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mariacallous · 1 year

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Using the U.S. military in Mexico to deal with the fentanyl crisis in the United States is the hot new policy solution for lots of U.S. politicians. The top three Republican presidential candidates have endorsed using the U.S. military to fight Mexican cartels. Similarly, Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw, the newly appointed chair of a congressional task force for countering Mexican cartels, announced recently that “Colombia is the model” for what Washington needs to do in Mexico.

Crenshaw is the author of a bill in Congress authorizing the use of military force against Mexican cartels or any actor “carrying out other related activities that cause regional destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.” He argues that the “American partnership” with Colombia helped make the country safer today than it was 25 years ago and that this provides a model for dealing with Mexican cartels:

“We need to somehow figure out diplomatically how to make this Mexico’s idea. That they’re asking for our military support, such as close air support, such as an AC-130 gunship overhead while they’re prosecuting a target and surrounded by sicarios. … If I was in that situation as a Navy SEAL, we would just call in close air support, all those guys would be gone, and we’d move along our merry way.”

This is bad analysis on a number of levels: bad history, bad economics, and bad political science. Since Crenshaw has volunteered himself as an expert on Colombia—he went to high school there—and its lessons for fighting the war on drugs with the U.S. military, we can start with his proposals.

In an Instagram post, Crenshaw stated, “Anyone who has watched Narcos knows that the Colombia of 30 years ago looked a lot like Mexico does today.”

The problem with that theory—beyond its reliance on a Netflix series to formulate U.S. foreign policy—is twofold. To begin with, if you consider annual homicide rates, today’s Mexico looks an awful lot like today’s Colombia. In 2021, Mexico had 28 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, whereas Colombia’s rate was 27. This convergence—Mexico’s homicide rate surpassed Colombia’s for the first time in 2017—is certainly bad news for the former country, whose homicide rate was 8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2007, one year after then-President Felipe Calderón deployed Mexican Army troops to fight the drug cartels. Nonetheless, despite seeing its homicide rate more than triple in less than two decades, Mexico is still nowhere near Colombia’s levels of violence during the Narcos era of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the country reached the alarming rate of 85 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. Comparing Mexico’s violence in 2023 to that of Colombia in 1993 borders on the preposterous.

Crenshaw’s argument also overlooks that Colombia today is slipping back to the 1990s, when the country, under siege from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a narco-guerrilla group, was on the verge of becoming a failed state. Although the homicide rate remains comparatively low, large swaths of the national territory are still under the control of the FARC and other illegal armed groups, which are expanding their spheres of influence. In May, the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory to warn that three of the country’s 32 departments (the equivalent of U.S. states)—Cauca in the country’s southwest, Arauca and Norte de Santander in eastern Colombia—were high-risk areas due to widespread organized criminal activities including homicide, assault, armed robbery, extortion, and kidnapping.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, seven different armed conflicts are now taking place in Colombia (an increase from six in 2022). While the Colombian state battles the FARC, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the Clan del Golfo, the latter armed group is waging its own war against the ELN. The FARC, meanwhile, is fighting two of its own splinter groups, Segunda Marquetalia and Comandos de la Frontera, the latter of which operates along extensive parts of the Venezuelan border. Finally, the FARC and the ELN, both communist narco-guerrilla groups, are facing off against each other for control over Arauca, a department that also controls key access routes into Venezuela.

Although each of the unofficial armed actors takes part in illegal mining, extortion, and other criminal activities, their main source of financing—and the main source of the conflicts among them—is the cocaine trade. The major difference between the situation now and that of the 1990s is that no single group enjoys a monopoly over the drug trade while waging an all-out war against the state, as the FARC then did. Instead, a multitude of armed actors fight both the state and one another over strategic coca-growing areas and export routes.

It is true that, overall, the conflict now has a lower intensity than in the 1990s, but Crenshaw’s thesis that Colombia is a safer, more peaceful place today than it was when he lived there at the turn of the century is valid only up to a point. For the population in entire departments like Arauca, Norte de Santander, and Cauca, the security situation is no less lethal now than two or three decades ago. It is unquestionable that the change in strategy in Bogotá and the assistance from Washington helped the Colombian military in its struggle against insurgent groups. But this misses the point. From a U.S. perspective, the reason for getting involved in the first place was to stanch the flow of cocaine into the United States. As seen above, that objective was not attained. From Colombia’s perspective, the tactical victory provided a some Colombians refuge from the conflict, but the country is still afflicted by the endemic violence that plagues countries stuck in the middle of the drug war.

The last four years have also seen a resurgence of the type of violence that struck the country when the Medellín Cartel and the FARC were at the apex of their powers. In 2019, the ELN carried out a deadly terrorist attack against the National Police Academy in Bogotá, killing 21 with the detonation of a car bomb. In March, the ELN attacked a military base in Norte de Santander with explosives, leaving nine soldiers dead. The FARC, meanwhile, recently reestablished its 53rd Front in Sumapaz, a rural locality of Bogotá, thus reviving dark memories of 1999, when the terrorist group threatened the Colombian capital itself.

Given the persistence of armed groups financed with cocaine proceeds and the continuation of drug-fueled violence in Colombia, it is telling that Crenshaw, while heralding Colombia as a model for U.S. policy in Mexico, does not mention cocaine once. That was the reason the United States got involved in Colombia in the first place. In the 1980s and into the 1990s, there was an enormous increase in the flow of powder and then crack cocaine into U.S. cities. U.S. politicians concluded that the solution was to use U.S. military aid to help solve problems inside Colombia, drying up the supply of the drug at the source. As a result, under Plan Colombia and its successor counter-narcotics programs, nearly $12 billion was dedicated to helping the Colombian military eradicate coca leaf and undermine actors participating in the cocaine trade between 2000 and 2021.

Unfortunately, as an Office of National Drug Control Policy study showed in October 2008, cocaine prices in the United States consistently declined in the 1980s, and then remained relatively flat throughout the 1990s. The idea of attacking the drug supply at the source relies on the idea that interdiction will reduce availability and drive prices up, limiting consumption and negative consequences at home. If price is not even increasing, that is proof positive that a supply-side model is not working.

The large expenditure of American taxpayer money in Colombia did nothing to halt the spread of coca crops, illicit drug production, or the continuous export of cocaine to the United States. On the contrary, coca cultivation in Colombia increased between 2000 and 2020, from roughly 136,000 planted hectares to a record 245,000. In this sense, Plan Colombia’s counter-narcotics element can be seen as an utter failure, even if its military component did help the Colombian military launch an effective offensive against the FARC in the 2000s.

That is why Crenshaw’s soliloquy on how Colombia should be a model for our policy in Mexico is so strange. The U.S. government failed to solve the cocaine problem, but Crenshaw now heralds the “Colombia model” as an unqualified success. The reason we went into Colombia in the first place, cocaine, just fell out of the story altogether. The “do something!” impulse in U.S. foreign policy is strong, but surely a proposed solution to a problem should be able to pass scrutiny better than this.

Colombia’s drug war has proved to be a Sisyphean struggle, with each victory against the dominant drug cartel leaving a power vacuum that is quickly filled by new drug cartels. The Medellín Cartel’s fall led to the rise of the Cali Cartel, whose own demise allowed the FARC and a series of paramilitary groups to take over the cocaine business.

Between 2002 and 2010, then-President Álvaro Uribe’s government successfully fought the FARC, but this was undercut by the fact that it was impossible to do away fully with the FARC’s main source of financing (cocaine). Hence, the FARC, despite heavy blows to its leadership structure, didn’t surrender fully and was able to outlast Uribe’s government. Uribe’s successor, Juan Manuel Santos, negotiated with the FARC and amnestied its leadership, yet only a part of the FARC demobilized in 2016. The rest, known locally as FARC dissidents, remained up in arms and, as mentioned, remain fully immersed in the drug trade.

As shown above, this hardly made a dent on the supply of cocaine to the United States. If anything, the fentanyl problem is even more daunting. Cocaine is much more expensive and difficult to produce than fentanyl. During Plan Colombia, U.S. and Colombian pilots sprayed more than a million acres of Colombian territory with glyphosate in an attempt to eradicate coca crops. Fentanyl is produced on a much smaller scale with comparatively tiny amounts of precursor chemicals that are easy to obtain. Fentanyl could be produced in meaningful quantities almost anywhere. Even if Mexico stopped producing any fentanyl, there is little reason to believe U.S. supply would evaporate.

And the profit margins are astounding: According to an indictment of the Sinaloa Cartel in the Southern District of New York in April, $800 of fentanyl precursor chemicals can produce up to $640,000 worth of retail value in U.S. cities. Even if greater interdiction cuts into those margins, they are large enough to absorb a lot of pressure.

As an unintended result of the drug war, Mexico has already become a heavily militarized country. As one of us has previously noted, the tendency has increased dramatically under President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has put the army in charge of infrastructure projects, customs duties at ports and airports, gasoline and fertilizer distribution, school textbook deliveries, and the provision of hospital materials, among other mundane or strictly logistical tasks that, even in many Latin American countries, fall well outside the military sphere.

In 2019, López Obrador created the National Guard, a new branch of the armed forces with over 100,000 regulars (compared to less than 150,000 in the army proper). In recent years, influential members of the armed forces have waded into politics, thus breaking the decadeslong tradition of an apolitical military. If anything, the United States should refrain from abetting any further militarization of Mexico. Plans to further involve the U.S. military against Mexico’s drug cartels, however, would likely add fuel to the fire.

A final word might bear mentioning, since Crenshaw referenced the Netflix series Narcos. The series continues after the denouement of the Medellín and Cali cartels in Colombia. There is a second series, set in Mexico. The first episode sets the scene quite clearly, with DEA agent Walt Breslin growling over a spliced cut of grim drug war clips:

“I’m going to tell you a story, but I’ll be honest: It doesn’t have a happy ending. In fact, it doesn’t have an ending at all. … It’s about … a war. … A drug war. The kind that’s easy to forget is happening, until you realize that in the last 30 years in Mexico, it’s killed half a million people—and counting. … I can’t tell you how the drug war ends. Man, I can’t even tell you if it ends.”

Crenshaw, and the leading Republican candidates for president, want you to believe that they have a plan for how the drug war in Mexico ends.

Ask yourself: Should you believe them?

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mrtinmtz · 7 months

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Death Anxiety

Part of the human condition, always there, life threatening illness, an accident, taken before the expected time, it's closer in the evening of life as we grow older, many times it is fear of suffering, illness, pain, loss of beauty, capacity, all enrolled in fear of death but they all different

Cessation of life of the body, cessation of me, i will go into a void, quite unique, Anxiety of all things, what will happen to me, Our basic anxiety is our terror of death, the fear of loss of control, Neurotic fear of death trips us up.. vs another kind of fear of death,

Psyche prepares for death, the end of life experiences, when the soul and the body are both longing for release the relationship with death is different, death would come in a kind of winter, death comes in the long for release, in the embrace and the promise of laying down suffering

Looking forward for death's embrace, the image of death can present itself so differently depending on psyche´s orientation to the end of life, death can come as a monster, not because its evil but because its premature, death should not come in the middle of the summer, the wrongness of it, Death as a trauma

Eros and thanatos, to help people orient towards eros, the love of life, work, connection, anything anti eros is part of the death instinct, driven by loss, alienation, connected to early childhood experiences, the beloved thing is not there, a loss of a loved object, a beloved pet, a relative that moved away, the loss of the object becomes the first experience of death, something i rely on, fear of being abandoned, i have fallen in the realm of the forgotten, i am now a ghost, i am deadened, It infests other less appropriate images in the psyche

Death, the final mystery, the territory one cannot visit, facing the uncertainty, we displace that uncertainty in all kinds of life projects, make a lot of money, do good social justice things in the world, pushing our awareness of death to the background because we are leading a heroic life, we are engaged, we are getting another degree, thousands of things, my passions, achievements, If we have evidence of our own dynamism, that is the antithesis of the receding into the great dark… The death mother, the underworld, the cave, the womb, Death and rebirth central theme in most initiation rituals, The more you embrace death the more you embrace life, all of life is dissolving and recoagulating,

The egyptian book of the dead, stages the souls goes through as it absorbs and integrates its life experience and waits to be judged and passed on to eternal life or not, the initiate, to be brought from the state of death of relative ignorance to enlightenment, In the tibetan book, the soul goes through various experiences and if they are negotiated with the right attitude the soul can reach a kind of liberation, Certain schools of kabbalah, the various worlds, encounters, various aspects of the divine, angelic hierarchies, all of these leading to some sense of understanding the life that one has lived in such a way that we can integrate what is best and come to a moral and ethical stance of what we wish we could had done better and might do better in the future, a gate, a promise that there could come another time to do better, to come closer to perfection in one way or another

Being interested in the way we function inside ourselves, examining our thoughts, complexes, reactions, going into the inner world an seeking to resolve the suffering inside of us that has ethical, behavioral, emotional, attitudinal causes in the hope that freedom could be attained within us, for jung, freedom is the capacity to most fully express the deepest and the divine blueprint that has been apportioned uniquely to us… an unique part of ourselves that is obstructed and anything we can do to unobstruct the divine spark inside of us is the path and the way, that which we fail to unobstruct is what we will have to confront after death, so why don't we do it now?

Live. live no matter what religious or philosophical tradition, there are stages of growth of your own innate potential if you really live in your potential try to be self aware, reflect, when is time to die, you will be less afraid

IF I ACCEPT DEATH THEN MY TREE GREENS, since dying increases life if i plunge into death encompassing the world

#carl jung

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thisismenow3 · 1 year

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Online leftists suck at being leftists, part a million

As with most things I post, just shouting into the void so I waste less time on this bs. So many people have no nuance to their thinking I wanna ask “how the fuck you think we can unfuck our situation then?” Cause if a military or country that’s done any horrible shot equals “anything they do must be wrong and the opposing side supported no matter what” then we are all fucked and no betterment for minorities of faith, ethnicity, no betterment for labor, children, etc is possible. Y’all can’t even see how supporting Ukraine is the first step to fighting fascism here in the US? If y’all think their 2014 election weren’t fair, why did Russia do an ACTUAL FALSE FLAG before giving up the pretense and taking over Donbas and crimea immediately afterward? After all these different countries and groups that oversee elections approved it?

And the Azob thing has me steamed about peoples’ lack of comprehension skills being used to make fucking chumps of them. If a right wing militia using nazi regalia existing means a country is deserving of its civilians being curb stomped literally and it’s children who survive being trafficked for sex or adoption than fuck you. That means you think it should happen here dipshit. And if you’re saying “well the neo nazis wanted the impeachment and a new president!” Then I say “And did they actually do anything forcing this?” “No”

Look into the details jack ass. If you’re a leftist you have to know thy enemy. Right wing militias can often support things you wouldn’t expect because they’re in “long game” mode. Hell, right wing anything can do that. Neo nazis in Cali supported gun control back in the day. If I was like y’all online leftists without media literacy I’d think “oh so gun control bad and the neo nazis forced that in Cali.” Instead, you read up just a little and you realize “oh, they’d rather make a tactical retreat as Governor Reagan and the FBI break up and assassinate the Panthers even though they want to have more guns, kinds of guns, types of armaments period.” Why do you think Azov, to the extent they are doing anything, would like about impeaching a Russian stooge who fled a popular uprising? That their country is sticking it to Russia!!!!!!! They’re cool with democracy now cause in many ways they are much further from taking over and then getting rid of democracy in their country than the right wing in the US is towards the USA. This is why people who actually know anything about the politics and situation of Ukraine and ain’t right wing think online leftists calling for capitulation are the biggest idiots. Cause y’all are.

