#fought in the trenches for some of this footage

[starshipoftheseus]

12.19.20 (BEL) — 01.12.22 (CLT) — 11.12.22 (CV) — 01.26.23 (CV) — 04.01.23 (CV) — 05.19.23 (CV) — 06.05.23 (CV) — 12.29.23 (SEA) best quality: his wiggles hops

[asktirimor]

RP Hooks and Headcanons for Hazbin Hotel

For those who might not know, RP Hooks are interesting things about your character that others can "hook" into for RP. This could be an odd personality quirk, a reputation your character has, or anything else that might inspire someone to connect with you.

Eversince that he got to Hell (Not willingly mind you), he has been dealing with the worst of the worst when it comes to both sinner and demon in The Pride Ring. There was no leads on their identity but all anyone ever saw was someone in a light grey hooded trench coat leaving the scene. He was given the moniker of The Archangel for those who have seen him.

Besides The Pride Ring at times he visited The Gluttuny Ring. While he was not a big party animal it at least gave him a bit of a familiarity when it came to home. He generally just stayed to himself in the back of the party were no one could see him. Though his own general vibe was a perfect mixture of sour and sweetness.

While he was generally in the news, it was only during the latest Extermination Day, where the Sinners and Demons actually fought back they got some good footage. This being footage of him holding off a few dozen Exocrists all by himself and leaving the general area a bloodbath.

As much as he didn't like being here but he had to admit, he needed a place of his own. He had recently taken an abandoned warehouse that was in The Pride Ring. He marked the borders of his territory using the helmets of the Exocrists that he killed once he properly dealt with the bodies and the angelic weaponry. The Warehouse had all the basic ammendities one would expect and a place for him to train and meditite.

[nbmsports]

After Suffering Heavy Losses, Ukrainians Paused to Rethink Strategy

In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s grueling counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to American and European officials. The toll includes some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians.The startling rate of losses dropped to about 10 percent in the ensuing weeks, the officials said, preserving more of the troops and machines needed for the major offensive push that the Ukrainians say is still to come.Some of the improvement came because Ukraine changed tactics, focusing more on wearing down the Russian forces with artillery and long-range missiles than charging into enemy minefields and fire.But that good news obscures some grim realities. The losses have also slowed because the counteroffensive itself has slowed — and even halted in places — as Ukrainian soldiers struggle against Russia’s formidable defenses. And despite the losses, the Ukrainians have so far taken just five of the 60 miles they hope to cover to reach the sea in the south and split the Russian forces in two.One Ukrainian soldier said in an interview this week that his unit’s drone picked up footage of a half-dozen Western armored vehicles caught in an artillery barrage south of the town of Velyka Novosilka.“They all burned,” said the soldier, who identified himself as Sgt. Igor. “Everybody is hoping for a big breakthrough,” he said, adding a plea that those scrutinizing from afar appreciate the importance of slow and steady advances.Russia had many months to prepare for the counteroffensive, and the front is littered with mines, tank traps and dug-in troops, while Russian reconnaissance drones and attack helicopters fly overhead with increasing frequency.Given those fortifications, experts say, it is not surprising that Ukraine would sustain relatively severe losses in the early stages of the campaign.This week, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, acknowledged that there had been a brief pause in operations some weeks ago but blamed it on a lack of equipment and munitions, and called on Western allies to quicken the pace of deliveries.American officials acknowledged that pause and said that the Ukrainians had begun moving again, but more deliberately, more adept at navigating minefields and mindful of the casualty risks. With the influx of cluster munitions from the United States, they said, the pace might pick up.“It’s not as fast, but it’s not catastrophically behind schedule,” the British defense minister, Ben Wallace, said on Wednesday. “It is doing what anyone else would do having to fight through minefields towards the Russian line.”The problems come into focus out in the farm fields in southern Ukraine where much of the counteroffensive is being fought. There the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, long coveted by the Ukrainians, have been running over anti-tank mines on a daily basis, soldiers who have fought in the vehicles say.The vehicles, which weigh about 34 tons, are designed to carry infantry soldiers through areas exposed to gunfire or artillery. A rear ramp opens to allow soldiers to pile out and fight. In planning for the counteroffensive, the Bradleys were meant to carry soldiers across open fields to reach Russian trenches and bunkers.The Bradleys have done part of their job well; their thick armor has provided good protection for most soldiers, who have survived many of the mine blasts with few injuries.“Your ears ring and things inside fly around,” said one soldier, who asked to be identified only by his first name and rank, Pvt. Serhiy. He survived such an explosion last month in fighting south of the town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region. But in many cases the blasts severely damaged the vehicles, immobilizing them well before they could reach the Russian lines.Military experts have long said that the first 15 miles of the counteroffensive would be the hardest, as attacking troops generally need three times more power — whether in weapons, personnel or both — than defending forces.Ukraine’s top military officer, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, expressed frustration that Ukraine is fighting without Western F-16 warplanes, which the United States only recently agreed to allow Ukrainian pilots to be trained on, but which are not expected to be delivered for several months at least. That has left the Ukrainian troops vulnerable to the Russian helicopters and artillery.Military analysts cautioned that it was still too early to draw definitive conclusions about the counteroffensive. “It does not mean that it is doomed to fail,” said Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former NATO assistant secretary general.Nevertheless, he added, the absence of air superiority and air defenses that Western jets could provide for Ukraine’s attack means “that casualty rates are likely to be higher than in other conventional conflicts.”The precise numbers of weapons and armored vehicles that have been destroyed in the counteroffensive, as opposed to “mobility kills” that can be repaired, are closely guarded secrets, and the U.S. officials did not give raw numbers, though they did agree on the percentages of weaponry lost. But a combination of open source data and official estimates can provide a snapshot in time of the destruction, particularly in the early going.Ukraine’s 47th Mechanized Brigade, one of the three Western-equipped and trained units that were deployed early in the campaign, was set to receive 99 Bradleys, according to the leaked U.S. military plans for the counteroffensive from February — still the most recent that have been made public.Data from Oryx, a military analysis site that counts only losses that it has visually confirmed, show that 28 of those Bradleys have been abandoned, damaged or destroyed, including 15 in a village in Zaporizhzhia Province on June 8 and 9 as the 47th was attacked by helicopters while trapped in a minefield. Six additional Bradleys were reported abandoned or destroyed in Mala Tokmachka on June 26, but Oryx researchers said these losses had occurred earlier, although it is not clear exactly when.Given that the 47th was the only brigade initially slated to receive the Bradleys, that means that nearly one-third of the original vehicles have been lost — although all but seven of them were blown up at one battleground.“It is within the realm of possibility that Ukrainian forces have seen losses at this level,” said Dylan Lee Lehrke, an analyst with the British security intelligence firm Janes, adding that a “significant” level of lost weapons was generally a hallmark of wars of attrition, like the one in Ukraine.The Oryx data show that only 24 tanks were lost for the entire month of June, including some from Ukraine’s own arsenal in addition to those supplied by Western allies.Ten of them were German-made Leopard tanks and mine-clearers, the data show. Presumably, they were lost in battle with Ukraine’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade, one of the three units deployed early in the counteroffensive, and which was slated to receive 32 Leopards in the U.S. planning documents from Feb. 28.That would mean that the brigade lost 30 percent of the Leopards it was given — all but two of them in the first week of fighting, the Oryx data show.The Ukrainian authorities say the army has so far advanced the deepest in southern areas of the Donetsk region, but no more than about five miles from the former front line at Velyka Novosilka. It faces another 55 miles to reach the Sea of Azov, a primary goal of the counteroffensive, as it would cut the land bridge to Crimea, wreaking havoc with Russia’s already shaky logistics. Ukraine’s forces are also advancing in two areas in the Zaporizhzhia region.It is even slower near Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region, where the bulk of Bradleys and Leopards have been sent to an area of open fields with little cover, There, Ukraine’s army has advanced only about a mile.Justin Scheck contributed reporting from London. Source link Read the full article

[90s00wcwwwf]

Over the Edge: In Your House

May 31, 1998

Wisconsin Center Arena

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dude Love compete for the WWE Championship in a No Disqualification Falls Count Anywhere Match with Mr. McMahon as special guest referee. The Nation faces D-Generation X in a six-man tag team match. The Rock defends the Intercontinental Championship against Faarooq. Kane faces Vader in a Mask vs. Mask match and more.

Video link,HD,SD & LQ.

News & Notes: Would Mr. McMahon fire Austin after the events of Unforgiven? No, that was too good for him. Vince wanted to teach Steve a lesson. He made Stone Cold defend his belt against Goldust with Brisco as the ref. If Austin touched Gerald, Vince would fire him. This annoyed Dude Love, so he interfered. In the chaos, McMahon hit Brisco with the title belt by mistake. The next week, a confused Mick Foley appeared as himself. If Dude wasn’t good enough for Vince, who could he be? Mr. McMahon motivated Foley by booking him against Terry Funk in a No Holds Barred fight. If Mick tore out the heart of his mentor, Vince would accept him back. Mick fought a hard battle and won. After the bout, Mick shared a moment with Stone Cold. However, Foley returned to McMahon with open arms and once again donned the Dude Love persona. What happened next? I’ll explain in the match notes.

Meanwhile, DX invaded an episode of WCW Nitro. They drove a jeep (not a tank) to WCW’s arena and approached the door. WCW security wouldn’t let them inside. DX claimed their friends were hostages. No matter how hard they knocked on the gate, they gained no entry. So they interviewed the fans on the street instead. Some claimed they received free tickets to the show. The following week, DX infiltrated the CNN Center. They wanted to speak with Ted Turner, but he wasn’t there. DX filmed as much footage inside as they could, but the security made them leave.

In other news, The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust had enough. McMahon using him as a pawn broke Goldust. He burned his gear and vowed to never use the disgusting gimmick again. He was now using his real name, Dustin Runnels. This led Vince to book him in a bout with Dude Love. If Runnels lost, he must work without pay for a month. Patterson screwed Dustin out of a victory. Next, Al Snow and Head arrived! Al’s on a mission to meet with McMahon and get a contract. Snow even convinced Lawler to sneak him into the building. Jerry promised him a meeting if Snow protected Lawler from wrestler attacks. (I’ll explain later.) Snow patrolled the audience until he realized Jerry lied to him. When he confronted The King, security threw Snow out. Then we have a new group in the WWF. Jackyl introduced his Human Oddities. Some of these were Howard Stern’s Wack Pack. He also had two wrestlers, Golga & Giant Silva. Golga is Earthquake under a mask. The Giant Silva is a large wrestler from Mexico. Jackyl also adds Kurrgan to the mix. Since Goldust kicked Luna to the curb, she joined The Oddities as a manager. Finally, the WWF aired vignettes for Edge. He’s a brooding man in a trench coat. Edge runs screaming through subway stations. A mysterious voice says, “You think you know me?” Who is this enigmatic man?

[strangewhitegirl321]

Illusory (10th Doctor)

{Not my gif.}

(A.N. This was a request I got on Tumblr... literally over a year ago. I am @sorry for the wait. Oops. Now I can't even find the messages I had to see what the expectations are for the fic or to tag the person who requested it. I'm so sowwy! I had no clue how I was going to finish this fic either, so I apologise if the ending is sloppy, but I just absolutely had to get this out of my drafts.)

Words: 1621

    "I can't let you post it, you know," The Doctor stated, exasperation covering his face and seeping through his voice. "Too many people would recognise me. It's not a good idea."

    "Who said I was going to post it?" Turning to give him an amused grin, (Y/n) nudged his shoulder gently. "It's just something fun- and, a good way to keep memories alive!"

    The Doctor's brows raised, the left side of his lips quirking up in just the slightest smile as the girl stepped in front of him.

    "Whenever we want to remember what happened here and all the fun we had, we can just rewatch the video!" His companion exclaimed, excitement practically twinkling in her eyes.

    "I suppose so, but you have to promise not to post it." The Doctor pulled one of his hands from the pocket of his trench coat, pointing it menacingly at (Y/n) as she quickly nodded in agreement.

    Without a hint of hesitation, she proclaimed, "I promise!"

    The Doctor tilted his head, seeming to study her before tucking his hand back into his pocket. Seemingly satisfied, he pursed his lips and nodded.

    "Alright, then. Show me what you have so far." He requested, watching as (Y/n) whipped out her phone and opened up the camera app. "Aw, seriously, you used a standard phone app? That's just pitiful."

    Almost immediately, a frown covered (Y/n)'s face as she turned to give him a look, "I can't afford any big fancy cameras, Doctor. This is all I have. Besides, do you have anything better?"

    "Yes, I do, actually," Seeming contented, the Doctor began to roll around on the balls of his feet. "I have plenty of gidgets and gadgets that would do a much better job than that sorry machine."

    (Y/n) could only huff at him in annoyance, pouting as she whined, "Well why didn't you mention that earlier? That would have been so much better-"

    (Y/n) cut herself off, a thought jumping front and centre in her mind, "Would you be able to teach me how to use any of those machines? For future reference?" She turned to face him better, looking him straight in the eye with her knuckles turning white from the strained grip she had on her phone.

    The Doctor pursed his lips again, rolling his head around on his shoulders as he observed her before finally conceding, saying, "Well, when your eyes sparkle like that, I can't say no, can I?" His companion immediately began jumping with glee, before he raised his hands and swiftly calmed her.

    "But first, show me the video! You said you already have it edited and everything!" He exclaimed, grabbing her hand and dragging her to the sitting area nearby.

    "Oh! Right, right!" Swiftly, (Y/n) whipped her phone around in her hands and pulled out the video in a few short taps. Apparently, she had already watched it halfway through on her own- because the video immediately started playing at the twelve minute point rather than the beginning.

    "-if we get murdered, it will most definitely not be my fault-" The Doctor's voice chimed out, chiding the past version of (Y/n) who had claimed their murder would be on the Doctor's hands.

     The Doctor leaned forward in interest, hardly remembering his own words, before (Y/n) restarted the video. The first thing the Doctor's eyes were pleased to see was a horrible shot of the underside of (Y/n)'s chin as she badly hid the camera from his past self's view.

     "Alright, Doctor, where are we today?"  She asked, the footage shaky as she fought to keep up with the Doctor's long strides.

    "Well, I remember you saying you wanted to visit some place creepy- so today, (Y/n), we are in Atchison, Kansas, planet Earth, fall of 2019," He explained in the video with optimism.

    The girl in the video nodded, and quickly replied, "That explains the good wifi signal." The real Doctor started in his place on the couch as (Y/n) snorted at her own comment.

    "I'm already hilarious," She stated, knocking shoulders with the Time Lord. In reply, he rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the video- just in time to see that his companion had managed to capture his previous eye roll at the first comment on camera.

    "Now- why are we on planet Earth, in Kansas, in 2019 when we could be literally anywhere else in the universe?" (Y/n) asked, a car siren going off in the distance. However, she quickly stopped where she was and gasped.

    "Oh, wow- this place is beautiful," She sighed, turning the camera around to catch the sight of a gorgeous mansion with a red roof and a beautifully groomed lawn bathed in the sunset's light. "Is this why we're here, Doctor?"

    The Doctor nodded, jumping on the balls of his feet and trotting over to one of the hedges that guarded the lot. When he was in front of it, he squatted down and sent himself flying over it with a huff. His long, skinny legs flew over his head before he smashed into the ground with an 'umph.'

    A bark of a laugh left his companion's lips, before she trotted over to him- and suddenly, her camera phone was tossed over the hedge, just barely managing to capture her graceless vault over the hedge and more so capturing her face plant into the lawn.

