#steven stronghold | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariacallous · 3 months ago

Text

Every era produces its own emblematic array of knuckleheads and butterfingers: Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops. The Three Stooges. The 1962 Mets. Beavis and Butt-head. Wayne and Garth. In Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War classic, “Dr. Strangelove,” the fools wield apocalyptic weapons rather than custard pies. Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper, played by Sterling Hayden, grows so feverish and paranoid about a Communist plot “to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids” that he goes “a little funny” and orders a thermonuclear strike on the Soviet Union. But such fantastical heedlessness is the province only of comic fantasy, no?

In the initial months of Donald Trump’s second Administration, the qualities of malevolence, retribution, and bewildering velocity have obscured somewhat the ineptitude of its principals. This came into sharper view with recent reports in The Atlantic, in which the magazine’s editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, tells how he was somehow added to a communal chat on the commercially available messaging system Signal, labelled “Houthi PC small group.” Sitting in his car, in a Safeway parking lot, Goldberg watched incredulously on his phone as the leaders of the national-security establishment discussed the details of bombing Houthi strongholds in Yemen.

The comedy of Goldberg’s reports resides, at least in part, in the discovery that the Vice-President and the heads of the leading defense and intelligence bureaucracies deploy emojis with the same frequency as middle schoolers. More seriously, but not astonishingly, when prominent members of the Administration were confronted with their potentially lethal carelessness, they did as their President would have them do: they attacked the character and the integrity of the reporter (who proved far more concerned about national security than the national-security adviser), and then refused to give straight answers to Congress about their cock-up and the sensitivity of the communications. Everyone from Cabinet members to the President’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, followed principles inherited by the President from the late Roy Cohn: Never apologize. And be certain to slander the messenger.

This spectacle of breezy contempt regarding questions of process and policy was humiliating, for sure, but hardly an amazement. In the chat, Vice-President J. D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seem to compete in their denigrations of the Europeans. (“I fully share your loathing of European freeloading,” Hegseth tells Vance. “It’s PATHETIC.”) And yet much of what is so depressing about the chat is how familiar we are with the details and its spirit. Vance has, publicly and repeatedly, unburdened himself of his and the President’s disdain for Europe—most flagrantly in a speech in Munich, in February, when he lectured European leaders on their supposed failures in the realms of immigration and free speech.

This is an Administration that does not have to slip on a Signal banana peel to reveal its deepest-held prejudices and its painful incapacities. You get the sense that we would learn little if we were privy to a twenty-four-hour-a-day live stream of its every private utterance. Part of what was so appalling about Trump and Vance’s recent meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky was not just their penchant for channelling the world view and negotiating points of Vladimir Putin but their comfort in expressing them, barking them, at the Ukrainian President in front of reporters in the Oval Office.

Similarly, it does not require months of painstaking investigative reporting or a middle-aged tech fail to discover that another member of the group chat, Steven Witkoff, the President’s leading shuttle negotiator, is no more steeped in the granular details of diplomatic history and strategy than any other New York real-estate developer from the eighties in Trump’s circle. In a long interview with Tucker Carlson, following recent conversations in Moscow with Putin, Witkoff consistently parroted Russian talking points and relayed that the Russian dictator (“I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy”) had been “gracious” and gave him a “beautiful portrait” of Trump as a gift for the President. (Trump, in turn, “was clearly touched” by the painting, Witkoff reported.) Throughout, Witkoff’s grasp of the conflict was so wobbly, so Moscow-inflected, that one could almost hear the guffawing from the Kremlin. In a moment of contemplation, Witkoff admitted, “I underestimated the complications in the job, that’s for sure. I think I was a little bit quixotic in the way that I thought about it. Like, I’m going to roll in there on a white horse. And, no, it was anything but that, you know.”

Pete Hegseth is less prone to misty self-reflection. But his incompetence might have been predictable. Last December, after Trump nominated Hegseth, a weekend host on Fox News, to lead the Pentagon, Jane Mayer wrote a meticulously reported piece in this magazine on his florid background: his bouts of excessive drinking and profoundly sexist behavior on and off the job; his failures at managing enterprises somewhat larger than a dry cleaner but infinitely smaller than the Pentagon. No matter. Congressional Republicans were not inclined to deny Hegseth his appointment or to risk the President’s wrath. And they were similarly accommodating for another participant in the hapless Signal chat, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of National Intelligence.

