Star

Mr. President.

On May 16th, 1960, operatives No.1(███████ ███████) and No. 3 (███████ ███████) were transported to Moscow via internal channels. As the Soviet Party met in their headquarters on 4 Staraya Square, No. 1 used their ███████ to breach the building. No.1 proceeded to dispatch every high-ranking official that was present. This part of the operation was a great success, crippling the Soviet's ranks. At the same time, No. 3 traveled around the city and took key points of interest. These targets ranged from military installments to family members of the high-ranking politicians that were not present in the city. They were successful, much of the Soviet's military was crippled, and much leverage was gained. Unfortunately, No.3 never returned from their mission. It is still unknown whether they fled after the missions completion or were killed. Given their peculiar constitution, the CIA currently believes it to be the former. We are keeping are eyes open for them. No.1 returned from the mission and is under a strict gag order. The operation was a major success. We expect to see the Soviets crumble now that half of their inner circle is no longer with them. A great victory for democracy has been won, and the potency of the new breed of humans has been proven. Further programs utilizing them are ready to be developed as soon as you give your approval.

Godspeed Mr. President,

Allen W. Dulles

[myinconnelly1]

Nameless Need Part 8 - Oaths

Masterlist

W/c: 1348

Summary: Selena 'Lena' Allen convinces her neighbor, Adam, to pretend to be her boyfriend so that a Stalker will leave her alone. Things get a little out of hand after that.

Warnings: smut, 18+, P in V Sex, unprotected sex, Stalker, unwanted attention, dirty talk

Lena was the first to wake the late the next morning.  She had lost count of how many times she had cum.  Instead, she counted the number of times Adam had cum, and that had been three times.  She tried to roll onto her back to take stock of herself, but the long heavy leg on her and the arm that was wrapped around her breast and kept her tucked against Adam’s chest limited her movement.  She adjusted her hip and felt the dull ache at her core.

“You’re squirming,”  Adam mumbled against the shell of her ear.  “Go back to sleep.”

“We need to get up soon,”  She said rubbing her cheek under his chin.

“I can be up again, if you want,”  Adam was starting to sound a bit more awake as he ground his semi-hard cock against her rear end.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”  She had tried for indignation but moaned a bit at the last word. 

“If you can still make that sound then I didn’t do good enough last night,”  he joked as he nibbled wherever he could reach.

“I’m so sore I don’t know how you can even think of going another round,” She giggled as she rolled over in his arms.

“For you, kid, I could go three nights straight,”  He breathed against her lips before kissing her hard.

“Adam, seriously, we need to stop.  We haven’t been very smart about this.  You at least need to start pulling out,”  She pushed at his chest gently for firmly.

“Shit, you’re right.  I’m sorry,”  He muttered rubbing his nose against hers.  “Come take a shower with me, I’ll get you cleaned up.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to keep my hands off you at this wedding,”  Adam said looking her over almost an hour later in the elevator heading to meet up with other people from the hospital for lunch.

“I’m sure you’ll manage,”  she grinned slyly.

“Oh shit, I just remember that you’re gonna wear that sexy little dress I found for you,”  Adam said, as his eyes darted away.

“What?”  Lena asked.  But the elevator dinged, and other people got on.

“I’ll tell you later,”  He replied significantly.

Lunch was jovial as everyone seemed giddy waiting for the wedding.  There was lots of chat about Adam and how Lena had managed to keep him a secret from them all for so long.  The interrogation wasn’t as bad as Lena had feared but there were several questions that she had not prepared for, including whether they had any plans to get married.

Lena chalked it up to the fact that they were at a wedding and that people were just simply excited, but Adam was like a fish in this environment.  His skills at improvisation seemed to be at his fingertips, as he told them all his plan to whisk her away and elope, but that her aunt had made him swear he wouldn’t do that.

Lena was taken aback by his answer and wondered briefly if he had actually thought at all about marrying her.  But she let that thought slide away as she excused herself to the restroom.  She was becoming a bit of a mess from all of Adam’s cum and needed to dry herself again.  The thought of still having him inside of her, this long after, was a turn on, but she couldn’t let herself get too focused on that.

They went back to the room and changed around 4pm, and Adam groaned when he saw her in the dress that he had bought for her.

“I thought about how amazing you would look in that dress when I tore it off of you,”  He admitted.

“Later, and don’t you dare,”  She said holding her arms across the chest of the dress protectively.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, as Lena had expected, but she hadn’t expected Adam to tear up.  He apparently took this kind of thing seriously.

But the dancing was the most magical part of the wedding.  Adam lived up to his word and danced her around the whole night.  He refused to let her dance alone or be out of his touch practically when they were on the dance floor.  The dress fluttered brilliantly and made her feel like she was the prettiest woman there.  Lena had stepped outside for a breath of fresh air while Adam got them some water to hydrate with.

“That dress is very beautiful.”  It was Charlie and Lena almost threw up in her mouth.  “It’s also very lucky.”  He was very clearly drunk based on the slurred speech and the bright color of his cheeks.

“You’re drunk, Charlie, go back inside,”  Lena said, looking for a clear path past him to get back inside.

“I’ve wanted you for so long, but you won’t even look at me,”  Charlie slurred as he stumbled toward her.  Lena pulled back to avoid his touch.  “I’ve watched you all over the place.  You seem so lonely, but then suddenly you have a boyfriend.  You want me to believe that?”

“It’s true, Charlie.  You need to accept it and stay away from me,”  Lena said forcefully, but Charlie wasn’t having it and reached out grabbing her arms.

“Why don’t you want ME!”  He shouted as he tried to pull her in for a kiss.

“Sleep it off, buddy,”  Adam said loudly as he grabbed Charlie and pulled him away from Lena.  He gave him a not too soft punch in the face, which would later result in a black eye for Charlie.

“Come on, let’s go inside,”  Lena said falling against Adam’s arm and pulling him away from the situation.

“Fucking creep.  You okay, kid?”  He asked once they were inside.  He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, looking her over for injury.

“I’m fine.  Glad you showed up.”  She looked around the room seeing that the bride and groom had left, and it was mostly just the stragglers that were left in the room.  “Let’s get out of her, and you can look me over more in depth,”  Lena said suggestively.

[alanshemper]

Members of the Warren Commission gathered around a table including (left-right) former CIA Director Allen W. Dulles, Representative Hale Boggs, Senator John Sherman Cooper, Chairman Chief Justice Earl Warren, Senator Richard B. Russell, John J. McCloy, and Representative Gerald R. Ford

[sunshinerotting]

richie download the overbooked 2 btw percy said smash to allen dulles

hi notgirl i ask this nonjudgmentally how often do u guys play smash or pass w dead politicians

[grandhotelabyss]

Now that you've re-read some of the great epic poems, do you plan to revisit The Aeneid, and see how it stacks up now, since you found the more 'epic' qualities half hearted in your review, and the more lyrical qualities more wholehearted (Aeneid is a favorite work of mine, even if it isn't quite as vital or full blooded as either the Iliad and Odyssey or Paradise Lost)

I'll definitely revisit it at some point, probably in a different translation. I read Sarah Ruden's previously, which I loved. Maybe next time I'll do Allen Mandelbaum, since I like his Dante, or the prose translation by W. F. Jackson Knight extolled by Paglia in Sexual Personae as the only version to capture the poem's "uncanny daemonism." On the other hand, perhaps the muscular Robert Fagles will be more persuasively Homeric. If I didn't make this clear, I loved the lyrical or decadent parts—loved Dido especially—I just found the "Iliadic" parts dull.

