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etirabys · 4 years ago

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Downbelow Station, a fanfic summary

I’ve been writing fic for this tiny book fandom and have at least a few fandom acquaintances who want to read my fic but don’t want to read the book. This is a summary of what happens in the novel, whose heart, to me, is the relationship between a mindwiped ex-slave and a cross-cultural married couple who take him in under their protection.

The premise

People are in space, since the Earth Company started establishing space stations around increasingly distant stars for manufacturing/trade. There are several types of people:

Stationers stay on one station – stations were originally established by the Earth Company but have since gained de facto independence because Earth is so far away

Merchanters live on ships and trade – family very important to them, so is family name, regularly deal with Stationers as part of their life but find settling down very foreign. More sexually opportunistic than Stationers, possibly less monogamous.

Earth Company Fleet soldiers live on ships; originally under the control of Earth Company, as of novel start have gone kind of rogue, will continue to go even more rogue over the course of the novel

Citizens of Union, a... nation in space that grew in the deepest reaches, furthest away from Earth's influence. Union is currently trying to annex everyone else. Earth Company is trying to resist this through their Fleet. However, Earth Company is not very enthusiastic about this war and have been drawing out; the Fleet thinks it's important to keep fighting and keep doing dipshit moves like impressing Merchanter ships and ?? maybe looting stations a little bit to keep going.

Azi of Union – a genetically engineered underclass specific to Union. Basically designer subs. I believe the word azi is never brought up in Downbelow Station, but it's very clear a character is an azi, and what that means is explained in Cyteen, which takes place in the same universe. Union citizens use 'tapes' casually and at-will for fast learning and entertainment and conditioning, but starting later in life. Azi grow up on tape – their psyches are designed to be good at whatever they were designed to do, whether that's soldiering or psychologizing or childcare. Azi require varyingly regular check-ins with a Supervisor, who is an assigned person who tells the azi they are Very Good and On Course With Their Lives and give them tapes to keep them aligned with their values and mentally stable. Azi have normal human names but also an ID that looks like AO-1234, where the first alphabet character indicates what ‘class’ you are – an Alpha-class azi is probably far smarter than your average citizen and is more capable of functioning independently. Azi can win citizenship, but so far the only people onscreen who’ve done so are Alpha-class azi.

The cast

Damon Konstantin is a head of Legal Affairs on Pell Station, and the son of the Stationmaster, which is apparently a hereditary position. Despite the hereditariness Pell seems to have the most familiar culture to me, a 21st century American expecting democracy and rule of law. Pell Station is special – it orbits a human-livable planet called Downbelow, and there are only three such planets under human control. This means the planet can be used as a base for ‘bioform production’ (a vague category encompassing everything you can grow on a planet but not a space station) and makes Pell strategically valuable. The other two livable planets are Earth, under the control of the Earth Company Fleet’s nominal masters, and Cyteen, the base of Union operations. Pell is neutral, as many star stations try to be.

Elene Quen is a Merchanter who stepped off her ship to marry Damon. They’ve been married for four months at novel start. Her formal role is liaison with Merchanters.

Joshua Talley is a soldier of Union who was captured when Union forces sabotaged (blew up) a station called Mariner Station. He was tortured for information on another station – Russell’s – whose inhabitants feared the same fate for themselves. He had nothing to give them – he was a medium-level technician/soldier, an ‘armscomper’, which I think means he was the person pressing buttons to fire on targets or programming the weapons to fire on targets. During his interrogation Russell’s station was also sabotaged, ensuing in a mass evacuation.

Signy Mallory is one of the ~10 captains of the Earth Company Fleet. She is commanding and very deadly, commands fanatical loyalty from her soldiers. She’s also a sexual sadist. When she comes to evacuate Russell’s Stationers from a failing space station she finds that they have a Union POW who is very pretty, and takes him into her personal quarters for their journey to Pell. It is not said how she rapes him but it was a lot. Joshua thinks of this part as worse than the previous interrogation.

The events from there

When the Fleet arrives at Pell Station, they are convoying huge ships full of thousands of refugees from stations sabotaged / fallen to Union. It has been weeks or months since they started out. The ships were overpacked, many inside are dead, the culture of the ships has quickly turned anarchic/violent.