And so the week’s scandal is rather like the ending of an O. Henry story, surprising yet inevitable. If a journalist is mistakenly dropped into a group text among the leaders of the American health bureaucracy, will we faint when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., refuses to recommend proven vaccines?

It would be unwise to dismiss the importance of secrets in this or any other Administration, but the point is that Trump and his ideological and political planners have made no secret of their intentions. While Richard Nixon tended to save his darkest confidences and prejudices for private meetings with such aides as Henry Kissinger and H. R. Haldeman, Trump gives voice to his id almost daily at the microphone or on social media: the autocratic actions intended to undermine the law, academia, and the media; the disregard for democratic partners and the affection for all manner of authoritarians; the hostile designs on Greenland, Canada, Panama, Mexico, and Europe; the ongoing attempt to purge the Republican Party of any remaining dissenters; and the constant effort to intimidate his critics and perceived enemies.

The threat of autocracy advances each day under Donald Trump, and it is a process that hides in plain sight. Some will choose to deny it, to domesticate it, to treat the abnormal as mere politics, to wish it all away in the spirit of “this too shall pass.” But the threat is real and for all to see. No encryption can conceal it.

4 notes · View notes

darrenpeace · 4 months ago

Text

I was planning posting this on 14th February but I couldn’t finish it on time… anyway, commandstream~

#sky high #sky high 2005 #steven stronghold #josie demarco #steve stronghold #josie stronghold #the commander #jetstream #fanart #sketch #digital

14 notes · View notes

lacking-artdration · 2 years ago

Text

she skying on my high til I Michael Giacchino

#sky high #steven stronghold #the commander #johnathan boy #all american boy #gwen grayson #royal pain

23 notes · View notes

catgirldomesticationguide · 1 month ago

Text

had a dream that israel had copyrighted a form of ukrainian mysticism and a person who looked like steven segal but with a big white beard was practicing it in a room made of minecraft stone bricks (maybe a stronghold??)

3 notes · View notes

sjsmith56 · 1 year ago

Text

The Fae Elements, Part 7 - The Past

Summary: A flashback chapter that explains more about the fae king James Barnes, specifically how he managed to have a much younger mortal son.

Length: 5 K

Characters: James Barnes, Sheriff Brown, Cora, Mr. Horton, Steven Rogers.

Warnings: Despair, grief. A young woman is described as easy to seduce.

Author notes: Okay, it was supposed to be only six parts, but this came to me, so I added it on. It's a flashback, but it kind of explains some things that happen in the main story. This is set in 1945 and explains how Buck came to have a mortal son. It also somewhat explains his reluctance to protect Sage as a child, with a marriage bond. Unlike the rest of the story, this is written in 3rd person POV. The AI images of James Barnes as a farm worker and rich businessman, were created by the author, using Microsoft Copilot app, in Designer mode.

<<Part 6

👮🏼‍♂️ 🧑‍🌾 🪦

The crowds in New York celebrating the end of the war in Europe were boisterous, loud, and finally too much for James Barnes to continue observing. Although he was happy to know that the hostilities of the mortal world had ceased, at least in that part of the world, he would wait for his council to assess the damage so many years of warfare had inflicted on the North African and European landscape. Certainly, the repercussions on the environment would be felt for years to come, not to mention the cost it had inflicted on people, both fae and mortal. So many of their kind had been swept away by the madness. So many mortal descendants had been killed by both sides.

As he leaned back against a building in the alley he ducked into, Barnes ran his hands over his face. He had been fae king for far too long, had overseen massive technological and industrial changes in the human world that greatly affected the fae world. His own self-imposed isolation after Daere's death placed their kind in peril, as the Industrial Revolution that spread all over the world introduced stresses on nature that seemed unthinkable. Vast tracts of forests had been cut down to satisfy the needs of the mortals for fuel, building, and agriculture, forever changing some landscapes for the worse. A sense of despair threatened him suddenly, and he looked around to make sure no one was watching as he flew out of the alley, away from the noise, and the singing and dancing that suddenly felt wrong.