    "Well that's a great way to start off the night, i'nt it?" The Doctor laughed, standing to his feet and brushing off his trench coat.

    (Y/n) laughed with joy, grabbing the hand he offered her and jumping to her feet before smacking the grass and dirt off her legs, "Why didn't you just park the TARDIS in the yard?"

    "Because I like a good ol' jump every now and then! It's great on the calves," Without missing a beat, the Doctor defended himself.

    After the quick jests, the pair hurried up to the front of the mansion. The Doctor was quick to reveal his sonic screwdriver, opening one of the doors and quickly dragging (Y/n) inside. When her eyes spied the interior of the mansion, she made a sound that revealed the drop of her stomach.

    "Oh," She started, "This isn't quite as enchanting as the outside, I have to say..." Her voice trailed off, before the Doctor relocked the door behind them.

    "Yes, well," He began to explain, pressing himself against her as he looked around, "Welcome to the Winchester Mansion. If you think it's creepy now, wait till we get further inside."

    "Alright, seriously now, Doctor, why are we here?" The girl quizzically asked as the man moved past her to waltz down the hall. She followed after him quickly, refusing to lose track of him as he wandered the house.

    "We're here to visit an old friend of mine," He explained, "He's a bit of a hermit, really, likes to give people a right good scare- but, he's harmless. Totally harmless."

    "Why does it feel like you're trying to convince me this night will end well?" Exasperated, (Y/n) sighed, the camera shifting to view her rubbing the bridge of her nose in a faked stress. However, when the Doctor chuckled at her words, a small smile bloomed beneath her hand before she attempted to smother it. Her attempts were in vain, seeing as the Doctor's foot found the wrong side of an elegant carpet and nearly sent him tumbling to the ground. A howl of a laugh left her lips, before she gave up on her act.

    Recorded-(Y/n) gently put a hand on his elbow, helping him straighten up. When he was back on his feet, he gave her a cheesy, thankful grin before continuing down the eerie, dark hall.

    The Doctor and (Y/n) watched as their past selves ventured through the Winchester mansion. (Y/n) seemed to have watched the video several times before, seeing as each time something would happen she would intently watch the Doctor's face for his reaction. Each time he laughed, she laughed herself.

    There were moments in the video that the Doctor hadn't expected. Intimacy was plain between the two time travellers in the video- however, the Doctor never would have known he was so affectionate with his companion if it weren't for the video.

    He watched as his recorded-self encouraged (Y/n) to open a door and step out, laughing when she was shocked to find nothing but a sharp fall on the other side. She had turned to him with a gasp and immediately accused him of wanting her to fall, but her accusations were quickly hushed when she was wrapped up in his arms.

    The Doctor frowned at the phone's poor job of recording. In the embrace, although he could hear the giggles and quips between his past self and (Y/n), he could only see his armpit in the video. He wished he could see her face in that moment- wished he could see her smile when he embraced her. Something told him there was a smile reserved specifically for him, specifically for when he wouldn't see. The poor Time Lord was dying to see it.

    Suddenly, recording videos with (Y/n) didn't seem so bad anymore. In fact, as the video played on, the Doctor began to plan how he could record future adventures with (Y/n). After all, he wanted to see that smile that's just for him. And, he never wanted to forget what being with her was like. Somehow, even in a dark, creepy mansion with seemingly nothing eventful taking place, the pair of them together were able to entertain themselves with vast stupidity. That stupidity was worth the risk, he supposed.

    From that point on, the Doctor vowed to record every adventure with (Y/n).

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary - Chapter 56

Warnings: none

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @thunderintheshadows​, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​, @alievans007​, @valkyrie-of-the-light​

Tyler arrives in Christchurch at four in the afternoon; wasting no time in collecting his lone bag from luggage claim and then picking up the rental car Nik had arranged under an alias.  After the fuck up leaving Colorado the first time, Nik had been on the ball about making sure security and privacy were locked up tight; no trace back to his real name or hometown, an extra secure encryption every he sent a text message or email, arranging to pay everything by cash instead of using a credit or debit card that could be linked back to his real identity. While it's near certain that word had gotten back to the Buckman family about who he is and that he's coming for the kids, it's essential that his exact day and time of arrival isn't discovered. It would keep them on  their toes, perhaps even make them anxious enough to start making mistakes, and make it easier to get in and around the building for initial recon without being spotted. So he wears a a pair of sunglasses and a ball cap low on his brow; the hood of his sweater pulled up to cover his head.  It's a cool day in New Zealand, so he won't stand out in his attire or draw any suspicion towards himself. It's the last hing he wants or needs, preferring to just show up out of nowhere and catch the Buckmans -and whoever is doing their dirty work- by surprise.

He heads to the hotel first; a modest yet spacious two room suite on the ninth floor of a fifteen story building on the busy downtown core. Nik had already arranged for Yaz to have access; everything that he'd left behind in Ireland -clothes, personal belongings, the weapons- having been brought along and dropped off. The weapons behind locked in one of the closets; a heavy metal chain wrapped around the handles and then secured with a combination lock. The code sent to his SAT.

He calls home. It's nine in the morning back in Colorado and he wakes her from a dead sleep, and he spends the first minutes apologizing profusely and the following ten making sure that she's feeling okay; checking that she's been taking her meds, eating, drinking. Once more clarifying that she knows exactly how to handle things if the worst case scenario becomes a reality. If he doesn't make it home and she's left to not only face the aftermath, but relegated to being the sole caregiver of four -soon to be five- children. And he tells her he loves her; making sure that she knows -beyond all shadow of a doubt- just how much, and how'd she'd changed his life...and him...for the better. Things he probably should have told her a long time ago. Avoiding all the hurt and the feelings of doubt and abandonment that she'd gone through during his frequent absences.

Next he leaves the hotel and heads out into the street; grabbing coffee and something to eat before texting Yaz for his exact whereabouts. Anxious to see the suspected extraction location. Check out the locals. How busy the street and the neighbourhood itself is. How likely was it  that there would be civilian casualties when the Buckmans fought back. Where could an offensive be launched from? What did the possible entrance and exit points look like and how many options for both were there? Where could the hostiles hide out or mount their attack from? Relaying on other peoples' observations and plans is useless and a waste of his time. He has to see things for himself; run through every possible scenario, make his own plans. In the end if was his show to run; he was the one with the experience, who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, who got down into the trenches where things were the most dangerous and unpredictable.  

Yaz has set up shop in an abandoned office building across the street from the old store owned by Heather McMann's grandmother; the twelfth floor giving an unobstructed view of not only the front and back of the little shop, but of the entire row of brownstones and the alley ways on either end of the block, and behind.   And he knocks twice on the door; hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie, rocking back and forth on his heels ever so slightly as he waits for someone to answer. Listening to the muffled conversations and the push of a chair across hardwood and the shuffling of footsteps as they approach the door. Mark answers; giving him little more than a smirk and then stepping back and holding the door open for him, gesturing for him to come in.

“Holy fuck, look at this!” Yaz calls out. “The lost sheep has returned to the flock! The fucking prodigal son has returned!”

“I've only been gone for two days and you missed me that much? What are you going to do when I'm gone for good? When I stop picking up the phone when your sister calls?”

“I'm going to stalk the every loving shit out of you until you come back,” Yaz says, and then embraces him warmly.

“I'm not coming back. I told you that. This is it Last one.”

“I give it a year. Before you're bored as hell and itching to get back out there.”

“Not gonna happen. I already told you.  I'm done after this. Time to be a family man. Time to be the husband my wife deserves.”

“Good like with that,” Mark mutters as he steps past him.  “She doesn't know a good thing when she has one.”

Tyler smirks. “I know you're not talking about yourself, because everyone in this room knows what you're like. Or do we need to talk about it again? About how you like to beat on women?”

“Easy...easy...” Yaz clamps a hand down onto his shoulder.  “...don't let him get to you. He's just trying to get under your skin. How about you go over there and sit down, Mark.  Quit trying to cause shit with my boy. Because you push your luck too far, he's going to rip you limb from limb. And not one of us in here are going to stop it. Are we boys?”

Both of the young Marines shake their heads.

“Good to have you back,” Nathan says, and pulls him into one of the awkward, one armed hugs that some guys seem to be into these days. “I know you wouldn't bail. Zak and I had faith. Unlike some people,” he jerks a thumb in Mark's direction.

“Thought maybe you didn't have it in you anymore,” Mark says, as he spreads his legs out in front of him and clasps his hands behind his neck. “That you lost your nerve.”

“Man's got more nerve in his baby finger than you have your entire body,” Yaz remarks. “And he wasn't bailing on us. He had some shit to take care of back home.”

“What kind of shit?” Mark inquires.

“Shit that isn't any of your business,” Tyler replies, and follows Yaz as he motions him over to the window.

“I figured if you wanted them to know, you'd tell them,” Yaz says, voice low.  “How's things? She's okay?”

“Fainted, hit her head and gave herself a handful of stitches and a concussion. Doctor says her blood pressure was high and she was severely dehydrated. To the point of kidney issues.”

“But she's going to be okay, right? Like it's nothing that could...you know...”

“Nothing that bad.  They've got her on meds. That should keep things normal from here on out.”

“And the baby? Everything's okay?”

“So far. Baby looks healthy, everything is where it's supposed to be, nothing's missing. The date's a little fuckey, but....”

“Fuckey how? You weren't home that day or something?”

“Not like that. Just farther ahead than we thought. Way farther ahead. Almost four months.”

“I mean, I'm no expert, but shouldn't you have known sooner? Like aren't these things obvious before now?”

“Normally. But when has anything ever been normal with us?”

“Well congrats,” Yaz pats him on the back. “Now get neutered okay? Five of you is enough. Did you look over what I sent you?”

Tyler nods.

“What do you think?”

“I think I need to get down there and see things for myself. Old blueprints and land claims and photos mean nothing. I need to get actual eyes on the place. Anyone been coming and going out of there?”

“Lot of weird shit been happening. Mostly people going in and out of the back door.”

“Get a good look at them? Anything that can be used for facial recognition?”

“Always keep their heads down. And there's no security cameras anywhere in that alley. We've checked. Twice.”

“Do people live in the apartments above? They occupied?”

“There's twenty residential apartments and five businesses. We haven't checked with the residents.”

“Someone might have their own security camera,” Tyler suggests. “Fire escapes right? They might be wanting to keep an eye on anyone coming up and down them for safety reasons. What's the alley like back there? How wide?”

“About ten feet. If that. Get a car in there and get blocked in...”

“You're totally fucked,” Tyler concludes.

Yaz nods. 'We've got Tanis down there right now. Doing some recon. We thought we had a sighting of Heather McMann yesterday but it never panned out. She went in the back door, never came back out.”

He frowns. “You've been watching all this time? Who's been watching the cameras when you're not here?”

“That would be me,” Mark pipes up.

“And you never saw anyone come back out?” Tyler inquires. “Whoever this woman was. She just went in and never came back out?”

“Not on my watch.”

“Not on mine either,” Yaz says. “And you know I'm anal about watching my cameras.”

“And she went in yesterday and you never saw her again?” Tyler stares pointedly at Mark. “You're one hundred percent sure that you never saw her.”

“I have eyes.  I can fucking see,” Mark snarls.

“I want to see the footage. Bring it up on the computer, Yaz. You keep that shit, right?”

His friend gives him a look that clearly means that was a ridiculous question to ask. That of course he keeps the footage and how dare you suggest otherwise.

“I just fucking told you!” Mark snaps.

“I know what you told me. And I'm telling you that I want to see the footage.”

Mark jumps up with enough force to send the chair sliding backwards and then toppling to the ground. Crossing the room in four strides, until he's toe to toe with Tyler, who only smirks in response.  “You telling me I don't know how to do my job? I'm FBI you fucking half wit. We do this shit for a living.”

“I'm just saying you might have fucked up. How does she go on and not come back out? Explain that to me.”

“Maybe he fucked up,” Mark nods at Yaz. “Maybe he missed her.”

“I don't fuck up,” Yaz informs him. “Never do I fuck up.”

“I want to see the goddamn footage,” Tyler demands. “What's the problem?”

“You think you can just walk back in here like you never left?” Mark rages. “Like you run the whole show?”

“Well technically it is his job,” Zak attempts to reason. “So he is kinda running things.”

“You take off for a couple of days and think you can just walk back in and...”

“I want to see the fucking footage,” Tyler angrily interjects. “I'm not asking. I'm telling. What's the goddamn issue? Just get on the computer and show me what I want to see.”

“You're an arrogant fuck, Rake. You think you can just take off for a couple of days so you can go home and get your dick wet and...”

Frowning, Tyler steps even closer to Mark.  His tone calm and even, despite the rage that begins to simmer inside of him.  “What the fuck did you just say?”

“Easy...easy...” Yaz lays a hand on his shoulder. “...no reason for this to turn into a thing...”

“It's been a  'thing' right from the beginning,” Mark says. “He's had a hard on for hating me right from the get go. Before he even met me.”

“I didn't need to meet you to know you're a fucking asshole, mate.  I'd heard all about you.  I'd been hoping I wouldn't meet you because I knew I'd probably kill you if I did.”

'Well I'm right here. What's stopping you? If you're as big and tough as you let on you are...”

Tyler smirks. “You're not even worth it.”

“You go home, you get laid, you come back and suddenly you're the boss? Fuck you, Rake. We've been doing all the work while you were off getting your dick sucked...”

“You need to watch your fucking mouth. Don't bring my wife into this.”

“Hey, I get it. I understand. I mean, she gives really good head, am I right?”

His forearm is across McMann's throat before anyone in the room can even react, and he forcefully pushes the other man across the room, slamming him against the back of the door. And as there's chaos and clamour as the Marines and Yaz rush over in an attempt to diffuse the situation, Tyler leans into his full body weight into Mark, further cutting off his airway.

“Don't ever talk about my wife like that.  You don't bring her into your issues with me. Don't say her name. Don't even think about her. Because I will fucking kill you and I won't feel the least bit sorry about it.”

“You can't stand it can you,” Mark chokes out.  “That I was with her before you.  Fucking her before you were. You can't stand thinking about it, can you.”

“I don't give a shit about any of that. She had a life before me. You know what I give a shit about? All the things that you did to her. How you fucked her head up. You're a real man, Mark. Putting your hands on a woman that's half your size. Did it make you feel big and tough? When you were beating the shit out of her? I bet it made you feel like a real big man, didn't it.”

“You have no clue what went on.  How she pushes and pushes and...”

“Oh I know. I know what she can be like, trust me. But you know what? I don't put my fucking hands on her. Because I'd kill myself if I ever even thought about it. I don't give a shit what she does or what she says or how big of a pain the ass she can be, you don't do shit like that.  You're a coward. You beat on women because you can't take on someone your own size. Well I'm right here. You want to take a shot, just do it.”

“Yeah...that's not a good idea...” Yaz pipes up. “...not a good idea at all.  So can you two comparing your dicks long enough for us to get some work done? Because I'd really like to get this job over and done with. And you two assholes are not helping.”

“Do it...” Tyler takes a step back, removing his arm from Mark's throat.  “...I'm right here, fuck head. What? Suddenly you're not so tough? It's a whole different ball game when you've got someone your own size willing to take you on, isn't it.”

“Not exactly a fair fight,” Yaz says. “You've got like six inches on him and probably fifty pounds, so...”