So it shouldn’t be surprising these same bumble fucks parrot China’s talking points. Should China get to take over other weaker nation’s territory? Fuck no. Should the USA be the world policeman? In a just world (not even a perfect one) fuck no. Is the UN capable of doing this job for the world? Hahahaha that’s a good one! Oh, you’re serious. The UN is to world betterment and adjudication what US courts are to renter’s rights and empowerment. Which is to say it’s not impossible but we all know they’re dead weight at best and it’s something way more powerful using them whenever they’re at all a part of something good. And usually, they ain’t.

The other big issue is that real leftism is about more democracy, you know; messy, long term politicking with lots of moving parts. But online leftism (derogatory) is all about big, crude imposed actions! In short online leftism (derogatory) is still stuck in the mistakes of communist thought from a century ago. No dictatorship willingly or cleanly gives way to democracy, full stop. The unpopular opinion amongst people who want leftist change is that centrists, neo liberal Econ folks, liberals (derogatory), whatever label you want to use are correct to a point; they say all of the communist thought that ain’t about describing the system as it is is wrong. And in reality they’re very close to right. The proletariat is more disparate and multifaceted than any communist thinker gives credence to and at best actually centrist on average politically. So there can’t be a magnificent revolution just like a dictatorship that ends itself is an obvious idiocy. But online leftism (derogatory) doesn’t want to hear that or similar critiques about things like anarchism, etc. Combine that with conservative purposeful mismanagement of literacy programs (not just being able to read at a high level, but being able to read a source and still glean things from it despite bias and even, gasp, be able to use many sources to find reality through this process!) and you have people who you can’t tell if they’re being intellectually lazy because it allows them to do nothing but post (America always bad, therefore America should just do less or do things that it can’t because I’ve forgotten about how bureaucratic systems work) or just not literate enough to realize they’re getting played. With the online left (derogatory), porque no los dos?

This is going all over the place but it’s really just coming from a place of seeing how people who actually do want to make the world better are indistinguishable from people who are actually selfish lazy nihilists pretending to be something else the same way libertarians are conservatives with no real agenda other than simplistic ideas about how power should be distributed. And this sucks cause there’s real hope that if we build now we can succeed long term even if movements don’t coalesce right now to better our society and save our world. Online leftism (derogatory) doesn’t talk in any real way about unions except as power fantasy. Because unions, like military aid to democracies, is way to messy and yet necessary. So just like military aid is seen as always bad by them, unions are only thought about as strikers. That’s one fucking aspect y’all! There’s many moves before the strike is even threatened! Do you know how t use existing unions to help create ones for a union less industry or company? Do you know how unions and their members can be called upon to help fight for environmental justice? How about school boards? Who’s up for doing with school boards in America what the right wing has been doing for decades? Who’s up for joking the Democratic Party as an actual member and trying to politics you way into the back rooms of power at the state level? Then when there’s enough of us there, flipping the radicalism switch? Who’s for brokering deals with democrats in states they rarely get much local and no state power to mutually support each other when democratic socialist independents or independent communists or whatever else get a sizeable local base of support? Online leftism is derogatory as a term in the same way these people and others use liberal; cause they ain’t doing anything to build up the good shit they say they wanna build up. They just wanna claim and then go back to whatever socializing makes up the rest of their mom work time. For those of y’all that ain’t online left (derogatory), or for whom the label don’t fully fit, I got one question… y’all organizing offline? Cause it’s seems like online is poison for leftism up until the point it’s got enough steam to whether a bunch of blows from all sides.

Rant over. Gonna continue to try to see how I can protect/unfuck my city IRL

#Shouting in the void #?#This time next year I want to see where my city can be at to stop the bad politics been going on #Maybe things here and all over the US can get better #Won’t know til I try

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theculturedmarxist · 2 years

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As predicted, Beijing did not respond well to Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.

It imposed new trade restrictions while embarking on a series of days-long military drills encircling the island, which at one point saw four Chinese missiles sail over its territory. Yesterday, Beijing sanctioned Pelosi and her family and cut off dialogue with Washington on military matters and climate change, potentially setting back international efforts to deal with what is the most serious and urgent threat to global security.

Pelosi’s provocative visit had come in the face of numerous warnings from experts like Lyle Goldstein. A researcher on Chinese and Russian strategic military development who taught at the US Naval War College for twenty years, Goldstein spoke with Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic shortly after Pelosi’s visit.

Goldstein explains the fraught significance of Taiwan to China’s leaders, the risk of nuclear war, and why the United States could very well lose a war with China over the island.

Why was Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan considered so provocative by China?

Lyle Goldstein

A lot of people already are genuinely surprised, even me a little bit. I thought that Beijing might just send a hundred aircraft into the zone or something, but the reaction seems to be large-scale and involves a variety of unprecedented moves.

But if you read Chinese and see what I’ve been seeing the past five years, this is not surprising. I’d say for at least five years or more, we’ve been in a slow-rolling crisis, where the issue of Taiwan in particular, and US-China relations in general, has been escalating to a very dangerous level. China views this is as one more blow against the One China policy framework, and they don’t like the trend lines. A lot of people say, “Newt Gingrich went there in in 1997, there’s precedent, what’s the big deal?” But that’s not at all how China sees it. Their approach is, in 1997, they hardly had a navy to speak of and couldn’t do anything. They feel like they have the power now to adjust the situation.

Hong Kong has caused many Chinese leaders and the PLA [People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military] to consign the “one country, two systems” framework, which I think was useful for all sides, to the dustbin of history — concluding that peaceful integration or unification is impossible, and that force is the only solution. That’s a very dark view, but I’m afraid it’s become more and more pervasive.

We would be hard-pressed under any conditions to change China’s mind on that view, but we seem to be doing the opposite, compounding all their fears and sending higher and higher–level visitors. People don’t realize: we sent two senators — and that’s not a minor position in the US government — to Taiwan two months ago, and China did bang its fists and use vitriolic language. But it doesn’t appear in the mainstream media.

On Twitter, I’ve made it a personal mission to document all the threats that China has issued over Taiwan. You at least see one a week. It goes something like this: “The PLA has the will and capability to ensure national unification.” Over the last year, this statement has appeared dozens of times, but it’s willfully ignored by the Western press, because they can’t understand it or they dismiss it or wish to ignore it.

In a nuclear-armed world, to just outright ignore the warnings of the other side is reckless beyond belief, and potentially catastrophic.

Branko Marcetic

Why is Taiwan such a redline for China?

Lyle Goldstein

I think reasonable people, even historians, have disagreement on this. I don’t want to pretend this is a simple right and wrong. How do countries attain their shape? A vast cauldron of mostly gnarly warfare, to put it mildly, that’s caused most countries to have their current shape.

China has had roughly this shape for a couple of thousand years, and for that reason the Chinese are very sensitive to issues of territorial integrity. Of course, layer on that the period of European predations — and most people don’t realize, but the United States was quite involved in that. From about 1850 to about 1920, almost a century, you had the US Navy patrolling the Yangtze, which involved gunboats operating together with the British Navy, and we were policing China. This was a form of imperialism, and if the natives got restless, then the gunboats would circle up. There are myriad instances of the US acting together with Japan and Britain to suppress rebellions.

The predations of Europe were followed by the ultimate predation of Japan, which conquered a lot of China. Where did it begin? In Taiwan, and China remembers that dearly. For Western readers not well acquainted with Japan’s conquest of Taiwan in 1894–95, ghastly atrocities were perpetrated. It was kind of a precursor to World War II, where the Japanese mercilessly slaughtered people in Taiwan during the initial period of colonization.

The Chinese have a particular animus toward Japan, because there was never really a reckoning for all the crimes committed, there were no reparations. But it started in Taiwan, and that’s why it becomes a focal point of Chinese nationalism, which is, to a large extent, built on anti-Japanese sentiment. And I always note to Chinese audiences, they have the United States to thank partly for saving China from Japan. So it’s not a one-sided story.

In 1683, the Qing Dynasty took over Taiwan. There were already a lot of Chinese on the island, and it became integrated into the Chinese empire, and later became its own province. That’s almost a century before the American Revolution, and many years before the United States even thought about Hawaii or California, Taiwan was part of China. So it’s a strong claim.

It wasn’t just in 1972, with the Shanghai Communiqué, that the United States endorsed the idea that Taiwan was part of China. I’d urge Americans and all people around the world to read the statements by Franklin Roosevelt in the Cairo Declaration and Harry Truman in his speech of January 1950, where he states very clearly that Taiwan is part of China that was taken by imperial Japan.

Branko Marcetic

If tensions boiled over and there was a US-China war over Taiwan, how would it actually go?

Lyle Goldstein

I worked at the US Naval War College for twenty years researching Chinese naval development, Chinese military development, so I’m well versed on all their systems. There’s quite a significant chance that the United States would lose a war over Taiwan.

The obvious reason is geographical. China is fighting a war, as they put it, right on their front doorstep, and can bring all their immense military power to bear — not just the manpower and logistics power China has great strengths in, but we’re talking combat aircraft, helicopters, and every kind of ship you can imagine. Every point of China is essentially one day’s sail to Taiwan.

Compare that with the United States. We do have immense military power, but we cannot bring it into the field, and even if we could, could it be supported? Even submarines, which are our ace in the hole — the one force that can get to battlefield and fight strongly against an invasion — couldn’t be supported. They’d quickly run out of torpedoes, as submarines don’t have a large magazine, so in navy speak, they’d be “Winchestered,” meaning out of ammo and useless, and forced to sail the twenty or thirty days back to the rear to refill and refit supply, and then another twenty or thirty days to go back. So even the force that’s most prepared to go into the fight can’t sustain it.

The situation is much more dire when talking about what the air force or army could bring into the fight, which is nearly zero. Let’s not forget, the air force is totally dependent on runways. And while there have been some air force engineers scraping around in Tinian [one of the Northern Mariana Islands, 1,800 miles off China’s coast] — from where we launched the Enola Gay to drop the atomic bomb — as soon as we started playing with air forces there, they’d be right on it. I can give you the citation where they say, “Just add it to the target list.”

And all the runways in proximity would be destroyed: I’m talking about Guam, Okinawa, and further afield. China now has the ability to target Hawaii and Alaska. I’m talking about day one, or at least day seven of a conflict. I briefed an air force general, saying, “Sir, are you aware the assets you’re keeping in Alaska would likely be targeted in the first week or two of a war with China?” He was surprised, but he shouldn’t be. Turnabout is fair play, and they’d strike these targets.

This is a long way of saying, the amount of firepower and the ability to sustain it is not there on the US side, and why, repeatedly, it’s been shown in the open press that China nearly always wins the war games. That’s a bad sign. We have to grapple with reality, and the reality is China wields immense military cards in the Taiwan scenario.

A lot of people point to the Ukraine war. Taiwan is fifteen times smaller than Ukraine. One of Russia’s major problems is that it’s spread its forces too thin and the firepower is dispersed, because Ukraine is a huge country. In Taiwan’s case, the firepower would be much more concentrated in a small area, and half of Taiwan is mountains, so it’s an even smaller area. China’s military budget is also about five times the size of Russia’s, and Taiwan is more easily cut off from arms shipments. You don’t want to be in Taiwan when this unfolds.

Branko Marcetic

What is the risk of nuclear escalation over Taiwan?

Lyle Goldstein

So many people ignore that possibility, and it’s completely irresponsible. If I were to blame Pelosi for anything, it’s that, in the nuclear age, this kind of posturing is ridiculous and should be condemned widely.

One can think of many ways that a nuclear scenario would unfold. One that keeps me up at night these days is that, in the field of US-China military studies, we don’t talk a lot about tactical nuclear weapons, but Chinese strategists talk about this a lot these days, especially because they were a feature of the US-Soviet rivalry.

The Chinese noticed we were putting tactical nuclear weapons back on US submarines and wrote about it extensively. They said, “This looks a lot the kind of weapon the United States could deploy in Taiwan scenario.” And they say, “If the United States is going to go this route, then other countries will” — an obvious reference to the fact that China is developing similar weapons and will be ready for that day. I have no confirmation of them deploying battlefield nuclear weapons — it’s just my suspicion, and they have threatened to do so, and I have a lot more evidence to show.

What it means is that, if war begins between the two, if either side starts to lose — let’s say ours does, they sink a carrier and it looks like the invasion is succeeding — does one of our submarines sitting thousands or hundreds of miles away, launch a battlefield nuclear weapon that hits the invasion force, and they respond in kind against Guam or Hawaii? It could go the opposite way: if China invades and the invasion is stalling or losing, and American forces are surging into the area, do they say, “We can’t afford to lose this the way that Vladimir Putin seemed to be in the initial stages”? We have to wonder, in the nuclear era, at that point would China resort to some kind of nuclear use to warn the others away. I do fear China could use the nuclear card against Japan.

One more thing: China is very energetically developing their nuclear forces. That’s sad — I don’t think it had to be this way, because China previously was quite proud of its low-level nuclear deterrent. But they think the likelihood of war with the US is quite high, particularly over Taiwan, and they want to match the US strength for strength.

Nuclear war could also happen by accident. A lot of US analysts are talking about how China increasingly colocates nuclear warheads with conventional warheads — they fly on the same missile even. So how do we know if Chinese missiles flying at Guam or Hawaii, as they might in this scenario, aren’t carrying a nuclear weapon? You have minutes to decide what to do.

The buildup of missile defenses has also spurred more and more exotic weaponry. There’s a move toward hypersonic weaponry, and the Chinese are, like the Russians, obsessed with how to penetrate missile defenses. One way is to destroy the missile defense radars in the opening salvo. So there are all kinds of disturbing escalation incentives built in here.

Branko Marcetic

The China-US relationship presumably doesn’t have the kinds of Cold War–era safeguards and mechanisms for de-escalation and conflict avoidance.

Lyle Goldstein

A Chinese analyst told me, the US and China have never had a Cuban Missile Crisis. That was a very stark moment. Both sides looked into the apocalypse, literally, and there’s no question in my mind, the world could’ve been destroyed in that moment. The more we learn about it, the more horrifying it is.

I interviewed a Russian submarine captain who literally had his finger on the trigger of a nuclear-armed torpedo that was designed to hit the US amphibious group off the coast of Cuba, and the US Navy did not even know that Russia had deployed tactical nuclear weapons in the crisis. We were operating totally in the blind on that trigger for nuclear war. And the same is true probably in Taiwan. We don’t know completely what weapons they have, and they don’t know completely what weapons we have. Both sides are keeping some cards behind their backs.

Branko Marcetic

There was a 1966 study about US war planning for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in the 1950s, where officials agreed they would quickly resort to nuclear strikes on China. Is this something that US strategists and military leaders would be discussing today too?

Lyle Goldstein

I think that was an important revelation, and it shows you something about this scenario. People who know the history of the 1950s know that, at the highest levels, the president was thinking about ordering nuclear strikes on China because of these Taiwan-related issues. I say related because it was mostly about these offshore islands. Dwight D. Eisenhower and other American leaders thankfully realized this was crazy, that you’re going to use nuclear weapons to defend these little rocks.

But it didn’t stop there. We know that we deployed nuclear weapons to Taiwan; I think they were there for seven or eight years, these Matador tactical missiles. At some level, brilliant: that’s how you defend Taiwan, since you can’t possibly put enough firepower there to sink the whole Chinese fleet and prevent them from invading, so you use nuclear weapons.

Thankfully, they came out as part of the whole Kissinger diplomacy. But it shows the fundamental principle here, which is that the United States in this scenario can’t possibly bring enough firepower to win unless it resorts to nuclear weapons. That was understood in the 1950s, and nothing really has changed.