For hours he kept high in the sky, using the warm air currents to glide from the city to the countryside. Everywhere he considered landing seemed to be teeming with people intent on being joyous. Certainly, it was their right, but he craved solitude at this moment, so even the stronghold wasn't an option for him. He could have always gone to the sanctuary, but he had spent so long there after the death of his wife, in his self-imposed exile, that he knew if he returned, he risked turning his back on everything once again. So, it had to be somewhere else, somewhere quiet, where he could think.

As the sun went down on May 8, 1945, he finally found a spot and landed, making his wings invisible again, then using his magic to make sure his clothes were appropriate for the area. Wearing the garb of a migrant worker, overalls, shirt, work-boots, short jacket and cap, he began walking into the small quiet town. His appearance at the edge of town drew some attention and at one point, he was approached by a man wearing the uniform of a law enforcement officer. Taking his cap off, in a gesture of respect, he waited for the man to reach him.

"Stranger," said the man, wearing a badge that said Sheriff. "Where did you come from?"

"I was hitchhiking and was dropped off here," said Barnes. "The driver of the truck said I might be able to find work." The Sheriff frowned and the disguised fae king realized the people here likely were not friendly to strange men. He needed to think fast. "I've been searching for work since returning from Europe."

"You served? Where?"

"France, I went in with the 101st Airborne on D-Day," replied Barnes. "Received a leg injury that took me out of the war in Belgium and got sent home."

"Where's home?"

"Virginia. My wife was with another fellow, so I left. Been on the road ever since."

He looked away, hoping to convey his embarrassment at his situation. The disapproval from the lawman rolled off of him in waves, and he knew instinctively the man likely wouldn't allow him into town.

"I can give you a bed in the jail for tonight, and a couple of meals if you clear out a storeroom for me," said the sheriff, surprisingly. "But I want you gone tomorrow. I'm only letting you stay the night because no man should come home from the war to find his wife with another."

"Thank you, sir, I appreciate it," replied Barnes, hoping he looked desperate enough to be appreciative of a bed and food.

Following him back into town, he was aware of everyone's eyes on him, even noticing people coming out of their homes to watch him pass. It was more curiosity than anything else and he did all he could to insert the thought that he was forgettable into their minds. As they re-entered their houses after he passed, he breathed easier, knowing that he had successfully passed himself off as just another sad mortal man, down on his luck. The Sheriff entered the jailhouse, nodding at another uniformed man, typing a report using his two index fingers.

"This is ...."

"Jim," said Barnes.

"Jim is going to spend the night in a cell and then clean out the storeroom in the morning. He gets a meal now and a meal before he leaves. He's not under arrest. He's just another soldier who came home to an unfaithful wife."

The other man saluted him slightly, then returned to his report. Sheriff Brown got on the phone and ordered a meal for all three of them, then showed him the cell where he could sleep. There was a cot, with a thin bare mattress on it and nothing else.

"I've got a pillow and blanket in the storeroom, if you want to come and have a look at the mess."

He led the way to the storeroom, turning a light on by pulling a string that hung from the ceiling. It was full of all sorts of equipment, old furniture, and boxes everywhere. Reaching to one of the boxes, the Sheriff pulled out a bare pillow and a scratchy wool blanket, handing it to Barnes.

"If you can make some sort of sense of this mess, I might be able to give you some money as well, but I'll see how good of a job you do. You're welcome to work on it overnight if you can't sleep. I have to lock you into the building as Joe and I both go home to our wives overnight unless we have a prisoner that needs guarding. That okay with you?"

"That's fine," said Barnes. "I appreciate you giving me a place to sleep. If you don't mind, I can start now before the food arrives."

"Suit yourself."

Brown took back the blanket and pillow, leaving the other man there who started with the boxes, moving them to the hallway and taking stock of what else was in the cramped space.. After ten minutes Barnes took his jacket off, already feeling warm as he used his strength to shift some of the heavier furniture into a place that was out of the way. The food arrived and the other officer came back to get him, leading him to the front office, then gesturing at a table where a young woman was unpacking a basket.

She was pleasant to him, in a way that reminded Barnes of Daere, his long-dead wife. Her honey-coloured hair wasn't curled like the other women who wore theirs in large Victory rolls. Instead, she let it hang loose over her shoulders, her natural waves reflecting the light from the overhead fixtures. He imagined that in the sun it would be more golden in colour. Her soft brown eyes reminded him of a doe's eyes, so large and trusting. Smiling kindly at him, she placed a plate of food in front of each man then set out cutlery.