[basement-writings]

just because you said the magic word anon~✨

~~~

~Yandere 2P!Allies x Country!Reader~

-2p China-

You first caught Xiaos attention by giving a speech at one of the meetings that he rarely ever attended.

But this time he was glad he went to the stupid meeting. Just to see your eyes flare with passion and with such purpose that the drugs in his system couldn't even block it out.

It felt like the first time he tried drugs, the feeling of losing yourself under its control, though it dulled over time the more he took it which led him to looking for more harder drugs, which too, dulled over time.

But you, you had awoken that feeling of it back inside of him which he thought he had lost long ago.

It was something he couldn't lose, he had to must get more of it.

Just like if you give a racoon food,

it's going to come back for more.

~~~

~2p Russia~

You first met the intimating Russian was when your two countries were doing a public announcement that the two of you had to attend.

Something about having y'all be side by side while your bosses sign papers was to show how close y'all were supposed to be.

Politics politics politics...

He had been through these type of meetings before with many different countries, it wasn't that important to him, still, it was majorly just to look nice and pretty for everyone to see.

Making a few adjustments to his outfit outside the doors waiting for you, (even pondering if you were even going to show up once) but when he saw you in your best outfit walking to see him, all his thoughts vanished.

Something about you had made him stop momentarily before he regained himself (though with his resting bitch face it was hard to tell on your part) to properly greet You.

He had a habit of judging people when he first met them, seeing if they were worth his time to talk too, but when he looked at you he couldn't tell what made you so special to him. It almost scared him.

maybe this meeting wasn't going to be as dreedful as he had thought.

~~~

~2p France~

Let's just say when you first met the Louise, it wasn't in the most ideal place.

Not behind a Building smoking a cigarette, trying to calm your nerves before a meeting.

When you threw open the back door and hitting a certain Frenchman causing him to drop his own cigarette, you knew you were screwed.

When you were about to get cursed out in French you quickly apologized even going as far to try to not get even more beat up as you thought you were, by trying to say sorry in French.

He just kept staring down at you with a blank exspression as you quickly excused yourself to go to the meeting. You felt like you were going to accend when he walked into the meeting and sat right next to you, just your luck.

Afterwards you went back behind the building (making sure to not hit anymore) to see that you were alone, much to your relief. It wasn't until your back got smacked by the door did someone join you saying "Thats payback for earlier.."

Softly you chuckled and offered him a cigarette saying "Even?" Which he let a sign out but took one.

As the two of you just sat in the ally in silence when he casually looked over at you, feeling a tiny bit irritated that you were still nice to him even after he purposefully smacked the door with you and even went as far to offer him a cigarette.

it confused him to find a genuinely nice person.

And as you went back inside, leaving him, he couldn't help but feel like he wanted it for himself...

and only for himself.

~~~

~2p England~

oooohhhhh boy did you mess up-

So stupid for you to procrastinate on delivering papers, now you gotta act like a delivery boy today, running around with a stack of papers and putting them in their correct place.

Didn't make things better when you ran straight into someone, causing all your papers to fly

e v e r w h e r e

Not even adding onto the fact that the dish of cookies that the brightly colored Brit was carrying got frosting and crumbs all over them.

Just your luck...

Trying to hastily gather all your papers and try to get the icing off some of them(more like smudge it into the papers more), you didnt notice how the Brit was so close to you before you looked up, staring right into his colorful eyes.

"You have a bit of frosting on your cheek poppet!" Wiping it away with his hand.

The odd gesture left you feeling a bit touched but you couldn't stall, you still had to get the papers delivered.

Excusing yourself you quickly got up and continued on your way, making it a point to repay him later and to be more mindful of who's around the corner.

Oliver continued to stare at you as you left, the feeling of Butterfly's in his stomach being replaced with a stinging pain with seeing you disappear behind a corner.

He made it a point to see you again,

he just had to.

~~~

~2p America~

You had decided to go to one of the local bars to celebrate your countries Independence Day.

The whole city was booming with fireworks, dancing, and of course, drinking.

It was a day that you looked forward to for the whole year, a day filled with joy and being proud of what you represented.

It felt nice to unwind for day (since it was a national holiday your boss let you have the day off), you sorta lost yourself when you started dancing to the music that was blasting in the streets, merging in with all the drunks as fireworks lit up the sky.

What happened next happened so quickly that it took your drunken mind a minute to process.

You had tripped over yourself bumping into a stranger, and if it hadn't been for them catching you, you would have hit the hard pavement of the road.

"I've seen you've fallen for me, dollface!"

Was all the stranger said with looking at your confused and drunken face. All you could do then was just burst out laughing as the two of you started dancing together.

It was then that Allen knew he had fallen for you, your laugh. It was like nothing he had ever heard before, and it was the only thing he wanted to hear!

He only wanted to see you happy from that day onwards.

He would do anything to just see you smile and laugh.

~~~

✨hope you like it anon!

[sataniccapitalist]

The Dark Side of Allen Dulles: The Greatest Untold Story of American Power - U.S. History (2015)

Dulles was born on April 7, 1893, in Watertown, New York, one of five children of Allen Macy Dulles, and his wife, Edith F. (Foster). About the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006... He was five years younger than his brother John Foster Dulles, chairman and senior partner of Sullivan & Cromwell, and two years older than his sister, Eleanor Lansing Dulles. His maternal grandfather, John W. Foster, was Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison, while his uncle by marriage, Robert Lansing was Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson.

[kramlabs]

This is a copy and paste on MJ-12 or Majestic 12*… YMMV

(Keep in mind, when I read this, I replace “ufo” and “alien” with “advanced technology “ and “breakaway civilization”)

The Top Secret Operation Majestic-12 was established by order of President Harry S. Truman in 1947.

Operation Majestic-12, was created to take charge of the technical, sociological and other aspects of the crashed UFOs and the small alien occupants, dead or alive, that were recovered. In later years this operation evolved into and became known as MAJI (the Majority Agency for Joint Intelligence).

MAJI is the most secret of all intelligence groups and out-ranks all other intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

MAJI is responsible directly and "only" to the President of the United States.

MAJIC / MAJI

The TOP SECRET / MAJI project control group is responsible for every aspect of interface with the alien life forms including security and intelligence, and disinformation to prevent public or foreign disclosure of the alien presence. (This is why all documents referring to "MJ-12" or any other form of that name are wrong).

MAJI is on-going in Washington DC.

MAJIC: Is the security classification of all MAJI and Aquarius information. MAJIC means "MAJI CONTROLLED." MAJIC is the highest security classification in the nation.

MJ-1: DIRECTOR OF MAJI. The Director of the CIA is usually MJ-1 and reports only to the President. Other members of MAJI are designated MJ-2, MJ-3, MJ-4, etc. This is the reason MJ-12 cannot be used as a name for the control group as it would cause confusion in meaning, i.e., (Is it referring to MJ-12 the person or MJ-12 the group.) Any reference to MJ-12 is to a person and nothing else. References and documents referring to "MJ-12" as a "Group" are incorrect.

MAJI, originally was known as Majestic-12, a group consisting of twelve members.

This group was made up of a team representing selected government officials, U.S. intelligence personnel, highly trained scientists, business executives and military personnel. All were sworn to total secrecy. MAJI has continued its covert activities with the knowledge and consent of the last eight Presidents.

The group continues to function today and has had the responsibility of establishing an ongoing relationship dating from 1964, with UFO beings (the Greys) from the third planet of the star system Zeta Reticuli.

Information forwarded to and the activity of MAJI has always been assigned an Above "Top Secret classification," known as MAJIC.

