#Right Wing Amateur Radio

[rosewaterandivy]

iii. starlit night

summary: it's either fate or a cosmic joke.

pairing: s.h. x werewolf!reader

w.c.: 5.3K

warnings: blood, bloodlust, blood drinking, guts, gore, possessiveness, supernatural elements, quasi-mating rituals, exhausted best friend!eddie, no a/b/o, angst, mild dubious consent, amateur wound care, power dynamics

a/n: consider this my warm welcome to spooky season, happy autumnal equinox y’all! monsters need love too 🐺

m.list | playlist

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Eddie gave nothing away, and neither did you which was more than a little infuriating for Steve.

After the incident with the impromptu dog sitting and tire tracks on his lawn, he hadn’t seen hind nor hair of you. No daily runs in the woods, or in the crowd at Corroded’s Tuesday night shows, and certainly not frequenting Family Video.

The balm of summer has settled upon Hawkins, humidity sticking like dew to his skin no matter how long he lingers beneath the spray of the showerhead. He’s sweated through his shirt and vest by the time he clocks out to leave for the day, muttering his goodbyes to Robin as she reminds him to pick her up at closing tonight.

For as much as Steve loves the languid drip of summer days, he positively loathes the heat. Can’t stand feeling sticky and damp with no reprieve. So it’s really a no-brainer that he elects to waste the afternoon in the swimming pool, waiting for the a/c to cool the house to a respectable 68 degrees, utility bill be damned.

He’s driving back from Family Video, Robin in tow, as night falls. The streetlamps had a dull and ineffective glow which only partially illuminated the edges of the road. Steve took the back roads to Robin’s house, one of his many shortcuts through a town in which nothing ever happened.

“Steve!”

Robin’s gasp, and spastic pointing are enough to startle him from fiddling with the radio. Eyes slicing to the road, he sees an animal darting across the pavement, and swerves to miss them. The front corner of the car wings left as it grazes the animal with a loud thud, following by the shrill screech of wheels skidding to a stop.

His right hand splays against Robin’s collarbone and chest, pressing her back into the seat. He can feel her frantic breaths heaving from her lungs as she sucks in paltry breaths.

“Are you alright?”

She nods, fingers fumbling to release the seatbelt. She’s shaking a little from the shock of it all— Steve hitting an animal with his car on the edge of the greenbelt. Her mind is spinning and she can only imagine how he’s feeling, if the slight tremor in his hand still affixed to her chest is anything to go by.

“Is it—?”

He clears his throat and unbuckles his seat belt and opens his door quickly. “Just stay here, I’ll check it out.” The hazard lights click on as Steve steps out to approach the animal.

It’s lying at the center of the road, the poor thing’s chest rising and falling in slow succession. It’s still moving, hazily coming to in the still summer evening. Head turning toward him and eyes blinking away the fear in a flash of milk glass.

Oh fuck. Oh shit.

Suddenly spurned into action, Steve moves with a speed that even Robin finds shocking. It’s a moment she’ll never forget. In an instant he heaves the large dog into his arms, shouting at her to open the back door in a panicked voice.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.”

She wonders why her best friend is profusely apologizing to an animal that seems, at first glance, none the worse for wear. Steve slides it into the back and jumps into the driver’s seat, peeling out so fast that she barely has time to get into the vehicle herself.

“Steve, what the ever loving fuck is going on?”

Turning to him for the first time since the slapdash animal rescue, Robin’s mouth falls open in thinly veiled terror. Steve is drenched in blood and debris, remnants of fur and skin stuck to his gray shirt, slowly staining itself maroon and perfuming the air with a metallic tang. It’s too much blood to be from the accident, right? The animal was already injured when they clipped it; it had to be.

He doesn’t reply, electing to simply speed back to his house and run a bloodied hand through his hair frantically.

Robin faces forward and blinks.

She catches a flicker of something in the rearview mirror.

Wrong noises are coming from the backseat, terrible growls and low whines. The sound of joints popping in and out of place, muscles shifting and pulling taut beneath skin. Teeth scraping and grinding against one another.

It’s the pain that brings you to consciousness— knifing through your skull and making you want to vomit. Swallowing back bile and blood in your mouth, you want to rip yourself apart and keep ripping until there’s nothing left. Your jaw is moving unnaturally so, everything is wrong and you want to scream. Piping hot and burning, you’re sure you’ll spontaneously combust any second now when a hysterical shriek rends the air.

But not from you.

Steve is wholly unequipped to deal with his best friend’s nervous breakdown and a very naked what he can only assume werewolf dipping in and out of consciousness and bleeding out on the tile of his bathroom.

Between Robin’s blubbering and your soft murmurs, he can really only think to do one thing:

Call Eddie.

And that seemed like a good plan half an hour ago when he laid you in the bathtub and swaddled Robin in a smattering of blankets on the sofa downstairs.

But now, he’s not so sure.

Because Eddie strides into his house like god sent him to settle a score, wearing fury on his face in a way that could be considered cuttingly alluring, if not for the broken glass bottle digging into the skin of Steve’s neck as his back hits the wall.

“Give me one reason not to spill you guts all over your Nikes, Harrington.”

It’s more of a snarl than a request.

And what is there to say, really?

Sorry, I hit your werewolf best friend with my car after snooping around because for some ungodly reason I’m drawn to her and unable to control myself.

His hands and temples are covered in dried blood, dark and foreboding, crusted on his skin and hair and nails. To say nothing of his shirt, plastered to his chest and emanating a startingly metallic odor.

As if suddenly realizing this, Eddie blinks and loosens his grip on Steve’s shirt, palm coming away tinged in blood.

“What did you do?”

And, to be frank, Steve preferred Eddie’s rage to whatever this was, dread, he supposed.

“It was an accident.”

They both turn to the pile of blankets on the couch that is Robin. Only her face is visible, pale and dazed.

Eddie turns back to Steve with a look that could turn most people to stone, and yanks him up the stairs to the bathroom.

Greeted by a warm wall of steam, Eddie shoves Steve toward the sink with gruff instructions to find a first-aid kit. He crouches in front of you and murmurs in a soft voice. Languorously, you turn your head toward him with an easy smile, lips bloody.

“Hiya pal.”

Your voice is a croak, rough and jagged as it edges up your throat.

Eddie says nothing, rolling his lips between his teeth as his hands close in around your face turning it this way and that as gently as he can. The spray of the hot water has matted your hair impossibly at the back of your skull, rivulets coming back a translucent red on his palm. A large bruise blooms burgundy against your hip, splotchy and livid.

He leans you forward to survey your back, brushing away the rocks and dirt embedded into your skin and mindful of the raised red road rash. But none of that goes to explain the blood swirling down the drain— where is it coming from?

Steve stands awkwardly behind, red and white box in hand.

Elbows resting on your knees as Eddie continues his perusal of wounds, you shoot him a sleepy smile before your head falls to your forearms. The mad fluttering of your eyelashes as you battle to stay awake.

“She can sleep damn near anywhere,” Eddie mutters as your body goes lax in his arms, “Long as she knows she’s the deadliest thing in the room.”

“Is that, uh, safe?” Steve asks, handing the kit over as Eddie extends his hand.

“Safe enough. Help me turn her on her side, will ya?”

Both men let out a jarring gasp at the sight of the bite to your side. A festering and weeping thing, blood almost black as it skitters down your stomach and back. Steve’s mouth fills with saliva as he steps back and vomits. Eddie’s nostrils flare as he breathes steadily in and out, trying to piece out who or what could’ve done such a thing to you.

Steve spits a few times for good measure before gargling some mouthwash.

“I told you not to go in the woods.”

It’s about as subtle as a grenade, Eddie’s pointed accusation.

But that doesn’t make it any less true. If Steve would have just minded his own business, heeded Munson’s warnings, you wouldn’t be bleeding out in his bathtub right now.

“I-I know. I’m sorry.”

He leans back on his heels, a ringed hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose as Eddie methodically begins setting out bandages, antiseptic, and gauze.

“Can you thread a needle?” He asks around a wisp of silver clenched between his teeth and hands the needle and spool of thread to Steve.

“Yeah, sure.”

“And find her some clothes.”

“Uh huh.”

He hands the threaded needle back to Eddie with trembling hands, absolutely terrified at the gray pallor of your skin. The surface wounds stitching themselves closed, as blood seeps from mangled flesh curving along your side.

Steve haphazardly grabs a shirt and shorts, tossing them to the side as he’s hauled back toward the bathtub. In the few minutes of his absence, Eddie has worked quickly. Your wounds are scrubbed clean and bandaged, and he’s angled the showerhead to hit just beneath your wound having cleaned it prior.

“Okay Harrington,” Eddie begins, grabbing a switchblade from his pocket and pouring the antiseptic over the blade as it flicks open. “Here’s how it’s gonna go: the wound is too severe for a simple bandage and she’d bleed through it anyway. The only shot in hell we have is you staying close and using your blood to jumpstart her system. We’ll have to be quick—”

“Wait, what?”

“Because I’ll have to disinfect the bite before her were instincts kick in and she starts healing on her own. S’like jumping a car, no big deal.”

Stupidly, Steve doesn’t pull back his palm from Eddie in time, as the wet slice of the blade pierces his skin. It burns as the blood wells up from the cut, bright red and cascading down his hand. Eddie yanks Steve’s hand toward your partially open mouth, eyelids fluttering in your uneasy sleep.

He presses the heel of Steve’s palm to your lips until you subconsciously latch, the tips of your fangs grazing his skin. It’s horrifying, Steve thinks, how easily your tongue laps at the ruby red rivulets weeping from his broken skin. You hum contentedly, swallowing over and over again until he realizes that he’s gone all slack and whimpering.

Well, now that is just embarrassing.

“All right, champ,” Eddie says, pulling you off of Steve and he mourns the loss of the warmth of your lips.

You tip back against the porcelain and howl as Eddie pours antiseptic onto the wound that is rapidly stitching itself together on your side.

Steve falls with a thud against the wall, cradling his cut palm to his chest as he watches in holy terror as you magically revive before his very eyes.

“Blood of your blood.”

Eddie says this as if it could possibly explain anything.

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Steve can see the blood— his blood— as it warms your cheeks and lips, pumps life back into your muscles and arteries. And you must be a living nightmare torn straight from the depths of his mind, more wild than the wilderness skirting the edges of town, a cursed thing surely there to kill them all.

“She’ll be weak for a few days,” Eddie says, leaning back against the wall after he cuts off the water. “We’ll just keep her hydrated and fed and she’ll be right as rain in no time.”

Delirium must be setting in, because Steve finds himself nodding along to Eddie’s instructions. Allows himself to be tugged forward by the lanky man as he slices a near-identical cut into your palm.

“Drink, it’ll close up soon and you need your strength.”

Steve doesn’t even think twice about it, sinking his teeth into the meat of your palm and sucking. Every time your body tried to stitch itself back together, he draws forth another pull of garnet blood, precious droplets cascading down his jaw and neck, failing to stifle the noise trying to break free from his throat.

The room doesn’t so much as spin as it shifts, blurring out in haze and lights bursting like stars behind his eyelids. He tongues at your lifeline, gasping, slurping, and moaning until—

“Okay Romeo, slow it down there.”

Eddie grips the scruff of his neck like he’s an overexcited puppy and jerks him backward onto the cold tile floor.

“‘Kay,” He blinks lazily, mouth slick and painted a violent shade of red as he slumps to the floor.

Eddie eyes him warily, “Ya with us, Harrington?”

“Feel high,” Steve replies, still woozy and buzzing.

Before he can reply, you shake yourself awake and shudder in the cool air. You look around, everything too bright and smelling like you’d huffed the entire contents of a janitor’s closet. Someone tosses a shirt and shorts your way, and you slowly worm your way into the clothes. Skin feeling too tight and something smarting at your hip.

“Fuck,” A dazed voice says, sending a shiver down your spine. A hand gently touching the side of your face, blood smearing against your cheekbone as he turns your head. “Goddamn, you’re beautiful.”

Eddie scoffs from somewhere near, as your lips kick up in a smile. His thumb grazes the full of your lips, skirting against the pearly white of your fangs. And it’s only when you take in a lungful of Harrington that it all falls together.

Tearing yourself from the surging desire to nuzzle into his open palm, you bare your teeth and train your eyes on Eddie. Snarling to say:

“The fuck did you do.”

Because there was absolutely no way this human was somehow halfway to being your mate.

Not when you’d told your Guardian, who was smirking down at you now, that under no circumstances would that be happening.

He barks a laugh and shrugs as if to say, you were dying, what could I do?