"Thank you, Cora," said Brown. "If you come back in an hour, you can pick up the dishes and return them to the restaurant."

"Yes, Sheriff," she replied quietly, then took her leave.

"Nice girl," said the lawman. "Her family's had it tough since her brother went to war. Her daddy died of a heart attack and it's just her and her mama running the restaurant. Maybe now with the surrender her brother can come home and take care of them as she doesn't seem to be the marrying kind. Eat up, before it gets cold."

It was good food, hearty, simple fare that reminded Barnes of the type of meal they strived for when he first arrived in America in the early years, with Daere and their twin sons. The council had sensed that the Americas needed the fae king there, as great trials against their people were coming. Unfortunately, there was little he could do about the troubles, as the paranoia was so great against anyone who tried to defend those accused of being in league with the dark one. After Daere's sister was hung, and she wasted away in despair, Barnes retreated to the sanctuary with his then young daughter, Hope, as her older brothers chose to remain in the stronghold, still being built at that time. Shaking himself out of the painful memories, he finished the meal and returned to the storeroom to continue working on it. Later, Brown stopped and had a look at his progress.

"Cora hasn't returned for those dishes yet, so I've left you the key to let her in," he said. "Mind you don't let her linger too long. People gossip about her. They think she's too trusting with men and there may be some truth to it. She's a sweet girl but without her father and brother to watch over her I think she's lonely and some have taken advantage of that. Anyways, good night, Jim."

"Goodnight, Sheriff," replied Barnes, locking the door behind the man, still coming to terms that the man didn't want him to hang around town but was willing to leave him on his own inside the jailhouse and with a woman who was a little too "trusting."

It almost didn't make sense but then mortals could be like that. A timid knock 30 minutes later brought him back to the door and he looked out the small window to see it was the young woman, Cora. He let her in then stood back as she packed the dirty dishes back into the basket. They stood there a bit, then she looked him in the eye.

"Where are you from?"

"Virginia, originally," he said, lying a little bit, as he was from England originally, then moved to Virginia in the mid 1600s.

"Are you married?"

"I was. My wife is now dead."

"I'm sorry." Her hands were fumbling a little with the hem of her sweater. "Do you miss her?"

"Very much. Are you married?"

She huffed a little. "No, ain't no one wants me. They say I'm not right." She looked out the barred window of the office. "Doesn't stop them from inviting me into their car or their barn."

"Why do you stay?"

She shrugged. "Don't have enough money to go to the city. Mama needs me, although there's talk of selling the restaurant so Mr. Horton can build a factory for all the men coming home from the war to work at. Maybe you could stay and work at the factory. Maybe you could marry me."

"I'm not staying, Cora," he answered. "The Sheriff wants me gone tomorrow. I can't marry you because I don't love you and that wouldn't be fair to you."

She frowned and sighed. "Can you take me with you? If I stay here, no one will want me. They all think I'm loose but I'm just lonely."

"Well, I understand lonely," said Barnes. "Give me your hand."

She obliged him, placing her soft hand in his. Barnes closed his eyes and used his magic to see a little further into Cora's life. It was a gift he didn't like using because things could always change but what he saw surprised him and he looked at her intently for a bit, before releasing her hand. She wasn't well educated, having been kept at home to look after her sickly mother. Her brother had tried to teach her more before he left for war in 1942, but without his encouragement she hadn't gone past a basic level of literacy. Now, he was dead, already buried in a cemetery in Belgium, although the family hadn't yet received the notification. There was something else that concerned Barnes, but he knew it was likely her only way out of this tiny, backwater town. He decided to be honest with her as so many here hadn't been.

"Cora, what do you know about the fairy folk?"

"That they'll steal your baby's soul when you're not taking heed," she replied. "That's what the older people say. I would like to see one. In my mind, they're beautiful, with wings, and they grant you wishes."

"Some do, some don't." Barnes sighed, then stroked her golden hair. "What if I said that I was one of the fairy folk?"

"Are you? Do you have wings?"

"I do, but if I show you, then you can't tell anyone. There's only one wish I can give you, Cora, but if I give it to you, then you have to leave here and go to the city."