I’ve seen idle speculation in the military press that no country would ever think of sinking a US carrier, which is five thousand Americans, and would entail nuclear retaliation for sure. Well, what if China got it in its head to sink two or three or five carriers. I don’t even want to think about that, but it’s quite possible.

One of the worst scenarios I’ve considered over the years is what if China severely damages a carrier, and the carrier is sinking, and we have to rescue the three or four thousand people who are swimming somewhere in the East China Sea. You’re going to have to put together a task force of fifteen or twenty ships to pull off this rescue mission. But of course, in modern naval warfare, when the enemy knows where all the ships are collecting, they’re easily targeted. That’s a scenario to lose at least half the US navy.

Let’s turn it around: what if the United States sinks a Chinese carrier. Could that entail nuclear escalation? Increasingly, when you talk about these kinds of losses, China might. We don’t know where the nuclear threshold is. A major war has never been fought between nuclear powers. Often when I deal with US military leaders, I say what was said during the Cuban missile crisis: “You and I have fought the same number of nuclear wars, so please don’t tell me you know what’s going to happen.”

Branko Marcetic

What can or should we learn from the crisis, and ultimately war in Ukraine, that we can apply to these currently rising tensions with China?

Lyle Goldstein

I get this question all the time, but in a different form: How can the Ukraine war can inform us about defending Taiwan properly? Like if we had sent all these weapons to Ukraine five years ago, then Russia would’ve never considered it. I don’t think that’s true, and, in fact, I think piling in the weapons during November, December, and January partly triggered the conflict. The same thing could occur in the Taiwan context. You’re just waving a red flag in front of a bull. You’re trying to foreclose their options in a military sense and therefore pushing the security dilemma to the breaking point.

The primary lesson that needs to be learned is that you cannot just willy-nilly transgress upon the redlines of great powers. To me, it’s incredibly stark. I circulated Putin’s discourse on redlines, starting around 2020, around Naval War College, where I worked, because I saw my job as saying to my colleagues, “Whatever happens, you’d better understand Russia’s redlines.” Because it was very clear we were getting close to those lines. And we more or less blew right by them, ignored them, said, “This is posturing, this is unacceptable, you can’t say that.” That kind of approach is beyond foolish, it’s catastrophic for the people of Eastern Europe and Ukraine and Russia.

That does lead to the spheres of influence argument. I argued in my book in 2015 that spheres of influence are the only way forward to manage conflict with China and Russia. They’re not something you can accept or not accept, they are just a fact of the world. And so you have to align your policies to accept that, because when you fight against it, you’re swimming against the tide, and it leads to horrible disasters like Ukraine.

There are some specific lessons from a military point of view. I agree Javelins and Stingers and things like that are somewhat useful for Taiwan, though I warn that piling these weapons in could trigger what you’re trying to prevent. Should Taiwan invest in counter-drone technology? Sure. One could work through numerous lessons, but I don’t have a lot of hope that Taiwan could possibly even begin to match Chinese military power. They’ve just now exceeded 2 percent in defense spending, but to really match China somehow, they would have to go well over 10 percent of GDP and continue that for a decade. At that point, they might have a chance. Otherwise, I don’t see any real possibility.

So the real lesson for Taiwan is not a massive buildup — I think they’d have to go full North Korea and dig and pour concrete everywhere, and more or less destroy the island to save it. The main lesson is diplomacy, of course. So many opportunities were missed to avert the war in Ukraine. To state the obvious, if they had simply declared that Ukraine would be a neutral state, how hard would that have been? There are plenty of examples of neutral countries that are very happy and are very well armed. That was a completely feasible option, but it just didn’t fit with our ideology. The idea that we might climb down, that we might compromise — that’s showing weakness, so we can never do that.

Taiwan has all kinds of diplomatic positions. We should be encouraging those. In December 2015, the leaders of Taiwan and China had an excellent, friendly meeting. They have a lot in common. There are so many ties across the Strait. Millions of mainlanders have come across to Taiwan and seen how beautiful the island is and how clean the air is and how well-governed it is. That’s the best way to approach cross-Strait relations. There are all kinds of compromises to be made, people-to-people exchanges, military confidence-building measures. All of that should’ve happened with Ukraine and Russia, but no, we insisted on confrontational approach, and now we have a ghastly war.

Branko Marcetic

NATO recently named China a security challenge for the first time, at the same time that it invited several Asia-Pacific countries for the first time to speak at its summit. How significant of a shift is this? Does it represent some kind of fundamental expansion of NATO’s mission?

Lyle Goldstein

I’ve been observing NATO’s lean to the east for several years now, and I remember watching the British and French send carriers and submarines across. I gave a lecture in Germany a couple years ago, and people in the German navy asked me point blank: “We’re eager to send a ship to the South China Sea, would that help?” And I said, “No, it’s kind of crazy for Germany to insert itself in this. It’s going to do more harm than good for sure.” They didn’t like my answer. “We were hoping you’d be rah-rah and think it’s great.”

That little story encapsulates this dynamic, which is really disturbing. NATO already didn’t have the best reputation in China, for various reasons going back years. Though ten to fifteen years ago, NATO had a reasonable working relationship with China, and the European Union had set up some really good defense exchanges and contacts with China. That was very helpful, and I had urged that Europe act as a cushion for the US-China rivalry and be a friend of the court to both sides, tell each to chill out a little. Help China to mitigate its worst nationalist tendencies, but also help the US contain its seemingly endless desire for rivalry.

I thought Europe was playing thar role pretty effectively until 2016 or so. Then things seemed to start to change, and European discourse on China radically moved to the right and became very anti-China to the point, I’d argue, of even surpassing US rhetoric on China. I found this very disturbing. I could give you endless examples of this, but if you read the Economist magazine, it’s become extremely hawkish on China over the years. In the European mind, they more or less associate Russia and China together, as authoritarianism writ large, though the Russian and Chinese regimes are very different, so lumping them together I think is misplaced.

I remember, in 2017, as the Korean crisis was unfolding, a squadron of French ships came across, and Chinese coverage of that was very upset. It was the Europeans who were leading the carving up of China in the nineteenth century, and China fought multiple wars against France and against Britain. So the idea that you’re going to have these European navies sailing around, it triggers this anger.

The other phenomenon here is NATO’s search for missions. God bless the Ukraine war, because this has given a lot of new life to NATO and given NATO bureaucrats something to do, though I think Turkey’s diplomacy and playing footsie with Russia should make people realize the alliance isn’t as together and cohesive as some would hope. On some level, there’s a silver lining to that — Europe should focus on Europe, and take its nose out of Asian affairs. To put it less charitably: What have you been doing? Was this lurch toward Asia why they seem to have been caught unawares in the war with Russia?

There’s also the cheerleader effect, which is very powerful in Washington, when whatever the United States does, we always hope and expect this round of applause from the Europeans. This has been very destructive, in my view. Would the United States really have spent twenty years in Afghanistan without this cheerleader effect from NATO? Half the argumentation for the last ten years of the mission in Afghanistan was, “Well, we can’t possibly pull out because what would NATO say? We can’t leave our allies in the lurch.”

I’m critical of NATO’s stance here. I think Europeans have surrendered their diplomatic cards, which were substantial, and China has become more skeptical of Europe. And this is sad, because I really thought Europe could help bring about a new, more peaceful world order.

Branko Marcetic

How alarmed should we be by China seeking to expand its foreign bases and strengthen its military?

Lyle Goldstein

First, I always point out to people, the United States has something like eight hundred military facilities abroad, and China has one. It’s sort of like, call me when China gets 799 more. In other words, we’re really not at a place where we should seriously worry about this. What I’ve seen doesn’t really bother me.

Look at their base in Africa. That’s really their only foreign base. Those little reef bases in the South China Sea really can’t be called foreign bases. Regarding the African base, there are some things that are a little concerning, like when it was being built, it has really deep bunkers — it’s built to take punishment.

But other than that, look, this base is in Djibouti. Three miles away, you have a pretty large American base. Around the corner from there is a French base, and around the corner from there is a little Japanese base, and it goes on and on. Everyone and their mother has a base in Djibouti. If China had really nefarious designs on Africa, they probably wouldn’t put their base right there, next to all these other bases, where we can easily monitor what they’re doing.

If I had to summarize Chinese policy in Africa, they do a lot of peacekeeping, and that’s difficult — and they deserve a lot of credit for peacekeeping. Number two, there are a lot of Chinese nationals and businesses in Africa, and I think they’re concerned that they may have to do what in the navy we call an NEO — a noncombatant evacuation operation — and that can be a high-risk operation.

My view is we’re basically in a cold war with China, and they’re acting like we are now. They’re starting to adopt strategic positioning in case they have to struggle and strike the United States. There’s a rumor that we’ll see a base in West Africa. China has legitimate interests in all these places, but would that base bother me? A little bit. I’m not thrilled to see China have a base on the Atlantic. That’s a major step.

But most of the major blame for China wanting to dip their toe in the Atlantic there — I studied a series of Chinese official articles called China’s Atlantic Strategy. One of the things they said very clearly was, “The Atlantic is absolutely critical to the United States, and the United States is coming to our backyard and poking around in the South China Sea, so we have to go to their backyard.”

Branko Marcetic

Western discourse on the war in Ukraine, and this now seems to be being transplanted to China and Taiwan, has tended to be dominated by appeals to progressive values around defending democracy and self-determination. But there is not much acknowledgment of the risk of military and nuclear escalation.

Lyle Goldstein

For progressives around the world, their first take is absolutely, “This is good versus evil, and we have to step up and do what it takes and be the greatest generation.” I’m not sure why they’re not able to appreciate how the subsequent steps are so tragic, and there’s not much thinking about the costs. We seem to be in a period now like the 1940s and ’50s with these proxy wars, like the Korean War, which has been compared to the Ukraine war.

In the 1950s, we had statesmen like Eisenhower, and arguably even figures like Richard Nixon, who had fought in World War II and seen huge numbers of people die with their own eyes. They’d been there and were able to put aside this crusading mentality and realize they had better protect the peace, what peace there was. The United States made a lot of mistakes in the Cold War, but it was able to not go over the edge. And maybe Russia also had that kind of baked-in appreciation for the costs of war that just seems to be totally missing today.

I’m watching a lot of Russian media now. The level of frustration there is immense. They’re more or less calling for American blood, one way or another. Their view of it is that this war is being run out of the Pentagon, and a lot of Russians and Ukrainians are dying, but the Americans are just kind of laughing about it. This is not sustainable, and could really explode. I’m absolutely sure that a lot of smart Russian strategists are thinking about how they can make life very painful and kill lots of Americans in various ways, and that’s a bad thing.

Most journalists that I encounter and people who are educated, they don’t think through steps three and four. They just have a gut reaction — it mostly plays into this good-and-evil narrative — and they just assume blithely that we haven’t had a nuclear weapon used since 1945, so we understand no one is going to go there, and anything else is okay. It’s very sad, that’s for sure.

#us china relations #world war 3 #nuclear war #united states #china #taiwan #nancy pelosi #cold war #taiwan strait

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tanadrin · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on people who just want to be left alone, and not just solitarily - they want to leave modern society and go live in the woods.

They should be permitted to. Modern liberal democracies are mostly OK with making deals with secessionist subcultures: enclaves of Mennonites, the Amish, ultra-orthodox Jews, and so forth are permitted form and mostly self-govern, and are occasionally even granted opt-outs from various forms of government interference, like certain taxes or insurance requirements, on the basis that they make much less use of government services. It's harder to carve out such exceptions for individuals, but we do have things like the concept of the conscientious objector that accommodate deviations from the usually expected set of rights and obligations for people with a commitment to alternate sets of values.

But these things exist on a spectrum; opting in or out of society isn't a binary choice. Also, except in the libertarian fantasy land, it's very hard even in North America these days to find trackless wilderness where you can live totally unconnected to the rest of humanity--and most of it is in Alaska and northern Canada, so bring a nice thick coat. Where I think this consideration, the concept of "atomic communitarianism" to borrow a phrase, is most interesting is in its more complicated real-world instantiations.

Anabaptist religious communities in the US, for instance, aren't really autarkic villages; they're socially segregated, but economically connected with the surrounding area. Ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, while endogamous, have historically always existed within larger urban communities, and could not function without them; many seem happy to rely on social support from the government, which given the emphasis they place on a particular kind of pious lifestyle makes sense.

Where indulging atomicity in society encounters tension, I think one of three things are at play. First, the atomic community is in conflict with the wider community over material interests. The fight over the distribution of public school funding in Ramapo, New York is a great example of this. I don't think these kinds of conflicts ever have easy solutions, especially when the atomic community in question doesn't or can't form a distinct separate unit of local self-government.

Second, an organization wants conditional status as an atomic community. Anabaptists generally refrain from participating in secular government as a fundamental tenet of their religion; contrast the Catholic church, which now that religiosity is declining in many of its former strongholds, often presents itself as merely wanting to govern its own affairs free from governmental interference; but as soon as they are in a position to influence policy and make political noise, they do so, and they have no doctrinal objection to being made the sole official church of a secular state. In other words, Catholics are not naturally an atomic community, and so shouldn't be treated as one. They shouldn't get special consideration in a pluralist society, and Catholic institutions should be subject to normal rule of law. The Catholic church hates this, and it's this loathing of being constrained by the same rules everyone else is, rather than a real ideological motive, that causes them to cover up child abuse and play the victim when their mass graves get dug up in Canada and Ireland.

Thirdly, an atomic community may be genuine in its aspiration to atomicity, and it may be tolerated implicitly or officially by the collective authorities; but there are obligations that the collective authorities have to individual members it is pledged to protect that supersede any deal made with the community as a whole. The most visible example of this in the present day is child abuse by religious authorities. Whether it's the FLDS, ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, or, yes, the Catholics, one of the few things our society absolutely refuses to condone in an atomic community or an aspiring one is the sexual abuse of children, and the obligation of the collective authorities to prevent that is considered so far-reaching that no exceptions for any self-governing community can be permitted. Sometimes these communities can stave off interference temporarily by capturing local authority in elections and flying under the radar of more remote authorities, but this seems to only work in rural areas and only for a limited amount of time. The only imperative to exercise state authority over atomic communities that I can think of that comes even close to this one regards, like, tax evasion, because states also have a strong incentive to make sure people know that independent parallel authorities aren't permitted to compete with the state, and tax collection is one of the very basic functions of government.

Now, all of the above examples are religious communities. That's not entirely a coincidence: religion is a powerful community-building force, and rising standards of living in the developed world have reduced the relevance of purely political or economic utopian projects. In countries like the US, where there is a strong tradition of religious freedom, federalism, and soft libertarianism, society can easily accommodate a large number of atomic communities, even highly insular religious ones. That is strong to America's credit; in almost every case, if people want to go off and do their own thing, they should be permitted to. Even fucked-up cults like the FLDS folks should get a strong benefit of the doubt, because pluralism is important, and state power is a crude bludgeon, and when that bludgeon goes awry you get shit like the Waco massacre. We can quibble on where exactly the line for outside interference should be drawn, but regardless of the criteria we use, sexual abuse of children seems like a reasonable criterion for interference.

Should lone individuals or tiny groups get carte blanche to fuck off into the woods and never contact human society again? Sure; but they effectively already have that, if they can find an empty patch of woods. And simply in terms of sheer numbers, the quantity of hermits and members of eremitical microcommunities will always be dwarfed by larger, more persistent atomic communities like those organized on religious lines. Religion is just a much stronger motivating factor for that kind of secessionism.

