#mark wolfe platoon

[senka-mesecine]

I really love the idea you had mentioned of Wolfe having a praise kink, could you expand upon that? ;)

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I don't know, it just makes perfect sense to me, you know?

Someone who frequently flops, is often overlooked, made fun of, in way over his head, yelled at (with good reason at times because he's very much responsible for people's lives), is stepped over due to more competent individuals taking charge even though he's the one with the higher rank? Someone like that being looked down on actually receiving words of affirmation? Praise? Complements? Why, it would be like watering a dry plant. I imagine Wolfe not only wouldn't know what to momentarily do, but his first impulse is to think you're being sarcastic (and maybe even respond back with a small joke at his own expense as he chuckles) right before he turns into a smiling, stuttering, at-a-loss-for-words mess once the fact settles in you're actually serious and you're not in fact taking the piss out of him. After that? He deliberately starts seeking out said praise like a dog chasing his own tail and does things purely so you would say something nice to him. Doesn't matter what it is. Doesn't matter what he does, but he wants and needs that reassurance like air to breathe and so, he latches unto you. He'll invent things to do, even if he fails, in fact, he might fail solely so you'd say it's fine and he's tried his best regardless, the rare mercy and tolerance also being oddly alluring for someone straight out of a military structure where kindness isn't and cannot be afforded on a casual basis. You're nice to him, and for the lack of a better word, that's hot. He'll literally just approach you, say what he did, usually for you as an act of service and it's genuinely a ploy so you'd utter the famous job well done line. Man will just sit with and smile and wait like someone expecting a treat or a pat. It isn't even necessarily in a fetishistic sense, although it could very well turn into that, but on a day to day basis Wolfe reaches out commendations just for its own sake. Might just start getting cockier over time too. Now he's a bit mean with everyone else. After all, you venerate and exalt him constantly so he can allow himself a bit of an ego.

As for kinks?

He's shockingly easy to please because I can vividly envision all you'd have to do is place the palm of your hand on his cheek and sing him continuous praises. How good he's doing. How excellent that feels. How perfect he is at taking charge even if he's, you know, not exactly and maybe you're technically more in control than he is right about now and guiding him through the whole thing, telling him what to do and how perfect this or that is. Man could very well verge on being occasionally submissive, but that doesn't matter because if you tell him he's in charge, he'll feel he's in charge. Internally. He believes it. He's boosted by that. It's not a case of lying to him. It's just such that it feels so good to be fed and catered to emotionally like this that he's on cloud nine and couldn't care either ways.

[southernbellewrites]

A New Way to Cope

Mark Wolfe x Reader

You give Wolfe a lil' exam ;3

A/N: Sometimes I just feel the need to write complete nonsense about Wolfe simply because I am obsessed with him. Barely proofread (oops.)

You didn’t smoke until you got here. You didn’t crave the burning in your lungs until you got here. You didn’t want to feel the grey smoke pollute your lungs only to come back up as a throaty cough until you got here.

You constantly doubted yourself and the choices you had made in the time you had been here. “It was one big mistake,” you thought. “Coming here was the biggest mistake I could have made.” Your head felt like one big void of negative thoughts that would circle and bounce upon its walls constantly at the forefront.

You had thought that being a part of the American effort would be gratifying, that becoming a doctor would be fulfilling, but oh the disappointment stung. Constant turmoil, you had never seen horrors that quite amounted to this. Missing limbs, torn-up faces, stab wounds, stitches, surgeries, it all just never seemed to stop.

You would look outside of the medical tent in your free time and watch as the animals would roam. No understanding of the fighting that was going on in the very same habitat. In a way, you had felt a connection to the deer. “A deer in the jungle,” You thought. “How curious.” You saw deer in the fields back home but never thought you’d see one in the jungle. “I guess stranger things have happened than seeing a deer here,” you said to no one in particular. You began to close the tent for the night, only to set it all back up in the morning. It was a rainy night, which meant there was no point in hurrying.

Just as you were beginning to sterilize the last of your tools, you heard crunchy footsteps against the wet leaves march up behind you. Surprised at the sudden visitor, you spun around to see who could be approaching at the hour.

“Excuse me,” The masculine voice rang. “Is it too late for me to get a little check-up?”

In front of you stood Lieutenant Mark Wolfe still clad in his army green attire, wet from the rain. You got up from the stool you had sat on and fixed your posture to stand fully straight. “Oh no sir,” you scrambled to reset your tools on the table. You pulled out your otoscope and quickly prepped it with an alcohol pad. You were eager to please the Lieutenant.

Truth be told, you had always found the Lieutenant to be very cute. The way he fought to be taken seriously, how he handled the conflict between soldiers. He was like a fish out of water there in the jungle, but you felt lucky to get to look at eye candy like him all day. He was lean, broad shoulders that filed out his uniform nicely. His face was strong too, a chiseled nose and masculine eyes, he looked like the soldier portrayed in all of the propaganda posters. He was strong, handsome, and for some rare reason, educated. It would be a lie to say that you weren’t infatuated with him.

“Easy,” he put his hands out to comfort your shoulder. “I only need a small check-up on the old ticker,” He patted his free hand on his heart. You put the otoscope down and got up to fetch and sterilize your stethoscope. “Of course,” You gave him a warm (relieved) smile.

“I’ll just ask you to have a seat on the bench here,” You pointed to the makeshift bed you had set up in the tent. Truthfully, you were glad to tend to what could be such a minor ailment. There are only so many detached arms a person can stomach in one day. However, you were nervous to get to be so close to the Lieutenant after admiring him from afar for so long.

Wolfe sat down on the table and watched silently as you prepared your tools for examination. He watched the way your hips moved in the white uniform, how it hugged your curves and carved you out. He looked into your eyes as you sat back down on your stool in front of him.

“Alright,” you made yourself comfortable on the stool, grabbing your clipboard to document Wolfe’s complaints. “I know you said you were having some trouble with your chest, is there anything else in particular that may be bothering you?” You had asked with a nervous flitter in your voice. He was looking completely into your eyes, “No, just my heart.” He smiled a movie star’s smile. You blushed.

With a bit of a schoolgirl’s giggle, you averted your eyes from his glare. You cleared your throat, “So, um, for me to properly examine your heart's rhythm,” you gazed at his chest through his uniform, “I’m going to need you to um…” you trailed off. “Take my shirt off?” Wolfe spoke up with his index finger hooked through his collar. “Yes!” The words seemed to jump out of your mouth. He laughed again and began to take off his shirt.

You brought your stethoscope to your ears and mentally prepared yourself to be touching all over Wolfe’s chest. “Normally,” you began. “I wouldn’t require you to remove any clothing, but the fabric of your uniform is so thick that-“Wolfe cut you off. “It’s ok, I don’t mind.” You grinned again.

You brought the cool metal of the stethoscope to Wolfe’s chest and began to listen to his thumping heart. You closed your eyes as you listened. “Nothing sounds irregular, seems like a normal BPM, maybe a little fast but nothing to be concerned about.” You hoped your answer would suffice. “Are you experiencing any pain? Anything out of the ordinary?” You asked. “Oh, it’s definitely out of the ordinary. Painful no, but definitely not something I dealt with before I came here” He looked at you with what had seemed like bedroom eyes. You covered your mouth this time to hide your blush. “Why don’t you check again?” He asked. “Not that I distrust your judgment, but maybe you might hear something you didn’t before.” That was enough to convince you. “Ok,” you answered breathily.

You brought your stethoscope to his bare chest once more and listened as intently as you could being so close to Wolfe. His heart was beating much faster this time, which drew you in much closer. You stayed that way for a while, eyes shut and listening to his heartbeat through your stethoscope. Wolfe eventually spoke up quietly. “Hear anything different this time, doc?” He looked into your eyes once more, this time much more intent on finding out what was behind them. He leaned in to take the stethoscope out of your ears and push a strand of hair out of your face. Closer, the two of you got until finally, your lips met in a kiss. You brought your hands up to cup his face while he grabbed your hips. The kiss was light and pulsating with a yearning for more. Eventually, you both pulled back and just stared at each other again. Taking in each other in the dimness of the tent. Wolfe broke the moment and spoke up. “Well Doc,” he grabbed your chin lightly “can you diagnose me?” He whispered. You smiled, “Just a mild case of lovesickness.”

Sitting at the side of the table was an unopened pack of Marlboro Reds. You grabbed them and quickly tossed them into the trash. You wouldn’t need those anymore; you had a better way to cope now.

[cyberhai]

What is Chinooks relationship with the other winds like? Oh and his relationship with bladewolf and armstrong if you don't mind.Sorry if I go a bit off topic,I just want to talk about how cool and stylish you made him look.

Man looks stylish as fuck with his glasses but I like on how he wears them to help with his migraines. Two reasons to wear cool as hell glasses.

Chinook's character design is *mwah* chefs kiss.(I'm a sucker for good character design if you can tell.)

Also,love your art btw. I feel your struggle of getting used to digital art.

To sum it up,chinook is amazing and I want to give him a hug.

Ok,that's all I have to say,your oc is awesome.

RAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHH Sorry this took a thousand years to answer, I am still Inventing Chinook Lore. This was a fun question though!!!! And I'm so glad you think he's purty 😎

Relationships!

Bladewolf

He’s not quite sure whether to treat Wolf like a machine or a living thing. Nevertheless, he loves jokingly testing the extent of Wolf’s intellect by asking him irritatingly specific questions (“What happens at 1:24:57 of Django Unchained?”).

Mistral

Best described as MLM/WLW Hostility. Most of their frenemyship involves them bullying each other. But if they’re training a platoon together and he blacks out from a migraine, within five seconds, she’ll have the room cleared, a cold compress on his head and be calling for backup. They’re mean as fuck to each other. But they’re homies :D

Monsoon

To say the least, their relationship confuses the fuck out of everyone. Do they have something going on? Are they just work buddies? Sometimes they can be spotted sitting shoulder to shoulder despite Chinook's touch aversion, marking up a map of their next target together. Other times they're bickering like an old married couple. More than one time Chinook has crashed out and fallen asleep on him flying back to base. Then again, Chinook does that to just about everyone. Most Desperados have adrenal enhancements that allow them to stay awake for longer periods of time without rest, but not Chinook. He's much more machine than Sam, but not as much as his fellow Winds. Thus, he is a sleepy fuck.

They've been spotted on a few weekend trips to DC together, seemingly unrelated to work. But, hey, they could just be scoping out the Pentagon.

Sundowner

These two are total bros. They’re both former Army, Chinook was a combat medic and Sunny D was a grunt, so they bond over shared experiences and swapping war stories. Chinook keeps up a pretty professional demeanor unless he and Sundowner are in the same room. Many a time one of them has been leading training or giving potential customers or recruits a tour of their facility, only for it to be interrupted by the other running up and slapping him upside the head. Chinook sort of bounces off his energy when they're around each other and swears 3x more than usual.

Their dynamic was inspired by some of the drill sergeants and NCOs I trained under during my very brief military experience, they were always messing with each other. One second our senior drill sergeant is smoking the platoon because someone mouthed off in formation, then third platoon’s drill sergeant creeps up behind him and kangaroo kicks him in the ass, then they’re giggling and fistfighting while us trainees are dying in the halfway down pushup position. I miss those mfs. 🥲

Jetstream Sam

Chinook was the one who designed and helped install Sam's arm. They're not AS close as the rest, as Sam's still relatively new, but they clicked pretty fast after the initial Arm Incident. Chinook is a big military history nerd, so he was eager to learn about Sam's samurai family background. They meet up to spar sometimes, whether for actual practice or just for shits and giggles. They're mostly evenly matched in terms of speed and strength, but seven times out of ten their fights still end in Chinook getting his ass handed to him.

Senator Armstrong

Chinook, despite having spent a significant portion of his life working for the government, distrusts and dislikes politicians, and by default is VERY leery of Armstrong. He is civil to him, figuring if the Winds are cool with Armstrong, then he’s gotta be cool with Armstrong too. But the iffiness is still very much there.

[jonnowrites]

Kids With Laser Guns

Thought I'd kick off my new blog by posting a little cyberpunk themed one-shot I finished the other day. Hope you enjoy it!

CW: Cursing

The skunk anthro felt right at home skulking beneath the highway turnoff. The pillar she leaned on was a mess of assorted graffiti and anti-corp slogans, some smarter than others. The occasional gunshot and distant blaring siren penetrated the music from a nearby nightclub.

“Chilly tonight,” she said, tugging at the lapels of her red jacket. Her faded blue pants sported a holster on each side, both carrying a pistol. Her flat sneakers were worn from a lot of running. “Least it’s not raining, huh?”

She turned her head toward a brown-furred wolf anthro, wearing a white mask with red digital markings that occasionally flickered between lines and circles. Her fit torso was covered by a grey-blue shirt beneath a black suit coat. Her dark blue jeans stopped above the heels of her black boots. Her ebony hair was tied into a bun. She stood up straight, her eyes laser-focused on the road as cars drove by. She only broke that stare to look up at the passing hover-rides, in case any cops or CorProtect agents were overhead.

“They are late,” she said quietly in Japanese. She gripped her sleeve irritably.

“It’s old-school scare tactics,” the skunk assured her. Her cybernetic aural implants translated anything her partner said into perfect English. “They’re trying to get us antsy by making us wait.”

“I’m a little nervous myself” a third young woman’s voice sounded in the skunk’s ear, carrying a Latino lilt. 

“What about? We’re doing the dirty work while you’re nice and safe in the car, as always.”

“I’m nervous for you two. You never know how deals will turn out, right?”

“We’ll be fine, girl. You got eyes on us?”

“Corner store.” The skunk looked toward the street corner and saw a blinking camera pointed in her direction. “The circuit covers the whole block. See me?”

The wolf curtly nodded her head. The skunk raised her middle finger with a smirk.

“Very mature.” Her eye roll was almost audible. “Okay, here they come now. Look professional, please.”

The skunk got off the pillar and stretched her arms before flicking some messy white hair from her eyes. “When do I not?”

The two watched as a topless military jeep pulled off the road and pulled up beneath the overpass. A small gang of anthros piled out of the back, sneering in their stolen army fatigues and waving stolen guns. From the front passenger seat came a cougar, wearing a bulletproof vest over his T-shirt and grey camo pants with his black boots. His brown head of hair was slicked back. His left arm was fully silvered out, and was just as large and mean-looking as his organic one. He took the lead, towering over the two girls as he smirked down at them, his sharp fangs gleaming menacingly.

“Arch must think I’m a pushover,” he said, “if he’s sending a pair of runts to make this deal.”