In his hand were several strands of her hair. Entranced she watched as they glowed and transformed into gold threads that intertwined and became a gold necklace.

"That's magic," she said, then looked up into his blue eyes. "You are one of them."

"I am. I was feeling sad and came to the country to gather my thoughts, but now I think I was guided here to see you and make it possible for you to leave. Your mama will move on soon and join your daddy and your brother in the next life. You'll be alone. Most of the people here think you're not smart enough to take care of yourself but you are. You're kind and gentle and you're a hard worker. When you go to the city, you must wear this necklace always to protect you but keep it hidden by your clothing. With the money that the army will give you for your brother's service to his country, and that Mr. Horton gives you for your mama's restaurant, you can start over again in the city. You're going to have a baby, Cora, so you'll have to stop going with other men until you meet a man in the city, named William Hart. He's a good man who will love you and marry you, even though you're going to have another man's baby, a boy, that you'll name Richard. That baby will have my eyes. He'll be so smart and make you both so proud."

"Will you come to see us?" she asked, her brown eyes questioning him.

"I will but you won't see me, as that's how it has to be. The necklace will let me find you again. When Richard is old enough, I'll make myself known to him and he can choose whether to join me and the fairy folk or to stay in the mortal world. Either way, he'll have a good life and so will you."

"So, you have to put a baby in me," she stated, understanding his meaning. "Will you tell me I'm pretty?"

"I already think you are, inside and out."

He smiled, then turned out the lights and led her to the cell where his cot was. Using his magic, he transformed the cell into something nicer, holding a proper bed with a soft mattress, clean sheets, and flowers everywhere. Placing the necklace around her neck, he kissed her, gently and with kindness, knowing she had never received that from any of the men in this town who had used her for their own pleasures. In fact, only a handful of men, including the sheriff, hadn't taken advantage of her loneliness. It wasn't something that Barnes would normally do. He had actually been celibate since Daere's death, but it would be the only way to make sure Cora left this backwater town, it's darkness evident just under the surface. If she stayed, her life would be a misery and she was too kind to be subjected to that. When they were finished, he showed her his feathered wings, allowing her to stroke the feathers with her soft hands. He walked her back to the restaurant, carrying the basket of dishes for her, making sure she was safely inside and locked the door before he returned to the jailhouse and let himself in with the key the Sheriff left him. It took him all night, but he finished organizing the storeroom, and rested for an hour before the Sheriff returned.

"You did a good job," he said to Barnes, as he inspected the storeroom. "You must have worked all night on it."

"Almost. Sheriff, why did you let me stay?"

"You seemed like an honest man, maybe a bit down on his luck," he replied. "Only a handful of others would have helped you."

"Is that why you trusted me with a key, and with making sure Cora picked up the dishes? For all you knew I would take advantage of her."

The Sheriff's jaw tightened, and he swallowed. Barnes could feel the heat of the man's shame, even though he knew by his touching of Cora's hand that Brown was one of the few men who respected her.

"I was hoping you could take her away with you," he finally said. "She's too pure of heart and kind to stay here. When that factory is built, the type of men it will attract for work will look at her and use her for one thing."

"Will she and her mother get a fair price for the restaurant?"

"No, Mr. Horton will try to cheat them. That's the type of man he is. If her brother doesn't return before her mama passes away, she could end up with nothing."

"Her brother's not coming home," said Barnes. "He lies in a grave in Belgium. The notice should be coming in a few days and then the life insurance that the army gives will follow."

"How do you ...." He frowned then looked at Barnes again. "Jim, who are you?"

"Think of me as someone who cares about her," he replied. "I have abilities and I looked into her future a ways. She does have one, but she has to leave here to attain it. I need you to make sure she gets what's owed to her. She needs to be made responsible for her mother before she passes, then you need to make sure that Mr. Horton pays what the restaurant is worth. I'm going to make my own visit to him, but you'll have to be here to follow up on that."

"The city will swallow her up." Brown's anxiety and fear for the young woman was all over his face.

"No, she will meet the right man, one who loves her gentle soul." Barnes placed a hand on the Sheriff's arm and shared the vision with him. "He'll love her and the baby that she's going to have and will bind himself to them. They will have a good life."

