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inkandpen22 · 4 years ago

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It’s Pretty

Pairing: Sirius Black x Female!Reader

Warnings: death, fighting, swearing, fluff

Word Count: 1k

Summary: Y/N is newly pregnant and Sirius is over the moon. Then, the unexpected happens.

A/N: I usually post imagines on Mondays, but I wrote this last night and couldn’t wait!

Masterlist

Lounging on the couch with my head in Sirius’s lap, we go over baby names. I’m only less than a handful of months along, so we’re keeping the news a secret until we’re certain it’s safe. The only people who know are Remus and Harry. We told Remus because he’s our oldest friend and Sirius accidentally exploded when Remus came over the other day. The man-made it through from the door and Sirius just let it out. It came as quite a shock to me too and I’m the pregnant one. Harry was planned. We wrote to him asking to be the godfather, it only seems fair. Sirius pushed for Remus for a while, but with his responsibilities to the Order, I felt Harry was the best choice.

Ever since we found out, it’s all Sirius can talk about. When everyone comes over for meetings he has to bite his tongue. I’m afraid the meetings' firewhiskey sessions will perhaps be my worst enemy one day. Sirius loves to blab. Recently, he’s been talking about names all hours of the day and sometimes randomly in the middle of the night. No seriously- no pun intended- he’ll wake me up in the middle of the night when he’s thought of “the most perfect name for the little guy.” We don’t even know if it’s a boy yet.

“Alexi,” I announce for a boy.

Sirius cowers, his face scrunched like a bulldog. “Alexi? What are we Russian?”

“It’s pretty!” I defend.

“I won’t let my son have a pretty name,” he mocks. “It’ll be handsome and strong!”

I roll my eyes. “And Sirius isn’t pretty?”

“It’s majestic,” he corrects.

I hum, “oh! What about Torryn?”

He taps his finger against his chin, pondering it over. “Not too shabby. Better than Alexi...” He remarks slyly. “We always do-”

“We’re not naming it James!” I repeat, yet again. “Let Harry have that one.”

“Fine...” he grumbles, all pouty. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Sheridan,” I answer.

“So now we’re Irish?!” He sighs deeply, resting his head back dramatically on the couch.

“Do you have any bright ideas?!” I challenge playfully.

“Cressida,” he states calmly.

“Cressida...” I repeat, thinking it over.

“You like it?” Sirius smiles, petting my hair gently as he looks down at me.

“Yes actually,” I admit. “It’s pretty!”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” he laughs, leaning in for a kiss.

The sound of the front door causes Sirius and I to leap up from our position. My heart pounds in my chest. We weren’t expecting visitors today. The sound of footsteps, a series of them, brings me panic. Sirius immediately blocks me from the archway, protecting me. His wand is raised in front of him in one hand and the other grips my hand behind him. Then, Remus and Tonks turn the corner panting.

“Quick! It’s Harry and the other kids!”

“What?!” Sirius and I say in unison.

“They’re... They’re at the ministry!” Remus pants. “The prophecy!”

Sirius curses under his breath and starts down the hall the way they came with our friends. I follow the trio without a second thought.

“You’re not going!” Sirius shouts just before we reach the door.

“I’m coming Sirius!” I yell at my husband.

“Y/N!” He whips around angrily.

Tonks and Remus move aside, creating a clear path between me and my husband.

“I’m not even showing yet!” I defend.

“You’re pregnant!” Sirius reminds sharply.

Tonks gasps, her hand flying up to her mouth. Remus whispers something to her. Probably along the lines of ‘sorry, I couldn’t tell you.’

“And you’re an idiot,” I fire back, stifling my laughter. “Looks like we both have a gamble!”

Sirius rushes down the hall to me and cups my face in his hands pleadingly. “I can’t lose you.”

“Then you should be able to understand why I can’t let you go without me,” I claim quietly, placing my hands over his. “I can’t wait here doing nothing when I know you’re out there risking your life! It’s not just your life Sirius, it’s both of ours. It’s always you and me.”

He exhales deeply, lowering his head as he struggles with the internal debate going through his mind. “Okay,” he mumbles reluctantly. Rushing, he plants a kiss on my lips and takes my hand.

_____________________________

I sprint to huddle behind a bolder with Ginny beside me. She’s brilliant, I’ll give her that. Granted, I could already tell after hearing her subtle comments at dinner that never failed to make me laugh.

Remus runs into view with Hermione and I take the opportunity to hand over Ginny. “Remus, watch them!”

“Y/N! Where are you going?!” He shouts, leaving the girls hidden to stop me.

“I have to help my husband and godson! I can’t just stand there!” I argue, marching aww.

“No!” He grabs my wrist and yanks me down behind a rock. “Sirius wouldn’t want you to!”

“Since when have I ever listened to him?!” I move to stand.

Remus yanks me back down, much to my annoyance. “You have your child to think about!”

“I am thinking of them!” I hiss at my oldest friend. “I won’t let them grow up without a father!”

His eyes pour into mine, awestruck. It’s highly unlike me to argue with him or anyone who isn’t my husband I suppose. Taking the chance now that he’s a little more compliant, I rise to my feet. Sirius and Harry fight off Lucius on the giant boulder in the center of the room. I run to join them urgently.

“Avada kedavra!”

I halt upon hearing the horrific words echo in the room. My eyes scan the room for the source and I spot Bellatrix towering above the rest of us, a wickedly grin on her face. I follow her eyesight to the center, to my husband. He has an unfamiliar blank stare in his eyes as he peers at Harry. Out of my peripheral vision, Remus runs past me. Before he can reach the pair, Sirius slips away into the archway.

“No!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “No!” I cry.

Kingsley wraps his arms around me, keeping me back. I fight him off, aggressively. “Let go of me!”

“No, no don’t let her win!” He warns in my ear.

I wail as my legs give out on me and I slip to the ground. “No,” I cry toward the ceiling.

“Get her out of here!” Shouts Remus.

I hear Bellatrix’s laugh ringing throughout the room. Something in my snaps and my tears stop altogether. Kingsley reaches to apparate me home, but I snatch my wand off the ground beside me and runoff. I follow Bellatrix out into the crevice she escaped through.

“Y/N!” Everyone calls after me panicked.

“I killed Sirius Black!” The crazy lunatic repeats like a song as she skips through the Ministry. “I killed Sirius Black!”

“You raging bitch!” I yell as I shoot a spell her way and missing.

“Aw cousin-in-law coming to get me?!” She mocks, continuing her celebration.

“Crucio!”

Bellatrix falls to the floor with a yelp. I continue my spell, putting at much focus as I can into her. She flails on the tile in pain, screaming. I wonder if it reminds her of torture in Azkaban. I sure hope it does.

I ease up on the spell, lower my wand to her chest. Catching her breath, she peers at me terrified. As she should be because now I’m the raging bitch. She thinks she’s evil because she was filled with hate. Well, now I’m filled with hate!

Pointing my wand directly at her chest, I smile wickedly at the woman who killed my love. Just two words and everything will be set fair and square.

“Aw, afraid of me now?” I tease with a mocking pout.

“I don’t need a blood traitor feeling sorry for me!” She bites.

I snicker, amused by her pointless insults. Swiftly, I kneel down on the floor beside her, getting in her face. I point my wand at her chest and dig it into the skin intimidatingly. Then, I hit her where I’m certain it will hurt.

“You’ll never be anything more than just another loyal follower,” I remind her smoothly with a smile on my face. “He will never want you. You alone will never be enough for him. You can try everything in your power, but the Dark Lord will never love you.”

She pushes back against my wand. “How dare-”

I slap her hard, causing her face to snap to the side. “Tell me how it feels Bella! Tell me how it feels to be worth nothing in eyes of the person you love! Because I wouldn’t know that feeling! Because unlike you, the man I loved, loved me in return!”

“Go to Hell!” She screams in my face.

“I’ll see you there!” I laugh, leaping to my feet and ready to kill the bitch.

“No Y/N!” I hear Remus shout a distance away.

“What is this?” I hear a sly voice question directly behind me.

I glance over my shoulder to be met with Voldemort. Bellatrix laughs loudly.

“Y/N, it’s been too long,” he smiles wickedly. “You’ve grown up so much!” He pauses for a moment, then his eyes fall to my stomach. “And you’re with child, how wonderful.”

I remain silent, restraining myself from doing something rash. The Dark Lord slithers toward me with a smile. Remus and the others stay back, ready to intervene if necessary, but don’t want to cause anything detrimental.

“You know, it’s not too late to join my ranks,” Voldemort whispers to me as he circles me.

“Never,” I stand my ground, knowing it may cost my life.

“Pity, you have such potential,” he mutters disappointedly, starring into my eyes.

He stays for a moment and I can see the wheels turning in his mind. Reaching up, he brushes the back of his hand against my cheek. Then, he sighs and turns to walk away.

“Aren’t you gonna kill her?!” Bellatrix whines, following after him.

The Dark Lord halts and snaps his attention to her, “are you questioning me?!”

The sound of blasting fire as people arrive through the fireplaces signal Voldemort that he must depart. Voices erupt once they see him for themselves.

Voldemort looks to me. “The honor of being my right hand is always open to you, Y/N,” he purrs before disappearing into a cloud of broken glass.

I fall to my knees, utterly exhausted. Tears well up in my eyes and soon I feel arms around me. I glance to my side and Harry’s head rests on my shoulder. I turn to face him, wrapping my arms around him. His head falls to my lap and he wails. I lean over him, protecting him from the world as I’ve always done. I didn’t just lose a husband, he lost a godfather. The realization hits me hard, we’re each other’s only family now.

_____________________________________

Masterlist

#fanfic #harry potter imagine #harry potter #marauders x reader #sirius black imagine #sirius black x reader #btvs fanfic #hp fanfic #sirius x remus #remus lupin #remus #harry potter fanfic #sirius black #sirius black fanfic #sirius x reader

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pappydaddy · 4 years ago

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Part Two: Mr. Brightside

A/N: Here’s Part Two! I don’t know when Part Three will be out, but I’m sure it’ll be out soon, I’m almost done the part and the songs for it! Check out the playlist!! If anyone wants to make an Apple Music version, just DM me!

PLEASE TAKE A SECOND TO LOOK AT MY PINNED POST, SIGN THE PETITION AND REBLOG IT IF YOU CAN!!

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Fem!Henderson!OC

Fandom: Stranger Things

Warnings: Guns, violence, life-threatening situation, aggressive talk about Russians (evil Russians, not all Russians), belittlement, feelings of inferiority, feelings of weakness, deprecation images of oneself, SPOILERS!!!

I Wanna Be Yours Playlist (Spotify)

Part One | Part Two | Part Three - Coming Soon

masterlist | taglist | wips | navigation

- not my gif -

Steve hid behind the plastic plant in the middle of the food court, the binoculars pressed around his eyes, surely leaving a noticeable red ring around his eyes. He was supposed to be looking for the evil Russians that the boy crouched beside him keeps rattling off about, but he couldn’t stop watching them. He really did try to pull his focus away from the two teens standing way too close, but his eyes just pulled towards them like a magnet. “See anything?” Dustin asked, poking his head up over the plant. The two stood out like sore thumbs, proving that they were shit at stake-outs.

“Uh, I guess I don’t totally know what I’m looking for.” Steve admitted, pulling his eyes away from the couple to scan over the other people occupying the mall. His mouth hung open, his eyes drifting back up to the second floor where Ophelia and Brett stood, leaning against the railing.

“Evil Russians.” Dustin told him as if it were simple.

“Yeah, exactly,” Steve exclaimed, not even trying to pull his eyes from Ophelia as she laughed. “I don’t know what an evil Russian looks like.” Steve muttered, his binoculars following Ophelia and Brett as they walked along the second floor.

“Tall? Blond? Not smiling,” Dustin listed off suggestively. Steve only hummed, squinting into the binoculars, watching as Ophelia bent down to grab a drink of water from the water fountain, paying attention to how Brett snuck a look at her butt, her dress riding up dangerously. His blood started to boil at the sight of him shamelessly eyeing her like a piece of meat. “Also, look for earpieces, camo, duffle bags, that sort of thing.” Dustin looked over at him as he hummed along, not paying attention.

“Right, okay, duffle bags,” Steve repeated, following the pair as they walked again. If looks could kill, Brett’s arm (which was wound around Ophelia’s waist) would have been killed brutally. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Steve muttered in disbelief when Brett leaned down to whisper something in Ophelia’s ear making her pull away, a blush darkening her cheeks as she giggled and hit his chest playfully. The smirk Brett wore made Steve want to knock his lights out. It was a smirk that told Steve his true intentions. He just wanted to get in her pants and he thinks he’s almost there.

“What?” Dustin asked, trying to follow the line of the binoculars to see what Steve saw, thinking he saw a Russian.

“Your sister,” Steve told him as if it was obvious. “I have no idea why she would even think about going out with a guy like Brett Morris. She can do so much better than that weasel, god-” He ranted, his top lip curling into a snarl at the sight of him pressing a kiss to her cheek, the blush coating her delicate cheeks deepening. “He’s a sleaze.” Steve grunted, looking at the tall hockey player in disgust. Dustin’s eyes snapped towards his sister, watching Brett interact with her.

“I don’t know, I don’t see anything wrong with it, they’re on a first date and he’s being nice?” Dustin shrugged, not seeing what Steve was all worked up about. Steve pulled his eyes from the binoculars, keeping them in place so he didn’t lose the couple.

“Nice? You see nothing wrong with it,” Steve asked, bewildered. “Dude! That’s your sister and he’s smirking like he’s about to bang her!” Steve nearly cried out. Dustin’s lips turned down in a disgusted frown as he fought back a gag before turning his attention back to his sister and her date who made their way down the escalators, still in each other’s arms.

Dustin watched Brett smile down at Ophelia as she gazed at all the sights, seeing what was going on. He shrugged, looking back at Steve who watched the same scene with a snarl. “Dude, he’s smiling like he likes her,” He shook his head at the older boy. “Why do you care anyway? Do you like her?” Steve pulled away from the binoculars again, furrowing his brow at the younger Henderson. Dustin twitched an eyebrow at Steve, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t like her,” He denied, his voice filtering almost like it knew something he didn’t. Of course he didn’t like Ophelia. Those were old feelings. She’s his best friend’s sister. The girl who fought demogorgons, demodogs and Billy Hargrove alongside him. The girl who always comes in and brightens his day with her smile and laugh. The girl with bright eyes that seemed to swirl with stars. She was the girl who he felt a strong need to protect, to shield away from the world that was hell-bent to destroy such a beautiful creature. The girl who kissed him in grade nine during a game of spin the bottle. Steve certainly did not like Ophelia Henderson and her certainly didn’t find himself thinking back to that quick little peck of the lips at Hannah Hanson’s party. He scoffed, looking back through the binoculars and letting panic settle into him. “Shit! Where’d they go-” He was cut off by someone snatching the binoculars away.

Both Dustin and Steve jumped, looking up at a fuming Ophelia; the binoculars grasped in her hand. Her body nearly shook with the anger coursing through her. “What are you two mouthbreathers doing? Spying on my date?” She asked, her fingers wrapped around the binoculars turning white from her grasp. Steve’s lips parted, his brown eyes looking up at her. It wasn’t like he set off to spy on her date, it just kinda happened. Dustin grabbed the binoculars back from his sister, making the angry girl shift her eyes to him.

“No-” Dustin snapped, holding the binoculars to his chest. “We were looking for evil Russians, Steve is just a horrible spy.” He told her, bringing the binoculars up to his eyes. Steve whined at the younger boy’s comment, but otherwise remained silent.

“Evil Russians? Why would you be looking for evil Russians in the food court?” Ophelia turned her nose up, looking at her brother as if he were crazy. Dustin sighed, pulling the binoculars from his eyes to give her a look. Steve furrowed his brow at her until he remembered that she had left them last night before they discovered the Russian transmission came from the mall. Heat bubbled in his chest, remembering why she had left them. His jaw clenched, his brown eyes hardening on the wall across from him, hoping that his stare could make it crumble.

“The Russians aren’t in Russia, music from the Indiana Flyer was heard in the background of the recording, blah blah blah, there you’re all caught up-” Dustin grumbled, peering through the binoculars again, leaning forward as he looked at each person mulling around suspiciously. Ophelia opened her mouth to retort, but Dustin cut her off. “Now go back to your date so that I can actually spy - unlike somebody.” Dustin shot the last part towards the older boy who sat there, stewing in his anger.

With a groan and a roll of her eyes, Ophelia turned on her heels and strutted back towards Brett who now held a pretzel and a drink in his hands. Steve watched as he greeted her with a smile, handing her the drink. His now free hand slipped along the small of her back as he guided her towards one of the empty seats. “Ugh, he doesn’t need to be so handsy.” Steve grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest, his lips pouting.

“Oh my god, I don’t get why you can’t just see it, are you really that blind?” Dustin asked Steve, not taking his eyes from the binoculars. Steve looked over at the busy-haired pre-teen.

“See what?” Steve snapped, trying his hardest not to look over at Ophelia again, just knowing he would be greeted by the sickening sight of her giggling for another guy. Just the thought of another guy making her laugh like Steve does made his stomach churn. He felt like he was standing out in a field as the world around him turned cold, the blue skies swirling into a dark gray - just seconds before the cold rain poured down on top of him.

“See how you actually feel about Leah, you Dipshit,” Dustin exclaimed, growing tired of Steve’s blindness. “Everything you’re seeing with Brett being an ass is all in your thick head, fueled by your jealousy!” Dustin told him. Sure, Dustin hadn’t noticed the crush that his friend harboured for his sister, but the second that Ophelia told them about her date, Steve had changed. It had become obvious to Dustin. All the time Steve just suddenly dropped by the Henderson household with Ophelia’s favourite movies in his hands, the fact that Steve was always parked by their curb in the mornings to drive them to school.

“I feel like she’s a friend, you Dipshit,” Steve argued back, his top lip rolling up into a sneer at Dustin's suggestion. The fact that everything in his life had suddenly become a downcast blue since Brett had asked Ophelia on a date didn’t mean he liked her. Just because he felt like his heart had been struck with a hammer does not mean he liked her. “And I am not jealous, I am quite positive if I do say so myself.” Steve liked to view himself as Mr. Sunshine. Full of positive light and energy. Though, he couldn’t shake the images of them after their date. Brett’s fingers trailing along the curve of Ophelia’s side as their lips mashed together. The hockey player’s fingers slipping under her skirt, running along her thighs. The mental image hurt him so much he could have punched a wall.

“Come on Steve! You like her, why else would you be so obsessed over her going on a date with Brett?” Dustin pointed out. Steve scoffed, rolling his eyes. Why was he even fighting with Dustin on this? Dustin was a kid, he doesn’t understand the complicated world of love. He doesn’t know the arch of a heart, he doesn’t know the pining and the angst. He has no idea what he was talking about.

“Because Brett Morris is a dirty sleezeball and Ophelia shouldn’t be on a date with him!” Steve told him, his arms moving frantically even though he knew Dustin wasn’t going to pull his eyes away from the binoculars to watch him.

“Sure,” Dustin hummed, finally pulling away from the binoculars far enough to turn his head to look at Steve. “And the fact that you can only refer to Brett as Brett Morris has nothing to do with jealousy?” Dustin posed the question. Robin and Dustin all refer to him as just Brett in a nice, casual tone, but Steve always spat his first and last name as if it was venom he had just ingested, his face always screwing up as if he had just referenced his arch nemesis.

“I just don’t like him, I know his type.” Steve avoided, his head swirling from Dustin’s interrogation. Why did he not like Brett? Steve never really talked to him. Sure they were both popular, but Steve hung close to the basketball crowd while Brett spread out a little more within the high school groups. Brett and Ophelia ran in the same crowd, being involved with multiple organizations in school. Without an explanation, Steve had developed a hatred for the tall hockey player from the first time he saw him and Ophelia talking in the school hallway as they stood at her locker, why back when Nancy was in the picture.