“You know what they say about small packages,” the skunk said, putting her paws on her hips. “Call me Jax.”

“And who’s your bud, then?” asked the cougar. “Your backup?”

“Kiba here is a thousand samurai rolled into one,” said Jax, patting the wolf’s back. “Fuckin’ steel tornado.”

Kiba stared daggers behind her mask at the guys behind the cougar, making one of them take a step back.

“Never told me who you are, though,” Jax continued. She tilted her head and noticed the stripes on his shirt sleeve, beneath a US flag with the stars replaced with a white wolf’s howling profile. “Take it you’re a Sergeant in New Glory?”

“Heh, you know your shit,” said the cougar. “Name’s Sergeant Cruz. This here’s my platoon.”

Of course, Jax didn’t need to ask. She’d had enough close calls with the New Glory street gang to recognise their structure, though not so close that they’d recognise her on sight. New Glory liked to think of themselves as the second coming of the US Army, giving themselves ranks and uniforms, but they were just a bunch of gangbangers cosplaying as fascists. Their boss, General Clash, ran the Silktown district with an iron fist. Two of them, in fact.

“Alright,” said Jax, “let’s get to bizz. You got Arch’s new toy?”

Cruz clicked his organic fingers. One of his boys dragged a briefcase out of the jeep and put it in his paw. Jax noted the distinct StarGuard logo on the side.

“Shit, I can’t see inside the case,” the Latina hissed in Jax’s ear. “It must be padded.”

She kept a perfect poker face. “Let’s see it.”

Cruz shrugged and opened the case, lifting out what looked like an assault rifle. “Watch this,” he said as he lifted a thick battery from the case and connected it beneath the rifle with a click. The battery glowed red, as did some lights around the rifle. He pointed it to a pillar and held the trigger down. The battery started spinning and a whirring noise came from the rifle as it fired bursts of light. The tasteful ‘All Corps Are Bastards’ graffiti on the concrete was peppered by large burn scores.

“The Heat Burster,” said Cruz as he turned the rifle around in his grip. “Fuck if I know how it works, but it’s some cool shit, right?”

“The coolest,” Jax gawked, her large tail flicking. “I didn’t think StarGuard was going into laser tech.”

“The info we got says they wanna replace old school leadslingers with these,” said Cruz. as he took the battery off with his cyber paw. Jax saw it turn red with heat. “Tell Arch to be careful playing with it - shit gets hot.”

“Well, I’m happy,” said Jax, grinning as she reached a paw out for the briefcase. She flinched slightly when Cruz pulled it away from her.

“Slow down there, stripe,” he barked. “I showed you mine, so you show me yours.”

“My bad, got caught in the moment,” said Jax as she reached into her pocket. She fished out a credit chip and held it out to him. “Here you go, not a cent more or less.”

“Let’s see it.” Cruz took the chip and handed it to one of his boys, who inserted it into a slot behind his ear. His eyes glowed blue for a moment.

“Twenty-K,” he confirmed. “It’s legit.”

Cruz nodded and gave Jax the briefcase. “Don’t shoot your eye out. Or do, I don’t care.”

“Pleasure doing business.” Jax patted Kiba on the arm. “Let’s scurry.”

Kiba gave the New Glory boys a final warning glare before turning to follow Jax back to the car. Hiding beneath the overpass was a cheap sedan with faded and chipped orange paint, pointing toward the road. 

Jax knocked the back passenger window and watched it roll down to reveal an ocelot woman. A young adult like Jax and Kiba, dressed in a black coat with purple highlights and an upturned collar. Her green pixie cut only slightly hid the violet-tinted goggles over her eyes. The splotches on her fur faded from blue to pink to green and other bright colours, like small lava lamps. Her gloves had blue, jagged lines running along the tops of her fingers to the tips.

“One experimental laser gun,” Jax said, passing the briefcase through the window. “Hold on tight to it, Oscura.”

“If that’s what stops me from melting myself,” the ocelot remarked in that Latino voice. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jax hopped into the driver’s seat while Kiba was already clipping her seatbelt. She glanced over in Cruz’s direction a moment longer before driving back onto the road. She turned on the radio, grinning as an Analogue Era rock song started blaring through the speakers.

“Easy peasy,” she said, drumming her fingers on the wheel. “You think Andy would mind if we took it for a spin before we get home?”

“Probably a bad idea,” said Oscura. “You might break it.”

“I will not!” Jax said indignantly. “C’mon, Kiba, back me up!”

“Do not play with the laser gun,” Kiba said flatly as she looked out the window.

Jax slumped back in her seat. “See if I let you two use the next cool gun we get.”

She drove through Central Square, and the sedan certainly looked out of place amongst the sleek sports cars and fancy corp vans. The anthros on the streets were dressed in style, wearing faux-fur coats and jackets bearing glittering lights. Holo-ads projected scantily dressed anthro girls showing off junk food and the latest fashion and cyberware on the sidewalk. 

The brightest lights cast the darkest shadows, as Kiba once said. Jax thought it described the city of Nueva Angeles perfectly.

“Oh, shit,” Oscura muttered in Spanish. “We have a problem.”

“Sup?” asked Jax. Kiba’s ears perked up to attention.

“I just intercepted some texts between Cruz and General Clash. About the Heat Burster.”

Jax shrugged. “If he feels ripped off, that’s Arch’s problem.”

“That’s not it.” Oscura’s paw typed in the air as windows opened and closed on her goggles. “Here, read this.”

A set of text windows appeared in Jax’s peripheral vision. She had gotten good at reading them while driving at this point, hence why the sedan only had a few dents.

Sgt Cruz Ya we got the cash. All 20 K

Gnrl Clash Good good. Did Arch’s buyer give u trouble?

Sgt Cruz Nah she was chill abt it. Didnt think Arch would send a pup tho

Gnrl Clash She?? U were waitin for a weasel called Marco

Sgt Cruz ? He didnt send a skunk called Jax??

Gnrl Clash WHO TF IS JAX

Jax bit her lip as the texts disappeared. Kiba tensed up next to her, having no doubt read them with her own ocular implants.

“Well, we’re too far away for them to find now, right?” Jax tried, her voice shaking.

A yelp escaped her when her rear-view mirror suddenly shattered from a speeding bullet. Cars swerved and honked their horns as Cruz’s jeep came speeding down the crowded street toward them.

Jax put her foot down and sped the sedan along the road, weaving around other cars and narrowly avoiding pedestrians. The car was a lot faster than it looked thanks to some modifying. Naturally, most add-ons weren’t exactly street-legal.

“Shit shit shit!” she hissed.

“We need to lose them!” yelled Oscura.

“Oh, do we?!” snapped Jax as she drifted onto another street. The jeep kept pursuit and fired more shots.

“Watch where you’re shooting!” Cruz roared, the three hearing him clearly thanks to Oscura tapping into his comm unit. “We can’t lose the gun!”

Jax grabbed a pistol and pointed it out the window, recklessly firing in the jeep’s direction while keeping her eyes on the road.

“Am I hitting it?!”

Oscura poked her head over the back seat. “You got a headlight.”

Jax made another sharp turn onto a narrow street, weaving onto the empty sidewalk to avoid an oncoming delivery scooter. The scooter itself then weaved to avoid the oncoming jeep of jeering anthros. Jax flinched when a bullet clipped the driver door.

“This is getting nowhere,” she growled. “I’ll lose them on the highway.”

She sped toward an exit from the road and oversteered, manipulating the handbrake to drift the car up the onramp. The tires screeched while they coughed up a cloud of smoke, and the sedan was soon rushing along the crowded highway.

“Was the drift necessary?” asked Obscura.

“If by ‘necessary’ you mean ‘cool as fuck,’” Jax grinned, “then yes it was.”

“That is absolutely not what I meant.”

A bullet ricocheted on the road next to the sedan, and Jax looked behind her to see Cruz’s jeep was recklessly weaving around the fancier cars to get right up next to the girls. His boys pointed their pistols and assault rifles at them.

“What’s your problem?” she groaned. “You got the money!”

“You’re not who we agreed to sell to!” Cruz roared. “Hand over the gun and this’ll be over!”

“Can’t do that! We need it for our own thing!”

Cruz bared his fangs in a snarl. “Fine, fuck this. Prepare to fire!”

Jax swallowed as she watched the wannabe soldiers lock and load. She and Oscura slowly lowered their heads in hopes of not getting a bullet lodged in them.

Kiba, meanwhile, lowered her window and slunk out onto the car roof.

“The fuck are you doing?!” gasped Jax.

“Keep driving,” Kiba ordered. She reached for her side, and from beneath her suit coat came her katana. She gripped the black handle tight in her paws and its long, narrow blade glistened beautifully in the rapidly passing lights. Despite Jax’s rapid swerves to pass traffic, Kiba kept her balance perfectly as she turned the katana, poised to strike.

“Nice butter knife, wolfy,” one of the gangsters taunted, nonchalantly pointing his pistol at her. “I got this one, sir.”

He fired a shot, and Kiba changed the katana’s position. He yelped as he gripped his paw while the pistol fell onto the road.

“The fuck?!” he gasped.

“Lemme try,” his friend said and fired his own pistol. Kiba changed position again, and he grunted before he gripped his now bleeding leg.

“Alright, girly,” a third growled as he pointed an assault rifle at her. “Get some of this!”

He opened fire, and Kiba’s blade was a blur as it swung at the air. A few New Glory goons were sent reeling from speeding bullets, and the side of the jeep was peppered with holes. The driver lost control for a moment and had the jeep skidding behind the sedan.

Cruz snarled as he picked a bullet from his metal arm. “Alright, I’m done. Get me Irma.”

“But sir, what about the Heat Burster?” one of his platoon asked while the others busied themselves.

“We’ll get what’s left from the wreck.”

Jax and Oscura gawked when they saw Cruz lift an honest-to-god oversized bazooka and rest it on his shoulder while one of his goons loaded it from behind. With its six firing tubes, a digital laser sight and the StarGuard logo emblazoned across the rectangle casing, it was practically some kind of revolver dreamed up by a lunatic.

And just when Jax thought she was already completely and utterly fucked, her ears twitched from the all-too-familiar wailing of sirens. She looked in a mirror and saw a sleek drone speeding in the air behind the speeding vehicles. Another lowered altitude so both flanked the jeep, with a fleet of what looked like a dozen followed close behind. Their red and blue lights flashed amongst the white lamp posts along the highway.

“Nueva Angeles Police Department,” a robotic voice bellowed from all drones at once. “Lower your weapons and stop your vehicles in a safe fashion, or face heavy retaliation. You have ten seconds to comply.”

Jax groaned, almost smashing her head on the steering wheel before needing it to pass a van. “First that freak pulls a rocket launcher on us, and now we’ve got Chasers.”

“Eight.”

“I’ll try to breach their system,” said Oscura as she started typing at the air. “Just give me time.”

“Six.”

Kiba, meanwhile, watched unfettered as Cruz raised a boot on the jeep windshield to keep his balance. 

“Five.”

“Hold her steady,” he said with a sneer. “I’m gonna introduce this little bitch to Irma.”

“Four.”

Kiba readied her katana, poised to strike.

“Three.”

Cruz fired a missile that sailed through the air right toward Kiba.

“Two.”

Kiba swung her blade, and the missile careened back in Cruz’s direction.

“One.”

The missile flew into the rightmost drone and turned it into scrap metal from a glorious explosion. The jeep and multiple cars swerved and honked their horns in panic.

“Failure to comply detected,” the remaining drones said. The bottom of their chassis opened and a turret appeared, starting to fizzle with electricity. “Aggressive force authorised. A squad of officers has been called.”

Cruz snarled and fired another missile, which Kiba deflected into another drone. The remaining pursuers started barraging the jeep and the sedan with pulses of electricity that just barely missed both.

“I’m not going back to Clash empty pawed!” roared Cruz as he fired another missile, which only served to get swatted into another drone, taking it and two others out.

Kiba surveyed the situation as she blocked another shot. She was transporting an experimental weapon, no doubt the one stolen from the attacked StarGuard convoy she’d heard about on the news. A mad cougar with a deadly weapon trying to kill her and her partners for it. Multiple police drones trying to stop them both. If they were not destroyed by Cruz, they’d be handed over to StarGuard’s private forces to be given a fate worse than death. On top of all that, she was certain all of this chaos was attracting news drones.

She had to end this. Now.

“Okay, I’ve gotten control of one of the Chasers,” Oscura said through her earpiece. She watched as one of the drones shot another with an electric bolt, causing it to twitch before falling onto the road.

“One shot left,” Cruz said, and he flicked a switch on the bazooka. “Irma’s gonna get you this time.”

“Kiba, I just remembered,” said Jax through Kiba’s earpiece, “I’ve heard of those bazookas before. I think he just turned on the smart scope, so even if you block it, it’s gonna come right back for you.”

Kiba lowered herself. “Does it have a weakness?”

“If I remember right, the smart scope is really power-reliant. After all those shots he’s already fired, one smart missile will kill the power.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Oscura.

“Drunk StarGuard guy I found in a bar once, I think.”

“Locked on,” laughed Cruz, almost maniacally. “Say goodbye, you little shits!”

Kiba poised herself. “Move the drone behind these idiots.”

The missile launched toward her, and once it was close enough, she leapt over it toward the jeep and landed on the hood. The New Glory gangsters’ looks of confusion quickly turned to panic when they saw the missile turn in the air and speed straight toward them, then back to confusion as Kiba bounded down the jeep and hopped onto the Chaser hijacked by Oscura. She balanced on top of it and watched the missile.

“You are misusing Nueva Angeles Police Department property,” she heard as the remaining drones approached and surrounded her. “Remove yourself or prepare to be–”

Kiba leaped over the missile which collided with Oscura’s Chaser. The ensuing explosion of the remaining drones propelled Kiba back toward the jeep, and she turned herself to the side and rolled with her katana in her paws. Once past the jeep, she skidded her boots across the roof of the sedan to slow herself, and stopped with a foot on the hood as she looked behind the car. After a moment, the jeep split in half, and both sides careened to both sides of the highway before crashing, sending New Glory soldiers flying everywhere. Cruz was left laying on his front with his beloved Irma next to him, smoking and depowered.

Kiba sheathed her katana and slid back into the passenger seat, fastening her seatbelt and rolling the window back up.

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” breathed Jax. “How’d you do that?!”

“Standard training,” said Kiba.

“I’ve scrambled the police’s tracker and wiped our car from the Chasers’ camera database,” said Oscura. “We just need to get out of here.”

“Gladly.” 