If a self-organized community of individualists did form in the wilderness, or on some vast expanse of privately owned land, and wanted to govern themselves free from interference--well, that's called "incorporating a municipality" and you can go through existing legal channels. Your new town won't be free of state or federal authority, depending on where it is; but if you're large enough to need a bona fide local government, I think there's a strong presumption that your community has a big enough impact on the surrounding areas and is populous enough that the collective authority takes a legitimate interest in how your community is run. But local governments are really important, and get a lot of shit done! Don't underrate their power.

If you really want more autonomy, you can always petition your state or national government for status as a separate state/territory/province/autonomous community/department (it worked for the Mormons!). You'd probably have to be fairly big; but I think your community would have to be very large in the first place to really get any benefit from that kind of larger local government. And, of course, there's always the Free State Project. In fact, I want to strongly encourage right-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of every stripe, no matter where in the world they live, to move to New Hampshire and leave the rest of us alone. I think that's a really terrific idea (and more viable than seasteading).

One thing I didn't discuss is uncontacted peoples or native communities that preexist the communitarian authority. Especially with regard to the former, I don't trust state power to interfere in these communities in a non-destructive way; whatever the conditions the North Sentinelese are living in, the entire population being wiped out by measles carried over from the mainland would not be an improvement. And the excuse of legitimate state interest in protecting individuals has often been used to fuck with communities of racial undesirables--it is after all the reason the residential schools in Canada were built, and the Catholic church empowered to imprison children in them. This is part of the reason why even if you can prove an atomic community is a fucked up cult that treats its members horribly, I don't think it should be forcibly disbanded--the criteria for interference have to be extreme, because they have been so flagrantly abused in the past. Basically, the framework I'm using in the rest of this post doesn't apply here, because these native communities aren't secessionist for any meaningful use of the term. They function differently, they preexisted the authorities imposed on them, and that original imposition was a war of conquest.

#the whole idea of the empty natural trackless wilderness in which it is possible to build an autarkic community #is a fiction born out of american (and canadian and australian etc) self mythologizing #and so i don't think it works very well as part of the premise #even in a thought experiment #but for the purposes of this post i'm just rolling with it

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leviiattacks · 4 years

Text

Two Faced | Chapter Five

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it's all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared. for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au, angst, fluff, slice of life etc word count :: 3k author note :: just got diagnosed with covid so i have a lot of spare time on my hands so ummm send in any requests you have into my ask box i’d love to try doing headcanons!! → next part is here!!

Erwin sees the confused look you have and now he too seems lost as he shifts his line of vision to Levi. At that moment your husband slams his heel and grinds it onto your foot. Squirming around in your seat dealing with the stinging pain you catch on that you can't let Erwin think you're clueless.

Quickly, the look of confusion washes away from your features and you return his smile. "I'm willing to do what I must."

You think you've ruined this entirely because Erwin's eyes dart suspiciously between you and your husband. However, Hange intervenes, the interference seems to be enough for him to shake off any skepticism he senses.

Two hands hold onto your frame and squeeze your shoulders. Hange is standing up and seems ecstatic."You two are just so evil." they cackle to themself and you play along laughing too. You are not giving Levi the opportunity to ram into your foot again. Hange who is practically a personified ray of Sunshine at all times does still seem a little down, you did pick up on it when you entered the room. Maybe it was just you overthinking, that's what you assure yourself with.

Then it settles in your bones. Evil? Blinking you turn to look at Levi hoping for some sort of indication about whatever is going on.

"She wouldn't listen to me at all, said she felt the need to step in and help the Empire in some way." His tone is monotonous, still not sparing you a glance and you want to kick him in the shins. He's usually much more affectionate and you're afraid Squad Leader Hange and Commander Erwin will figure out this is all a facade.

"It's a noble commitment to put yourself forward for such a risky position, I see why you and Lance Corporal Levi are a sound match." Erwin isn't smiling this time but his tone is content.

Mind now buzzing with ideas you want to fall face first into the carpeted floor of the office spread out like a starfish. You would prefer that instead of being left in the dark. Could they simply mention the name of whatever it is you've apparently offered to do?

Levi's clearly grimaces but then he moves to hold your hand rather boldly. Shaking him off isn't an available option because of his strong grip. "She wouldn't listen to me at all. If I had it my way she wouldn't step anywhere near enemy soil." He grumbles.

The fake concern he's trying to lace in his voice is having an effect on his two colleagues, they're eating it up and believe this act.

Enemy soil? Risky position? He has to be stealthily plotting your death because you see no other reason for why you would be sent off to venture anywhere near the enemy. You aren't even apart of their regime, or any regime for that matter, you're itching with nervousness and want to free your hand from his desperately.

The only emotion this man is good at feigning is straight boredom, he ignores the way your hand shakes and squirms, ignores how your palms are dampening with sweat, instead the way he holds onto you only strengthens. It's surprising that no one has said a word about the lack of chemistry between the two of you.

Suddenly Hange looks down at their pocket watch and hurriedly gets to their feet dragging Erwin up with them too. "Y/N, I have something to tell you later on, please do stop by HQ when you can, I expect that will be soon." They then tell Erwin that there's no time to loiter and that there are more important meetings to attend to.

Erwin leans into your ear and whispers. "He seems disturbed that you're putting yourself at risk. He means well." You wish that were the case but it isn't. Despite that the way Erwin tries to explain Levi's behavior is sweet.

Hange gives you a cute thumbs up but makes it a point that you need to speak later on, even as they're both walking out the door Hange keeps reminding you to meet up later on. The abnormal behavior between you and Levi may have been noticed but you know if that were the case Hange would have been more vocal about it.

"Combat classes start soon. We know this will all be difficult, building you up from scratch is hazardous but all in good time you will serve a key role in the liberation of Paradis."

Erwin's parting words are gracious.

And then both the Commander and Squad Leader leave, the room is empty but Levi doesn't even wait for the door to shut behind your two visitors.

He makes it a priority to throw your hand away from his, he's now methodically using his handkerchief to dust his fingers off. It's oddly ironic and enrages you because he's the one who grappled your hand into his grasp. What's the point when those same hands until recently looped around your waist in the middle of the night?

He thinks your hand is filthy, that you yourself are filthy and disgusting. At least that's what you think he thinks.

Crossing your arms over your chest you make your feelings known to Levi. You're frustrated beyond the way words can describe, it's not about how he refuses to touch you. Admittedly that does hurt you, makes your chest swell in remembrance of the old days but you really just want to know what he's put you up to without your permission.

Not speaking you wait for him to take the hint but he doesn't get it or he refuses to acknowledge your existence, something tells you it's the latter because all he cares about is sanitizing his hands.

He always had been a clean freak but when he was enchanted it didn't take much for him to touch you. Part of you wonders if it's the nature of the touch that he wants to exterminate or the fact it's your skin he's come in contact with which is bothering him.

"Care to explain?"

"Touching someone such as yourself romantically gives me the urge to retch." The confession is as acidic as the after taste one has after a late night of drinking, but he has no problem telling you the blunt truth.

"I see." You shortly reply, you weren't asking about that, your question was directed more towards the conversation which just took place with his colleagues but now knowing he doesn't want to touch you has an emptying effect on your chest.

A silent minute passes, maybe two minutes, you're not sure all you're doing is eyeing the carpet thinking about how you would like to be asphyxiated and brought to your end, you can't handle this for much longer.

"Sign these papers, we need your written consent." His voice shows no hints hints of Lev. Last night may have been the last time you had a chance to witness him.

A stack of documents is thrown in front of you and then you see it right at the top of the pile. A sheet filled with general information, eyes skim over the "Purpose of employment" section and you don't know what churns in your stomach. Is it Exasperation? Nerves? Grief? It can't be pinpointed, it could be a mix of all three.

"An Informant."

Rereading the title you hold the paper in disbelief between your palms. "You told your regiment that I would be willing to spy in on enemy kingdoms?"

His hands rub at his forehead, he's not perturbed at all. "Is it in your blood to be ungrateful?" Brutally cynical his tone is rocky.

He moves - not even towards you but for some reason you flinch stopping him in his tracks almost immediately. Narrow ice cold eyes trace your face carefully for any signs of manipulation or deception. Gulping anxiously you know you have to be careful with what you say or do. Getting too comfortable or casual around him is a risk you are not willing to take.

"I don't think you understand. I do not have the abilities nor the skill to do this. I would cause more issues." You cautiously move to grab his arm but before you get there he takes a wide step back. He's clearly defining that there's a boundary. You won't step into his territory not when you've already invaded a large portion of it for so long.

"I am no witch. I still don't understand what happened." You mutter hoping he believes you or at least tries to.

"Then die." Levi hisses. He fixes you with his poisonous stare. "Make it quick."

Curse yourself to a life with this man who every step of the way is hoping for your death - maybe he'll even push you towards it purposefully one day. The alternative choice available is to die by the hands of that same man right now.

Guilt and regret are what you feel, you can't look death in the eye proudly. Not right now. If you can't commit to the promise you made mother then there is truly no point in making your way to the afterlife.

Cowardice is not the cause of death you want to present her with.

With a heavy heart you sign the papers.

It's been a few days since then, you've received training from some of Levi's squad, at first the combat is nerve wracking but you get to a level where you feel comfortable in terms of defense.

Oluo is slow, you've picked up on the way his stance predicts every move he's about to make. You're thankful for that because it makes training easier, he's oblivious to just how easy it is to read his movements and you snigger at that. Today he's trying a new technique, it consists of attempting to dive in the direction of one of your shoulders and suddenly darting at the other. It catches you off guard for a second but it's simple to block him. Jumping back from another surprise attack you lunge forward as if you're aiming for his face. He lights up thinking this is his chance unbeknownst to him you've already seen the open opportunity you've been waiting for. You can change the wager in this brawl. Swiftly ducking you undercut him with one of your legs, his balance has been knocked and he stumbles teetering by a thread.

A solid kick to his stomach is all it takes for him to collapse to the ground grumbling in vexation.

Mikasa has been helping you with one on one combat and the extra hours of training behind the stables has clearly been of benefit.

Thinking back to your training sessions with Mikasa you frown, not because of the way she flipped you and shoved you into the dirt, no that part was quite exhilarating. It's Sasha. She's been on your mind. She has to be feeling left out, that's your fault you've kept her in the dark about joining the regime, how could you attend training with her? Your maid waiting on you whilst you were training? Impossible.

The last problem you wish to arise is everyone finding out you're Duchess Ackerman. No one has to know about that minor detail, in fact when you informed Hange and Erwin of your decision they strongly agreed it would be best to hide it.

"I think we should get you strapped into some gear. See how good you really are in the dexterity department." Oluo is spitefully mumbling under his breath red faced.

Offering him your hand he looks like he wants to smack it away, You don't have time for this, you were planning on dropping by and paying Hange their more than overdue visit after training hours were up.

ODM-gear doesn't look too hard, you're sure you can work out the mechanisms if given some time. Calculating and shifting time blocks in your head you can come to an end at Six, if and only if you're able to rush past ODM training.

"Okay, I admit you were tired today I could tell. I'll strap myself into some gear."

At this new new challenge Oluo willingly takes your hand and you heave him up.

He's got a cocky shit-eating grin sprawled across his face as he pats your back enthusiastically.

"Good luck, you're in for one hell of a ride."

Three dimensional ODM-gear, a contraption that is very different to a sword or dagger. Most soldiers find it difficult to master the balancing of all their body weight whilst simultaneously gliding through the air with the grapple hooks. This is why introductory lessons in balance, momentum and effective weight distribution are a must.

It's been instructed that you won't be using ODM-gear nearly as much as other members of the regiment, you're training to become a spy after all and ODM-gear is very obviously visible when a person is strapped into their uniform. Nevertheless it's still a requirement to be able to use it. It's a hurdle because it's not your forte by any means but you can't continue avoiding it.

When living as the Duchess you deemed it pivotal to only interact with a limited number of Levi's colleagues, those who worked at the estate couldn't be avoided such as Mikasa but apart from that Hange was the only outsider you spoke to (Before Erwin had come along). You don't know if you regret that decision because it's definitely why everyone is cackling as you thrash around, they have no idea he has a wife and if they do they show no inclination of knowing you are that woman.

Sniggers can be heard as you struggle to center your strength fully, your instructor bellows at you. "No, come on. STOP FLAILING AROUND!" Particles of his saliva fly in your face and that only feeds into your embarrassment. Paralyzed you don't know what to do, he tells you to not move around then the next minute barks at you to not give up, repeats that you have the agility level equivalent of a sick child.

You've been stuck in this upside down position for more time than you can imagine, at some point a large majority of the scouts including Oluo double down in laughter whenever you make a mistake - they berate you when you are trying your best.

Legs kicking out you're panicking and want to escape the harness you're in.

Oluo was right, nothing could prepare you for this.

Mikasa when she isn't busy assisting Levi is a part of the regime too, that's why she's grinding her teeth this morning when she walks into the training grounds and sees the whole scene play out right before her eyes.

She wants to desperately step in and stop this because you being forced into ODM training without having your core strength developed is unfair.

Then a yell is heard from the crowd "GO Y/N!! LISTEN TO ME ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS KEEP CALM!" Both you and Mikasa turn to see Sasha standing next to her.

Sasha? Mikasa knows very well how you forbade her to follow you today, you gave her the day off to visit her family.

"I thought Y/N warned yo-"

"I am dedicated in my service to the Lady, if she chooses to do this I will be by her side to support her. She does not have to feel embarrassed."

Members of the corps are eyeing her weirdly when she says "Lady" she doesn't know you're keeping your identity secret, that was the reason for giving her time away, you were afraid she'd slip up and expose you but simply hearing Sasha proudly announce her commitment for you in front of all these people knocks the wind right out of your chest. You've never felt this much importance before.

Sasha's motivation is all you need because by a miraculous turn of events you manage to steady your breathing pattern and find it within yourself to focus on your core. Wobbling shakily the transition is far from smooth but you flip yourself right side up, the muscles in your calf ache and throb with pain but you've done it.

Grinning from ear to ear at your two friends you feel light-headed with relief.

"Took her long enough." Levi sneers. He's made his way to the front of the crowd, you wonder when he got here. Beaming at him you think your presentation might be enough to discourage his usual response. You're incorrect.

"She's a shame to this squad, there is no need in motivating someone of her rank." Shallow breaths puffing out of you it comes to your attention that he's addressing Sasha.

She ignores what he has to say about you and stays silent, any normal person would have their head hanging down in shame but she looks into his eyes with a determination that takes your breath away.

He pays her no mind after that and turns back to where you're still struggling to keep steady. "Don't think you're hot shit." Your bottom teeth dig into your lip, and your throat suddenly clamps down on you restricting your breath. "She's no good at combat, no good at using her gear. Do you only excel at spreading lies, Cadet?" The way he's now completely indignant in the way he speaks stings. He doesn't even bother to sound normal in front of Mikasa or Sasha anymore, it makes you manually hollow your cheeks trying to keep your tears at bay.

Lies, you know what he's referencing. You want to grab him by the collar of his shirt and throw him to the muddy ground. That's what he deserves for prodding and poking at your vulnerabilities.

He doesn't understand the degree at which all these sudden changes are affecting you, in his eyes this is light work and shouldn't impact you at all, that's why when you feel a muscle contraction and reel backwards, rapidly falling back into that cursed upside down position. He scoffs, doesn't even move to check if you're okay.

Whispers circle around you and even some of the cadets who participated in ridiculing you step forward to take you out of your harness. However, Sasha and Mikasa get there first and shoot them with their intense glares, the both of them work on hoisting you out of your gear.

Levi takes one last look at you before he storms away convinced you're faking, what else would a runt like you do to escape the situation?

In his mind you lost your momentum and your ship capsized because of your own self sabotage.

Little does he know all that has truly lost momentum is the inner-workings of your heart and that is all thanks to him.