MAJI, to conceal its existence, adopted the cover name of "Majestic-12." It created numerous covert and compartmented sub-divisions such as Projects Aquarius, Sigma, Snowbird and Garnet, to name a few. These projects were sheltered by MAJI and directed by select personnel of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

By secret Executive Memorandum NSC 5410, Eisenhower had preceded NSC 5412/1 in 1954 to establish a permanent committee to be known as Majority Twelve to oversee and conduct all covert activities concerned with the alien question. NSC 5412/1 was created to explain the purpose of these meetings when Congress and the news media became curious.

Majority Twelve was made up of:

Nelson Rockefeller

the director of the CIA Allen Welsh Dulles

the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles

the Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Arthur W. Radford

the Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover

six men from the executive committee of the Council on Foreign Relations known as the "Wise Men"

These men were all members of a secret society of scholars that called themselves "The Jason Society," or "The Jason Scholars" who recruited their members from the "Skull and Bones" and the "Scroll and Key" societies of Harvard and Yale.

The "Wise Men" were key members of the Council on Foreign Relations. There were twelve members including the first six from Government positions thus Majority Twelve.

This group was made up over the years of the top officers and directors of the Council on Foreign Relations and later the Trilateral Commission.

Gordon Dean

George Bush

Zbigniew Brzezinski,

...were among them.

The most important and influential of the "Wise Men" who served on Majestic-12 were,

John McCloy

Robert Lovett

Averell Harriman

Charles Bohlen

George Kennan

Dean Acheson

It is significant that President Eisenhower as well as the first six Majestic-12 members from the Government were also members of the Council on Foreign Relations.

However, not all the "Wise Men" attended Harvard or Yale and not all of them were chosen from the "Skull and Bones" or "Scroll and Key" membership during their college years. [{Research indicates that various members were chosen on an ongoing basis by invitation based upon merit and was not confined to those who had attended only Harvard or Yale}]

Further information regarding this can be obtained from the book "The Wise Men" by Walter Issacson and Even Thomas, Simon and Schuster, New York.

A chosen few were later initiated into the Jason Society. They are all members of the Council on Foreign Relations and at that time were known as the "Eastern Establishment." The Jason Society is alive and well today but has expanded to include members of the Trilateral Commission as well. The Trilateralists' existed secretly several years before 1973.

The name of the Trilateral Commission was taken from the alien flag known as the "Trilateral Insignia."

The Trilateralists existed secretly several years BEFORE 1973.

The name of the Trilateral Commission was taken from the alien flag known as the "Trilateral Insignia"

William Cooper

The Secret Government and The Origin, Identity and Purpose of MJ-12

BACKGROUND

In 1947 and again in the early 1950's, Army and Air Force military units - on direct orders from the Pentagon - rushed to various sites of UFO crashes located in the Southwestern part of the United States and carted away the unearthly remains. Remains consisting of both crashed UFOs and their alien occupants. The 1947 events prompted the creation of Operation Majestic-12 by President Truman.

The wreckage and dead bodies obtained from these early crash retrievals were originally stored at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio.

According to military sources who later went against orders and decided to talk, Hangar 18 was used for this purpose. All reports of crashed UFOs and extraterrestrial contacts have always bypassed normal reporting procedures and channels of the military, and other intelligence agencies. Instead, they were sent directly to Project Aquarius.

All "hard" information regarding UFOs was routed directly to Operation Majestic-12. This explains why other intelligence agencies and Project Bluebook, [the official and public Air Force investigative activity] never received this information or knew about crashed UFOs, recovered spacecraft, or alien beings.

In later years, a joint CIA/AF covert operation, using six C-124 aircraft, recovered the wreckage, instruments, dead bodies and alien artifacts of crashed UFOs from Wright Patterson and other Air Force bases, world-wide, and moved them to a newly-built, underground, storage facility at Edwards Air Force, California.

The entrance to this underground facility is through a hangar located at the end of the same runway now used by NASA's space shuttles. According to eye-witness testimony, the CIA agent in charge of this covert operation, wearing the uniform of an AF Colonel, was William C. Cooper.

Note: The information in the preceding paragraph was supplied by an eyewitness who participated in the covert operation described, working side by side with the CIA agent in charge. This witness testifies that this is the same William C. Cooper, who has been prominent since 1988 in the civilian UFO movement.

CONCLUSIONS

The Ultimate Secret, is that MAJI and the U.S. government has in its possession spaceships manufactured on other worlds, as well as the occupants of those interstellar crafts. And, that since 1964, has maintained radio contact with the aliens through Project Sigma.

They have also entered into various technical and "trade agreements" with the beings from Zeta Reticuli, named the Greys.

Note: Communication with the Greys (by Project Sigma) has been an accomplished fact since April of 1964. Therefore, the NASA sponsored "SETI" Program (The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is merely being used as another method to provide covert funding for MAJI-projects under the guise of a legitimate program.

The Greys, as their part of the trade agreements, were to provide MAJI and the U.S. government with various forms of advanced technology. In exchange, the Greys are provided with secret bases of operation within the United States; bases protected by the Greys and U.S. Military forces. In exchange, MAJI agreed to conceal all knowledge of their presence.

Part of the "trade agreements" was an exchange program that allowed the aliens to abduct U.S. Citizens for experimental medical, psychological and genetic research purposes - the Grey's were to provide lists of persons abducted to the National Security Agency (NSA), for later government follow-up if such persons, when released, required medical assistance or psychological adjustment.

ADDENDA

During 1972-1973, a period of two years, an area South of Groom Lake (one of the nation's most secret test centers in Nevada) was closed and a huge underground facility was constructed for and with the help of the Greys. This facility was built South of Area-51 in another location named Area-S4. This location is just east of, and adjacent to the Nevada Atomic Test site.

The bargained for technology was set in place, but could only be operated by the Grey's themselves, to prevent their advanced technology being used against them.

Another secret underground base was provided the Greys in a location known as the "Ice Caves" near the Los Alamos Laboratory Facility in New Mexico. Over a period of the next six years, four more secret bases were provided the Greys in other isolated areas of the United States.

During the years 1979 through 1983, it became increasingly obvious to MAJI that things were not going as planned. It became known that many more people (in the thousands) were being abducted than were being listed on the official abduction list. The list the Greys were supplying the National Security Council, and MAJI. It was apparent that the abductions included much more than the simple monitoring experiments of an advanced civilization.

In late 1979, things had gotten almost entirely out of hand when it became known that the Greys had implanted a tiny probe, 3mm. in size, into the brains of certain abductees before releasing them. MAJI investigators determined the probe could be used to hypnotically and telepathically program and monitor the person. In addition, some abductees were programmed with unknown post-hypnotic commands. The Greys also implanted tracking devices just under the skin, on some abductees to monitor their movements.

Attempts, by hypnosis, to determine the nature of the hypnotic programming and commands implanted by the Greys, triggered life-threatening physical symptoms in these individuals making these efforts unsuccessful. It was later discovered that the Greys were performing genetic cross-breeding experiments on some of the human female abductees.

In 1983, MAJI discovered the full magnitude of the Grand Deception put over by the Greys. They were also shocked when the Soviet Union (USSR) admitted that they, too, had been deceived and that the Greys had entered into similar Treaties and agreements with them. MAJI was in a state of confusion and near panic as they realized their plans were dashed, along with their hopes and dreams of obtaining the Grey's technology and the secrets of interstellar space flight.

This caused MAJI to become split along factional lines. One faction advocating confessing the scheme and the shambles it had become to the public, begging their forgiveness and asking for their support.