Jax took the next exit back to the city, driving into the Little Asia district. A middle-class borough where most of the varied Asian community of Nueva Angeles banded together. She pulled into an alley next to a Vietnamese convenience store and stepped out, before collapsing against the hood. Oscura and Kiba got out with her.

“That could’ve gone better,” said Oscura.

Jax lifted her head. “Hey, we got away with the goods. And we looked cool doing it.”

“Very sloppy,” muttered Kiba, who leaned against the wall like she was trying not to collapse with exhaustion.

Jax perked up as she felt vibrating in her jacket pocket. She fished out her phone and grinned as she answered the call. “Andy, hey!”

On her screen was a badger called Andrew Mitchell, known in the merc world as Big Andy. Older guy, late thirties Jax was sure, known around N.A. for his huge cybernetic shotgun paws.

“Well, you three had a fun night out, did ya?” he asked in his gruff cockney voice. Jax couldn’t help but notice his RBF was particularly intense. “I sent ya to do a simple exchange, and suddenly you’re havin’ a merry little chase around the motorway with New Glory and cop drones?”

“Oh, you saw that?” asked Jax with an awkward toothy grin.

“The whole fuckin’ city saw it,” Andy sighed. “It’s all over the news. You’re just lucky the car was blurred out.”

“Hey, we got the gun!” Jax pointed the phone through the car window to show the briefcase on the seat. “See?”

“Well, there’s that at least,” said Andy. “Kiba and Oscura with you?”

“I’m here,” said Oscura.

“Yes,” Kiba muttered.

“And you’re all alive,” said Andy, his tone a little softer. “Ya took care of that mess quick enough, and ya got the Heat Burster. All in all, job well done, three of ya.”

“Did you see my sick drift?” asked Jax, smiling eagerly.

Andy rolled his eyes. “Yes, I saw your drift. Very nice.”

Jax’s big tail waggled happily.

“That said,” Andy continued, “streets are still a bit too hot after all that excitement. I’ll send ya a text when it’s safe to get back here, and we’ll see about a buyer for this fancy toy of ours.”

“We just paid twenty thousand for it,” Jax pointed out. “Granted, it wasn’t our money, but still.”

“And to the right market, we’ll get at least double,” Andy said. “You let me worry about all that. Just keep your heads down for a few hours, alright?”

“Rightyo, chief,” said Jax with a salute. “You won’t even know where we are.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna worry me a bit.”

“We’ll keep a leash on her,” Oscura assured him, getting next to the skunk.

Jax frowned. “I don’t need a leash.”

Kiba approached Jax’s other side. “No, you need a shock collar.”

“Getting kinky on me?” asked Jax, leaning toward Kiba and inadvertently flicking her tail in Oscura’s face.

“Just stay out of trouble until the heat dies down,” groaned Andy before hanging up.

“Well, the night’s still young,” said Jax, stretching her arms. “Wanna get something to eat? There’s a night market near here if I remember right, and I’m starving.”

“Fine, why not,” said Oscura, “but what about the Heat Burster? Should we take it with us?”

“You wanna carry a big corpo briefcase around the Black Tigers’ neighbourhood?” Jax pointed out.

“Good point. I’ll put it in the trunk.”

Once that was done, Jax locked the car and led her partners out of the alley.

“I can smell the ramen already,” she grinned, starting to walk down the street before being stopped by Kiba.

“If you could, then you would be following the smell that way,” the wolf said drily, pointing toward the alley across the road.

Jax darted her eyes between Kiba’s mask and Oscura’s smirk, before leading the way there. “Fuck off.”

[introvertguide]

Platoon (1986); AFI #86

The most recent film for review is the last of our gritty war films from the AFI top 100: Oliver Stone directed Platoon (1986). This film took home four Oscars that year for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, and Best Editing. Like many other big war films with many small parts, this film had a ton of current for the time and future stars. The cast includes almost no women since the film begins with the arrival of the main characters in Vietnam and ends with some of them leaving. Notable names include Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David, Forest Whitaker, Francesco Quinn, Kevin Dillon, John C. McGinley, Johnny Depp, and Tony Todd. The only other war films I can think of with more star power are Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now. The film has a much more interesting story than "kill the enemy," which is why I think it received so many accolades. I really want to get to some behind the scenes notes, but let's start out with a synopsis and a quick warning...

SPOILER WARNING!!! THIS IS A WAR FILM SO IT CANNOT BE GUESSED WHICH CHARACTERS MAKE IT THROUGH AND WHICH DON'T!!! I AM ABOUT TO SPOIL THAT!!! IF THAT IS OKAY, THEN KEEP READING! OTHERWISE, CHECK OUT THE MOVIE FIRST AND CHECK OUT THIS BOTTOM PART OF THIS ARTICLE AFTERWARD!!!

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In 1967, U.S. Army volunteer Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) arrives in South Vietnam and is assigned to an infantry platoon of the 25th Infantry Division near the Cambodian border. The platoon is officially led by the young and inexperienced Lieutenant Wolfe (Mark Moses), but in reality, the soldiers defer to two of his older and more experienced subordinates: the hardened and cynical Staff Sergeant Robert "Bob" Barnes (Tom Berenger), and the more idealistic Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe). An interesting note is that the first things Taylor sees upon landing are body bags being stacked onto an outgoing plane, implying that there is only one way to leave.

Taylor is immediately sent out with Barnes, Elias and veteran soldiers on a planned night ambush for a North Vietnamese army force. The NVA soldiers manage to get close to the sleeping Americans before a brief firefight ensues; Taylor's fellow new recruit Gardener is killed and Taylor himself lightly wounded. After his return from hospital, Taylor bonds with Elias and his circle of marijuana-smokers while remaining aloof from Barnes and his more hard-edged followers. There are many shots with Elias on the right and Barnes on the left, almost like an angel and devil on the shoulders of Taylor. To add to it, Barnes is scarred all over his face and body will Elias is basically untouched.

During a subsequent patrol, three men are killed by booby traps and unseen assailants. The injuries from the trap are hard to watch, so be prepared when the soldiers start looking around. One of the deaths is more obvious since a guard is displayed like a scarecrow as a message to the group. Already on edge, the platoon is further angered when they discover an enemy supply and weapons cache in a nearby village. This is the intense scene that the movie is famous for. One particular soldier called Bunny (Kevin Dillon) shows that the men in the platoon might be more dangerous than the NVA. Barnes, through a Vietnamese-speaking soldier, Lerner (Johnny Depp), aggressively interrogates the village chief about whether the villagers have been aiding the NVA, and cold-bloodedly shoots his wife dead when she snaps back at him. Elias then arrives, getting into a physical altercation with Barnes over the killing before Wolfe breaks it up and orders the supplies destroyed and the village razed. Taylor later prevents a gang-rape of two girls by some of Barnes' men.

When the platoon returns to base, the veteran company commander Captain Harris (Dale Dye) declares that if he finds out that an illegal killing took place, a court-martial will ensue, leaving Barnes worried that Elias will testify against him. On their next patrol, the platoon is ambushed and pinned down in a firefight, in which numerous soldiers are wounded. More men are wounded when Lieutenant Wolfe accidentally directs an artillery strike onto his own unit before Barnes calls it off. Elias takes Taylor and two other men to intercept flanking enemy troops. Barnes orders the rest of the platoon to retreat and goes back into the jungle to find Elias' group. Barnes finds Elias alone and shoots him, then returns and tells the others that Elias was killed by the enemy. While the platoon is extracting via helicopter, they glimpse Elias, mortally wounded, emerging from the tree line and being chased by a group of North Vietnamese soldiers, who kill him. Noting Barnes' anxious manner, Taylor realizes that he was responsible.

At the base, Taylor attempts to talk his group into fragging Barnes in retaliation when Barnes, having overheard them, enters the room and mocks them. Taylor assaults the intoxicated Barnes but is quickly overpowered. Barnes cuts Taylor near his eye with a push dagger before departing.

The platoon is sent back to the front line to maintain defensive positions, where Taylor shares a foxhole with Francis (Corey Glover). That night, a major NVA assault occurs, and the defensive lines are broken. Much of the platoon, including Wolfe and most of Barnes' followers, are killed in the ensuing battle. During the attack, an NVA sapper, armed with explosives, destroys the battalion headquarters in a suicide attack. Now in command of the defense, Captain Harris orders his air support to expend all their remaining ordnance inside his perimeter. During the chaos, Taylor encounters Barnes, who is wounded and driven to insanity. Just as Barnes is about to kill Taylor, both men are knocked unconscious by an air strike.

Taylor regains consciousness the following morning, picks up an enemy Type 56 rifle, and finds Barnes, who orders Taylor to call a medic. Seeing that Taylor won't help, Barnes contemptuously tells Taylor to kill him: Taylor does so. Francis, who survived the battle unharmed, deliberately stabs himself in the leg and reminds Taylor that because they have been twice wounded, they can return home. The helicopter carries the two men away. Overwhelmed, Taylor sobs as he glares down at multiple craters full of corpses.

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I don't want to break down every single character in the film because that is everything there is. The film is much more about character development and Vietnam is just a setting. I believe that Oliver Stone wanted to emphasize that humans, when put into a hellish situation, had to choose between conforming to survive or trying to keep your own morals. Charlie Sheen plays Taylor, a young but moralistic person who entered the situation by choice in an attempt to prove himself. There is an authority figure of Lt. Wolfe, who is technically in charge, but it is the two sergeants that play a demon and an angel (they would be on his shoulder if this was a cartoon) that push Taylor towards conforming to evil or holding on to righteousness. Neither sergeant survives the film, and it is ambiguous how Taylor will act when he returns home, The only thing for certain is that he is very different from what he was when he arrived. Both Defoe and Berenger received nominations for best supporting actor for their roles, but neither won the award.

There is some mention of class in this film because it seems that it is mostly the uneducated masses who could not get away from the draft that fought in the war. It is this irony (those who have the least are forced to sacrifice the most) that is a focal point of the film. The character of Bunny, played by Kevin Dillon, finds war as an opportunity to get out his aggressions and attack something that represents his personal failures in life. A big gun and not much to live for is a dangerous combination, especially when a person with these attributes is trained to kill. Oliver Stone was a soldier in Vietnam and he really wanted to emphasize how the horror of the situation can bring out the worst in the downtrodden.

There are a group of black soldiers that are played by Tony Todd, Keith David, and Forest Whitaker. None of the three seem very interested in the politics of the situation as much as they just want to get away. Forest Whitaker's character sits on the middle ground and does what he is told, but he also expresses that he feels bad for his actions. Tony Todd's character sides with Barnes because he feels this is his best chance to survive long enough to get out. Barnes was shot and mangled, yet he still is alive, so he must be doing the correct thing. Keith David's character is trying to survive while also keeping his own morals, so he sticks with Elias and tries to do what he feels is right.

This film is what I would describe as a war drama since it is the Divine Comedy set in the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. There are no really good people and evil actions are understandable and sometimes almost relatable. It really makes the viewer upset that so many young men and women were put in this situation to be morally and mortally tested. It really affected audiences of the mid 80s, and that is why the film won for best picture.

One negative note about the production is the reported behavior of Oliver Stone. The film was shot in the Philippines and the push to make the film realistic bordered on abuse for the actors. The whole production was plagued with sickness and injuries with the actors having both Stone and advisor/actor Dale Dye yelling at them the whole time. There is a scene in which Tom Berenger is holding a gun to a little girl's head and he was told and berated into yelling and threatening the young actress until she really began to cry. Actors were allowed to leave as they were killed off since the film was shot almost completely in a linear fashion, so those looks of relief when they got on a helicopter to go home were quite genuine.

I was surprised that there was no nomination for make-up effects because the battle injuries look horrific and the scars on Tom Berenger were so realistic. I just thought that Berenger had scars all over his face until I saw him in another movie. He doesn't have the greatest skin, but the deep wound scars were blended in perfectly. The film would not have won since this award was eventually taken home by The Fly with Jeff Goldblum, but I still think a nomination was in order.

So, does this film deserve to be on the AFI top 100? Yes, but it is definitely lower on the list. It was shot in the Philippines and describes a war that America was not committed to, but it was still a major part of US history and touched a sensitive nerve for audiences at the time. The film is neither imaginative nor innovative, but the realism is worthy of recognition. Would I recommend it? That is actually kind of difficult. I wouldn't recommend it to a general audience because it will ruin your day. It is an engaging experience that transports the viewer to the war-torn jungle, but that is not something that many people really want. The film will affect you, just make sure that you are ready for it.

[mystical-mew]

It was dark that night, all I could see wall the thin wood holding back the dirt that would have filled our trench and the dark shape of no man’s land. It was awfully quiet all day with not a sound from the German trench. Before I knew it, I heard the sound of artillery being shot and a man shouting “Gas!” Shit, the krauts must’ve fires a gas round at our trench. I quickly put on my gas mask and waited. For 5 minutes I waited and nothing happened. I realized something, the wind was blowing towards their trench… why would they fire a gas round if it would just go back to their own trench? I heard someone shout “Get to the front trench! Now!”, so I got down from my post, grabbed my rifle and made my way over. There was about 20 other men standing there, waiting for orders when the faint shape of the Sargent became clear then it said, “Men, we are making a charge for the enemy tench. It’s been too quiet all day and they’re up to something. On my mark.” We all gathered on the edge of the trench, “3… 2… 1… Go!” We charged for their trench and crossed no man’s land, passing the decaying bodies of several men of both sides. When we were about 100 ft out, we were order to put on our gas mask as the gas attack that they fired still lingered. We jumped down into the trench and it was empty, rifles lay against the trench’s walls and the dugouts looked like they had just been left. Then someone saw blood on the floor and called us over. We followed it and it led to… a corpses. The corpse had large chunks torn from it and we were confused as to what could have caused this. “A new gas?” One suggested, “feral dogs” said another. As we were debating we heard a gunshot ring out within the trench. We all turned and Johnson was missing, with his pistol, still smoking, laying on the ground. At this point, half of our platoon ran back to our trench while me and a few others, including the Sargent, stayed behind to investigate. There was another blood trail, this one was fresh, that led away from our group so we followed it for what felt like miles until we found Johnson’s corpse. It was torn to shreds with bone visible in some areas. At this point we were all freaked out then we saw it, something hiding in the gas. It looked like a… wolf’s skull on a man and I fired a shot at it. It looked unfazed and we took a collective several steps back until the beast disappeared into the gas cloud. We returned to the trench after that, paranoid that we were being followed but we weren’t. That trench would lay empty for the rest of the war. We don’t mention the incident and just say Johnson died in a shell bombardment as we don’t have the heart to explain how he really died. That beast would never be seen by any of us again, until recently. I was sitting in my home in the forest of Britain when I saw it among the trees. All that was visible was it’s vague human shape and wolf skull head before it disappeared back into the woods. I fear it has come back for me, 5 years later, and that there is no escaping it this time…

[rexsjaigeyes]

Wolffe may not be into public fucking but he will absolutely find other ways to show you off to his platoon for sure.