You shakily stand, ignoring the crestfallen expression on Steve’s face, and amble out of the bathroom.

Life must have been some cruel joke, only to serve Steve Harrington, of all people, up on a plate and wave him in your face as something you could ever afford to keep.

A cutting slice of tragedy to give him some kind of forever, when you couldn’t even take care of yourself, much less a pack.

The words of the only father figure you’d ever known pounded in your skull as you hurried down the stairs and out into the balmy night:

This is a gift, it comes with a price.

You’re gone for what feels like days.

A span of time that finds Steve shaky and pale, nearly biting off the heads of everyone currently invading his house instead of answering their inane questions, until a voice in his head warns, Easy now.

Robin’s somewhat functioning, though not entirely recovered from the shock of the century; the revelation that werewolves exist. And that her best friend is fated to be with one.

She just about lost her mind when Eddie sat the pair of them down to explain things.

“Mates. What does that mean?”

She’d done most of the talking, since Steve hadn’t said a word since you left.

Eddie sighs and his eyes dart back and forth, as if he’s second guessing himself in sharing this information outside the pack, as ramshackle as it was.

“It’s like, having partner, I guess. But it’s predetermined biologically? We don’t really know how or why it happens, and it’s rare when it does.”

“So… not every werewolf gets a mate.”

“Well, I mean they can date and be with whoever they want, just like us. But if there’s a mate and the circumstances align just so…” He trails off and glances at Steve, guilt etched on his face. “It makes being with anyone besides your mate difficult.”

“How so?”

“Kind of like a bad break-up, but you both want to be together? There’s no physical ailment, but you just feel—”

“Abandoned.”

Eddie swallows and nods.

“And she just—”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” He cautions Robin. “She could come back, we don’t know. But, to be fair, I did kind of fuck it up.”

“Wait, hold on.” Robin extricates an arm from her swaddle of blankets and grabs Steve’s hand, “So you’re saying that she didn’t reject this whole thing?! She just ran out of here like a bat outta hell! How is that not a rejection?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Okay,” she drawls, “And?”

Eddie sharks his head, “I really can’t say more than I already have.”

She scoffs, “That’s a fuckin’ lie and you know it.”

Eddie’s eyes cut back to Steve as he lets Robin run his thumb across his bandaged hand. His eyes almost looking through Eddie, far off and distant. It’s spooky, how quickly the light left him as you slipped out of the front door that night. How Steve could tell the instant it happened, jerking upright on the tile floor and Eddie watched as his body tensed, muscles coiling with adrenaline and no way to rid himself of it.

He scrubs a hand down the tired plane of his face, letting loose a beleaguered sigh.

“Look, I’m a Guardian, not a Scrivener alright?”

“Like we’re supposed to know what that means!” Robin hisses in reply, thumb worrying across Steve’s lax palm.

“I just gotta make a call, okay?” He says, rising to stand and roll his neck. “Stay with him until I get back.”

“Yeah,” She calls as he walks to the phone in the kitchen, fingers punching in the familiar set of numbers. “No shit, Sherlock!”

Eddie drums his fingers against the wall and hopes to God she picks up, because if he has to talk to her mother one more time—

“Hello, Wheeler residence,” She chirps down the line.

Eddie lets out a sigh of relief, his forehead resting on the cool wood paneling as he says, “Hey Nance, we’ve got a bit of a situation. Can you make it to Harrington’s place?”

It takes all of ten minutes for Nancy Wheeler to come barrelling in, her arms laden with books and giving Eddie a look that would strike lesser men dead on the spot.

“I could kill you Munson.”

“Yeah, yeah,” He says with a lazy wave of his hand, “Join the club Wheels.”

“I get first dibs,” Robin pipes up with her first smile of the evening.

“Guess I’ll settle for sloppy seconds then,” Nancy huffs, dropping the books on an ottoman. “I can’t believe you did this, going against not only her express wishes but Steve’s as well? Bet you didn’t even tell him what all this entailed and now look at him!”

Steve, for all the talk about him, says nothing. His face radiating heat and steadily becoming a vibrant pink.

“Is he,” Eddie begins, stepping closer. “Blushing?”

“Nah,” Robin says knowing best and laying a cool palm to his forehead, “That’s no blush, that’s a fever.”

The thing about Steve is that he rarely, if ever, gets sick. Had perfect attendance all through school, until he got caught skipping, because he’d never gotten the crud. So when he emits a full body shiver, Robin has no choice but to act.

His teeth are still chattering even after being hauled upstairs and smothered beneath blankets. And saying that Steve feels ill, or under the weather or even is inching toward death is a massive understatement.

He grunts beneath the sheets and blankets, socked feet sliding against the rumpled fabric. He aches from the top of his head to the toes of his feet, somehow his fingernails hurt. What is up with that bullshit?

And yeah, he’s supposed to stay in bed, he knows that. But he can’t see the door from up here and what if you come back, what then? What if you and Eddie get into it again and you storm out?

He’s not warming up any more up here than he would down there. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he thrashes beneath the covers and hobbles down the hall.

What Steve is not anticipating however, is to find his living room filled with the likes of Chief Hopper and his daughter El, a lanky older man that he doesn’t recognize, the Byers family, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Max, Billy fucking Hargrove, and finally, you.

So, it’s not all that surprising when he slumps to a heap on the landing of the stairs.

Alright, okay, he passed out a little bit. What gives?

Well, in your opinion (which really is the only one that matters at present), Steve fucked up is what.

Not only did he get out of bed and drop like a sack of potatoes at the sight of what can only be described as a pack of people? Werwolves, who knows—in his house, but on the way down, he managed to knock his head on the banister and come to with someone half-shouting at him and half-shouting at everyone else in the room.

“If anything, this is Munson’s fault.”

“Shut the fuck up Hargrove,” Eddie sulks, “No one asked for the opinion of a drop-out meat-head.”

“That’s rich coming from you, super senior.”

“I swear to god—”

“Boy, you better settle down!”

“C’mon Wayne, I’m just—”

A low, warning growl cuts through the room.

Everyone has the common sense to look abashed, tail between their legs, and even Hargrove stubs out his cigarette.

“Cut that shit out.”

Angry eyes greet Steve as he groggily comes to. Irises bleeding milky white as you struggle to contain your baser nature.

“Are you alright?”

Each word is bitten and harsh, your teeth set in a tidy row against your plump lips.

He nods, wincing at the pain blooming in his temple. You continue to glare as you sit him upright, “You.”

Steve flinches, pain thudding dully in his skull, all too aware that there will be an audience at his execution if your expression is anything to go by. He opens his mouth to apologize, the sibilant ‘s’ on the tip of his tongue, until your eyes slice to his and stun him into silence.

“Don’t you even start.” With a sigh, you join him leaning back against the railing, hand falling uselessly between you. “This is all my fault. You wouldn't be in this mess if I had any lick of sense.”

It startles a laugh from him, how quickly you rush to accept the blame.

“Well, I did hit you with my car.”

“Oh, right,” You snort, “That.”

“Can I um,” He says haltingly, “What happened?”

Your head knocks once against the wood banister, “You were supposed to stay in bed.” Pulling your bottom lip between your teeth, you shrug. “Best I can guess is you were worried and got up. Only to be greeted with the shock of a lifetime by having a buncha weres in your living room.”

His lips form a silent ‘oh.’

“We’re not a pack,” You’re quick to clarify, “At least, not officially. And they’re not all weres, just most of ‘em.”

A comfortable silence falls between you, and Steve is placated, for now.

“Hey, boss?”

Though, he still can’t get over that Billy motherfucking Hargrove is in his living room and deferring to you. You merely turn your head before he says something about some vital information being left out of the welcome packets for tonight, and you sigh with a roll of your eyes.

“Sure Hargrove, lemme get Steve settled and we’ll get into it.”

You stand up pulling Steve with you, and he sees Billy nod before lighting up another cigarette and turning toward the window.

He’s insistent that he doesn’t need a babysitter, but that does nothing to stop Dustin from inviting himself into Steve’s room when you go down to sort things out with the not-pack. He feels marginally better, and maybe Eddie was right when he said proximity helps. He doesn’t feel as wrecked as he was earlier, and if anything, it’s getting a bit hot underneath all the covers on his bed.

“Don’t smother him, Henderson,” You grunt, sticking out your chin as you lean on the doorjamb an hour or so later, while Dustin continues piling blankets on Steve. “This isn’t Mommy Dearest, kid.”

Steve thinks it’s cute, the slight drawl in your voice as you scold him. It’s probably your not-pack voice, the lower register, and gruffness of it. Packmaster-mode, Dustin had called it, even though the title is technically Alpha. But no one calls you that to your face, something about not liking the moniker or responsibility of it.

“Alright punk, scram.”

Dustin does as he’s told, begrudgingly so.

“Y’know,” He says, pausing at the door, “You’ve got to work on your people skills.”

Flicking the hat off of his head and shutting the door in response, you turn back to Steve looking ready to throttle the pipsqueak.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” You sigh, slumping down on the bed.

“It’s his ego, right?”

You blow a raspberry and let out a humorless laugh, “Eddie says it’s his tone.”

“Hmm, yeah. That too.”

Steve shuffled over to make room on the bed and peeled the covers back in a huff. You’d kicked off your sneakers and snuck one leg under the sheets next to his, the other propped with your foot resting on the mattress.

“Oh my god, you’re so warm.”

“Yeah, we run hot. It’s a were thing.”

Steve doesn’t sag against you exactly—it wouldn’t make any sort of physical sense—but he feels like he does it metaphorically.

“Ugh, that must be brutal in the summer.”

“You’re tellin’ me.” You give him a small smile and let your arm graze his thigh. “But it’s not all bad.”

Steve picks idly at the fraying hem of his shorts, fingers itching for something, anything to do. He’s not mad, well, not exactly, but he is kinda keyed up.

“Can hear you thinkin’ in there.”

You crack an eye open, and he turns back, a blush dusting his cheekbones.

“It’s just—” He starts to say, falling silent as you sit up beside him, the legs of your shorts, which are unfortunately boxers he grabbed without looking, rise up to reveal the soft skin of your thighs. And your skin is the only thing soft about you, from what Steve can tell.

“You didn’t even give me a choice.”

The light in your eyes snuffs itself out. Your face falls as you take in what he’s just said.

You clear your throat, “It’s not much of a choice,” Voice soft and small, “Not really.”

Steve nods, rolling his shoulder and chewing on his lip.

“Look, I’m really sorry Steve, truly. And if there was a way I could go back and undo all of this, I would.”

A momentarily panic flares up in his chest. No, that's not what he— he didn’t mean it in that way. He frustratedly runs a hand through his hair, recalling how Nancy pointed out that communication had never been his strong suit.

“No, hold on. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all fucked up now,” You admit, “Eddie knew how I felt about it and he went and did it, anyway. He claims it was done in my best interest, but he’s a smarmy motherfucker when he wants to be.” It all rushes out of you in the span of a breath, but now you’re on a roll and can’t stop, no matter the defeated expression on Steve’s face.

“He just like, dove straight in and started the Blood Rite without either of our consent, and now we’re stuck in this labyrinthian limbo from hell because you’ve had my blood and I’ve had yours. So how are we ever gonna know if any of this,” You wave frantically between your bodies as if it’s somehow proof, “Is a legitimate and purposeful choice or the result of fucking werewolf nonsense?!”

Well, Steve certainly wasn’t expecting any of that.

He looks at you, so directly it’s almost a challenge, the muscle in his jaw working steadily and you have to will your need to dominate deep down like the slumbering beast it is. But he’d look so pretty laid out and begging underneath you.

Ahem, another time maybe.

“You don’t wanna do this.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No, but it’s what you meant.”

“Steve, no—”

“Heavily implied.” He spits, turning toward you and shifting up on his knees. “I’m not stupid, y’know.” Steve says, and seeing you caught off-guard like this has set something into motion that he just can’t get the precise nature of yet.

You swallow and drag your hand down your face, letting it settle across your lips as you study him. Keen eyes, a predator’s eyes following every movement as he spreads his legs wide, nearly straddling you but not quite.

“A part of you wants me.”

You're staring at the ceiling fan now, but your face has gone tight with frustration and something else.

“More than you should.”

One hand distractedly pushes the hair from your face, your mouth falling open to argue.

“Well?”

You swallow, pushing yourself up straighter. “I should go,” You say carefully, eyes rapt on Steve’s face. Responding more to the tone in his voice than anything else, and you chafe under the ease with which he wields it.

He doesn’t back down, which only stokes your ire. Steve’s close enough to touch, but remaining just out of reach, taunting that part of you that howls for him.