Note: This faction is responsible for the leaks of sensitive information regarding the activities of Operation Majestic-12.

The other faction rejected this saying there was no way they could do that, even though the situation was untenable, stating there was no use in alarming the public of either country with the horrible truth.

This second faction won out and their plan to develop a weapon that could be used against the Greys was accepted by the Soviet Union. Under the guise of "SDI," (a joint US/Soviet effort) the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), this weapon was developed. SDI, has nothing whatever to do with a defense against Soviet nuclear missiles. The nick-name "Star Wars" was closer to the truth than the uninformed public realized.

The "alarm," publicly expressed by the Soviet Union regarding SDI, and its opposition to the program, were all artfully crafted to conceal the joint nature of the program and to prevent the Greys learning its real purpose. The United States and the Soviet Union have been secret allies since 1983.

Primarily, SDI is a weapon for use against the Greys' underground bases or any attempted invasion from space. However, to achieve funding from Congress and support from the people, and to conceal its real nature from the Greys, it had to be presented as a defense against a nuclear strike from the USSR.

The Soviet equivalent of MAJI used the same technique, the development of a weapon to protect their country from a U.S. nuclear strike, to obtain covert funding for the joint effort.

The threat from the Greys is taken so seriously by MAJI, that President Reagan adamantly refused any concessions on SDI. He continued to vigorously pursue its development, and deployment, in spite of uninformed scientific and congressional opposition. These opponents never knew its real and intended purpose.

To accomplish the true objectives of the SDI program, MAJI created another ultra-secret project - Project Zeus.

Project Zeus is revealed here for the first time.

Project Zeus, created under the umbrella of MAJI, is charged with the real purpose, direction, management, development and eventual deployment of the SDI Weapons System. It was aptly named for the mythical Greek God - Zeus. Only this time, it would be an angry Zeus hurling laser and particle beam lightning bolts into the heavens - against an alien attack or, deflected by mirrors, against secret alien bases on the Earth.

In 1984, President Reagan in a public address established the tone and seriousness of this endeavor when he deliberately, or inadvertently, let slip the remarks that the world may one day unite to fight a threat from outer space. This was followed by a series of subsequent remarks during the latter days of his term of office.

The basic information revealing the existence of Operation Majestic-12, the crashed UFOs, alien beings, and their secret bases within the United States, was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act from the files of the CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department, the U.S. Air Force. Other intelligence data obtained by The Phoenix Project has contributed to this report.

These documents reveal the "Above Top Secret" nature of Operation Majestic-12. They also verify that the scientific discovery of all time has been hidden from the people of Earth, and that both communications and relationships with extraterrestrial alien beings have already been achieved. And, that the radical new technology the Greys possess could alter human civilization overnight.

Some of these documents obtained by various civilian researchers, verify the fact that we are not alone in the universe.

The additional information contained in this report, i.e., notes and comments, and some of the conclusions (in the addenda) are based on intelligence information from other confidential sources.

PROJECT ZEUS

In 1980, Lt. General Daniel O. Graham - Department of Defense Strategic Analyst, stated:

"We need a bold new approach. We must stop competing with the Greys in areas where we can't win, and begin to compete where we have the advantage."

The result: A book by General Graham entitled "The High Frontier," and the National Security Agency (NSA) funded "Project High Frontier." This project used some of the nation's best engineers and development scientists.

This book and the project were the "red herring" technique to sell the concept and proposal to Congress, scientists, and the defense and aerospace industries. It, supposedly, was a bold, new, defense plan for the United States and Western Civilization.

This was followed by another book "The Strategy of Technology" by Stefan Possony and Jerry Pournelle. It should be mentioned that neither of these two authors dreamed their book would be used to further promote the purposes of MAJI and Project Zeus. Its concept was to abandon the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), in favor of Assured Survival, in any conflict with the USSR.

The foregoing concepts (a Western Civilization Defense Plan) and the covert efforts directed against the Greys (Project Zeus) orchestrated by MAJI, were presented to President Ronald Reagan. That presentation was successful. On March 23, 1983, President Reagan made his famous "Star Wars" speech - and labeled it "The Strategic Defense Initiative."

Only in later speeches, near the end of his term in office, did President Reagan publicly mention the possibility of a hostile encounter with extraterrestrials.

The importance of this endeavor and the serious nature of the threat presented by the Greys and the consequences if Project Zeus were aborted, explain why the President would not budge from his SDI position, even in the most critical of nuclear arms' reduction negotiations with the USSR, or critics in the scientific community and Congress.

It also explains why President George Bush, still the head of MAJI, continued to press forward with the SDI project when he was in office.

According to public statements by General James Abrahamson, SDI Project Director, "SDI" research has turned up five ways the weapon system could, and would work.

"SDI," (Project Zeus, the covert operation against any possible space threat, threatening action or invasion attempts by the Greys), "is based on two technological discoveries:

That ground-based lasers are a feasible and a likely way to defend a nation. Enormous lasers could be built near large hydro-electric plants and operational nuclear power plants, diverting the enormous output of these sources to laser weapons.

With such enormous lasers and mirrors, in orbit to redirect the energy, it would not be necessary to "point and shoot" such weapons; you could raster an entire target area; sweeping the beam in a deadly conical pattern to eliminate any target.

Planet-based laser weapons of such power could reach beyond the Moon to engage and destroy hostile spaceships.

Development and deployment of high-powered particle beam weapons from orbiting space platforms and ground based installations.

MAJI's plans called for the funding, planning, development, testing, and operational aspects of Project Zeus to be concealed within the compartmented SDI program.

NASA, without knowledge of the real purpose would orbit the necessary tracking and data relay satellites, and Department of Defense (DOD) payloads of laser mirrors.

These SDI payloads were disguised and classified as military communication, spy, and navigational satellites."

On April 4, 1983, Project Zeus "got off the ground" with the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger - a clear indication of the high-priority this project commanded.

The first of the SDI Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS-A) was placed in orbit.

This was followed on August 30, 1984, when the Shuttle Discovery, on its maiden flight, launched SYNCOM IV-2 the second communications satellite for the Department of Defense (DOD).

The SYNCOM satellites are DOD's high-priority command and communications links with all U.S. military forces worldwide. The on-going NASA Missions concerned with Project Zeus and SDI, are identified in the attached exhibits.

Note: It is obvious that the Greys became suspicious of the intense launch activity of NASA and the number of Defense Department (DOD) payloads being placed in orbit - more than would logically be needed to counter a nuclear strike by the USSR.

Evidence to support this is their increasing surveillance of the Space Shuttle missions and the reported intercept, boarding, and inspection of the Shuttle Discovery's cargo on 3/13/89. They must suspect the real purpose of the SDI program.

If future SDI or DOD missions are interfered with it will confirm this premise.

…

*Source and more: https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_mj12_32.htm

[96thdayofrage]

America’s defeat in Afghanistan is one in a string of catastrophic military blunders that herald the death of the American empire. With the exception of the first Gulf War, fought largely by mechanized units in the open desert that did not – wisely – attempt to occupy Iraq, the United States political and military leadership has stumbled from one military debacle to another. Korea. Vietnam. Lebanon. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. The trajectory of military fiascos mirrors the sad finales of the Chinese, Ottoman, Hapsburg, Russian, French, British, Dutch, Portuguese and Soviet empires. While each of these empires decayed with their own peculiarities, they all exhibited patterns of dissolution that characterize the American experiment.