#levi ackerman #levi #aot #snk #attack on titan levi #attack on titan #aot fanfiction #aot headcanons #duke levi #levi x reader #levi x y/n #levi smut #levi angst #levi fluff #levi fanfiction #leviiattacks

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local-triggerhead · 3 years

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[Theory/Analysis] The Motives of Each Eugenicist

Wow, look at me rising from the graves and dusting off this account after 800 years like it's nothing. Your Trigger hype beast is back baby, if any of you still remember me.

This post contains spoilers for both Gridman and Dynazenon.

Ahem. I want to make this post to gather my thoughts and better understand the antagonists of the show, as they aren't heavily featured and explored like Akane. It's just my own analysis based on what I can observe in the show, so some parts would be more vague and generate different interpretations. This analysis may seem obvious to some and not so much to others, but I hope it'll offer some clarity regardless. Tl;dr at the bottom.

The General Motive

It's pretty much given in the show. The Kaiju Eugenicists wanted to destroy humanity and create a world where themselves and kaiju can live and be accepted. They believe that the world is a better place as you're no longer being tied down by human bonds, granting you unrestricted freedom beyond even the laws of physics. This is their shared goal. However, each of them have separated purposes and things they want to achieve along with this.

Onija

Let's start with the 2 more obvious cases. Onija clearly stated what he wanted to do - kill all humans. How many times did he yell this out? It's kind of shoved-in-your-face. No other Eugenicists expressed this desire as strongly as he did. At the base level, he simply wanted to live. He was brutally killed once and was determined to not let it happen again no matter what. This is why "I thought I was dead" was a constant running joke. It's also why Onija had a deep personal grudge towards Gauma and humans, who were the cause of his death 5000 years ago.

Juuga

Juuga had a deep admiration for Gauma and looked up to him. Unlike Onija, he didn't wish to oppose Gauma, but to make an alliance instead. When the Eugenicists first appeared, Juuga said:

It's clear from this line that he wanted things to be the way it was 5000 years ago, where they were a group of friends working towards the same goal. He missed and yearned for that carefree time. The original Eugenicist group was the most important thing to him. You can see that he never fought with any other Eugenicists, but remained calm and passive towards them at all times. This attitude only extended towards the Eugenicists, as he had no qualms about killing anyone else for his goal, including the Dynazenon crew.

Even when Mujina stole Dyna Striker, the first thing that came to his mind was using it to negotiate with Gauma and get him back.

Mujina

These last 2 Eugenicists are slightly more complicated to pick apart, as they process things more internally.

At first, Mujina was very indecisive and didn't buy much into this kaiju thing. All she wanted was to finish it quickly so she could leave. She was lost in life and just followed the other Eugenicists around because she had no directions of her own. Then Mujina found Koyomi, someone who also didn't have anything going for himself and just plainly a loser in his life. He was someone she could feel related to. Mujina's attitude supposedly changed after she was tackled by Koyomi, but I believe this just pissed her off and only played a part in her personality shift. The other cause, I think, was Sizumu's encouragement, where she "realized that kaiju is all [she has] got" and that she had to take responsibility for her actions.

Koyomi came to play a major role in episode 11, when Mujina witnessed him starting to look for a job. The only person who she could feel related to was unaffected by the aftermath of the kaiju and moving forward with ease. Meanwhile, Mujina, who had just found her purpose in life, lost it once again and was now completely stuck, as the future where the Eugenicists could live and be accepted was destroyed. When facing such a crisis, one would seek to put the blame on something for all of their problems, and Koyomi just happened to be the perfect target.

Sizumu

Toughest one to crack here, but I'll shoot my best shot. In the beginning, he opposed the Dynazenon crew the least among the Eugenicists. He suggested against killing them, had the most interaction with Yomogi and Yume, and suggested Mujina to return Dyna Striker for seemingly no reasons at all. His main reason for not killing Team Dynazenon was to see more kaiju, and getting close to Yomogi and Yume was for his kaiju to absorb their emotions. However, I believe there was another underlying reason that tied his actions together. He was looking for an alliance.

Contrary to Juuga, the alliance he was looking for didn't only include Gauma, but Team Dynazenon as a whole. To understand why he searched for this, we must first look at what he was. He had an ability that allowed him to hear kaiju voices, which gave him a much deeper understanding of kaiju compared to the other Eugenicists. Due to this, while the others more or less thought of kaiju as a mean to create a world where they can live and be accepted, Sizumu would consider kaiju as his own kind, so much so that he had a severe disconnection with humans. He distanced himself away from even the Eugenicists, almost as if he only tagged along because they shared the same basic goal.

He didn't seek to understand humans, but instead for humans to understand kaiju. His goal was to create a world where not only the Eugenicists were accepted, but kaiju themselves were accepted. He believed that the world was better off like this, because, from his perspective, kaiju could liberate people from human bonds and offer them unlimited freedom. To me, this is rather hypocritical as he never understood why people tied themselves to these bonds in the first place, so he wasn't in a position to say what was better and what wasn't.

Sizumu was the only Eugenicist to mention this kaiju power and express his distaste towards human bonds. He explained this very early on to Yomogi and Yume, and why did he do this, you may ask? Why, to help them understand his views and create an opening for a potential alliance, of course. If his only purpose was to absorb their emotions, then that's quite a lot of unnecessary effort to make himself look friendly and approachable to an uncanny degree, especially when being "friendly and approachable" wasn't his forte. No, he was testing the water to see if he could get them on his side.

Then came an unexpected opportunity for him to determine once and for all if Team Dynazenon can understand and accept kaiju. He let a failed kaiju run free and distracted the Eugenicists away from it (with a tactic he learned from Chise) to see what the Dynazenon crew would do. Some people said that it's to test if any of them were kaiju user, and while that's possible, I think it's a little unlikely. Sizumu only observed them at 2 instances, first was when they started the search for the kaiju, the second was when their beam destroyed the kaiju. Unless the kaiju voices could tell him, there would be no way for Sizumu to know if any of them used Instance Domination, until the very end when Yomogi used it on him. The likelier hypothesis would be: he saw them searching for the kaiju > he saw the kaiju being killed > he surmised that kaiju couldn't exist peacefully with Team Dynazenon, and didn't seem to be particularly happy about it.

From then on, Sizumu decided that they couldn't be his allies thus no longer approached Yomogi or Yume. It seems that he arrived to this final conclusion:

And this is where the series itself left off. Kaiju simply can't co-exist with humans. They are irregulars to the human society. Furthermore, the freedom that they offer can't be allowed to exist as running away from society and real human connections is wrong, even if reality is ugly and difficult to face. This is what make the series similar to Gridman. However, unlike Akane, the antagonists of Dynazenon failed to realized this and didn't get their happy ending.

(A detail that I'd like to mention is that Sizumu was silent during the entire final battle in contrast to the other Eugenicists who were pumping themselves up. It was like he was saying, "Didn't want to do this but I guess you left me with no choice". Though silence can mean anything so it's not a concrete evidence.)

TL;DR and Final Words

This is so much longer than I thought and I really apologize for it. I just don't want to make anyone do logical leaps when reading this post.

Tl;dr:

- Onija wanted to live and had a grudge towards Gauma and humans for causing his death.

- Juuga wanted Gauma to join them again and for things to be back the way it was 5000 years ago. He cared for nothing outside of the Eugenicists group.

- Munija wanted a purpose, found one, then lost it again. She envied Koyomi for regaining his sense of purpose and moving forward with his life.

- Sizumu wanted humans to understand kaiju and a world where kaiju can set humans free from their bonds. Initially considered an alliance with Team Dynazenon, but concluded that them (and people in general) couldn't understand kaiju after all.

- Final message of the show: Go touch some grass and talk to humans you fucking weebs.

Misc

When using Instance Domination, the palms of the Eugenicists always face towards the kaiju. The only exception is the last battle where Sizumu's palm faced towards himself, indicating that the kaiju was inside him. I believe that it was located at the center of his chest, where he shot out that weird magical light beam. Just a small thing I find interesting.

If we want to take it a step further, I believe the seed inside him had already grown into a kaiju, but it was still relatively small until he used Instance Domination on it. Eerie, huh?

And this is more of the theory territory and leaving the analysis, but this could possibly be why he was able to hear kaiju voices. Chise was able to understand Goldburn and translated for him at the end, so maybe having a kaiju inside of you would allow you to understand other kaiju somehow? If this is the case, he would probably have had the kaiju inside of him since 5000 years ago.

There's also this big brain moment from a 4chan user. The resemblance between Yume and Juuga is kinda uncanny considering they're both obsessed with the past.

That's it boys. I'm gonna crawl back into my hole until next century, or until Trigger drops Edgerunners. 8/10 show, VERY underrated gem. Trigger won't stop saving anime.

This post but on Reddit:

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cacti-are-like-flamingos · 4 years

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addiction

Pairing: Dabi x Reader

Warnings: Serious themes - mentions of drugs and addiction, depression, swearing

Summary: The pain of injuries can only be tolerated for so long before they become too much.

Reader is gender neutral

...

Sometimes it was bearable, other times? Dabi straight up wanted to die. He was tired of the endless cycle of healing and then burning his wounds over and over and over again. He just wanted it to stop. Why wouldn’t it stop? I mean he tried everything. He tried not using his Quirk for a year, but for some reason, it just didn’t get better. He thought that if he could stop using the main cause of his never-ending torture, he’d be fine. But then...why did he still want to die? Then again, there’s his past, and that by itself would make anyone want to kill themselves.

Sighing, the raven haired stretched over the couch, his hand reaching over to the bottle of pills sitting beside the raggedy couch on the termite infested nightstand. Unscrewing the cap, he quickly took two little white pills before popping them in his mouth and swallowing them down. Placing the cap back on, he examined the bottle itself. See-through orange plastic with a worn, dirty white label on it. The corners of it peeling off to reveal sticky black residue.

OxyContin

(oxycodone hydrochloride)

Take 1 tablet every 3 hours as needed

He scoffed under his breath.

Every three hours my ass, he thought. By this point, his body was too dependent on the readily available drug. It needed it to survive. And all he could do was be a slave to the need.

Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, Dabi pulled out a small box of cigarettes, taking one out before putting the box back to its rightful place. With a snap of his fingers, he activated a small blue flame at his fingertips. Pushing the tip of the stick to the flame, he quickly put the flame out before placing the stick up to his lips. The flesh molding over the cigarette beautifully as he breathed in the nicotine. And there folks, was another addiction of his. Nicotine. He remembered the first time he smoked, he was young, possibly around 13 years old. In his mind, it was bound to happen. Afterall, his quirk was fire based and his father’s as well. Wherever there’s smoke, there’s fire, he remembered someone once telling him.

He was 13 years old when a group of gangbangers came up to him and asked him for a lighter. He legit has no clue as to why they would as a literal child if they had a lighter but whatever. Instead of pulling out one, he snapped his fingers just like now. They were so impressed by his Quirk that the gifted him a cig, telling him that it was good and shit like that. In the end, peer pressure got to him and he took a huff. Sounded like an asthmatic afterwards but yeah. That was his life. Pills, cigarettes, and depression. You’d think he’d be an alcoholic; however, surprisingly enough, he didn’t like the taste of alcohol much. I mean he drank, yeah, but liberally. Nonetheless, he’s life was literally depressing. There was the occasional excitement he received after joining the League of Villains, scaring kids was beautiful. Putting Pro-Heroes on their toes was also beautiful. But it was also quite tiring. Especially with Shigaraki’s constant babbling about stupid shit. And then, all of a sudden, Shigaraki and Kurogiri call for a meeting.

They want to introduce a new member to the team?

What?

He knows everything and yet, he didn’t know this? Impossible.

And here you come. Strolling through the door with a small smile n your face, your eyes sparkling with both nervousness and excitement. Yet, the faintest hint of death rang about them.

You were a sight to behold. That much he could admit.

“This is (Y/n). She’s a powerful player in our game against the Heroes so treat her well.” Was all Shigaraki said.

Soon after, Toga had taken on the responsibility to annoy you until your ears bled.

He wanted to say you were different, but in all honesty, you really weren’t. You had your fair share of traumas, you had bloodlust, you had a sickness. You just went about it in a different method. You never once really laid a hand on the children of UA, and that by itself earned you trouble with Shigaraki. In fact, you were even informing the students bout their mistakes, teaching them the correct way, and how to get out of the box with their fighting style. At first, he just couldn’t understand. Why were you helping the enemy? And then he heard you say something to them. Not just to one, but to the whole class.

“My enemy isn’t you. My enemy is the Hero Commission. And it should be yours too. Before you even join something, you should research everything about it.”

In his eyes, you changed. Or more so, his view on you changed.

After that night, his relationship with you shifted. Back then he didn’t talk to you much, just a few words whenever you bumped each other in the ungodliest of hours. The two of you finding it hard to sleep. He would often joke that if he didn’t have skin grafts under his eyes, he would have raccoon eyes just like you. And you quickly retort with, “What are you even talking about? You’re a literal zombified raccoon.” How long has it been since he’s genuinely laughed like that night? Hell, he couldn’t even fucking remember.

As time passed, he began to notice that whenever he was with you, the pain would be more bearable. Maybe it was because your quirk’s minor power was healing, or maybe it was also because you had somehow become his little dose of serotonin. Either way, he was addicted to you. He still popped pills, but it was less. He still smoked, but it was less.

He smiled at the mold-covered ceiling, eyes glowing neon blue as thoughts of you popped into his head.

“Dabi?” Speak of the devil.

“Hm?”

“Hm.” You responded before coming over and settling yourself into the couch, flinching as you felt the cracked skin of the leather couch dig into your bare thighs. Clicking your tongue in annoyance, you shifted so that you were now laying your head on his left shoulder, your hair tickling the skin of his neck.

Seeing the orange bottle in his hand, you paused. You just stared at it while he stared at you from he corner of his eyes. And with a blank expression, you gently pulled the bottle out of his grip before stretching over to place it back on the nightstand. All before moving back to him and snuggling into his warmth.

He found comfort in your silence and unquestioning nature. You never talked about his addiction, never pestered him with questions of his childhood like Toga or Twice did. Never mocked him like Shigaraki. You were just quiet. Never judging, never scolding, never prying. Yeah, now that he realizes this, never once had you asked him to open up. You never once tried to fix him like most of fanfic’s depict. Instead, you just accepted him for his present self. However, that didn’t mean that you agreed with how he handled his pain. Most of the time, when ever he used his Quirk for a long period of time, you could always make sure to heal him causing him to lessen his pill taking. One time, he even tried detoxing. All by himself. That was a shit idea.

He could’ve sworn he was quiet, but apparently, your ears could catch even the steps of a mouse for in mere seconds you were already knocking at his door. You must’ve arrived from a mission too because when he didn’t answer, you barged right through the doorway still wearing your get-up. The look of pure rage on your face kind of made it worse but we don’t really talk about it. Despite all this, it was then that he learned you could help with withdrawal symptoms. And it was also then, that your relationship shifted into even deeper territory.

He wasn’t able to stop his addiction.

Instead, he developed yet another.

The horrible addiction of that is

you.

...

(A/N): I just wanted to portray Dabi in a different light because a lot of people forget that if Dabi’s has burns all over his body, he would most likely develop an addiction to pain killer’s because they would heal and then get burned again--- or at least that’s how I see it. Also apologies if this a bad representation on addiction, it’s my first time writing about the subject. But nonetheless,

Hope you enjoyed!

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atarahderek · 4 years

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Wolfwalkers Review

I confess, I have not taken the time to watch the first two movies of Cartoon Saloon’s Irish folklore trilogy (a fact I hope to rectify sooner rather than later). But I did take the time to watch Wolfwalkers...and I fell in love. The animation, the unique style, the music, the story...it was all beautiful. So I thought I’d give my thoughts on it, trying to keep them as spoiler free as I can.