Well, two can play at that game.

Desire uncoils in your gut at a lazy pace, taking its time to pool beneath your navel. It shakes you alive, prompting you to disentangle yourself from the sheets wrapped about your ankles. Rising to your haunches as if readying yourself for a chase, Steve feels himself prickle hot all over just at the sight of it.

He licks his lips, and he’s so close that you can feel rather than see the slight shudder of his body. If you pushed just a bit harder, took in a little more atmosphere he’d fall like a house of cards.

And then, to the victor go the spoils.

Steve shakes his head and sighs, it’s such an infuriatingly him gesture that you’re nearly taken aback. But his gaze remains steady, just as his hands and heart do, the comforting da-dum, da-dum, da-dum of it drawing you closer and closer.

Normally, you’d find it endearing. So familiar that you can paint it with your eyes shut, but not tonight, not when you have the moon and him singing in your veins, emotions a bit fraught and not entirely your own.

Walking on your knees across the bed as if it’s a desert, and you’d spent hundreds of miles repenting, Steve stills.

Baring your teeth to smile wide and wild, “C’mere honey,” You croon, saccharine sweet. “I’ll play nice.”

He breathes your name, there’s no other word in his head.

Some things are fated, destined, and mapped in the stars, but nowhere is it said that these things need to be kind.

[japage3moondog]

Got to Get You into My Life! (paul mccartney x reader

[ gender neutral reader, bit of an age gap, i'm aiming for slow burn but will probably fail at it. reader is intended to be around 10 years younger than paul but age is not detrimental to plot. in this universe, paul and linda are not married and are just friends (no infidelity in this one). reader is a photographer, bit of an amateur. i'm not in lowercase for the first time lol. also posted to ao3]

part 1: With A Little Luck

part 2: So Glad To See You Here

Shock is not the right word to describe the way you feel. The words escape you entirely. You receive a phone call from a man about a job. You've been applying to places for a couple weeks now but you were sure your embellished resume and shaky composure in interviews had doomed your chances. Photography has been your main hobby since your senior year of high school but it's only recently become a viable career option.

Your portfolio was slightly smaller than the industry standard and full of pictures from live gigs you'd weaseled your way into being the photography for. Needless to say, any sort of job follow up is worthy of rejoice let alone a photography job. The process of capturing an image was so satisfying to you and much more appealing than some hospitality gig and you didn't want to fall into the sterotype of starving artist condemned to wait tables for the rest of time.

The man on the phone speaks quickly, almost incoherantly, spewing a string of details at a near impossible pace. His name is Allen Klein, he's calling to inquire about a position as a tour photographer for the band Wings' debut tour. You pause for too long, trying to hold back a squeal of excitement which he interprets as confusion. He recites his spiel once again. You agree enthusiastically before he can finish. He gives you the location of his office and a time so he can ask you a few questions and to do the official paperwork, if the interview is successful.

His office isn't too far away from your home but it's still unfamiliar territory. You scribble down the address, checking it with him three times before he gets fed up and gently tells you he'll see you soon. By the time he hangs up, your hands are shaking terribly, it felt so surreal. You knew who Wings were but not much beyond that Paul McCartney was in it and they had released their debut album the previous month. After you had applied, you promised yourself that you'd look more into them so you wouldn't look like a total poser but it had slipped your mind completely.

It wasn't the glamour of Wings that was so exciting to you, though you'd be lying if you said that the possibility of working with Paul McCartney didn't get you at least a little starstruck. You're a little scared that you'll mess up the interview and drop the ball on the most thrilling job opportunity of your entire life but you try to keep yourself calm enough to stay on your feet. Going on a tour across the country was similarly daunting but you did your best to keep your worrying focused on the now rather than the possible future.

In the days leading up to the meeting you had laid out and put away your photography equipment over and over in anticipation of the job. It wasn't much. A small portable Polaroid for more intimate souvenirs, then a standard 35mm digital camera and a tripod that was slightly too small.You triple-check the number Mr. Klein called you on was indeed belonging to an Allen Klein. You call friends and ask if you're going insane enough for them to start saying yes.

You were the most excited about meeting Linda, a fellow photographer and artist, who you're hoping will be charmed by your ambition rather than call out your faults. You were too young to experience the mania of the Beatles-dominated 60's to truly fangirl over Paul but you'd heard some of his songs on the radio and had enough of a grasp on his appearance to understand the hype. This awareness, however little, you vow to keep to yourself. The last thing your boss needs is another wannabe groupie.

When the day comes, you feel like all you can do is shake. The hours pass by much too quickly and you feel almost drained of air. The night before you had gotten almost no sleep. You spent your time, barely eating your breakfast and listening to the radio. Before you leave the house, you straighten up your outfit, brushing off any potential creases with a swift swipe of the hand. A motion pretty much entirely a placebo to your already ironed clothes.

The road to the building is a long and winding one. You wrote the directions on your wrist but your palms had gotten so sweaty that the ink had been turned into a black smear. You swear you're lost near fifty times before you finally reach his office. Allen Klein's office is nice, you're slightly dissappointed that you don't get to see it again, or at least until the end of the tour. It's spacious but still has a lived in feel. The band isn't present, something you are relieved to discover. He greets you and makes a little small talk, speaking a lot less hastily then over the phone.

"Please make yourself comfortable." He gestures to the seat in front of him. You sit down, almost falling onto his desk in the process.

"Thank you for having me." You say sheepishly. "Your office is lovely."

"Thank you." He smiles warmly, your nerves are not soothed. "Now, why did you apply for this position?"

"Well, I've always had a passion for photography and most of my work has had musicians as the subject so it felt fitting." You answer, hiding your fidgeting hands in your lap.

"This would be your first professional photography gig, correct?" He says, scanning your resume.

"Yes but I have plenty of experience in the field." You reply. He looks at you as if trying to sus you out, reasonable for a job interview but still a little unnerving.

"Have you heard of Wings before?" Mr. Klein inquires.

"In passing and on the radio, I think, but I don't know enough to call myself a fan." You say honestly. 

"What about The Beatles?" He raises an eyebrow.

"Of course, but I wouldn't consider myself anything more than a casual enjoyer." You reply. He seems pleased by your answer.

"Good, good," He says, seemingly to himself. "It's nice you at least know who they were. We just need to weed out the superfans who aren't serious about the position, Paul is particularly insistant on that. I was initially concerned because you fit the demographic."

"You'll be pleased to know my time is spent taking pictures and not listening to records." You smile. He chuckles and seems at ease.

"I'm happy to give you the opportunity to indulge your hobby." He says. "In a professional setting, of couse."

"Of course." You agree.

"Well, as long as your a fast learner, I think you'll get along well with the team." He holds out his hand for you to shake. You accept graciously. Once you let go he hands you the paperwork. He lets you read over the contract before signing. You carefully scan the document for any secret sex slave clauses and offer a nervous smile, waiting for him to give you the pen to sign. You do your best to maintain a steady hand as you sign your name but you can sense he sees your nervousness. Whether Mr. Klein does or doesn't, he keeps quiet about it, something you are very grateful for.

He tells you another time and place for you to meet the band and the rest of the crew that you jot down onto the back of your hand, making a mental note to keep it away from your palm sweat this time. He offers you one last sincere smile before a short goodbye which you return gratefully. You're a little scared about meeting the band, especially accidentally coming off as some crazy, obsessed fan but that fear is almost entirely swallowed but a massive wave of relief.

By the time you leave the office you feel like flying, you're shaking more than before from shock. The world could end at that moment and you would die fulfilled. Your dream was coming true and you get to work with one of the greatest rock bands of the coming decade. You could've sworn you were dreaming. 

[opera-ghosts]

Richard Tauber Programme with Gwen Catley

Gwen Catley - coloratura soprano

Gwen Catley was once known in Britain as the "highest voice in the land". Standing only 4'11" tall, she had a high and accurate coloratura voice, with often a very lovely poise of delivery. She was a natural. She came from a family of serious musical amateurs, and as a child always sang around the house. At two and a half, she joined in a concert performance of Oh! For the Wings of a Dove.

She received no teaching until she began attending the Guildhall at the age of sixteen for twenty-minute lessons on a Saturday morning. She first worked on the Air du Rossignol by Saint-Saëns. Her professor took her to the Principal Sir Landon Ronald (who had been accompanist to Patti and Melba). Sir Landon said "she reminds me of Melba – bring her back in a year's time."

At that time a Gold Medal was awarded every year to the student who was thought would make an impression in the profession. Catley was to get the Medal, but her father argued with Ronald, saying he wouldn't have any daughter of his enter such a profession. So the Medal was withdrawn.

A year later she became engaged. On telling the good news to Landon Ronald, he asked, "to whom?" She replied, "a cellist". He said, "Oh, they never have any money – you'll have to sing. You'd better have the Gold Medal after all". Sir Landon Ronald then sponsored her debut at the Wigmore Hall, which had to open its gallery to accommodate the crowd. Her first half was a mixture of early Italian, French and German songs, and the second half consisted of operatic arias. She received work in musicals, the radio and Sadler's Wells Opera, where she was to be a Queen of the Night, Nanetta and Gilda. At the time of singing Gilda, she weighed a mere 6 stone 5 lbs.

During the war, she was on the stage in London a good deal, and appeared on such radio shows as the Richard Tauber Hour and Friday Night is Seaside Night. She was requested to appear on Children's Hour. Sir Walford Davies (then Master of the King's Musick) was one of its organisers and, dispensing with small talk, he greeted her with "I hear you haven't got a wobble!"

Her voice was not large, but in the right circumstances she could be heard to good effect in the theatre. She was a good judge of these circumstances. She reported turning down Queen of the Night at Covent Garden on the grounds that in their productions the Queen would in all likelihood be two-thirds of the way towards the back of the stage. She did however try to get into Glyndebourne. Her agents Ibbs & Tillett sent her there to audition. She got as far as the Chorus Master, who said, "If you come for some singing lessons with me, I might get you into the chorus."

She did not enjoy oratorio particularly, and said she simply did not like the Messiah aria "I know that my redeemer liveth". She chose her radio work with some care too. In the interval of a Proms performance of hers in 1947, Kenneth Horne came to her on bended knee. He asked her to perform in his radio show Much Binding in the Marsh. She took a singing part as the "vet's niece", but left after six shows, as the music and scripts arrived only on the day, and she did not feel it was for her voice.

Much of her radio, and then TV, work was conducted by one or other of the Robinson brothers. Eric Robinson conducted an opening programme on TV with Margot Fonteyn dancing, Campoli playing the violin, and Norman Wisdom and her singing.

Stanford Robinson, a pillar at the BBC for 47 years, conducted many of her recordings. He was known for being cruel to some singers. "What are you trying to do there?" he asked as she did a downward portamento of an octave. "I'm not trying to do anything," she replied, "this is what I am doing."

In her concerts around the country, people always asked for Bishop's Lo! Here the Gentle Lark. This of course required a flautist, whom the local organisers would have to find. Far too often, she said, all you would hear from the flautist was "spit & blow". Her repertoire did include some more modern opera, and she took part in the first British broadcast of Stravinsky's Rake's Progress.

She suddenly retired when she said her voice no longer sounded right to her. She went to Italy for twenty years. When back in England, she began to teach. She taught Judi Dench to sing in Cabaret, after "going down and down to find the right key".

Gwen Catley's comments on present-day singers in 1995 (when she was 85 years old) were: "Today I don't hear the words, neither their ends nor their beginnings".

These notes were written with the help of a radio interview in 1995 when Catley was 88.

[project1939]

(Mr. and Mrs. North, top picture. Ed Wynn and Durante, bottom left, Ed Wynn receiving a 50th anniversary cake, bottom right)

Day 16- TV and Radio: 

TV: 

All Star Revue, "Ed Wynn and Jimmy Durante," March 8th, 1952. 

Westinghouse Studio One, season 4, episode 26, “The Wings of the Dove,” March 10th, 1952.  

Radio: 

Suspense, “The 39 Steps,” March 3rd, 1952. 

Mr. and Mrs. North, “Heavenly Body,” March 4th, 1952. 

All Star Revue was hosted by Ed Wynn and Jimmy Durante, and it was a more typical variety show than the Olsen and Johnson episode. As a little kid, I knew Ed Wynn as the funny uncle who floated on the ceiling in Mary Poppins, so I’ve always had affection for him. His sweet bumbling character with silly plays on words can make me chuckle. The best part was when he played a piano rigged onto a tricycle, with Jimmy Durante singing on top! It looked like Wynn was actually playing the piano too. At the end, the whole cast presented him with a cake celebrating 50 years in show business. 