“You like her and if you don’t figure that you soon, you’re going to have to figure out how to forget her because she’s not going to wait around for you.” Dustin shrugged, telling him how it is. Of course he knew how his sister felt, he figured out how to pick the lock on her journal two years ago. He knew everything about her, and some of it, he didn’t want to know.

“I don’t like your sister dude!” Steve gave up trying to make excuses, knowing that Dustin will just mess with his head someway, making him question if he actually did like Ophelia.

“Yes, you do.” Dustin stated pointblank.

“No.” Steve denied again. Dustin shook his head, peering through the binoculars once again.

“Yes-” Dustin sang back, pleased with knowing that he was right once again.

“No-”

“You do!” Dustin shot back. Steve glared at the younger boy.

“She’s not my type, okay? She’s too nice, too sweet, too pretty - too perfect.” Steve trailed off towards the end, not being able to find the correct reason why she wasn’t his type. When he was King Steve, he was positive that Carol and Tommy wouldn’t have any problem listing reasons why she wasn’t his type, but now he wasn’t sure. She was gorgeous, funny, insanely smart and caring. She was everyone’s type.

“What’s your type again? Girls who don’t like you?” Dustin perked an eyebrow at him when he pulled away from the binoculars once again. Steve shot him a sharp glare for the comment. Steve wasn’t sure what his type was in all honesty, but he was sure that Ophelia wasn’t it.

“Thank you,” Steve forced the corner of his lips up in a sarcastic smile before they dropped back down into a straight line. “For your information, Ophelia is still in school and that’ll be weird for me to date someone who is still in high school and she-she is nice to the weird-o’s like Robin. She’s on the prom committee and homecoming committee, and she likes hockey players apparently - hockey players are the bottom of the sports food chain.” Steve ranted, searching his mind for his next point.

Dustin looked at him once again, rolling his eyes at his reasons. “Now that you’re out of high school, which means that you’re technically an adult, don’t you think it’s time to move on from primitive constructs such as popularity - which Ophelia is popular.” Dustin suggested, trying to get Steve to see the world that’s outside of all the worrying about fitting in.

“Oh, primitive constructs? That some stupid shit you learned at Camp Know-” He paused, shaking his head, trying to come up with the name of the camp Dustin had went to this summer. “Nothing?” He settled for an insult, his defence mechanism starting up.

“Camp Know Where, actually. And no, it’s shit I learned from life,” Dustin told him. Nerds, with all that they have to put up with from the popular people, have learned things. They’ve learned that you shouldn’t focus on making other people see you as cool, instead you should focus on making yourself happy. Steve hummed, looking away from Dustin to scan over the people walking around. “Instead of dating somebody you think’s gonna make you cooler, why not date someone you actually enjoy being around,” Dustin suggested. Steve blinked, thinking about it. He did like being around Ophelia. She made his day brighter and just the thought of her made a smile stretch onto his face. “Like me and Suzie.”

“Oh, Suzie-” He mocked, bouncing his head. Dustin gave him a look, pulling the binoculars back to his eyes. “Yeah, you mean ‘hotter than Phoebe Cates”, yeah that Suzie, and, uh,” Steve paused. “Let’s actually think about it, how exactly did you score that beautiful girlfriend,” He posed the question, scratching the side of his face in faux question. “Oh yeah! With my advice,” He reminded him. “Because that’s how this works, Henderson. I give you advice and you follow through - not the other way around, all right, pea-brain?” Steve shot at him. Dustin gave him a look before resuming his search.

***

Ophelia walked towards Scoops, a dazed look on her face. The feeling of Brett’s lips on hers was still fresh. The odd feeling she felt in the bottom of her stomach returning at the memory. His lips felt odd on hers, they didn’t feel as pillowy as she imagined them to be, instead they were chapped against hers. His lips had touched her so gently, almost as if he was scared that she’d shattered under him any second. Normally, she would have found his gentleness romantic and endearing, but the kiss was almost just his lips hovering over hers, just barely brushing together like he didn’t even want to touch her. It was like that for the entire date, his fingertips just brushing against the small of her back or his arm barely touching her shoulders.

She found her mind wandering off to Steve and if he would have done the same thing. Would he have barely touched her, would his lips just skim over her’s in a short kiss? Would his fingertips ever so slightly touch her body? Maybe Brett just didn’t want to touch her? He hadn’t even mentioned a second date before he scampered off for his shift with blushing cheeks. She sighed, her heels scraping against the floor sluggishly. “Does he even like me?” She whispered to herself. She heard thudding feet running towards her, making her lift her head to see Steve and Dustin rushing out of Scoops in search of someone.

They ran towards her, Steve’s hand reaching out to grasp her small wrist in his, yanking her along with them. She let out a squeak of surprise as she was spun on her heel and pulled towards the center of the mall. She tried to ignore the tingling and the heat that crawled up her arm, spreading throughout her body at his grasp. Steve came to an abrupt stop when they arrived at Robin who stood on the bench wrapping around the center planter’s box that held an assortment of fake plants and a tree, a wide eyed look on her face as she looked down at the three of them. “Robin, what are you doing?” He asked, walking closer to the blonde, his hand still wrapped around Ophelia’s wrist.

“I cracked it.” She said, a hint of excitement in her usually monotone drawl. Ophelia furrowed her brows, glancing at Steve’s hand still on her wrist. His grip, it wasn’t just hovering over her like Brett’s was. His touch felt different from Brett’s. His touch was just something brushing against her body while Steve’s ignited warmth in her that spread throughout her body, like a fire burning under her skin.

“Cracked what?” Steve asked, prompting Robin to jump from the bench - Steve and Dustin’s eyes following her. The sound of her sneakers slapping the tiled floor made Ophelia look at her.

“I cracked the code,” She couldn’t help the smile that consumed her face. Ophelia smiled, proud of Robin for cracking the seemingly impossible code. Robin brushed past the group, glancing down at Steve’s hand encircling Ophelia’s wrist. “Oh, um, Steve?” She turned around, walking backwards with a smirk on her face.

“Yeah?” Steve asked, his eyebrows jumping up as he turned his body to look at Robin, waiting for her to ask him something. Her eyes jumped from between Ophelia and him with sparkles of amusement dancing in her vibrant blue eyes.

“I think you can let go of Ophelia’s hand now.” She beamed at the older boy. Instantly, Dustin and Steve’s eyes dropped down to see that Steve’s hand still held Ophelia’s wrist, making Dustin snort and slap his hand over his mouth to stop his chuckles while Steve nearly choked on his own spit - a blush covering his cheeks. His hand dropped Ophelia’s wrist, the warmth she felt from his fingers grasping her wrist still burning throughout her body.

“Thanks.” Ophelia smiled, walking towards Robin, leaving Steve and Dustin behind. Slipping his hand from his mouth, Dustin looked at Steve who stared at his hand, clenching it in a fist before stretching it out, feeling a weird tingling that felt like he just grabbed an electric fence. Steve’s brown eyes looked up at Ophelia who talked to Robin about how she managed to figure out the code. Her hair bounced behind her as she tried to keep up with the slightly taller girl, her heels clicking against the clean tile.

“Yeah, you definitely don’t like her.” Dustin mused, giving Steve a look as he shook his head. Steve looked over at him, still fisting and unfisting his hand.

“I don’t like her!” Steve denied making Dustin hum and walk away, joining Ophelia and Robin. Steve rolled his eyes, trudging after the group.

“So, Leah,” Dustin cut into the girl’s conversation, earning pointed glares from both of them. “How was the date, from what I saw, it went pretty good.” Dustin inquired, stealing a glance at Steve who glared at him as well. Ophelia glanced at her brother, before glancing at Steve who dropped the glare and gave her a smile instead.

“Yeah, Leah, how’d the big date with Brett go? You were so excited yesterday.” Robin easily changed the subject, knowing that she had the rest of the day to explain her thought process and the plan she was cooking up in her mind. Ophelia shrugged, glancing down at her feet.

“Uh, it was okay. We just kind of walked around after the movie, we shared a pretzel and sat by the fountain, that’s about it.” Ophelia waved them off, her tone less excited. The date was good, he made her laugh, paid for everything before Ophelia could even think about it, but she couldn’t help but let the kiss and lack of talk about a second date put her off. Steve sensed her downcast mood, his heart itching to cheer her up. He couldn’t stand to see her so down, but he also couldn’t help but to feel delighted at the thought that her date didn’t go well.

“Did he kiss you? Is there a second date?” Robin pressed, glancing at Steve from the corner of her eyes as he waited for her answer with baited breath. Ophelia shook her head, a heaving sigh leaving her lips.

“He did kiss me, but it was weird and I have no idea if there is a second date, he didn’t even talk about a second date,” Ophelia admitted, looking at Robin. Robin simply looked at her with wide, confused eyes. She was shocked, Brett seemed to actually like Ophelia. “I’m fine, really. Brett’s cute and nice, but I think we might just be better as friends.” She brushed off Robin’s sympathetic eyes.

“Still, that must suck, Leah. I know how important this date was for you.” Robin rested her hand on Ophelia’s shoulder softly, offering her support. In a private moment with Robin last night when Steve was scooping ice cream and Dustin had been in the bathroom, Robin had made Ophelia crack, admitting her feelings for Steve along with her hopes that this date would help her get over the goofy dingus. Hoping that Brett would be the antidote to the poison that was her crush flooding her veins.

“It’s no biggie, he has my number. Maybe he’ll call me, maybe he won’t - who knows,” She continued to deflect Robin’s support. They all walked into Scoops, seeing barely anyone in the store. Robin opened her mouth to talk to her, but she cut her off. “I’m just going to change into sneakers, I want out of these shoes.” The words were heavy with a lack of emotion, a huge contrast to her normally sweet voice and cheery disposition. Steve watched her as she walked sluggishly into the back room, his heart hurting. He didn’t want to see her so sad. He wanted to see her bright smile, to hear her laughter bouncing off the blue and white striped walls of the overly cheery parlor. He was snapped out of his trance by both Robin and Dustin whacking the back of his head.

“Ow! What the hell was that for?” Steve grumbled, looking at Robin and Dustin who glared back at him.

“For being an idiot.” Dustin retorted, walking around the counter, grabbing a sample spoon and skimming the top of one of the ice creams.

“I did it because I’m tired of this,” Robin threw her hands in the air, also walking behind the counter, closing the screen, but not before peeking in at Ophelia who sat at the table slowly putting her shoes on. “She is upset because she’s trying to move on.” She shook her head, speaking mostly to herself, but she wasn’t aware of Steve standing on the other side of the counter, hearing the words.

“Move on from what? She broke up with her last boyfriend back in September, she’s not still caught up on that asshole, is she?” Steve asked, making Robin whirl around in surprise, not wanting Steve to hear that. Dustin and Robin shared a look before glancing at Steve. A mix of emotions flurried around Steve’s mind like a blizzard, making him mad. Why would she still be hooked on the asshole who barely paid attention to her? Couldn’t she see that she deserved more.

“Why would that matter to you, Steve, you don’t like her.” Dustin sneered, reminding him. Steve jolted back at Dustin’s sudden aggression. Dustin felt protective over his sister. She was obviously crushed that her date didn’t go well and from what Robin just said, it wasn’t because she liked Brett.

“I care because she’s my friend. I don’t need to like her romantically to care for her,” Steve bit back making Robin groan, stomping her foot against the floor in frustration. Steve was just as thick as the layer of product in his precious hair. “What? I shouldn’t care about her?” Steve asked, his eyes wide as he tried to pinpoint their emotions based on their reactions.

“Let me ask you a question Steve,” Robin paused, placing her hands on the counter by the cash, her hard blue eyes looking up at him. “Were you upset about Ophelia going on a date with Brett?” Robin threw the question up in the air, already knowing the answer.

“I wouldn’t say upset-” Steve was cut off by Robin raising her hand at him.

“How did you feel about her going on a date with Brett?” Robin rephrased the question, her hand slapping back to the blue counter, waiting for Steve to answer. Steve blinked, thinking.

“I guess I was a little upset, I mean, Brett Morris is not good for her. She can do so much better than him.” Steve answered, growing upset at the thought of her not realizing how great she was and underestimating what she deserved.

“Okay, so what type of guy is good for her?” Robin bounced back instantly with another question, trying to get him to figure out that he liked her.

“I don’t know,” Steve muttered, thinking. With a sigh, he placed his hands on his hips. “I honestly can’t think of any guy who is good enough. They’re all shit,” Steve confessed. Robin raised her eyebrows, giving him a look. “Alright! I was upset that she was going on a date with Brett Morris, happy?” Steve exclaimed, admitting defeat.

“You hated it so much that you couldn’t stop spying on them, Steve. You were ready to kill the poor guy.” Dustin chimed in, trying to bring Robin’s point home.

“Yes, I spied on them and I might have made some comments about how much I don’t like the guy, what’s your point?” Steve asked them, kicking his leg out to the side, his tongue flicking over his bottom lip. Dustin groaned, his forehead hitting the top of the cooler.

“My point is you like her Steve and you have the power to make her feel better. I know it’s killing you to see her so upset so could you just take a second, try to let the realization penetrate that thick skull of yours and figure out that you are head over heels for her?” Robin pressed, gesturing towards the backroom where Ophelia still hid. Steve scoffed, shaking his head at their antics.

“I don’t like her, okay? I’m not even looking for a serious relationship - not after what happened with Nancy.” Steve denied. Robin and Dustin grew even more frustrated by his denial. Robin rested her elbows on the counter, leaning down as she clasped her hands together in front of her. She licked her lips, glancing down at the counter before back up at Steve.

“You’re just going to stand there and tell us that not even a tiny little part of you realizes that you like Ophelia?” Robin asked him point blank. Steve blinked at her. He thought about it. Did he really like Ophelia? The way Robin had phrased it and the way she said it made him question how he really felt. Had he been denying how he felt about Ophelia because he was scared of being hurt again? His heart did practically leap out of his chest at the sight of her. Seeing guys shamelessly flirt with her day in and day out made him feel like he was continuously running into a solid brick wall with his heart tapped to his face. Oftentimes, he would find himself imagining her smile to calm him down when he’s sad.

“I-I don’t really know,” Steve stuttered, unsure of himself. He shook his head, righting his posture. “Even if I did like her, she probably doesn’t like me. I am the furthest thing from what she deserves.” Steve argued back.

“You won’t know if she likes you if you don’t ask Steve, I know you know how you feel about her,” Robin’s tone was soft and comforting. “We know how she feels about you, but it’s not our place to tell you that. If you want to know how she feels before you realize your feelings, you’re going to miss her - she’s not going to wait around if she likes you.” She told him. Steve looked at her in confusion.

“What?” Steve blinked, not understanding what she was saying.

“I’m saying that if you don’t just figure out your feelings for her, you’re going to miss your chance with her,” Robin was handing him the answer of Ophelia’s feelings for him on a silver platter and it was up to him to figure it out. “And if you don’t figure them out fast, you’re going to mess up.” She warned.

***

Rain poured down on them as they laid on their stomachs, watching a storage room being loaded up. Ophelia rested her chin on her hands that laid on top of the concrete parapet in front of them. “Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes!” Robin instructed Dustin from beside Ophelia. She pulled her hood up over her hair, her bare legs that her dress didn’t cover becoming cold as they got soaked with rain. She could hear one of the delivery guys whistling over the pounding rain, but because of the distance, she couldn’t see anything through the pouring rain.

“They’re with that whistling guy, ten O’Clock!” Dustin exclaimed from the other-side of Steve, his binoculars once again pressed to his face. Lazily, Ophelia let her eyes move towards the direction Dustin told them, seeing a man with a yellow raincoat pushing a trolley with three boxes on it into the storage unit. She also couldn’t help but notice the two large guys dressed in black, both holding rather large guns.

“What do you think’s in there?” Steve asked, his eyes squinting as rain fell on his head. He was the only one without a proper raincoat, but that didn’t surprise Ophelia, he wouldn’t be one to own a rain jacket.

“Guns, bombs.” Dustin suggested.

“Chemical Weapons.” Robin also suggested. Steve’s eyebrows jumped as he licked his lips. He wasn’t pleased to have Ophelia with them, not wanting her mixed up with this. It was starting to get dangerous.

“Whatever it is, they’re armed to the teeth.” Dustin announced, his eyes dropping to one of the stern faced guards. Thunder clapped overhead as Steve rubbed his eyes that were irritated from the rain.

“Great,” He commented, nodding his head as he pulled his hand away. His eyes were screwed shut in hopes not to get any more water in them. “That’s great.” He grumbled, opening his eyes. Ophelia reached up to his shoulder, patting it twice before letting it rest on the concrete once again. Her eyes squinted when one of the guards started to move, trying to see what he was doing. She was so focused on what the man was doing, she jolted back in fright when the storage room doors suddenly opened.

“Hey, what’s in there?” Robin perked up, also noticing the doors opening.

“It’s just more boxes.” Dustin told them. Ophelia nodded, watching as the delivery man pushed the trolley into the now open room.

“Let me check it out.” Steve told Dustin, reaching his arm up to grab the binoculars blindly. Dustin pulled the binoculars from his eyes, his grip tightening around them.

“No! I’m still looking!” Dustin pulled back on the binoculars, trying to get Steve to let go of them. Steve simply slapped his other hand on them, trying to wrestle them away from the younger boy.

“Lemme see it.” Steve pressed, pulling harder. Ophelia scooted closer to Robin, not wanting to be hit by Steve’s flailing elbow. A flash of lightning temporarily blinded them as Dustin and Steve continued to tug on the binoculars.

“Hold on!” Dustin argued, giving a sharp tug to the binoculars just as Steve let his hands go - making Dustin hit one of the metal pipes, a loud bang sounding over the pounding rain. Ophelia and Robin jumped at the sound, their eyes jumping from Dustin before looking down at the guards.

“Shit!” Ophelia cursed when she saw the guards glancing towards their direction, their hands reaching for their large semi-automatic guns. All four gasped, fear making their blood run cold in their veins. Ophelia was almost positive that her heart had stopped beating for a second.

“Duck!” Dustin cried as they all dropped to lay down. Ophelia flopped on her back, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her head rested against the slope of the parapet uncomfortably, a dull ache already making itself present in her neck. She had barely noticed that Steve had grabbed her hand tightly in the middle of the mess until she felt the same heat crawling under her skin that she felt when he grabbed her wrist earlier. It was a welcomed contrast from the cold rain pelting her like bullets, but she couldn’t let the sensation distract her from the fact that they could very well die right then and there.

“We gotta go,” Steve whispered harshly. His mind raced, trying to figure out how they were going to get themselves out of this situation. “We can hide along that.” He pointed towards the larger structure attached to the roof entrance. He didn’t even wait for them to argue before he started to move, tugging Ophelia along with him. He hadn’t even noticed his hand in hers, he was too occupied with trying not to die. They all awkwardly ran, pressing themselves up against the tin siding of the structure.

“I hope this plan works because we don’t have a plan b.” Ophelia panted, letting her head fall back against the wall, her eyes closing. Her chest stung from the panic and running, her lungs burning as they continued to grow greedy for air. She could feel herself shaking, but she wasn’t sure if it was mostly from the cold or her pending death which was rapidly approaching.

Nobody said anything as they all tried to calm their wildly beating hearts in hopes to control their loud breathing. The faint but rapid clang of heavy boots hitting the stairs was muffled to their ears, but detectable none-the-less. The heavy door slammed against the tin making them jump. Ophelia pressed the palm of her free hand to her mouth, her heart rate picking right back up. She found herself trying to plead with every higher power there was to just let them make it out of this situation alive, even wishing on the stars she knew were hidden behind the thick black rain clouds. She hoped that the planets and stars were aligned just the right way so that they all could live another day.