Wolfwalkers had a limited theatrical release and was later released on Apple TV’s streaming service--which does offer a one week free trial if you want to check out their content. It is not the first Cartoon Saloon animation I’ve seen (I watched Breadwinner a few years ago), but it is easily the most beautiful. Being of Irish descent myself, I’m always happy to see good stories set in the lands of my ancestors. Especially stories that make liberal use of Celtic style music. If you have a Celtic heritage you’d like to explore, Wolfwalkers is an excellent celebration of that heritage and worth watching for that alone.

The story

The plot is fairly simplistic: A girl moves to a new town and has a hard time adjusting, meets a friend who stands out just as much as she does, discovers that friend faces a terrible threat, and tries to do whatever she can to help her friend. In this story, Robyn Goodfellowe and her father Bill have moved from northern England to Kilkenny, Ireland (insert South Park joke here). Bill is a hunter, tasked by Lord Oliver Cromwell, who insists on being referred to as Lord Protector and nothing less, with eradicating the wolves who live in the nearby forest so that the woodcutters can clear the forest for farmland. Well, the wolves in the forest have something to say about that. While trying to prove to her father that she can still be a good hunter despite Cromwell’s wishes that she stay in town and work in the scullery, Robyn comes across a girl named Mebh, who reveals herself to be a wolfwalker; a type of werewolf, for lack of a better term, that takes a wolf form whenever her human body sleeps. After a misunderstanding, Mebh accidentally bites Robyn, causing Robyn to become a wolfwalker herself. But her new form makes her an ally to Mebh, who is waiting for her missing mother to return so they can take their wolf pack and find a new forest untouched by Cromwell. Robyn struggles to keep her new secret form from her father and Cromwell, but when Cromwell threatens the wolves and Mebh directly, Robyn can no longer remain silent.

Cartoon Saloon’s history of giving their stories bittersweet endings makes this plot a little less predictable than it would be if it came from any other studio--and a lot less predictable than if it came from Disney (I love Disney, but sometimes they play things too safe or too true to their own favorite tropes). But the ending is quite satisfactory. It did suffer the plot mandated friendship failure in the third act, but to be fair, Robyn’s heart was in the right place, even if her actions weren’t. This film proves that a story doesn’t have to have a bunch of plot twists or be especially complex to be good. There is an elegance in simplicity.

The characters

Robyn is spunky, independent, snarky and skilled in marksmanship. She understandably does not like the new “cage” she’s found herself in under Cromwell’s strict rules. In England, her father let her go hunting with him and gave her a lot more freedom. In Ireland, he is firmly under Cromwell’s thumb. And as Cromwell is not afraid to punish children as if they were adults, Bill fears Robyn will be taken away from him and jailed or put in the stocks. Robyn has started to hear the phrase, “It’s for your own good,” far more often than anything else from her father, and she can’t stand it--right up until she uses the same phrase toward Mebh to protect her from Cromwell. When she becomes a wolfwalker, she suffers anxiety, wanting to hide her wolf form, but also craving freedom more than ever. Robyn is the type of idealist who always imagines herself easily taking a stand against something she believes to be wrong, but when it comes right down to doing just that, she balks at first. But in the end, she is able to stand strong anyway. Even as a child, Robyn shows strong leadership skills and has a mind for strategy--when she’s calm and focused, that is. When she’s out of her element and panicking, she gets herself into quite a few predicaments. Her strengths and flaws make her a well rounded character and prevent her, a young, falcon-owning huntress in 1650 Ireland, from sliding into Mary Sue territory.

Mebh is your standard wild child. She’s fiercely independent, loves to tease, and tends to make bombastic threats toward people who might offend her. She’s at least a few years younger than Robyn, and it shows. Robyn is 12-13 years old, while Mebh seems to be about nine at the most. Mebh takes promises seriously, expects them to be upheld, and is easily hurt when they are broken. Despite having little in common with Robyn, she bonds easily with her within hours of meeting her, teaching her all that she needs to know about being a wolfwalker. She’s a handful for anyone, a fact that baffles Cromwell, who apparently has very little personal experience with children. Kids Mebh’s age are often portrayed as seeming older or younger than they are, but Mebh is portrayed as a very convincing nine-year-old. She’s properly immature, but also old enough to take care of herself while her mother is away. Though she does have over two dozen furry babysitters to take care of her.

Bill Goodfellowe represents the rare Sean Bean role where his character doesn’t die. He’s a widower who is just trying to establish a good life for himself and Robyn. When he gets called to Ireland, he finds himself having to tie down his free spirited daughter, and it’s plain to see he hates doing it. He wants to protect her from the wolves around Kilkenny, but he also wants to protect her from Cromwell’s retribution against anyone who violates his dictatorial laws. Eventually, he has to stand up to Cromwell to protect Robyn, finally realizing that complying with tyranny will not allow him to protect his daughter; it will only put his daughter in more danger.

There’s not much to say about Mebh’s mother Moll. Her whereabouts are unknown until halfway through the second act, and even in the third act she doesn’t play much of a role. She’s a tough but tender matriarch who acts as something of a living MacGuffin. She's also the plot’s punching bag.

The side characters are mostly delightful. Merlin is your standard animal sidekick, but he’s also a very useful means of communicating, being a bird that can talk to Wolfwalkers. A bully named Paidrig turns out to be a useful tool for Robyn, keeping him from being completely repulsive (but only just barely; I’d rank him just below Eustace Clarence Scrubb in the first half of VDT). And Sean Og is criminally underappreciated. Seriously, we need some more love for Sean Og here.

And as for Oliver Cromwell, I have quite a bit to say about him. I’m going to save that for its own post, since it will involve spoilers. Since he is a historical domain character (unlike the others), the approach taken with him was different from what it was for the other antagonistic characters--and for a lot of villains in general. He’s almost Judge Claude Frollo in John Ratcliffe’s body.

The soundtrack

With an abundance of gorgeous Celtic music and a beautifully fitting rendition of “Running with the Wolves” by Aurora, I have only one complaint about the soundtrack: I CANNOT FIND IT FOR SALE ANYWHERE!!!

In summary

It’s beautiful, it’s so very Irish, it’s a quality story about magic wolves (those are rare), and I sincerely believe it is more than a contender for best animated feature this year. Honestly, I liked it better than Soul. Well done, Cartoon Saloon. Well done. Now, to all of you reading this, go support Wolfwalkers!

#Wolfwalkers #review #Cartoon Saloon #animation #Robyn Goodfellowe #Mebh og MacTire #seriously if you know where to find the soundtrack for sale or safe download please tell me

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rebelwith0utacause · 4 years

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La Petite Mort

I started writing this a month ago, got stuck on 300 words and thought I might never finish it. Here we are, beginning of June, and it’s finally done, all 3.4K of it.

Warnings: Don’t read it if you’re underage, can’t handle smut and bad writing or if you’re Michael Clifford.

I got the idea listening to A Little Death by The Neighbourhood one day. Go check out the song if you haven’t already. It’s one of my faves.

You can also find it on ao3. Let me know what you think. and please don’t let it flop.

It was supposed to be a quiet affair, a way to get rid of their demons, to let them fly for the night. They were no strangers to it, the taboo and the darker side of their passion meant that they had to hide in the shadows. It was easier in a way, shadows cloaked emotions, making any attraction feel hazy and unsure until it completely vanished in the morning.

Not that you’d ever spent the morning with him. It was a wonder that you’d even met up on multiple occasions. That’s not how the system worked. You were given one chance at a scene, meant to be an outlet, not a dating site. But you fit so well that first time, you knew you had to see him again.

It started out with an occasional DM on Twitter, every couple of months. You would tell him what you needed, what your body and soul craved, he would tell you the location, and the time. You would show up, you would perform, exorcise your demons, go back home, rinse, repeat.

You never meant to get addicted, but there was something in his touch that liberated your soul. You knew it was one-sided, but that didn’t stop you from going back for more.

It was the end of November, an uncharacteristically cold weather had blown into town, the air smelled of snow and you decided that your fingers could use a pair of gloves. You quickened your steps. The neighborhood was neither bad, nor the greatest, but the streetlights were flickering and you started feeling the panic swell in the pit of your belly. The motel was in your sights, a flickering red sign above the main entry showed that there were a few rooms left vacant.

Entering the lobby finally set your nerves at ease. You’ve entered familiar territory.

There was a middle-aged man tending the front desk, his thinning hair glowing under the neon light. He was flicking through the pages of an old magazine, not paying too much attention to the sound of the bell when you opened the door. Really, he couldn’t even bother to look up.

“How can I help you?” was uttered under his nose, his eyes never leaving the glossy pictures. “I have a reservation for room number 7.” Your voice cracked at the “have”, not sure if it was the nerves or the lack of use. He swung around in his chair, grabbing the key from its allotted space and placing it on the desk, no “There you go.” no nothing.

Seen as he wasn’t very forthcoming, if you were being 100% honest, he was cold and insanely rude, you just grabbed the key and left the lobby. You pulled the lapels of your jacket a bit closer and hurried to get to your room. You only had half an hour to get ready.

You’ve done these scenes in almost any kind of environment, but the stagnant air and moldy waterpipes in motels had you feeling a certain way. You never claimed to understand why you liked the things that turned you on.

The first thing you had to do was set the scene. You were both lovers of 90’s aesthetics, so the outdated furniture and yellow lighting in the room were perfect. You took off your clothes, making sure to leave your white cotton set on. It was going to get destroyed anyway, so there was no point in wearing fancy underwear - his words, not yours. Come to think of it, it might had something to do with the fact that it made you look almost virginal, and it felt like he was corrupting you time and time again.

Folding your clothes one by one, you set them in your backpack and hid it in the bathroom, leaving your old self behind. You took the bedcovers off the queen-sized bed and the pillows on the nearby chair, you knew he might need them at one point. Hiking your knee on the mattress, you settled in the middle on your back, eyes closed, hands clasped on your tummy, waiting. And you didn’t have to wait for long.

You heard the creak as the door opened, but you didn’t dare open your eyes. It was one of your demands. You didn’t want to know who he was, it was easier that way, you could fantasize about the possibilities of it being anyone on the street. You could hear the soft sounds of his footsteps as he approached your lying form. “Up.” It was a signal for you to lift your head as he wrapped a scarf over your eyes. The bed dipped as his knee came to rest behind you, securing the knot and doing quick work of braiding your hair. At first, it freaked you out, but you soon came to realize that it meant he could do less damage to your scalp when he pulled, and he liked to pull on it quite a lot.

His cold fingers trailed from the bottom of your braid to your sides, making you squirm in your seat. He’d warm them up on your skin soon enough. You could hear and feel his soft exhales in your left ear, followed by the feel of his beard on your neck as he trailed kisses on your skin.

“Are you ready?” The only answer you dared give him was the tiniest nod.

Both of his hands moved between your thighs, gripping them and parting your legs as wide as they would go. His left hand found your clothed breast, roughly grabbing a handful and squeezing a moan out of you. The tips of his right hand found their way on top of your cotton panties, middle finger pressing lightly between your slit, dampening the material with your juices.

It was only an interlude, you knew that he was here on a mission to wreck you, but the intimacy of it all prickled at your soul.

You felt his whole demeanor change, his breath evening out and his muscles flexing against your body. The hand grabbing your tit moved to grab your neck, no pressure yet, he was just using his thumb and index finger to guide you against him. The one petting your pussy moved to bunch up the material of your panties and pull it up, giving you an uncomfortable wedgie but stimulating your clit at the same time. Your only response was a strangled wheeze.

“You like that? Like having strangers feel you up?” He released your neck. “Look at you. A whimpering mess and we haven’t even started yet.” You suddenly felt a light tapping on your clothed clit, increasing in force and intervals, making your head fall back on his shoulder, moaning at the slight pain.

And that’s what you were here for, the pain. You knew that he had loads of it in store for you. He grabbed your braid, maneuvering you around until your head was pressed on the bed and your thighs were spread on both sides of his knee, ass high in the air. Same as before, he bunched the material of your panties and pulled, leaving the globes of your ass bare for his eyes only. His other hand grabbed your right cheek, roughly squeezing it upwards and away, getting a peek of your puckered hole. It disappeared and came back before you could even blink behind the scarf, the resounding thwack of his palm on your ass chasing the chill away. He repeated the same motion a few times until the bottom of your ass was rosy and you were silently begging for more.

There was a ripping sound in the stillness of the room as he roughly pulled your panties. They were left to sit in ruins on your thighs as his middle finger came to inspect your leaking pussy. The whole thing looked so bad but felt so right at the same time. You were nothing but a broken puppet in his hands and you were never sure if he was trying to fix you or fuck you up beyond repair.

The pressure was building in your lower belly, his knee pressing against your bladder and his calloused finger strumming your clit, catching it with his blunt nails time and time again. Just when you thought that you might enter another dimension, his finger disappeared only to be brought back in the form of a hard hit on your pussy.

“Not so fast.”

You were impatient, but that’s not how you won this game. You felt the bed move with him, falling flat on your belly. He, once again, used your braid as a handle to position you right. You were lying like that for a few seconds or a few minutes, you couldn’t tell. The panties were off, the bra was lying somewhere on the floor and your feet were cuffed in metal rings. You recognized the familiar immobility caused by the spreader bar, holding your feet from locking together. He bound your hands in leather and left them to rest on the bed above your head. The bed dipped between your knees as he situated his body behind you, pulling on your hips, grinding your naked ass on his denim-covered crotch. You kept rotating your hips, working yourself up and stretching lazily like a cat. It was almost desperate, the need for contact so great, you would do anything for him. But he had other plans.

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop making a mess? You’re such an infuriating little slut.”

He left you on the bed, tears of frustration slowly gathering behind your eyelids as you waited for any sort of stimulation. You heard the whoosh before you felt the tiny licks of pain on your back. So he decided to use the cat this time, the tiny leather knots deliciously digging in your skin. He was warming you up, knowing you needed to have a bit of pain before you reached nirvana, but ever so careful not to break the skin.

Minutes turned into eternity. Your thoughts had fled your mind. You could only feel the warmth and produce incoherent noises in different pitch. Hit after hit like tiny water droplets before the deluge. Somewhere in that not-here-nor-there space of yours, you didn’t hear the buzzing, or maybe the blood rush to your head drowned the noise. But the tiniest vibration from the wand had you shattering to pieces.

You held your breath, the scream lodged in your throat, saliva dripping on the sheets in front of you, your entire body shaking from the orgasm, your knees barely holding you up. He could only chuckle from the side, knowing that this was only the first of many that night.

He let you breathe for a while, seeing the curve of your back dip and flatten as you tried to get yourself together was a huge turn on, if the bulge straining against his jeans was anything to go by. The next time he approached, he decided to forego the whip, but kept the wand close by, just in case. He was back between your knees, hands hugging your lower back, bending you even further. His roughened hands traveled the expanse of your reddened back, making sure you still felt the phantom pain from the cat-o-nine tails. His face was in front of you, taking in the scent of your arousal before flattening his tongue on your lips. You felt the vibrations of his moan more than his actual voice, but it was over before it began.

You heard a click and felt the coldness of the lube between your cheeks. He used his middle finger to spread it on the rim and started applying steady pressure. You’ve done this before so you knew that it was time to relax and push back, allowing entry. He was working you up, slowly opening your hole to fit two of his fingers. After he was satisfied with the progress he made, he took them out and slowly replaced them with a lubed up princess plug. The metal felt heavy inside of you, but not entirely uncomfortable, and if you were being honest with yourself, it made you feel special knowing that there’s a sparkly button attached to your ass. He pulled on it a few times, making sure you were comfortable with it before leaning down and giving the clear zircon a kiss.