“Not to mention you would kill him,” Nathan adds. “You know, considering the shit you've done to people with your bare hands.”

“Typical for guys like you, Rake, “ Mark scoffs. “All show and no go. All those muscles don't mean shit when you got nothing to back them up.”

“I've got plenty to back them up, mate. All you've got is that mouth of yours. Constantly fucking running it. And I won't hesitate being the guy that knocks all your teeth out. So keep fucking testing me. See how far you can push me. Go ahead.”

“No, don't,” Yaz manages to get between them.  “Don't push him. This is not what we're here for. We're here for those two kids. This job has gone on long enough and I'm tired and I'm pissed and I'm irritated as fuck. So stop the pissing contest. Both of you. I get it, Mark's a huge dick and he deserves to have the shit kicked out of him for what he did to Esme. But can you at least rein all this in until after the job is done? Let's get those kids the fuck out of there and then you can drag him out into the street and finally beat the shit out of him. But for now...” he lays his hands on Tyler's shoulders and pushes him backwards. “...you need to calm the fuck down and focus. I need you to focus. You're not good to me or those kids if your heads not on straight. Right?” he lightly slaps his friend on the cheek. “Right?”

Tyler nods.

“Get your shit together. I need your head in the game. And you...” he turns to glare at Mark.  “...get off his jock and quit trying to cause shit with him. Because he will do some serious damage and not one of us in here has the balls to try and stop him when he gets doing. Talk a walk or something. Go and get us coffee. Food. Make yourself useful. Maybe one of you boys can go with him. Calm him the hell down. We do not need this shit!”

“I'll do it,” Zak offers, albeit reluctantly. “You wanna come with, Nate? Stretch your legs? I promise I won't push him into traffic. Unless...” he playfully bumps Tyler's shoulder with his own. “...you want me to. Blink one for yes, twice for no.”

Tyler chuckles. “It's all good, mate. You keep your hands clean. He'll get what's coming to him.”

“That a threat?” Mark asks from the doorway.

“Naw...” Tyler shakes his head. “...that's a promise.”

****

“You good?”   Yaz asks, after the commotion has finally settled down and he sits at his laptop, bringing up the file containing the camera footage from the day before.

“I'm good,”  Tyler replies, and drags over a chair, turning it backwards before sitting down on it. “Fucking guy gets under my skin. I shouldn't let him, but he just doesn't stop.”

“He's like one of those sea dwelling amoebas that you can only see under a microscope yet they burrow into you and start causing all kinds of shit from the inside out.”

Tyler arches both brows.

“Remind me about it later. I'll show you. There's some cool shit about them on Youtube. Look, I know he's a pain in the ass. I've wanted to kill himself about ten times since yesterday. But he's doing this on purpose. To get a rise out of you. To get in your head. Stopping letting assholes like that take up space in your head without paying rent.”

“You been talking to my wife? Because you sound just like her.”

“Well, brilliant minds think alike. Although I question her intelligence and her sanity considering she willingly took up with you. I can't begin to imagine what she saw in you. Not even in the slightest.”

“Start using more than five pound weights in the gym and you can look like this too. Might take you forty years, but...”

“I will have you know, my lady is happy and satisfied.”

“Lady, huh? The one from the coffee shop? Shelly? Sherry? Whatever the hell her name is? The one I saw half naked.”

“Siobhan. And I'm still pissed at you about that. Cockblocking wasn't on your resume when you applied for the job. You at least like what you saw?”

Tyler chuckles. “You want me to rate your 'lady' or whatever the fuck she is?”

“I'll go first if you want. I'll rate Esme and then...”

“Yeah, no. Don't do that. Because I will have to kill you and it would break my heart a bit because I kind of like you. So...”

“I'd put her at a ten, by the way. If that makes a difference.”

“When have you seen enough to rate my wife? Is there something you're not telling me about?”

“I've seen her in a bathing suit. Ten. Definitely a ten. You lucky fucker.”

“Well, it's a ten plus, actually. But stop talking about my wife like that, for fuck sake.”

“You should be flattered. That guys find her attractive. They like what they see but she sticks with you.”

“I am flattered. But it also pisses me off. So...”

“Your turn. What did you think? At least a ten, right? Come on. I know you're married but I also know you look. We all look. Human nature. You like what you see?”

He shrugs. “I'll give her an eight. Nine at the most.”

“Fuck you, Tyler. I gave Esme a ten.”

“Because she is a ten. What I saw was an eight at the lowest and nine at the highest. I'm not into red heads. Plus she's not you...top heavy...”

'I forgot. You're a boob man. Is it true that when women have kids they get bigger? The boobs?”

“We are not talking about my wife's tits. So can we get on with this?”

“Just tell me if it's true. Do they?”

“It's not the kids that make them bigger, dumb ass. It's when they're pregnant with the kids. Pick up a fucking book or look it up on the internet. Why are you asking me?”

“Because you're kind of an expert. You've been through it three times. Now four if we count the one in the oven. So it's true then? You've experienced this yourself?”

“If I give you an answer will you shut the fuck up and get to work?”

“Swear on my mother's grave.”

“Your mother is still alive,” Tyler reminds him.

“My grandmother's than. True or not? Just a one word answer.  Seeing as your so sensitive about this.”

“True. Now can we do this? While I'm still young enough to not be collecting an old age check? Fuck sake. Let's go.”

“So are you really doing it?” Yaz asks, as he puts in the approximate time of the day they'd seen the woman they'd thought was Heather McMann.  “Leaving? Calling it a day?”

“When this is over, yeah. I've got five million reasons not to stick around. And five that are even more important. I've got a family, Yaz. And they deserve to have me around. Not just some of the time. All the time.”

“You're going to drive Esme crazy,” Yaz chuckles. “Being around all that much.”

“I already drive her crazy. What's your point?”

“You're not worried you're going to get bored? Having nothing to do?”

“I'll find things to do. I've got four kids to help take care of. In a few months until be five. That'll keep me busy enough. I don't need to be out killing people.”

“Daddy Tyler,”  Yaz grins.  “Can't wait to see that. I mean, I've seen it before, obviously. But I can't wait to see it at full force. You going to start coaching little league and soccer and driving a mini van?”

“Fuck you, Yaz.”

“You're going to start wearing cardigan sweats and growing your hair out and shaving off your beard,” he laughs. “You're going to turn into a regular Mister Rogers. You and your Starbucks and your deck shoes and your hipster haircut.”

“I honestly will punch you in the throat.”

“I kid, I kid. I can never see you doing anything of those things. And I'd probably put a hit out on you if you ever did do any of those things. You guys gonna stay in Colorado?”

“No. We're leaving. As soon as we can.”

“Back to Australia?”

Tyler nods.

“Can't say that surprises me. You guys were a lot happier when you were there. Didn't fight as much. Things just seemed to change when you guys went to Colorado. And not for the better either.  That's where all the shit started to happen.”

Tyler can't deny that.

“It's like there's something bad in the air. Some bad fucking karma or juju or something. You guys will be happier back in Australia. I'm going to miss you guys. Especially those kids.”

“You can come and visit. I'm leaving the job. Not the people connected to it.”

“See, you will miss me.”

“Of course I will. Everyone needs a dorky friend, right?”

“You know, you start out so well and you go so wrong,” Yaz chuckles, and then stops the footage on the screen. “So, this is the camera in the back alley that I set up. And this is her. The one we thought was Heather McMann.”

Tyler leans forward in his chair, squinting his eyes. “Can you make it bigger?”

“Can I make it bigger,” Yaz scoffs, as he zooms in on the still. “Of course I can.”

Frowning, Tyler pulls his SAT phone out of the side pocket on his cargo shorts and brings up the photo gallery; selecting a picture he'd saved of the woman in question and then holding it up to the screen.

“Looks like her,” Yaz says. “Sort of? Right?”

“That's her. That is definitely her.”

“How can you tell?”

“Look at the marks on her face. The photo I have is when she was being 'held',” he makes air quotes around the last word. “So the bruises were still fresh. Now they're healing and not as noticeable, but they're still there. In the exact same places. Zoom in on her left hand.”

Yaz does what he's told.

“Same tattoo in the exact same place. And her rings are the same. Same engagement ring, same wedding band. There's no way that's not her. And she never came back out? What time is it...” he checks his watch. “...she's been in there for over eighteen hours? No fucking way.”

“If she came out, she didn't come out the back door.”

“You have cameras on the front?”

“You're asking a lot of stupid questions today,”  Yaz sighs, and brings up the footage from the other camera, slowly scrolling through it, frame by frame.  

“Has there been any sign of the kids?” Tyler asks.

“None. Whatsoever. But she did take food and shit in with her. So...”

“Still doesn't mean those kids are in there. She could have been bringing that to people she's working with.”

“You think the shop could be a front for something?”

Tyler shrugs. “This is so fucked up, anything is possible. Stop it. Go back about fifteen seconds.”

Yaz complies, then leans closer to the screen. “Sonofabitch...”

“She came out the front door. She changed her clothes and put a hat on and she walked right out. Right fucking in front of us,” Tyler sighs heavily, then runs his hands over his face. “Fuck!”

“She knows someone is watching her,” Yaz concludes. “It's why she changed her clothes and put a hat on.”

“Fuck!” Tyler rages, as he stands up and kicks the chair across the room. “Fuck!!”

Yaz remains silent.

“How the fuck did you guys miss that? She walked right out the goddamn front door! How the fuck does that happen? She's right across the street! Why did no one go over there and see if it was her when you saw her on camera? You thought it was her but didn't go and check it out? What the fuck, Yaz?!”

“I get it. You're upset. And you've got a right to be. But....”

“I'm not upset. I am beyond upset. Way beyond it  How did you guys fuck up this bad? Four people in this goddamn room, Tanis on the street, and not one person thought to go and see if it was Heather McMann? Not one of you thought that was a good idea?”

“In all fairness, you're the expert and you weren't here so...”

“They're Marines! They know how to take someone down if they have to. Jesus fucking Christ...” he punches a gaping hole in one of he walls. “...how the fuck does this happen?! She was right there. Right across the street. And not one of you went to get her. Who was watching the cameras? Who fucked up? Who didn't see her come back out?”

“I'll give you three guess. But you're only going to need one.”

“Of course it was Mark. Of course it was. That fucking prick!”  Tyler lays his palms against the wall and drops his chin to his chest, attempting to calm himself. “This is a big fuck up. A huge fuck up. An epic fuck up.”

Yaz nods in agreement.

“She was right there and we could have had her. She could have lead us right to those kids.  And not one of you went to see if it was her for sure.”

“We fucked up,” Yaz admits. “Big time.”

“You think?!”

Neither of them speak for several minutes; Yaz waiting for Tyler to fully calm down. He knows it would be a huge mistake; to even utter a single word when his friend is so worked up. Eventually Tyler moves; grabbing a bottle of water from a cooler one of the others had brought with them, twisting off the cap and downing half.

“She come back?” he asks. “Any sign of her returning?”

“None. And I scoured the tapes. Twice. She hasn't come back. Think she will?”

Tyler shrugs. “She knows she's being watched. She knows you guys are here.”

“Think she knows you're here?”

“Probably not. I'm pretty much non existent right now.  There's no sign of me coming into New Zealand. No flight manifesto, no real sign of me on any of the cameras, I haven't used a bank card or a credit card, Nik ordered the car under a different name. So we at least didn't fuck that up.”

“We still have the element of surprise,” Yaz concludes. “At least where you're concerned.”

Tyler nods.

“So we just wait? To see if she comes back? What do you think?”

“I need to get down there. Get my own eyes on things.”

“Could make you. If anyone sees you. If she sees you.”

“Guess it's too late now to worry about it, yeah? If they're going to find out, they're going to find out. But I need to get down there. See things for myself. I don't think it's safe yet to actually go into the building. No way of knowing if there's anyone in there. And if there is, how many there are. I'm not walking into a massacre. Fuck that.”

“You're armed, aren't you.”

“I've got a fucking Glock, Yaz. What good will that do against bigger weapons? It won't do shit. I'd get two, three shots and that's it. We need to know exactly what's going on down there. Any way of getting eyes inside?”

“I could get a hold of my guy. I'm sure he's got the tech. I'll give him a call,” he pulls out his own SAT phone. “What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to go down there and check shit out,” he finishes off the water, tossing the empty bottle into the garbage before heading for the door. “Keep an eye on things. Message me if you see anyone that looks even remotely like her. Can you do that?”

Yaz nods. “Be careful, okay? Don't get yourself killed the first day.”

“Just watch my back,” Tyler responds, and then steps out the door.

[mysticandskepticmuses]

altered carbon au; a confrontation between june moone and her methuselah parents, daniel and maria moone, who are drawing the line in the sand when confronted with proof of her relationship with takeshi kovacs.  written for my au w/ @magicandsciencemuses.  it doesn’t really have a beginning or an end, sorry ? not sorry i guess, i needed to jump straight into the action and it didn’t feel right to try and build up to it after i was already there and it’s intentionally left ‘hanging’ at the end because it will be followed by another drabble and/or starter for the scene w/ june & takeshi afterwards.  there is a LOT of potentially triggering content.  emotional trauma, emotional manipulation / abuse, implied allusions to domestic abuse, name-calling, general angst so please do not read  if these things are triggers to you!

“Perhaps if you were thinking clearly instead of giving way to your baser instincts – if you were thinking at all instead of indulging in mindless rutting like some bitch in heat you would have even the smallest concept of the kind of man you have brought into your life – our lives!”  The words were practically spat at her, her father’s features red and angry; nostrils flared, lips pressed tight enough they seemed nonexistent, his large frame clenched and taut, his last words accentuated by a furious thud of balled fists slammed against the desk he now towered over with enough force to send scattered objects flying, a faint and slightly sickening crack of – the wood beneath his fists, his fists themselves – she didn’t know for sure which, and for perhaps the first time in her life, she found she didn’t have the wherewithal to wonder, to care.   She had never – never seen him like this, seen him so near to erupting with anger and violence –  she had never … ever imagined that he would say …  

Was this what it felt like, to be sucker punched?  To be gutted, to be – eviscerated?   She couldn’t breathe.   It felt like there was … a weight, a ton of weight that had slammed into her chest and stomach, that had flattened her, stolen breath and thought and words and any residual sense of composure or hope that she had, the world, snatched out from underneath her feet and she was left hanging, scrabbling in the vacuum of space, her voice, her breath ripped out of her lungs.  She could feel her body, shaking, her lashes spinning, jerking rapidly as she fought against the violent surge of tears that spilled, soundlessly for a long moment, over her lashes, scalding and stinging her cheeks as she tried to –  to breathe, to think, to feel anything other than the wrenching, twisting feeling in her gut.  Never.   Never in her life had he truly raised his voice to her, never, ever had he thought to say something so –  heartless.  Her jaw quivered, her lips pressing tight, swallowing down the choking sound that clenched, tight and agonizing in her chest.  “You –   “  Her voice was shaking, weak.   “You –   don’t –  know –  anything about the kind of man he is,” she raged, in stuttered gasps, fingers digging trenches through her palms, knotting against her stomach as she tried to find the breath necessary to keep from dissolving into the multi-colored dissolving dots that spun at the edges of her blurred, streaked vision.  “You know –”

“I know ENOUGH,” Daniel’s voice roared, white knuckled fists still digging into the faint hollows of the desk beneath him where they had impacted moments before.  “I know all I need to know.”  His voice was white-hot, wounded pride and centuries-old-ego crashing together into a dangerous compound that had needed only a spark to ignite.   One hand raised, a harsh gesture through the air that made her flinch, an array of images spinning to life in the air around them.   Images, snapshots, of marred flesh, of her bruised throat and wrists, the pages of the medical reports from her sleeve repair spinning by one after the other; moving images, flickers of tangled limbs, of gasped and throaty sounds, a dozen intimacies caught in ten- fifteen- second loops – the night of the Bancroft ball, snippets from the beach-house security cameras, and others, a shaky, hand-held or perhaps aerial remote camera that honed in on the slightly grainy, but still clearly discernible features of June and Takeshi entangled against an alley wall, and another of similar quality that showed skin, bared, coarse sounds of their rough coupling tinny from the distance of the camera outside of his hotel room but – clear enough.  