Mr. and Mrs. North is a cute little mystery show about a couple who are amateur sleuths. Mrs. North is especially fun, because she’s kind of the brains behind everything. She notices the smallest details about people’s appearances and behavior- continually trying to get her husband to catch up with her and understand who the guilty party is! 

...And now a word from today’s best sponsor: Kellogg’s Pep Cereal! Do you like Wheaties, but would prefer to buy them from a vegetarian with an odd brother who believes in eugenics and curbing masturbation? Well, try Kellogg’s Pep Cereal! It has all the vitamin D you need to put a pep in your step, and all the health benefits any superior stock of non-wanking people could want! 

[lord-radish]

I've got a couple hot takes about the Luke Combs cover of Fast Car.

Personally I think it's kind of basic, and I don't particularly care for it. But my understanding is that people are arguing about whether a straight cover can be justified or if a cover should be "transformative", arguing to the tune of the Luke Combs cover being redundant and irrelevant from day one.

Personally, I don't think covers have to justify themselves. They're covers - there's like five professional covers and a hundred amateur YouTube covers to every original song, and most of them are obscure and/or bad in the first place. The original song still exists and is still prominent, and even if a cover version were to get so popular as to overshadow the original song (ala Torn, a song by an alt-rock band named Ednaswap that got big when Natalie Imbruglia covered it), the original song still exists on its own merits and the cover exists in the legacy of the original song.

This Luke Combs version of Fast Car will come and go. Some people will prefer it. It still exists as a part of the original song's legacy, and in my opinion it can only add to that legacy.

I remember a while back when right-wing dickheads were up in arms about a cover of I Will Survive that changed a bunch of pronouns to be gender neutral. The situation here is different - the Fast Car cover hit #1 and is making a ton of money, and Luke Combs is a successful white guy singing a song about poverty and hard times that was written and performed by a black artist, while the I Will Survive cover was a small cover on YouTube by a queer person which got picked up as ragebait by shithole tabloids like the New York Post. But the principle behind the covers is the same: the original song still exists, the cover doesn't supplant or erase the original, and everyone is free to pick and choose which version of the song they prefer. The Fast Car cover is in everyone's face, granted, but that attention is going to die down and people are going to be able to make that choice for themselves.

The cover doesn't have to justify its own existence, because covers often don't. They're covers. They're tributes.

Now, whether it's a good song or not is up to the listener. I don't like the Luke Combs version, it was a fine novelty but I'm sick of hearing it on the radio. I can also understand the perspective of someone who sees the cover as putting on an act, appropriating a story from a black artist about poverty and hardship for fun and profit. But the Luke Combs version exists in a sea of covers, including a couple of trashy club covers I've heard on the radio and almost certainly hundreds of white, acoustic YouTube covers y'know. I never saw people who were pissy at those trashy club covers, and I fucking hate those.

So the question of whether it deserves to exist doesn't make sense to me, because a ton of covers are unnecessary and/or bad and people don't usually care. Covers don't have to be transformative, and they often aren't. Transformative covers can also be dogshit, ala Billy Idol's cover of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin". So for my money - I don't understand why people are arguing for the cover's right to exist, or insisting on innovation over faithfulness. The song will exist, and it will come and go, either way.

[sdrdxhound]

The Hammers of 3844 kHz vol 3

Amateur radio on 75 meters is infested with angry old boomer hams with far right ideology. Batshit crazy rumor mongering, misogyny, anti semitism, Q Anonist and MAGA talking points are all there. These hams on 3844 attract plenty of jammers, and the exchanges are documented here.

The American culture war is a hot one on 75 meters.

[peashooter85]

The Last Kamikaze

Born in 1947 Mitsuyasu Maeno was a down on his luck actor who just couldn't seem to score a big role. He had a troubled personal life, undergoing two marriages that ended in divorce and surviving a suicide attempt. Unable to make movie stardom, he settled into a career as a porn star, playing roles in 20 films. You might remember him from such films as Tokyo Emmanuelle (1975), a film most famous for the lead actress having sex with an entire soccer team.

Maeno was also a staunch right wing ultra-nationalist, who believed in the ideals of bushido, supported the overthrow of the Japanese constitution, and wanted a return to the authoritarian and nationalistic government of Japan that existed before World War II. One of his greatest heroes was Yukio Mishima, a Japanese writer who in 1970 attempted a coup by taking the commander of a military base hostage. He forced the commander to assemble the base personnel, who he intended to win to his cause with an impassioned and rousing speech. Rather than overwhelming support, Mishima was met with laughs and jeers. In one final act to inspire the soldiers to his cause he produced a dagger and committed ritual seppuku, the traditional suicide of the samurai where the person stabs himself in the abdomen and disembowels himself. This likewise failed to garner any support, and thus the coup ended in failure.

Another of Maeno's heroes was the politician Yoshio Kodama.

Kodama was a war criminal and yakuza gangster turned politician who often worked as a fixer for other right wing politicians and political groups. Of course, Kodama was super duper corrupt and it's no surprise when in 1976 he was caught bribing Japanese officials on behalf of the Lockheed corporation so that Lockheed could get some good deals on selling airplanes in Japan. Kodama was also perpetually under investigation for tax fraud.

Of course I say that Kodama's corruption was no surprise to many, but to Maeno the scandal was shocking and soul crushing. Maeno saw the scandal as a betrayal of Japanese honor and ideals, and vowed to rain divine wind on Kodama as revenge for his treason. Maeno was also an amateur pilot, who often used this skill in his many films. In fact in one film he even had sex with the actress Kumi Taguchi while simultaneously flying a plane, which I have to say ... that's a pretty impressive piloting skill! Over the span of a couple weeks he flew a plane over Kodama's house in order to recon the area.

On March 23rd, 1976 Maeno and two friends rented two planes at Chofu Airport in Tokyo. All three were dressed in World War II Japanese pilot uniforms. Airport officials were, of course, suspicious because of this but the three men claimed they were filming a World War II movie. Before taking off, Maeno posed for a photograph with his rented Piper Cherokee airplane while in full kamikaze regalia.

Maeno and his friends flew to Kodama's home, making a few passes before settling on a route of attack. Maeno began a dive while his friends in the other plane filmed the event. Maeno shouted over the radio "Long live the Emperor!" before crashing into the second story of Kodama's home.

Fortunately for Kodama, he survived the kamikaze attack as he was situated in the first floor of the house, the second floor having sustained the brunt of the damage. The Japanese government was never able to make any tax fraud charges stick and he was never punished for his role in the Lockheed scandal. He died of a stroke in 1984.

[entertainment]

Entertainment Spotlight: Neil Jackson, Stargirl

You may recognize actor, writer, and producer Neil Jackson from Absentia, and The CW’s new DC superhero series Stargirl. On the film side, Neil starred alongside Steve Carrell in Welcome To Marwan, as well as in Quantum of Solace, Nocturnal Animals, and You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. An ex-amateur boxing champion, Neil worked as a personal trainer before becoming an actor. He is also an accomplished guitar player and song writer. His first album, The Little Things, was released in 2013. Neil took a few minutes to chat with us about Stargirl, his dog Rosco, and his upcoming projects. Check it out:

Is there a scene or moment from Stargirl that you’re most excited for fans to see?  

There are so many fun scenes in this show that I think people will love, but there's a standout moment in the first episode where all of the Justice Society of America (Starman, Flash, Green Lantern, HourMan, Wildcat etc.) face off in an epic battle against a team of their greatest enemies...including Solomon Grundy. He's a fully CG Hulk-type villain and is AMAZING!

What’s your favorite character arc or storyline on Absentia?

At the end of last season (spoiler alert), Jack professed his love for Alice, only to have her reject him. She then was killed after we discover that she was working with the enemy. As we start season three, Jack is not only mourning the loss of that love, and her death, but also mourning the person he thought he knew, and he's having to do all of this alone, as no-one knows about his affair. It's heartbreaking to see him struggle.

Can you tell us about the character that you play in The King’s Man?

I'm afraid I can't  say too much for fear of Matthew Vaughn putting out a hit on me, but I play a very pivotal character in the story. I just saw some of the edit and it looks amazing. The film has all the fun and heart of the first films, but with the dramatic weight of WWI and the horror of trench warfare.

Do you have any fun facts about the making of Stargirl that fans would be surprised to find out?

During lunch we would sometimes have karaoke. It was a fun bonding experience to eat your food while members of the crew sang their favorite tunes. Nelson Lee, who plays Dragon King, did a particularly memorable rendition of "Wind Beneath My Wings."

What did you do with your free time on set?

I hate being in my trailer, so I usually hang around on set and watch the other scenes. After almost 20-years in the business, I'm still fascinated by the process, so I love watching the machine at work.

Do you have any secret skills or talents?

I love cooking. Every Sunday I make a roast chicken with all the trimmings. It's a British tradition.

How did you prepare for your role in The King’s Man?

My role in the film is very physical and I was hired to be my own stunt-double so there was a lot of stunt training. There's an amazing hand-to-hand fight sequence that (for reasons I can't spoil) required us to stay in a crouched position throughout. That was so brutal on the knees. I would come home from work every morning (we shot at night) and have to put bags of frozen veggies on my knees to take the swelling down.

Can you tell us about a time you bombed (e.g. in an audition)?

I was auditioning for a lead role in the first Transformers movie. It was just me and the casting director in the room. The scene was during a battle and my character was a soldier who was evading attacks whilst calling for air support. The casting director was particularly dead-pan and, when she dryly called action I just went for it. I was rolling on the floor evading laser strikes from imaginary robots whilst screaming into an imaginary radio for an air strike. She would read the other lines in the blandest monotone, which just made the experience all the more absurd. After a couple of minutes of this I just started laughing. She, however, didn't find it amusing.

What’s the funniest photo that you have on your phone?

I mostly have photos of my dog, Rosco, on my phone right now. He's a beautiful Formosan Mountain Dog from Taiwan and just last week he graduated puppy class. He wore his mortar-board in celebration :)

What are you most excited about right now?

Directing my first feature film. I have two scripts of mine in active development, so whichever one gets traction first will be the one I will direct first. I am incredibly passionate about both stories and cannot wait to bring them to life.

Thanks, Neil! Catch Stargirl on Tuesdays at 8pm on The CW. 

[captainsdolly]

Andy Barber fucking you in a semi public place (hc)

18+ only!

I suck at titles lol 

Pairing: Andy Barber x reader

Warnings: Smut, Andy and reader hate each other (do they?), mean Andy, mean reader, kind of angry sex?

Requested by anon

Not proof read, sorry for any fuck ups

You and Andy have been working together for over a year now and let me tell you this: that man is a pain in the ass

You may be significantly younger than him but you're not stupid, you know what you're doing and you have this job because you've earned it

Law has always been your passion and this piece of fuck makes you want to quit and move to another country

Andy always knows best, he's always correcting you, even in front of your clients and it makes you look incompetent

Does he get off on making you feel like shit?

He's hot though, you'll give him that lol

So when you saw him approaching you this morning, you knew the day was going to suck

Turns out you're going to be working on a case together, yay! 

"Listen, I don't like this either, I have one kid at home and now they're telling me I have to babysit another one", he scoffed and you were taken aback

You almost bitch slapped him right then and there

So now here you are, driving in a car with him, obviously he's the driver because he wouldn't let you drive his car, it's so precious to him, seriously choke on your own dick man

His eyes are on the road and his jaw is clenched tight because you're turning up the volume on the radio, singing some stupid song and he just wants to stop the car and make you walk the rest of the way

But you have an hour and a half to get to the meeting so he sucks it up and does his best to ignore you

"Can you turn it down a bit?", he gritted his teeth, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel

"Can you not talk to me?", you didn't even spare him a glance, humming to the song and reading through the indictment

You almost have it memorized at this point, you don't want to give him another chance to make you look like a fool in front of the client

And to be completely fair you're really good at what you do, so it kinda looks like he's always looking for an excuse to be a dick to you

He turns down the volume and you turn it up again, he glares at you and just turns the radio off

"Is that why you can never focus when we're meeting our clients? Your head is filled with song lyrics instead of stuff that actually matter?"

"It's filled with both, maybe my brain is bigger than yours"

Your eyes don't leave the paper even though you just want to punch him in the face, his eyes look over your body briefly and he squints at you

"Well, maybe I don't need to distract myself with music to-"

"Fuck off", you say calmly and he huffs out a laugh

"Very mature"

Twenty minutes pass by, and you can't seem to focus on the paper, you sigh and glance at Andy

You freeze when you catch him just staring at your legs and the tips of his ears turn red as soon as he realizes you're looking at him

He clears his throat and looks away and you chuckle because girl did you see how he licked his lips while he was staring at you?