Like maybe you happen to come up to talk to him about some type of maintenance in the hangar while he’s lecturing the new troops or issuing orders. You wait patiently but then Wolffe has got an arm around your waist and doesn’t miss a beat as he’s holding you in one arm and his bucket in the other. All while continuing to talk as if everything is normal.

Or if we’re talking about 79’s, this commander will love to show you off by getting a rise out of you in front of his brothers. Maybe just by coping a feel when nobody is watching, fingers tugging at your pants under the table. To all appearances Wolfe is as stern and unbudging as usual, which does nothing to explain how you’re suddenly flushed and breathless.

Idk, as much as I can’t reconcile Wolffe w a public kink, this man ABSOLUTELY likes to mark his territory on you to his brothers. He’s crafty, stubborn. He will find ways to claim you around the other clones bc that man is possessive for sure. In any way he can he’ll find a way to make it so that anyone who even looks your way knows that the Wolfpack leader is growling “This one’s mine.”

-your friendly neighborhood peg anon

peg anon why did you come here to pick on the ONE thing that makes me lose my fucking mind HUH?! PEG, WHY

I have nothing to add, you said it perfectly and turned my brain brain scrambled egg in the process. I just wanna be claimed by wolffe, damnnit 😭😭

[cowandcalf]

Catching up Meme

I got tagged by my wonderful and amazing friends @stephmcx and @angels-c - thank you so much, my gorgeous friends!

Rules: Tag 9 people you wanna catch up with/get to know better.

3 ships: McDanno - Hawaii Five-0, the boys are my OTP for life, man! I love them so freaking much, I can’t even! Closely followed by Sterek - Teenwolf, Derek and Stiles give me vibes that go beyond any normal ones because of the wolf thing. That drives me crazy. And there’s Brock Reynolds/Clay Spencer - SEAL Team, a rare pair that makes me want to hide in a corner and dream of them for a long time.

Last song: I’ve gotta be me by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Last movie: Tyler Rake: Extraction with Chris Hemsworth (great one)

Currently watching: SEAL Team season 4 (freaking LOVE it), Chicago P.D. (God, I’m so into Hank Voight, this guy, gahh!), Chicago Fire (I abandoned the show in season 5 for Chicago P.D.) and always there’s is H50 thrown in between.

I’ve started to watch all different kind of movies, on amazone prime, Netflix and all over the internet which include Navy SEALs (Black Hawk Down, Platoon, American Sniper etc.) I have a long list of films and documentaries to watch. I’m obsessed.

My all time favorite thing to listen and to watch though, are speeches by Admiral William H. McRaven. I listen to anything that is available on YouTube and elsewhere. He’s my inspiration and his way to express, explain and describe things and moments brings me to my knees. I love and adore him so very much. (Four star Admiral. SEAL captain, Navy SEAL...)

Currently reading - Books: ‘Make your bed’ by William H. McRaven, ‘No Easy Day’ by Mark Owen (both books written by SEALs).

Fanfiction: ‘Georgia Blues’ by Missslothy and ‘The Co-operative’ by Sealie - both are absolute fantasticly written! Missslothy’s one is a WIP, currently posting two chapters on Saturday. My weekly fix. Love it!

Currently craving: definitely coffee and something sugary

So many have been tagged already. But maybe you haven’t done it yet, guys: @mcdannoangelwolf @cheekyface72 @pterawaters @missslothy @glassmirrormask @julie-yard @whateverfandomworks

[watusichris]

Betty Davis: They Say She’s Different

It appears that everything anyone has written for the old Music Aficionado site has now disappeared from the web. A random Facebook post has prompted me to re-purpose this story, written in 2016, about my favorite funketress. **********

To this day, the name Betty Davis – Betty with a “y,” that is – remains best known to connoisseurs of Miles Davis minutiae and ‘70s funk obsessives. While it’s true that Betty played an important off-stage role in the career of the jazz trumpeter, to whom she was married for just a year, and she undoubtedly made some of the best hardcore funk records of her era, she deserves to be recognized beyond the relatively narrow provinces of the jazzbo and the crate-digger.

Uncompromising, intelligent, brazen, aggressive, and not incidentally gorgeous, sexually provocative, and a fashion plate always ahead of the curve, Betty was a prophetic figure. Spawned by the explosion of music, fashion, and alternative culture of the late ‘60s, and by concurrent leaps in black consciousness and feminism, she was a take-no-prisoners singer and writer who presented herself as something new, rich, and strange with her self-titled debut album in 1973.

There were some badass contemporaries working the soul and funk trenches– gutter-tongued diva Millie Jackson and one-time James Brown paramour Yvonne Fair leap to mind immediately – but they seemed to be adapting tropes previously worked by male singers in the genres. Betty still sounds like something new: a tough, smart, demanding woman who reveled in pleasure and insisted on satisfaction, unafraid to claim what she wanted.

Despite the fact that she was associated with some high-profile male musician friends and lovers – beyond Davis, the roll call included Hugh Masekela, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Mike Carabello, Eric Clapton, and Robert Palmer – she was no groupie or bed-hopping climber. Possessed of her own self-defining vision, she was producing her own records and leading a tight, flexible little band by the end of her brief run.

In 1976, after completing four splendid albums (only three of which were released at the time), she disappeared, not only from the music business but from the public eye entirely. What happened? It’s an old story that many women in the industry will recognize: Her record company didn’t know what to do with her, and wanted her to tone down her act. Betty Davis wasn’t having any of that, thank you, and she hit the damn road.

She was born Betty Mabry in Durham, NC, in 1945. She grew up country, and was exposed to down-home, get-down music early. On the title track of her second album, They Say I’m Different, she runs down the artists who served as inspirations: Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Chuck Berry. The blues, in one form or another, is the backbone of her style.

Her family relocated to Pittsburgh when she was young, but at 16 she left home for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. There she was hurtled into the roiling cultural vortex of the Village. She took up modeling, working for the toney Wilhelmina agency, and began running with a posse of similarly disposed, equally beautiful women who called themselves the “Electric Ladies.” Sound familiar? One of her closest cohorts was Devon Wilson, for many years a notorious consort of Jimi Hendrix known for her freewheeling, outré sex- and drug-saturated lifestyle.

Mabry began to try her hand at singing, and cut a few self-penned singles. They were in an old-school mold in terms of structure, but her very first 45 hints at things to come. “Get Ready For Betty,” a 1964 track released by Don Costa (discoverer of Paul Anka and Trini Lopez and a key arranger for Frank Sinatra), is stodgy early-‘60s NYC R&B to its core, but its message is pointed: “Get out my way, girl, ‘cause I’m comin’ to take your man.”

She also made a stolid romantic duet ballad with singer Roy Arlington and, produced by cult soul man Lou Courtney, a homage to the Cellar, the New York club where she DJed. But she didn’t start reaching the upper echelon of the music biz until one of her songs, a hymn to Harlem called “Uptown,” was cut by the Chambers Brothers for their smash 1968 album The Time Has Come, which also included the psychedelic soul workout “Time Has Come Today.”

The Chambers association probably secured a singles deal for her at Columbia Records, and her first session for the major label was produced by her former live-in boyfriend, South African trumpeter Masekela, in October 1968. By that time, she had split with him: A month earlier, she had married a far more famous horn player, Miles Davis, whom she had met in 1967. Davis and his regular producer Teo Macero would head her second session for Columbia in May 1969.

Those two dates were released for the first time as The Columbia Years 1968-1969 earlier this month by Light in the Attic, the independent label that has restored Betty’s entire catalog to print over the last decade. While devoted fans can be grateful that the work is finally seeing the light of day, it does not make for easy listening, for it was clearly made by people groping in the dark.

Betty’s artistic persona was at that point completely unformed, and so her male Svengalis did their best to mold the clay in their hands, with feeble results. Masekela evidently completed just three tracks, two of which, “It’s My Life” and “Live, Love, Learn,” were issued as a flop single. The homiletic song titles give the game away; the music, straight-up commercial soul backed by a large group (which included Wilton Felder and Wayne Henderson of the Jazz Crusaders and Masekela), has nothing original to say.

The date with Miles is a bigger waste, if a more spectacular one. The personnel couldn’t have been more glittering: Hendrix sidemen Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell; ex-Detroit Wheels guitarist Jim McCarty; bassist Harvey Brooks, studio familiar of Bob Dylan and former member of the Electric Flag; and Davis’ then-current or future band mates Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, and Larry Young.

But nothing jells. The material is either weak (Betty’s directionless original “Hangin’ Out” is the best of a bad lot) or incongruous (lumbering covers of Cream’s “Politician” and Creedence’s “Born On the Bayou”). Worse, the jazzers are unable to lay down anything resembling a solid soul-rock foundation, and even reliable timekeeper Mitchell blows the groove on more than one occasion. Miles gets impatient with his spouse at one point, rasping over the talk-back, “Sing it just like that, with the gum in your mouth and all, bitch.”

Apparently intended as demos, the failed tracks were consigned to the tape library. By late ’69, Miles and Betty’s marriage was history. She left her mark on his music: She appeared on the cover of his cover of his 1968 album Filles de Kilimanjaro and inspired its extended track “Mademoiselle Mabry” (based on the chords that opens Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary”) and “Back Seat Betty” from his 1981 comeback album The Man With the Horn.

Moreover, she moved him toward the flash style that would dominate his music through the mid-‘70s, by exposing him to the slamming music of Hendrix and Sly and exchanging his continental suits for psychedelic pimp togs. Would we know Bitches Brew, On the Corner, and Agharta without Betty Davis? Maybe, maybe not.

For her part, Betty remained in the wings for a while. She collaborated on demos for the Commodores; in London, she modeled, worked on songs for Marc Bolan of T. Rex, and declined a production offer from her then-paramour Clapton. Drifting back to New York, she met Santana percussionist Carabello. They became involved romantically, and in 1972 she relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, where Carabello’s local connections led to the formation of a stellar band to back her on a debut album.

One reads the credits for Betty Davis in awe. The rhythm section was the Family Stone’s dissident, puissant rhythm section, bassist Larry Graham and drummer Greg Errico (who also produced). Original Santana guitarist Neal Schon, future Mandrill axe man Doug Rodrigues, founding Graham Central Station organist Hershall Kennedy, and keyboardist and ace Jerry Garcia collaborator Merl Saunders filled out the instrumentation. The Pointer Sisters, Sylvester, and Kathi McDonald were among a large platoon of backup vocalists.

Issued in 1973 by Just Sunshine Records, an independent label owned by Woodstock Festival promoter Michael Lang (who also released a set by another unique woman, folk singer-guitarist Karen Dalton), Betty Davis was one hell of a coming-out party. Since her abortive Columbia dates, she had developed a unique vocal attack that could leap from a velvety croon to a Tina Turner-like shriek in a nanosecond. The stomping funk of the studio band backed her up to the hilt.

Like Turner, she was one Bold Soul Sister. The lust-filled opening invitation “If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up” announces that a new game was afoot. The statement of romantic/sexual independence “Anti Love Song,” the lovers’ chess match “Your Man My Man,” and the self-explanatory “Game is My Middle Name” offer up a startling, hard-edged new model of a hard-funking female vocalist.

The album’s most affecting track may be “Steppin in Her I. Miller Shoes,” Davis’ level-headed elegy for her sybaritic friend Devon Wilson, who sailed out a window at the Chelsea Hotel in 1971. “She coulda been anything that she wanted…Instead she chose to be nothing,” Davis sings, implying that route wouldn’t be one she would take herself.

“If I’m in Luck” grazed the lower reaches of the R&B singles chart and the album failed to reach the LP rolls at all, but Davis was undaunted. For 1974’s They Say I’m Different, she took the producer’s reins, which she would hold for the rest of her career. While the backup lineup is less glitzy (though Saunders, Pete Escovedo, and Buddy Miles, on guitar no less, appear), the support is still sizzling; crackling drums and burbling clavinet put over a set of songs that may have been even stronger than those heard on her debut.

No one who hears “He Was a Big Freak” is likely to ever forget it; it’s a startling dissection of a masochistic relationship -- inspired by Jimi Hendrix, and not, as many have assumed, by Miles Davis (“Everyone knows that Miles is a sadist,” Betty remarked later). Almost as notable are “Don’t Call Her No Tramp,” a prescient condemnation of what we now call slut-shaming, and the autobiographical title track, with slicing slide guitar work by Cordell Dudley.

Different and its attendant singles tanked, but Betty managed to maintain her profile with live gigs noteworthy for their uninhibited bawdiness, on-stage abandon, and the star’s Egyptian-princess-from-outer-space wardrobe sense. By early 1974 she had assembled a hot, lean road band that included her cousins Nickey Neal and Larry Johnson on drums and bass, respectively, plus keyboardist Fred Mills and guitarist Carlos Morales. This lineup would back her on her last two albums.

The end of Just Sunshine’s distribution deal liberated Davis, who, at the suggestion of then-boyfriend Robert Palmer, inked with Palmer’s label Island Records. The company released Nasty Gal in 1975, and it may be Davis’ best-executed work. The pared-down backing lets the songs shine, and there are good ones here: The shameless title song, the vituperative blast at the critics “Dedicated to the Press,” and the out-front ultimatum for sexual satisfaction “Feelins” get right up in the listener’s face. The most surprising track is the ballad “You and I,” an unexpected songwriting reunion with Miles, orchestrated by the trumpeter’s famed arranger Gil Evans.

It’s a tremendous album, and Betty supported it with live shows that ate the funk competition alive. A bootleg of an especially out-there set recorded at a festival on the French Riviera in 1976 literally climaxes with Nasty Gal’s “The Lone Ranger,” an in-the-saddle heavy breather that Davis wraps up by feigning a loud orgasm.

One should remember that at this particular juncture, Madonna was studying dance at the University of Michigan.

But Nasty Gal faded with hardly a trace, and Davis’ relationship with Island swiftly became fractious. It’s easy to see why the label declined to issue her final album, originally called Crashin’ From Passion and ultimately released, after years as a bootleg, by Light in the Attic in 2009 as Is It Love or Desire. The collection, which leans heavily on songs about sex, doping, and heavy drinking, includes “Stars Starve, You Know,” an outright condemnation of the games record companies play:

They said if I wanted to make some money

I’d have to change my style

Put a paper bag over my face

Sing soft and wear tight fitting gowns

 They don’t like the way I’m lookin’

So it’s hard for my agent to get me bookin’s

Unless I cover up my legs and drop my pen

And commit one of those commercial sins…

 Oh hey hey Island

And that was all she wrote. Until writers began to seek her out in the new millennium as her records became available again, Betty Davis was an invisible woman, one who had blazed a trail that other talents, such as Prince and Madonna, would blaze more profitably after her. She was definitively ahead of her time.