The incredibly tender moment was cut short when both of his palms landed hard on your cheeks. He liked seeing the contrast between your fire red flesh and the cool fake crystal handle, so much so, he couldn’t stop playing with your ass, jiggling the metal device with every squeeze.

It never occurred to you that you could cum from such a little amount of stimulation, but you were almost there. You were moaning the motel down and somewhere in that sex haze of yours you thought you might have heard a thump or two from the neighboring wall, but you couldn’t care less. Not when the wand was back on your clit, and definitely not when you felt his fingers curl up inside of you. He wasn’t being extremely gentle either. He knew you thrived on the overstimulation, pressing the pads of his fingers on your g-spot harshly, almost feeling mechanical. He was a conductor and he knew how to orchestrate your body, your moans and screams the most beautiful symphony. You thought that you would end with a dramatic crescendo, but the music sheet had a few more pages left.

His fingers left you, the wand went down at the same time as his zipper. He didn’t bother to push his pants down, just opened them enough to pull his, very hard and very ready, dick out. You heard the crinkle of the condom packet being ripped and felt the latex on you. He was rubbing his cock between your cheeks, gathering as much of your juices and lube on him before he entered you. The novelty never wore off. It didn’t matter what he did to you beforehand, it was always a tight fit, the stretch bordering pain and pleasure.

You felt full at last, the double penetration making you mewl like a cat in heat, the moan slowly rising up in volume until you did nothing but scream. Each time he moved his hips against yours sounded like thunder in your ears, the plug going deeper and deeper inside you. You tried to hold off as much as possible, but it was a losing battle.

One extremely forceful push had you collapsing on the bed, blissed out. He was chasing after his own orgasm, covering your body with his. The only indication that he was a tall man was the fact that when he laid like this, his chin would almost reach the top of your head. But you didn’t mind the weight, in fact, it almost made you feel protected.

The bed dipped to your left, he must’ve put his hand in front of you for leverage because his other was busy shoving three fingers in your mouth. You had your eyes closed, making sure you produced enough spit to lube his digits so you didn’t notice the moment the scarf shifted, freeing a tiny sliver for your eyes to see. He took those fingers, bringing his hand to your already wrecked pussy, finding purpose in playing with your clit. The sensation was too much, revving you up one last time. One final push had you coming hard, milking his cock for every last drop, vision going black, and the sight of a familiar finger tattoo making your heart painfully clench.

--------

It was New Year’s Eve and you were on a mission. The Christmas lights were on, the finger food was on the table and the guests were about to arrive. There was no dress code, you just told them to dress comfortably. It was a small event, you didn’t have many friends to begin with, courtesy of always working, but you did have a growing circle of people who loved video games as much as you.

You were slowly becoming a tight-knit family, getting together for game nights and the occasional drinks, and you liked it, you didn’t need more interaction. You were, however, extremely happy when one of your gamer buddies gave you a bit of his attention. Where you were generally talkative and friendly, he was your polar opposite, deciding to stay in his shy shell until he felt comfortable enough to speak. You knew he had a good soul, you just never knew what to expect from him. The only time his real self decided to come out was when he was in the middle of a game.

But you did in fact know a little bit more about him than you were letting off. He was in your apartment now, scanning the place for an empty corner to hide in. You couldn’t help but admire him, a tiny ball of lust wound tight in your lower belly. He looked so good in a pair of light blue jeans and a white tee, covered by a red plaid shirt. The tattoos peeking beneath his rolled-up shirt sleeves and the whole grungy look were such a contrast to his shy self, it almost made you laugh, that is, until you realized that you might have cum a few times from rubbing yourself sore on the coarse denim of his jeans.

The advantage of playing host was that you always had an excuse to go up to people and strike up a conversation. You let him relax for a bit, though. Cornering him right off the bat might do more harm. But you were done playing this game of cat and mouse, where the cat was in fact a kitty and the mouse was a Pit Bull in disguise and you wanted to know what was his endgame.

You found him in the kitchen by himself, licking some pizza sauce from his fingers. “Oh, hey Michael, didn’t expect to see you here. Too crowded?” You pointed behind you at the party, eyes zoned in on his Adam’s apple moving as he gulped. He looked a bit startled but he wasn’t cowering like you expected him to. “Yeah, you know me, not much of a team player.” You knew that wasn’t the full truth because whenever he tried to hide something, he would try to fix his already perfectly styled bleached fringe.

There were layers to his personality, and he was never game to show them all at once, but you were willing to unravel him. You were thankful for once that your kitchen was tiny so it only took you a couple steps to reach his side. Before you could chicken out, you grabbed his left hand and brought it up for inspection. He tried to pull it away, but you were having none of that. “You know Mikey, I never really asked you what this tattoo’s about, and I’ve been meaning to for a while now.” He still looked uncomfortable, but the way your thumb kept rubbing over the circle and three dots engraved on his middle finger was making his eyes dilate. “You like it?” His tone was no longer shy, and you could finally understand why you never put two and two together. Turned on Michael was speaking in a low, almost gravelly voice, completely unrecognizable from his usual higher-pitched tones. And now he knew you knew. And there was no escaping it.

“I liked it better when it was disappearing into my pussy.” You whispered, looking up at him through your lashes. You knew you were trying to act tough, but the moment he wound his fingers in your hair and pulled, you knew that you’d always be putty in his hands. “Don’t forget your place, pet.” he breathed out. “You don’t get to top from the bottom. I could easily bend you over the table in front of all of our friends and have your ass red if I wanted to.” And you knew that he would. He detangled himself from you, leaving you turned on and confused in the middle of the kitchen.

The party was dying down. There were a few stragglers left, their silhouettes hazy in your vodka-Sprite-induced vision. A new year has begun and for once you dared yourself to make a wish. Little did you know that once everyone left, a certain 90’s enthusiast would make all of your wishes come true, and then some, only this time you could look into his green eyes while you died a little death.

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hunnyuwu · 4 years

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It Was Always You || Wayv Lucas

Premise: Lucas is back in town and you’re not too sure how your heart will manage...

Pairing: reader x idol! Lucas

Genre: fluff, more fluff, lots of fluff, and a little angst (?)