"You had your way with her?" The man's anger simmered, and Barnes sent him soothing thoughts.

"It was necessary to give her the gift of a child. She won't go with other men now that she's carrying it and will wait for the one man who will love her as she deserves. I swear that I was kind and gentle to her, truthful as well. You are also a truthful man which is why I am charging you with making sure she gets to the city. You care about her and that is more than most in this place."

"How can I be sure that you're being truthful with me?" His anguish rolled off of him, as he wanted to believe that Jim had Cora's best interests at heart.

Barnes displayed his wings, unfurling them to stretch almost the entire width of the room. His eyes blazed with a blue light, and he raised himself towards the ceiling. With a cry, the Sheriff lowered himself to his knees and covered his eyes. When he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, he looked up to see Jim back in his human form.

"You're an angel."

"No, a light fae, fairy folk," he answered. "Angels are distant cousins. We both fight the dark but fae are more ... worldly. We love, we marry, we have children, we mourn, we try to leave the world a better place. Now, will you help Cora?"

"I swear I will drive her to the city myself," said the Sheriff.

"I believe you." He turned to leave, pausing at the door. "Where will I find this Horton man?"

"He has an office in the large red brick building in the centre of town. You'll know him as he dresses like a banker and carries himself as being better than everyone else."

Without a word, Barnes left the jailhouse and walked to the centre of town. The red brick building was quite prominent, seeming to be better maintained than the other buildings. Stepping inside he asked where he could find Mr. Horton. Directed to an office on the top floor he went up the stairs. No one else was nearby and he transformed his look into someone who was wealthy, with well styled hair and a fine suit. As he entered the office, everyone in there stopped talking.

"I'm looking for Mr. Horton," he announced, confidently.

One of the men sitting at a desk approached him.

"Who are you?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"J.B. Barnes of Barnes Industries," replied the fae king. "I'm interested in setting up a factory in town and heard Mr. Horton was the man who could make it happen. Of course, if he's too busy I could always go to Westville."

"I'm sure he would like to meet with you, Mr. Barnes," said the man, his attitude becoming much friendlier. "Let me check with him. Please have a seat, here at my desk."

Disappearing into a nearby office, it was only a minute before he returned, with Mr. Horton in tow. The older man, tall and thin, with a superior attitude, immediately offered his hand.

"Mr. Barnes, a pleasure. Please come into my office."

"I'll get straight to the point," said the fae king. "I've heard you plan to open a factory here in town, building it on a site where several locally run businesses currently sit. I want the same site and I'm willing to outbid you to acquire it for my investment."

Immediately, Barnes disliked this man, Horton. Recognizing him as one of Cora's unwanted "admirers," while he shook the man's hand, he could barely disguise his reluctance to even be near him. The physical touch as they shook hands allowed him to foresee the effect Horton's business would have on the town, bringing in all sorts of destructive elements, even attracting dark fae. It was dying and there was nothing that Barnes could do to save the small community, except make sure that this man's factory did as little damage to the environment as possible. As he shared his plans, he could feel the intensity of Horton's desire to outbid Barnes in order to build the factory to accommodate a technology that Barnes knew would be outdated within a few years. It was easy to manipulate the man into unleashing his desire to acquire more profits. By the time he left there, Barnes was certain that offers better than his proposed ones would be made to the business owners within a day or two at the most.

Returning to the jailhouse, he walked in, still dressed as a rich man. Sheriff Brown's eyebrows raised at the sight of him and with a smile, Barnes restored his farm worker look.

"It's all set," he said to Brown. "Horton will be making offers to the business owners very soon. Make sure they cash the checks quickly and leave town as soon as possible, before the building of the factory is even started. The town is dying, Sheriff. I think you already know that. Before it dies, Horton will wring out all of its decency, making it a small island of despair and depravity." He breathed out, then looked at a fishing rod, set up against the wall behind Brown's desk. "Do you use that very often?"

"Not nearly enough," said the lawman, glancing back. "Figured once I retired, I would have more time. Are you saying I should retire? I can't afford to, not yet."