Thunder clapped, overhead making Ophelia suddenly start praying to Zeus of all people, hoping her name was a good enough reason for the mythical god to help the four of them. Steve squeezed her hand tight, nearly cutting off the blood flow to her fingers, but she didn’t care, she just squeezed his hand back equally as hard. They listened carefully, trying to hear any sign of movement over the rain splattering against the concrete of the roof.

It felt like an eternity before they heard the door swing open and slam shut, followed by the sweet sound of heavy boots hitting the metal of the stairs. “We should wait here until we know for sure he’s gone.” Dustin whispered, anxiety filling him, making his mind race. For all he knew, the guard could be waiting to catch them at any second, successfully catching them in his masterplan.

“Good idea.” Steve nodded. Robin and Ophelia looked at them with hard eyes.

“Well then how do we know when to leave? It’s not like he’s standing out in the pouring rain, he can wait there for hours!” Ophelia pointed out a flaw in Dustin’s wait-it-out plan. Just as she said that, they heard the guards loudly talking to each other in Russian, their voices booming over the rain. Dustin smiled at his sister.

“That’s how we know.” He remarked, darting towards the door. She rolled her eyes as the rest of them moved after him, their hearts still racing a mile a minute. They filed into the stairwell, their panting breaths echoing off the wall along with the squishes and squeaks of their sneakers against the clean floors. They were all drenched from head to toe, their clothes a soaking mess that clung to their skin uncomfortably. Ophelia’s hair hung in clumps around her head, a few clumps sticking to the back of her neck and allowing water to trail down her dry back. For the most part, Ophelia, Dustin and Robin’s clothes were somewhat dry thanks to their raincoats protecting them; the protection of the rubber coats stopped the second the Russian guards discovered their presence, their hoods sliding off their heads, their unbuttoned jackets flopping open to expose them to the cold rain.

“Well, I think we found your Russians.” Robin declared the second they reached the back corridors that connected all the stores to the loading dock. She glanced between Steve and Dustin as they all rushed back to Scoops, wanting to be safe once again. Steve continued to hold Ophelia’s hand, tugging her along behind him as he sped walked to Scoops. Robin glanced at their intertwined hands, sharing a look with Dustin who also noticed.

***

Robin was long gone, having biked home so that she could sleep off the memory of nearly dying, something the other three had unfortunately faced twice before. Dustin retreated to Ophelia’s car, but forced her and Steve to get his Camp Know Where hat that he accidentally left behind in the backroom of Scoops. Ophelia and Steve walked in silence, Steve’s mind wrapped up in trying to figure out if he actually liked her. “So, that was kinda scary earlier, huh?” Steve asked, his voice coming out squeakier than he wanted, as he pulled the door to the outside open, the sound of raindrops hitting the wet pavement meeting their ears.

“Yeah, just a little,” Ophelia nodded. She had sensed his rigidity around her. It was like he was constantly on edge, overthinking everything he did. She felt fear settle into her chest at the thought that he had figured her feelings for her. He was probably trying to figure out how to let her down gently or how she could have possibly misread his signs of friendship for something more. “We’ve almost died a lot of times, but this is the first time we’ve almost died from guns.” She tried to carry on the conversation as if her heart wasn’t threatening to rip itself in half.

Stepping into the pouring rain, their barely dry clothes were instantly wet again, weighing down on them along with the crushing silence beating between them like a pulse. Even with the cold rain drops pelting them and thunder rolling over their heads, they still took their time walking to their respective cars. Despite the suffocating silence that bathed them, they still wanted to spend time together. “I don’t think this is a good idea - not after what happened on the roof.” Steve suddenly stopped, turning to face her. Ophelia dug her heels into the ground, whirling around to face him with furrowed brows. He didn’t know what prompted him to say that, the thought of not wanting her to get hurt pressing itself to the forefront of his brain - begging for attention.

They both ignored the raindrops rolling down their faces at high speeds and the rain beating at their faces, their eyes blinking rapidly. “What do you mean? You don’t want to figure out what they’re doing anymore?” She asked, confused. Steve was stubborn, he never gave up on anything. It wasn’t like him to back out of something.

Steve shook his head, water spraying from his hair at the action like a dog. “No, no,” He breathed out so softly Ophelia almost didn’t hear it over the rain. “No, I don’t want you to be involved in this anymore.” He told her, gesturing his hands in the small space between them. They stood so close, you could barely fit another person between them. Ophelia blinked at him, her mouth opening and closing as she processed what he had just said.

“Why not? If you haven’t noticed, I’ve dealt with things a lot scarier than Russians.” She shot back, her hands flying through the air. They had been through so much the past two years, they had been through hell and back and there was no way she was going to bow out at Russians. Last time she checked, they weren’t some unknown force from another dimension.

“Did you not see the giant semi-automatics they were holding Ophelia? That’s a lot harder to avoid than a monster,” Steve’s voice boomed, his blood pressure building. He didn’t want her to get hurt; he didn’t want her to end up with a bullet in her. He wanted her safe, far away from this. Monsters were one thing, but these monsters had guns and a ruthless urge to kill. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.” He admitted, his voice quieter, but scratchy - realization hitting him. He felt like he had been hit by a tonne of bricks. The world was spinning around him like he was standing on a spinning top that was spinning out of control. His stomach churned, making him want to throw up, but the dizziness made him feel like he was going to pass out. He liked her. Here he stood, in a deserted parking lot with rain pounding down on him, starting a fight with her because he liked her.

Steve watched her face, a mixture of sadness, hurt and anger perfectly blended to match the storm swirling overhead. She chuckled dryly, shaking her head as she folded her arms over her chest. Licking her lips, she set her watery, but hard eyes on Steve who seemed to be caught up in his own thoughts. “You don’t want me to get hurt,” She echoed like she couldn’t believe the words he spoke. “Do you not remember who saved you from being killed from demodogs and Billy Hargrove last year? Oh, yeah! That’s right,” Her tone picked up to fake enthusiasm. “It was me.” Her tone dropped dangerously.

“Billy was different and you ended up right next to me on that floor, Ophelia,” He reminded her, his voice raising as well, his voice strained. “I can’t do that again, I can’t see you laying there barely hanging on to consciousness again!” His body shook as he screamed into the night. He was screaming out silently, hoping that she could hear what he was trying to tell her.

“And you think I want to see you being beaten to a pulp again? No, but I’m not going to try and stop you from potentially saving the world again and you shouldn’t try to stop me!” She screamed back. She was trying to get him to hear her, to hear her true meaning in the words that she spoke.

“I can take care of myself, you-” He cut himself off, his mind stopping his mouth from talking before he put his foot in his mouth. “You-” He tried to come up with something else quickly, knowing that what he wanted to say was a complete lie. She could take care of herself. She had proven that multiple times. “You-” He tried again, but she cut him off with a stressed cry.

“I- What, Steve,” She asked, her eyes dancing with fire despite the water that pooled in them, trying desperately to smother the fire. “I can’t defend myself? I can’t take care of myself, huh,” She asked, choking back a little sob as her heart pulled itself apart slowly. She had always been undermined, nobody letting her do anything because she wasn’t strong enough, because she was just a little fragile thing that would break if the wind blew too hard. She listened to his silence, his eyes darting to the wet pavement guiltily. “God Steve! I thought that you of all people wouldn’t look at me like that, but I guess you’re just like everyone else.” She spat, tears finally breaking through the wall, sliding down her cheeks along with the rain.

Steve noticed instantly, his heart feeling like it was being held together by a single thin string that was seconds away from snapping at the sight of the tears. “No, Ophelia, that wasn’t what I wanted to say-” She cut him off once again.

“Then tell me,” She stated, sniffling slightly. “Tell me what you don’t think of me like a porcelain doll that will crack at the softest touch,” She prompted him. Silence banged like the thunder over their heads. Steve’s mouth hung open, wanting to say something, but he couldn’t, his mind blank. He really didn’t see why she couldn’t continue this with them other than the fact that he likes her and will go insane if something happened to her, but he couldn’t say that. Not yet at least. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” She muttered bitterly, wiping at her face. “Think what you want, Harrington-” She spat his name as if it were a bad taste in her mouth, sending a dagger into his heart - severing the string holding it together. “I’m doing this whether you like it or not.” She told him, turning on her heel and speed walking towards her car where Dustin sat.

Steve stood there, hair hanging in his face as he watched her. The warning Robin gave him earlier echoing through his head. “If you don’t figure them out fast, you’re going to mess up.” Steve sighed, kicking the ground and walking to his dark car. His thoughts were consumed by Ophelia, wondering how he was going to fix this and his new found feelings for her. He had always felt it, he just finally realized it. Ophelia Henderson could take anything she wanted from him, even his beating heart from his chest, and leave and Steve would just be happy to see her smile.

She was always there for him. She gave him shelter when his dad and him were fighting about College and he didn’t feel safe to be home for weeks. She held him, gave him food, cared for him when his parents wouldn’t. When he felt like he was losing everything, like he was drowning, she was the one keeping him afloat, keeping his head above water. She was the reason his head was still above the rising water levels of his life. She was the reason he was still hanging onto hope that his life will get better. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t able to protect herself (which he knew full well that she could), he’d still rather give his life for her because she’s saved his life more than once and he knows that she’d do it all over again, even if it meant giving her life for him. She was the reason he was still there, being able to be there for Dustin. She pulled him out of his darkest time, of the period of his life where he honestly couldn’t picture himself in five years because he thought he’d be dead. He didn’t understand how he couldn’t have realized his feelings sooner, how he so clearly liked her that even Dustin noticed it before him. He could have avoided doing the one thing he never wanted to do: hurt Ophelia.

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quakerjoe · 5 years ago

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In the end, not even the Progressive Bernie Base showing up for Hillary in larger numbers than her own supporters did for Obama in 2008, could prevent the inevitable. A massively flawed candidate who failed to electrify the Democratic base and make the case to Rust Belt voters- why she is the better option than the Populist candidate spraying out anti-trade rhetoric.

Blame whatever you want. The blame rests squarely on all of us. But there is so many lessons to learn from the 2016 Primary and General Election. Populism and Progressive policy became the central topic. Healthcare is a right. The ultra-rich are KING in America, and they must be reigned in. Primary process should be more fair. Flowery platitudes aren’t enough to generate excitement for the poor to turn out, etc.

Literally ZERO of these lessons were learned. Even in the face of an ACTUAL Corona-virus pandemic, with over 30 million unemployed, more and more uninsured at the time of writing this- the Democratic party has done nearly nothing to fix the problems from 2016. Actually, in all my shock- they’ve made them worse. The Democratic party pulled every string it could. Bent over backwards to not only stop Bernie Sanders, but stifle Progressives and our policy agenda. All in an orchestration to crown their nominee just years after a 2016 lawsuit said the DNC can meddle how ever they like in their own “Democratic process”. All to push a man who did next to no campaigning in any states past South Carolina. A man who didn’t actually work for your vote, but instead- coasted on “Hope and Change” establishment nostalgia, for when times weren’t so chaotic.

So for pragmatism sake, let’s push all that aside for just one moment. We can debate all day about how “fair” Joe Biden’s path to the Democratic Nomination has been. But let’s view Biden on his own merits for his candidacy’s sake. What’s the incentive for Progressives to vote for Joe? Well- unless you’re sticking to the concept of the very first paragraph of this article, the answer is: There isn’t one.

If Hillary Clinton were a flawed candidate, Biden may just be the worst nominee in history. A long history of terrible behavior including coddling racists, racist behavior, repeated threats at slashing the safety net, warmongering for a devastating Iraq war that’s helped kill endless innocent civilians all based on a lie, the nomination of Justice Thomas and controversial treatment of Anita hill, the Obama administration’s failure to even pass a Public Option with a Super Majority government, while pushing a healthcare plan that was little more than barely a small step in the right direction.

Now- Biden stands as the presumptive Democratic Nominee, and with a sizable Progressive Bernie Base up for grabs, what has Joe Biden done to earn our vote?

Answer: Nothing. Well, at least nothing significant.

Three items come immediately to mind on what Joe Biden is doing to “reach left”.

1: Joe wants to lower the Medicare age to 60. By comparison, Hillary Clinton wanted to lower it to as low as 50.

2: Joe Biden wants to eliminate student debt for those making under $125K. By comparison, Bernie Sanders wanted to eliminate it universally.

3: Nebulously- Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have created “working groups” on various policy issues focusing on education, criminal justice, climate change, immigration, the economy, and health care policy. As of yet, nothing has come of these “groups” on policy.

As the Primary was coming to a close, I as a Progressive- was completely open to Joe moving (not reaching) left on policy positions.

Overwhelmingly, if you ask Sanders supporters what they care about most, it’s Policy.

What will you do for the underprivileged working class people of America?

What will you do for my children and grand children facing a Climate Change future?

What will you do for your Mass Incarceration mess, ending the drug war, legalizing Marijuana, and freeing non-violent drug offenders?

What will you do for the upwards of 45K people who die each year because health care is not affordable?

The 67% of American bankruptcies being due to health care costs?

BUT. Sanders supporters also believe in principle. Consistency. History. Fighting for change. Decency. Human rights. We’re also majority young people (a group Joe Biden did not do well with). Perhaps these things could be talked out. But now there’s a bigger elephant in the room. One that establishment Democrats and Joe’s supporters are ignoring.

Joe Biden was credibly accused of rape.

Democrats spent months yelling about “Believing Women” during the Kavanaugh Confirmation hearings. Rightfully fighting for Christine Blasey Ford’s story to be heard- knowing it would be a fruitless task at the hands of a twisted Senate Republican majority. Now, establishment Democrats are making the media rounds with Biden campaign talking points with denials and every attempt to downplay Tara Reade as not a credible accuser, even as several corroborations of her story have surfaced, 1 of which was an archive video of who Tara Reade alleges is her mother discussing the issue with Larry King on CNN in 1993. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s campaign has it’s surrogates and supporters on news networks shielding Biden. Nancy Pelosi downplays the accusations, Kirsten Gillibrand (who helped cancel Al Franken) is downplaying the accusations. Alyssa Milano, prominent #MeToo voice, who made a performative appearance at the Brett Kavanagh hearings, now wants to “change the rules” on the movement in favor of a sort of ‘Due Process’- a process that many perpetrators cancelled by #MeToo never got, in favor of protecting Joe Biden.

What this means to me is that Democrats think it’s perfectly fine to be selective on who and who doesn’t deserve to be heard and taken seriously, based on who’s on your team. As if it should be that easy to just shed your principles like Snake skin, hypocritically protecting one predator, while gunning for another that doesn’t fit with you politically.

In 2016, I was perfectly fine voting for the “lesser evil”. Now that the party has loudly stated that not only does my values, principles, and policy demands for the poor and sick of America, not matter- I should fall in line with a candidate that has helped endless innocent people die overseas with America’s imperial military reach, helped endless people die at home because they cant afford a doctor, said that he has “no empathy” for young people- the same young people that have to live and suffer under the conditions of Climate Change while he’s dead and gone, sexually assaulted and violated multiple women, said that nothing will fundamentally change for the same rich people who are now gaining BILLIONS under pandemic conditions while their workers get sicker, if they’re even employed at all.

Moderate establishment Democrats and voters tell me that Trump is the number one threat. That we need to “vote blue no matter who”. Just how “blue” is Joe biden? Just how dissimilar is Joe Biden and his supporters from Trump and his following? For all of the cries of the “angry Bernie Bros” online, I see countless accosting and abusive discourse examples from Biden supporters calling any dissenters “Russian Bots”, or “MAGA Hats”. Being told that I’m somehow a Trump voter by default, for not immediately supporting Biden. All this when all I’ve ever seen from “the Bernie Bros” is aggressively holding smear artists to facts and truth in a thick environment of misrepresentation of Bernie Sanders and his platform.

So- Why shouldn’t Progressives vote for Joe Biden?

This Democratic party doesn’t give a damn about you. Nor does it care about Progressive policy. The party and its supporters spend all this time, smearing Sanders and his base as “Not democrats”, angry “socialists who want free stuff”, “How are you gonna PAY for it?!” etc etc, all while claiming to support SOME form of our policy, and then dropping it the second it doesn’t feel politically advantageous. This party threw everything it could into stopping YOU. With tactics like voter suppression, using a silly app suspiciously funded and supported by shady actors in Iowa, taking WEEKS to give final results, running Super PACs against Bernie and our movement, fear-mongering about Bernie when he did win states, gas lighting the public on “elect-ability”, using a literal pandemic against Bernie to guilt him into dropping out while attempting to blame him for continued spread of COVID-19, while they sent voters to the polls and we didn’t.

And after zero policy concessions, zero good will, repeated demands we fall in line after more than a year of being slammed and disrespected, showing up for Hillary Clinton and then being blamed for her loss anyway, which is inevitable again if Joe loses? Are we just going to keep allowing that? Just how long do we have to hold our noses, voting for Moderate do-nothing lite Republicans who would sooner see you die, than provide you affordable and universal healthcare, because a Billionaire would stand to lose money. Even NOW, during a Pandemic this party has done next to NOTHING to secure the livelihoods of American citizens, as more and more die, get furloughed, and cant pay their bills. All while Trump and Republicans take credit for pitching more common sense plans (even though they want to send us all back to work/school to feed the machine).

This- is the “resistance” party? THIS is the best we can do? Performative rage against a fascist clown while propping up an accused rapist warmongering corporatist with cognitive decline and previous racist tendencies? THIS is what the party keeps telling us we better support or be shamed as somehow supporting the “bad guy”?

Listen, #NotMeUs- this will never stop. This party will NEVER stop using us as a prop for our ideas and passion, then throwing us under the bus when they think they no longer need us. They cannot continue to be allowed to drag us further to the right with guilt trips and shaming. They will NEVER take you seriously unto you take serious action. We’ve been preaching about “action” this whole campaign. Why should that “action” stop in the ballot box? Have some foresight for just a moment and envision how this plays out in future elections, unless you stand up and make them WORK for your vote.

I, for one will not vote for Joe Biden. But I wont shame you for your vote, no matter who it’s for. Why? Because the party did a terrible job at earning -your- vote. I’d maybe only criticize you if you don’t show up at all. There’s so many down-ballot candidate who need support. Even if you leave the President box unchecked, at least show up for the other races.

But consider: There are other options that have been stifled for way too long. Perhaps its time we give them a shot, no? Green Party is running Howie Hawkins and a platform that is much closer to our principles that Biden would ever try for. Justin Amash just jumped into the race if you’re a little more on the Libertarian side. Jesse Ventura is also discovering running on the Green ticket as well. Just imagine Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura on the debate stage with Donald Trump? Popcorn for DAYS.

In order for us to be taken seriously, we must prove that we’re capable of holding the party accountable. Not voting for them is the ultimate accountability, and you get to keep your principles intact.

Now- to the ultimate argument you’d inevitably get: “You would be helping Donald Trump secure 4 more years”.

My response? You don’t have to bare the blame for that. You wont be at fault for Joe Biden losing any more than those who chose not to vote at all. It’s on the party to earn these votes. That’s how elections work. If you hate the candidate and don’t feel good about them as a person, why is it your responsibility to put them in office? To me- one of the most personal things a person has, is their vote. Not their dollars, or their Tweets. It’s checking a box for the person YOU chose to represent you. If that person doesn’t believe in hardly anything you personally believe in- why is it that they deserve your vote, again? How is it that they’re are somehow entitled to that vote? They don’t, and they aren’t. I’m looking at you too, Republicans.

In closing…

Progressives, I’m sorry to break it to you but- Medicare For All is not on the ballot. Taxing the rich is not on the ballot. Ending corruption and crooked politicians is not on the ballot.

But- ending a terrible two-party system IS on the ballot. Taking your personal vote back, IS on the ballot. In my opinion- the only wasted vote, is the one you were demanded in giving up to what you don’t believe in.