Asked by one writer what she had done since leaving music, Davis, who turns 71 on July 26, responded with the most tragic thing one can imagine any artist saying: “Nothing really.”

[majorshiraharu]

can you do a pt. 2 to the bad batch x wolf reader fic, where the bad batch and the reader are on another mission, but they get ambushed? A droid sneaks up on Tech, but the reader saves him, but gets mortally injured in the process. The reader dies from her wounds, but then a miracle happens, and she is revived. The reader's curse is lifted and she is transformed into a human again (like that scene from beauty and the beast), and the bad batch sees the whole thing. Angst and fluff, please

------------------------------------------

The Bad Batch and Wolf Reader part 2

------------------------------------------ PART 1 LINK HERE Sorry this took me some time to respond too <3 ------------------------------------------ Content Warning: Injury Animal Injury Death (temporary) Angst / Fluff ------------------------------------------ Just before you all reach their ship Tech's scanners pick up multiple hostilities nearby, "It appears they found our ship." "Well that's just great," Hunter said crouching down to avoid being seen. "Told you guys we should have hidden it better," Crosshair scoffs as he readies his rifle. "We didn't know so many clankers were still around," Wrecker said moving to cover behind a nearby tree, "But now I got something to break!" "Just be careful you don't break our ship," Tech replied. "I can rush the one's on the side," you say looking over at some droids. Hunter and Tech devised a strategy to take out the droids and get onto the ship for a quick exit. All of you take up your positions and start attacking the droids, you notice that a platoon is coming up from the rear, but it's kind of hard to call out to everyone else when you need your wolf mouth for tearing up droids. -As they head for Tech you decide to charge at him and the droids, hoping to knock them out of the way before they shoot him, this time no droids were in your mouth so you call out to him, "Tech, behind you!" you call as you jump in between him and the droids, taking out as many as you can before being shot by the others. Your body feels heavy and your legs weak, despite having four legs they all gave out making you fall on the ground, the landing was pretty soft, guess that was a perk to being a wolf right now. Everything starts going dark, they just have hit a vital point you think as Tech calls your name, "Y/N stay with us.  GUYS I NEED HELP!" "What's wrong?" Hunter says fighting off some droids. "What happened to her?" Crosshair asks running over to help his brother and you. "She tried protecting me from the droids and ended up getting shot." "Well how do we help her, I'm not exactly an animal expert," Crosshair says looking at your injures, unsure of how anyone was supposed to help. "I don't know, I'm not one either!" Tech said as tears filled his eyes. "Tech you know a bunch of useless stuff, how don't you know anything about this," Hunter called out. "Because we haven't encountered anything like her before, I'm not sure how to help," he says attempting to do something, anything, to help you. He can't stop the tears from rolling down his face as you mumble out his name before your body becomes lifeless. --There's a light that appears, it's covered by green smoke but somehow extremely bright, lighting up the surrounding area and blinding the Bad Batch who had finished destroying the droids now coming over and kneel down beside you and their brothers trying to find a way to save you, but they were already too late. Tech's scanner no longer detects life coming from your body as the light and green smoke starts to vanish, --but then as it clears they see you, no longer the cursed form that you looking like a wolf, but you, the person. "Y/N?" you hear Tech mumble through the shock of what was unfolding in front of them. "Tech?" you say opening your eyes to see him, but he looks different, you notice more color and turn your head to look at yourself, "I'm human again?!" you shout not sure of if you were dead or actually back to your normal self. "I guess so," Crosshair said with a confused expression. "Maybe the curse wore off when you died," Hunter said, unsure of his own statement. "So I did die then?" "Yeah, you should have seen Tech he--"  "Shut it!" Tech says cutting off Wrecker as he threw his helmet at him, in amusement and surprise his brothers couldn't help but chuckle at him. "Sorry I worried you," you tell him as you sit up noticing the fresh tear marks on his face. "It's okay, I'm glad you're safe and alive--" "And human again," you added making everyone smile. "So since I'm human now, I guess that means you guys don't have to take me with you..." "If you want to come with us, we'd be more than happy to add you to the crew," Hunter said placing his hand on your shoulder. "Really?" "Do you want to join us?" Tech asked worried you might turn down their offer. "Yes, I do!" you say leaning over to hug him.

[senka-mesecine]

Can you please write something for Wolfe with the prompt "i'll provide for you—you'll never have to work again!"? Thx

Wolfe's a Wolf.

Lt. Mark Wolfe x Reader.

-

A patient died on the operating table that day.

A grizzly case of someone stepping on a landmine.

After a twelve hour surgery, deflated, defeated and bloody up to your elbows, plastic gloves entirely crimson on your hands, you sit slumping on the cracked tiles for god knows how long contemplating all the ways this life could've been saved. All the ways this could've been prevented. All the ways the ultimate outcome could've been different. All the ways all the bits and pieces this broken soldier was in when they hauled him inside could've been stitched back together to hold his entrails and limbs in place instead of collapsing into a mess of gore and mangled flesh in front of you. Maybe if you did more. Pressured yourself harder. Maybe if Doc --- sometimes, chaotic, disjointed thoughts have the habit of racing like that whenever you have a death case on your hands, professional poise, guilt and exhaustion mingling into a heavy, potent cocktail along with the realization you haven't slept or ate properly in two days straight, living off of adrenaline alone, notwithstanding the fact that you didn't even want to think about the notion of showering and when's the last time you had the free time to do it properly. Right now, you're tired. So very tired it echoes back to you from the bottom of your very soul. You know it, even as it's happening; you fall asleep in the hallway. You tell yourself; you'll have the rest of your life to feel more awful you've ever felt, but now --- your body needs some shuteye desperately; the sordid, tortured, dreamless type. It demands it. And you catch a Z, right there, uncomfortably leaning on the cold, iron leg of the very bed a kid no older than eighteen died on with his torso split open, carried out in a body bag. You're aware of yourself dozing off even as someone leans over you, talking to you or at least preparing to, for a second having you think the medic's returned to find you in this sorry state not befitting a combat nurse, napping in-between shifts. Funny that, how a person could be semi-asleep out here yet be fully awake, both in their own body and outside of it.

It's Lieutenant Wolfe of Bravo Company, US 25th Infantry Division.

Somehow, you had the tendency of both forgetting about the very fact he existed and yet, you could recognize him if someone forcibly woke you up in the middle of the night and showed you his picture while painfully pointing a flashlight into your eyes; he was peripheral yet ever present like that. Or maybe it was the humidity weighing heavy on the facility that had you thinking like that, all distorted and crazy. Grief burning through your mind like a sickness.

-"Hey, you sure did a job today. Did your best."-

He speaks to you and you're not sure if he really says those words or if you're imagining them in a state of complete and utter stress. All you wanted to do is keep your eyes closed and hope he goes away. Wasn't unkindness on your behalf. Had nothing against him or anyone from his respective platoon, except the few notable exceptions you'd rather diplomatically and very prudently steer clear of unless the opposite was absolutely necessary. It was just --- it was a difficult day. You wanted to be alone. No desire for small talk. And no. You didn't do your best. Someone died today in the most awful and painful way a person could die. Yet, Wolfe's presence persisted, or Mark's, as he occasionally insisted you call him. You recognized it as an attempt to flirt by getting personal and ditching honorifics and ranks but you tried to kindly ignore such advances, feeling that on-field fraternizations of a sexual or amorous nature in equal measure were always generally bad mojo and a cause for unnecessary entanglements and drama; the pastime of civilian life. Certainly not fit for in-country service.

-"Need something?"-

He asks, blurry in the frame of your heavy lids, taking up the space of your vision.

You appreciated the effort. You really did.

But, now wasn't the time.

You wanted to forget? How's that? You wanted a second chance? A shower? The war to end? To sleep, continuously for three days straight even though that wasn't a possibility? Could he provide that? Was he a magician? Probably not.

-"No."-

You mutely shake your head leaning against the infirmary's wall once he crouches so he'd be at eye level with you while you were there barely managing to get those two words out, squeezing them through by force because he at least deserved the courtesy of your verbalized rejection; lips chapped and dry, your words feel like cracked sandpaper in your own throat. You close your eyes again. Wolfe still doesn't go away, though. You sense him in front of you. Time feels strange, like he's been by your side for both longer and yet simultaneously shorter than he really was; you occasionally flutter your lashes open purely to check if he was a figment of some nightmare or not. Suppose the poor schmuck was doing his job too, as best as he could; making sure his infantrymen, including the medics, were okay was part of this calling irregardless of the fact how badly he tended to fail at it most days. You failed today too. So who were you to judge him anyway? You were in the same shit out here. In over your head.

-"You know ---"-

He begins, carefully, looking around like he was checking if the coast was clear.

Was this going to be another attempt of his to go sweet on you?

You hoped not.

You were too overworked and devastated for the theatricals of romance.

You listen to the rain outside, thumping the window ajar just above your head.

A harrowingly humid monsoon season has started.

You vaguely wondered what the weather was like back home.

-"I'll provide for you."-

He says, matter-of-factly.

Just like that.

Out of the blue.

You could barely keep your eyes open to look at him but you could see his own gaze dropping, scrutinizing the dried, crusted blood staining your skin and your rolled up sleeves sticking to you like he was trying to illustrate a point. It's like someone took a hammer and smashed you straight across the skull with it on the spot.

-"You'll never have to work again."-

He adds and you feel your lips part, exhaling sharply like it was the first actual whiff of oxygen you had in ages; god, that was unethical of him, college boy dangling his privileged position back home to bait you. Using this moment of weakness. Biding his time. Knowing it would come sooner or later. Eclipsing you alone like this. Men out here die every day. And he'd catch you. At your worst. Your most profoundly vulnerable. Your most miserable. Making you on offer you couldn't refuse. Because this was good work. This was noble work. Sacrificial. But, my god, was it awful. Was it dirty. Was it sad. It weighed heavier and heavier on your conscience every day. And you can almost visualize his words as clear as daylight; never having to sit on a cold floor up to here and here in someone's guts, eating away at yourself every time someone dies squeezing your hand begging for their momma who can't be here to help them. You feel the tears trickling down your face, unbidden, because the prospect was so attractive you had to weep. Wolfe was a wolf. He really was. So, why were you hyperventilating like you just heard the most beautiful couple of words ever constructed by human lips? Oh, You knew why. Because in spite of the fact you personally volunteered for this and nobody's forced you into it, in fact, your folks tried to actively talk you out of it, the job has become so hellish you wanted out and that was hard to admit.

Seems like Wolfe knew it too.

Because you can swear, from the corner of your eye, eye sight blurry as it may have been, you catch him half-smiling, if only a teensy, tinsy bit, twiddling his ring finger and the signet on it like a promise of things to come; like he was trying to say that you could be home right now, in your own powder room, a new bride freed from duty indefinitely, in front of a boudoir, all soft light and hues, writing a love letter to him on perfumed paper instead of being here, your fingernails blackened with someone else's dried guts, never needing to work again because someone else would take care of business. When did he become so quietly unscrupulous? Maybe he always was and it was your mistake to think of him as a bit of unassumingly, slightly cowardly and feeble non-presence. You wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but you couldn't muster the strength to do it when something inside of you wanted to slump over and start begging him. Graciously kissing the very ring finger he was twirling around in anticipation.

All you had to do was say yes.

And this would all be over. It could be, couldn't it?

You're not sure when, but the next time you open your eyes; Wolfe's gone.

As if though he was never there in the first place.

The rain outside comes down in a torrent like the earth was weeping too.

[ofwolfandmuse]

INTRODUCING

( jd pardo, cis-male, he/him ⋇ the feeling of being able to lick the spoon, the sound of jingling dog tags, baking at 3 am when you can’t sleep, worn leather jackets, and the hum of a harley in the distance) ⋯ well if it ain’t 『 RAFAEL ESPINOZA』from 『 DOWNTOWN 』! they’re a beloved member of crystal grove, been here for about 『MOST OF HIS LIFE } now. that『 39 』year old works here as a『 BAKER AT SEA BREEZE CAFE 』when they’re not busy 『 RIDING HIS MOTORCYCLE 』. and it’s clear from their 『 WILD BERRIES WITH A HINT OF BROWN SUGAR』 scent they’re an『 OMEGA 』. they’re known to be 『 AMIABLE 』, but『 RESTLESS 』as well, but you didn’t hear that from me. why don’t you go on over and introduce yourself ?

GET TO KNOW THE MUSE

Name: Rafael Isadore Espinoza

Nickname(s): Raf, Rafa, 

Age: 39

Date of Birth: March 29th

Zodiac: Aries

Place of Birth: Crystal Grove, Washington

Race / Ethnicity: Hispanic

Gender: Cis-Male

Secondary Gender: Omega

Pronouns: He/Him

Sexual Orientation: Cupiosexual

Romantic Orientation: Panromantic

FAMILY

Sire: Carlos Espinoza (Beta)

Dame: Daniela Espinoza nee Cortez (Omega, deceased)

Siblings: Gabriel Espinoza (age 36, Beta), Maria Velazquez nee Espinoza (age 32, Omega)

Mate: None

Children: None

Pets: A chocolate German Sheprador by the name of Champ

APPEARANCE

Height: 5′11

Build: Athletic, Muscular

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Brown

Tattoos: None

Piercings: None

Distinguishing Features: A burn mark that covers a good portion of his back, his left shoulder, the left side of his neck and expands upwards to his left ear

WOLF FORM

Fur Color: Sandy brown colored

Wolf Build: Average, stocky

NSFW

Preference: Switch, Versatile

Kinks: Affirmations, Worship, Multiple Orgasms (giving), Sensory Play, open to others

Anti-Kinks: Blood-Play, Age-Play, Little-Play, Waste-Play

BIOGRAPHY

(triggers: trauma, war, ptsd, fire, explosions, burns)

The oldest of the Espinoza pups, Rafael had always known what was ahead of him in life - the military. With all of the men in the family enlisting in the military once they were of age, dating back generations, it was something that was expected of Rafael and, frankly, he quite liked it. After all, hearing his dad or his abuelo speak about their time in the military had ignited his desire to join the military, wanting to find that camaraderie with other men and knowing that someone had your back making it to where the young wolf couldn’t wait. And once he was eighteen, he was quick to enlist, joining the United States Marine Corps - and though, at first, he was met with some resistance, it was only by other new recruits that quickly changed their tune when they realized that Rafael could hold his own against them.