Humiliation flooded her, acidic as it cascaded over nerves so recently left raw and open; anger and resentment, indignation burning hot in his gaze as he shoved the images away, the sounds seeming to linger for a few seconds more.   “You – had me – followed?”  Takeshi’s words from the ruins echoed in her thoughts – she’d been so quick to dismiss the possibility –  “Oh, no,” Daniel scoffed, cutting off that line of questioning in an instant. “That is not up for discussion, and as luck would have it, those lovely snippets of your behaviour were brought to your mother and I by two separate individuals who – fortunately for you – had the decency to ‘offer’ to sell the footage to me, rather than to the spin rags,” he seethed, and it seemed something in those words registered, a creeping, gnawing understanding worming its way through her chest.   “Do you have any idea the potential scandal that this could have dragged you – this family through?  My only daughter, fucking the last Envoy, a known murderer – an assassin, a mercenary, a terrorist in the streets like a common whore –”  

It didn’t seem to wound, quite so deeply as his first insults – she’d stopped feeling anything other than shock minutes before.    “Do you care, even a little, about all that we have done for you, all that this family stands for –?”  A harsh sound, a brittle, contorted scoff rushed from her at his words, silvery-limned jade eyes gleaming brightly, almost inhumanly in her nearly ghost-pale features as her gaze cut up sharply to him, to her, the nearly silent, immobile form of the draconian woman who stood behind Daniel, one elbow resting lightly, casually on the back of his chair, watching the events unfold with an impassable mask of calm.  “Oh, you can’t actually –”  June began, disbelief and a bitter edge of disdain sharpening her words before another gesture, another thud of Daniel’s hand, palm flat this time, slammed down onto the desk.   To her credit, June didn’t flinch that time.   “You leave your mother out of this,” he spoke, his words frigid, the warning clear in his posture and expression.   “You have done this, you have endangered everything, with your reckless, sycophantic, childish behaviour and it ends now.   Laurens Bancroft did not summon this creature from the depths of cold storage to be your plaything, and I will not have you sullying our name, gallivanting around town with this monster who has – do you know how many organic deaths, how many real deaths this Kovacs has left callously in his wake?”  

“Perhaps you’d care to see that footage as well,” the offer came, silky smooth, a soft and deadly offer made from the viper behind the desk, a tilt of her head as she mimicked concern, sympathy.  “I don’t think you realize just how lucky you are to have limped away with as little harm as you’ve endured –”  Maria began, before June’s taut, short words cut her off.  

“You. Know.  Nothing about him.  He would never hurt me,” June spoke, outrage and utter faith echoing simply in her words, mirrored in the edges of disgust that twisted her mockingly youthful features at even the thought.  

Maria’s expression showed a flicker of intrigue before her brows tucked together, concern seeming to warm her gaze and soften her features, a small step taken forward as she placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulders, exchanging a glance with him before she turned her focus back to June to speak again.   “Oh, darling,” she spoke softly, regret tinting her words.  “Oh - you think … you thought he cared for you,” she empathized, a frown tugging gently at the edges of her lips as she watched June’s reactions, watched the edges of indignation crumble just so.  “I’m sorry, darling,” Maria continued.  “It’s – truly a tale as old as time, I’m – sorry if … you thought you were the only one.”  Another half exchange of glances, before she leaned in over Daniel’s stance slightly to pull open one of the folders that had half scattered at his attacks on the desk, opening the file and with a simple gesture, fanned out a series of still photos, all featuring various quality images that showed the Envoy’s current sleeve in various stages of coitus in his hotel room with at least two different women, one June didn’t recognize – young, delicate looking, pretty in a … haunting way – the other easily recognizable to her – Miriam – with date and time stamps that marked the interactions scattered throughout the last few weeks.  

That, June felt.  The twist of the dagger in her chest, snaking deeper, bleeding freely.  “And?”  She tried to believe she didn’t care, that it didn’t matter – they had never set boundaries, rules, had never spoken of –   She could feel him, the way his rough fingertips swept over her cheek, the way his fingers eased through her hair, his thumb brushing over her ear, scarred knuckles teasing along her throat –  the warmth of his breath flickering, teasing over her skin in the warmth of the sun, the sinking sensation of bare toes into wet, squelching sand as his lips brushed over hers, soft and filled with –  longing.   She hated them – hated the tears that welled over lashes and streaked over her cheeks, brushed away angrily with the palms and back of her hands as she forced her gaze back to them, white lipped and white knuckled.   “I have –  done – everything you ever asked of me,” June spoke, her words thin, her voice tight, warbling with the overload of emotions.   “Everything.   I have been – Never, in all my life, have I done anything that might cast a modicum of scandal or negativity on this family–”

“Until now,” Daniel cut in, shortly, crisply, his voice pitched lower but no less seething, the vein in his forehead still pulsing rapidly though – he seemed to have expended the worst of his outrage.   “It will not happen again.  There are no ifs, ands, or buts - this is not up for debate, you will do as you are told or you will face the consequences.  You think you know what this world is, child, but believe you me, it is a far different beast without the protection and comforts that you have been afforded.   Tell him, in person, if you must – but this ends.  Now.  If – if – you think you can defy me, consider carefully what you think you have.  What you think you own, because – I promise you, it is far less than you believe.”

[ryanmeft]

They Shall Not Grow Old Movie Review

The press around They Shall Not Grow Old has focused on the techniques filmmaker Peter Jackson used to restore World War I footage and imbue it with the colors of life loved and lived and lost, even though all you need to do to realize it is not about the tech is read the title again. Jackson and his team have again pioneered a new frontier in film---this time, inventing a way in which the past can most urgently be made into the now---but if that were the point, the film would have been titled something like The Colors of War. Instead, it was named in emotional, rending honor of those, many teens, whose lives ended in the trenches of a senseless conflict.

The techniques in question involve taking old footage, colorizing it to a degree of quality I cannot remember seeing before, using actual voices of World War I soldiers instead of narrators or historians, sometimes splicing together the original single-frame shots into a greater panning shot to drive home the scale of the reality, and even hiring lip readers to understand and recreate what soldiers were saying in the silent film footage. They mostly did not talk about charges at the enemy over the trenches (where we get the term “over the top”), of battle glorious or otherwise, and they certainly care nothing for the complex and ultimately meaningless causes of the war. They talk about what they had to eat, the ways in which they had to use the bathroom, visits to brothels, keeping clean or rather entirely failing to, and rare little moments when they could gain a reprieve. It takes no special focus to listen to stories of violence and death; that’s the unspoken goal of much entertainment. What we learn here brings trench warfare home in a far more intimate and immediate way.

The choice has been made not to try and encompass the entire war and every nationality which fought in it, but to focus on a handful of British soldiers. In other circumstances, I might be quick to point to this as a failing, and bring up the fact that the British take quite as much of a themselves-centric view to history as Americans do. In this case, it is the right decision. The film needs to zero in on the humanity of soldiers, not the details of involved nations and war weapons and treaties and such. It isn’t that other countries don’t deserve a spotlight. It is that they deserve their own spotlight, and to try and cram them all in here would be a disservice. Though Jackson has said he imagines the experience was similar for soldiers hailing from all places, I rather dearly hope he or his acolytes choose to give us such films.

Jackson’s grandfather, who fought in the war, is mentioned as someone who survived the trenches but later succumbed to battle’s other effects; the fallout of World War I not only affected soldiers ever after but led directly to World War II. The film only briefly touches on larger consequences, as it is about personal lives, but if there is one omission I wish time had been found for, it is the Christmas Truce of 1914. If you don’t know about that, I can’t do it justice. Read about it. The film does spend some considerable time on humanizing German soldiers, most of whom were of course as terrified as anyone else, and my personal desire for that story to have been in it is only my own. It would have been excellent to hear some veterans talking about it, but I must sadly face the possibility that none who were there were able to do so.

That Jackson and company have made this film is true, and also only partially true. They have compiled it, from a hundred hours of footage and six hundred of audio stored in Britain’s Imperial War Museum, but it was made by those who lived it, something Jackson and friends seem eminently respectful of. In most theatres the film is “followed” by a second documentary about the making of the first, but really this is an essential part of the film, for in it Jackson illuminates how little true trickery was used. He visits the site of the hedge road where the soldiers in the film waited to charge the Germans, and forlornly reminds us that almost all of the men in that footage were living the last 30 minutes they had. He shows brief clips from the interviews from which the audio recordings were taken, and we see men we saw in the war in civilian clothes, 50 or 60 years later. While the Space Race was being duked out and hippies were marching with peace signs, these men were still alive. Yet we have, as a culture, consigned them to the dustbin of history, in service of an unspoken agreement seemingly made in which the 20th century really started with the second World War. Several of the audio clips lament that when these soldiers returned, they and the war were ignored by an indifferent populace, to the point of employers outright refusing to consider them (in America, Herbert Hoover’s infamous burning of makeshift towns constructed by destitute veterans ensured Franklin Roosevelt the Presidency).

That the veterans of this war have been quietly forgotten is the sense in the final audio clip shared, in which a soldier returns to the shop where he works after four years, and the employee asks “Where have you been---on nights?”

Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[feministdragon]

Peter Jackson’s Cartoon War

When director-producer Peter Jackson’s World War I film, “They Shall Not Grow Old,” which miraculously transforms grainy, choppy black-and-white archival footage from the war into a modern 3D color extravaganza, begins, he bombards us with the clichés used to ennoble war. Veterans, over background music, say things like “I wouldn’t have missed it,” “I would go through it all over again because I enjoyed the service life” and “It made me a man.” It must have taken some effort after the war to find the tiny minority of veterans willing to utter this rubbish. Military life is a form of servitude, prolonged exposure to combat leaves you broken, scarred for life by trauma and often so numb you have difficulty connecting with others, and the last thing war does is make you a man.

Far more common was the experience of the actor Wilfrid Lawson, who was wounded in the war and as a result had a metal plate in his skull. He drank heavily to dull the incessant pain. In his memoirs “Inside Memory,” Timothy Findley, who acted with him, recalled that Lawson “always went to bed sodden and all night long he would be dragged from one nightmare to another—often yelling—more often screaming—very often struggling physically to free himself of impeding bedclothes and threatening shapes in the shadows.” He would pound the walls, shouting “Help! Help! Help!” The noise, my dear—and the people.

David Lloyd George, wartime prime minister of Britain, in his memoirs used language like this to describe the conflict:

… [I]nexhaustible vanity that will never admit a mistake … individuals who would rather the million perish than that they as leaders should own—even to themselves—that they were blunderers … the notoriety attained by a narrow and stubborn egotism, unsurpassed among the records of disaster wrought by human complacency … a bad scheme badly handled … impossible orders issued by Generals who had no idea what the execution of their commands really meant … this insane enterprise … this muddy and muddle-headed venture. …

The British Imperial War Museum, which was behind the Jackson film, had no interest in portraying the dark reality of war. War may be savage, brutal and hard, but it is also, according to the myth, ennobling, heroic and selfless. You can believe this drivel only if you have never been in combat, which is what allows Jackson to modernize a cartoon version of war.

The poet Siegfried Sassoon in “The Hero” captured the callousness of war:

“Jack fell as he’d have wished,” the Mother said, And folded up the letter that she’d read. “The Colonel writes so nicely.” Something broke In the tired voice that quavered to a choke. She half looked up. “We mothers are so proud Of our dead soldiers.” Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out. He’d told the poor old dear some gallant lies That she would nourish all her days, no doubt. For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy, Because he’d been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how “Jack,” cold-footed, useless swine, Had panicked down the trench that night the mine Went up at Wicked Corner; how he’d tried To get sent home; and how, at last, he died, Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care Except that lonely woman with white hair.

Our own generals and politicians, who nearly two decades ago launched the greatest strategic blunder in American history and have wasted nearly $6 trillion on conflicts in the Middle East that we cannot win, are no less egotistical and incompetent. The images of our wars are as carefully controlled and censored as the images from World War I. While the futility and human carnage of our current conflicts are rarely acknowledged in public, one might hope that we could confront the suicidal idiocy of World War I a century later.

Leon Wolff, in his book “In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign,” writes of World War I:

“It had meant nothing, solved nothing, and proved nothing; and in so doing had killed 8,538,315 men and variously wounded 21,219,452. Of 7,750,919 others taken prisoner or missing, well over a million were later presumed dead; thus the total deaths (not counting civilians) approach ten million. The moral and mental defects of the leaders of the human race had been demonstrated with some exactitude. One of them (Woodrow Wilson) later admitted that the war had been fought for business interests; another (David Lloyd George) had told a newspaperman: ‘If people really knew, the war would be stopped tomorrow, but of course they don’t—and can’t know. The correspondents don’t write and the censorship wouldn’t pass the truth.’

There is no mention in the film of the colossal stupidity of the British general staff that sent hundreds of thousands of working-class Englishmen—they are seen grinning into the camera with their decayed teeth—in wave after wave, week after week, month after month, into the mouths of German machine guns to be killed or wounded. There is no serious exploration of the iron censorship that hid the realities of the war from the public and saw the press become a shill for warmongers. There is no investigation into how the war was used by the state, as it is today, as an excuse to eradicate civil liberties. There is no look at the immense wealth made by the arms manufacturers and contractors or how the war plunged Britain deep into debt with war-related costs totaling 70 percent of the gross national product. Yes, we see some pictures of gruesome wounds, digitalized into color, yes, we hear how rats ate corpses, but the war in the film is carefully choreographed, stripped of the deafening sounds, repugnant smells and most importantly the crippling fear and terror that make a battlefield a stygian nightmare. We glimpse dead bodies, but there are no long camera shots of the slow agony of those dying of horrific wounds. Sanitized images like these are war pornography. That they are no longer jerky and grainy and have been colorized in 3D merely gives old war porn a modern sheen.

“When the war was not very active, it was really rather fun to be in the front line,” a veteran says in the film. “It was a sort of outdoor camp holiday with a slight spice of danger to make it interesting.”

Insipid comments like that defined the perception of the war at home. The clash between a civilian population that saw the war as “a sort of outdoor camp holiday” and those who experienced it led to profound estrangement. The poet Charles Sorley wrote: “I should like so much to kill whoever was primarily responsible for the war.” And journalist and author Philip Gibbs noted that soldiers had a deep hatred of civilians who believed the lies. “They hated the smiling women in the streets. They loathed the old men. … They desired that profiteers should die by poison-gas. They prayed to God to get the Germans to send Zeppelins to England—to make the people know what war meant.”

Military studies have determined that after 60 days of continuous combat, 98 percent of those who survive will have become psychiatric casualties. The common trait among the 2 percent who were able to endure sustained combat was a predisposition toward “aggressive psychopathic personalities.” Lt. Col. David Grossman wrote: “It is not too far from the mark to observe that there is something about continuous, inescapable combat which will drive 98 percent of all men insane, and the other 2 percent were crazy when they got there.”