"Let me work on that," said Barnes, smiling kindly at the man. He picked up a pencil and a slip of paper from the desk, writing a phone number down. "When Cora and her mother receive her brother's army life insurance, and the check from Horton is cashed I want you to call this number. You will be given an address in the city. I may meet you there or it may be an associate. Either way, you will be able to retire with your head held high. Don't thank me. My kind takes thanks as an obligation for you to do more. You're already doing enough."

With a nod, he left the jailhouse and began the walk to the edge of town. When he was out of sight of mortals, James Barnes, the fae king, took on his normal appearance and flew up into the sky, away from the dying town, away from the mortal woman who now carried his son. Surprisingly, to him at least, he felt good about it. By helping just a few people he was changing things for the better.

A week later, a phone call rang in an office in the city. Answered by a young fae man, the mortal on the other end was hesitant at first.

"I'm calling for Jim, to say that Mr. Horton's checks have been cashed and Cora's mother cashed the army life insurance check."

"Yes, Sheriff, we've been expecting your call," said the relatively young 50-year-old fae, Steven Rogers. "Do you have a pencil? I will give you an address. We have an apartment ready for Cora and her mother to live in, as it would be a good time to bring them to the city. Someone will meet you there."

After giving him the address Steven went to the roof and created a portal back to the stronghold, reporting in person to the king that the phone call had been received. Then he returned to the city, taking his post at the apartment, waiting for the woman who carried the king's son, and her mother, and the good man who was bringing them, who would be given his own check, allowing him to leave his town and retire. It would be Steven's duty, shared with another relatively young fae man, Sam Wilson, and a fae woman, Natasha Romanoff, to make sure the young woman, Cora, and her son, were kept safe, until the man chosen to be her husband, William Hart, a mailman by occupation, returned from the war in Europe.

Having seen the worst of humanity during the war, Hart was filled with a need to do some good in the world. He tasked himself to be kinder to people, and to embrace life and love in a way he hadn't before the war. When he arrived back in the city of his birth, it would be a few months before he would see a young woman, with honey-coloured hair, and soft brown eyes, like those of a doe, weeping at a new grave in Forest Green Cemetery, where he had just visited his own parents. Hearing her pain, and wanting to help her through it, he approached her, speaking to her kindly. He didn't see the blue-eyed stranger that watched him approach her, offering comfort. The strange man, the fae king known as James Barnes, was standing under a gnarled oak tree, rumoured to be hundreds of years old. He whispered to the tree, calling it Daere, which meant oak tree in the ancient language that his late wife grew up speaking.

"My love, I vowed never to be with another after you, but I had to get a young woman away from a place of darkness and had to give her a child to bring it about," he said, softly, his forehead resting against the tree. "I don't love her, but I did care for her. That's her mother in the newest grave, here where you died so long ago. The man is the one who will marry her and raise my son. By the ways of our kind, you know I must reveal myself to my son when he turns 30 and offer him a place in our world. I have deliberately not seen past that time to know his answer, leaving it to fate and destiny. Forgive me for breaking my vow of never-ending love for you, Daere, my beloved."

Tears fell from his eyes, wetting the bark of the old tree. Then a breeze came up, rustling the leaves and Barnes raised his eyes up, gazing at the canopy of green above him. Slowly, he nodded his head, as if the tree spoke to him. If it was speaking to him, it did so with words of comfort because his face became soft, and his tears ceased. His attention returned to the woman, Cora, and the man, William. It was exactly as he had been shown when he touched Cora's hand. The man was already in love with her, and that love would be enough to protect her and the half-fae son she carried. As for Barnes, the old oak, that held the spirit of his late wife, had already indicated that a day would come when he would take another as his beloved. Until then, he would visit Daere as often as he could. Until that day, someday in a future that he wanted to keep a mystery, he would continue to mourn the last fae queen who had ruled their people beside him.

THE END (for real this time)

Series Masterlist

Please support the author by reblogging.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #buckybarnes original female character #steve rogers #bucky barnes au #james buchanan barnes au #fae king bucky #fae bucky #fae king #fae folk #change destiny

6 notes · View notes

feministdragon · 1 year ago

Text

— When the 2000 election recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court was halted by five corrupt Republicans on the US Supreme Court — handing the White House to George W. Bush by a disputed 537 votes — nobody knew at the time that Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, had commissioned a huge purge of voters, using a list of Texas felons that was 68% Black and Hispanic.