-LZ

https://medium.com/@legacyzero/why-sanders-supporters-should-not-vote-for-joe-biden-a9146bee189b

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newstfionline · 7 years ago

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How to Start a War in 5 Easy Steps

By Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, April 2, 2018

Is the United States on the road to war? The number of people who think so seems to be growing, especially after President Donald Trump fired several of the grown-ups who were reportedly tempering his worst instincts and proceeded to elevate hawks such as CIA Director Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Writing in the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday, Robert Worth portrays Defense Secretary James Mattis as the sole voice of reason in Trump’s new “war cabinet” and highlights the risks of conflict with Iran, North Korea, and maybe a few other countries. How nervous should we be, and how might we tell if Trump is really serious about war or not?

The first thing to remember is that leaders don’t start wars that they believe will be long, costly, and might end in their own defeat. Plenty of wars turn out that way, of course, but the leaders who begin them do so because they fool themselves into thinking the war will be quick, cheap, and successful. Before World War I, Germany’s leaders thought the Schlieffen Plan would allow them to defeat France and Russia in a couple of months, and Hitler had similar hopes for the blitzkrieg and organized the entire Nazi war machine on the assumption that the war would be brief. Japan knew it couldn’t win a long war against the United States, and the attack on Pearl Harbor was a desperate gamble that Tokyo hoped would shatter U.S. morale and convince Washington to give it a free hand in East Asia. Saddam Hussein didn’t think anyone would resist the seizure of Kuwait, and George W. Bush and the neocons (as well as Bolton) foolishly believed the Iraq War would be easy, short, and pay for itself.

In a democracy, leaders bent on war also must convince the public that rolling the “iron dice” of war, to quote German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg in 1914, is necessary and wise. Congress abdicated its constitutional role to declare war a long time ago, which gives presidents a pretty free hand, but no president is likely to order the large-scale use of force (as opposed to drones or small-scale raids) if he believes the public is dead set against it. Instead, he and his team will go to great lengths to persuade the public to go along.

So, if a president and his advisors are looking to start a war, how will they sell it? Here are the five main arguments that hawks typically advance when seeking to justify a war. You might think of them as the Top Five Warning Signs We’re Going to War.

The danger is grave and growing. The basic logic behind preventive war is the assumption that war is coming and that it is better to fight now instead of later. Thus, Germany went to war in 1914 because it believed (incorrectly) that Russian power would soon eclipse its own, and the Bush administration attacked Iraq because it thought Saddam was hellbent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the situation would be intolerable if he ever managed to do so. Accordingly, anyone seeking to start a war will try to convince the public that the United States is facing multiple adverse trends and that its deteriorating position can be reversed only via military action. The lesson? Watch for rhetoric about “gaps,” “red lines” “points of no return,” or “time is running out,” which imply the United States must act before it is too late.

It is therefore worrisome that the Trump administration insists that North Korea’s improving nuclear and missile capabilities constitute an existential threat that cannot be tolerated and other warmongers conjure up lurid fears of a new “Persian empire” that must be defeated before it takes over the whole region. Both statements imply that America’s security is running out--like sands in an hourglass--making war almost impossible to avoid.

Such dark warnings rest on little more than guesswork about the future, of course, and typically depend on worst-case assumptions about where current trends might lead. If the United States were scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran and Tehran eventually got nuclear weapons, for example, there’s no reason to think deterrence wouldn’t work as effectively as it did with other nuclear powers. Similarly, it is hardly obvious that North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile capabilities will inevitably lead it to become more aggressive--let alone threaten the United States directly. It’s just as likely that it will become more cooperative once it is no longer worried about U.S.-sponsored regime change. I’m not saying that would be the case, mind you, but it is as plausible as believing that acquiring WMD or enhanced missile capabilities would suddenly lead Pyongyang or Tehran to launch a vast imperial rampage. Because the future is always uncertain, fear of adverse circumstances that may never materialize is a poor justification for war and especially for a country that is as powerful, wealthy, and secure as the United States actually is. That is why German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck called preventive war “committing suicide for fear of death.”

Notice further that the logic of preventive war implicitly acknowledges that the United States is still far stronger and more secure than any of these adversaries and need not go to war from a sense of panic. Which brings me to No. 2.

War will be easy and cheap (but only if we act now). As noted above, nobody launches a war if he or she is certain it will be long, costly, or likely to end in defeat. Accordingly, anyone trying to make the case for war has to convince him or herself and the public that it will be easy and that victory will be both inevitable and cheap. In practice, this means persuading people that the costs to the United States will be negligible, the risks of escalation controllable, and the likely outcome easy to foresee.

What does that tell us to look out for? Well, the more that the administration talks about “limited options,” a “bloody nose” strike, the potency of air power, the ability to conduct “precision attacks” with no collateral damage, or other supposedly controllable war scenarios, the more worried you should be. Those are the signs that a government is convincing itself that it has lots of options that will wreak havoc on its foes but pose little danger to the country. And you should be especially concerned when those advocating war seem to be assuming that the enemy will behave exactly as they would like them to, instead of coming up with responses they didn’t anticipate. “The enemy gets a vote” is a familiar cliche but also one that hawks routinely dismiss when making the case for action.

War will solve all (or at least most) of our problems. Advocates for war typically promise that victory will solve lots of problems at once. Saddam thought invading Kuwait was a masterstroke that would eliminate one of his main creditors, increase Iraq’s GNP by billions of dollars overnight, enhance his leverage over Saudi Arabia, dampen domestic discontent, and give him the wherewithal to compete with a potentially more powerful Iran. Similarly, Bush and the neocons thought toppling Saddam would eliminate a potential aggressor, send a message to other would-be proliferators, restore U.S. credibility after 9/11, and began a process of democratization in the Middle East that would eventually mitigate the danger of Islamic terrorism.

Hawks also like to argue the flip side: A failure to act now (or soon) will have dire consequences. Not only will it allow the balance of power to shift against the United States (see #1), but it will also lead others to doubt the country’s resolve and question its credibility. In other words: If the United States uses force, other states will respect it, deterrence will be strengthened, and peace will spread far and wide. If it doesn’t act, by contrast, adversaries will be emboldened, allies enfeebled, and the world will descend into darkness.

The astonishing thing about such claims is how often they get recycled. No matter how many times the United States goes to war or uses force--and it has done a lot of both in recent decades--it’s never enough. The positive effects of vigorous never seem to last more than a few months--at least according to the hawks--and soon they are telling Americans that they have to blow something up again so that others will know they can and will.

The enemy is evil. Or crazy. Maybe both. If you want to lead a country into war, don’t forget to demonize your opponent. Portraying the conflict as a straightforward clash of competing interests isn’t enough, because if that were the case, the problem might be resolved via diplomacy and compromise rather than by military force. Accordingly, hawks go to great lengths to portray opponents as the embodiment of evil and to convince the public that the enemy is morally repugnant and unalterably hostile. After all, if a foreign government does some bad things, and if its hostility to America will never, ever change, then the only long-term solution is to get rid of it. As former Vice President Dick Cheney put it, “We don’t negotiate with evil. We defeat it.”

A second line of argument is the claim that America’s adversaries are irrational, fanatical aggressors that cannot be deterred by its superior military power, huge arsenal of sophisticated nuclear weapons, robust network of allies, and assorted economic tools. Thus, Iran’s leaders are routinely described as religious fanatics who would welcome martyrdom, and North Korea’s three Kims have been routinely depicted as bizarre, crazy, extremely bellicose, and therefore impossible to deter. Never mind that both regimes have repeatedly shown themselves to be obsessed not with martyrdom or ideology but rather with retaining power and staying alive. To make the case for war, it’s more effective to tell the public these folks are dangerously bonkers.

Yet when it suits them, hawks also tend to portray the enemy as smart and sensible, to make using force seem safe. A leader like Kim Jong Un is said to be too irrational to deter, which is why the United States must go after him. But hawks also argue that if America does decide to attack North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure, it will in fact be possible to deter him from retaliating against U.S. allies or against the United States itself. Those who favor attacking Iran use similar arguments: Iran’s leaders are supposedly irrational fanatics who could not be deterred if they ever got nuclear weapons, but they are also smart and sensible enough to sit quietly while the U.S. Air Force conducts a devastating bombing campaign throughout their country. Needless to say, when you see an openly contradictory argument like this, you know you are in the realm of pro-war propaganda rather than serious analysis.

Peace is unpatriotic. The final warning sign is when an administration starts wrapping itself in the flag and suggesting that skepticism about the use of force is a sign of insufficient patriotism. During the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon accused anti-war activists of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and an administration eager to sell a war is bound to portray those opposing it as weak-willed, naive, or insufficiently committed to U.S. security. If Trump is contemplating war and prominent people start to challenge him, you’ll know by keeping a close eye on his Twitter feed.

As I’ve noted before, U.S. politicians’ present aversion to peace is puzzling. I’m a realist and not a pacifist, but a country whose global position is as favorable as the United States has an obvious interest in peace and stability and little interest in taking big risks for small gains. Unfortunately, after 27 years of being the indispensable nation, and 17 years of fighting the war on terror, Americans have become accustomed to presidents trying to solve complex strategic and political problems mostly by blowing stuff up. This approach hasn’t worked very well, but it is still the default response of the foreign-policy establishment. Just remember the outpouring of bipartisan support that Trump received when he fired a few dozen cruise missiles into Syria. It was a one-off gesture that did not affect the war there in the slightest, yet Republicans--and Democrats--hailed it as a sign that Trump was finally taking his presidential responsibilities seriously.

My point is that if this administration decides it wants to start a war, it will do everything it can to intimidate or marginalize skeptics. The most reliable way to do that is to impugn their patriotism, in the hope that everyone will have forgotten how much damage overzealous hawks have done in recent years.

So, if you see the Trump administration deploying any of the arguments I’ve just identified (and to be fair, it already has to some degree)--look out. What makes this tricky, however, is that an administration that didn’t want to go to war might still act as if it were itching for a fight, in the hope of persuading the other side to make concessions. But this is a dangerous gambit, either because the bluff can get called or because you can start believing your own propaganda and talk yourself into war by stages.

If Trump does choose war, where is it most likely to occur? I’d say Iran, for two reasons. First, North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and Iran has none, so the risks of war with the former are infinitely greater. Second, even a purely conventional war on the Korean Peninsula would make South Korea, Japan, China, and others very nervous; by contrast, America’s Middle East clients would be positively giddy if Trump succumbed to their blandishments and attacked Iran on their behalf. If Trump is eager to distract people from his other troubles, or is determined to compensate for those small hands of his, war with Iran makes a lot more sense than a war with North Korea.

Which is not to say that it makes much sense at all. I still think war with either country is unlikely because the United States has little to gain and much to lose by launching another war. And it shouldn’t take a genius to figure that out. But that’s pretty cold comfort because I’ve overestimated the intelligence, prudence, and judgment of U.S. leaders before. Sadly, sometimes very bad ideas get implemented anyway.

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

#war #starting war #military intervention

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copperbadge · 7 years ago

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I was honestly so confused during the McCain portion of the Comey questioning. Was he asking why Clinton was cleared from the Russia investigation? Implying that Clinton colluded with Russia to Get her emails hacked and Trump elected? Or did I totally misunderstand what he kept asking?

A lot of people thought McCain was in some kind of genuine mental distress but I think people are underestimating what an evil motherfucker he is. (I do not like McCain. At all. So I am coming from a place of bias, is what I’m saying.)

(PS Arizona, this is a sign McCain’s about to screw you, just be prepared for that.)

McCain appears to have come to the wrong briefing. It seems like he thought this was a free-for-all, and that everyone was going to hit Comey with whatever they wanted to know about, rather than specifically questioning him on his written statement. I say “appears” and “seems like” because I think I know exactly what he was doing.

McCain’s words, on paper, seem confused, but his tone of voice made it clear to anyone who’s ever dealt with a passive-aggressive parent that he was trying to bring up the specter of the investigation into Hillary Clinton as if he was genuinely confused and not, as he actually was, fucking gunning for someone who is already out of the picture (in an official sense; obviously we have Not Heard The Last Of Hillary Clinton and thank god for that). McCain knows Hillary wasn’t involved with Russian interference at all; he just doesn’t give a shit that he’s supposed to be asking Comey about that and not anything that he wants to ask about.

In essence he was operating under an assumption, which yes is weird but which was clearly assumed for the purposes of questioning, that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were both under investigation by the FBI because…maybe that’s just what happens when people run for president? Run for president, get an FBI investigation. And he was mad and felt there was a double standard because Clinton’s investigation is closed but Trump’s is ongoing. (He wasn’t really mad about this. He was “mad” as an act to make a point.)

The most perplexing thing is why McCain should rise up now as some weird defender of Donald Trump, because he’s been critical of him in the past. The reason I asked if Trump was operating McCain like a puppet is that the entire act screams Donald Trump – defend yourself by attacking a woman, confuse your opponent, keep repeating nonsense until everyone gives up (or in this case you run out of time). So I have two theories.

1. McCain sees the writing on the big border wall. He is, after all, a senator from Arizona, which shares a border with Mexico, and stands to benefit economically from all the jobs and consumption and such that a massive construction project along the Arizona border would provide. Also, I believe Arizona went red in the election. So he’s trying to get on the Trump train (a terrible train full of well-done steaks) because if the wall does go up he wants to still be in power when it happens.

2. Less provable but more likely to my mind: Donald Trump got to John McCain in much the same way the Mafia “got to” the star witness in an organized crime investigation. Trump has something on McCain, be that political power over him or blackmail or what, I don’t know. But the way McCain behaved, the things he said and the way in which he said them, sounds like Donald Trump as filtered through someone who can’t believe he’s gotta say this shit. Down to the way he was at times terribly half-hearted about saying his lines, the way he mumbled shit he seemed ashamed of asking about.

What John McCain said sounded exactly like Donald Trump would have said had he been able to speak, only done without Trump’s shouty, self-absorbed conviction, which is what really sells Trump’s nonsense.

So I think McCain was delivering his lines like a good boy, and Donald Trump is probably thrilled that everyone’s paying attention to McCain’s nonsense because he genuinely believes he’s scored another point off Hillary Clinton rather than just forcing everyone to wonder if McCain needs a neurological examination.

#no pasaran #Anonymous

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mirkwoodshewolf · 7 years ago

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Operation; Prank Quill; Rocket x child reader

This was my first ever Rocket raccoon oneshot that I was ever requested to do, and I know it’s mostly the Guardians but I tried to put in as much Rocket’s character getting involved with the reader as I could in the beginning. Now backstory; imagine reader is 7 years old, and was experimented alongside Rocket and Groot. Your abilities are to control and manipulate the shadows at will, you can also use the shadows to control someone and make them appear more menacing and powerful as you’ll soon read. Except for swearing not really anymore warnings, hope you guys enjoy :)

_________________________________________________________

This was the last straw for me. Peter's continuous prank war on this suppose day of April Fool's that he says it's called on Terra, has reached all of our breaking points. Recently he had pulled a prank on me involving my favorite canned snack and fake snakes that exploded everywhere as soon as I opened it up. Solemnly sad and now hungry because of Quill's prank, I slumped under the deck of the Milano when I suddenly heard a loud electrical buzz and a scream soon Rocket came flying in and slammed right into the wall behind me.

"Rocket, are you okay?" I asked as I helped him up. His fur was slightly singed and smoke rose from it as well.

"Am I okay? Am I okay? Sorry (n/n), but I sure as hell am NOT okay. Man when I find that Quill I'm gonna—" he took out his favorite gun and fired it but instead of a big blast, what came out was a small flag that plainly said "BANG!" In big bold red letters. "Grrr, goddamnit Quill!!" Rocket shouted out as he tossed his gun aside and continued to mutter furiously.

"I know how you feel, the jerk tampered with my Space-nut Brittle, filled it with those jumping snakes that pop out when you open something, not only am I mad at him but I'm hungry too".

Then he got an idea. An awful idea. Rocket Raccoon got a wonderful, awful idea.

"I know just what we can do". Rocket said with a cunning grin and an evil look in his eye.

We all gathered below the deck minus Peter and went over the prank one last time.

"Okay, so everyone knows their positions when we reach Knowhere right?" Rocket asked us.

"Right". We all said together.

"Oh boy this is gonna be good". I giggled.

"Alright now kid don't go getting to loud otherwise this whole thing blows over!"

"Sorry Rocket". I said solemnly looking downward. Rocket rolled his eyes and sighed then said as he patted my back.

"Hey, don't sweat about it kid, just try to be careful next time alright?" I nodded then Rocket continued, "now once we get to Knowhere, we gotta move quickly with the plan, so we need to get Quill to the warehouse as soon as we land, otherwise someone else is gonna blow our cover and Quill will have figured us out, now (y/n), you got the fake tape ready for his dumb cassette right?"

"Just like you taught me Rocket". I said as I held Peter's old cassette player with the fake tape that I made inside it ready to go.

"Excellent".

"Hey! Where is everybody? And have any of you seen my cassette player!?" We all quickly ran for the main deck and Gamora said.

"Don't worry Quill we're all here".

"And the runt has your dumb music player" Rocket said. I walked up to Peter and handed it to him and said to him with the sweetest voice I could muster and gave him my ultimate weapon, the puppy dog face.

"I'm sorry Peter, I just wanted to listen to some of your cool music, I didn't mean to take it without asking but Rocket said you'd be cool with it".

"Aww now how can I be mad at that face? I taught you all too well my little (y/n). Apology accepted, just next time don't listen to what the raccoon says and just ask me next time, I'd be more than happy to share all my music with you". He took his cassette player back and hooked it to his belt as he ruffled my hair.Hook, line and stinker.

Soon we finally arrived at Knowhere. Once we landed the Milano and exited the ship we were greeted by none other than Cosmo the Russian space dog.

'Greetings friends, Cosmo is glad you could make it'.

"No problem Cosmo glad we could make it, what exactly is the problem going on here?" Peter said.

'Lately the old abandoned warehouse has been making strange noises, people claim it's unknown creatures taking refuge because people who enter don't come out'.

"Unknown creatures huh? Well gang looks like we've got a mystery on our hands". Said Peter. Soon Cosmo lead us to the suppose warehouse where the people have been saying they've heard noises when truthfully it was some low-life's Rocket said he pay if they would do this for our Prank War.

'Here is where noises have been coming from, and now Cosmo leaves Guardians on their own, stay safe my friends' he then took off running back to the streets of Knowhere.

"Alright guys, let's head on in". Peter lead us in first and the rest of us looked at each other signaling that now was the time for our payback to begin.

As we walked through the dark warehouse, we all looked around and Rocket said.

"Okay this isn't creepy at all".

"Oh don't be such a baby Rocket, we'll be in and out in no time, I say we split up into teams for this matter, maybe we can cover more ground that way". Peter suggested.

"You sure that's a good idea Quill, we don't even know what it is that we're up against. Could be anything or anyone". Gamora stated warningly.

"Trust me Gamora, I know what I'm doing, but how about this if we don't find anything within 15 minutes, then we all meet right back here, deal?"

"Fine, agreed". It was then we split up into groups. Gamora and Drax were the first group, Rocket and Groot the second, and Peter and I in the third group. As Peter and I searched the upper decks with our helmet scanners.

"Any luck (n/n)?"

"No sign of anything Peter, not a single clue".

"Yeah I'm not getting anything either, let's check somewhere else". As Peter and I continued on searching for any clues lying around, I then heard Rocket's voice say from my individual earpiece,

"Alright kid, get ready to proceed with Phase 1".

"Got it". I whispered.

"Grah damnit, nothing again. Alright come on sweet pea, let's meet the others back in the main lobby, hopefully they had better luck than us though I hope they didn't". He muttered the last statement more to himself. I allowed Peter to walk ahead of me muttering to himself then when I got the chance, I used my abilities and disappeared into the shadows ready to begin Operation: Prank Quill.

The Guardians met back together as planned and Peter asked them.

"Any luck you guys?"