Angelo Konstantin, master of Pell, says "wtf, we can't take all these people, we don't have space. We literally cannot do this." The Fleet says, “You better,” unloads the highly upset and sick refugees, and leaves. Pell Station clears out two sectors of their station and makes it the 'quarantine zone', later shortened to Q. Conditions are very bad in Q and what to do with the violent, desperate people inside, many of whom cannot prove who they were in their past lives, when Pell doesn’t have the capacity to relocate them, is an ongoing problem throughout the novel.

Before leaving, Signy Mallory also said, "in addition to the refugee crises we unloaded on you, here is a Union prisoner of war we transported separately because the refugees would have killed him", and dumps Joshua on Pell leadership.

Around this time, Elene Quen finds out that her ship was destroyed when Mariner Station blew up. She now has no blood family, and Merchanters put great cultural emphasis on having clan and name. She decides to have a kid, talking Damon into it.

Joshua Talley is extremely depressed and keeps asking for a mindwipe so he can live as a normal citizen on Pell rather than being indefinitely detained. Mindwipes are used on stations as a consensual way of rehabilitating criminals. His captors are reluctant – it’s tantamount to execution. Damon Konstantin is the final permission-giver on the issue and gives it in the end. The process of mindwipe (or Adjustment) necessarily causes the person to regurgitate their whole life. This is recorded. Due to this, he discovers only after the mindwipe is complete that Josh was tortured on Russell’s with mindwipe drugs (presumably for the same regurgitating-your-whole-life property) and then raped on Signy Mallory’s ship on the way to Pell, and that wanting to wipe out the trauma was the real reason he wanted a mindwipe.

Damon feels really bad about this. He checks up on Josh Talley a lot when he's recovering from the mindwipe. He and his wife Elene decide to 'sponsor' him when he's rejoining normal society on the ship. Elene does so through some personal resistance – Josh once belonged to the military force that wiped out her family. They check in with a guy who doesn’t remember much of anything but definitely has abandonment issues and is afraid of emotional entanglement with people.

Josh Talley quietly converts much of his internal body mass into gooey loyalty.

Plot chaos. The station comes to be formally occupied by the Fleet, who wants to use it as their new base of operations, and a Union saboteur named Gabriel who talks to Stationmaster Angelo Konstantin’s main rival and conspires to bring him to power instead...

There’s a part I really really want to summarize here where Josh tries to fall on grenade for the Quen-Konstantins – literally, trying to take an action that would end in his death but keep them safe from the Fleet – and they show up and say “you idiot, never do that again” and bring him back to their apartment and say “while the Fleet is suspicious of you, you are living HERE, so everyone knows you are under our protection. Forget your old job, we’ll find you something working closely with Damon every day – while you’re in sight they can’t get at you.” But I can’t find a non-confusing way to relay it, sorry.

Soon after that, the Union saboteur succeeds. Angelo Konstantin is assassinated. His rival, Jon Lukas, takes his place, and starts enacting subtly Union-friendly policies. I think this somehow happens concurrently with the Fleet still using Pell as a base of operations. It’s highly chaotic. Elene flees the chaos on a Merchanter ship whose family she knows. Damon and Josh, fearing whoever assassinated Angelo, hide within the more bad and chaotic parts of the station (I honestly don’t believe the author when she says they managed this for months – Pell has tens of thousands of people, that’s not a lot! You could close each sector at a time and sweep everyone!). This part feels like big missed opportunity to me – they spend their time moving from hiding place to hiding place, coming up with hopeless schemes that they know they’ll never enact. One infers they got much closer, but the author doesn’t go into that either. The one delight that comes out of this sequence is that Josh becomes more assertive and competent than we’ve ever seen him – being in hiding, under danger, brings out submerged training. He’s not a dependent anymore – arguably in some places he’s in lead.

In the middle of this, Josh makes contact with the Union saboteur, Gabriel, who hails him as a colleague and informs him that they’re of the same kind. They have the same training. The story Josh gave Russell’s interrogators, and Pell, that he was a mid-tier technician, is an implanted set of memories that automatically flushes his real ones when he was under duress.

This means, although the author never explores it, that Josh was probably integral to destroying Mariner Station, and concomitantly responsible for Elene’s family’s deaths.

Josh asks Gabriel for safe passage to the planet Downbelow for both himself and a companion. Gabriel acquiesces, but is shocked when the companion Josh brings to the meeting is the Konstantin heir. He starts to say, “Well, well, what a useful person you have brought me –” and then gets shot by a Fleet soldier who’s following reports of a suspicious person. (My fic Half-Silvered Mirror diverges from canon at this point, and asks what would have happened if Gabriel had his way.)