Harris did this because the national pool of Black and Hispanic names is relatively small: Black felons in Texas with names like Jim Washington or Jose Gonzalez are extremely likely to have similarly named counterparts in any other state with large Black and Hispanic populations like Florida.

Thus, when those Texas names were compared via a “loose match” (didn’t require a birthday or middle name match) with Florida voters’ names, disproportionate numbers of Black and Hispanic Florida voters were deemed to be possible felons who’d somehow recently moved to Florida from Texas, and tens of thousands were removed from the voter rolls. As the US Commission on Civil Rights noted:

“14.4 percent of Florida’s black voters cast ballots that were rejected. This compares with approximately 1.6 percent of nonblack Florida voters who did not have their presidential votes counted. … [I]n the state's largest county, Miami-Dade, more than 65 percent of the names on the purge list were African Americans, who represented only 20.4 percent of the population.”

— When Donald Trump was certified the winner of the 2016 election, nobody knew at the time that Russia had illegally poured millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man-hours into targeting swing state voters identified by the RNC, whose names were handed off to Russian Intelligence by Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

When Robert Mueller’s FBI team determined this crime had helped put Trump in the White House, and that Trump had personally intervened in investigations ten separate times in ways that could be prosecuted as criminal obstruction of justice, Bill Barr kept the news from America until the story had largely faded from the headlines.

What will it be this November? We have some clues.

— With the blessing of five Republicans on the 2018 Supreme Court, Republican-controlled states with large Black and Hispanic populations are purging voter rolls like there’s no tomorrow. Just between 2020 and 2022, fully 19,260,000 Americans — 8.5% of all registered voters — were purged. The purge rate in Red states was 40% higher than the rest of the country. We won’t know this year’s purge numbers until well after the election is over.

— The GOP is trying to organize an “army” of 100,000 rightwing warriors to show up at polling places to “oversee” elections and challenge voters they think look suspicious. They’ll also be challenging signature matches on mail-in ballots, particularly in Blue cities in Red states.

— Republican elected officials from the state level all the way up to the US Senate are refusing to say that they’ll accept or certify the result of the election this fall if Donald Trump doesn’t win. Multiple Republican members of Congress have asserted that only the House of Representatives should decide the presidential election this year (which would throw the election to Trump regardless of who the voters or electoral college choose).

— In multiple states, Republicans have passed laws allowing them to manipulate and change the location of polling places, criminalize voter registration drives, replace Democratic and nonpartisan election officials with partisan GOP hacks, and in Georgia and Arizona throw out ballots from entire precincts. As Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt noted for The Atlantic: “Throwing out thousands of ballots in rival strongholds may be profoundly antidemocratic, but it is technically legal, and Republicans in several states now have a powerful stick with which to enforce such practices.”

— Typically, when politicians engage in nakedly deceptive politicking or election theft they’re outed in the press and punished at the polls. Since 2020, however, Republicans have rewarded their politicians who tell lies and engage in underhanded tactics, suggesting there will be no limits to what the Trump campaign might do or say in the weeks leading up to the election, including the use of deepfakes and AI.

— Saudi Arabia and Russia — both allies of Trump — have cut oil production by over 1.4 million barrels a day to drive up gasoline prices leading up to this November, just like they did in a dress rehearsal during the fall of 2022. History shows that gas prices spiking over $5 or even $6 a gallon will have a measurable impact on inflation and thus the election.

— Russia fielded a small army of online trolls to assist Trump’s electoral efforts in 2016 and 2020. Expect the same in November, except this time, according to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, China is also getting into the act on the GOP’s behalf.

— Benjamin Netanyahu defied President Obama when he was engaged in delicate negotiations with Iran, visiting the US and addressing Congress at the invitation of Republicans. He’s expected to do the same slap-in-the-face gesture this fall to Biden, along with defying the president’s wish that Israel minimize civilian casualties in Gaza. Netanyahu will do everything he can to ensure Trump comes back into office if for no other reason than keeping himself out of prison; demoralizing young progressive voters will almost certainly be at the top of his list.

But these are all things we know about right now, even if there’s little we can do about most of them.

Given the Nixon/Reagan/Bush examples, our biggest concern should be to find the things we’d otherwise look back on after the inauguration and say about them, “Nobody knew at the time…”

2 notes · View notes