Imperial ineptitude is matched by domestic ineptitude. The collapse of good government at home, with legislative, executive and judicial systems all seized by corporate power, ensures that the incompetent and the corrupt, those dedicated not to the national interest but to swelling the profits of the oligarchic elite, lead the country into a cul-de-sac. Rulers and military leaders, driven by venal self-interest, are often buffoonish characters in a grand comic operetta. How else to think of Allen Dulles, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Donald Trump or the hapless Joe Biden? While their intellectual and moral vacuity is often darkly amusing, it is murderous and savage when directed towards their victims.

There is not a single case since 1941 when the coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars or military interventions carried out by the United States resulted in the establishment of a democratic government. The two-decade-long wars in the Middle East, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, have only left in their wake one failed state after another. Yet, no one in the ruling class is held accountable.

War, when it is waged to serve utopian absurdities, such as implanting a client government in Baghdad that will flip the region, including Iran, into U.S. protectorates, or when, as in Afghanistan, there is no vision at all, descends into a quagmire. The massive allocation of money and resources to the U.S. military, which includes Biden’s request for $715 billion for the Defense Department in fiscal year 2022, a $11.3 billion, or 1.6 percent increase, over 2021, is not in the end about national defense. The bloated military budget is designed, as Seymour Melman explained in his book, “The Permanent War Economy,” primarily to keep the American economy from collapsing. All we really make anymore are weapons. Once this is understood, perpetual war makes sense, at least for those who profit from it.

The idea that America is a defender of democracy, liberty and human rights would come as a huge surprise to those who saw their democratically elected governments subverted and overthrown by the United States in Panama (1941), Syria (1949), Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Chile (1973), Honduras (2009) and Egypt (2013). And this list does not include a host of other governments that, however despotic, as was the case in South Vietnam, Indonesia or Iraq, were viewed as inimical to American interests and destroyed, in each case making life for the inhabitants of these countries even more miserable.

I spent two decades on the outer reaches of empire as a foreign correspondent. The flowery rhetoric used to justify the subjugation of other nations so corporations can plunder natural resources and exploit cheap labor is solely for domestic consumption. The generals, intelligence operatives, diplomats, bankers and corporate executives that manage empire find this idealistic talk risible. They despise, with good reason, naïve liberals who call for “humanitarian intervention” and believe the ideals used to justify empire are real, that empire can be a force for good. These liberal interventionists, the useful idiots of imperialism, attempt to civilize a process that was created and designed to repress, intimidate, plunder and dominate.

The liberal interventionists, because they wrap themselves in high ideals, are responsible for numerous military and foreign policy debacles. The call by liberal interventionists such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice and Samantha Power to fund jihadists in Syria and depose Muammar Gaddafi in Libya rent these countries — as in Afghanistan and Iraq — into warring fiefdoms. The liberal interventionists are also the tip of the spear in the campaign to rachet up tensions with China and Russia.

Russia is blamed for interfering in the last two presidential elections on behalf of Donald Trump. Russia, whose economy is roughly the size of Italy’s, is also attacked for destabilizing the Ukraine, supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, funding France’s National Front party and hacking into German computers. Biden has imposed sanctions on Russia – including limits on buying newly issued sovereign debt – in response to allegations that Moscow was behind a hack on SolarWinds Corp. and worked to thwart his candidacy.

At the same time, the liberal interventionists are orchestrating a new cold war with China, justifying this cold war because the Chinese government is carrying out genocide against its Uyghur minority, repressing the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and stealing U.S. patents. As with Russia, sanctions have been imposed targeting the country’s ruling elite. The U.S. is also carrying out provocative military maneuvers along the Russian border and in the South China Sea.

The core belief of imperialists, whether they come in the form of a Barack Obama or a George W. Bush, is racism and ethnic chauvinism, the notion that Americans are permitted, because of superior attributes, to impose their “values” on lesser races and peoples by force. This racism, carried out in the name of Western civilization and its corollary white supremacy, unites the rabid imperialists and liberal interventionists in the Republican and Democratic parties. It is the fatal disease of empire, captured in Graham Greene’s novel “The Quiet American” and Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient.”

The crimes of empire always spawn counter-violence that is then used to justify harsher forms of imperial repression. For example, the United States routinely kidnapped Islamic jihadists fighting in the Balkans between 1995 and 1998. They were sent to Egypt — many were Egyptian — where they were savagely tortured and usually executed. In 1998, the International Islamic Front for Jihad said it would carry out a strike against the United States after jihadists were kidnapped and transferred to black sites from Albania. They made good on their threat igniting massive truck bombs at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left 224 dead. Of course, the “extraordinary renditions” by the CIA did not end and neither did the attacks by jihadists.

Our decades-long military fiascos, a feature of all late empires, are called “micro-militarism.” The Athenians engaged in micro-militarism during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) when they invaded Sicily, suffering the loss of 200 ships and thousands of soldiers. The defeat triggered successful revolts throughout the Athenian empire. The Roman empire, which at its height lasted for two centuries, created a military machine that, like the Pentagon, was a state within a state. Rome’s military rulers, led by Augustus, snuffed out the remnants of Rome’s anemic democracy and ushered in a period of despotism that saw the empire disintegrate under the weight of extravagant military expenditures and corruption. The British empire, after the suicidal military folly of World War I, was terminated in 1956 when it attacked Egypt in a dispute over the nationalization of the Suez Canal. Britain was forced to withdraw in humiliation, empowering Arab nationalist leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser and dooming British rule over its few remaining colonies. None of these empires recovered.

“While rising empires are often judicious, even rational in their application of armed force for conquest and control of overseas dominions, fading empires are inclined to ill-considered displays of power, dreaming of bold military masterstrokes that would somehow recoup lost prestige and power,” the historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power”: “Often irrational even from an imperial point of view, these micromilitary operations can yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the process already under way.”

The worse it gets at home the more the empire needs to fabricate enemies within and without. This is the real reason for the increase in tensions with Russia and China. The poverty of half the nation and concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny oligarchic cabal, the wanton murder of unarmed civilians by militarized police, the rage at the ruling elites, expressed with nearly half the electorate voting for a con artist and demagogue and a mob of his supporters storming the capital, are the internal signs of disintegration. The inability of the for-profit national health services to cope with the pandemic, the passage of a Covid relief bill and the proposal of an infrastructure bill that would hand the bulk of some $5 trillion dollars to corporations while tossing crumbs — one-time checks of $1,400 to a citizenry in deep financial distress — will only fuel the decline.

Because of the loss of unionized jobs, the real decline of wages, de-industrialization, chronic underemployment and unemployment, and punishing austerity programs, the country is plagued by a plethora of diseases of despair including opioid addictions, alcoholism, suicides, gambling, depression, morbid obesity and mass shootings — since March 16 the United States has had at least 45 mass shootings, including eight people killed in an Indiana FedEx facility on Friday, three dead and three injured in a shooting in Wisconsin on Sunday, and another three dead in a shooting in Austin on Sunday. These are the consequences of a deeply troubled society.

The façade of empire is able to mask the rot within its foundations, often for decades, until, as we saw with the Soviet Union, the empire appears to suddenly disintegrate. The loss of the dollar as the global reserve currency will probably mark the final chapter of the American empire. In 2015, the dollar accounted for 90 percent of bilateral transactions between China and Russia, a percentage that has since fallen to about 50 percent. The use of sanctions as a weapon against China and Russia pushes these countries to replace the dollar with their own national currencies. Russia, as part of this move away from the dollar, has begun accumulating yuan reserves.

The loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency will instantly raise the cost of imports. It will result in unemployment of Depression-era levels. It will force the empire to dramatically contract. It will, as the economy worsens, fuel a hyper-nationalism that will most likely be expressed through a Christianized fascism. The mechanisms, already in place, for total social control, militarized police, a suspension of civil liberties, wholesale government surveillance, enhanced “terrorism” laws that railroad people into the world’s largest prison system and censorship overseen by the digital media monopolies will seamlessly cement into place a police state. Nations that descend into crises these severe seek to deflect the rage of a betrayed population on foreign scapegoats. China and Russia will be used to fill these roles.

The defeat in Afghanistan is a familiar and sad story, one all those blinded by imperial hubris endure. The tragedy, however, is not the collapse of the American empire, but that, lacking the ability to engage in self-critique and self-correction, as it dies it will lash out in a blind, inchoate fury at innocents at home and abroad.

[winchester-with-wings]

Chemical Reactions (Part 26)

Series Summary: Being a teacher at Central City Academy doesn’t leave much time for a personal life. You didn’t really notice or care…that is until the day the new substitute science teacher, Barry Allen makes an appearance.

SERIES MASTERLIST

Part 26 Summary: You and Barry confront each other and it gets emotional.

Pairing: Barry Allen x Reader, Substitute Teacher!Barry Allen x Teacher!Reader

Word Count: 2200ish

A/N: THE END IS NEAR!! yooo this has been a part of the story that I have been building up to and had planned since the very beginning!! Hope ya’ll like it!!! p.s. I don’t own the gif. Also thank you so much to @thinkwritexpress-official for being an amazing editor/beta for this series! <3

Please let me know what you guys think of the story! Send me asks!

Mobile Masterlist

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It festers in your mind for a few days. On the last Saturday before the semester starts, you go to CCA to swim a few laps but the sound of your arms slicing through the water is not enough to silence your mind.

You change in the women’s locker room after that. Stripping away your bathing suit, you forgo undergarments for a pair of shorts and a tank top. With your gym bag over your shoulder, you’re leaving the locker room when you hear a familiar voice mumbling along with his headphones.

His shadow disappears down the hall for the men’s locker room.

You give yourself thirty seconds before chasing after him, a fiery anger burning in your chest.

“Bartholomew Henry Allen!” You charge into the men’s showers without thinking.

...

He’s caught completely unaware, unprepared, and...undressed.

You throw your bag down on a bench and continue stomping deeper into the showers, your bare feet slapping against the tiles. Barry spins around the second you say his name. No one at the school knows his full name and he, of course, recognizes your voice. He’s still surprised, bending forward and covering his crotch while he reaches for a towel.

“Jesus Chr--Fuck! Y/N! What the hell are you doing in here?!”

He turns off the water before the towel in his hand gets wet.

“W-will you put on a towel first?” you speak in an eerily calm tone. The towel replaces the hand covering his crotch, hanging in front of him like a loincloth. There’s a hint of dark hair beneath it which leads to trail up to his navel. It’s distracting, but for only a millisecond.

“You’re the one who burst in here. If you didn’t want to see my ass you could’ve called,” Barry chuckles, shaking his head at you while he properly wraps the towel around his waist. “Or did you delete my number already?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Barry.”

“I’m being dramatic?” Barry laughs and rolls his eyes. The fact that he doesn’t realize how angry you are only infuriates you more. You move closer and shove at his shoulder.

“You’re such an ass!”

“What did I do?”

“What do you think you did? What did you say to Julian?”

“Oh,” Barry’s eyebrows raise, “that.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Well, what did you tell him? Because I figured he’d already know that I was your ex-boyfriend. Why didn’t you tell him?”

“I just hadn’t gotten to it. It’s none of your business.”

“It literally is my business. I told Julian about us.”

“There is no us.” You throw your hands up in the air.

“There was!” Barry corrects you, taking offense. Maybe it’s just the water from the shower but with his hair wet and in his face, he looks sad and tired, more so than ever. “Are trying so hard to forget that?”

“N-no. Of course I’m not. I can’t forget it, but I’m trying to move on.”

“With Julian?” Barry laughs, running his hand through his wet hair, slicking it back. Short strands up on end and he looks as crazy as you’re feeling. “He can’t possibly be your type.”

“Oh, really? I have a type? What’s my type? You?”

“Well...yeah,” Barry shrugs with a smirk.

“Ugh! Damn it, Barry! What did you tell him?!”

“What did he tell you?”

What could you say? That Julian had confronted you, albeit respectfully, about your omitted past with Barry and that it had made everyone in this situation look like a fool? That you’d heard that Barry had practically threatened Julian in his jealous state?

“Barry still loves you. Maybe you didn’t tell me about him because you still love him too?” He’d suggested. Your silence and tears were hardly an answer. “I can’t in good conscious come between that. It’s clear that it’s not over,” he had said.

Could you tell Barry how your heart skipped a beat to hear that he was still fighting for you?

“Damn it, Barry,” you whimper, tears falling down your cheeks. “Why are you making this so hard? Why don’t you understand? I’m trying to move on.”

“I don’t want to! Don’t you get that? I can’t get over you because I don’t want to. I still love you. I didn’t want this to end. I still don’t want it to be the end!”

His words echo in the empty locker room and you don’t know what to say anymore. Your lips are quivering and you’re afraid that if you open your mouth you’ll just start sobbing. Barry reads you like he always has and steps forward to hold your chin between his thumb and index finger, stopping the shaking. Tentatively, he leans down to softly brush his lips against yours.

You push him away but he holds tight to your shoulders. You shove harder at his bare chest, a sad moan finally escaping your throat. “Fuck,” you whimper. “Fuck you,” you hiss with little conviction.

Barry tries to pull you in for at least a hug and your hands become trapped between the two of you. You ball your hand into a fist and pound on his chest as best as you can with the small space between you. Barry’s hand releases your shoulder to rest over your fist, which comes undone and intertwines with Barry’s hand. As your tears continue to fall and your face twists in agony, you look up at Barry and his softening features.

Your lips crash into his, desperate and hungry; Barry meets you with equal fervor. His body slackens, releasing all the tension and anger that’s built up in him. He lets go of your hand and his arm coils around your waist. He tangles his other hand in your hair, holding your head in place so he can tilt his head and deepen the kiss.

Welcoming his tongue into your mouth, you release a moan and slide your tongue along his. It’s all so familiar, like coming home and being right where you belong: in his arms. Your arms slide over his shoulders and your hands dig into his hair; he grunts when your nails run over his scalp.

“Fuck, Y/N. Fucking miss you,” Barry growls. His mouth leaves your swollen lips to glide along your throat. He kisses and nips at your skin while the arm at your waist goes lower, down the curve of your ass until he can pick you up. Your legs wrap around his waist and the towel is barely staying on, his dick tenting the thin fabric. He takes a few steps backwards to gain his bearings and the two of you find yourselves back in Barry’s shower stall. The wall startles the both of you, the tile cold against your back. You reach out to grab onto something and suddenly cold water rains down upon you.

You squeal and Barry gasps before quickly turning the nozzle to a warmer temperature. You rest your forehead on Barry’s and the two of you take a moment to breathe and stare. You share a small smile as your lips graze over Barry’s for mere moments.

“What did you tell Julian?” Barry whispers. You rake your fingers through Barry’s hair again before linking them behind his neck. His hands cup your ass, giving light, almost playful squeezes.

“He ended it,” you speak clearly.

“I’m sorry,” Barry says as his lips ghost over your throat.

“No. No, you’re not.”

Barry’s laugh is edged with a growl as he claims your mouth, practically feral as he throws away his towel and starts yanking your wet tank top over your head; you help however you can while holding onto him. He unhooks your ankles above his ass so that he can set you down and strip away your shorts. When those are gone, you drop to your knees and take his cock into your mouth.