The military cliques in American society are as omnipotent as they were in World War I. The symbols of war and militarism, then and now, have a quasi-religious aura, especially in our failed democracy. Our incompetent generals—such as David Petraeus, whose surges only prolonged the Iraq War and raised the casualty figures and whose idea to arm “moderate” rebels in Syria was a debacle—are as lionized as the pig-headed and vainglorious Gen. Douglas Haig, the British commander in chief, who resisted innovations such as the tank, the airplane and the machine gun, which he called “a much overrated weapon.” He believed the cavalry would play the decisive role in winning the war. Haig, in the Battle of the Somme, oversaw 60,000 casualties on the first day of the offensive, July 1, 1916. None of his military objectives were achieved. Twenty thousand lay dead between the lines. The wounded cried out for days. This did not dampen Haig’s ardor to sacrifice his soldiers. Determined to make his plan of bursting through the German lines and unleashing his three divisions of cavalry on the fleeing enemy, he kept the waves of assaults going for four months until winter forced him to cease. By the time Haig was done, the army had suffered more than 400,000 casualties and accomplished nothing. Lt. Col. E.T.F. Sandys, who saw 500 of his soldiers killed or wounded on the first day at the Somme, wrote two months later, “I have never had a moment’s peace since July 1st.” He then shot himself to death in a London hotel room. Joe Sacco’s illustrated book “The Great War,” a 24-foot-long wordless panorama that depicts the first day of the Battle of Somme, reveals more truth about the horror of war than Jackson’s elaborate restoration of old film.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/peter-jacksons-cartoon-war/

Jackson closes the film with an army ditty about prostitution. “You might forget the gas and shell,” the song goes, “but you’ll nev’r forget the Mademoiselle! Hinky-dinky, parlez-vous?”

Tens of thousands of girls and women, whose brothers, fathers, sons and husbands were dead or crippled, and whose homes often had been destroyed, became impoverished and often homeless. They were easy prey for the brothels, including the military-run brothels, and the pimps that serviced the soldiers. There is nothing amusing or cute about lying on a straw mat and being raped by as many as 60 men a day, unless you are the rapist.

“Give sorrow words,” William Shakespeare reminded us, “The grief that does not speak whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.”

It is fortunate all the participants in the war are dead. They would find the film another example of the monstrous lie that denied their reality, ignored or minimized their suffering and never held the militarists, careerists, profiteers and imbeciles who prosecuted the war accountable. War is the raison d’être of technological society. It unleashes demons. And those who profit from these demons, then and now, work hard to keep them hidden.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/peter-jacksons-cartoon-war/

[adamwatchesmovies]

They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

They Shall Not Grow Old is one of the most personal documentaries I've ever seen. Made by a non-historian for non-historians, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to celebrate the end of the Great War, it's a must for war enthusiasts. I’ll even call it mandatory watching period, as it so expertly conveys both the inhumanity of armed combat and the very real people who fought in it.

Assembled from about 600 hours of footage and 100 hours worth of interviews, the dialogue you’ll hear throughout comes from actual soldiers present during the war. Uninterested in dates, specs, locations or numbers, director Peter Jackson (whose grandfather fought in the war) tells us the story of a typical soldier during the global conflict through restored footage that's been colorized and converted to 3D.

In many ways, this is a much more instructional film than any normal documentary could’ve ever been. There are no experts who weren’t there conveying to us the highlights of what happened. Instead, we get individual stories about what the food was like, people felt when the war began, what the mood was during training, etc. We’ve been told about what laid ahead of the fresh-faced recruits, some as young as 15: the trenches, No Man’s Land, artillery fire, snipers, machine guns. After They Shall Not Grow Old, you haven't just been told, you know. You’ve seen it. You’ve felt it.

When I heard about this documentary, “skeptical” is the mildest word I can think to describe my feelings. Seeing the results, I wholeheartedly agree with Jackson's choices. It makes the difference between looking at a photo of flayed bodies upon battle-scarred trenches and saying “that was awful”, and barely being able to hold back tears. Jackson shows his filmmaking expertise as he carefully zooms in, smash-cuts from faces of soldiers laughing to the aftermath of combat just minutes later, pans across distant shots to show you the conflict's scale and brings a level of humanity to this distant war that’s never been felt before. These are not static, old-timey-looking shots, but dynamic scenes full of life.

They Shall Not Grow Old has been given a limited release. You’re going to have to chase it down, meaning you might be tempted to just wait and catch it at home. Don’t. The way the 3D is utilized is brilliant. The technology immerses you further in the story. As a bonus, it's followed by a 30-minute making-of feature detailing the way this film was built. It’s phenomenal stuff, a cherry on top of the sundae you’ve just been served. It’s a thought-provoking and emotional piece of cinema and history, a masterpiece. (3D Theatrical version on the big screen, December 27, 2018)

[xtruss]

Annals of War: The Turkish Drone That Changed the Nature of Warfare

The Bayraktar TB2 has brought precision air-strike capabilities to Ukraine and other countries. It’s also a diplomatic tool, enabling Turkey’s rise.

— By Stephen Witt | May 9, 2022 (May 16, 2022 Issue) | The New Yorker

In Ukraine, Selçuk Bayraktar, the drone’s inventor, has become a folk hero. Illustration by Todd St. John

A video posted toward the end of February on the Facebook page of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, showed grainy aerial footage of a Russian military convoy approaching the city of Kherson. Russia had invaded Ukraine several days earlier, and Kherson, a shipbuilding hub at the mouth of the Dnieper River, was an important strategic site. At the center of the screen, a targeting system locked onto a vehicle in the middle of the convoy; seconds later, the vehicle exploded, and a tower of burning fuel rose into the sky. “Behold the work of our life-giving Bayraktar!” Zaluzhnyi’s translated caption read. “Welcome to Hell!”

The Bayraktar TB2 is a flat, gray unmanned aerial vehicle (U.A.V.), with angled wings and a rear propeller. It carries laser-guided bombs and is small enough to be carried in a flatbed truck, and costs a fraction of similar American and Israeli drones. Its designer, Selçuk Bayraktar, the son of a Turkish auto-parts entrepreneur, is one of the world’s leading weapons manufacturers. In the defense of Ukraine, Bayraktar has become a legend, the namesake of a baby lemur at the Kyiv zoo, and the subject of a catchy folk song, which claims that his drone “makes ghosts out of Russian bandits.”

In April, 2016, the TB2 scored its first confirmed kill. Since then, it has been sold to at least thirteen countries, bringing the tactic of the precision air strike to the developing world and reversing the course of several wars. In 2020, in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s dictatorial leader, Ilham Aliyev, used the TB2 to target vehicles and troops, then displayed footage of the strikes on digital billboards in the capital city of Baku.

The TB2 has now carried out more than eight hundred strikes, in conflicts from North Africa to the Caucasus. The bombs it carries can adjust their trajectories in midair, and are so accurate that they can be delivered into an infantry trench. Military analysts had previously assumed that slow, low-flying drones would be of little use in conventional combat, but the TB2 can take out the anti-aircraft systems that are designed to destroy it. “This enabled a fairly significant operational revolution in how wars are being fought right now,” Rich Outzen, a former State Department specialist on Turkey, told me. “This probably happens once every thirty or forty years.”

I spoke with Bayraktar in March, via video. He was in Istanbul, at the headquarters of his company, Baykar Technologies, which employs more than two thousand people. When I asked him about the use of his drones in Ukraine, he told me, “They’re doing what they’re supposed to do—taking out some of the most advanced air-defense systems and armored vehicles in the world.” Bayraktar, who is forty-two years old, has a widow’s peak, soft eyes, and a slightly off-center nose. He was flanked by scale models of new drones, mounted on clear plastic stands, which he displayed to me with the unconcealed pride of an aviation geek. “Any U.A.V. built today to fly, I pilot it myself, because I, like, love it,” he told me. Bayraktar, who has more than two million Twitter followers, uses his account to promote youth-education initiatives, celebrate Turkish martyrs, and post pictures of new aircraft designs. “Some people here consider him like Elon Musk,” Federico Donelli, an international-relations researcher at the University of Genoa, told me.

In May, 2016, Bayraktar married Sümeyye Erdoğan, the youngest daughter of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s President. Erdoğan is the leader of a political Islamist movement that, the analyst Svante Cornell has written, wishes “to build a powerful, industrialized Turkey that serves as the natural leader of the Muslim world.” Turkey’s arms industry has grown tenfold in the past twenty years, and most of the country’s military equipment is now manufactured locally. “The Bayraktars, and particularly the TB2s, have turned into the flagship of the Turkish defense industry,” Alper Coşkun, a former Turkish diplomat, told me.

Turkey borders Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, and the European Union, and it faces Russia across the Black Sea. Donelli told me that the shifting allegiances and complex politics of the region reminded him of Europe in the days before the First World War. “In Bayraktar, they have a kind of genius who can change the historical path of Turkey,” Donelli said.

Erdoğan has held power since 2003. During that time, he has seized control of the courts and the press, amended the Turkish constitution, and advocated for a return to traditional roles for women. Journalists critical of the Erdoğan regime have been beaten with baseball bats and iron rods, and opposition activists have been sentenced to decades in prison. But Turkey’s economy is stagnating, and its inflation rate rose to seventy per cent during the past twelve months. In 2019, Erdoğan’s party lost the mayoralty of Istanbul, which it had held since the nineteen-nineties. The TB2 is a spectacular propaganda machine, and Erdoğan has used its success to promote his vision for Turkish society. As Bayraktar told me, “In this day and age, the biggest change in our lives is driven by technology—and who drives the changes? The ones who create technology.”

Bayraktar and his family live on Baykar’s grounds, which he compared to a university campus, with sports facilities and a park that he called “bigger than Google’s.” While we spoke, his mother, Canan; Sümeyye; and the couple’s four-year-old daughter, also named Canan, were eating dinner in an adjacent room. Bayraktar told me that he was one of the oldest engineers at Baykar, and that many of the firm’s programmers are women. “My software side comes from my mother,” he said.

Bayraktar was born in Istanbul in 1979, the middle of three brothers. His father, Özdemir, the son of a fisherman, graduated from Istanbul Technical University and founded an auto-parts company; Canan, his mother, was an economist and a computer programmer in the punch-card era. The brothers were introduced to machine tools at an early age. “We were working, all throughout our childhood, in the factory,” Bayraktar told me. By the time he was a teen-ager, he was a competent tool-and-die-maker. Özdemir was also an amateur pilot, and as a boy Selçuk would survey Turkey’s splendid geography from the window of his father’s plane. “A small aircraft, it’s like sailing in there,” he told me. “You feel like a bird.” Bayraktar was soon building radio-controlled airplanes from kits, sometimes modifying them with his own designs. “I was hiding my model aircraft under my bed, and working on it secretly,” he said. “I should have been studying for my exams.”

Bayraktar’s radio-controlled aircraft prototypes impressed academic researchers. In 2002, after graduating from Istanbul Technical, he was recruited to the University of Pennsylvania. For his master’s degree, he flew two drones in formation at the Fort Benning Army base, in Georgia. Bayraktar then began a second master’s, at M.I.T., where he pursued the difficult and offbeat goal of trying to land a radio-controlled helicopter on a wall. His adviser, Eric Feron, remembered Bayraktar as a dedicated craftsman and an observant Muslim, with a passion for youth education. He recalled Bayraktar’s enthusiasm when he tutored Feron’s daughter in her mathematics homework, and the time he demonstrated his helicopter to a troop of Girl Scouts. “He was a good pilot,” Feron said. “But I did not understand all that he was after until I got invited to his wedding.”

While Bayraktar was a student, the United States was using Predator drones to strike targets in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bayraktar disapproved of U.S. foreign policy—“I was obsessed with Noam Chomsky,” he told me—and engaged in social activism with other graduate students, most of them foreigners. But he was drawn to the autonomous vehicles. While still enrolled at M.I.T., he began building small prototype drones at the family’s factory in Istanbul.

Özdemir set out to secure government support for Selçuk’s drones. Özdemir was friendly with Necmettin Erbakan, an Islamic nationalist and a vitriolic critic of Western culture. Turkey had been a secular republic since the nineteen-twenties, but Erbakan, ​​a professor of mechanical engineering, believed that by investing in industry and grooming technological talent the country could become a prosperous Islamic nation. In 1996, Erbakan had been elected Turkey’s Prime Minister, but he resigned from the post under pressure from the armed forces, and was banned from politics for threatening to violate Turkey’s constitutional separation of religion and the state. (Erbakan, who had developed connections with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, blamed his ouster on “Zionists.”)

Bayraktar briefed Erbakan on his work, and by the mid-two-thousands Bayraktar was spending his school breaks embedded with the Turkish military. The Bayraktar family also had ties to Erbakan’s protégé, Erdoğan, who was elected Prime Minister in 2002. Bayraktar’s father had been an adviser to Erdoğan when he was a local politician in Istanbul, and Bayraktar recalled Erdoğan visiting the family house.

Bayraktar’s first drone, the hand-launched Mini U.A.V., weighed about twenty pounds. In early tests, it flew about ten feet, but Bayraktar refined the design, and soon the Mini could stay aloft for more than an hour. Bayraktar tested it in the snowy mountains of southeastern Anatolia, surveilling the armed rebels of the P.K.K., a Kurdish separatist movement. Feron recalled his astonishment when he contacted Bayraktar in the mountains. “He has no hesitation to go to the front lines, to really the worst conditions that the Turkish military can go into, and basically be with them, and live with them, and learn directly from the user,” he said. Bayraktar told me he prefers to field-test a drone in an active combat theatre. “It needs to be battle-hardened and robust,” he said. “If this doesn’t work at ten-thousand-feet elevation, at minus-thirty-degrees temperature, then this is just another item that you have to carry in your backpack.”

Bayraktar began developing a larger drone. In 2014, he débuted a prototype of the TB2, a propeller-driven fixed-wing aircraft large enough to carry munitions. That year, Erdoğan, who was facing term limits as Prime Minister, won the Presidential election. A popular referendum had given him control of the courts as well, and he began using his powers to prosecute political enemies. “They arrested not only a quarter of active-duty admirals and generals but also many of Erdoğan’s civil-society opponents,” Soner Cagaptay, who has written four biographies of Erdoğan, told me. Bayraktar dedicated his prototype to the memory of Erdoğan’s mentor, Erbakan. “He gave all his life’s work to changing the culture,” Bayraktar said. (In his posthumously published memoirs, Erbakan asserted that, for the past four hundred years, the world has secretly been governed by a coalition of Jews and Freemasons.)

In December, 2015, Bayraktar oversaw the first tests of the TB2’s precision-strike capability. Using a laser to guide dummy bombs, the drone was able to strike a target the size of a picnic blanket from five miles away. By April, 2016, the TB2 was delivering live munitions. The earliest targets were the P.K.K.—drone strikes have killed at least twenty of the organization’s leaders, along with whoever was standing near them. The strikes also taught Bayraktar to fight for the airwaves. Drones are controlled through radio signals, which opponents can jam by broadcasting static. Pilots can counter by hopping frequencies, or by boosting the amplitude of their broadcast signal. “There’s so many jammers in Turkey, because the P.K.K. had been using drones, too,” Bayraktar said. “It’s one of the hottest places to fly.” Turkey’s remote-controlled counterinsurgency was thought to be the first time a country had conducted a drone campaign against citizens on its own soil, but Bayraktar, citing the threat of terrorism, remains an enthusiastic supporter of the campaign.