Now in the hands of the Fleet, Josh and Damon meet with Signy Mallory again. Josh isn’t what Mallory remembers – as a rape victim he was passive, inward-turned. This Josh is articulate and emotional and loyal. Damon isn’t what she expects, either – he manages to jab at her conscience about what the Fleet has become, lawless and unmoored from any democratic interest. She plans to execute both of them the next day.

Due to convoluted plot reasons, she doesn’t. She turns against the rest of the Fleet, which for their own reasons is headed back towards Earth – to conquer. Her ship, Norway, enters a standoff against Union warships over Pell. Which isn’t on course to go well for her, until someone broadcasts at both of them that Pell is now under Merchanter claim. Elene, while out in space, has been convincing Merchanters to form an unprecedented coordination bloc. She demands Pell for the Merchanter Alliance and informs the Union military leader, Azov, that if he doesn’t acquiesce all Merchanter ships in her fleet will refuse to trade in Union space.

She wins. The scene when she docks at Pell and walks in, pregnant and victorious, to kiss her husband, is one of the most visually !!! scenes.

In the aftermath, Azov tries to take Josh back for Union. Damon says nope, he’s ours. Josh, what do you want? Josh says nothing. Looks at nothing. But when Azov and the other Union soldiers leave, he stays.

And afterwards, he goes to Signy Mallory – whose ships now constitute Pell’s militia – and asks, sincerely, to work as crew on her ship for a while. He says he can’t live on a station comfortably. That the stationers know him, and his past. (Not sure how true this is.) Mallory says it’s nothing another mindwipe can’t cure, and he says he doesn’t want to forget. “I’ve got something. The only real thing. All that I value.”

“So you go off and leave it?”

“For a while.”

Comments

There’s... so much I want to write about and explore.

Did Elene know when Josh left that he was probably responsible for her family’s death? (My fic Awarding Damages is about one way they could resolve this)

What did Signy Mallory do to Josh? Can he handle working under her?

Damon and Elene are so parental to Josh, and they're also embarking on having a family in a dynastic way where having a clan is their way of asserting that they exist and are rooted in the world. And of course Josh is going to feel really weird about how he fits into that – he's only watching it happen because he's a charity case, of course he's going to have no involvement in that project – what place is left for him anyway, he has no one and is nothing. I want this man to have feelings about family and how he doesn't have one and then HAVE A FAMILY I want him to hold the baby and go "OH. You are a biological composite of the two greatest people in the world. I cannot hold it against you that you are now going to push me out of my current living situation with the two greatest people in the world"

Due to the amount of mindfuckery Josh has gone through, it’s unclear to both him and the reader how many his memories are real. What does that do to a person?

From what I know of azi from Cyteen, Josh has psychological needs – again, he’s like a bred sub – that non-Unioners aren’t going to understand. Can he get them met? How does he negotiate that?

#rambl #downbelow station #cj cherryh #small book fandom pitch

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omgmarieux · 6 years ago

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Raw and the Baby means Yes. // Roger Taylor x Reader (smut)

Hi!: I just want to say tnx for a hundred followerS! Also I attempted to write smut this week which has a back story of me finishing it until midnight and accidentally erasing the whole thing so I had to rewrite it before dawn 😂 so I hope you like this one, I put a big effort in it, lol.

Warning: nsfw/just smut(fem&male recieving), face (riding&fucking), unprotected sex, softie afterwards.

Summary: besides morning sex, you asked your boyfriend: Roger, to raw you and put a baby in you as another term for your yes.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　enjoy reading!　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

"Y/N love."

You woke up with your favourite scent of Roger lingering in your nose, and a soft kiss on your forehead, and arms hugging you towards the best person you've ever been with your whole life.

"Morning love." you said as Roger kissed your lips softly. He was about to pull away when you held the top of his head for him to stay put, giving you both the time to kiss passionately, but finally pulls away when your hands left him.

"Rog?"

"Yeah?"

"Today I have plans on riding you." you said back at him as your hands wandered on his clothed chest. He raised an eyebrow at your remark.

"Hmmm? And then?" he hummed in response.