"Gamora and I have failed our quest to find any signs of beings living here".

"Yeah Groot and I didn't find a single thing either".

"I am Groot".

"Maybe this was all a hoax". Gamora said.

"Yeah, maybe it was just some of the kids pulling harmless pranks, what do you think (y/n)?" When Peter didn't hear a response from me he turned around and was shocked to see that I wasn't there. "Okay this isn't funny kid, (y/n)!"

"Quill please tell me you didn't lose her" Gamora demanded.

"No, no, no, no, no I-I-I-I swear guys she was literally right behind me!" Peter was suddenly grabbed by Groot aggressively and was forced onto his knees in front of Rocket.

"Listen Quill! If anything happens to that kid I can promise you I'll give you five or six good shots straight up your freakin—" Rocket threatened as he held up his gun right up at Peter's face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no! No! No! No! No! No! Look, look guys! Please look Rocket I promise we'll find her! Maybe she's pulling our leg and pulling a joke on us".

"Fine. But if this isn't a prank and she ends up hurt or even worse, I'll follow up on my promise!" Rocket snarled then he and Groot went on walking to try and find me soon followed by the others.

"(Y/n)? (Y/n)? Come on sweet pea where are yah?" Peter cried out. Rocket grumbled as he kept his gun pointed more at Quill than anywhere else.

"I am Groot".

"You know why I'm aiming it at him!"

"I am Groot".

"Yeah I know, it's just that—I'll never forgive myself if that kid ends up hurt, or worse". Suddenly black shadows shot out and took ahold of Groot.

"I am Groot!" The shadows picked Groot up and dragged him into the darkness.

"Hold on buddy we got yah!" Rocket then proceeded to fire at the shadows along with Peter, while Gamora and Drax charged head on and tried to cut the shadows apart with their knives and sword. But the shadows just flicked both Gamora and Drax like a sack of flower and shards of shadows shot toward Peter and Rocket who had no choice but to dodge them.

It was then Groot disappeared into the darkness his last words echoing throughout the warehouse.

"No, Groot". Rocket stated solemnly. He lowered his head trying to hold in his tears when a shadow hand suddenly reached out for him.

"Rocket, above you!" Peter fired at the shadow hand then another shadow hand punched Peter while the hand above Rocket grabbed him.

"Hey! Let me go you freak! Let me go! NOOOOO!!!!" And just like Groot, Rocket disappeared into the darkness.Peter, Gamora and Drax all sat there in horror and in shock that they just lost three of their members so easily.

"There's a little bit of pee coming out of me right now". Peter muttered.

"Peter, we can't defeat whatever this thing is on our own, we have to get out of here and find help, maybe then there's a chance we can save Rocket, Groot and (y/n)".

"Yeah, you're right. Or....We could just leave this place and let whatever this creature is eat Rocket and Groot and find a way to save only (y/n) because she's the nicest out of the three of them. I think it's a compromise between both our agreements".

"You're despicable, dishonorable, FAITHLESS!" Gamora cried out.

"We will not retreat. Not without our friends, all of them. I will fight whatever this creature is and spill its blood upon the floor" Drax growled.

"Drax is right Quill, we're not leaving without (y/n) and Rocket and Groot".

"Alright fine, fine. But we all stick together and fight as hard as we can, and watch out for any dark corner. This creature seems to come out of the darkest corners of this warehouse, so keep a sharp eye".

"My eyes are indeed sharp, and my reflexes are too quick and I will catch this shadow". Drax muttered as Gamora rolled her eyes and Peter tried to explain to Drax that it was an expression.

They kept their guards up ready to attack anything that would come out of the shadows. Suddenly they heard a voice echoing from the darkness.

"Okay what was that?" asked Peter fearfully.

"The voice of the creature we're hunting. He's finally revealed himself". Drax growled. They waited until they heard the voice again but closer to them this time and when they turned towards the source of the voice, they soon saw the silhouette of their friend Groot.

"Oh it's just Groot, you okay there pal?" Peter asked.

"Hold on Quill, something's not right here" Gamora stopped Peter from walking any closer to "Groot".

And she was right to do that, because when Groot stepped out of the shadows, he appeared bigger more menacing looking, his whole body was a shadow and his eyes were pure white. As he cried out his normal three words, they were almost demonic as it echoed and pierced the warehouse like a haunting ghostly wail.

"Oh shit!" Peter cried as Groot shot out several shadow-forms of his powers at the three remaining Guardians. They all dodged and fought on as hard as they could but suddenly Drax was gripped tightly a shadow figure of what appeared to be a black bird and the bird flew him towards the wall and he and the bird disappeared.

"Drax!" Peter cried out.

"PETER!!!" Gamora cried out. Peter turned to see Gamora gripped tightly by Groot and he was slowly fading back into the shadows. Peter grabbed Gamora's hand and pulled as hard as he could but he was suddenly thrown back by shadow hands and soon Groot and Gamora disappeared.

"GAMORA!!!" Peter ran towards the wall only to feel that no one was there. He shuddered angrily then blasted at the wall creating a huge hole in it. "This is all my fault, it's my fault".

As Peter stood in the warehouse alone filled with fear and regret, he then said to himself.

"Okay Peter, calm down relax. You can do this, just listen to a bit of some tunes to get your game back then you can go and go all Star Lord on this freaks ass". He then turned on his player and put on his headphones. As the beginning part of "Come and Get your Love" played, the track suddenly began to slow down and the recording went deep and messy, when Peter looked down he saw that the tape was literally tearing itself apart. "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Not my mom's tape!" He then took out the cassette tape and the reels and fell to his knees.

'Peter Quill'. The voice echoed. Now in fear of his life, Peter tried to run to which ever door was closest to him, but they all slammed shut on him and seem to be locked up tight. When the last door he tried was lock, he then heard the screech of a bird and when he turned around he saw a giant shadow of a rave flying right at him.

Fangs around the beak and glowing red eyes with an intent to attack and kill. Peter ran as fast as he could from the demon Raven following him. When he reached a dead end, he took out his blaster and readied to fire. Unfortunately his weapon decided to short circuit and now Quill had no way of escaping because he was just frozen in fear at the Raven now closing in on him.

But the Raven just flew straight through him.

"Demon raven just flew in me!"

'Peter'. Soon appearing before him was a very haunting version of me. My eyes were soulless white, my skin was ghostly pale with black veins showing through my entire body.

"(N/n)?"

'Why did you leave me Peter?' I asked in my haunting ghostly voice.

"Please (n/n) you know I love yah kid, I thought you were right behind me, honest!"

'You just left me. Like you did the others'. Soon the others appeared as black shadows of their former selves all saying Peter's name and how he should've done better in leading them.

"Please guys, I'm sorry! I'm truly, really, really sorry! If you all were alive right now I promise I'll never behave stupidly ever again! I won't play my music to annoy you guys! And I'll never prank on you guys ever again!" Peter crumbled to the ground almost ready to cry as we all surrounded him ready to deliver the final attack.

"APRIL FOOLS!!!!!!" We all shouted as we turned back to normal.

"Wha?"

"That's right Quill, it's payback for all those pranks you pulled on us earlier". Gamora said.

"But—but the shadow tentacle thingies? The Possessions?"

"God you really are an idiot Quill, that was (y/n) all the time, that's her power". Rocket groaned as he patted my leg.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, the full extent anyways. I thought you would've remembered back when we fought against Ronan to save Xandar. That's how I managed to defeat most of the Kree's ships that were bombing the city". I explained.

"But the—the noises, the creature refuge that Cosmo told us about earlier".

"I am Groot".

"Yep he's right, some punk mercenaries we hired to make all that ruckus to peak your interest, whom then bailed when I told them we were on our way, by the way we owe them 30,000 units each for the job".

"What!?"

"Besides the point Quill, this is payback for all those jokes you've been playing on us all day". Gamora stated as she helped Peter stand up and we all headed back for the Milano.

"So all in all there never really was a mystery on Knowhere was there?" Peter asked.

"Nope, we planned the whole thing".

"Well I got to admit, you guys got me good but sadly I wasn't scared at all". We all laughed hysterically as Peter still kept trying to convince to us that he wasn't scared as we flew off towards planets and other galaxies unknown.

#gotg #guardians of the galaxy #guardians of the galaxy fanfiction #guardians of the galaxy fandom #rocket raccoon #peter quill #gotg oneshot

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whoareurl · 8 years ago

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necessary evils - allergic!viktor (part 1)

So, I saw this wonderful picture by @kittensnz and this fic idea wouldn’t get out of my head. But I’m so behind at uni right now so this is all I can manage atm. I promise I shall update this before I die. Pls Enjoy.

When Yakov had first received a sponsorship for his up-and-coming prodigy, he’d been thrilled. Viktor had talent and drive and everything he needed to succeed; everything except funds. So a sponsorship deal was his golden ticket to the Junior Grand Prix this year. So far, Viktor’s most prestigious competition had been the Russian Junior Nationals but he’d smashed the competition by over twenty points and had gained a fair bit of media coverage outside Russia among figure skating circles. His talent was undeniable and the fact that he was almost ready to move up to the senior division without every having competed internationally was a shock to the figure skating world. But it was purely a financial problem that held him back. Most of the skaters Yakov had coached had had at least enough funds to get them to their first international competition (which was where most sponsorship deals were then arranged) but Viktor hadn’t been so lucky.

It was a damn shame, Yakov thought, because the boy was talented beyond anyone he’d ever coached before. He could easily take the Worlds in just a few short years.

But there was one problem. Viktor’s sponsorship offer? A cat food company.

Yakov watched Viktor land a clean triple axel and sighed to himself. Sometimes, it was necessary to do things that were...against one’s better judgement. So, he called his student over and explained, watching Viktor’s blue eyes light up with excitement. He asked so many questions - when is it happening what should I wear does this mean I can go to the JGP this year I’ve always wanted to go to America and it’s Curry’s last year in Juniors and I want to skate against him and oh Yakov how did you swing this??? - and Yakov quickly found himself wishing he hadn’t told him until he’d had a chance to think over the potential consequences because there was absolutely no way Viktor was backing down now.

The day finally arrived and saw Viktor arriving at the rink (where Yakov had agreed to collect him) not only on time but early which had Yakov’s head reeling. Viktor had never been early for anything in his life.

“Here,” he said gruffly, shoving a box of antihistamines and a bottle of water into VIktor’s hands as his student strapped himself into the front seat. “Take three.”

Viktor frowned at the box. “It says one…”

“And I say three,” Yakov growled back, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were turning white. “I know what you’re like.”

So Viktor took three and sat in silence, bouncing his right leg in excitement as they drove to the studio where the filming was to take place.

Viktor had never been to a proper filming studio before. It was smaller than he’d expected and the room where they were to shoot the advert consisted of mainly cameras and a space with a white screen on the wall and the floor. Some props were already laid out there, including tins of cat food and several travel cages in which Viktor could see several kittens. He would have squealed in excitement had he not already received a lecture from Yakov outside about “being professional” and “not overusing air quotes”.

Viktor was given a script and some clothes and was ushered into a make-up room by a small woman with a clipboard and a high ponytail who looked frazzled every time she had to answer a call on her walkie-talkie. The lady who did his make-up was kind and chatted animatedly with him while she worked, asking about figure skating and what he liked to do and how he was feeling about the shoot.

And then it was finally time to start. A small calico kitten was thrust into Viktor’s arms and someone said “action” and there was a snapping sound of the clapper board and-

Viktor said his lines. He said his lines many times with slightly different inflections, with a slightly different smile, with a wink to the camera, with the kitten closer to his face and further away from his face and his eyes wider and his long hair tumbling ver his shoulder or swept down his back. It was exhausting but he didn’t mind so much because there were cats to play with.

It was only when they were about an hour into the filming that a problem started to become apparent. His nose had started itching a while ago but now it was starting to run and his eyes were watering and his throat was scratchy. He messed up a take by ducking a stifled sneeze into the shouder of his Team Russia jacket.

“Cut!”

Viktor took the opportunity to wipe his nose surreptitiously on his sleeve and clear his scratchy throat. Someone took the cat away from him and he ducked forwards into his hands, almost silently directing another few sneezes there.

“Bless you,” said a voice and Viktor looked over to find the lady who had shown him into make-up holding the calico kitten in her arms. She smiled sympathetically at him. “Allergic, huh?”

Viktor nodded, feeling somewhat miserable. His chest felt horribly heavy and uncomfortable and he could only hope he wouldn’t start wheezing. The medication had done its job for a while but his allergy was aggressive and his chest unbearably sensitive, for some godforsaken reason, to being in close proximity to a cat.

“You’re not the first,” she said, scratching the kitten behind its ears and eliciting a soft purr. “Your coach said you might need your inhaler eventually. I just wanted to tell you that, if you have to stop to use it, don’t hesitate.”

She smiled warmly and Viktor smiled back and thanked her, saying, “I just don’t want to mess this up. I really want to skate in America-hh.”

Viktor brought a hand up to his face, pressing two fingers roughly under his nose but it didn’t stem the tickle and he pitched forward with three itchy sneezes.

“Heh’tizishhoo! ihh-hiyishhoo! ihhh-hh-oh snf hhh’inGHtchhoo! oh snf excuse me.”

He looked away, embarrassed, rubbing at his itchy nose and eyes. The lady smiled. “Bless you. I’ll get you some tissues.”

But, before she had a chance, the director’s voice boomed out that they were moving on to the next part and she shot Viktor an apologetic look as she placed the kitten back in his arms again and set about unlocking the other travel cases until Viktor was kneeling next to a neatly arranged pyramid of cat food tins and surrounded by six kittens pawing at his knees with interest. Viktor’s eyes watered at the sight of them and he had to put the little calico down to rub at them.

This was going to be...interesting.

#yoi #allergic!viktor #cat allergies #sneezefic #snzfic #acefic yoi

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ullielwrites · 8 years ago

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「☩」 UPLOADING CRIMINAL RECORD…

ALIAS(ES): Stefan Romulus Aleksandrov мороз -- Or “Moroz”

AGE & BIRTH DATE: 28 | 14 February 1989

ALIGNMENT: Lawful (Walking the Line Between Neutral and) Evil

CLASSIFICATIONS: Sky High Dropout (Hero) | Super-Villain | Faculty Member

OCCUPATIONS: Historical Analysis of Good and Evil | Detention Room Monitor

POWERS & ABILITIES: Cryokinesis | Cryo-Regeneration | Cryostasis

「☩」 RUNNING BACKGROUND CHECK...

In 1849, in a small Russian town, there were two super-powered brothers whom were running against each other for mayor: Cezar and Vodim Aleksandrov. While Cezar held an honorable campaign, Vodim sought to sabotage his sibling at every turn for reasons unknown even today, and eventually won the election. When Cezar learned of the scandals, this caused a massive fight that led to the ruination of not only the town, but the creation of the eternal snow in what are now the wilds of Siberia.

Though both brothers survived, a rift was formed between them and, as they went on to have families, a rivalry was born as either side was forbidden to even speak to the other, and almost all meetings resulted in a brawl. Stefan hails from Vodim’s side and, naturally, was raised with what had come to be villainous intentions to lead society into a new era of peace under the thumb of the powerful. Namely, their family and those whom they had deemed worthy to rule beside them.

By the time Stefan was supposed to enter high school, he had succeeded most of his parents’ teachings and already developed most of his power’s potential. The boy’s mother masqueraded as their family’s good half, enrolling him into Sky High with the mission of understanding the mindsets of future heroes and learning all he can about their superpowers so that he’d have an advantage.

While he was highly successful at both objectives, he’d lost his way upon befriending a few students, beginning to undertake a change of heart. Though, before it could fully manifest, his father withdrew him from the high school and took him out to their original home in Siberia, never to been seen again for many years.

After completing his training and going through several initiation trials, Stefan took the helm as this generation’s мороз; a mysterious - and immortal, as far as normal humans know - world-class villain that wants to control the homeland (Russia) and use their status to seek conquest on the rest of the world, giving evil a permanent upper hand.

For six years, his operations to overtake the President’s Council went smoothly as the family began manipulating over half of the ministers. Stefan had broken a lot of new ground for the villainous cause as he turned the citizens on their own leader, and they’d almost reached a tipping point as mutinous outbreaks started over the radically controversial laws that were passed under the corruption.

Tragedy struck when the heroic Aleksandrov, the first female in the other sides’ lineage, figured out and exposed the entire scheme, throwing five generations of hard work down the drain. Tracking him down to his headquarters underneath Siberia’s Kholat Syakhl, Stefan was defeated and publicly unmasked before being thrown into the International Super Society’s prison, where each cell is specially garnered for that particular villain.

Upon serving three years’ time with good behavior, he was given the chance to serve parole by becoming a teacher at Sky High, to which he dismissively agreed to. In reality, he would’ve taken on almost anything to get away from the torture of being stuck in an eternal dry heat while blindfolded and shackled. He currently acts as the history instructor, as well as the detention room monitor during after-school hours in exchange for comfortable housing and freedom to use his powers on-campus.

「☩」 DOWNLOADING MISCELLANEOUS ANALYSIS...

ACTIONS LOUDER THAN WORDS: Though the extent of them are unknown as he never speaks much outside of lessons, he is, first and foremost, a gentleman at heart, abiding by a code of conduct and honor. Secondly, he has been bred with evil intentions, and so his loyalties will always fall on family members, then fellow villains before all else. Thirdly, his personal actions must follow the laws set before him, which has allowed for some creative, slimy tactics on his part in the past. Since his father was normally out being a famous super-villain or on business (he owns a law firm in New York City) when not training the young boy, Stefan was raised under his mother’s protective wing. These sculpted his more tame “live, and let live” philosophies in comparison to his male ancestors’ vicious tendencies.

DEADLY BEYOND RECOGNITION: Aside from his masterful prowess over frozen tundra and the freezing of elements, he is classically trained Russian royalty i.e. has been taught traditional swordsmanship (mainly with rapiers and daggers) and highly versatile hand-to-hand combat (Krav Maga and Sambo). Stefan utilizes all-in survival techniques with quick and efficient strikes as well as many counter-attacks, alongside “sniping” when not in close quarters; his style combines agility and speed to reach maximum potential of his capabilities. Having both his hands and sight as catalysts for his capabilities - a deadly combination denoting that he inherited traits from both his father (another ice manipulator) and his mother (infamous for her Gorgon-esque powers), he is easily capable of killing normal men, and yet...

INNOCENT YET UNCLEAN: While charged with over 100 murders amongst other accusations, he is personally responsible for none of them. Imprisoned them? Yes. Emotionally and mentally toyed with them? Of course. Killed, physically touched (let alone tortured), and/or maimed, however? Never; his underlings carried out punishments of their own volition, and are much more outwardly aggressive than he has been.

FORMER MUSICAL PRODIGY: Through his mother, he developed a deep-seated passion since her day job was as a cellist for the New York Philharmonic. He learned to play the cello, piano, and also can sing quite well. Music became the way he coped with his morality struggles, making a routine out of practicing late at night or just singing to himself as he reads to whatever songs he’s listening to in the evenings. Though he once showed off his talents as a child, when Stefan grew more introverted post-education, he hid his skills so that other villains could take him more seriously. Though he’d never voice it aloud, Stefan’s dream career would be that of a composer, or at least a singer-songwriter, or a musician in a group with other equally talented minds.

RUMBLE AND SWAY: Though the heir apparent of the Aleksandrov’s former empire, he has a brother named Percival whom he almost always butted heads with. Don’t get him wrong -- he loves his only living direct family member, and would never give away his location, nor his current alias. But the younger sibling has teetered farther into neutral alignment, and has aided their heroic cousin in the past.

「☩」 SEARCHING FOR KNOWN RELATIONS...