That May, he married the President’s daughter. More than five thousand people attended the wedding, including much of the country’s political élite. Sümeyye wore a head scarf and an immaculate long-sleeved white dress from the Paris designer Dice Kayek. By then, the Turkish state had taken on an overtly Islamic character. In the nineteen-nineties, the hijab was banned in universities and public buildings. Now “having a hijab-wearing wife is the surest way to get a job in the Erdoğan administration,” Cagaptay wrote. Bayraktar regularly tweets Islamic blessings to his followers on social media, and both Sümeyye and the elder Canan wear the hijab.

Like Bayraktar, Sümeyye is a second-generation member of Turkey’s Islamist élite, and she graduated from Indiana University in 2005 with a degree in sociology. “She has great ethics,” Bayraktar told me. “She’s a real challenger.” Other people describe her as a fashionable, feminist upgrade on her father’s politics—a Turkish version of Ivanka Trump. “Women have lost significantly under Erdoğan in terms of access to political power,” Cagaptay told me. “When there are women appointed in the cabinet, they have token jobs.”

In June, 2016, terrorists affiliated with isis killed forty-five people at the Istanbul airport, and soon a new front was opened in Syria, where Turkey used Bayraktar’s drones to attack the short-lived isis caliphate. (The drones were later turned on Syria’s Kurds.) In July, a small group inside the Turkish military staged a coup against Erdoğan. The coup was chaotic and unpopular—the main opposition parties condemned it, a conspirator flying a fighter jet dropped a bomb on the Turkish parliament, and Erdoğan was reportedly targeted by an assassination squad sent to his hotel. Erdoğan blamed the followers of Fetullah Gülen, an exiled cleric and political leader who now lives in Pennsylvania, and purged more than a hundred thousand government employees. (Gülen denies involvement in the coup.) Bayraktar was now part of Erdoğan’s inner circle, and his drones were marketed for export.

Bayraktar is a Turkish celebrity, and his social-media feeds are crowded with patriotic reply guys. When he gives talks to trainee pilots, which he does often, he wears a leather jacket decorated with flight patches; when he tours universities, which he also does often, he wears a blazer over a turtleneck. In our conversation, he referred to concepts from critical gender theory, spoke of Russia’s violations of international law, and quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Those who give up essential freedom for temporary security deserve neither security nor freedom.” But he is also an outspoken defender of Erdoğan’s government. In 2017, Erdoğan held a constitutional referendum that resulted in the dissolution of the post of Prime Minister, effectively enshrining his control of the state. Using politically motivated tax audits to seize independent media outlets, his government sold them in single-bidder “auctions” to supporters, and a number of journalists have been jailed for the crime of “insulting the President.” Erdoğan frequently sues journalists, and Bayraktar has done so, too. He recently celebrated a thirty-thousand-lira fine levied against Çiğdem Toker, who was investigating a foundation that Bayraktar helps run. Bayraktar tweeted, “Journalism: Lying, fraud, shamelessness.”

Bayraktar’s older brother, Haluk, is the C.E.O. of Baykar Technologies; Selçuk is the C.T.O. and the chairman of the board. (Their father died last year.) In addition to being used in Ukraine and Azerbaijan, TB2s have been deployed by the governments of Nigeria, Ethiopia, Qatar, Libya, Morocco, and Poland. When I spoke with Bayraktar, Baykar had just completed a sales call in East Asia, marketing its forthcoming TB3 drone, which can be launched from a boat.

Several news sources have reported that a single TB2 drone can be purchased for a million dollars, but Bayraktar, while not giving a precise figure, told me that it costs more. In any event, single-unit figures are misleading; TB2s are sold as a “platform,” along with portable command stations and communications equipment. In 2019, Ukraine bought a fleet of at least six TB2s for a reported sixty-nine million dollars; a similar fleet of Reaper drones costs about six times that. “Tactically, it’s right in the sweet spot,” Bayraktar said of the TB2. “It’s not too small, but it’s not too big. And it’s not too cheap, but it’s not too expensive.”

Once a fleet is purchased, operators travel to a facility in western Turkey for several months of training. “You don’t just buy it,” Mark Cancian, a military-procurement specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me. “You have married the supplier, because you need a constant stream of spare parts and repair expertise.” Turkey has become adept at leveraging this relationship. It struck a defense deal with Nigeria, which included training the country’s pilots on TB2s, in exchange for access to minerals and liquefied natural gas. In Ethiopia, TB2s were delivered after the government seized a number of Gülenist schools. Unlike dealing with the U.S., obtaining weapons from Turkey doesn’t involve human-rights oversight. “There are really no restrictions on use,” Cancian said.

Buyers are also supported by Baykar’s programmers. The TB2, which Bayraktar compares to his smartphone, has more than forty onboard computers, and the company sends out software updates several times a month to adapt to adversarial tactics. “You’ve seen the articles, probably, asking how World War One-performance aircraft can compete against some of the most advanced air defenses in the world,” Bayraktar said. “The trick there is to continuously upgrade them.”

Much of the drones’ battlefield experience has come against Russian equipment. Russia and Turkey have a complicated relationship: Russia is a key trading partner for Turkey, Turkey is a popular holiday destination for Russian tourists, and Russia is overseeing the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which, when completed, will supply a tenth of the country’s electricity. In 2017, Turkey angered its allies in nato when it bought a Russian missile system, triggering U.S. sanctions. Still, both Turkey and Russia are seeking to restore their standings as world powers, and even before the war in Ukraine they were often in conflict.

In the Libyan civil war, Turkey and Russia backed opposing factions, and the TB2 faced off against Russia’s Pantsir-S1, an anti-aircraft system that shoots missiles at planes and can be mounted on a vehicle. At least nine Pantsirs were destroyed; so were at least twelve drones.

Another theatre opened in the Caucasus in 2020, when Azerbaijan attacked the ethnic-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Last month, I met Robert Avetisyan, the Armenian representative to the United States from Nagorno-Karabakh, at a café in Glendale, California. Avetisyan told me, “During the first several days, Azerbaijan was not successful, in anything, until the Turkish generals took the joysticks.” Armenia has a security alliance with Russia, which provides most of its military equipment, some dating to the Soviet era. For six weeks, TB2 drones bombarded that equipment relentlessly; one independent analysis tallied more than five hundred targets destroyed, including tanks, artillery, and missile-defense systems. “We lost the air war,” Avetisyan said. TB2s also targeted Armenian troops, and footage of these strikes was shared by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense. A six-minute compilation of the videos, posted to YouTube midway through the war, shows dozens of variations on the same scene: Armenian soldiers, cowering in trenches or huddled around transport trucks, alerted to their impending death by the hiss of an incoming bomb before a blast sends their bodies hurtling through the air.

Avetisyan sent me a translated statement from Arthur Saryan, a twenty-seven-year-old veteran of the war. Saryan had been standing with a small deployment of soldiers when his unit was hit by a bomb at around two in the morning. “We had no idea that we were the target,” Saryan said. “We heard it only two or three seconds before it hit us.” The bomb created a fireball. “Everyone was burnt. All the bodies were burnt and the cars immediately caught fire.” Six soldiers were killed, and seven were wounded. “It was a horrible scene,” Saryan said.

Bayraktar’s TB2 drones fly slowly, and their propellers should be easy to locate. But in Nagorno-Karabakh the drones seemed to evade enemy reconnaissance, either through radar jamming or through technical incompetence. “A striking feature of the video clips was the utter helplessness of the doomed systems,” the Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin wrote, after reviewing Azerbaijani footage of precision air strikes. “Some were seen being destroyed with their radar antennas still rotating, searching in vain for targets.” The Azerbaijanis also deliberately triggered enemy radar by flying unmanned crop dusters at Armenian positions. If the Armenian missile launchers took the bait, revealing their location, they were destroyed by TB2s.

Turkey and Azerbaijan share close linguistic and political ties, but the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict represented a new level of coöperation. “There’s such cultural affinity between the Azerbaijanis and the Anatolian Turks—they say, ‘One nation, two states,’ ” Outzen, the former State Department specialist, told me. “Now they’re starting to say, ‘One nation, two states, one army.’ ” This is bad news for Armenia, which is wedged between the two. Turkey has not acknowledged its role in the Armenian genocide of 1915, and the Azerbaijani President, Aliyev, has referred to Armenia as “a territory artificially created on ancient Azerbaijani lands.”

Such claims have led the influential Armenian diaspora to block Western components from being used in Bayraktar’s drones, through both congressional action in the U.S. and pressure on manufacturers. But an analysis of a downed TB2 in Nagorno-Karabakh revealed that the aircraft was using a G.P.S. transponder made by the Swiss manufacturer Garmin. The company issued a statement saying that it had no supply relationship with Baykar, and that the transponder was commercially available. Nevertheless, Bayraktar has sought to reduce his reliance on Western components; in a recent Instagram post, he claimed that ninety-three per cent of the TB2’s components were now manufactured in Turkey. Bayraktar’s development cycle has a D.I.Y. element that can make the Pentagon’s practices seem out of date. “Our services are so culturally tied to a cumbersome acquisition process,” Andy Milburn, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told me. “What he’s doing is so modular, so replaceable.” Feron, Bayraktar’s graduate adviser, recalled the aftermarket modifications that Bayraktar made to store-bought drones. “Sometimes in the aerospace industry they do a lot of simulations, but they never touch the machine,” Feron said. “He’s much more of a builder.”

Last October, Ukraine announced that it was constructing a factory outside Kyiv to assemble Bayraktar’s drones. Shortly afterward, Ukraine released video of a TB2 conducting a strike against an artillery position in the contested eastern region of Donbas. The Air Force colonel who runs Ukraine’s drone program has not revealed his identity, citing security concerns, but in 2019 he travelled to Baykar’s facility in western Turkey for three months of training. “I loved it there,” he told Al-Monitor, an online newsletter.

“The acquisition of certain systems—like the TB2 and the American Javelin anti-tank missile—may actually further incentivize a Russian invasion instead of deterring one,” the military analyst Aaron Stein wrote in a prescient blog post in December. In February, Russia invaded.

The early days of the war looked like a repeat of Nagorno-Karabakh. Publicly available footage suggests that TB2s destroyed at least ten Russian missile batteries and disrupted the Russian supply lines by bombing transport trucks. In the past few weeks, though, the release of strike videos has slowed. This may be due to security concerns, but it’s also possible that the Russians have caught up—the TB2 has no real defense against a fighter jet, and in the lead-up to the invasion the Russian military trained against the drones. In early March, Ukrainian officials announced that they were receiving another shipment from Baykar; by the end of the month, a tally of press releases showed that Russia claimed to have shot down thirty-nine TB2s, which would likely constitute the bulk of the Ukrainian fleet. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was initially enthusiastic about the TB2, but in April, at a press conference in a Kyiv subway station, he downplayed the aircraft’s importance. “With all due respect to Bayraktar, and to any hardware, I will tell you, frankly, this is a different war,” he said. “Drones may help, but they will not make the difference.” Still, a couple of weeks before, Alexey Yerkhov, the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, had complained about the sale. “Explanations like ‘business is business’ won’t work, since your drones are killing our soldiers,” Yerkhov said, in remarks addressed to the Turkish government.

In our conversation, Bayraktar condemned Russia’s actions but declined to discuss operational specifics. “Let’s not put any of these countries at risk,” he said. “If any poor Ukrainian was hurt, I would be very sad. I would be responsible on the day of judgment.” Bayraktar’s software upgrades respond to customer feedback, and his designs continue to evolve. His latest production drone, the twin-prop Akinci, can fly to forty thousand feet and can be equipped with jamming countermeasures. In March, he tweeted a picture of the prototype for Baykar’s first jet, the Kizilelma, which resembles an autonomous F-16 without a cockpit. (In addition to the military vehicles, there is also the Cezeri, a human-size quadcopter, which Bayraktar has termed a “flying car.”)

Bayraktar is also investing in autonomy, and told me that he was ahead of the competition in this area. “That’s what our expertise is,” he said. “Push a button, and the aircraft lands.” An autonomous drone might find its way home if its communication links were severed. To develop such systems, Bayraktar will need to retain programming talent, but Erdoğan’s regime is struggling against brain drain. “I, personally, know a whole bunch of people who have left,” Cagaptay said. “In Turkey, they don’t see a future for themselves.”

“Sometimes oppression is worse than death,” Bayraktar told me. He was referring to Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against the Russian invasion, but, a month after we talked, the Turkish civil-rights campaigner Osman Kavala was sentenced to life in prison, after a politically motivated trial that Amnesty International called a “travesty of justice.” On May 1st, the Ukrainian defense ministry resumed releasing footage from Bayraktar’s drones, showing them striking a pair of Russian patrol boats. Another video released that day showed Ukrainian soldiers, against a backdrop of destroyed Russian vehicles, dancing, laughing, and singing Bayraktar’s name. ♦

[asktirimor]

RP Hooks and Headcanons for Hazbin Hotel

For those who might not know, RP Hooks are interesting things about your character that others can "hook" into for RP. This could be an odd personality quirk, a reputation your character has, or anything else that might inspire someone to connect with you.

Eversince that he got to Hell (Not willingly mind you), he has been dealing with the worst of the worst when it comes to both sinner and demon in The Pride Ring. There was no leads on their identity but all anyone ever saw was someone in a light grey hooded trench coat leaving the scene. He was given the moniker of The Archangel for those who have seen him.

Besides The Pride Ring at times he visited The Gluttuny Ring. While he was not a big party animal it at least gave him a bit of a familiarity when it came to home. He generally just stayed to himself in the back of the party were no one could see him. Though his own general vibe was a perfect mixture of sour and sweetness.

While he was generally in the news, it was only during the latest Extermination Day, where the Sinners and Demons actually fought back they got some good footage. This being footage of him holding off a few dozen Exocrists all by himself and leaving the general area a bloodbath.

As much as he didn't like being here but he had to admit, he needed a place of his own. He had recently taken an abandoned warehouse that was in The Pride Ring. He marked the borders of his territory using the helmets of the Exocrists that he killed once he properly dealt with the bodies and the angelic weaponry. The Warehouse had all the basic ammendities one would expect and a place for him to train and meditite.

[lavaqueennewkingdom]

CHAPTER 3 - Dust Desserts

Lava Queen turned to Bwario and Bwaluigi.

"Any info on where Mario could be?" she asked.

The two henchmen checked the drone's footage that recorded the moment the cannon malfunctioned.

"Yessir, accordin' to the direction, they went North West." responded Bwario.

"Sherbet Desert..." Lava Queen's eyes narrowed. "I know the Rabbids to keep him busy."

Meanwhile at Toadette's house in Toad Town. She and Spawny were hard at work making a garden.

"This'll give me the chance to thank you!" Toadette said, smiling. "This is amazing! Even I couldn't have done this!"

Spawny happily beamed, they did put an effort into the garden. It was a calm activity, which unless involved Piranha Plants, didn't provide any stress to the bunny. The colours were bright, and the patterns where fun. It was like a cute little paradise. There was a sharp knock at the door. Toadette heard it and went to it. A large towering figure in a trenchcoat with a gas mask stood there.

"Hello...'' They spoke. "You must be Toadette."

"Yes, who are you?"

"Let's just say I'm...an acquaintance of Princess Peach."

"Oh, you know her?"

"Indeed, I'm here to explain to you that she along with others have gone missing."