The Omega thrived in the military, to the point where he didn’t really want to leave even when he completed his first tour, and he continued to serve for his country and carry on the Espinoza legacy. For years, Rafael continued to serve as a soldier despite his parents wishing him to retire so that they could finally arrange a potential relationship for him, as he knew that his place was out there, with his guys. And that’s exactly where he had been... until the accident.

It had started out like any other day, Rafael and a group of guys from his platoon were traveling - one minute they were ragging on each other, and the next the jeep was upside down and on fire. How Rafael managed to be the only survivor, he wasn’t sure, but he definitely didn’t walk away unscathed - left with several burns alongside the left side of his body, very minimal hearing in his left ear and varying degrees of tinnitus in his right ear... and that doesn’t include the amount of PTSD he now carried.

Adjusting to civilian life was hard for any veteran, but it was even harder for a wolf that now had to adjust to having impaired hearing - and it didn’t help, either, that his mother wound up passing only three months after his medical discharge. Thankfully, between his brother whom he moved in with, the therapist that the VA paired with him, and his new hearing dog Champ, he was able to slowly come to grips with his new life. But now that he was no longer in the military, the man knew that he needed to find something to do to make a living - sure, he received disability checks, but he didn’t want to just live on them. And then it hit him.

It happened on a night he couldn’t sleep, nights that came often enough for him, and as he was working on a new batch of cookies to make, he realized... he could do this. He had always enjoyed baking with his mom and his abuela, and the two women had always joked that he had a natural talent and would make a better baker than a soldier... and now that being a solider was out of the question? Maybe he could actually become a baker. And after seeing a ‘help wanted’ sign in the corner of the cafe’s window, he wound up getting a job as a baker.

It’s been two years since the accident, and Rafael has slowly gotten into the groove of civilian life, but now his father is pushing for him to settle down and find a mate, especially as he's closer and closer to his fortieth birthday, but Rafael isn’t sure he’s ready for that. Or, at least, that’s what he tells himself, but the truth is, he would love to have kids but with so many young pups being afraid to even look at him because of his scars, it has him worried that if he has kids that they’d look at him that way too.

And he’s not sure if he can handle that.

[fuzz1912]

This is the Way

Just prior to the release of the third movie of Disney’s Star Wars trilogy, I posted some thoughts to the effect that I no longer had the energy to write at length about what Star Wars had become under their watch, because I no longer had any love left to fuel that effort. THE MANDALORIAN has changed all that and, ever since then finale of its second season, I’ve been wanting to process and contextualise why it has been so impactful. The clearest place to start is the finale itself, and the sequence that has led adult fans across the world to revert to a child-like state of wonder and break down into tears. If you haven’t already seen THE MANDALORIAN, in particular “Chapter 16 - THE RESCUE” then please read no further - do yourself a favour and stay off the internet until you’ve caught yourself up. From here on, the spoilers will be rife.

A QUICK RECAP

The clues leading to the finale’s big reveal are staged in a masterfully accelerating fashion, leading to a crescendo of certainty that no amount of “subverted expectations” could extinguish. Imperial Moff Gideon has recaptured the Child (Grogu), and the Mandalorian (Din Djarin) has managed to locate him and threatened that he will stop at nothing to free his ward from Gideon’s clutches. We rejoin Mando and his allies (shock trooper Cara Dune, assassin Fennec Shand and her benefactor the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett, and two survivors of the Mandalorian Death Watch in heiress Bo-Katan Kryze and Koska Reeves) as they chase an Imperial Lambda-class shuttle in Fett’s ship, Slave I. After a minor altercation with Imperial officers taunting Dune over the destruction of her home planet of Alderaan, they capture the Imperial scientist Pershing who, at Moff Gideon’s direction, has been using blood samples from the Child (Grogu) in cloning experiments that quite possibly may lead to the resurrection of the Emperor years later (ugh). 

With Pershing’s help and Boba Fett creating a distraction, they use the shuttle to stage a boarding of Gideon’s cruiser. Mando searches for the Child while the others quickly take the bridge. First Mando has to deactivate the ominous Dark Troopers, one of whom escapes from cold storage before Mando is able to seal the others in. As the remaining Dark Troopers persistently continue to punch the doors, gradually wearing away at them, Mando engages in mortal combat against the escaped Dark Trooper. It is relentless and seemingly indestructible, a veritable terminator that keeps pounding away at Mando despite all of his tricks. Held by the scruff of his neck, the Dark Trooper keeps punching his helmet into a wall. Mando can only use his flamethrower and wrist launcher as mere distractions to get the Dark Trooper to release him, and it is only after he notices the Dark Trooper’s blaster shots deflecting off his beskar armour that he realises that a well-placed thrust of his beskar spear into the Dark Trooper’s weak neck will take out his foe. Moments before the remaining platoon is about to escape cold storage, Mando is able to vent them all into space. 

Mando proceeds to the brig where he finds Moff Gideon holding the Child at the point of the infamous Mandalorian Darksaber. Gideon demands that Mando disarm himself, and warns Mando to assume that he knows everything and is in complete control. He describes the power of the Darksaber and the fact that it gives the one who wields it a claim to the Mandalorian throne. When Din surprises him by telling him to keep it in exchange for the Child, Gideon agrees - noting that he’s already got what he wanted (namely, Grogu’s blood with its rare properties - aka Midichlorians). Gideon permits Mando to take the Child, provided he leaves the ship and they go their separate ways. But of course, it’s a ruse and the moment Mando tries to take the Child Gideon stabs him in the back and engages him with the Darksaber. Of course, it can’t cut through beskar so he is evenly matched against Mando’s beskar armour and spear. However Mando is the superior warrior and quickly disarms him, much to Gideon’s surprising glee. For when Mando takes Gideon to the bridge and offers the Darksaber to Bo-Katan, Gideon smugly tells Mando that Bo-Katan needed to win the Darksaber in combat - and that now means that she has to take it by force from Din. Bo-Katan’s indecision is interrupted by the proximity sensor, and Fennec informs the others that the Dark Troopers (with their Iron Man-like foot rockets) have reboarded the ship. They quickly march towards the bridge against a thumping dub step soundtrack, and Fennec seals the blast doors.

Trapped in an unwinnable position, the posse prepares for a Sundance-style fatal showdown. A single Dark Trooper all but overpowered Mando, so a platoon of them would vanquish even this elite squad in short order. Gideon idly taunts  that no one except for himself and the Child will end up leaving the room alive.

Then the proximity sensor pings once more.  

This is the moment when you expect a Deus ex Machina. When the odds are so heavily weighted against the protagonists that only a “machine of the gods” is going to be able to get them out of their impossible predicament. Season 2 laid the seeds for a couple of such options - most obviously, the New Republic has a small but insignificant presence in the Outer Rim that Mando has encountered a few times in his recent travels (almost literally the cavalry). Boba Fett may still be a part of the plan, skipping out only briefly to return with reinforcements. Despite the elimination of the coven on Navarro, perhaps another coven of the Mandalorian zealots might return to save the day as they did in Season 1. 

But none of these really make proper sense. Ever since the first appearance of the Child in Season 1, and Mando’s subsequent quest to return him to his kind, all roads had to eventually lead to only one person. Not Ahsoka Tano, whose return was a welcome return to form (more on that later), but who steadfastly refused to be considered a Jedi after leaving the order and would not agree to train Grogu lest his attachment to Mando might lead him to suffer the same fate as her former Master. No - at this point in time, there exists only one true Jedi in the entire Galaxy.

Bo-Katan is the first to notice the solitary X-Wing approaching, with Cara’s subsequent quip suggesting it would make no difference at all - it might just be Captain Teva or Trapper Wolf again. But this was the first in a series of subtle but escalating hints as to how wrong she really is. If there were any doubt, the next few moments would lay them to rest. The X-Wing flies into the docking bay on the security cam - it bears indistinct but clearly older Rebellion-era markings, and does not respond to Bo-Katan’s hail. Grogu’s ears perk up - he senses the arrival. Then, abruptly, the Dark Troopers stop punching the door. In unison, they all do an about-face towards a new threat approaching. For the first time, the all-knowing smirk is wiped off Gideon’s face. 

A gentle guitar arpeggio and choral ballad reminiscent of Qui-Gon and Padmé’s Funeral themes begins as we see the second clue on the security cam - a hooded figure walking down a hallway, wearing a dark cloak. It could still be anyone, but it could definitely be the one we’ve all silently hoped to see for so long. This is followed in short order by the third, almost definitive clue: the hooded figure on the security cam expertly wields a single lightsaber, cutting through Dark Troopers like butter. Bo-Katan immediately identifies the figure as a Jedi, and suddenly Moff Gideon’s face betrays fear for the first time. 

Then we see the one thing we’ve waited decades for - a green lightsaber. Not a blue historical artefact wielded by plot-amour protected novice, but a brilliant green blade self-made to stand out against the deep blue desert skies of Tatooine. At last, we allow ourselves to feel hopeful once more. Only one of those Dark Troopers nearly ended Din Djarin minutes ago, but this figure deflects their blaster bolts back into them and slices through their torsos like the battledroids of old. However, unlike the flamboyant Jedi of the Old Republic, the figure’s strokes are spartan and precise. Grogu is at attention because he knows who’s coming to rescue them.

And finally, a low shot of the green blade shows the black leather glove holding onto it and all doubt is removed. It’s LUKE FUCKING SKYWALKER. Luke as the Jedi Master he (and his father) aspired be, at the height of his powers. Luke, who bested but never quite defeated Darth Vader, and through his unwavering faith enabled his father to destroy the most powerful evil in the Galaxy. No longer a naive farm boy, but a full fledged Jedi and, both by default and power, the Grand Master of the New Jedi Order. And certainly not the cranky old defeated hermit passing off for Luke in certain other films, with no hope, determination, or empathy. The REAL Luke Skywalker. This is who heard Grogu’s call two episodes ago, and is the only possible person with whom Grogu could end up with. 

Luke slashes through several more Dark Troopers, and force pushes a crate against another. Craning his neck to see the carnage on the security cams, Moff Gideon realises that the battle is lost and he makes his desperate last move. Clutching the hidden blaster beneath his cloak, he fires at Bo-Katan before taking a shot at the Child. Mando valiantly throws himself into the line of fire - in a way, both moments would have been more powerful if beskar wasn’t so strong as to harmlessly absorb Gideon’s shots. So too would it have been if a shot got through to Grogu, putting him in grave danger. 

The figure cleans up the Dark Troopers on the lower level and takes the elevator up towards the bridge. The Dark Troopers in the exterior hallway wait silently. We’ve seen this moment before - in A NEW HOPE, before the stormtroopers cut through the port on the Tantive IV; and again, in ROGUE ONE, as the lights go out on the Profundity’s docking bay. The final light ignites and the doors open - the Dark Troopers open fire, but their shots are easily deflected by the figure who twirls and swirls more elegantly through his prey, dancing through the corridor and using his hands to bat away debris and crush the exoskeleton of the final unfortunate trooper. We haven’t seen this kind of carnage since the other Skywalker exterminated the Separatists on Mustafar in REVENGE OF THE SITH. 

Mando and Grogu know that it’s time, and he demands that the blast doors be opened. Not getting any favourable response from the others, he opens the door himself. As the blast doors part, we see the figure’s shrouded green lightsaber emerge through the smoke just as his mentor’s did at the start of THE PHANTOM MENACE. The figure slowly holsters his blade on his familiar belt, and deliberately hesitates as he removed his hood. As the iconic notes of the Binary Sunset play, at last we see the face of Luke Skywalker - here to rescue us - with just a little bit more wisdom and wear than he bore at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI. Mando asks him if he is a Jedi, and Luke responds that he is (in the unmistakably optimistic voice of a young Mark Hamill). Luke reaches out, confidently asking Grogu to join him. When Mando queries Grogu’s reluctance, Luke wisely advises him that the Child wants his permission first. 

What follows is the culmination of the series, a heart wrenching scene between Din and Grogu where Din breaks the creed and shows Grogu his face - a father saying goodbye to his son with his own eyes, echoing Luke’s own farewell to Anakin. Grogu doesn’t want to let go of Din until he hears a reassuring sound - R2D2’s familiar beep-bop cadence as he leans over to examine the Child, a clear moment of recognition between the two. Whether they’ve both met at some point in the past (perhaps prior to or during Grogu’s escape from the Jedi Temple), or whether R2 is suffering some PTSD from his memories of Yoda, remains to be seen. But it’s enough to win over Grogu, who allows Luke to pick him up and take him and R2 away. The final shots of Din’s final tearful goodbye and Luke, Grogu and R2 in the departing elevator against a triumphant refrain of the Mandalorian theme are iconic Star Wars images that will be etched in our minds forever alongside the Throne Room and other final shots. 

I’M LUKE SKYWALKER - I’M HERE TO RESCUE YOU

I don’t want to relitigate the issues of the Disney Trilogy at length, suffice to say that the miserable end to that sorry saga far better illustrates them than any missive penned by me could. Yes, as things stand, everything that transpires in THE MANDALORIAN could lead to same sorry end just as the supposedly-fairytale ending of RETURN OF THE JEDI did. But the mere hope that it doesn’t have to, or that it is far enough away to be ignored, is enough to allow the moment to savoured for the delight that it represents.

Because Star Wars has always been about hope, and that hope has always been best embodied by Luke Skywalker - the “Son of Suns”. Luke is our childhood hero, the Boy Scout or Superman defined by his optimism and his faith in our better angels. His journey may venture through internal conflict, impatience, confusion, and failure - but he never gives up hope, even when it seems that all is lost. He was born in a moment of despair, as his mother’s dying breaths gave life to both he and his sister, and saved his father from a tortuous death. The prequel trilogy, fundamentally about perpetual-slave Anakin Skywalker’s hope for a better life for his family, may have ended with a Galaxy entering an era of oppression, but its final shot featured baby Luke with his closest kin watching the famous binary sunset and hoping for the eventual dawn to bring them out of the darkness. 