IM SOO JIN - OLD FRIEND, FORMER PEN PAL: When he first started out at Sky High, Stefan was an intimidating figure; sharply dressed and groomed every day, he made it clear from the get-go that he was an academic that knew more than he let on, and almost always took dueling and team matches a little too far. In his small circle of friends, he was the quiet guardian, and it especially applied with the young senior, Soo Jin. Despite her graduating and moving away, as well as his eventual defection to evil, they maintained contact throughout the years, and she is one of the reason why he hasn’t completely gone on a revenge spree against every goodie two-shoe out there... yet.

KEIKO MINAMOTO - FRIEND OF A FRIEND, CARETAKER: (NOTE: BURN AND SCAR MENTIONS.) Meeting through her cousin, Soo Jin, the ice manipulator has trusted her with the terrible task of helping him maintain the burn marks inflicted across his torso and back; the permanent physical damage that the International Super Society left on him during his imprisonment. She’s one of few whom is aware of these constantly reopening scars, and he prefers it being kept hush-hush as to not show weakness in public. They generally enjoy each other’s company time to time during the school day, though there have been times Stefan’s been tempted to take advantage of her goodness to work in favor of his programmed drive to help sway students to evil.

#v: heroes and sidekicks #long post

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horseytown · 7 years ago

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Caitlin Johnstone: One Leg In The Audience, One On Stage

In September, Caitlin Johnstone urged everyone to admit that they had Trump wrong. She didn’t include herself, of course. As usual, she was positioning herself for a claim to be ahead of the curve.

Johnstone, like Eva Bartlett, is one of the new darlings of the fringey pro-authoritarian anti-liberal left. The sort that demonstrate their dedication to radical politics by suggesting that the far-right nationalist candidate would be better choice the centre-right Wall Street & War liberal. Trump was the better, more revolutionary candidate because it would make the "Deep State" angry if he won.

Caitlin Johnstone generally appeals to the kinds of people who took over the Counterpunch Facebook group that I used to frequent. Sadly, since the death of Alexander Cockburn, the quality of the paper (and its readers) has dropped. Admittedly, the group had always had its share of NWO paranoiacs, 9/11 Truthers (lots), and crystal-healing new age flakes into extraterrestrial fantasies about Nordics and Greys. But after Cockburn was gone, the group (not Counterpunch itself) began to slide so far to the left that it came around the other side, right into neofascist territory. It took little time for anti-immigrant white nationalist conspiracy videos out of Eastern Europe and Holocaust denial to be posted there.

Right alongside this sort of neofascist propaganda (and posted by the same individuals), were pieces by RT puppets and Assad-groupies Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley and Johnstone. As with Bartlett and Beeley, some longtime leftist commentators speculated that Johnstone was a Russia plant/operative. However, as with the others, I think it is much more likely that she was simply just another useful idiot.

Johnstone's online history reveals that was nearly politically mute only few years ago. At most she tweeted new age-y schlock about 'energy' and homeopathy, Eckhart Tolle, Christian Christensen Course in Miracles, Osho Zen, etc. The first signs of overt political content were lite political youtube links about Russell Brand and how Sanders was the choice of sweet old grandmothers everywhere. Besides that there was nothing radical, only mentions of her non-political writing projects. One of her writing projects was the book on astrology. While she claims that she was tasked with this by her publisher, it's clear from her other writings that she is new age flake (and this would be why she was given this task).

This suggests that Johnstone was not a plant, but just another flakey but well-meaning left-leaner who fell into the abyss of clickbait (and "fake news") and propaganda of the past two years. Go through her twitter and you can see multiple examples of her ignorance of political history and politics (not that she displays much knowledge of the politics of her native Australia). As with many people, this ignorance made her an easy mark for conspiracy theory.

Later she began dipping her toe into American politics singing the praise of Bernie Sanders. Not just enthusiastic, but fully smitten. Around the same that she was posting these comments on Twitter I was asking if we could just fast forward to the part where Bernie Sanders withdrew and endorsed Clinton. Not because I wanted him to do so, but because it was obvious that that was how it would end. I was hardly alone, many on the left saw him as a nothing more than a sheep-dog. She did not. Not necessarily because she is an idiot, but because I do think she knew very little about American politics as recently as late 2015. At least she comes off that way.

When Clinton took the nomination Johnstone went into reactionary mode. She was well-primed to accept at face-value any attack on Hillary Clinton. Only a few days later she was stating that Bernie Sanders and his family were being held hostage (somewhat figuratively, I think) and that he was being forced to endorse Clinton ("He has to say what he needs to say to get him and his family out alive.") She later added "50 of her [Clinton's] personal staff have died mysteriously." So, she was not being facetious, but actually believe Sanders' life was under threat from Hillary Clinton.

She quickly went from being Bernie-or-Bust to endorsing anyone-but-Clinton. She was unconcerned about Trump, because she became convinced early on that he was a plant for Clinton. As with many Assange-worshipping Wikileaks leftists, she misread Podesta email revelations like the so-called "Pied Piper" memo. She became convinced that Trump was a heel, and that he was there to "hold the door" for Clinton. She really thought it was all staged.

Even in the wake of 'grab her by the pussy', Johnstone's feminism took a back seat to the popular MAGA supporter fear-mongering that a vote for Clinton was a vote for immediate nuclear war with Russia.

Everything that came after this seemed to compliment and confirm her entrenched anti-Clinton bias. Blind to Trump and looking for more to hate about Clinton, she was easy prey for RT, Russia Insider, Assadist Propaganda, Putinite propaganda, Seth Rich conspiracy, etc. When James O'Keefe's Project Veritas videos appeared, there was not a word from her about O'Keefe being in the employ of Bannon/Breitbart and having taken money from Trump. She became another voice screeching about how the polls were fixed for Clinton all along. She bleated that this was all set up back in April 2015 (a reference to the Pied Piper thing she misread). As her resentment of Clinton deepened, her susceptibility to right-wing propaganda increased. None too surprisingly when Pizzagate appeared she fell for that, too. Interestingly, she announced that a couple of days before some of the earliest major threads on 4chan collecting the earliest details of the Pizzagate hoax. With no mention of pizza, her November 1st tweet citing Infowars regular, Steve Pieczenik, suggests that Alex Jones was the source of her new direction. Her thank you to “Assange and all those in the intelligence community for ur courage,“ suggests she was also keeping abreast of the Podesta email angle.

Around the same time she also revealed to the world she was ignorant of Alex Jones’ origins. She seemed unaware that he was a right-wing conspiracy theorist who had always pandered to the nationalist fringe, scoffing at the idea that the press that once called him left-wing was now referring to him as right-wing. She added, "He's been the same guy poking at power, just the administration has changed." This also suggests that she was beginning to ingest Jones' ravings on a regular basis. Her Pizzagate posts only became more aggressive. Soon thereafter she started posting heavily from Wikileaks and Assange, posting that Podesta revelations revealed that it was all just a psy-ops to destroy the will of the voters.

Predictably, she was not forthcoming about her failure to see Trump as a serious candidate when the election results rolled in. Instead she changed her tune and said that Trump was a good thing, because the evil DNC was routed. It was now also a good thing that Bernie Sanders was defeated.

It is also no shock that she would be trying to sell leftists on the idea of teaming up with alt-right to take down the 'Deep State'. "Many Sanders voters have been lulled into backing the Democratic party’s platform-free Russophobic gibberish with the help of Sanders himself, to the point where whenever anyone initiates a debate with the phrase “I voted for Bernie” you can be 100 percent certain that they’re about to parrot an establishment-friendly line they were taught by the corporate media propaganda machine."

Pretty heavy smarm for someone who was lazily tweeting "@BernieSanders is SO impressive" only 19 months earlier. Caitlin Johnstone is a good measuring stick for how rapidly people's politics were radicalized during the election process, and how misinformation and online propaganda and media manipulation made a mess out of people. It was no shock at all when she shifted from Pizzagate-Infowars enthusiast to claiming that she had seen through Donald Trump’s schtick from day one.

What's interesting is that she was not able to let go of the conspiracy theories once they had a grip on her. She still defends Pizzagate, Seth Rich , etc. It is no surprise at all that she would go deeper into Assadist, Putinite murk, or to continue to push 9/11 Truth.

My overall impression of Caitlin Johnstone is that she is just another semi-conscious progressive who got sucked into the election and spat out convinced that she was on the front lines of a War With The "Deep State". She is not even really aware of why she is where she is now. She certainly can't keep her story straight and shows no clarity of mind or consistency. Her only consistency seems to be a desire to be right and for others to be wrong. Hence the appeal of conspiracies that others are 'fooled by' (unlike her).

It might be tempting to accuse her of being a Russian bot or troll, but even a cursory glance around social media reveals that there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) like her who have fallen into the very same abyss of ignorance. While the timing of her announcement that Clinton was a pedophile is somewhat suspect (as is her shift against Trump along with other Russian media), her writing reflects the propaganda lines disseminated by RT English et al. not because she is one of their agents, but because she has internalized their work and that of others.

#trump #altright #caitlin johnstone #fake news #RT #conspiracytheory #pizzagate #bernie sanders #hillary clinton

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downinfront · 7 years ago

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GIVE YOURSELF TO THE HELLISH EMBRACE OF “TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT”

Look, Transformers: The Last Knight is bad.

The good news, at least, is that it isn’t bad in the same kind of depleted, soggy way that the new Pirates of the Caribbean is bad, like everyone realized halfway through that they were making a turd and limped across the finish line accordingly. Nor is it bad in the way that, I don’t know, the new Alien is bad, where you shoot for the moon and end up with an admirable miss. No, this movie is gleefully, bombastically, aggressively bad. There is no bullet chamber unemptied, no explodable structure left un-exploded, no early-2000s gangsta lingo left unspoken by the robotic miscreants of title and no character developed; this movie is so balls-to-the-wall that the only sign of restraint is that there are no actual balls in it, which, oddly enough, you can’t say of some of the other, less bad Transformers movies. It is swolled-up, testosterone-fueled, smash-your-head-against-a-brick-wall bad, and for that, it is almost kind of ... good?

This is a remarkable five movies into the franchise, which, you might remember, actually started with a pretty good Spielbergian riff on a boy and his car back in 2007. Since then, Michael Bay, who has been directing these movies since what feels like the dawn of the nickelodeon, has piled on the bullshit to a staggering degree, eschewing even the bare minimum of logic something like this requires in favor of the most bonkers, Mad-Lib style plot that can possibly be thought up. Part 2 incorporated the pyramids. (Which, incidentally, get obliterated here.) Part 3 had the moon. (Ditto.) Part 4 had robot dinosaurs. (They're back for a hot minute and make it out unscathed.) This one loops in the Knights of the damn Round Table, whose battle against the Saxons was aided and abetted by a soused Merlin (Stanley Tucci, very funny) and a cadre of Transformers back in what a chyron helpfully informs us as “England -- The Dark Ages.”

Basically, Merlin’s staff is the MacGuffin of the day, and it’s the only thing that can save us from an imminent collision between Earth and the Transformers’ home planet, a world-ending event led by an evil robot witch and a heel-turned Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), who blasted off into space at the end of Part 4.

And listen. I could pick this shit apart all day if I wanted to. I could tell you that I distinctly remember the Transformer planet getting blown up two movies ago and Bumblebee getting his voice back four movies ago, or that it’s absurd that there are a bunch of baby robot dinosaurs roaming around and nobody seems to have any idea as to why. I could tell you that Cade Yeager is still a ridiculous, ridiculous name (all apologies to the actual Cade Yeagers out there); that Laura Haddock probably deserves better than to be Bay’s screen siren du jour and fill the estimable shoes of Megan Fox (who, you’ll remember, quit the franchise), Rosie Huntington-Whitely (who, you might remember, was actually pretty good in replacing Fox) and ... *looks up Age of Extinction on IMDB* Nicola Peltz, who I clearly didn’t remember was in these movies at all. I could tell you that Bay’s persistence for weird, 7th-grade level sex humor is just that -- weird -- and that Austin Powers did the inevitable “it’s so huge!” gag a lot better, both times. I could tell you that the best thing you can say about Jerrod Carmichael’s appearance in this movie is that he doesn’t get killed like T.J. Miler did. I could tell you that five -- five! -- movies in, nobody has yet been able to assemble a logical conversation between a human actor and the Transformers, who speak in non-sequiturs so random it’s like someone pulled a cord on their back. I could tell you that the action is incoherent even by the standards of this franchise; existing only to showcase the formidable might of the United States military just in case any Russians are getting any funny ideas or whatever.

But you know what? I’m not gonna do that. Because about a third of the way into The Last Knight, which, coincidentally, is when the early charm of the movie wears off, you realize that this is not a movie you critique. It is not a movie you judge. It is a movie you surrender to. And really, once you do that it actually isn’t that bad. Still aggressive, yes, but it becomes almost charming. Oh look, another car chase. Cool, they got John Turturro to come back. This kid with the scooter Transformer (Isabela Moner) is kinda good, hope she ends up being something. This last scene makes no sense but it is beautifully shot. Wow, Mark Wahlberg’s arms are big as hell, and hey, he actually has a fun little bit of chemistry with Laura Haddock.

And once you surrender, to be honest, there are a few genuine pleasures to be had. The dragon is cool. Little nuggets planted in the beginning pay off. There’s a funny joke about Cuba’s policy towards Transformers, and an even funnier one involving a swelling score during a major exposition scene that both reminds you Bay can be very entertainingly self-aware when he wants to, and mildly infuriates you that he never wants to often enough. Wahlberg commits to this stuff with a surprising amount of gusto, and Josh Duhamel is actually pretty good as a soldier from the original trilogy making his return to the narrative. And, of course, there’s this movie’s centerpiece: Anthony Hopkins as a doddering English lord with a maniacal robot butler named Cogman.

Sir Anthony has been cultivating paycheck roles like these over the last few years, but you seem to get the idea that he’s enjoying this one a lot more than, I don’t know, playing Odin in Thor. He’s long since tired of regality. He snits, he snorts, he curses out fussy British types and delivers this absurd exposition with a wink so profound the whole movie is elevated for a brief second wind once he appears. If anyone can steal his thunder it’s his French Lamborghini Transformer (Omar Sy, I shit you not) or the butler Cogman, but they know better than to try. The butler, however, does get the best lines after him, as well as one of the truest: (Spoilers incoming) After Sir Anthony meets his doom at the hand of the villainous Megatron, Cogman eulogizes him thusly: “Of all the Earls I have had the pleasure to serve, you were, by far, the coolest.” The lesson being, of course: Sir Anthony could have done something quote-unquote smarter with his time. He could have nitpicked the logic. He could have resisted the bullshit. But no. He surrendered to the world of Transformers, fired his weapon like a man, and became a damn hero as a result. We should all be so lucky.

#transformers #transformers: the last knight #transformers 5 #holy shit there are so many transformers movies #transformers 5 review #transformers: the last knight movie review #movies #movie review

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ricardosousalemos · 8 years ago

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Golden Pelicans: Disciples of Blood

Orlando’s Golden Pelicans have a fake origin story—one about working as the house band for a local, now-defunct gang of weed dealers—but that narrative isn’t required to understand their scummy universe. Their early singles and first two LPs on drummer Rich Evans’ unstoppable Total Punk imprint—2014’s Golden Pelicans and 2015’s Oldest Ride, Longest Line—are the works of a band who paired classic hard rock’s beefy earworms with hardcore’s abrasive screams. One of their signature songs is about pissin’ in a puddle of puke, and in another one, they’re chained to a dumpster.

Erik Grincewicz is their frontman—a bearded balding dude who doesn’t hesitate to soak a crowd in beer. He leads the charge with his abrasive, ultra-hoarse voice, which is both an unstable force and a riveting focal point. Guitarist Scott Barnes is the muscle, emboldening their overall attack with chugging heft and undeniable hooks. It’s Barnes’ sick guitar solos that push Golden Pelicans into that rare echelon of contemporary punk bands whose technical ability matches their guttural aggression.

Disciples of Blood is Golden Pelicans’ first long-player on a non-Total Punk label; this time they handed the reins to Goner Records. Once again, the balance between Grincewicz’s rough vocals and Barnes’ massive guitar sound is keyed in perfectly. “Smell the Lightning” is a prime example—the introductory guitar has this polished, seemingly expensive sound pulled from hard rock hits from the tail end of the ’70s. Then, Grincewicz’s near-gargled scream shoots through Barnes’ hook with a line about getting fried on his own supply. They balance precision and blunt force, and the results are extremely satisfying.

Narratively, it’s an album that oscillates between a violent present and a brutal mythological past. At one point, they’re frantically running from some compromising announcement by a Byzantine cleric, and Grincewicz sounds unhinged as he sings about “blood on the Bosphorus/Black sails on Aegean Sea.” When they’re not playing Russian roulette, they’re reflecting on what it’s like to get turned to stone by Medusa. Mythology in rock music is a tough needle to thread—most attempts come out bloated and corny. With a concise, heavy delivery, Golden Pelicans never run into that problem. Between the destruction-filled album covers Mac Blackout made for all three of their albums, Grincewicz’s unrivaled voice, and the guitar heroics, the band sells ancient war tactics as authoritatively as they sell contemporary vomit.

One of the defining statements of the album the black comedy of “It Ain’t Psychedelic (Till You Kill Someone).” After one of their most upbeat intros on record, Grincewicz enters as the devil on your shoulder, insisting that any floaty, pleasant psychedelic experience isn’t going to cut it. Then there’s the title track, and while “Disciples of Blood” sounds like another lofty mythological reference, it’s really a story about slobs sticking up for themselves. Of course, the disciples in question chug beers and are baptized in piss, because that’s Golden Pelicans’ aesthetic. It’s an endlessly replayable album at 22 minutes, and it’s one that demands to be heard loud. They’re rock songs that revel in scum and violence—catchy, heavy music that makes you want to shove your friends and scream along. Sometimes, evil can be fun.

#reviews-albums

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thebewisepodcast · 8 years ago

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FAKE NEWS- Unravelling the U.S. Empire From Within

Setting the Stage of the Press-President War US ruling ideology and Washington power have become unstuck as never before.

A war of opposing certitudes and denunciations is waged day to day between the long-ruling US corporate media and the White House. Both continuously proclaim ringing recriminations of the other's 'fake news'. Over months they both portray each other as malevolent liars. US bully pulpits are now beyond show disagreements and successful media inquisitions of the past. Slanderous accusations long confined to vilifying the designated Enemy have crept into accusations of the President himself.

'The Russians are coming' is returning as the final recourse of smear to stop deviations from the global program of hugely profitable enemy hate and perpetual preparations for foreign war. The ruling big lies of the US money party and corporate globalization have divided into opposing camps. The Press and the President denounce each other non-stop on the public stage, while US dark state agents take sides behind the scenes. Fake news is the medium of battle.

Tracking the Real Fake News Built into Corporate Globalization Beneath the civil war of official narratives, cognitive space opens for truth long suffocated by 'the Washington Consensus'.

Even the US-led G-20 has recently agreed not to automatically condemn 'protectionism' as an economic evil. The battle slogan of transnational corporate rule over 30 years has been quietly withdrawn on the global stage. Is the big lie of 'free trade' finally coming to ground? It has long led the hollowing out of societies and life support systems across the world in a false mass promotion as "freedom and prosperity for all".

In fact beneath the pervasive fake news, a closed-door transnational corporate command system forces all enterprises across borders into a carbon-multiplying trade regime with thousands of rules to protect the transnational corporate looting and ruin of home economies and environments as the only rights enforced. Propagandist names and fake freedoms are proclaimed everywhere to conceal the reality. The corporate-investor regime has stripped out almost all evolved protections of workers, ecologies and social infrastructures. Non-stop liquidations and roboticizations of local jobs and enterprises are reversed in meaning to 'jobs, jobs, jobs' and 'higher living standards', the very opposite of the facts. Destabilization and bombing wars attack resource-rich and air-defenceless societies outside the circle of treaty subjugation. False news allows every step. Even the happy-face Trudeau regime is taken aback by the tidal shift to national priorities. Its ministers scuttle around the US in near panic to find common cause for restoring the unaccountable regime.