"W-what?"

"We would like to know if a Rabbid named Spawny is okay. Just in case the Princess concerns him."

Toadette's eyes widened.

"Y-yes! I'm sure he's fine! He always works so hard to please her!"

"I see..." the figure in the gas mask nodded.

Toadette took the figure to Spawny who was busy planting carrots.

"Spawny, I have a visitor who wants to know about you."

"Ah, this is Spawny."

Toadette nodded as Spawny's smile began to shrink as he saw the figure.

"Now Toadette." began the figure. "It's time to tell the truth."

"What truth?"

"This is all a ploy done by us."

The figure writhed around before it's trench coat burst open, revealing that it was a trick by the Lava Kids. Magma, who played the head of the figure, threw a sachet of sleeping powder at Toadette, causing the poor Toad to fall to the ground. After she was done, she pointed at Spawny.

"Get him!"

Sizzle charged at Spawny who tried to escape from the Lava Kid's clutches.

Spawny, now terrified, fired a blast of SupaMerge energy at Sizzle, who in narrowly dodged.

"Woah, he's a fiesty one!"

The rest of the Lava Kids went after Spawny, which ended with Magma grabbing him by his ears.

"Mission accomplished!" she victoriously remarked, staring evilly at Spawny.

"Hey, what do we do about the Toad girl?" asked Hibachi, putting his foot at Toadette's head.

"Tie her up. We can't let her roam free." ordered Magma. "Our job is done here. We report back to the queen." The Lava Kids left Toadette's house with Spawny now contained in a jar.

⋆

Later, in Mario and Rabbid Luigi's case, they had been sliding down dune after dune in the Sherbet Desert. The mountain was up ahead but no path to climb it. The only option that Mario had was to go around it and climb the path it had from there. A redeeming thing about Sherbet Desert was whenever it felt hot, Mario could shift to the other side to cool down. Though Beep-O had listed other reasons on why it was his place of choice over the other 3 areas. One of them being that it had unique and strange things to see.

Mario could see that, some of the formations in the desert where surprisingly well shaped.  A path also came into view alongside it. It might be a good idea to follow it and see where it led.

"Let's follow it." Mario said to Rabbid Luigi.

Before they could set foot, they felt two gusts of wind. Behind them was a sandstorm which was enveloping nearby cacti.

"We need to get out of here." said Mario.

As the storm got worse, the path began to fade.

"We need to find shelter!" shouted Rabbid Luigi, grabbing onto Mario.

"I can't see!" cried Mario, putting his hands up to shield his eyes.

Rabbid Luigi grabbed a nearby mushroom to block the sand out. They found a crevice in the side the mountain and took cover. When their vision cleared, they saw a figure standing over them. A rabbid embedded in a tornado encased with rocks and cacti. It was Sandy, one of the two Rabbids that had previously attacked Mario and friends during the first trip in Sherbet Desert.

"Sandy!? I thought we took care of her and Blizzy last time we were here!" said Mario.

"I guess they're back for revenge!" Rabbid Luigi cried.

"I've been waiting for this moment since we last fought. The first time was weak, this time, it'll be more fun." Sandy said. She lit up a cactus grenade and lobbed it at the two. It exploded right next to them, rocking their heads back.

"Agh! That stings!" cried Mario.

"Me too! My ears are ringing!" cried Rabbid Luigi.

"Quick, get our weapons!"

Mario rushed to get out his Blaster whilst Rabbid Luigi got out his Bworb.

"I don't think so!" called out Sandy. She summoned a sandstorm and pushed it towards them. The winds began to pick up, blowing the two back until they were close to the edge of a crevasse.

"I can't fight a sandstorm!" cried out Mario.

"Grab my hand!" shouted Rabbid Luigi. "We need to stick together!"

The two did their best to try and grab on to each other's hands but the strong wind was being thrown around, trying its best to pull them away. The storm was also beginning to engulf the crevasse. Mario felt the sandstorm pick him up with Rabbid Luigi pulling him back. He was almost to the edge of the crevasse with the ledge right below him.

"Come on!" he shouted, as loud as he could.

Then, an idea came to Rabbid Luigi's head. He fired a shot at Mario, which the force of the shot pushed him away from edge and onto safer land.

"Yes! I knew the Push effect would save us!" he cheered. However his celebration was cut short upon seeing a faint image of Sandy looming above them.

"Ha ha ha! Stop pretending to be brave, Rabbid Luigi!" she laughed. She summoned another cacti grenade and threw it right at them. Mario grabbed his hammer and swung back, deflecting the grenade at Sandy, stunning her in the process.

The sandstorm began to clear up, giving Mario and Rabbid Luigi the opportunity to escape. They ran a far distance from Sandy who was struggling to gain back momentum before Mario turned back. The two had run past some boulders that were cleared from the path and wedged into another crevice. Mario aimed his blaster at the boulders, knocking them onto the path and causing a blockage.

"That will keep her busy." He panted, turning back to the path. "We need to keep going."

The rocky path continued for a long time, with Mario catching glimpses of that sandy wasteland they had passed near to. They would see cacti growing out of the ground and then a glimpse of the sandy wasteland itself.

Since they were unable to find the cannon that would normally give them a good shortcut to the summit of Sherbet Mountain, they knew they were going to have to scale it.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find a way up." Said Mario.

"You sure about that?" replied Rabbid Luigi.

"I'm positive."

[junker-town]

Every animal face-off in the BBC’s new nature documentary, rated

Sylvain CORDIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

David Attenborough’s new show is epic ... and sports.

We continue our extremely important mission to conduct a scene-by-scene review of the BBC’s new nature documentary, Seven Worlds, One Planet, in order to see how sports it is. We determined that Episode 1, which focused on Antarctica, was reasonably sports. Asia was very sports. Time for ...

Episode 3 South America

Scene 1: Puma vs. Guanaco

Feeding a family of three is hard, especially if you’re a single mother who is also a Patagonian puma. Mountain lions, the Americas’ second-largest cat, don’t get the reputation they deserve: their glory is stolen overseas by African lions and tigers and at home (at least in South America) by the jaguar. But all big cats are worth our attention, because they’re designed to kill you. Yes, you personally.

Possessing murderous grace, strength complimented by rending claws, surprising stamina and teeth optimized to clamp around one’s neck just so, a puma is a serious predator. And, perhaps unfortunately for Patagonian pumas, they hunt serious prey: guanacos. They’re built for the mountains, with the ability to breathe very thin air. They’re also built for puma attacks. Thick skin around their neck helps protect them from the fatal bite, and their height and heft — over three times that of a mountain lion — does too. A guanaco is not an easy hunt.

But hunt them mother puma must. There’s the family to think of, after all. So we’re treated to a series of puma-guanaco battles, closely matched and extremely well-fought, on scrub and in snow.

Over a bruising few days, the mother, injured from an earlier attempt, finally makes a kill, sprinting to catch her foe, wrestling it to the ground, suffocating it with a bite and then dragging it over a mile back to her territory. Sometimes you just have to play through pain.

Aesthetics 10/10

Everything about this scene is beautiful, from the shapely mountains that backdrop the hunts to the limpid pools enjoyed by the cougar cubs. And both animals featured are lovely, too — we’ve discussed the murderous beauty of the puma, but there’s an elegant majesty to the hunted guanaco too.

Also, this dude makes a brief appearance:

BBC Earth

This is a dirty look that almost transcends perfection. Well done, grumpy old man puma.

Difficulty 10/10

The puma’s kill was difficult enough without having to drag a corpse a mile across the Patagonia scrubland while injured. That’s some good mothering.

Competitiveness 10/10

Guanaco are pretty spectacular things, and they gave the mother puma almost more than she could handle. An incredible battle.

Overall 30/30

Running to rodeo to wrestling to, uh, dragging? We’ll call this the puma tetrathlon, and it is definitely sports.

Scene 2: Turd Penguins

The Pacific coast of South America is shaped by the Andes above and the Atacama Trench below, where the Nazca Plate subducts under the continent to fuel its belching volcanic spine. The trench, and the Humboldt Current which flows above it, drive nutrients into the surface waters offshore, which attract some of the world’s largest concentrations of seabirds. And, therefore, also the world’s largest concentrations of seabird poop.

Guano has an incredible history. Seabird manure is extremely good for fertilizer, but in most areas of the world, many of the nutrients are washed out by rain. On the Peruvian coast, however, it doesn’t rain, so high-quality guano collects. And collects. And collects. When Alexander van Humboldt, who gave his name to the current (as well as a particularly disgusting species of penguin, whom we will be discussing later), brought back news of the Peruvian deposits, he sparked a massive guano boom.

For years, guano mining was the foundation of the Peruvian economy. Control of guano islands was so important that wars were fought over it, and the United States’ push into the Pacific was at least partly due to the search for new, uninhabited guano sites. The use of guano across the world has even been blamed — how credibly I’m not well-equipped to assess — for the particular strand of blight that caused the Irish Potato Famine. Until synthetic fertilizers were produced in the early 20th Century, guano was vital for world agriculture. Now it’s where some very awful penguins dig their disgusting little nests, coating themselves in the process.

My friends would describe me as dirty, but cute #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/TrsLBX0Y7c

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

NB: If you watch the full episode, be prepared to watch a penguin take a dump. Consider yourself warned.

Turd penguins, like their less smelly cousins, need to get to the sea to eat. And this is a more challenging affair than usual during breeding season, as the rich waters off the coast attract more than seabirds. Blocking off the penguins’ access is a full colony of sea lions.

I like to imagine (probably definitely incorrectly) that these sea lions are normally fairly chill animals. But when your nice, quiet beach is invaded by a shrieking mob of penguins LITERALLY COATED BEAK TO TAIL IN SHIT, it’s hard to be chill. And when those penguins ignore your warnings to go the fuck back to whatever shithole they came from and instead CROWD SURF OVER YOU, it’s even harder.

When you go into a store and the shop assistants pounce #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #amistakehasbeenmade pic.twitter.com/bI8DfPdAcL

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

Actual footage of life throwing me curveballs #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #oopsiedaisy pic.twitter.com/h5dn54cu5G

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

Turd penguin don’t give a fuuuuuuck.

Aesthetics 2/10

I’m the father of two small children and so consider myself fairly immune to whatever horrors bodily fluids might attempt to inflict upon me. But this is enormously gross, and not even some sassy sea lions can rescue it.

Difficulty 9/10

Running through a pack of angry sea lions who desperately want you to go away and could kill you quite easily is one thing. Using them as a jungle gym is another. Don’t try this at home. Actually, don’t try any of this scene at home.

Competitiveness 10/10

Humboldt penguins weigh somewhere around 10 pounds. An adult male sea lion can be as much as 20 times as heavy. Being willing to barge your way through/over a wall of angry muscle and blubber like that takes some incredible bravery.

Overall 21/30

Surfing is a sport, even when it’s done by unbelievably dreadful birds. Goodbye, turd penguins. I hated you.

Scene 3: Nerd Bears

There’s nothing wrong with being a nerd. Some of my best friends are nerds, after all. So when I say that the spectacled bear is a nerdy-looking bear, it’s out of affection. And accuracy:

Photo by Blick/RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Cool glasses, nerd.

The spectacled bear is only found in the cloud forests of the Andes, and is correspondingly rare and vulnerable to habitat loss. But, like millennials, who do things like watch the world burning around them and yet spend their time shitposting about nature documentaries rather than actually doing anything useful, these bears love avocados. Even when those avocados are 30 meters off the ground.

These nerds aren’t as heavy as the polar or brown bears we met in the Asia episode, but they’re still reasonably heavy, and the thin branches that the avocados grow on are nowhere near big enough to support them. So the smart bears just bite into the branches so that they dangle down low enough for them to reach. The less smart bears bite them off entirely and have to climb all the way back down. Most fast and break things. That’s the nerd way.

Aesthetics 7/10

I’m mostly giving this a good score because there aren’t any penguins in it. But also these bears have some pretty good vibes:

Me living my best life #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/WMreQHmzww

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

Difficulty 5/10

That’s a pretty big tree to climb, and a pretty big body with which to climb.

Competitiveness 7/10

In the battle of bear and bear, all it takes is a little bit of technique and know-how to get the upper paw.

Overall 19/30

On the surface, the avocado hunt is not exactly the stuff to stir one’s blood. But there’s an important, if unspoken rule about sport-assessing, of which I am now a professional: if you watch cheating, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s sports.

Scene 4: Look at this monkey’s hair!

These Cotton-top Tamarins are critically endangered, which is a big shame because they have cool hair. Their habitat is being destroyed for all the traditional reasons, and it’s depressing. You know the drill.

Aesthetics 10/10

Someone get me their stylist’s number ASAP. I can only assume Carlos Valderrama was inspired by these little dudes.

Difficulty 10/10

This was going to be a bunch of monkeys sitting around and looking cool while their home is being razed around them, like a primate version of the ‘This is Fine’ dog. And then one did an absurd tree jump, which would kill 100 percent of the humans that tried to match it.

Competition 0/10

Monkeys vs. praying mantis? No contest. Monkeys vs. the inexorable tide of ‘progress’ that is slowly grinding their entire species away. Also no contest.

Overall 20/30

If everyone doing long jumps at the Olympics had these haircuts they’d get way better sponsorships. Sports.

Scene 5: The Very Horny Bird Squad

Birdsong is one of the joys of spring, and it’s only improved by the knowledge that it’s a bunch of tiny dinosaurs loudly expressing their desperate need to make some babies. Cheep-cheep-sexnowplease-cheep. For many birds, mere song is not enough. Bright, ostentatious plumage is a sign that a male is healthy and thus that his courtship attempt is worth responding to. And sometimes, the female bird wants to see some dancing.

Bird courtship routines are a staple of natural history programming, but in the Amazon we’re treated something rather more curious: the Blue Manakin team dance.

The lead male bird somehow wrangles a squad of subordinates to help him do his *ahem* dirty work. Attenborough claims that “by supporting [the leader] now they may themselves eventually become leaders and get a chance to mate,” which sounds dubious to me. It’s basically a bird sex pyramid scheme, little buddies, so don’t fall for it. The leader’s out to screw you.

This scene is made much better by the fact that the female bird is completely uninterested.

Aesthetics 10/10

Beautiful birds, beautiful dance moves. I particularly love the synchronized shuffle-hop, but the final flap-your-wings-while-screaming routine might need some work (its target seemed to think so too).

Difficulty 8/10

I can’t even dance by myself, let alone in a group. How many hours of practice went into this routine?

Competition 7/10

This very good dance not being good enough strongly implies that there are other, more capable bird squads around.

Overall 25/30

Team dancing is sports, even if in this case it’s extremely horny sports.

Scene 6: Poison Dart Frogs

Living in the rainforest is a pretty good deal for poison dart frogs. It’s nice and damp, there are some great trees to hang out in, and since almost everything that touches you has an unpleasant experience they get a fairly stress-free time.

But there is a problem: standing water. With some deeply weird exceptions (don’t google the Suriname toad if you have trypophobia), amphibians need water in which to lay their eggs. There aren’t too many ponds to be had, up in the canopy. So they have to make use of the tiny pools of water that collect in bromeliads, one per egg. Sometimes they choose badly and the small pool in which the egg has been placed dried up before their tadpole has finished developing:

Blob fish or tadpole? You decide#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/DUr5hn8tbm

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

That tadpole is in trouble, and the only way to help is to get it to a real pool of water. That means relocation via piggyback ride, perhaps even to a new tree, and then a summoning of the tadpole’s mother to lay another (unfertilized) egg to serve as food. Yum yum.