We later meet Luke again in the eponymous A NEW HOPE as a sheltered and naive young farmhand, dreaming of making a difference in the fight against the evil Empire. Under the guidance of his watchful protector, he produces a one-in-a-million shot heard around the Galaxy. He trawls the Galaxy in search of a new mentor, whose trickery and patience are a foil for his impatient desire to return to the fight. After being humbled by a superior adversary and learning the dark truth of his parentage, he soon realises that his attachment to others can be a weakness to be exploited. Nevertheless, his faith in his friends and family remains resolute - even in the face of discouragement from his masters and enemies alike, Luke manages to persuade his broken and defeated father that he is not irredeemable. Luke’s unwavering belief provides the gentle push needed for Anakin to commit his final act to destroying the evil Emperor that had enslaved him and would destroy the only thing left in the universe for him to love. 

Basically, after searching for his absent father his whole life, only to discover him to be one of the most terrible people in the Galaxy and believed to be beyond redemption by his only remaining friends, Luke still perseveres against all odds in believing there’s a tiny sparkle of good left him in - and ends up convincing his father of that as well. This is the most unbelievably optimistic person, who sees the bright side of things where everyone else sees nothing, and who never, ever gives up. He is what Star Wars is fundamentally all about. 

IF THERE’S A BRIGHT CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE, YOU’RE ON THE PLANET THAT IT’S FARTHEST FROM

However, the Disney Trilogy’s failure began with the first words of its opening crawl, claiming that “Luke Skywalker has vanished” - depriving us of that hope for a whole film. When he finally appears up at the intersection of the first and second movies, it turns out to have been a false hope - in a “subversion” of our expectations, the Luke we find is a shell of a person who has given up on his friends, his family, and his students. He is so devoid of hope and resigned to the ignominious fate of dying alone that he may as well be Darth Vader. After sensing the mere potential for evil in his only nephew, he doesn’t try to turn him away from it but stupidly draws his weapon on him in his sleep - and by doing so creates another version of his father. He senses a familiar darkness in the Resistance’s strange messenger, and resolves not to train her. And yet... suddenly, after a bizarre encounter with an addled apparition pretending to be Yoda, he softens and decides not to join with her in a fight to the death but instead perform some insanely draining Matrix-like distraction that ends up killing him anyway. His last ditch effort saved practically nothing, and didn’t end up mattering anyway when the nemesis he and his father sacrificed everything to destroy “somehow returned”. 

Mark Hamill himself, who has lived and breathed the character for over 40 years, knew that none of this made sense coming from Luke - he would rather amusingly refer to this incarnation as “Jake” Skywalker. The people behind the Disney Trilogy have stated on record that Luke’s absence from the first film was to avoid stealing the spotlight from their new characters, and the butchering of his character in the second ostensibly appears to have paved the way for them to take over the role of the hero. It was as if, in some misguided zero-sum view of the Star Wars universe, in order for the new generation to succeed the old had to be destroyed (in more ways than just this one). And, in doing so, Disney deprived us of seeing the Luke Skywalker we all deserved. 

GOOD, YOU’VE TAKEN YOUR FIRST STEPS INTO A LARGER WORLD

When Anakin Skywalker looks up at the night sky on Tatooine in THE PHANTOM MENACE, he wonders if anyone has ever visited them all - ominously suggesting that he’d be the first. There’s only so much of that story that can be told within the motion picture medium, and there have always been Star Wars stories that existed in the same universe but were not about the Galaxy-changing saga of the Skywalkers. From the Expanded Universe novels, to cartoons, games, and other non-saga films, the Star Wars Universe has weaved a rich tapestry for fans who have been invested in the diverse, fantastic, and advanced  setting it provides for stories that reflect on our own human condition. Many of these stories were self contained - filling in gaps or corners of that tapestry - but just as many intersected with our beloved characters at various points of their lives, who at once both recognisable as their iconic selves but also given further colour and depth through new experiences and challenges. 

Of Luke Skywalker in particular, we saw a hero struggling with his legacy and the monumental task of rebuilding the Galaxy and the Jedi Order in such as way as to not repeat the mistakes of the past. We saw Luke succeed and fail in training new Force-sensitive students into Jedi, and grow in power to become the new Grand Master of the Jedi Order. We saw him defeat stronger foes than he had before and weave his way through the intergalactic politics of the New Republic and Imperial Remnant. We saw him fall in love with Mara Jade, someone who had been tasked by the Emperor with killing him, marry her and have a son (appropriately) named Ben. We witnessed Luke live a full, difficult, but happy life with meaning and purpose - the kind of life his father always wanted but could never achieve.

With this Expanded Universe cast away by Disney, it was left to stories and shows like THE MANDALORIAN to sketch out the details of what is supposed to exists in the rest of the Star Wars Universe. Throughout its run, THE MANDALORIAN has demonstrated definitively that Disney’s approach in sidelining and belittling Luke and the story of the original and prequel trilogies in order to tell new stories in that universe was not only unnecessary, but completely wrong. By starting with a fresh style and a lone gun for hire in a new, small frontier in a corner of the universe it established a new dynamic in the transition period between the fall of the Empire and the establishment of the New Republic. 

But as it continued to flesh out that small corner, we started to see bits of the familiar return from a variety of sources - some from the films such as Trandoshans, IG units, Jawas, Ugnaughts, AT-STs, Mos Eisley’s Docking Bay 94 populated with Pit Droids, Tusken Raiders; others from other media such as Cobb Vanth, Bo-Katan and the Mandalorian Death Watch, Ahsoka Tano (and soon hopefully Grand Admiral Thrawn!), and Dark Troopers from the 90s game DARK FORCES. Others still fleshed out things we’d heard about in previous stories but never seen - krayt dragons, krynkas, Quarren. And at the heart of it all - the Mandalorian creed and the mysterious and powerful Force-using species. We care about and are interested in all of these things because they are familiar elements of the Star Wars Universe, and we care about what new things Mando and the Child encounter because they are grounded in such elements to which we can already relate.

Most of the credit for this change in direction is due to the respective efforts of creator John Favreau and Executive Producer Dave Filoni. Favreau’s early contributions were largely responsible for the dramatic success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he has been involved with Star Wars for some time (voicing characters in SOLO and THE CLONE WARS). Filoni, himself the creator of THE CLONE WARS, has long effectively been George Lucas’s personally selected designated successor as the sage of all things Star Wars. Unlike JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson (relative neophytes to Lucasfilm, who seemed to be unable to move beyond their nostalgia for A NEW HOPE and desperation to spit on Lucas’s prequels), Favreau and Filoni have an understanding of the already-significant diversity of the Star Wars Universe, of its values and potential. 

Favreau, Filoni and the fabulous team of writers and directors they collaborate with have treated the existing source material with respect (the same source material their boss claims not to exist), and have both intertwined and extended it in new ways that make sense and add depth to what came before. The production design has drawn on both the existing worlds of the original and prequel trilogies (and yes, even what would be yet to come in the Disney Trilogy), while referencing the original concept art of Ralph McQuarrie and Doug Chiang (the concept art based credit sequences are particularly inspired) and creating new environments, species and spacecraft that add greater diversity to those worlds. Even Ludwig Görannson’s music has hit it out of the park - not merely rehashing John William’s greatest hits (another area where the Disney Trilogy fell surprisingly short), but creating a whole new aesthetic that feels right for the style of the show, but is unmistakably Star Wars. In short, THE MANDALORIAN feels like a true addition to the Star Wars universe, which seemed impossible after the lukewarm reboot of the Disney Trilogy. 

YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT ME - TELL YOUR SISTER. YOU WERE RIGHT.

So this is why, when we first see the X-Wing appear, the hooded figure walking down the hallway, and the brilliant green blade - followed by the decisive elimination of the Dark Troopers through Gideon’s ship and the corridors leading to the bridge - longtime fans across the world could no longer contain their emotions, with many breaking down into tears of jubilation and relief. After being teased with horrible “subversions of expectations” and being told that our “theories sucked”, finally we actually got what we wanted after all this time - a reason to hope again. 

This is the Luke Skywalker we’ve wanted to see after 37 years - not the naive farm boy or reclusive hermit, but the mature and powerful Jedi Master - and finally seeing him at his peak validated our feelings of frustration and neglect over after the past five years of mediocrity that was Disney’s attempt at rehashing Star Wars. It confirmed to us what we always belived: that Star Wars was not, after all, a one hit wonder and that the lightning in the bottle could be recaptured - if wielded by the right custodians who continue to explore the potential of the Star Wars universe to tell great new stories. 

[beautifulfaaces]

Mark Moses

Facts

February 24, 1958

American actor

Filmography

Undersheriff Jerry London [Deputy: 2020]

Jason Wolfe [Berlin Station: 2016-2019]

Hugh Keating [Salvation: 2017-2018]

Duck Phillips [Mad Men: 2007-2015]

Paul Young [Desperate Housewives: 2004-2011]

Matt Parker [The Single Guy: 1995-1996]

Richard Peyton [Grand: 1990]

Lt. Wolfe [Platoon: 1986]

Appearance

brunette/ grey hair

blue eyes

1.88m

Roleplay

playable: young adult, adult

Icons: Bombshell

[willofhounds]

Bound to you ch1

A/N this is one of my crazy ideas. Please note this is the Bourne novels not the movies. It is also combined with the soulmate prompt from Tumblr. Will be Gellert/Newt dont like dont read.

Thank you for to @silverynight and @reina1505 for helping me with this fic. It is going to be a fun one to do.

Also the way POV's are written will change back and forth depending on the personality that is in control. I also have changed the date of when the CIA was founded to the earlier 1900s instead of 1947.

Newt's POV

His hands shook at the sight in front of him. The air cracked with his angry magical energy. Burning flesh scent filled the air. Its acidic scent burned his throat. Yet he did not move away or tear his eyes from the sight.

Burned corpses surrounded the barely of age wizard. Newt had only been in the war effort for three months. The entire time he had worked with and loved the dragons. Unlike the humans they didn't judge him.

The eldest dragon took to him as if he was her own. She didnt mind his presence or that he was curious about their behaviors. Every day he would spend his time with the dragons.

The first time his fellow soldiers found them in the pen they about had a heart attack. It wasn't until they saw how at ease the dragons were with him. They wanted him to teach them how to handle the dragons.

Two months it took but each of squad could handle a dragon each. When it came to the female elder only Newt was allowed near her. She trusted him in a way that she trusted no others.

Newt had only left camp for a few hours on a scouting mission. When he returned Ministry wizards were trying to scavenge scales from the dead bodies of his dragons. His fellow dragoniers were being held at wand point. Counting Newt there were only five of them and they were viciously outnumbered by the Ministry.

There wasn't even half a second for him to consider the consequences of his actions. He began a barrage of heavy explosive spells. They were sent with deadly accuracy.

Only one Ministry official was able to get a shield up in time. With the shield he was still sent back several feet. The others were thrown from across the camp unmoving as they landed.

Despite Newt never finishing his formal schooling he could duel with the best. Most people remember him as the strange man with the creatures. Only Professor Dumbledore knew that he had the innate talent for dueling. Under his guidance it was flourished.

In his fourth year Newt mastered the Patronus charm. It's corporeal form was that of a wolf. The surprise on Dumbledore's face would have been hilarious if anyone else had seen it. For Newt it was refreshing and made the boy smile. A rare thing seen by any other than his creatures.

Dueling practice had become tea time afterwards. Newt slowly became more comfortable with the older man.

It was on accident one day that during a duel that a cutting curse hit his robe over his right wrist. This revealed his soulmate mark. Newt wasn't ashamed of his mark; more confused by it. He recognized it from the the book Tales if Beatle and Bard.

At the time his parents had been thrilled. The Scammander family was neutral to dark as a whole. Theseus was on the lighter side of neutral by choice. Newt had been on the darker side of if. Like his parents he didn't care about whether it was dark or light. They taught him that it was all intention.

Dumbledore had gone paler than the ghosts. Immediately he warned Newt to never let anyone see it. That his soulmate was a dangerous man.

Newt took the advice as that, advice. He wasn't one of his classmates who went looking for his soulmate. All he wanted was to look after creatures.

When his parents died in his fourth year Dumbledore had been there for him. A friend where the rest of the world looked down upon him. Well him and Leta.

Leta Lestrange a Slytherin in his year was the only friend his age. She was unsure about him at first. Given that he felt the same about anyone he met then they made a good match to be friends. Outcasts no matter where they went.

Then he had been expelled because he stuck up for her. His only friend his age. It was only later did he find out that she didnt do the same for him. Not that it would have changed anything.

So with a year left to his schooling he was sent home. He was given a suitcase with an undetectable extension charm on it. Dumbledore gave it to him so that he could help creatures. Before he left he took the bowtruckles hiding in the Forbidden Forest with him. They had been tormented by students for long enough.

That's how he ended up on the war front. If he had not been expelled he would not have been eligible to join the army. Following Theseus's lead against his older brother's wishes he had joined. Newt never expected for this to happen.

His attention was brought back to the duel as a sickly yellow curse came at him. A quick wordless shield and it was blocked. Much like himself this man had no qualms about using dark spells.

The Ministry officials that had been blown off their feet were slowly getting up. They had wary looks in their eyes. It seemed they didn't want to try to their luck again.

They went to and from each using powerful spells. Newt could feel his magical reserves deplenishing. If this kept up he would be beaten.

As if sensing his thoughts the man man blocked another curse but did not return in kind. Both stood staring at each other.

The dark haired man began in a low rumble that echoed around them, "I did not know what was going to be done here today. I was only told of some new recruits for an operation I am putting together. It was one of wo things I came for today. The other was to find a Newton Fido Artemis Scammander. If I had known then I would have stopped them."

Newt didn't lower his wand but he was listening. There wasn't an ounce of deception in the other's voice. As far as he could tell the man was telling the truth.

Newt snapped back watching the man's wand for any indication of an attack, "I'm Newt Scammander. What do you want?"

The man replied with an honest look of regret, "I am Lieutenant Colonel David Abboyt from MACUSA's CIA branch. Two months ago one of my platoons went missing. An English platoon with Second Lieutenant Theseus Scammander went to rescue them two weeks ago. Information received suggests that they were captured and killed along with the original platoon. You have my sincerest condolences Corporal Scamander."

It was as if winter had set in three months early. Snow could have been falling with how cold he became.

Thee was dead? The only family he had left in the world was gone? His world was turned on itself. Without Theseus he was all alone in the world.

He was without kith or kin any longer. What was he supposed to do now?

For the first time in his life he felt truly lost. This wasn't even something he felt when he was expelled. Theseus had been there for him and helped. Now even he was gone.

The feeling of loss was quickly replaced by another feeling he was unfamiliar with; rage. If his anger had been a flame before it was a wildfire now. Never before had he felt the need to kill someone. Normally a gentle soul he felt no qualms about finding and killing those who killed his brother.

The members of his platoon began to move away. They wanted no part of the conversation that would ensue. Newt trusted them to take care of the bodies. Just like him they were attached to their dragons. A connection in them had died that night.