Multiplying carbon, disemployment and ecological plunder are ignored throughout in the longest standing fake news of all - 'economic growth". In fact, there is no real economic growth in universal life necessities or reduction of waste. The only growth is of volumes and velocities of transnational money exchanges, foreign commodities, and private profits to the top. 'More prosperity for nations and the world' means, decoded, more transnational corporate-state treaties to deprive nations of their rights to organization and production for citizens' real needs as well as organically regulated protection of environments and ecosystems. The consequences covered over by pervasively false cover stories are speeded-up ecocidal extractions, permanent disemployments, and wastes hemorrhaging into cumulatively more polluted oceans, air, atmosphere and life habitats.

Corporate-state solutions of carbon markets for pollution rights have nowhere reduced any of these life-and-death crises, but only further and selectively enriched transnational corporations. As for the Obama solution, "we need more Canadas", fake news again conceals the reality.

Beneath the global celebrity hype covering empty and broken promises, Canada's Trudeau regime is essentially a brand change of PM rhetoric to advance transnational corporate dictates as 'free trade' and to ensure oil pipelines out of the most polluting oil basin in the world, Alberta's tar-sands, are built through water basins and indigenous lands across Canada and the US.

One cannot help but observe this is Trump's plan too, and overrides Trudeau's promises to protect Canada's first peoples. I recently sent a letter to my local MP requesting evidence for what PM Trudeau promises over months of repetition that "more free trade" means,

"a better life for those in the middle class and those wanting to join the middle class".

As always, there is no evidence to support the non-stop false news from the PMO. Revealingly, the "middle class" turns out to be people making $180,000 a year slated to get significant tax cuts. Trump's rogue elephant charge on Washington-led lies, war, and dispossession of the working class is no solution to life-blind corporate globalization. Trump in office is a US nationalist oligarch commanding policies even more blindly rapacious in despoliation of the environment and transferring far more public wealth to the rich. The common ground of all our lives, collective life capital, does not exist for any government in 'the free world' or any policy of 'globalization'.

The lies that must be promulgated to advance the private corporate agenda are built into its transnational command system from the beginning.

Out of the Ruling Memory Hole with the Internet Commons Joining the dots shows that every step of US money-party 'globalization' has, in fact, been driven by fake news. No corporate media tolerance has been given in a quarter of a century to any voice demanding accountability to the common life-ground of citizens. A new game of numbers has proceeded instead.

At most, a euphemistic 'climate change' has been endlessly debated while the totalizing destabilization of human and planetary life cycles remains without a name or collective response.

Only more profitable market panaceas which do not reduce any pollution continue to divert from the deepest degenerate trends destroying the planetary life host. On the upside, the big lies of 'free trade' and 'humanitarian wars' have been called into official question for the first time by the Trump presidential campaign, and he has been elected against the official line. Yet opposing camps are still at each other's throats. So the perpetual fallback on accusing the long-designated foreign enemy is triggered by the fallen establishment.

The fake news chorus of Russia's aggressions now includes collusion of the Trump administration with its officials to win the US election.

This mainspring diversion from reality is called back from the dead witch-hunts of the past. As then tool, facts do not count, only accusations do. The official media line is almost predictable: Russia is behind Trump's election victory.

As always, reverse projection is the mass-psyche operation to blame an official Enemy to divert attention from the life-and-death facts. The Enemy is once again accused of doing what the US has always done worse as the reason for attacking It. Russia is the usual placeholder in this reverse-blame operation.

The 2016 US election of Trump is the latest variation. Meanwhile throughout the election and its aftermath, the new transnational internet commons including Wiki-leaks over a decade has increasingly laid bare the greatest propaganda machine in history now in many-leveled crisis.

The long normalized half-truths, one-sided slanting of the facts, and non-stop fallacies of inference are coming out into the open as never before. The pretexts and lies for US imperial bullying and war are exposed beyond any corporate-media gate. This time the accusation is "interference and attack on the US presidential election" with no evidence of wrongdoing or vote manipulation whatsoever. Yet as in the long past, the method is smear with no evidence for the accusations.

Ever more media repetition and shadowy insinuation does the job. It has always worked before, why not again since all the other media buttons pushed on taking down the Trump peace initiatives with Russia and opposition to globalization of US jobs have failed. Having wondered during the election campaign whether we could be "friends with Russia" and promoted diplomatic relations into his administration, Trump can be named as the enemy in hiding to be rooted out.

The real problem the fake news never mentions is that he threatens the cornerstone of the US war state over 70 years. So when Trump won the election with his heresy still intact, the ever-ready accusation of evil-Russia connection moves into high gear although the target is the opposite of communist and an epitome of capitalist riches and connections. We see here the historical mind-lock compulsion to blame the Enemy Russia and smear whoever dissents from it, even if it is a bully-capitalist president.

There are very big stakes in keeping the game going. Yet the no-profit and unpaid analyses from the internet commons have no such ulterior motive and interest in false accusations. With more objectively informed analysts than the commercial press and unimpeachable facts like WikiLeaks going to tens of millions of readers across the world, the genie is out of the bottle.

The official grand narrative and its normalized big lies are coming apart at the seams. So blame as usual is diverted onto the accepted Enemy, now conniving with Trump to attack the 2016 US presidential election. Beneath the fake news, the fact is that positive diplomatic relations with Russia not only threaten to stop the highly profitable permanent war against it, but spike the longest pretext for US war and military domination now moving through Ukraine. The free internet commons cannot be gagged for telling the truth. Freedom of speech in the US cannot be openly stopped without fatal loss of legitimacy of rule. So the rest follows.

All the non-corporate and non-profit messages from the critical sites on the internet commons which are speaking against the US war state inside are now vilified as 'fake news'.

A third, unofficial protagonist has entered the battle with no private profit or career motive or corporate boss to serve and a wealth of proven professional knowledge and talent at work.

It has to be denounced to sustain the big lies of the ruling money-war game which is in deepening crises and conflicts all the way to the unprecedented US President-Press civil war.

The Harvard Proclamation of a New Memory Hole The innermost fount of US ideology and war, Harvard University, has now stepped in.

It is officially naming and denouncing US-critical internet sites for 'fake news'. Not even the medieval Church went so far in its Index Librorum Prohibitorum of prohibited writings. It was at least innocent of scientific method and openly declared its dogmas. Not Harvard. Underneath notice, all the sites it attacks are internet commons, and none are financed by private corporate donors and captive institutions while Harvard and the corporate media are. This is the real battle agenda underneath, the long war to privatize the news for profit as everything else with anti-establishment internet criticism now the target. In the background, Harvard University has long propagated an unexamined academic method.

It normally cuts off any faculty or learned source of opposition to the private corporate rule of America and the wars of aggression to impose it on the world. Accordingly, the underling grand narrative equations of the US is Good and the designated Enemy is Evil is not questioned.

It is presupposed. Malevolent motives are always assumed of the designated Enemy, down to Harvard-produced geostrategic economic and war models. So when a host of internet commons sites challenge the grand narrative framework, Harvard and satellites denounce them to stop people reading them.

A long list of critical sites is accused without criteria, proof or evidence as all spreaders of 'fake news'. What is not recognized here is that only on the internet commons can the process of truth be free from ruling pressures to control message for external sponsors. Here there is no commercial-profit condition to speak and write, and no livelihood dependence on private profit. There is no inducement to avoid life-and-death issues in academic obfuscation or ad-vehicle style. Internet authors not on the payroll can be free of the game of all games behind the scenes - enriching the rich further with no life-coherent criterion of truth. These underlying conditions of the internet commons and free speech itself cannot be recognized by the academy or the corporate press without undercutting their proclaimed status as the only legitimate founts of truth.

The internet commons is a new world of competitive capacities to research, understand and disseminate not bound by private money patronage (as over centuries in Harvard University). When challenged in this way, Harvard (and the official press) are set back on their heels.

They cannot think the facts through because their instituted presumptions have long been what they must presuppose and not question to acquire their credentials and pay for public speech. They must attack what calls all this into question if it effectively speaks truth to power to expose or de-legitimate the ruling system narrative as false.

Harvard and the US press thus follow the reigning method of reverse projection. They accuse the effective opposition of 'fake news'. The most revealing fact here is that Harvard authority as other academic administrations proceed in name-calling without any valid argument or demonstration - the very basis of reasonable conclusion.

Yet this is such a long tradition of presumptive accusation allowed against anyone designated as the Enemy, and anyone else exposing the falsehood of the ruling US story of moral superiority over all others and God's blessing to lead the world by force or money. This is why only dissenting sites from the official storyline of US freedom and rightness in all things are accused as 'fake news'. Accusation of opposing positions is so well-worn into conditioned brains that endless repetition locks it in as self-evident.

This is why attributions of vile motive are automatic from Harvard or the New York Times for any outside leader opposing US interference in their countries including elections. US hypocrisy here is staggering, but unreported.

In fact, Harvard's life-blind elite of war criminal geo-strategists, economic modelers and so on are fawned upon within the wider corporate rule they serve. None can engage critical facts and thought challenging the US moral superiority assumptions because they have never been required to consider them.

So they denounce them as once the Church denounced apostasy. In the end, US system worship is a war-state religion. It eliminates all enemies to its right to rule. Its globalizing system institutes the market laws of God.

War crimes are God-blessed justice.

Freedom of Speech, the Process of Truth, and the US Constitution Led by senior academics, journalists and technical expertise, the internet commons provide for the first time impartial witness and free speech open to public examination and circulation across borders.

They are free from corporate-rank dictate and private copy-right control. In consequence, the internet commons are liberated from private corporate profit as controlling goal. Those who know what they are talking about can speak truth to dogma and power without words to appease editors, business boards and ad revenues. Truth itself is not defined, but its principle of process is a more inclusively consistent taking into account towards life-coherent conclusion Despite Google black-holing of radical legal facts, CIA penetration of Wikipedia, and so on, the internet commons' freedom of speech is far beyond anything guaranteed in the US constitution.

In fact, the 'sacred US Constitution' that all presidents give oath to "preserve, protect and defend" guarantees in the end only freedom of public speech to private money demand. Long before the Supreme Court's 2010 decision reverse-titled as "Citizens United", the US constitution was structured to one overriding end - to remove prior limits to private-money right over all else, including to begin, the rule of British law and the lands of the first nations West of the Appalachians. This is why no common life interest exists in the US Constitution from the start.

People's universal human life necessities of water, food, protection and liveable environment are ruled out a-priori. This is why civil rights themselves were first federally enforced by the 'commerce clause' protecting freedom of commercial bus passengers including blacks to cross borders. It is also why the Fourteenth Amendment to protect the equal rights of freed slaves ended up being the legal basis for private-profit corporations and wealthy funds to acquire the constitutional rights of living persons (e.g., to freedom of speech for big money to buy elections and to avoid government access to financial records). Even the iconic rights of "life, liberty and happiness" turn out to be in fact only private market rights which allow corporate 'fictive persons' to unlimited money wealth, protection against public redistribution, and the freedom of private wealth alone to speak to America by buying corporate self promotions and election attack ads. The US Constitution fix goes all the way back to 1787.

As professor of constitutional law at Chicago's iconic Kent College of Law, Matthew Stanton, explains in personal correspondence:

"[The fix] goes all the way back to the 1787 coup where the 39 signatories to the Constitution sequestered themselves in a Philadelphia meeting house, with locked doors and shuttered windows, to ostensibly make adjustments to the Articles of Confederation, but instead delivered an entirely new document that enabled creating a federal system centralizing control of the economy by propertied wealth".

Russia the Enemy: the Deus ex-Machina of Fake News We may recall that the corporate-press and Wall-Street-enriched candidate for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, started the accusation of 'fake news' to explain her defeat.

As establishment mask of the politically correct masses with the money-war party as her paymaster, Clinton blamed her fall in the 2016 US election on the new enemy she saw arising against the official story and herself.

When the 'glass mirror' story line did not take, she joined forces with the corporate media on another plane. 'Fake news' misled Americans.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, the TV Networks, and other establishment tale tellers saw pay-dirt far beyond Clinton's failed bid for president. In fact, the corporate mass media were losing marketability by the escalating appeal of free social media. The once all-powerful press propaganda system has been increasingly deserted. The 'fake news' story provided a media base to condemn free internet news and commentary as immoral.

The 2016 election became the leverage for a big market grab back. Very soon it was not just 'fake news' to spike news cycles and subscriptions. War as peace and corporate globalization as freedom found its long place of rule - the enemy of Russia to blame. Now the news can be that Russia hacked and attacked the lost 2016 election. Russia may be a hollowed-out shell by global corporate and oligarch dispossession.

But it can still continue as pretext for US-NATO war crimes and aggression reverse-blamed on it. As the European breadbasket and newly discovered fossil-fuel rich nation, Ukraine is a very big prize.

Now in Ukraine's US-led coup aftermath and ethnic civil war, evil Russia can be an ace card again to accuse for attacking the US election. Since Russia led by Putin is drawing the line as in Crimea to support the Russia-speaking region against US-led war crimes under international law (documented in previous articles), all roads connect. "Russia's uncontrolled aggression" is reverse-projected onto the victim again in a glorious new use.

Reverse blame it for interference in the US election of Trump and kill Russia-US peace initiatives at the same time.

No fact is required to verify the accusation, and no law broken is needed to insinuate treason of whoever relates with Russia's officials in peace initiative. It can work even against an elected US president. At the same time, the US's own record attacking other nations' elections and societies is thereby erased as well - continually orchestrating mass-murder and dictatorship to sabotage the electoral process from Vietnam and Chile to Ukraine in 2010 and Latin America social democracies since. If it were a story of reverse projection by a mass-murderous psychopath, it would be too much to believe. Yet it now runs the US news cycle as the big story unfolding with no evidence of US illegality, force, or non-compliance with international law.

The accusations run by themselves in US media culture and across the empire.

So as 2017 Spring breaks, endless media insinuations of treason seep into the populace from corporate media sites across borders with backrooms and Congress setting up for another presidential inquisition. It is interesting to observe two precedents. Past inquisitions were unfolded soon after Bill Clinton said in India, "it's time to level up rather than down in global trade" and Richard Nixon founded the Environmental Protections Agency, stopped corporations from outsourcing US jobs, and made peace with China as Trump sought with Russia. The ludicrous hypocrisy, factual vacuum, and war-drums of blame-the-enemy go into high-volume operation again, led by an attack-dog media against the elected US president whose only action has been to have business-like relations with Russia. Few observe the immense stakes of the US media and war establishments in this process.

Cui bono? - who benefits? - is the question never asked. What's new? The perpetual red herring of 'Russia aggression' takes everyone's eyes off the ball - including the continuing US-drone mass murder and ecological wars built into the Trump agenda.

Canada's oil and mining corps and big banks sneak behind the pervasive fake news with a smiling Trudeau front. NATO demands more money behind Trump now fulsomely praising what he earlier campaigned on as "obsolete", as he has done with the CIA he also condemned.

Those hoping for a new departure under Trump from the big lies and war crimes as normalized operations watch in a combination of horror and hilarity. Who connects the dots? Beneath official notice, the ruling goal of US empire is blind to its consequences of human and planetary life ruin. It has to cover itself in false news to carry on. This is why fake news is not a temporary phenomenon of the Trump era.

It is the necessary veil of illusion of an eco-genocidal system.

The symptoms and trends are everywhere. But a US-led prism of false inversions of reality regulates consciousness, perception and reaction to 'steer the course'. This is true of both sides of the Trump divide, and also in corporate Canada as the US's largest trading partner, branch-plant and resource cornucopia. What is new is that the ruling illusions are divided against themselves at the top of the US political and ideological system.

The Trump phenomenon reflects the rupture. The US empire is in deep crisis from its cumulative destruction of social and natural life support systems.

Its carcinomic multiplication of private money demand with no tie to the production of means of life is the reality beneath all the false news. Nothing is life secure. The 'global security system' protects only money values and sequences through life hosts. Peoples everywhere compete to make it go faster to survive. The ruling concept of 'economy 'inverts the systematic depletion, degradation and despoliation of the life capital of organic, social and ecological life.

Universal necessities of human and fellow life are stripped, polluted and wasted as 'efficiencies'. President Trump has gone into the political ring to fight it out with the political establishment on a nationalist capitalist level. He is losing money in the short term. But his program in office is completely eco-blind, and the opposing mass media follow suit.

All they can focus on is demonizing normal relations with the official Enemy Russia.

Meanwhile Trump has all but abolished the EPA and cut off all federal funding for restoration of the Great Lakes, the most important source of fresh water heritage on the planet. These supreme crimes under international law are recognized by none on stage. In Canada, a Nazi progeny and neo-Nazi supporter of the violent coup and civil war in Ukraine is made Foreign Affairs Minister and hustles her connections throughout the US to keep the attack-Russia juggernaut going as in the past under a continuous barrage of ethnic prejudices and fake news. The pattern is clear but unspoken.

The Enemy Russia is the auto-pilot of fake news to divert from US and client leadership failure on almost every level. Relations of mutual respect with Russia's ambassador are 'collusion' and taboo.

The Reality Beneath the Questions not Asked How does disclosure of Hillary's Clinton's apparatus theft of the Democratic nomination from Bernie Sanders get blamed on Russia?

The question is not asked. The Washington mass media and visible Congress focus instead on accused "collusion with Russia" with very big stakes in the new inquisition show.

Suspicions without substance run free in the mass media once the designated Enemy is smeared onto the target, even if elected president.

Who knows that the US joined the armed forces of Britain, colonial Canada and Japan to crush the 1917 Russian Revolution on behalf of the Czarist autocracy and Western capitalism?

More deeply, who names the governing objective behind all the shows of force and accusation over a century since?

To be managed successfully, attention must be diverted from the facts of US-led war crimes and public looting within and without US empire proclaimed as 'world freedom'. The new President and his Exxon Secretary of State seek business-like relations with Russia.

Very big powers are coming into conflict over business and war within the US empire. Big oil in both leviathan countries are pitted against the US Enemy-and-smear establishment which has long run the show with big oil formerly leading it.

Now transnational big oil in the US and Russia are leading out of the blind alley of war against each other which has so totally failed to bring benefits to either side in the long term, and has almost reversed civilization. The dots again are not joined. The completely counter-productive war against Russia to keep the US money-war state going is deepened by Wall Street.

The falling price of oil is driven beneath notice by Wall Street which has successfully short-future-traded oil down to establish its money-printing powers by debt as supreme over its rival substitute, while diverting everybody's attention from the greatest fraud in history still going.

Observe that Wall Street remains untouched even from its multi-trillion dollar heist from public and pension coffers from 2007 on. Blame Russia is the normal chorus which Wall Street benefits from as the ultimate leader of the ruinously anti-productive money-war system.

It pays off so well to,

the money party in more public dollars appropriated by its control and issue of money debt for everything that exists

the pervasive military-industrial complex which never gets reversed even in the peace after the planned destruction of the 'Evil Empire'

the corporate mass media in front turning the fake news system over continuously to promote, idealize and divert from the global empire's war and occupation powers

The neo-con and neo-liberal war strategists alike are built into the dark state as managers uniquely dependent on Russia as the Enemy. So it is in all their self-maximizing interests to sustain perpetual accusations of some enemy's evil as the great cover-up story of US empire and it inherited war-crime system. Joined to despotic local oligarchies, this axis dismantles ever more societies for corporate, bank and military plunder and jackal payoffs everywhere (including the academy).

There is no limit or borders to the established system invasion, and all is at the expense of public treasuries and of life support systems across domains. President Trump does not break the fatal ruling cycle. He demands that vassal states should pay for their US military protection, a new global extortion supporting new NATO oligarchies against change which accompanies his stripping of environmental protections to pay for more war powers.

Trump behind his populist bluster is a paradigm example of instituted US capitalist greed and aggression.