WC: a little under 2k

Warnings: cringe, like always ;)

~~~

Lucas walked further into the dimly lit den, curiously observing the sparks bouncing along the floor accompanied with the loud ring of power tools screwing small metallic parts in the undersides of large vehicles. The place reeked of sweat, gas, and new metals, causing Lucas to slightly cringe and the beautiful concoction of smells. He gripped the item behind his back a little harder, a large lump forming in his throat as he continued on his little adventure through the foreign territory.

“Look who we have here.”

Lucas’s eyes widened at the voice he yearned to hear for years now. He felt relief rush through his body as he looked around for the source of the sentence. The hairs at the nape of his neck stood up when he finally saw the person he came here for.

“Hey, Y/N.” He sighed out, not daring to take his eyes off your form for even a second as you approached him with that smile that made him go insane. A dumb smile pushed the corners of his lips to the ceiling as familiarity flooded his system.

“How has the pretty boy been?” You said calmly as you placed your hands on your hips.

“I’ve been fine.”

Lucas cursed to himself internally as he ‘unwillingly’ studied your body, like anyone would do, right. You displayed a white tank top with denim jeans. While it was simple, Lucas couldn’t help but admire you like a piece of artwork. He had to admit. You had grown quite nicely.

You sensed an awkward pause between the two of you, so pulled your goggles up to your forehead, wiping some black scum that resided on your hands on your jeans in addition.

“That’s good to hear! Anyways, how did you figure out that I work here?” You chuckled as you gestured to the logo on the wall, the logo of the automobile repair shop that you ended up working for after graduating from high school. You still didn’t know what you wanted to do with your future yet, so this was a good filler in the meantime.

“I visited your mom and dad earlier. And it wasn’t hard to assume that you would follow in the footsteps of your dad.” Lucas bit down a laugh as he watched you let out an embarrassed choke. You nodded understandingly, trying to look anywhere but him.

“Fair enough.”

While you wanted to look calm and collected in front of Yukhei, your heart was beating at a speed that would be illegal to drive in a car. You even felt your palms become sweaty as you tucked them neatly in the back pockets of your jeans.

Lucas had been your first love and your only love even now. It was a difficult period in your life, your best friend and massive crush had moved to South Korea to become a Kpop idol, which you were extremely supportive of, but you couldn’t help wallow in times when you noticed his obvious absence in your life. You missed him so much that it physically hurt at times.

It was odd seeing him back, those suppressed feelings that you withheld for the past few years crashed through the barriers over your heart like a tsunami.

“A-Anyways, nice jacket! Fits that whole playboy vibe you know?” You teased, causing him to lightly shove your shoulder with an eye roll, albeit with a large grin. You had to admit, though, that leather jacket that he was wearing hugged him nicely in all the right places, embodying the beautiful model boy that he was. You couldn’t help but eat him up like the eye candy that he was born to be.

“I’ve never been a playboy, and you know that, Y/N.”

“Sorry, the girls loved you, but you never liked admitting that did you. A little birdie even told me that you talked about your outstanding visuals on an interview, saying that no one liked you because you were too handsome.”

Lucas was already so done by your behavior, but he missed this interaction with you so much. He intently watched your cackling form, eyes screwed shut as you threw your head back. He made a resolution within himself, knowing what he had to do now.

“Y/N.”

You settled down a little bit, giving him your full attention once again. You flushed as you noticed his serious stare, hoping that he wasn’t upset by what you said. As you were formulating an apology in your head, Lucas beat you to the punch.

He brought out something that he kept hidden behind his back the whole time, effectively sucking out all the air in your lungs in one swift punch.

“I got these for you on my way here.” Lucas suddenly became infatuated with your work station as he outstretched the bouquet of flowers your way. You would usually tease him for this kind of behavior, but all you could do now was silently take the arrangement into your cradling arms. You quietly observed them for a moment, a pang squeezing your soft heart.

“Were the peonies a coincidence?” You whispered. Peonies were your absolute favorite.

Lucas gave you a semi-proud look, still retaining that shy side glance from earlier.

“No, you told me that you liked them on your birthday in 2015. I’ve been meaning to give you some for awhile now.” You felt extremely touched that he would even remember something so insignificant. You suddenly felt like such an awful friend in comparison.

“I couldn’t believe that you sent me those care packages when I was a trainee as well as when I officially debuted.”

Your eyes widened, “How did you know that was me? I sent those anonymously, I thought...”

Lucas smirked, bringing one of his large hands up to your hair to tuck a stray piece behind the shell of your ear, “You thought that you could send me those local Hong Kong snacks without me knowing that it was you immediately?”

You huffed, a pout forming on your lips, “It could have been someone from your family or something!”

“The amazing snacks that you and I used to eat when we had movie nights together? Give me a break, Y/N.” You couldn’t argue any further with his logic, so you just chose to hug the flower bouquet closer to your body as a coping mechanism.

“Anyways,” Lucas pulled away from you, immediately causing you to shiver at the lack of warmth that he surprisingly emitted when he was close to you, “I wanted to ask you something.”

Your pulse quickened with the elusive statement, wanting him to continue immediately.

“I’ve been thinking it over these years when I was away and I think it became more clear to me as time went on. I know this sounds irrational, and w-weird, and don’t be too grossed out but...”

“Just say it, Lucas.” You stated urgently, waiting long enough already.

“I-I... I think I like you more than as just friends and... I was thinking that maybe we could try to you know, date or something. B-Because after all this time I’ve realized that I can’t love anyone but you... You can obviously say no! I won’t take it personally or anything...” Lucas kept stuttering and mumbling, leaving you in a state of shock.

Thee Wong Yukhei liked you? The boy that girls and guys alike pined for all over the world? The Lucas of NCT and Wayv? The boy that was walking down runways as a model? The boy that you had been best friends with since you were walking in diapers? The boy you have loved for years?

Lucas kept mumbling odd words down at the floor, allowing you to carefully think over something that you had wished to do for so long now.

Without another thought, you launched yourself onto the poor boy who stumbled a little at the sudden lopsided weight distribution on him. Your lips crashed into his, allowing you to finally feel those lips that you had seen and admired for years of your life. You soon hoped that you wouldn’t regret these actions in a few moments.

You became wary as he hadn’t responded for a little while, but you physically relaxed as you felt his lips mold into yours, eventually reciprocating the motions of the kiss that you two had so long been waiting to happen. You melted, screwing your eyes shut as you wanted to fully experience what was happening.

You sighed, feeling like this moment was meant to happen, like it was destiny. Everything felt so right that it even hurt you due to the fact that this could have happened so long ago or never even happened if Lucas never approached you. You were just grateful that you were finally able to indulge in the feelings that you had sealed within yourself for years on end. Unfortunately, you knew this would hit some major roadblocks in the future, but you chose to stay present in the moment for now.

Lucas, basically on the same boat, felt like he could soar to the moon any second. The liberating feeling that he felt against your lips finally sealed the deal that his feelings were definite and true, something that he denied himself for years. He didn’t know what the future held for the two of you, him being a Kpop idol in a whole separate country from you will certainly pose problems, but at this point, Lucas knew that he would make it work. He knew that it would work because it was you, the person he holds dearest to his heart. (next to his family of course)

He would make anything work if it came to you.

The two of you were so desperate for one another that your prolonged kiss had practically sucked all oxygen supply you two had, but you kept going like your lifelines depended on it.

“Can you two kids take this outside or something?”

You two practically threw yourselves as far away from one another as possible at the new voice intruding the area. You paled, wishing it wasn’t this voice in particular.

“I-i’m so sorry, Sir!” You bowed, hoping that you wouldn't get fired on the spot.

“Yeah, yeah. Young love, I get it. You can take off early tonight, Y/N.” He waved you off, leaving the premise before you could even utter a peep.

“What a nice boss.”

“Oh shut it, Yukhei.”

“No, seriously. That means I can take you over to my place, like right now.”

“And what’s that implying, Mr. Wong?”

“You will see when we get there.” Lucas winked, sending your heart into a fluttering, messy frenzy.

“Y-Yukhei! You pervy little sh*t!”

~ ~ ~

This was cringe as heck I’m sorry that you read this!!!!!!!!!!!!

This was high key inspired by this one picTURE HELP

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there-is-a-hero-in-all-of-us · 5 years

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Edelgard von Hrasvelg

Uhhhh hello

Welcome to my extended opinions on a fictional character that I don’t know if you heard of. Or if you expected to see this random person talk about. Months after release.

So Edelgard is my favorite character in Fire Emblem Three Houses, for months now she’s been called a tyrant, murder, some version of Hitler, etc.

This is something I have basically been going around asking about in great detail about because I do not get it.

But I remember this and maybe I can catch more disagreements here.

So takes of various temperatures coming right up.

My biggest pitfall when I have this conversation is I often find myself thinking of the opposition as “Anti-War/Violence” which can be reductive.

So let’s start with context see where we land and how much bias can be input in the simple set up for a thing.

The land is Fodlan, split into three territories Addrestia, Faerghus, and Leciester Alliance. Some of that is probably misspelled. The House Leaders are all heirs to thrones of the regions. They attend school at Garreg Mach which is run by the Church of Seiros which is set up to be the real power in the land. There is a system of nobility which prioritizes Crest. Crest are something you are born with based on bloodlines.

Uhh spoilers I guess?

So there is this Flame Emperor working with some people they seem to hate that do the equivalent of committing terrorist attacks on Garreg Mach while you’re there. Down with the Church and all that. Oh and the only other group to ever do that was like this old guy Lonato who seems to believe it was a false goddess and you got sent to put him down.

No blasphemy here.

Oh your protag is mercenary that works with your Dad, you both get roped into jobs at Garreg Mach and during one of the Flame Emperor attacks your Dad gets murdered by one of those people the Flame Emperor seems to have this weird “I hate my staff” relationships with.

(Yo imagine if I had clips and shit as evidence for this, no this is low budget just take my word for it fam)

So yeah terrorist attacks on the church, dead dad Flame Emperor guy no bueno.

Oh god oh no, they’re a student of yours. It’s Edelgard.

Bet you didn’t see that coming.

Edelgard is here to take down the false goddess and end the system of Crest!

Now if you’re a good egg who loves your students and you recruited them all and listened to a bulk of their supports you might come out more like me.

If you were like the fuck is a support I am here for gameplay not chit chat back to murder. You might be like what the fuck Edelgard you (your people) killed my Dad.

There is a third group that is like this Church is too down with this whole murder thing and I’m not with it, so I’ll go with Edelgard.

Oh and I guess all the people who are playing Blue Lions and Golden Deer count too. But like pffft a route with no choices is barely worth discussing. (Jk Azure Moon is second best written route)

Let’s take a step back, I previously mentioned being persuaded by supports.

So let’s talk about what we can learn about crest in the early game! So you’ve got Mercedes, sweet girl, she’s a healer, devout too. She and her mother were taken in by nobles and then kicked to the curb when her mother gave birth to a son born with a crest.

Well that feels slimy.

It has to get better though, let’s move on to Bernadetta.

She’s... anywhere from adorable and must be protected to oh my god you are the most annoying character ever what is wrong with you.

She doesn’t like interacting with people much, she mostly stays in her room. Why you ask? Why would anyone? Trauma friends. You see she has a crest and she made friends with one of those good for nothing crestless losers and her Dad was like “no talking to filth” and then uhhh proceeded to physically assault her only friend. And now she’s afraid to have them.

That didn’t feel better...

Everyone’s favorite flirt must be cool with crest? Sylvain! Instant joins your class if you play as the female protag because like why wouldn’t he, he’s a flirt, but what’s this? He is deeply insecure and flirts because he feels that all the relationships in his life are superficial because the people only care about his crest?

Marianne is such a sweet girl why does she seem down? Oh she has a crest, but she keeps it a secret? I thought this were the way to the high life? Oh people discriminate against her based on her crest being that of the “beast”.

I could keep going, but I think that covers a decent variety of examples

Oh wait! Let’s talk about the the main squeeze!

Edelgard!

She has a story too, oh she and 10 siblings were taken by the nobility against her fathers wishes where they were experimented on. Only she survived. Just so she could have another crest. And the people who did this? It was those guys she had that “I hate my staff” relationship with.

So at this point this student of mine is here standing against the biggest power in the country trying to destroy these crest and uproot the current nobility that at this point has proven to be... well, less than stellar.

But doing this starts a war...

This is about where things get pretty contentious.

Her actions will lead to change regardless of her victory or loss, people will most certainly die, is she wrong?

Well I guess that’s up to you.

But regardless of that I think it’s interesting how she is perceived. Like as a tyrant? Some variation of Hitler? Well her stated goal is to liberate Fodlan from the influence of the Church and allow humans to be in control of their fate. A land where the leaders are based on merit and who does and doesn’t have a crest.

Now if Fodlan superpower is the Church and they unite the others against Addrestia how can she be a tyrant when she doesn’t have full control...? I mean it seems like she”s more of a revolutionary if you will? A radical one at that.

And most times at this point people have made a few concessions. I understand why she did what she did, I just don’t agree with it.This is where I get a little on edge. You understand, but you disagree. Well, as you can see, herself and others are victims of the current system. When people have spoken out against it, they have been put down.You can argue the earlier group was violent and ready to fight, but there was no attempt to deescalate the situation. It was go and kill them from the jump.

You see wit the dependency on crest a system propped up and given weight by the church which is the core of power in the country there is no check.They have no reason to care or change the system that has put these people in the situations they are in.

Her direct challenge of that is the only way any change is able to begin.

I understand that violence is unsavory for a lot of people, that the death the war brings is a high price, but people were already dying because of the crest, it was just under the cover of the status quo. If we can create a future where people aren’t suffering because of something that they have no control over I think it’s worth fighting for instead of letting those in power, corrupt as they are continue to control the system that we seek relief from.

You can probably apply a modern lens at that last paragraph too if you think about it hard enough.

But yeah how does a character like this become the Hitler/Tyrant?

Goodness I haven’t even mentioned that the power of the Church is so great that she has to enlist the help of the people that she was tortured and experimented on by, the people that are the direct cause of the death of her siblings. That she openly hates them as much as the system she’s fighting to bring down but is powerless on her own. She states that once the war is done she will handle them next and find a person to rule over Fodlan in her place.

Which like giving up power once you’ve obtained isn’t very tyrannical.

#fire emblem #three houses #edelgard von hresvelg #post out of nowhere #tl;dr

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blog-sliverofjade · 4 years

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Of Doms & Subs 4: Bribery Will Get You Everywhere

Pairing: Angus Hopper x OFC

Summary: What's a submissive female to do when she fights her nature and goes on the run as a Lone wolf to avoid being assimilated into a pack?

Word count: 2315

Of Doms & Subs Master List

Sleeping in was something I used to enjoy. Nestled in warm sheets while the world outside continued to turn, safe in a cozy cocoon. After the Change, it was no longer so peaceful. Although the house was decently soundproofed for humans, I could hear water running as someone showered. The buzz of an electric razor. Clinking of dishes in the kitchen. After ten minutes of hiding with a pillow over my head, I gave up and burrowed out of the nest of blankets. I was just pulling my shirt on when Mickayla knocked. A thrill of pride ran through me for recognizing her scent. I was getting better at this!

“Mornin’,” I called out and she came in at the tone of invitation in my greeting.

“How was your little adventure last night?” she grinned.

“Mortifying,” I grumped while tugging a brush through my hair.

“So if I tell you that there’s a betting pool on when you’d make a break for it we can see if werewolves die of embarrassment?” Her grin deepened to flash a lot of pretty, white teeth.

“How about you give me a cut and I don’t throw my dirty, wet socks in your face?” I started to reach for the duffel full of dirty clothes. She laughed and handed me a couple of bills, which I stuffed into a pocket without counting. “Next time let me know, I’m not above taking a fall.”

“There’s going to be a next time?” A perfectly plucked eyebrow rose.

“Eugene and Seattle aren’t all that far.” I turned away to wrestle my hair into a ponytail. One look in the mirror confirmed that there was no hiding the marks from Angus’ bite, so might as well own it. “I’m sure I could get a babysitter to come with.” There, that barely had any bitterness to it.

“Don’t think of it that way,” she shook her head so that the blonde waves swayed back and forth. “Think of it more like sexy bodyguards.” I laughed in spite of myself. “Speaking of which.” There was a glint in her sea-blue eyes that suddenly made me very suspicious. “You’ll want to swear off humans for awhile until you get used to your new strength. Don’t want to break your toys.”

I stared at her in confusion until comprehension crashed over me, immediately followed by a furious blush. “That is certainly not an issue. Happily single since the divorce became final last year.”

“Ah,” said Mickayla knowingly, and I belatedly remembered with no small amount of chagrin that she was a therapist. “That’s why you’re so determined to not get involved with a pack. Too much commitment.”

“Ugh, it’s too early for psychoanalysis,” I groaned, rubbing at my face.

“Come on, cranky pants, let’s get you some breakfast. New wolves are kinda like kids. If they’re cranky, do they need food or sleep? Antsy? Then they need to go run off some energy.” She linked her arm and in mine as we set off for the kitchen.

“Gee, thanks for that glowing comparison,” I said snidely.

“And in your case, maybe caffeine.”

“Give me tea and nobody gets hurt,” I pronounced solemnly.

“Threatening bodily harm before nine am, are you sure she’s submissive?” asked a man who had come out of a room behind us, also evidently on the hunt for breakfast.

“Watch this.” Mickayla fixed me with a glare and before I even knew it my neck bent against my will till my throat was bared to her. And she hadn’t even drawn on any power. I glared at her from the corner of my eye and my face grew flaming hot.

“I wanna try,” he said. I met his dark brown eyes with no small amount of anger that he thought he could control me so easily. “How? I’m more dominant than you,” he sputtered at Mickayla in confusion. She laughed and wrapped an arm around each of our shoulders.

“She doesn’t know or respect you, Brian. Neither her or her wolf are gonna roll over for some stranger unless he seriously pulls rank. Do you think Alan would for just any old wolf?” she asked the somewhat forlorn wolf.

“Who’s Alan?” At the stairs, Mickayla released us and led the way down with Brian in back so that I was sandwiched between them. It seemed automatic, like their instincts to protect subtly guided their movements.

“Our submissive and resident quack,” Brian answered. I automatically started to bristle at labeling any healer with such an epithet. That thought was pushed out when it occurred to me that if they had both a submissive and a female, then they probably had no need of another.

“I’d like to see you call him that the next time he has to patch you up,” she said dryly.

The kitchen was sized and equipped to feed a small army. Come to think of it, was there any difference between that and a pack? People moved in vaguely organized chaos, piling plates with bacon, sausage, eggs, hashbrowns, and various baked goods before moving to the dining room on the far side. Mickayla reached around someone, who was busy wrestling the Danish that he wanted from the rest of the basket, grabbed two plates and handed one to me. Being small meant I could easily dart around and through people to get in and out quickly, but I had no idea what the protocol was for seating arrangements so I stuck close to Mickayla and Matt, who’d joined us.

I had never seen a dining table so big, at least a dozen people were already sitting and there was room for more. It was obviously custom made. The kitchen also had a table that was pushed up against the main one so that everyone could be seated. I gave Mickayla raised eyebrows in question.

“You get our fearless leader’s right hand side. Normally that’s Tom’s, Angus’ second, but since he’s not here you get it as our honoured guest,” she said with only a hint of teasing. I gave her a grateful look before taking the seat in question. I stifled my surprise when she and Matt sat to my left. Evidently they were high in the hierarchy to sit next to the second, which I thought was a silly term when Beta would have made much more sense.

“Shane and Matt will be ready to hit the road by 10:30,” Angus said casually after I’d made some headway into my meal, trying my best to ignore him. Why he thought I’d be safer with two strange werewolves than on my own, I would never understand. But Matt couldn’t be all bad if Mickayla had married him.

“So soon?” I asked just as casually as I liberally doused my hashbrowns with salt and pepper. “I thought I might stick around and get to know ya’ll better. If I have to give up my job, there’s not much of a reason to go back to Oregon right away. Unless that would be an issue?” Put two or more intelligent beings in a room together and politics could spontaneously erupt in a vacuum. Visiting a pack in another state before even meeting the one back home could potentially cause more than an eruption.

The room went eerily silent as the others waited to see what their Alpha would say. Most of them seemed to be mildly surprised and curious. I was pretty sure they had all noticed the mark on my neck, but no one had said anything nor given it a second glance. Despite the weird fluttery feeling of fear in my chest, I managed to actually look him in the face. Not the eye, of course, but his strong chin, which was one of his few physical aspects that said Alpha. Maybe that was because I always had trouble seeing men with weak chins as dominant.

“The Eugene Pack was hard-pressed to welcome you on such short notice, so no feathers will be ruffled. And despite what that crazy lone wolf might have put in your head, you are free to travel.” He gave a small smile that eased some of the tension that had somehow crept into my shoulders. I was no Helen of Troy, but the apparent rarity of submissive females and the territoriality of werewolves could create a powder keg waiting to go off. As much as I enjoyed yanking his chain, any fallout could affect both packs and they didn’t deserve that.

Mickayla made a “gimme” gesture at Brian, who sat a few seats down from her. He sighed and handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “Haven’t you learned not to bet against my mate yet?” Matt shook his head.

“Hey, didn’t she only go out with you because of a bet?” Brian retorted.

“Yeah, and even though I won, I still ended up losing,” Mickayla said with mock ruefulness. The banter and round of chuckles said that it was an old joke.

“Speaking of sore losers,” I said to her with a pointed look, “I have some wet, dirty socks in dire need of a wash if there’s a washing machine I could use?”

“I’ll show you where we keep our poor beleaguered beast chained up in the basement,” Shane offered as he stood up with his empty plate. I followed suit since I was done as well. Mickayla surreptitiously slipped me a tenner as I passed, which immediately went into my back pocket.

“Don’t scare the poor girl!” someone called out.

“Eh, she’s seen your face and it hasn’t run her off yet.” The teasing faded only slightly as I tagged along behind Shane.

“O captain, my captain,” Mickayla said without a trace of mockery. There never was with her. “If I may beg an audience?” I nodded with a small smile that conveyed exactly what I thought of her false formality.

“Since it’s our duty to woo the new girl, some of us were thinking of showing her around town,” Mickayla said once we were ensconced in my office. I had a suspicion that the others she was thinking of had no inkling of their implication in her plotting yet.

“Considering how she navigated rush hour traffic to evade Tom, I’d say she knows the area pretty well.” Neither the wolf nor I liked the idea of Ellie leaving our sight. I propped one hip on my desk without a care that it put my head slightly lower than if I were standing. Like most of my wolves, she was taller than me anyway and she had never been anything other than proper. Oh sure, she would skirt the bounds of propriety when the situation allowed for it, but never in a manner that would call my authority into question.

“It might be good for her to get out and see that we’re not as draconian as that John made us out to be.” Translation: prove to her she’s not going to lose all of her freedom or she’ll bolt again.

“If you are going to manipulate me, you’re going to have to do a better job than that.” While her point was valid, I was not about to let her think I would cave so easily.

“You can talk at her until you’re blue in the face, but she won’t understand the benefits of a pack until she sees it,” said Mickayla. “She’s only staying because the evil that you know is better and partly to tweak your tail.” I raised an eyebrow at that observation. “Ellie’s a modern woman suddenly thrown into submissive wolf mentality and those instincts scare the daylight out of her. So she’s going to make us all work for it before she settles down.”

“Dominance is dictated by a person’s nature before the Change,” I shook my head. “She’s submissive because she was as a human.”

“I think her ex-husband did a number on her, or maybe John, or both,” she said with a small frown, which I mirrored at the thought of what might have happened to her. “That’s why she’s so prickly with any male who tries to play power games with her, like verbally bitch-slapping the guys last night. If she can relax where there aren’t so many wolves, she might tell me more.”

“What do you have in mind?” I asked after regarding her thoughtfully for several beats. Part of that time was spent contemplating tearing apart Ellie’s ex.

“Hit Pike’s Place until she realizes she’s not ready for so much public. One or two of us should be able to help her keep control.” Mickayla’s smile was far too predatory to belong on the face of a therapist.

“One of the biggest tourist traps on a three-day weekend?” I asked in disbelief and gave her the look that idea deserved.

“She still thinks of herself as human and she’s likely to screw up pretty badly until she sees that. The sooner we get that out of the way, the sooner she might calm down,” she pointed out.

“Take Matt and Shane with you,” I sighed and waved at her to go. Not only were they good muscle, but they were both married, even if Shane’s wife was human.

“Technically this is pack business, especially since she would work well with Alan, both as a medic and a sub.” If she’d said anyone other than Alan, my hackles would’ve gone up. Their temperaments, although both being submissive, weren’t suited for mating. And I got the feeling that Ellie liked her men dominant, despite what she may say. I affected a much put-upon sigh, drew out my wallet, selected a credit card, and passed it to the blonde. She accepted it with both hands, kissed the simple ring on my middle finger, then flashed a smile and a wink before dashing off to find her charge.

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