Aesthetics 3/10

Poison dart frogs have bright and flashy coloring to warn predators not to eat them. These yellow-and-black ones are particularly smart-looking. But bright colors alone aren’t doing it for me.

Difficulty 6/10

When you’re less than an inch long, searching through the forest with a baby on your back for a new place to stash it must be very hard work. Remembering where exactly you’ve dumped all your children seems like a tough task too.

Competitiveness 2/10

I’m guessing that there are a bunch of other poison dart frogs looking for egg pools in this forest, so I guess they can have a couple points here.

Overall 10/30

Not sports.

Scene 7: Scarlet Macaws

Parrots jostle and fight for position on the banks of a particular stretch of the Amazon. Are they after food? Not exactly. Parrots’ diet is low in salt, and their chicks need salt to develop, and here, at the edge of the river, is salt-laden clay. So the parrots squabble to grab a chunk of mud, fly up to 50 miles (!) back to their nests, and feed it to their children.

Aesthetics 5/10

Scarlet macaws are pretty birds:

Nothing more romantic than a cheeky head scratch and a chest peck #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/kgea0ciCCg

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

And we get to see more than just them. There are plenty of blue-and-gold macaws (my favorites) battling it out for the mud too, plus a sizable squadron of what I think are probably Amazon parrots in their greens.

Difficulty 4/10

This is more annoying than difficult, apart from the very long distances the birds have to fly.

Competitiveness 3/10

If there was a real free-for-all this would have scored quite high, but there appear to be just enough rules in parrot society to keep the clay harvesting from descending into an all-out brawl.

Overall 12/30

Nope.

Scene 8: Un-diving

This is more like it. A thousand miles south of the parrot clay feast, a troop of brown capuchins is moving through the trees, looking for breakfast. Staring up at them, following their every move, are ... fish. The piraputanga are able to see the monkeys clearly because Bonito’s Rio da Prata is fed by freshwater springs, naturally filtered by the underlying rock.

Are these fish on the hunt for monkey meat? No. Like dogs following a toddler, they’re hoping for their scraps. When the monkeys find ripe fruit — impossible to spot from underwater — they stop and eat. Plenty drops into the river. But an anaconda soon interrupts breakfast, attempting to ambush the capuchins from underwater.

Fortunately, that’s not the end of the piraputangas’ meal. Now that they know where the fruit is, they have schemes of their own:

...Try, try again #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/WEGJHlB1sm

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

I have to admit that I did not see this one coming.

Aesthetics 9/10

This is a beautiful scene. While none of the animals themselves are that attractive, the environments, particularly the crystal-clear waters of the Rio da Prata, are sublime. The anaconda’s slither through the mud carries with it potent, barely-seen menace. And then there’s the piraputanga jump. They have surprisingly good form, for fish.

Difficulty 8/10

Trying to jump several times your body height to grab something you can only barely see would be tricky enough if you were able to use your hands. Now imagine you have to do that with your teeth.

Competition 8/10

These fish mean business, and there’s not enough fruit to go round. After the monkeys are done with their handouts, the highest and best jumper is literally the one which gets to eat. A bonus point for the anaconda hunt.

Overall 25/30

Diving is sports. Un-diving is also sports.

Scene 9: Waterfall Skimmers

Norberto Duarte/AFP via Getty Images

Great dusky swifts will do a lot to protect their chicks. Harried and harassed by falcons, they have a perfect hiding spot for their nests: behind the thundering curtain of the Iguaçu Falls. The falls, on the border between Brazil and Argentina, are the biggest waterfall complex in the world, and the wet rock behind them is all that the chicks know before they take their first flight. Which is right through the pouring water and to the other side:

These great dusky swifts are able to fly right through the thundering torrents of water.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/txtjP3mOFo

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) November 10, 2019

Birds nesting in challenging places gives their chicks a great chance in the earliest days but creates a terrible bottleneck later on. This trial by waterfall isn’t the worst thing nature does to baby birds, but it’s an impressive challenge to get past. Blind and bedraggled, these tiny, barely-fledged swifts have to force their way through the falls and out into the open air for the very first time. Their reward is some pretty damn good scenery, and probably getting eaten by a falcon or something.

(Bonus video!) Here is the worst thing that nature does to baby birds:

Aesthetics 10/10

Lovely. While great dusky swifts aren’t very pretty on their own, especially when wet and flummoxed, the Iguaçu Falls are one of the planet’s most spectacular sights, and watching these 8-inch birds take them on is unbelievably cool.

Difficulty 10/10

This is another thing that would definitely kill you if you attempted it. Well, all flying would, but especially this one.

Competition 9/10

Little birds vs. enormous waterfall is a David-and-Goliath sort of deal.

Overall 29/30

Extremely sports.

[kartiavelino]

‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ brings WWI to life with blockbuster effects

Peter Jackson has used digital wizardry to conjure J.R.R. Tolkien’s Center Earth and King Kong’s 1930s New York, however he has now — in maybe his most acclaimed movie — employed all his technical powers to convey to life the Western Entrance of the primary World Battle. Jackson’s “They Shall Not Grow Previous” is the 57-year-old filmmaker’s first documentary. Commissioned by Britain’s Imperial Battle Museum to coincide with the centenary of the Armistice, Jackson assembled the movie from greater than 100 hours of footage from the entrance and 600 hours of audio interviews carried out within the 1960s with surviving British troopers. In the midst of the five-year challenge, Jackson restored the closely broken, grainy footage, colorized it, stabilized the body charges (many have been solely 13 frames per second, and will fluctuate based mostly upon how briskly the cameraman was cranking) and transferred the movie into 3-D. Alongside with including battle sound effects, he even employed professional lip readers to recreate the unheard dialogue. With the form of expertise often employed on a big-budget spectacle, the fog of time lifted from the footage, revealing the troopers anew. An action-packed scene, digitally colorized with lacking frames restored.Fathom Occasions/Everett Assortment “The folks on the movie grew to become human beings once more. Their humanity jumps out at you,” Jackson mentioned in an interview. “Their faces and the refined approach they transfer and their expressions, you simply understand you’re seeing you’re seeing these folks for the primary time in 100 years.” “They Shall Not Grow Previous,” which takes its title from the Laurence Binyon poem “For the Fallen,” has already performed within the U.Ok., the place it earned Jackson the most effective critiques of his profession. “The impact is electrifying,” wrote the Guardian. “The faces are unforgettable.” Fathom Occasions will display screen the movie in 500 theaters nationwide Dec. 27 earlier than a extra conventional launch from Warner Bros. starting Jan. 11. For Jackson, it’s the fruits of a ardour challenge, one undertaken partially as a tribute to the New Zealand filmmaker’s grandfather, who fought within the warfare. The primary three years of the challenge, edited at Jackson’s post-production facility, Park Street Submit, weren’t spent reducing something collectively however sifting by means of the fabric and cleansing it up. “We have been simply listening, listening, listening, making notes and discovering what this movie was going to be,” he says. Startled by the clearness of the restoration, Jackson opted to impress as little as attainable on the movie. The one narration is that of the troopers recounting their experiences; even dates and places of battles have been withheld to seize the view of the warfare from these within the trenches. “They solely noticed what was proper in entrance of their eyes,” says Jackson. Fathom Occasions/Everett Assortment The recollections of the British troopers are surprisingly pragmatic and easy, missing any sense of remorse or self-pity. “They didn’t need that and so they didn’t anticipate that,” says Jackson. “I don’t assume they might actually approve of the best way we consider the primary World Battle now.” However the director can also be fast to level out that the 120 males interviewed don’t replicate a common story of the warfare. These are survivors, lots of whom went on to have households and productive lives, trying again many years later. “If we had interviews from the thousands and thousands of troopers that have been killed, they might inform a unique story,” says Jackson. Readability has all the time been elusive in WWI, a warfare with puzzling beginnings and staggering lack of life that however grew to become overshadowed within the common creativeness by World Battle II. However the easy, unclouded lucidity of “They Shall Not Grow Previous” gives a small window into the Nice Battle. Jackson hopes it evokes younger folks to study WWI and archivists all over the world to make related restorations of historic movie. It’s additionally the primary worthwhile 3-D movie in a while. Jackson, who was on the forefront of the reintroduction of 3-D, nonetheless believes it has worth regardless of its cratered reputation. “Individuals are solely shedding curiosity in it due to the standard of the projection, to be sincere with you,” he says, predicting that that can change with the appearance of laser projection. “The whole lot that individuals don’t like about 3-D — and I agree with them, that feeling like you’ve sun shades on whereas watching a movie — that each one goes away with laser projection.” So “There Shall Not Grow Previous” is, in some methods, a characteristically Jackson movie, with the notable exception that he wasn’t there to shoot any of it. Not that he minded. “I don’t truly like being on set, notably. I all the time regard that as being an arduous chore,” he says. “So in a approach I used to be fairly completely satisfied to skip over the capturing a part of it. The boys on the Western Entrance 100 years in the past did all of the laborious work filming it, and I used to be in a position to go straight to the half I like probably the most.” Share this: https://nypost.com/2018/12/18/they-shall-not-grow-old-brings-wwi-to-life-with-blockbuster-effects/ The post ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ brings WWI to life with blockbuster effects appeared first on My style by Kartia. https://www.kartiavelino.com/2018/12/they-shall-not-grow-old-brings-wwi-to-life-with-blockbuster-effects.html

[ascbh13]

John 15: 9 – 17 Remembrance Day 2018 - Charlie Boyle

As Jesus says “My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his love for his friends.” Friendship is very important. It is such a privilege to have good friends isn’t it. One of my friends called me up this week from Australia, on his way home from work in Sydney. It is always lovely to be contacted out of the blue by friends. He happened to also get to speak to his godson, just before he was about to go off to Nursery. Talking of the Nursery we had a lovely Autumn Fair yesterday in the Church Hall, so thank you to all who helped organize it and supported it. 

Friendships are important, we all have to work at our friendships and the reason you are here today is most likely because of a friendship, someone invited you to come along, someone might even have given you a lift. The other reason you may be here at this time, on this day, is of course to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for our freedom. 

Last year I interviewed and videoed Sergeant Bill Mitchell, of the Royal Signals, who went to France and survived the Second World War via Dunkirk, here with us today. I remember him talking about how he slept on the beaches, using his helmet as a pillow and waking up to think he had overslept. Only to later realise that he was amongst some his friends who had not survived the previous night’s bombing raid. I also recall his re-marking on the importance of friendship, the desire to return to the unit, the guys he was with, who he had fought with. When you go through tough times, you know who your friends are, when you fight in battle together, it builds a friendship. He also spoke of how his prayers had been answered and he was convinced of the power of prayer. The video of him talking to me is still on You Tube if you search under Bill Mitchell, Dunkirk.

This year’s Remembrance Day we as a country have particularly focused on the fact that it is 100 years since Armistice Day, which marked the end of the 1st World War, the war to end all wars. Sadly the fighting and suffering have not ceased, wars continue if not on the same worldwide scale.

We all want to live in a world of peace, where suffering and persecution have ceased. 

Times have changed and will continue to change but I think that actually there is greater respect and emphasis on Remembrance Day, certainly in the media and on television there have been plenty of programmes recalling the horrific events of the First World War. 

Joshua and I went to the cinema on Friday night to see They Shall not grow old, a harrowing, inspirational and amazing film that is basically a documentary that starts off in black and white. It then moves into colour bringing new techniques to bring archive footage of World War I into life. I think what inspired me was the lack of self-pity, the desire of the young men to enlist and serve their country, even when many were underage from as young as 14 people were keen to serve their country. There were scenes of horror and devastation, scenes of heroism and compassion but also hilarity and humour. At the end, of course, many soldiers returned, although over 1 million British and Commonwealth men died, many on their return said it was hard to find work. Another said I returned to my old place of work of the department store and someone said to him “where have you been these past years night she saw something” if you want to see it is on BBC tonight at 9:30pm.

The programme reminded me of the loss of life in my own family, the phantom pains and sleepless nights my grandfather endured after he lost his eye and his leg. That suffering that was endured as a result of war, does not end just because a peace treaty has been signed. The consequences of war continue in the physical and mental health of those who have fought in war, as well as those who have survived and been left behind, as it still does for those who have fought in more recent wars and continues today as Prince Harry’s Invictus games bears witness. But it also reminded me of those from this Parish, whose names we have just turned to and stood in front of at 11am. Those whose bodies did not come back from the trenches but are left in cemeteries in Europe, those whose lives were interrupted by the horrors of war, whose families lived with the loss for years to come.

Remembering is a good thing, whether we have memories that are failing or not as good as they used to be, the act of remembering helps us to give thanks. To stop and reflect on those who have given the ultimate sacrifice of their lives for others, for our relative freedom and peace.

You may recall that 3 of the names on the Memorial plaque are from the same family, the Woodroffe family who lost 3 of their 4 sons, with father Henry, who used to live in Branksome Wood Road. Leslie who got the Military cross, was the eldest who was born in 1885, educated at Marlborough College, who went on to teach at Shrewsbury school and died as a Captain of the 8th Battalion Rifle Brigade in June 1916, being wounded in the same battle as his brother, who is the only one to have a grave in France. Kenneth, was the one with the sporting genes in the family, playing both for Hampshire, Cambridge University and Sussex. He was the first to join the army and perhaps not surprisingly was the first to die in action near Neuve-Chappelle in France in May 1915. The fourth and youngest son, Sidney who won the Victoria Cross has been described as “one of the bravest of the brave”. In being awarded the VC the commanding officer wrote to his father describing how brave his 19 year old son had been saying “your younger boy was simply one of the bravest of the brave and the work he did that day will stand out as a record hard to beat…saving one corporal whose face was badly burnt from death by picking him up from the trench. When the line was attacked and broke into his right he still held his trench, and only when the Germans were discovered to be in the rear of him did he leave it. He then withdrew his remaining men very skillfully away, and worked his way alone back to me to report. He finally brought his unit back, and then took part in the counter-attack. He was killed out in front, in the open, cutting wire to enable the attack to be continued. He risked his life for others right through the day and finally gave it sake his own men. He was always bold as a lion, confident and sure of himself. The loss he is to me personally is very great, as I have learnt to appreciate what a sterling fine lad he was. His men would’ve followed him anywhere.” He was awarded the Victoria Cross just 5 weeks later for his conspicuous bravery.

It is a story of heroism, selflessness and a lack of self-pity that we would do well to emulate. 

In an age of the individual, of our needs over others, we are reminded of the selfless nature of God. Father God who sent his one and only son to die on the cross for our sins and mistakes.

The friendship that brings a peace that passes all understanding. It is the greatest privilege of all to a have a friendship with Jesus. He calls you and me friends and shed his blood as the ultimate act of friendship.

True friendship involves more than unquestioning approval. I am so grateful to good friends who have pointed out my faults and yet born with them over the years, with great sensitivity and grace.

But the ultimate act of grace and love has been that Jesus laid down his life for you and me. He has chosen each one of us, to bear fruit, to love each other. I am Christ’s friend and he is mine, when we love each other, when we turn to each other in friendship, we find that peace in our hearts that the world can’t give. We find that place in heaven, where those who have gone before us have gone. Lest we forget that greater love has no-one than this the he lay down his life for his friends. We are his friends, if we but call out to him, like those who died in the trenches did over 100 years ago, for our freedom and relative peace in Europe that we enjoy today. Amen.