"You hungry?" He breaks the awkward silence and pulls into a parking lot in front of a nice looking diner before you even have the chance to answer

"Technically, we're on the clock, we can't-"

"It's almost lunchtime", he glances at his watch and gets out of the car, before opening the door for you

He's walking so fast you're having trouble catching up with him but then he just stands in front of the diner and peeks through the glass door

You stop behind him, looking over his shoulder

"If you want to eat, I'd recommend getting inside"

He turns to you with a scowl, his brows furrowed as he looks around the empty parking lot

"It's closed"

"Oh no. Are you going to cry?" you give him a fake pout and you can see his nostrils flaring. "I wanna get back to my notes, can we go?"

"You know, your notes ain't worth shit, honey. How do you think you look when we're having a meeting and you just scribble something down in your cute little notebook? Like an amateur. You're not in college anymore. You should be thankful I've decided to take you under my wing because where would you be now, without me, huh?"

"Probably working with someone better than you", you gave yourself a mental high five when you saw his hands balling into fists, his eyes dark and he looks about ready to pounce on you

"Take it back", he growls out and you just laugh in his face, ready to go back to the car

You turn on your heel and the next thing you know, you're being pushed against the wall and his lips are on yours, his arms caging you in

Your mind goes blank and your hands automatically wrap around his torso, but he pulls away before you have the chance to relax into the kiss

"What are you doing?"

He stares at you for a second, swallowing thickly as he's trying to think of a way out

Does he want a way out of this?

Nope

"I'm... what does it look like? I'm kissing you", his rough voice doesn't match his eyes, they're scanning your face intently, looking for any sign of hesitation

You just look at each other for a minute, your breaths heavy, eyes dark and you're so close to each other your noses are touching

Your fingers twist into the soft material of his shirt and you're pulling him down, the kiss is rough and passionate and it almost makes your knees buckle

His hand slides down and next thing you know, he's tearing your panties into shreds and you gasp into his mouth

At this point, he's basically fucking your mouth with his tongue, his fingers dancing around your folds, circling your little nub

You break the kiss and hurriedly undo his belt but he stops you, looks around, and grips your wrist, dragging you to the back of the building where no one can see you

As soon as your back hits the wall he's on his knees before you, one of his hands grasping your thigh while the other slides up your stomach and under your shirt

"Get up, we don't have time for foreplay," you push his hand away and he looks up landing a harsh slap on your thigh

"Do you have to be so annoying even now?" he huffs, quickly standing up and hiking your skirt up, his other hand fumbling with his belt as you pull him down for a kiss

"I really don't like you," you breathe and he almost laughs at that, his hard, leaking cock already at your entrance

"I really don't give a fuck," he says through clenched teeth, right as his hips snap forward, his hand grasping your thigh and hooking your leg around his waist

"Shit, Andy," you moan out, hiding your face in his neck as he pounds into you, every harsh thrust punctuated by a groan

"That’s mister Barber to you," he says lowly, and you pull away narrowing your eyes at him, your fingers grasping his shoulders

"How about mister dickhead?" you pant out in between his thrusts and he laughs breathily, his other hand grasping your other thigh and he picks you up, slamming you hard against the wall

"Jesus Christ, I'm trying to fuck, can you cooperate just this once?"

Your hips and back are being repeatedly slammed against the wall and your head falls forward, against his shoulder,  as you're getting closer and closer to your peak

You can feel his cock pulsating inside you and you whine, it feels like he's fucking swelling and the head of his cock is poking your cervix

His eyes are squeezed shut as his thrusts gain in speed, his jaw hanging open

"Yeah, fucking take it. That what you wanted, huh? You just needed to get laid?" his voice is barely audible, "I fucking knew it"

His words bring you closer to orgasm and you let out a shaky moan, your walls tightening around him and your body tense

The first wave of your orgasm hits you so suddenly your eyes snap open and you cry out, your cunt throbbing

"There it is. Little miss perfect cumming around her superior’s cock in an empty parking lot. If I had known you were so eager, I'd have fucked that tight, needy pussy of yours long ago," he husked, fucking into you frantically, his hips stuttering

Your body was limp in his arms, your pussy still pulsating around his cock, at this point it was so sensitive, every thrust of his hips made you whine and cry out into his neck

Hooking his arms around your shoulders, his body lunged forward as he felt himself getting closer, his cock nearly tearing you in half and his balls slapping against your ass

"Holy shit, fuck... Can I cum in you? Let me cum in that pussy, wanna see it leaking out of you," he groaned, his breaths getting heavy

"No, you're not wearing a condom, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

He set you back to your feet with a growl, and next thing you know, your back is against his chest and he's hiking your skirt up, exposing your bare ass

He reaches for your hand and wraps it around his cock, using it to jerk himself, his other hand pressing on your shoulder blade, making you arch your back

"Gonna fucking shoot my load, gonna fucking cum on your ass," he grunts, his hand squeezing yours around his cock, fucking into it

Your legs almost give out as his hand squeezes your shoulder to keep you still, his hot cum shooting right on your bare ass, sliding between your ass cheeks and probably on your pussy

"Oh my fucking god," you moan, letting go of his cock and bracing both of your hands against the wall, your ass pushing back against his cock

He steps back finally, tucking himself back into his pants, and looks at you for a second, a proud smirk on his lips

"I should take a picture of you"

"Don't you dare," you straighten up, smoothing out your skirt, avoiding Andy's eyes

He notices it, of course he notices it, that fucker

He walks up to you, taking his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and offers it to you, his shoulders visibly relaxed

"This stays between us," you say as you get back into the car, clean and satisfied but also what the hell, you just got fucked by Andy Barber

He nods and turns the radio on, smiling when he hears you humming along

He’s thrumming his fingers on the steering wheel, biting the inside of his cheek and you know he's thinking about something

"What?" You ask

"You free this Saturday?"

My long ass taglist: @donutloverxo​

[punk-zionist-vibes]

You can't be pro-state/nationalist/Zionist and punk that's an oxymoron 😐

Rebellion isn't always psychologically through anger

As someone who is being Punk for quite a while and pursues it I can tell you that Rebellion can be done in a lot of ways which systematically criticized a system or goes as far to just break complete expectations of what people demand of you

People are in very different levels and paces of being Punk same as how a lot of forms of genres work

I very much enjoy the enthusiasm of your energy though

And if I don't seem punk or don't show it off often I'm just not very open about it even if I'm a very vocal person I can also be quiet about my life as well surprise

punk is about criticizing the government and the big cats, or just being skeptical of society in general, that can manifest in all types of ways. Its not just fashion and music, or "acab"

oh different levels and paces doesn't always mean the extreme of anti-government Think of it like being political not everyone who is political is lib left or auth right corners Same as how a lot of punk people can rebel in other forms or just break expectations and as a bottom line you can also be anti-government there's more to punk than just wearing black and saying I hate the president

Punk, as a subculture, was a rebellion against the social conditions of the 1970s through its openly confrontational and aggressive style and aesthetics. The vulgarity of punk clothing and obscene artwork was a purposeful attempt to shock and offend mainstream culture and figures of authority.

Punk can be fighting for change. Punk can be rebelling expectations. Punk can be the genre of the music and style, all that combines to different spectrums of how you participate in the culture.

Punk ideologies are a group of varied social and political beliefs associated with the punk subculture and punk rock. It is primarily concerned with concepts such as mutual aid,[1] against selling out,[2] egalitarianism, humanitarianism, anti-authoritarianism,[3] anti-consumerism,[3] anti-corporatism, anti-war, decolonization, anti-conservatism, anti-globalization, anti-gentrification, anti-racism, anti-sexism, gender equality, racial equality, health rights, civil rights, animal rights, disability rights,[4] free-thought and non-conformity. One of its main tenets is a rejection of mainstream, corporate mass culture and its values. It continues to evolve its ideology as the movement spreads throughout North America from its origins in England and New York and embraces a range of anti-racist and anti-sexist belief systems. Punk ideologies are often leftist or anti-capitalist and go against authoritarian and right-wing Christian ideologies.

Punk ideologies are usually expressed through punk rock music and lyrics, punk literature such as amateur fanzines, spoken word performances or recordings, punk fashion, or punk visual art. Some punks have participated in direct action, such as protest or demonstration disruption, political violence, ecotage, street barricades, squatting, pirate radio, off-grid energy, graffiti, vandalism and public and business property destruction, and indirect action through counter-propaganda, protests or boycotts. They support and squat in urban and rural collective houses, with group funds held in common. Punk fashion was originally an expression of nonconformity, as well as opposition to both mainstream culture and the status quo. Punk fashion often displays aggression, rebellion, and individualism. Some punks wear accessories, clothing or have tattoos that express sociopolitical messages. They stage Punk Rock Food Drives, such as D.O.A's Unity for Freedom. Punk visual art also often includes political messages. Many punks wear secondhand clothing, partly as an anti-consumerist statement.

^^^^^ Note how there are MANY categories that make up what is being Punk and not EVERYONE falls under every tiny category while not holding directly oppressive views that counter being punk.

not allowing antisemites to stop us from returning to our indigineous homeland has been one of the most rebellious acts of these 3,000 years we've ever fought and will continue to. it's anti racism, and proving expectations on us wrong. it's so many things, from the amount of online spending I've had for the clothes and bands I've listened to, it's the thought of being under the radar of the system and fighting for constant change that counts.

I'm not a sheep that follows the mainstream news of all the demonizing bullshit against Israel I hear. beyond research I question and call out authority that pits itself against us and rebel its tedious ways to shock others and make a statement.

there are so many ways to identify as punk. your experience and/or expectation does not define me, and the identification to being Punk is NOT a competition.

Wooorrrd.

(may I mention that zionism is not a politically authoritarian movement? Israel as people of ALL political parties and spectrums in it, some may seem a bit more dominated in a certain spectrum than others but once again we're majorly progressive and fight double standards, so that says a lot on us rebelling oppressive systems, which is part of being punk.)

albeit being honest? we need regions to have fast and effecient ways to communicate to others the places we go to, and to name those gives association to those places so people know EXACTLY what you're talking about rather than describing every TINY detail on the area because that takes too long.

eventually certain people settle down in certain areas, have stuff in their region others don't in theirs, trade starts. places develop culture, history, peoples, and events that occur within it and then so.

we're all human, we're just allowed to be proud of where we come from while also acknowledging what's wrong to keep mending it where necessary.

society is inevitable, the best we can do is rebel whatever in it keeps us from being free.

[archive-archives]

Coming in April!

NEW 2020 1080p HD masters                                                                               JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS IN OUTER SPACE

Run Time             352:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Audio Specs        DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English, MONO - English

Aspect Ratio       1.33:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color    COLOR

Disc Configuration 2 BD 50

 Rock stars Josie and the Pussycats are out of this world...literally! When the bumbling Alexandra accidentally launches Josie and the gang into outer space, they travel through the galaxy searching for a path back to Earth. Along the way, they meet cat people, robot monsters, evil dictators, space pirates and plenty of strange creatures, including their new companion Bleep, voiced by Hanna-Barbera legend Don Messick. Fortunately, everyone’s a fan of Josie and the Pussycats, including aliens! Rocket through the universe with your favorite superstars as they save the day, sing some songs and have a hip-happenin’ good time in a 2-disc, 16-episode Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space complete series collection that hits all the right notes!

                                                                                                                                NEW 2021 1080p HD Master Sourced from 4K scan of preservation film elements!       

GREEN DOLPHIN STREET

Run Time             141:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Audio Specs:       DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English, MONO - English

Aspect Ratio:      1.37:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color    BLACK & WHITE

Disc Configuration           BD 50

Special Features: Lux Radio Theater Broadcast;  Theatrical Trailer (HD)    

                                                                        The Academy Award® winner about star-crossed love that spans the years – and the globe. After her triumph as the lunchroom temptress in the crime classic The Postman Always Rings Twice, Lana Turner expanded her range with Green Dolphin Street. Set in 19th century Europe and New Zealand, this sweeping romance tells the story of two beautiful sisters, one headstrong (Turner) and one gentle (Donna Reed), and of the man (Richard Hart) who marries one even though he loves the other. The film’s riptides of emotion are matched by breathtaking physical tumult: a fierce Maori uprising plus a catastrophic earthquake and tidal wave that earned the film a 1947 Oscar® for special effects. With its dramatic story and spectacular visuals, Green Dolphin Street drew huge audiences for epic moviemaking, being one of the top-ten box office hits of the year.

 NEW 2021 1080p HD Master Sourced from 4K scan of Nitrate preservation elements!               

BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940    

Run Time             102:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Audio Specs:       DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English, MONO - English

Aspect Ratio:      1.37:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color    BLACK & WHITE

Disc Configuration           BD 50

Special Features: Making-of Featurette: "Begin the Beguine" (hosted by Ann Miller); "Our Gang Comedies: The Big Premiere"; MGM Cartoon: "The Milky Way" ; Original Theatrical Trailer (HD)

 The job – a career breakthrough – is supposed to go to hoofer Johnny Brett, but a mix-up in names gives it to his partner. Another example of Broadway hopes dashed? Not when Johnny is played by Fred Astaire. Sparkling Cole Porter songs, clever comedy and dance legends Astaire and Eleanor Powell make the final Broadway Melody (co-starring George Murphy) a film to remember. Powell’s nautical “All Ashore" routine (a/k/a I Am the Captain”), Astaire’s blissful “I’ve Got My Eyes on You” and Fred & Eleanor's elaborate routine to Cole Porter's classic "I Concentrate On You" are more than enough to please any fan. But they’re just a warm-up for the leads to tap one finale number into immortality: “Begin the Beguine,” introduced by Frank Sinatra in That’s Entertainment! with, “You can wait around and hope, but you’ll never see the likes of this again.”                                                                                     

 NEW 2021 1080p HD Master Sourced from a new 4K restoration of the last-known surviving nitrate Technicolor print!

DOCTOR X (1932)            

Run Time             76:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Audio Specs:       DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English, MONO - English

Aspect Ratio:      1.37:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color      COLOR; BLACK & WHITE

Disc Configuration           BD 50

Special Features: Alternate B&W version of feature; DOCTOR X (HD): UCLA Before & After Restoration featurette (HD); New documentary: "Monsters and Mayhem: The Horror Films of Michael Curtiz (HD); New feature commentary by author/film historian Alan K. Rode; Archival feature commentary by Scott MacQueen, head of preservation, UCLA Film and Television Archive. Original B&W Theatrical Trailer (HD)             

 Is there a (mad) doctor in the house? “Yes!” shrieks Doctor X, filmed in rare two-strip Technicolor®. An eminent scientist aims to solve a murder spree by re-creating the crimes in a lab filled with all the dials, gizmos, bubbling beakers and crackling electrostatic charges essential to the genre. Lionel Atwill is Doctor Xavier, pre-King Kong scream queen Fay Wray is a distressed damsel and Lee Tracy snaps newshound patter, all under the direction of renowned Michael Curtiz. The new two-color Technicolor master was restored by UCLA Film and Television Archive and The Film Foundation in association with Warner Bros. Entertainment. Funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Foundation. Also includes the separately filmed B&W version (which has been restored and restored from its original nitrate camera negative) originally intended for small U.S. markets and International distribution, and which has been out of distribution for over 30 years.

 NEW 2021 1080p HD Master Sourced from 4K scan of original nitrate Technicolor negatives!       

ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (1950)

Run Time             107:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Sound Quality    DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English

Aspect Ratio       1.37:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color    COLOR

Disc Configuration           BD 50

Special Features: Susan Lucci retrospective & intro piece (from 2000 DVD release); Outtakes: Let’s Go West Again-Betty Hutton, Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly-Judy Garland, I’m an Indian, Too-Judy Garland,  Colonel Buffalo Bill with Howard Keel and Frank Morgan; Stereo audio pre-recording session tracks including There’s No Business Like Show Business featuring Judy Garland; Theatrical Re-issue Trailer (HD)

 Betty Hutton (as Annie Oakley) and Howard Keel (as Frank Butler) star in this sharpshootin’ funfest based on the 1,147-performance Broadway smash boasting Irving Berlin’s beloved score, including “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” “I Got the Sun in the Morning” and the anthemic “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” As produced by Arthur Freed, directed by George Sidney, and seen and heard in this new remastered HD presentation, this lavish, spirited production showcases songs and performances with bull’s-eye precision, earning an Oscar®* for adaptation scoring. The story is a brawling boy-meets-girl-meets-buckshot rivalry. But love finally triumphs when Annie proves that, yes, you can get a man with a gun!                                                                    

 NEW 2021 1080p HD Master!                                                                                 QUICK CHANGE (1990)

Run Time             88:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Sound Quality    DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English

Aspect Ratio       1.85:1, 16 X 9 WIDESCREEN

Product Color    COLOR

Disc Configuration           BD 25

Special Feature: Theatrical Trailer

 The star of Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day headlines and codirects this uproarious Big Apple heist-and-pursuit caper. Bill Murray plays Grimm, a frazzled urbanite who disguises himself as a clown – and sets out to rob a bank. Geena Davis and Randy Quaid play accomplices in Grimm’s daring scheme and Jason Robards is the blustery cop caught up in Grimm’s “Clown Day Afternoon.” Swiping a million bucks is a snap compared to getting out of town. Grimm and cohorts commandeer a car, a cab, a bus, a baggage tram and a plane (and encounter future stars Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub in hilarious supporting roles) to make what becomes a less-than-merry escape. But for comedy lovers, Quick Change is a ticket to ride!                                                                                                 

 NEW 2021 1080p HD Master Sourced from 4K scan of best surviving nitrate preservation elements!            EACH DAWN I DIE (1939)

Run Time             92:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Audio Specs:       DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English, MONO - English

Aspect Ratio:      1.37:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color    BLACK & WHITE

Disc Configuration           BD 50    

Special Features: Warner Night at the Movies including 1939 Short Subjects Gallery: Vintage Newsreel,  WB Technicolor Short: "A Day at Santa Anita", WB Cartoon: "Detouring America"; Restrospective featurette: "Stool Pigeons and Pine Overcoats: The Language of Gangster Films" ; Feature Commentary by Film Historian Haden Guest; Breakdowns of 1939: Studio Blooper Reel; WB Cartoon: "Each Dawn I Crow"; Radio show w/George Raft & Franchot Tone; Trailer for "Wings of the Navy" and Original Theatrical Trailer for Each Dawn I Die (HD)  

 Framed for manslaughter after he breaks a story about city corruption, reporter Frank Ross is sure he’ll prove his innocence and walk out of prison a free man. But that’s not how the system works at Rocky Point Penitentiary. There, cellblock guards are vicious, the jute-mill labor is endless, and the powers Ross fought on the outside conspire to keep him in. Frank’s hope is turned to hopelessness. And he’s starting to crack. Two of the screen’s famed tough guys star in this prison movie that casts a reform-minded eye on the brutalizing effects of life in the slammer. James Cagney “hits a white-hot peak as [Ross,] the embittered, stir-crazy fall guy” (Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide). And George Raft (Cagney’s friend since their vaudeville days) portrays racketeer Hood Stacey, who may hold the key to springing Ross.                               

 NEW 2021 1080p HD Master Sourced from 4K scan of best surviving preservation elements!                 

ANOTHER THIN MAN (1939)

Run Time             102:00

Subtitles               English SDH

Audio Specs:       DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English, MONO - English

Aspect Ratio:      1.37:1 4x3 FULL FRAME

Product Color    BLACK & WHITE

Disc Configuration           BD 50    

Special Features: M-G-M Musical Short: Love on Tap; Classic M-G-M Cartoon: The Bookworm

 Dum-Dum, Wacky, Creeps, Fingers: They’re just a few of the hoodlums in the world of amateur sleuths and professional bon vivants Nick and Nora Charles. And now there’s a new hood: parenthood. A birthday – make that boithday – party that some of da boys hold for infant Nick Jr. is part of the fun in this third film in the witty series. The case begins when the Charles family arrives for a weekend with a Long Island industrialist who fears someone wants to kill him. Sure enough, his fears come true. Nick (William Powell) is among the suspects. Asta scrams with what may be the murder weapon. And Nora (Myrna Loy) has her own ideas about the case and sneaks off to a nightclub to ferret out a clue. “Madam, how long have you been leading this double life?” Nick asks. “Just since we’ve been married,” she replies.

[greatworldwar2]

• Witlod Pilecki

Witold Pilecki was a Polish cavalry officer, intelligence agent, and resistance leader who volunteered to be embedded in Auschwitz, among other exploits. Pilecki was also a co-founder of the Secret Polish Army resistance group and later a member of the Home Army. Pilecki was a Catholic and a Polish patriot who viewed his struggle as a moral and patriotic duty.

Witold Pilecki was born on May 13th, 1901 in the town of Olonets, Karelia, in the Russian Empire. He was a descendant of an aristocratic family (szlachta) originally from the Grodno region. His grandfather, Józef Pilecki h. Leliwa, was a member of the Polish landed gentry and a dedicated Polish nationalist. Józef Pilecki had been a supporter of the secessionist January Uprising of 1863–1864. Following the brutal defeat of the uprising by Russian forces, Józef Pilecki, like most Polish nobles who supported the rebellion, had his title revoked and estate and other properties were confiscated by the Russian government. After his release he and his family were forcibly resettled by Tsarist authorities to the remote territory of Karelia. Witold's father, Julian Pilecki, worked for the Russian civil service and eventually settled in the town of Olonets in Karelia where he married Ludwika Pilecki. Witold Pilecki was the fourth of the couple's five children. In 1910, Ludwika and the children left Karelia and relocated to the Northwestern Krai. After being joined by their father, the family settled in Wilno (now: Vilnius, Lithuania), where Pilecki completed primary school and became a member of the secret ZHP Scouts organization. During the First World War, Wilno was occupied by the German Army in September 1915 and was incorporated into Ober Ost, the German military administration. Pilecki and his family fled to Mogilev, Byelorussia. In 1916, Pilecki moved to the Russian city of Oryol, where he attended gymnasium and founded a local chapter of the ZHP group.

In 1918, following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, Pilecki returned to Wilno (now part of the newly independent Polish Second Republic) and joined a ZHP Scout section of the Lithuanian and Belarusian Self-Defense Militia, a paramilitary formation aligned with the White movement. The militia disarmed the retreating German troops and took up positions to defend the city from a looming attack by the Soviet Red Army. However, Wilno fell to Bolshevik forces on January 5th, 1919, and Pilecki and his unit resorted to partisan warfare behind Soviet lines. He and his comrades then retreated to Białystok where Pilecki enlisted as a szeregowy (private) in Poland's newly established volunteer army. He took part in the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921. He fought in the Kiev Offensive (1920) and as part of a cavalry unit defending the city of Grodno. On August 5th, 1920, Pilecki joined the 211th Uhlan Regiment and fought in the crucial Battle of Warsaw and in the Rudniki Forest. Following the conclusion of Polish-Soviet War in March 1921 Pilecki was transferred to the army reserves. He was promoted to the rank of plutonowy (corporal) and was designated as a non-commissioned officer. He went on to complete his secondary education (matura) later that same year. In 1922, Pilecki briefly attended the University of Poznań where he studied agriculture. He soon returned to Wilno and enrolled with the Faculty of Fine Arts at Stefan Batory University. Pilecki was forced to abandon his studies in 1924 due to both financial issues and the declining health of his father. He remained active in the military as a member of the army reserves and served as a military instructor in Nowe Święcice. Pilecki later underwent officer-training at the Cavalry Reserve Officers' Training School in Grudziądz. In September 1926, Pilecki became the owner of his family's ancestral estate, Sukurcze, in the Lida district of the Nowogródek Voivodeship. Pilecki rebuilt and modernized the property's manor house, which had been destroyed during World War I. On April 7th,1931, he married Maria Pilecka, a local school teacher originally from Kupa.

Pilecki developed a reputation as a community leader, a prominent social worker and amateur painter. He was also a vigorous advocate of rural development, founding an agricultural cooperative, heading the local fire brigade and also serving as chairman of a local milk-processing plant built in the district. In 1932, Pilecki established a cavalry training school in Lida. Shortly afterward he was appointed commander of the newly-established 1st Lidsky Squadron, a position he would hold until 1937, when this unit was absorbed into the Polish 19th Infantry Division. In 1938, Pilecki received the Silver Cross of Merit for his community activism. Pilecki was mobilized as a cavalry platoon commander in August 1939. He was assigned to the 19th Infantry Division under General Józef Kwaciszewski, part of the Polish Army Prusy, and his unit took part in heavy fighting against the advancing Germans during the invasion of Poland. The platoon was almost completely destroyed following a clash with the German forces on 10 September, and it withdrew to the southeast toward Lwów. It was incorporated into the 41st Infantry Division, in which Pilecki served as divisional second in command. He and his men destroyed seven German tanks, shot down one aircraft, and destroyed two more on the ground. After the fall of Warsaw on 27 September 1939, Pilecki and many of his men continued fighting as partisans. His division was disbanded on October 17th, with parts of it surrendering to the enemy.