The moan that Barry lets out reverberates off the walls. “Shit, Y/N,” he hisses “Missed that mouth.”

You want to respond but your mouth is full and that’s how you like it. You suck on him, swallowing to take his dick deeper until it hits the back of your throat and you gag. The water from the shower rains down upon you and prevents you from looking up at Barry, but you know how to listen to him and his body. You lick and suck at the head of his cock while stroking it, then your other hand drifts down between your legs and parts your folds.

“You wet for me, sweetheart? You touching yourself?”

“Mmm, mm-hm,” you hum, taking him in as deep as you can. The vibration has Barry’s legs shaking and nearly buckling, and he has to brace himself on the wall to stay standing. He gathers your hair in one hand and thrusts once more into your mouth before pulling you off and up to your feet. He then picks you up, pinning you to the wall once more, and you reach out to hold onto one of the stall partitions.

“Do you want this? Want me to fuck you? Make you mine again?”

The tip of his cock is teasing at your entrance, sliding up and down in your slick heat and nudging at your clit.

“Mmph, shit, yes. Yes, Barry. Yes, yes please!” you sigh, tossing your head back and resting it on the wall.

“Love it when you beg,” he says right before thrusting deep inside you.

“Ahh mmph, fuck,” you moan as he fills you and soothes the dull ache inside you; his shoulders shiver and he groans as if he’d barely holding on. He lifts his face so that you’re gazing into each other’s eyes as he starts moving with languid strokes.

You’re floored to see the range of emotions in Barry’s eyes. He’s doing everything to stay in control but you can see his eyes flickering while he fights a battle inside himself. You’re both pent up with desire but don’t want this to be over too soon. The moment that it’s over, you’ll have to face the question: what now? He bares his teeth and his nose wrinkles as he starts thrusting harder and faster, then takes your mouth in a devouring kiss; your teeth bump once or twice as he bites at your lips.

“I’m never letting you go again.” He punctuates his statement with a snap of his hips, thrusting deep inside you.

“Oh, god. Yes! Please! No, never,” you answer between gasps as he hits your g-spot over and over again. The liquid heat within you is flooding and filling you, coming to a boil. You release the shower shall and wrap your arms around Barry’s neck, holding on to him and only him. He buries his face in your chest as he braces you against wall, pushing you and him even closer to release.

“Come for me, Barry. Say my name. I’ve missed you so much,” you whisper in his ear, a mix of encouragement and pleading.

“Damn it, Y/N. God, I need you. I love you. Don’t ever leave me again,” Barry cries out as he spills himself inside you. He keeps moving with shallow thrusts and rubs at your clit with his thumb; you fall into your orgasm moments later, your whole body shaking.

“Never. Never,” you whisper, over and over again. “Never again.”

Slowly, Barry lowers the two you to the floor. He sits on the pile of your clothes with his back to the wall as you straddle his lap. Your breath hitches in your throat every now and then as the aftershocks of your orgasm wash over you. Barry drops light kisses on your shoulders and his hands splay out between your shoulder blades as you lean back, allowing him to continue his trails of kisses across your collarbone and chest.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. You come forward again and kiss him deeply, your fingers twirling in the hair behind his ears.

The shower water is now lukewarm as it washes over your joined bodies. Barry carefully lifts you off of his lap and the two of you get to your feet, sobering up from the post-orgasm high. He turns the shower to its hottest temperature as you wash your bodies with his soap--oh how you’ve missed that hint of cinnamon on his skin, in your bed. You lean against him as his hands massage your body. He’s gentle as he cups the space between your thighs and helps clean you; you reciprocate moments later with slow strokes on his softening dick. You run your hands over his body, his chest, inspecting him.

Your eyes meet him and his gaze is soft, loving, but still sad. You can’t tell if there are tears or if it’s just water.

“Please, Y/N. I can’t do it. I can’t be without you. Don’t make me,” he whispers.

“No, Barry. I can’t, I won’t. I love you.” You kiss him and turn off the shower. Taking his hand, you lead him to fresh towels and your gym bags. “But what are we going to do? We told Dr. Stein that we weren’t together anymore. I can’t live with this as a secret; I can’t do that again either.” Barry tugs on your hand, bringing you to a stop.

“I know what we can do, but until then, come home with me?” he kisses you lightly, sweetening his request. You lean into his embrace. This is where you belong. Without a second thought, you smile and say yes.

-----

tagging:  @autoblocked @book-loving--anime-chick @abbessolute @karazoiel @overlyobsethed  @therealcap @whoopxd @bookworm4ever99 @geeksareunique @pottxrwolff @frankie2902 @fabinapercabeth4179 @yessoftball-lover06 @blckthrns @barry-writes @ravenhaviland @clockblobber @melaninspice11 @softdudebro @parkerschurros @stuttering-psychopath @woaahkelsey @montytheravenclaw @sanya-gryff @smutfornerds @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @percyjackson886 @mcheung0314

[nelsonbeauchejason]

HV Y’ALL EVR ‘EARD TH T STRIE ‘F TH

TROY

TSSD BBIEz FRM TH W[A]LL 🐣🤮♠️

ALAS, SPECIFICALLY PR ‘VER TH 🎯

HORRIBLE IDEA ACCEPTING DEODORANT FRM THIS.0 EVR GT ‘RND 2 RDNG:

Hunt for Red October, lol..RAM KêKut

Keep declaring I mean what I say; and IAM.. This is a suicide mission—and IAM ALLEN [ANTE] SOL 4 EITHR [VOID] KET . . . .

(i.e. !REINCARNATE) . . . .

fnTYPE:YOLO OR [NULL] . . . .

I’m simply one of the faces of this OP, and one simple :PASSIVE: ECHOING

Kant claim PACE PLN

Need 2 Know

I figure by the time invested (13Y) en this specific branch, WE must be a minimum of 250 moves coming the other way in time; think Zen. I’ve barely had to wing sh@t

♠️4️⃣📙,

COL NELSON, JBC

(PRV⏱️EXPIR: 2019)

Cross ❤️; ACT: Hope to Die

GENDR: QUEER

🥱🛌.LAST: 2009 Borja, Mia

🎅 💭 Dulles Brothers & JFK

Cum NW Lad’ & Gen’ … I seek necessary and sufficient Love (AGAPE) from Y’ALL kin; THIS will make the retirement worth every cent.

Due u hv ‘ny idea the amount of time wasted on this site … it’s like 81:27 ratio … i.e. bout 2.5 minnie of genuine & integral work per quarter … My entire life is rather…boring.

Shud I lube up first or do Y’all like to think ‘bout xhamster meth session 18,385, and keeping it dry..

BYW, no☝️ ever told me where to drop M$ to drop off of law enforcement’s radar . . . . Got contact info/name.. lol 😂

We could not have done this without your cooperation & assistance. We ain’t talking about CBI or FBI. Think bigger…way tf gargantuan.

I DO NOT PLAY GAMES;

IAMG

I 🙏 aim to 🙏 please 🙏

This is Will & Testimony

Tell that snitch ‘Norway’

…..Eucalyptus

i know i use the word iconic a lot in relation to harry james potter but i feel it bears repeating here

[shipersanonymous]

A Flash fan fiction ❤️

By ShipersAnonymous and Annasorayasmith

....

I remember.

I remember it all. In flashes of red. The agony. The betrayal. The sound of my heart breaking. The silence as they each forgot about me.

As they left me behind.

I remember. And I don't intend to forgive.