Yet the fact that hate of the Enemy is smeared even onto him for not hating Russia too reveals the ultimate pretext of the US-NATO war machine.

Behind the US-led perpetual arms build-up, border threats and bombings of mostly innocents across the globe while blaming the terrorists for the horrors now built into the global 'growth' system is fake news as continuous cover story. The war-criminal drone mass murders continue on unnoticed.

The bank looting of public wealth is instituted more broadly. The universities, health systems and public infrastructures are privatized for profit with no life criteria of outcomes. Trump is dispossessing the American common wealth for big US money in line with the Reagan public-looting machine before him. It drained public revenues into a black hole of US debt, blamed acid rain on trees, and portrayed orchestrated mass murderers of socialists in Afghanistan and Nicaragua as 'freedom fighters'.

What has changed in the corporate media's fake-news today? Trump in office is the opposite of the anti-establishment candidate he promised to be. He wars on the US Environmental Protection Agency (its only collective life protective organization). He fractions corporate taxes in a giveway to the rich beyond Reagan's $500-billion tax cut.

He privatizes the public's falling infrastructure for speculators and developers' long-term private tolls, profits and control for private profit at taxpayers' expense. Who in the corporate media or Congress questions any of it? The Trudeau regime to the north imitates the new massive scheme of privatizing public infrastructure. But it disguises it in terms of public investment in public goods.

The big banks and speculators on both sides of the border are the winners whatever the corporate media and state cover story. The common wealth is sold off under pervasive fake news masquerading as responsible and for the public good.

But the drive-wheel policy mechanisms for ever more dismantling of the living earth and redistribution of more public wealth upwards to the rich march on beneath conscious comprehension. Trump does not hide the privatization for profit of America's public infrastructure and stripping of public health and environmental protection policies once he has rising stockholder support in office.

The Trudeau Liberal party masqueraded as the social democrat NDP in promising whopping public investment to win the election, but when in office lets the giant privatization boondoggle trickle out in sunny avoidance of the facts. The monumental schemes of robbing the commonwealth at every level are led by slanted and selective reports through every step across ever more domains. But a constant across US empire is Russia the Enemy to justify it all.

In the deepening life support crises of this ruling axis, Russia's projected 'attacks' still lead the show.

The Life-Blind Moral DNA of US Rule With no common ground but belief in God's blessing over all nations and the greatest killing machine in history to enforce it, US ideology may seem to be a psychopathic rationalization writ large. Yet the US national morality tale governs perception so that the a-priori life-blindness is not recognized even by philosophers.

The US continues to be ruled at home and abroad without life-value ground or compass. So as the US-led global market system multiplies its demands on organic, social and ecological life systems, it moves inexorably towards a few multibillionaires with more wealth than 99% of the population, steering planetary depredation to ruin as freedom and growth. How else would a global cancer system behave?

Yet almost none recognize that this system overrides life requirements at every level. The reformer Trump selects for even more wealth and power to the home rich. He attacks evolved environmental research and regulations with no better alternative.

He seeks to repeal Obamacare with no public option considered. His nationalist and cost-cutting program is essentially life-blind. The baseline of crisis goes all down to the moral DNA of the US project and its evolved economic, political and ideological system. The innermost value driver is long presupposed without question by even US moral philosophers and social scientists as the first principle of their models.

Atomic self-maximization towards more private money-value without limit is the meta-program. In consequence, the 'global free market' the US leads and imposes has no feedback loops to protect human or planetary life against hollowing them out for transient commodities, private profit and wastes on every level.

The ruling system is structured only to ensure more money demand and commodities to those who have money to pay. Any accountability to universal life necessities is ruled out a-priori from the US Constitution, ruling market doctrine, and received theories. As I have commented in articles prior to his presidency, "Trump is America come to meet itself".

But the US cover story has not yet been decoded in its master functions of legitimation and idealization. What makes the eco-genocidal system acceptable to human consciousness is an ultimate story line and moral syntax that transforms it into heroic liberty, individualism and moral supremacy. This moral syntax has been imprinted into US empire since its original revolution against Britain to invade the America West to the Pacific Ocean to appropriate and destroy all the life and life support systems of the developed first peoples there as 'freedom', 'development' and 'self-defense'.

What is required for the grand narrative's success is to hide the reality of continuous eco-genocide by continuous false representations as the virtue and truth others fail to understand. This first principle the justifying morality tale entails the second - that an alien Enemy must always be blamed for the system's destructive attacks on barriers and resistance to it.

Conversion of all life and life support systems to limitless self-maximization of the US system and its richest citizens then proceeds under cover of fake news with wars of acquisition and control represented as courageous and beneficent for all. For-profit private corporations are the ever more empowered legal vehicles of this transnational system which is set to select for systematic self-maximization of the rich by all market, state and war means that can be constructed to enable it, starting with the US Constitution (as explained above).

This set-point is built into the legislative, judicial and executive branches so that today the system outcome is a constitutionally ordered money-party control of all three branches of government as well as the funding systems of social sciences and philosophy. Fake news in the widest sense provides a continuous cover story to mask and justify the underlying program which is not seen - the money-war party's limitless take from life within and without the US that depends on a designated Enemy as perennial pretext to strip the US and global commonwealth against effective opposition or change.

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nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: She Makes the Dirty Work Look Like a Degas

Sharon Mesmer is a poet, prose writer, essayist and professor of creative writing living in Brooklyn. She was born and grew up in Back of the Yards, a Chicago neighborhood named for its proximity to the Union Stockyards. After moving to New York she received her MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from Brooklyn College, where she studied with Allen Ginsberg.

From 2003 to 2010 she was a member of the Flarf poetry collective, whose practitioners used Google to mine the internet for content, collaborating daily via an email listserv. Mesmer co-edited the anthology, Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf, forthcoming this Spring from Edge Books.

Mesmer’s poetry collections include Greetings From My Girlie Leisure Place (Bloof, 2015), Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo, 2008), and The Virgin Formica (Hanging Loose, 2008). Four of her poems appear in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (second edition, 2013).

Sharon Mesmer (photo by Esther Levine)

Fiction collections are Ma Vie à Yonago (Hachette Littératures, Paris, in French translation, 2005), In Ordinary Time (Hanging Loose Press, 2005) and The Empty Quarter (Hanging Loose Press, 2000). Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Purple, and The Brooklyn Rail. She teaches at NYU and the New School.

This interview was conducted in person and by email.

* * *

Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle: You’re a witch.

Sharon Mesmer: Thank you. Yes, I was in a coven for two years in the ‘90s. Well, everybody was in a coven in the ‘90s. We never hexed, but we divined. The meat locker doors to our hearts were open, and the chains of the law were broken. I believe that all that witchy work was the main practice that opened my nadis [network of yogic energy channels] to Flarf. That, and the czarnina [duck blood soup] my Polish grandmother used to ladle out when I was a kid.

For me, Flarf was a daily practice like any other. Constantly responding to the constant inflow of the political/cultural/social absurd. A filtering and a distilling. Of course, nothing is as absurd as what we’re seeing now, but we rose to the challenge as we saw it then.

That kind of work was also a way into personalities not my own: I was able to compose in other modes, speak with other mouths, often mouths attached to personalities I didn’t like or agree with.

There was, too, the collaborative aspect: filtering and distilling the words of the other poets (at one point there were 30 + on the flarflist) into my own poems, and then seeing my words in their poems. We were a meta-mind. I miss that intensity, especially these days when there’s so much more to conjure with. But I’m a deep believer in the via negativa:

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

T.S. Eliot nicked that from St. John of the Cross. But good modernist poets steal from transcendent medieval saint-poets. (SJC sounds like self-help from the past, especially as Rough Orange Beast, his hour come at last, slouches toward daughter-wife to be born.)

In our end is our beginning? Hopefully. Eliot stole that line from Mary Queen of Scots, you know. She had it embroidered on the inside of the dress she wore to her execution. That’s being optimistic: she was in prison for 19 years. He’s more pessimistic: “In my beginning is my end.” I’m trying to find the middle way.

G C-H: Your blood relations include Franz Friedrich Anton Mesmer, magus of animal magnetism, and Otto Messmer, the creator of Felix the Cat. Mesmerism later became known as hypnotism. Felix was the first image ever broadcast on TV! Do you bend spoons? Cozy up with these cuckoo birds in your family tree?

SM: Felix on TV / cats on youtube is a trajectory to conjure with. Do what thou wilt, kitten, is the extent of the law. The chains of the canine have been broken.

In a great review of Lisa Randall’s Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe that appeared in the New York Review of Books in 2016, Lawrence Krauss noted that every cubic centimeter of space teems with photons left over from the Big Bang, particles that last interacted with matter when the universe was 300,000 years old. And every second, 600 billion neutrinos — which emanate from explosions inside the sun — penetrate our bodies and Earth’s. He says, “Without this invisible background of cosmic material we would not exist.” So, how old are we, really? How permeable? How can we possibly speak with only one voice?

Great-Great-Great-Great Uncle Franz’s “magnetic fluid” was, I believe, something akin to chi/qi or kundalini — as mentioned above. He knew that nadis make a universe of us and vice-versa. How did this 18th -century Swabian know that? He probably stole the idea from some traveling mystic/guru/swami/qi gong master that he ran into in Vienna in 1768, possibly inviting him (or her) to the performance he’d arranged in his garden of Mozart’s one-act singspiel about a duped shepherdess. Like Eliot he pilfered, though not from Mary Stuart’s dress.

By the way, the kundalini serpent is female. So we all have a girl snake coiled up somewhere in our coccyxes.

G C-H: You complect a contemporary lyric with magic, rigor, and grace that snaps my head around. (Caught kissing on top of a grave, 16th-century Spain’s Luis de Gongora compelled the fourteen-line severity of the baroque sonnet to encompass both diamonds and doom.)

We all know Russia’s Futurist Zaum, that trans-rational language, Khlebnikov’s nonsense called “Beyondsense.” But beyond good and evil, where good enough just ain’t good enough, Sharon, you push on to Beyoncésense…

SM: Beyoncésense informs us that Gongora’s culteranismo (culto, cultivated + luteranismo, Lutheranism) was a word created by haters to ridicule it for not being “real” poetry. Plus ça change. And thank you for using “lyric” in describing my work. It’s been suggested that there is no poetry — and no mind, either — at work in my work. There are a few minds, actually.

The closer Orange Beast slouches, the more I turn to VelKhleb, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Danlil Kharms. Especially Kharms. Northwestern University just published, last month, Alexander Cigale’s wonderful Russian Absurd (a translation of Kharms’s selected poems). The title itself describes the situation at hand.

G C-H: The untamable painter Walter Robinson gave me your book, Greetings from My Girlie Leisure Place last Christmas Eve. Since then, I’ve read nothing else! Potty mouth. Shit chat. I caught your act at Le Poisson Rouge. You delivered like a bacchante, bare-back on a beer truck, with the devil of love at its wheel. Would it stun you next to learn that my companion, the photographer Seton Smith, finds your oeuvre “intimate”?

SM: Not at all. I expose myself for love of the people.

As for Le Poisson Rouge, it really was a hell of an evening. My gynecologist was there.

And for GFMGLP, thank you. Take another look at the cover image and you’ll see that, thanks to my editor Shanna Compton’s genius for design, one of its rosy polka dots falls squarely upon a kitten’s mouth.

The I Ching says, “Everything serves to further”; I say everything serves to further the desire of a rosy polka dot to fall squarely upon a kitten’s mouth, creating the look of a party girl with lipstick smeared after her long night of raving/snogging.

The kitten is confident, and stares at the skittish puppy (who cannot meet her gaze), much like Kristen Visbal’s newly situated “Fearless Girl” sculpture stares down Di Modica’s Wall Street bull, but way more successfully. I totally agree with what Jillian Steinhauer wrote about fake corporate feminism facing off against entrenched corporate aggression, and everyone going gooey for it.

I swear to god, if I were Jesus, I would have killed that unicorn every time he directed An episode of the A-Team.

(Greetings from My Girlie Leisure Place)

G C-H: Uh-huh. GFMGLP’s a relentlessly demented plaster bath laid on with a trowel. Word choice like “moiety” and “propinquity.” Your Annoying Diabetic Bitch sells for $1,872.21 on Amazon. Plus shipping. You pound reality into submission…

SM: I swear to god, if I were Jesus, I would kill Amazon every time it tries to sell a copy of ADB for that price. I may just write to the seller and say that, while I’m flattered, I would like to know WTF. On the other hand, maybe it’s better not to know. Via negativa and all.

I love it that you see my meek efforts to poem as beating reality into submission, which is indeed my goal — a personal revenge on reality for robbing me of a golden childhood which could’ve continued indefinitely had it not been for my anterior pituitary gland secreting somatotropin and lutropin, then releasing them into my bloodstream. But I heard that happens to everybody.

To go back to something I said earlier, when I joined the Flarf collective, just after the commencement of Gulf War 2.0 in ‘03, I had no idea that the absurdity of Flarf — a fitting reaction to the relentless dementedness we were witnessing — would be divested of prescience by the total fucking dementedness that we’re witnessing now. It’s tough to try to go back to Flarf to respond, because our current condition has rendered Flarf quaint, though some may say it was quaint before. My hope is that, with the forthcoming release of the long-awaited Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf (Edge Books), readers will at least laugh and feel reprieved.

G C-H: Social Realism, conscience and content, the literal not the literary, seem to be “in” with a vengeance. I once dated a transexual so lovely she was undetectable. Together we met Peter Tork. A consummate shoplifter, she painted her apartment black by splashing paint out of open gallon cans. Carried a sword cane, never went out before midnight. Drew painfully accurate renderings of hand guns in mechanical pencil, decorating her lair with snapshots of executed female anarchists and horror movie posters to which she had added her own name.

I met her in the graveyard at St. Marks Church during one of her stints outside psychiatric institutions. I later asked if surgery had helped. Insouciant, she replied, “Well, if I only have $5.00, I can buy a book or a sandwich. Either way, I lose.”

SM: Most loveliness is undetectable. Maureen Thorson wrote a detectably lovely chapbook called the Woman, the Mirror, the Eye (2015), after she was diagnosed with AZOOR, acute zonal occult outer retinopathy. AZOOR’s most salient characteristic is that it can’t be seen/detected; the sufferer’s retina appears normal. The condition can only be inferred. Her chapbook is a beautiful mediation on seeing:

The blind poet is a romantic notion — we ascribe a clairvoyance, literally a kind of ‘clear seeing’ — to Homer and Milton. But the only insight I’ve received from my eye problems is into how unclearly we see everything, even ourselves, and how fitful are our illusions of control […] All hail the vanishing point.

Things are always disappearing — objects, but also ideas and ways of being. Remember when a phone stayed in one place? Unless you were breaking up with someone, or waiting for news of a birth or death, your connection (pun intended) was tenuous. That changed after June 29, 2007 — the rollout of the first iPhone. Everyone’s attention span, which was pretty attenuated to begin with, disappeared. Or became fragmented.

I noticed this with my own work: I used to collect ideas for two or three months, and then write. Now, I wonder what happened to the things I was thinking about two weeks ago. There are small stacks of books next to my bed and my reading chair, and when I look at the books on the bottoms of those piles, it’s like a trip down memory lane: Oh, that’s what I was thinking about. So, nostalgia is different, too.

Social realism: I grew up in a neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago called Back of the Yards, named for its proximity to the Union Stockyards. Our house was four blocks away from the stockyards’ 47th Street entrance. Yes, the same stockyards of The Jungle. The hideousness that Upton Sinclair described in that book prompted food inspection reforms. For instance, did you know that our FDA of today allows “only” 136 insect fragments and 4 rodent hairs in a jar of peanut butter? Ever wonder what those dark specks in your cornmeal are? That’s not rat hair. Worried there’s not enough protein in beer? No worries. Imagine what people were eating before.

Anyone for cold cuts? Hopefully your friend’s $5 went toward a book.

Kate Beckinsale has her fat ass days, and thatʼs why I called my compassionate conservative girlfriend a lard ass and tied her to the treadmill. Sheʼs still there. Go ahead – bang her.

(Annoying Diabetic Bitch)

G C-H: Wherever do you get your inspiration? PTSD? Accelerants? Goat’s meat chili with peyote buttons? You say you can’t sleep because your thinking cap’s always on. Anagrams = Ars Magna. Does this guck gush straight from your Orphic maw? Do you edit? Sample? Steal? The poet Brandon Brown maintains he only truly enters the Rapture when revising.

SM: I sample, steal and edit A LOT. Allen Ginsberg was my teacher and friend, but we always mock-fought over “First thought, best thought.” I disagreed. He was a deft present-moment Buddhist improviser and I’m an afflicted backward-looking Catholic (despite having taken refuge vows in 2010). So, yes, there is a rapture to enter via revising. But Brandon, whose work I really like, will no doubt agree with me when I say that remaining at ease with one’s preoccupations requires a constant friendship with the Odradek-of-one’s-own-being. Revising is good, but I like being permeable at the beginning. Inspiration is everywhere. Admittedly, it’s a gamble with sanity, especially if you ride the subway every day. The negotiation requires discernment. I’m still learning that.

G C-H: C’mon, shoot the geek. Paintball gun a picture of the ob-literate poetry scene.

SM: Pretty much my entire focus right now, at least with regard to poetry — specifically reading it — is work from outside the US, particularly in translation. I’ve reviewed books in translation for The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail. The work I’ve found is spectacular: epiphanic, revelatory. Eunice Odio, Mircea Eliade, Phillip Meersman, Anise Koltz. (Meersman writes in four languages, including Morse Code.)

My current project, a collection of poems called Even Living Makes Me Die, responds to these works that I’ve been reading. The idea came about when I discovered the work of the late Costa Rican-born poet Eunice Odio. I wrote an article on Odio and her book, The Fire’s Journey, for American Poetry Review.

As I did research for that piece, I became frustrated by the dearth of available information. I emailed one of her translators, Keith Ekiss, and asked: “These little bits of her life create a very ‘glamorous and doomed’ image of her — the woman visionary, dying alone — but is that true?”

I was hoping not, because that myth of the doomed woman poet is just so absolutely played out. He replied that not a lot is known about Odio’s life. Despite an exhaustive search, I came up with only two anthologies containing a few poems, and a bio-bibliographical source book on Spanish-American women. Those three publications introduced me to a group of 19th- and early 20th-century women writers, from throughout the Americas, whose work I’d never read before. They were modern, visionary, sexually frank. As I read their work I began to write “to” them. I researched each as fully as possible. The more I wrote, and read, the more I began to wonder about other “under-known” female poets of the Americas, and this became my goal for Even Living … to learn about their lives and write “to” them.

The title of the collection itself comes from a line by the fabulous 19th-century poet Delmira Agustini: “Already living and dreaming makes me die.” Sometimes their life information was easy to attain, as in the case of the Canadian poet Elizabeth Smart, who died in 1986. Smart published only one book, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, in 1945. It went out of print soon after it was first published, was then brought back into publication in 1966 and 1992. The book, which she called a “prose poem novel” (and which is quite ahead of its time as a hybrid text), chronicles her affair with a British poet named George Barker.

Almost nothing was known of Smart in this country until her son, Christopher, published a biography, The Arms of the Infinite: Elizabeth Smart and George Barker, released in the US in 2010 (I reviewed it for Rain Taxi). I need to do more research on, for example, Martha Wadsworth Brewster (1710 – c. 1757, the first US-born woman to publish under her own name); Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812 –1848, American Transcendentalist published in The Dial ); Sarah Helen Power Whitman (1803 –1878, Transcendentalist and, very briefly, Edgar Allen Poe’s fiancée); and Jessie Redmon Fauset, Angelina Weld Grimké and Georgia Douglas Johnson, associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

G C-H: In the wins, I “heart” this Godot by Sophia le Fraga.

SM: I <3 it 2! Srsly. Not being sarcastic.

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