Then the word he had overlooked for his name hit him. He questioned, "What operation?"

Abbott's blue eyes sparked with interest. He replied, "You have the magical skill for it but would you be willing to learn to fight like muggle. Not just shooting a gun but hand to hand."

He paused eyeing Newt up and down. The younger man refused to say anything. He would not look weak. Not when he stood around the bodies of his precious dragons.

Abbott continued, "The operation will be known as Medusa. It is made up of the worst kinds of criminals. It will be men from all countries and origins. Training will be given. There would be a few such as yourself who aren't but not many. Remember they wont be your friends. If they get the chance they will kill you. This is not an official operation however. I am in control of it but if you speak to anyone outside of the group I'll deny it. If you get captured there will be no rescue. From the moment you are assigned a team you are apart of it. There will be no going back until the war is over."

There was no hesitation or requiring time to think about it, "If it means going after those that killed my brother then so be it."

Even if he had to become a monster.

[mightystargazer]

Another year gone, another readinglist done!

W. Michael Gear Outpost

W. Michael Gear Abandoned

Angela Carter The Bloody Chamber

Sue Burke Semiosis

Rob Dircks Don't Touch the Blue Stuff!

Laurie Forest the iron flower

Joseph Nassise urban Enemies: a collection

Ezekiel Boone The Mansion

Richtel, Matt Dead on Arrival

Wilkie Martin Inspector Hobbes and the Blood

Wilkie Martin Inspector Hobbes and The Curse

Wilkie Martin Inspector Hobbes & The Gold Digger

Wilkie Martin Inspector Hobbes and The Bones

A. American Home Coming

Adam J. Wright Lost Soul

Adam J. Wright Buried Memory

Adam J. Wright Dark Magic

Adam J. Wright Dead Ground

Adam J. Wright Shadow Land

Robert Bevan Critical Failures VI

Darynda Jones Grave on the Right

Darynda Jones Grave on the Left

Darynda Jones Third Grave Dead Ahead

Darynda Jones Grave Beneath My Feet

Darynda Jones Grave Past the Light

Darynda Jones Grave on the Edge

Darynda Jones Grave and No Body

Darynda Jones Grave After Dark

Darynda Jones Brighter Than the Sun

Darynda Jones Dirt on Ninth Grave

Darynda Jones The Curse of Tenth Grave

Darynda Jones Eleventh Grave in Moonlight

Dan Simmons The Terror

Warren Fahy Fragment

Tim McBain The Scattered and the Dead

Scott Thomas Kill Creek

Kurt Anderson Resurrection Pass

Larry Correia Son of the Black Sword

Larry Correia House of Assassins

Chuck Wendig Blackbird

Chuck Wendig Mockingbird

Chuck Wendig The Cormerant

Chuck Wendig Thunderbird

Karen Thompson Walker The Dreamers

Hank Green An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

C.T. Phipps The Tournament of Supervillainy 5

Peter Clines 14

Peter Clines The Fold

Peter Clines Dead Moon

Sean Schubert Infection

Sean Schubert Containment

Sean Schubert Mitigation

Sean Schubert Resolution

James Marshall Smith Hybrid

Mark Tufo Demon Wars

Alan Dean Foster Interlopers

Anthony Melchiorri The Tide

Anthony Melchiorri Breakwater

Anthony Melchiorri Salvage

Anthony Melchiorri Deadrise

Anthony Melchiorri Iron Wind

Anthony Melchiorri Dead Ashore

Anthony Melchiorri Ghost Fleet

Anthony Melchiorri Devil to Pay

Scott Medbury Heel Week

Scott Medbury On The Run

Scott Medbury Cold Comfort

Scott Medbury Rude Shock

Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman Good omens

Barry J. Hutchison The Sidekicks Initiative

Catherynne M. Valente The Refrigerator Monologues

Ike Hamill Super Apex

J.H. Moncrieff Monsters in Our Wake

John Connolly The Underbury Witches

Jonathan Maberry Dead of Night

Lydia Kang Quackery

Tomi Adeyemi Children of Blood and Bone

Thomas Morris The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth

John A.Keel The Complete Guide To Mysterious Beings

Ted Dekker ADAM

Richard K. Morgan Altered Carbon

Ransom Riggs A Map of Days

Kevin Hearne Death & Honey

Benjamin Wallace Boom box 1

Benjamin Wallace Boom box  2

Benjamin Wallace Boom box  3

Benjamin Wallace Revenge of the Apocalypse

Victor LaValle The Changeling

Rick Chesler Sawfish

Nathan Barnes The Reaper Virus

Michael brent Collings The Deep

Bill Heavey If You Didn't Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat

Bill Heavey It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It

Bill Heavey Should the Tent Be Burning Like That

Jenny Lawson Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Mark Tufo The Spirit Clearing

Ambrose Ibsen Asylum

Ambrose Ibsen Forest

Ambrose Ibsen The Occupant

Stephen King The Man in the Black Suit

Sam Sykes The City Stained Red

Peter Meredith The Queen Unthroned

Peter Meredith The Queen Enslaved

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Red Line

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Horizon

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Edge

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Age

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Evolution

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction End

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Aftermath

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Lost

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction War

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Missions from the Extinction Cycle

Drew Hayes Super Powereds Year 4

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Patrick F McManus Kerplunk! Stories

Mark Wayne McGinnis The Simpleton

Mark Wayne McGinnis The Simpleton Quest

John Connolly A Book of Bones

Drew Hayes Corpies

Nathan Ballingrud Wounds

Michael Todd Torn Asunder

Michael Todd Killing Is My Business

Michael Todd And Business Is Good

Marty Ross The Darkwater Bride

Richard Porter Top Gear Epic Failures 50 Great Motoring Cock-Ups

Parker Peevyhouse The Echo Room

P. K. Hawkins Shark Infested Waters

M. R. James The Conception of Terror Tales

Broad Reach Publishing I, Zombie

Bobby Hall Supermarket

Terry Pratchett Night Watch

Patrick F McManus Never Sniff a Gift Fish

Michael Talbot The Bog

Michael Edelson Seed

Matthew Scott Hansen The Shadowkiller

Jonathan Maberry Ghost Road Blues

Jonathan Maberry Dead Man's Song

Jonathan Maberry Bad Moon Rising

Jonathan Maberry Property Condemned

Jonathan Maberry Darkness on the Edge of Town

Chris Angus Flypaper

Dean Koontz The Night Window

John P. Logsdon Platoon F Big Ass Bundle

Robert Tomoguchi The Scribbled Victims

Richard MacLean Smith Unexplained

Mark Edwards The Retreat

Dennis E. Taylor Outland

Bobby Adair Freedom's Siege

Bobby Adair Freedom's Fire

Bobby Adair Freedom's Fury

Bobby Adair Freedom's Fray

Bobby Adair Freedom's Fist

Bobby Adair Freedom's Fall

Bobby Adair Freedom's Fate

William Gibson Alien III

Terry Brooks Running with the Demon

Steven Campbell Hard Luck Hank

Neal Stephenson Reamde

Neal Stephenson Fall, or Dodge in Hell

J.F. Holmes Irregular Scout Team One

Michael Stephen Fuchs Odyssey

Kameron Hurley The Light Brigade

TTC History of Ancient Egypt

Justin Cronin The Passage

Justin Cronin The Twelve

Justin Cronin The City of Mirrors

J.N. Chaney Orion Colony

J.N. Chaney Orion Uncharted

J.N. Chaney Orion Awakened

Christopher Dowell The Adventures of Badass Mike

Barry J. Hutchison Sentienced to Death

Adam Savage Every Tool's a Hammer

Rob Dircks Gigi Make Paradox

Eric Rickstad What Remains of Her

Robert Bevan 6d6

L. L. Akers Fight like a Man

L. L. Akers Shoot Like a Girl

L. L. Akers Run Like the Wind

Jonathan Mayberry Broken Lands

Alexander C. Kane Andrea Vernon and the Superhero-Industrial Complex

A.R. Shaw The China Pandemic

A.R. Shaw The Cascade Preppers

A.R. Shaw The Last Infidels mp3

A.R. Shaw The Malefic Nation

A.R. Shaw The Bitter Earth

Jim C. Hines Terminal Uprising

Mark Tufo Dog Days of War

Rick Gualtieri Get Bent!

Brian Keene Darkness on the Edge of Town

Christopher Moore Practical Demonkeeping

Christopher Moore The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Christopher Moore The Stupidest Angel

Chuck Wendig Wanderers

John Connolly Conquest

John Connolly Empire

John Connolly Dominion

C. J. Tudor The Taking of Annie Thorne

Wellington, David The Last Astronaut

S. Bennett A Womans Journey with the Worlds Worst Behaved Dog

Levi Black Red Right Hand

Levi Black Black Goat Blues

Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl

Eoin Colfer The Arctic Incident

Eoin Colfer The Eternity Code

Eoin Colfer The Opal Deception

Eoin Colfer The Lost Colony

Eoin Colfer The Time Paradox

Eoin Colfer The Atlantis Complex

Eoin Colfer The Last Guardian

Ambrose Ibsen Transmission

Daniel Green End Time

Daniel Green The Breaking

Daniel Green The Rising

Patrick F McManus The Bear in the Attic

Mark Tufo Encounters

Mark Tufo Reckoning

Mark Tufo Conquest

Mark Tufo From the Ashes

Mark Tufo Into the Fire

Mark Tufo Victory's Defeat

Mark Tufo Defeat's Victory

Brett Battles Mine

Caitlin Starling the luminous dead

Craig A. Falconer Not Alone

Craig A. Falconer Second Contact

Craig A. Falconer The Final Call

Gardner Dozois Down These Strange Streets

Greig Beck Primordia

Kevin  Hearne Kill the Farm Boy

Kevin  Hearne No Country for Old Gnomes

Kathleen Meyer How to Shit in the Woods

Joe Hill NOS4A2

Drew Hayes The Case of the Damaged Detective

Simon Haynes Robot vs Dragons

Nora Roberts Blood Brothers

Nora Roberts The Hollows

Nora Roberts The Pagan Stone

Peter F. Hamilton The Reality Dysfunction

Paul Tremblay The Cabin at the End of the World

Gerry Griffiths Down from Beast Mountain

Eoin Colfer The Reluctant Assassin

Eoin Colfer The Hangman's Revolution

Eoin Colfer The Forever Man

C A Fletcher A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

N.C. Reed Odd Billy Todd

Stephen King The Shining

Stephen King Doctor Sleep

Richard J. Dewhurst The Ancient Giants Who Ruled America

Laird Barron The Croning

Keith C. Blackmore The Troll Hunter

J.L. McPherson The Gorge

Erin Bowman Contagion

Erin Bowman Immunity

Stephen King The Institute

Douglas Adams Starship Titanic

Lee Murray Into the Mist

Lee Mountford The Mark

Keith C. Blackmore White Sands, Red Steel

Joe Hill The Fireman

Barry J. Hutchison The Hunt for Reduk Topa

Greig Beck Return to the Lost World

Greig Beck The Lost World

Ted Dekker Obsessed

James D. Prescott Extinction Code

James D. Prescott Extinction Countdown

James D. Prescott Extinction Crisis

James D. Prescott Missions from the Extinction Cycle 2

Dean Koontz Strange Highways

Mira Grant Rolling in the Deep

Mira Grant Into the Drowning Deep

Luke Romyn Ash

Thomas Olde Heuvelt Hex

Jeremiah Knight Hunger

Jeremiah Knight Feast

T. Kingfisher The Twisted Ones

Patrick F McManus The Horse in My Garage

Jeff Strand Wolf Hunt

Jeff Strand Wolf Hunt 2

Annie Wilder Trucker Ghost Stories

Kathryn Croft The Girl with No Past

Larry Correia Monster Hunter International

Larry Correia Vendetta

Larry Correia Alpha

Larry Correia Legion

Larry Correia Nemesis

Larry Correia Siege

Larry Correia Guardian

Nicholas Sansbury Smith Extinction Inferno

Jack Townsend Tales from the Gas Station

Dean R Koontz Phantoms

Scott Sigler Blood Is Red

Stephen Chbosky Imaginary Friend

Larry Correia Grunge

Larry Correia Sinners

Larry Correia Saints

Larry Correia The Monster Hunter Files

Dean Koontz Innocence

Hugh Howey Half Way Home

Shaun Hamill A Cosmology of Monsters

Cameron Milan Zombie Slayer!!

Charles Soule The Oracle Year

Christopher Moore Practical Demonkeeping

Christopher Moore The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

Christopher Moore The Stupidest Ange

Iain Rob Wright Sea Sick

Iain Rob Wright Ravage

Iain Rob Wright Savage

Keith C. Blackmore 131 Days

Keith C. Blackmore House of Pain

Keith C. Blackmore Spikes and Edges

Keith C. Blackmore About the Blood

Keith C. Blackmore To Thunderous Applause

Kevin Hearne The Princess Beard

Adrian Tchaikovsky Walking to Aldebaran

Cixin Liu Supernova Era

Dave Pedneau Night, Winter, and Death

Dean Koontz Nameless

Jack Hunt As We Fall

Jack Hunt As We Break

Katherine Arden Small Spaces

Katherine Arden Dead Voices

Larry Correia #1 in Customer Service

Myke Cole The Armored Saint

Myke Cole The Sacred Throne

Myke Cole The Killing Light

C. T. Phipps The Future of Supervillainy

Charlie Huston The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

T.W. Piperbrook St. Matthews

T.W. Piperbrook Onset

T.W. Piperbrook Crossroads

T.W. Piperbrook Wasteland

Paul Tremblay Disappearance at Devil’s Rock

Ferrett Steinmetz The Sol Majestic

Grady Hendrix Horrorstör

Mark Tufo The Perfect Betrayal

William Goldman The Princess Bride

Joseph John The Eighth Day

Stephen King Gwendy's Button Box

Richard Chizmar Gwendy's Magic Feather

Ronald Malfi Snow

Robert Bevan Critical Failures VII

Mark Tufo Winter's Rising

Mark Tufo Cedar's Conflict

Mark Tufo The Edge of Deceit

Michael McBride Unidentified

Scott Sigler Infected

Scott Sigler Contagious

Prescott, James D The Genesis Conspiracy

Michael Crichton Andromeda Strain

Michael Crichton The Andromeda Evolution

Melanie Golding Little Darlings

Iain Rob Wright Escape!

Ambrose Ibsen Midnight in a Perfect World

Scott Baron Bad Luck Charlie

Scott Baron Space Pirate Charlie

Scott Baron The Dragon Mage