Pilecki went into hiding in Warsaw with his commander Major Włodarkiewicz. On November 9th, 1939, the two men founded the Secret Polish Army (Tajna Armia Polska, TAP), one of the first underground organizations in Poland. Włodarkiewicz became its leader, while Pilecki became organizational commander of TAP as it expanded to cover Warsaw, Siedlce, Radom, Lublin, and other major cities in central Poland. While Pilecki wanted to avert a religious mission so as not to alienate potential allies, Włodarkiewicz blamed Poland's defeat on its failure to create a Catholic nation; he wanted to remake the country by appealing to right-wing groups. In the spring of 1940, Pilecki saw that Włodarkiewicz was "flirting with anti-Semitic views". To stop him, Pilecki went to Colonel Stefan Rowecki, the chief of TAP's rival resistance group, the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), which called for equal rights for Jews and was focused on intelligence gathering of German atrocities and delivering it by courier missions to the Western Allies in an attempt to gain their involvement. The ZWZ had alerted the Polish Government in exile that the Germans were inciting Polish racial hatred as a diversion from their own crimes, and that a Polish Quisling could emerge as a result. In August, Włodarkiewicz announced at a TAP meeting that after all they would join the mainstream underground with Rowecki and that Pilecki had been nominated to go to Auschwitz. Włodarkiewicz said it was not an order but an invitation to volunteer, but Pilecki saw it as a punishment for refusing to back his ideology but nevertheless took up the challenge.

In 1940, Pilecki presented a plan to his superiors to enter Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp at Oświęcim to gather intelligence on the camp from the inside and organize inmate resistance. Little was known about how the Germans ran the camp, and it was thought to be an internment camp or large prison rather than a death camp. His superiors approved the plan and provided him with a false identity card. He went out during a Warsaw street roundup on September 19th, 1940 and was caught by the Germans along with 2,000 civilians. He was detained for two days in the Light Horse Guards Barracks, where prisoners suffered beatings with rubber truncheons, then sent to Auschwitz where he was assigned inmate number 4859. Pilecki organized the underground Union of Military Organizations (ZOW) at Auschwitz while working in various kommandos and surviving pneumonia. Many smaller underground organizations at Auschwitz eventually merged with ZOW. ZOW's tasks were to improve inmate morale, provide news from outside, distribute extra food and clothing to members, set up intelligence networks, and train detachments to take over the camp in the event of a relief attack by the Home Army, arms airdrops, or an airborne landing by the Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade based in Britain. ZOW provided the Polish underground with invaluable information about the camp; they sent reports to Warsaw from October 1940, and the reports were forwarded via the Polish resistance to the British government in London beginning in March 1941. In 1942, Pilecki's resistance movement was also broadcasting details on the number of arrivals and deaths in the camp and the inmates' conditions using a radio transmitter that was built by camp inmates. The secret radio station was built over seven months using smuggled parts. The radio was dismantled by Pilecki's men after concerns that the Germans might discover its location because of "one of our fellows' big mouth". These reports were a principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Pilecki hoped that either the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp, or that the Home Army would organize an assault on it from outside.

Meanwhile, the Camp Gestapo under SS-Untersturmfuhrer Maximilian Grabner redoubled its efforts to ferret out ZOW members, killing many of them. Pilecki decided to break out of the camp with the hope of convincing Home Army leaders personally that a rescue attempt was a valid option. Pilecki was assigned to a night shift at a camp bakery outside the fence, and he and two comrades overpowered a guard, cut the phone line, and escaped on the night of April 27th, 1943, taking with them documents stolen from the Germans. The men fled on foot to the village of Alwernia where they were helped by a priest, and then on to Tyniec where locals assisted them. After that, they reached the Polish resistance safe house near Bochnia. At one point during the journey, German soldiers attempted to stop Pilecki, firing at him as he fled; several bullets passed through his clothing, while one struck him without hitting either bones or vital organs. After several days as a fugitive, Pilecki made contact with units of the Home Army. On August 25th, 1943, Pilecki reached Warsaw and was attached to Section II (intelligence and counter-intelligence) of the Home Army's regional headquarters. After losing several operatives reconnoitering the vicinity of Auschwitz, it was decided that the Home Army lacked sufficient strength to liberate the camp without Allied help. Pilecki's detailed report estimated that "By March 1943 the number of people gassed on arrival reached 1.5 million", which was remarkably accurate considering post-war estimates suggest 1.1 million people died in Auschwitz during the war. On November 11th, 1943, Pilecki was promoted to Rotmistrz (cavalry captain) and joined a secret anti-communist organization, NIE (both the Polish word for "no" and short for niepodległość "independence"), formed as a clandestine unit within the Home Army with the goal of preparing resistance against a possible Soviet occupation. The Soviet Red Army, despite being within attacking distance of the camp, showed no interest in a joint effort with the Home Army and the ZOW to free it. Until he became involved in the Warsaw Uprising, Pilecki remained in charge of coordinating ZOW and AK activities and provided what limited support he was able to offer to ZOW.

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on August 1st, 1944, Pilecki volunteered for service with Kedyw's Chrobry II Battalion. At first, Pilecki served as a common soldier in the northern city center, without revealing his actual rank to his superiors. Later, after many officers were killed in the fierce fighting that occurred during the early days of the uprising, Pilecki disclosed his true identity to his superiors and accepted command of the 1st "Warszawianka" Company located in Śródmieście in downtown Warsaw. After the capitulation of the uprising, Pilecki hid a cache of weapons in a private apartment and surrendered to the Wehrmacht on October 5th, 1944. He was sent to Germany and imprisoned at Stalag VIII-B, a prisoner-of-war camp near Lamsdorf, Silesia. He was later transferred to Oflag VII-A in Murnau, Bavaria where he was eventually liberated by troops of the US 12th Armored Division on April 28th, 1945. In July 1945, Pilecki left Murnau and was reassigned to the military intelligence division of the Polish II Corps under General Władysław Anders in Ancona, Italy. While stationed there, Pilecki began writing a monograph on his experiences at Auschwitz.

In October 1945, as relations between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet-backed regime of Boleslaw Bierut deteriorated, Pilecki was ordered by General Anders and his intelligence chief, Lt. Colonel Stanislaw Kijak, to return to Poland and report on the prevailing military and political situation under Soviet-occupation. Pilecki arrived in Warsaw in December 1945 and proceeded to begin organizing an intelligence gathering network, which included several wartime associates from Auschwitz and the Secret Polish Army (TAP). To maintain his cover identity, Pilecki lived under various assumed names and changed jobs frequently. He would work as a jewelry salesman, a bottle label painter and as night manager of a construction warehouse. Nevertheless, Pilecki was informed in July 1946 that his actual identity had been uncovered by the MBP. He was ordered to leave the country, but he refused to do so. Pilecki was arrested by agents of the Ministry of Public Security in May 1947, and he was repeatedly tortured before going to trial. A fellow accused saw him with two collarbones broken and his hands hanging limply by his sides. A show trial took place on March 3rd, 1948, and testimony against Pilecki was presented by future Polish prime minister Józef Cyrankiewicz, himself an Auschwitz survivor. Pilecki was charged with illegal border crossing, use of forged documents, not enlisting with the military, carrying illegal arms, espionage for General Władysław Anders, espionage for "foreign imperialism" (government-in-exile), and planning to assassinate several officials of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Pilecki denied the assassination charges, as well as espionage, although he admitted to passing information to the 2nd Polish Corps, of which he considered himself an officer and thus claimed that he was not breaking any laws. He was sentenced to death on May 15th, with three of his comrades, and he was executed with a shot to the back of the head at the Mokotów Prison in Warsaw on May 25th, 1948. Pilecki was 47 when died. Pilecki's place of burial has never been found but is thought to be somewhere within Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery. In 2012, Powązki Cemetery was partially excavated in an effort to find his remains.

[newstfionline]

Monday, January 18, 2021

Post Trump, Republicans Are Headed for a Bitter Internal Showdown (NYT) As President Trump prepares to leave office with his party in disarray, Republican leaders including Senator Mitch McConnell are maneuvering to thwart his grip on the G.O.P. in future elections, while forces aligned with Mr. Trump are looking to punish Republican lawmakers and governors who have broken with him. The friction is already escalating in several key swing states. They include Arizona, where Trump-aligned activists are seeking to censure the Republican governor they deem insufficiently loyal to the president, and Georgia, where a hard-right faction wants to defeat the current governor in a primary election.

The wrong ID (Washington Post) As a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, retired Chicago firefighter David Quintavalle was about 700 miles away, shopping at an Aldi grocery store for the final ingredients for his wife’s birthday dinner. The 63-year-old’s mind was on the menu—filet mignon and lobster—and not insurrection. But a man resembling Quintavalle with salt-and-pepper hair and a “CFD”-labeled beanie was among the rioters. In a video, the man pelted police with a fire extinguisher, striking at least one officer. In the days following the attack, Internet sleuths who have hunted down those who participated in the Jan. 6 riot mistook the man for Quintavalle. Soon, people were calling Quintavalle’s cell and home phone, harassing his son, a Chicago police officer with the same name, and lurking outside Quintavalle’s home. Online amateur investigators have identified and shared information on social media about people in photos and videos at the Capitol, leading to a portion of the more than 100,000 tips submitted to the FBI. The hurried pace of new information has also increased the dissemination of incorrect names and targeting the wrong people. The victims of such false accusations include martial artist and actor Chuck Norris. A photo circulated online of his doppelganger among those storming the Capitol. The baseless speculation was shot down by his manager. Federal authorities allege the man who threw the fire extinguisher is Robert Lee Sanford Jr., 55, a recently retired firefighter from Chester, Pa. But Quintavalle still receives hateful calls and messages calling him a “murder” and “terrorist.” A police officer is stationed outside Quintavalle’s home for his safety.

Pre-inauguration jitters (Washington Post) The nation is holding its breath as state capitals around the country brace for possible violence in the coming days. State officials are activating National Guard troops and closing off Capitol grounds in response to F.B.I. warnings that armed protesters and far-right groups are preparing to act in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday. Law enforcement officials are vetting hundreds of potential airplane passengers and beefing up airport security. Federal officials say a militarized “green zone” in downtown Washington is necessary to prevent an attack from domestic extremists. Because of security concerns and the pandemic, Inauguration Day will be more subdued than usual.

U.S. pundits keep comparing Washington to a war zone. People who know war disagree. (Washington Post) A massive security operation is underway in Washington ahead of President-elect Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday, two weeks after a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. As images of National Guard troops circulate online, some in the United States have compared the capital to a war zone. The commentary has drawn pushback from people who have lived or worked in areas actually beset by conflict, who say such remarks are misleading and trivializes the reality of war. “It’s extremely degrading to people who have actually lived through war and foreign occupation and have actually seen tanks rolling down their streets and foreign soldiers occupying their land or their own soldiers deployed against them,” said Jasmine el-Gamal, a former Pentagon adviser who worked in Iraq as a translator following the U.S. invasion in 2003. “That’s a conflict situation. That’s a war zone.” Faysal Itani, an adjunct professor of Middle East politics at George Washington University, called conditions in Washington “qualitatively different” from conflicts in places like Lebanon, where he is from, and elsewhere in the Middle East. Americans, Itani said, often view their country in one of two modes: “It’s either a pristine place … that somehow functions according to different rules” than the rest of the world, “or it turns out it’s imperfect and we’re back in Baghdad.”

Biden Seeks Quick Start With Executive Actions and Aggressive Legislation (NYT) President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., inheriting a collection of crises unlike any in generations, plans to open his administration with dozens of executive directives on top of expansive legislative proposals in a 10-day blitz. Mr. Biden’s team has developed a raft of decrees that he can issue on his own authority after the inauguration on Wednesday to begin reversing some of President Trump’s most hotly disputed policies. On his first day in office alone, Mr. Biden intends a flurry of executive orders that will be partly substantive and partly symbolic. They include rescinding the travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, rejoining the Paris climate change accord, extending pandemic-related limits on evictions and student loan payments, issuing a mask mandate for federal property and interstate travel and ordering agencies to figure out how to reunite children separated from families after crossing the border. The blueprint of executive action comes after Mr. Biden announced that he will push Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion package of economic stimulus and pandemic relief, signaling a willingness to be aggressive on policy issues.