..................................................................................

Author's Note:

A-hoy there shippers!

So I've been biting my tongue to keep this in cause I'm terrible at keeping secrets! But it's finally here!

I can't tell you how over the moon I am at this collaboration with @annasorayasmith who trusted me enough with her thoughts and let me put them into words.

I've never done anything like this before and this story has so much it's a challenge to find out which angle is better suited to tell the story (their all so good!). I hope that together we can do the story justice and hope that you enjoy it!

We've mixed a little Godly mythology into this with a bit of romance, a lot of familial drama and a splash of angst! It's a Barry/Eobard fic but to my shippers out there don't worry West-Allen will still form apart of this wild mix!

To my lovely co-author, thank you a million times over for sharing your imagination with me and believing in my skills enough to let me copilot. I look forward to reaching our destination but I'm stoked for the journey we're embarking on!

All aboard!!!

XOXO

💜🖤

*************Cliffhanger Warning*************

Prologue

His chubby fingers curled over the bar of gold that formed part of the crib’s frame. With curious eyes, he lifted himself onto the tips of his toes and peered inside. A flushed face, wrinkled and topped with a thin sheet of glossy, auburn hair, rested soundly against the mattress. The creature looked so small and fragile, like if he reached in hard enough he could hold its head between his infantile hands and squeeze with enough pressure to make it burst.

He smiled at the malevolent thought. 

As if sensing his darkened intent, the babe’s lips trembled before a holler, loud and panicked pushed out of them.

Strong voice for such a tiny thing.

His mother came rushing in, the worry in her eye unmistakable, fuelling his hatred. She swooped the hollering child into her arms and pressed it against her bosom. With the honey milk voice she used to reserve just for him, a song echoed from her chest and ruffled the clouds that they called home. The love in each note pronounced. The admiration and affection clear in each word.

The lullaby breaking his heart.

He shuffled to his mother’s side with his head hung in sadness. With the gentleness mastered only by a child, he tugged at her skirt for attention.

“Ami?” he called, a name he’d lovingly kept from his days as a babbling infant learning to speak, but his call went unanswered. Her attention had been captured by the creature that now laid still in her embrace.

The embrace stolen from him.

“Ami?” he tried again and this time her gaze turned towards him, her body continued its gentle sway as she danced with the little god.

“Achilles, my sweet, hush a moment and let mama put Apollo to sleep.” she pleaded softly, the affection in her golden eyes shining through like the rays of the rising sun. He could never deny her a wish when she smiled at him so warmly. So he swallowed down his pride with hopes that his good behaviour would win her favour enough for him to keep her love. As she carried on singing and swaying, he diligently held on to her skirt.

His tiny palm began to sweat and he tightened his grip. His unripe muscles thumped with a dull ache and stiffness, yet little Achilles persisted.

He was too afraid to let go.

At last she replaced the child in its bed of gold and turned her full attention onto him. His heart beat hopeful that his determination had paid off and when she smiled down at him he reached out his arms, begging her to pick him up. Needing to be encapsulated by her warmth, reassured that he hadn’t lost her. Instead she knelt down before him and drew him in for a hug.

“My sweet, sweet Achilles. I’m afraid I no longer poses the strength to carry you like I used to. You’ve grown so much,” she says once they pull apart and her eyes sparkle with a gleam of sadness, coloured by a hint of maternal pride. But little Achilles, small as he was, failed to read the emotion on her face and simply attached meaning to her words.

Was he now too big because she had a smaller model to compare him too? Was she now too weak because her strength had been exhausted on the creature that lay fast asleep in his crib? Regardless of the reason, there was a single common thread in both explanations.

Apollo.

This fiend he had to call brother had stolen from him the one thing he treasured most. The one fortune the stars had granted him. The love of his mother. He could feel it in the core of his very being.

“Iris!” his father’s thunderous voice boomed from a distance and she turned her head towards the sound.

“In a minute my lord,” she called back.

“Your father is in need of me, I must make haste. I plead thee, Achilles, do not wake thy brother,” she asked and he nodded.

As a reward for his compliance he received a kiss on the forehead before his mother took her leave. He waited till he was truly alone and approached the sleeping babe. Peering into the cot once again, he was filled with a dark determination to see his beloved mother rid of the parasite that harmed her so. With no one there to bare witness his eyes flickered a deep red and the corners of his lips turned up into a grin that rid his childish face of all its innocence. The old woman had warned him that the child that grew within his mother would bring nothing but misery. If she was right about that she must have been right about his quest.

It was his destiny to save his Ami. To rid the heavens of the abomination that shared his father’s blood with him. To be a hero that only a son of Zeus could be. As the seed planted itself into his naïve little heart and took root, the red glow died out of his eyes but it did not disappear completely. It simply slumbered behind the hazel of his irises, awakening each time he laid eyes on his bother.

…

The red in his eyes glows brighter than ever before as Eobard, triumphantly gazes down at a semi-conscious Barry. The loud roar of thunder drowns out Barry’s pained whimpers but the grimace on his bloody and bruised features is enough to appease Thawne’s sadistic hunger for the time being.

The blood stained rain drops, drip from his fingers to pool at his feet where it joins the river of red streaming from Barry, whose breaths are shallow. Each inhale agonising as it vibrates through his shattered ribs. Each exhale bringing him closer to his end.

Barry’s vision is blurred from the swelling of his eyes and bloody rain that wets his lashes, and yet he can still make out the haunting red orbs that glow like demon flashlights.

“W-Why?” he manages to whisper, searching for closure. A reason for his sudden and unjustified demise. Eobard let’s out a spine chilling cackle that slices through the night air, bleeding into the symphony of the storm.

“Poor, unsuspecting fool,” he spits.

“So naïve!” he punctuates his point with a kick to Barry’s side. The young man groans out in pain, a soft, tortured sound as he is too weak to scream.

“So unaware…” another kick.

“…Of the gift you’ve been granted. The honour bestowed upon you. So unworthy of the blood of Zeus.” A sneer of disgust crosses his lips as he gazes down at the weak, trembling figure at his feet. The thought that he is somehow connected to the whimpering mess, shames him. It dulls the glory of the Godly name bestowed upon him.

“Your existence is a mistake! A universal miscalculation. An error bound to bring misery to who’s ever path you cross.” Eobard sneers as he takes the two steps needed to close the distance his kicks had opened between them. Barry simply lays on his back, barely conscious, his eyes closed, his mind flipping through his memories with Iris to help ease his physical pain.

Her smile. Her touch. The sweet smell of her skin. The softness of her lips. The feel of her hair between his fingers. The lively sparkle in her eyes.

“But I intend to fix that.” Thawne declares as he sinks down on one knee and violently grabs Barry by the collar. The brisk movement sends a shock wave of pain through the injured boy’s body and forces his eyes to open as much as the swelling will allow.

Fear slithers into his heart.

“It’s why I was born. My destiny. And believe me when I say….”

Thawne holds his free hand up for Barry to see and though his vision is still impaired, Barry hears the moment his hand begins to vibrate. It’s a gut twisting sound that creeps into his bones and paralyses him. He’s never heard it before but something in him recognises it as a bad omen.

Death is coming.

“… that I’m going to enjoy the honour of ending your worthless life.” An evil smile of satisfaction thins Thawne’s lips as the prospect of his victory gives him the last bit of strength he needs.

A bolt of lightning lights up the sky with the brilliance of stadium lights.

A thunder clap, deafening like the roar of a mighty lion, rattles the wet earth.

Thawne, oblivious to it all, begins to lower his deadly hand onto Barry’s chest.