Leaders in Mexico and Poland look to curb power of social media giants after Trump bans (Washington Post) In the aftermath of President Trump’s banishment from social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, a handful of world leaders have expressed alarm over the power of private companies to decide if and when to ban elected leaders from key parts of the public arena. At least two ruling governments—on the left wing in Mexico and the right in Poland—have since suggested pursuing policies to prevent what happened to Trump. In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Thursday in a daily briefing shared on social media that his government would reach out to other G-20 nations to seek a joint proposal on such bans, which he compared to the “Spanish Inquisition.” In Poland, meanwhile, the conservative-led government is pushing a draft “Freedom of Speech” law, first announced last month, that would regulate speech restrictions on social media. Without mentioning Trump, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki likened the power of the social media companies to state control in the country during the Communist era. Sebastian Kaleta, Poland’s deputy minister of justice, said in an interview this week that the Trump bans “could even be called censorship.”

Mexico’s female vigilantes (NY Post) The Michoacan area of Mexico has gotten so lawless, a band of female vigilantes are taking it upon themselves to protect their friends and family. The state, which is the world’s largest supplier of avocados and limes, has recently been overrun by the violent Jalisco drug cartel that hail from the neighboring state and so the women are fighting back, according to The Associated Press. The women carry assault rifles and post roadblocks, often while pregnant or carrying small children with them, to combat the growing homicide levels, which have skyrocketed since 2013. The majority of the women have lost family members to the cartel, like Blanco Nava who told the AP her son Freddy Barrios, a 29-year old lime picker, was kidnapped by presumed Jalisco cartel gunmen in pickup trucks; she has never heard from him since. “We are going to defend those we have left, the children we have left, with our lives. We women are tired of seeing our children, our families disappear. They take our sons, they take our daughters, our relatives, our husbands.” It is left to the women to fight as most men are being carted away to work for the cartels (willingly or not). The vigilantes say they have to resort to these tactics as the government and police fail to do so.

Guatemala cracks down on migrant caravan bound for United States (Reuters) Guatemalan authorities on Saturday escalated efforts to stop thousands of Hondurans, many of them families with children, traveling in a migrant caravan bound for the United States just as a new administration is about to enter the White House. Between 7,000 and 8,000 migrants have entered Guatemala since Friday, according to Guatemala’s immigration authority, fleeing poverty and violence in a region battered by the pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes in November. Videos seen by Reuters showed Guatemalan security forces clashing with a group of hundreds of migrants who managed to break through a police blockade at the village of Vado Hondo, near Chiquimula in eastern Guatemala. Between Friday and Saturday, Guatemala had sent back almost 1,000 migrants entering from Honduras, the government said, as the caravan moved towards Mexico.

England Isn’t Listening to Johnson’s Lockdown Orders Any More (Bloomberg) People across England are about to be hit with a deluge of new government adverts on television, radio and social media containing one blunt demand: Stay at home. It’s a familiar message—and that may be why the public seems to be shrugging it off. The data shows Britons are far more active during the current third national lockdown than when the first emergency “stay at home” order was given last spring. There’s more traffic on the roads, more people on trains and more shoppers making trips out. The picture is not unique to the U.K. Elsewhere in Europe, people have grown tired of wave after wave of restrictions. What makes England different is that even from the start, the messaging was mixed from a government that was reluctant to curb people’s liberties. In Spain and Italy, which imposed harsh lockdowns from the beginning, entire families became accustomed to living with life-altering restrictions. In Madrid and Milan, everyone wears a mask outside, and children must wear them at school. In London, face coverings outdoors are still optional. But in recent surveys people insist they are still following the rules. Stephen Reicher, a U.K. government adviser and professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews, dismissed the concept of lockdown “fatigue” as a way for the authorities to shift the blame onto the public.

Switzerland to Hold Referendum on Covid-19 Lockdown (WSJ) Switzerland’s system of direct democracy will be put to the test again later this year, this time with a referendum on whether to roll back the government’s powers to impose lockdowns and other measures to slow the Covid-19 pandemic. The landlocked Alpine nation of 8.5 million people is unusual in providing its people a say on important policy moves by offering referendums if enough people sign a petition for a vote. Last year, Swiss voted on increasing the stock of low-cost housing, tax allowances for children and hunting wolves. The idea is to provide citizens a check on the power of the federal government, and it is a throwback to the fiercely independent patchwork of cantons, or districts, that were meshed in the medieval period. Now, the country is set for a referendum on whether to remove the government’s legal authority to order lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions after campaigners submitted a petition of some 86,000 signatures this week—higher than the 50,000 required—triggering a nationwide vote to repeal last year’s Covid-19 Act. The ballot could come as soon as June, and it appears set to mirror disputes in the U.S. and elsewhere over how far governments should go to limit social interactions in a pandemic—or whether to lock down at all.

Gunmen kill two female Supreme Court judges in Afghanistan (Reuters) Unidentified gunmen killed two female judges from Afghanistan’s Supreme Court on Sunday morning, police said, adding to a wave of assassinations in Kabul and other cities while government and Taliban representatives have been holding peace talks in Qatar. Government officials, journalists, and activists have been targeted in recent months, stoking fear particularly in the capital Kabul. The Taliban has denied involvement in some of the attacks, but has said its fighters would continue to “eliminate” important government figures, though not journalists or civil society members.

Israel OKs hundreds of settlement homes in last-minute push (AP) Israeli authorities on Sunday advanced plans to build an additional 780 homes in West Bank settlements, an anti-settlement monitoring group said, in a last-minute surge of approvals before the friendly Trump administration leaves office later this week. Peace Now said that over 90% of the homes lay deep inside the West Bank, which the Palestinians seek as the heartland of a future independent state, and over 200 homes were located in unauthorized outposts that the government had decided to legalize. Israel has stepped up settlement construction during President Donald Trump’s term. According to Peace Now, Israel approved or advanced construction of over 12,000 settlement homes in 2020, the highest number in a single year since it began recording statistics in 2012.

Starvation haunts Ethiopia’s Tigray (AP) From “emaciated” refugees to crops burned on the brink of harvest, starvation threatens the survivors of more than two months of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. The first humanitarian workers to arrive after pleading with the Ethiopian government for access describe weakened children dying from diarrhea after drinking from rivers. Shops were looted or depleted weeks ago. A local official told a Jan. 1 crisis meeting of government and aid workers that hungry people had asked for “a single biscuit.” More than 4.5 million people, nearly the region’s entire population, need emergency food, participants say. At their next meeting on Jan. 8, a Tigray administrator warned that without aid, “hundreds of thousands might starve to death” and some already had, according to minutes obtained by The Associated Press. “There is an extreme urgent need—I don’t know what more words in English to use—to rapidly scale up the humanitarian response because the population is dying every day as we speak,” Mari Carmen Vinoles, head of the emergency unit for Doctors Without Borders, told the AP.

Children’s Screen Time Has Soared in the Pandemic, Alarming Parents and Researchers (NYT) Nearly a year into the coronavirus pandemic, parents across the country—and the world—are watching their children slide down an increasingly slippery path into an all-consuming digital life. When the outbreak hit, many parents relaxed restrictions on screens as a stopgap way to keep frustrated, restless children entertained and engaged. But, often, remaining limits have vaporized as computers, tablets and phones became the centerpiece of school and social life, and weeks of stay-at-home rules bled into nearly a year. The situation is alarming parents, and scientists too. “There will be a period of epic withdrawal,” said Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, an addiction expert and a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama on drug policy. It will, he said, require young people to “sustain attention in normal interactions without getting a reward hit every few seconds.” Scientists say that children’s brains, well through adolescence, are considered “plastic,” meaning they can adapt and shift to changing circumstances. That could help younger people again find satisfaction in an offline world but it becomes harder the longer they immerse in rapid-fire digital stimulation.

[wearejapanese]

hi do you guys know any Japanese politics podcast/YouTube channels/ websites in English? trying to be more informed but I really don't have the language skills to be interacting with such heavy material in Japanese

Unfortunately, hardly any good English language content about Japanese politics is circulated in non-newspaper formats because much of it is filtered through non-Japanese journalists (through websites like the Japan Times or NHK’s International division) who may not always have the best grasp on what is actually happening in Japan (This is why you’ll often notice that many expats in Japan report very different assessments than their Japanese counterparts. They literally get different news).

I’d say your best bet is probably to read the English versions of the following papers: the Nikkei Asian Review , Asahi Shimbun, and The Mainichi .  Pay close attention to who is writing about what and when non-Japanese correspondents are used v. Japanese correspondents. The labor pool for bilingual journalists in Japan is quite small, so, unfortunately, there’s tremendous variation in the quality of English language correspondents in Japan. Here’s the breakdown:

Nikkei is basically the Economist. They have excellent journalists, but focus mostly politics when relevant to the economy. (They have a paywall)

Asahi is left-wing and prone to sloppy reporting (rather like Vox and Vice in the US).

Mainichi focuses on domestic issues and is also not as diligent as Nikkei. 

Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s center-right newspaper with the largest circulation (both in Japan and worldwide) is behind The Japan Times, propagating the whole “News for Outsiders v. News for Japanese people” dissonance I was talking about earlier.

Finally, though they focus on international affairs, NHK International‘s online radio program covers domestic issues. NHK World-Japan does a livestream of domestic news that is subtitled by AI in six langauges (Chinese, French, Spanish, Thai and Vietnamese), plus English.

In terms of foreign newspapers, Al-Jazeera does great reporting on Japanese politics. I have a pretty low opinion of most American and British news sources when it comes to Japanese politics. They tend to re-confirm stereotypes people in both of those countries have about Japan. Most of these stereotypes are harmless, but it’s mediocre reporting.

Honorable mention:

I know the youtube channel Asian Boss is popular for their handling of Japanese political issues, and while I appreciate their easy accessibility and attempts to engage with younger audiences, I personally think their reporters pull their punches when covering Japan. To their credit, they are clear that they are an amateur news network, but it really shows.

- Saitō

[classicfilmfan64]

James Stewart served in WW2, with honors. He was older than most of his comrades but was highly respected. He has a very distinguished military career. He quit making films, as of 1941, for the duration of the war. 

WIKIPEDIA:

'James Stewart became the first major American movie star to enlist in the United States Army to fight in World War II. His family had deep military roots: both of his grandfathers had fought in the Civil War, and his father had served during both the Spanish–American War and World War I. After first being rejected for low weight in November 1940, he successfully enlisted in February 1941. As an experienced amateur pilot, he reported for induction as a private in the Air Corps on March 22, 1941. 

Soon to be 33 years old, he was over the maximum age restriction for Aviation Cadet training—the normal path of commissioning for pilots, navigators and bombardiers—and therefore applied for an Air Corps commission as both a college graduate and a licensed commercial pilot. Stewart received his commission as a second lieutenant on January 1, 1942.

After enlisting, Stewart made no new commercial films, although he remained under contract to MGM. His public appearances were limited to engagements for the Army Air Forces. The Air Corps scheduled him on network radio with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, and to the radio program, ‘We Hold These Truths’, a celebration of the United States Bill of Rights, which was broadcast a week after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Stewart also appeared in a First Motion Picture Unit short film, 'Winning Your Wings', to help recruit airmen. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1942, it appeared in movie theaters nationwide beginning in late May 1942 and resulted in 150,000 new recruits.

Stewart was concerned that his celebrity status would relegate him to duties beyond the lines. After spending over a year training pilots at Kirtland Army Airfield in Albuquerque, New Mexico, he appealed to his commander and was sent to England as part of the 445th Bombardment Group, to pilot a B-24 Liberator, in November 1942.Stewart was promoted to major following a mission to Ludwigshafen, Germany, on January 7, 1944. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions as deputy commander of the 2d Bombardment Wing, and the French Croix de Guerre with palm and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. Stewart was promoted to full colonel on March 29, 1945, becoming one of the few Americans to ever rise from private to colonel in only four years. 

At the beginning of June 1945, Stewart was the presiding officer of the court-martial of a pilot and navigator who accidentally bombed Zurich, Switzerland.Stewart returned to the United States in early fall 1945. He continued to play a role in the Army Air Forces Reserve after the war] and was also one of the 12 founders of the Air Force Association in October 1945. On July 23, 1959, Stewart was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the highest-ranking actor in American military history.'

[sdrdxhound]

The Hammers of 3844 kHz vol 2: Enraged Trumpist Boomer Hams vs the World

Volume 2 of "The Hammers of 3844 kHz"

Amateur radio on 75 meters is infested with angry old boomer hams with far right ideology. Batshit crazy rumor mongering, misogyny, anti semitism, Q Anonist and MAGA talking points are all there. These hams on 3844 attract plenty of jammers, and the exchanges are documented here.

The American culture war is a hot one on 75 meters.