"Riding your face and then, maybe give you a li'l blow." Your hands travelled underneath his shirt and you drew circles on his chest.

On a sudden movement, his hand caught your wrist and pinned you down to the bed, as his another hand caught your free hand to join your pinned body.

"You can't crave for morning sex without answering my proposal to you last night." Roger said chuckling at you. You just rolled your eyes at him.

Oh really? you thought to yourself. Roger kissed you once more again and finally lets go both of your wrist while he tops you over. He crawled down, tugging your pajamas and discarding them off the air, as your panties followed the same fate.

He brings his face close to your inner thigh to kiss it and made a wet trail towards your glistening cunt. As he brings his mouth to your core, his nose brushed with your clit that let out a breathy moan from your mouth. You tangled your hands with his hair pushing his face to meet more of you and you felt his warm mouth covering majority of your vagina, stretching and opening your folds.

"F-fuck!" you hissed as his tongued entered you. Roger's hand holds one of your legs that threatens to close tightly around him while the other one's at your clit performing small circles to stimulate you. You couldn't contain the feeling Roger is giving you as you relentlessly moan his name over and over.

"R-rog, think 'm c-comming." your breaths are short and your eyes are shut closed until you felt Roger pull away.

"What the fuck Roger?" you hissed at him.

"What? Thought you're gonna ride my face?" He asked innocently but not so innocent.

"Wow! Thank you for noting that, Rog." you said sarcastically while rolling your eyes but deep inside you actually do appreciate Roger remembering it before you forgot it yourself.

He crawls back up and kissed you.

"Just passing how good your taste is, love." he laughed as he wraps his arms around your waist and flip your position. You are now on top, straddling him.

"Come on up love." he cooed and you obliged.

Your knees crawled to meet his face and you held on to the headboard. His hands fall on your hips as you start rocking to his face a little bit slow until you build the pace that you desired. His mouth are back at yours, pleasuringly giving you a hotter experience than earlier.

Another chain of moans excape your mouth as your knees are trembling while holding your own weight. Roger's hand never fails to guide and help you, neverthless, your pace went slower than usual.

You looked down to Roger and having to visibly see his long beautiful eyelashes from that angle, you felt more determined to come undone right to his face. Roger brought a finger to your clit stimulating you to reach your high and for a moment, you grabbed all your energy to build up your pace once again. You tightened your grip to the headboard as you felt yourself reaching your high.

Unfortunately, Roger is physically unavailable to coo you because of you hovering his mouth, so you muttered forms of encouragement in the back of your head, until you felt yourself coming undone to Roger's mouth.

He kissed your cunt one last time before you laid down to his chest and rest for a moment.

"So, how do you like to be repaid, love?" you smirked at him as you fix your knees to kneel on both if his side. You tug his shirt, signalling him to remove it and he complied.

You felt his bulge growing inside as you were sitting on his crotch and rode it a little to tease him.

"Fucking hell, Y/N." You lift youself off Roger, and he arched his hips to make your work easier when you started pulling his boxers down. His cock instantly flying over to slap his belly and you smiled you the view.

One hand grabbed his balls to massage and the other one took his length and shove it to your lips to kiss. He whined at the contact that made your smile grow wider.

"You're enjoying this, are you?" he shakily asked you and you chuckled at him.

You took only his tip in your mouth, letting your tongue to swirl and sucking it like a lollipop. Roger grabs a handful of your hair to push you to himself as you bob your head.

"Yes go on love. You're doing good."

You took him deeper as you heard his encouragement, in which you earned a moan out of him. Your free hand held the rest of his length as it moves concurrently with your mouth. You did it for a little while until you pull him out and he whines at the lost of contact.

"Fuck my face daddy." It was supposed to sound like a dirty talk for him, but you were no good at it and it comes out like a command, in which soon he obliged and you're thankful for that.

"Of course stand up Rog. So lazy."

He chuckled with you as he stood up on his feet and you got youself on your knees. He held his length and pumped it first as he grabs your hair one again before shoving his cock inside your mouth. He rocks himself in a fast motion, forcing his whole length to be inside your mouth and you gagged as its tip hits your throat. Liquid dripping from you mouth as he goes further. Soon, Roger failingly keep his pace.

He suddenly pulls out leaving you puzzled.

"Lay down, back on the bed." He commanded as he was about to walk off.

"W-where you going?" you asked panting.

"To get con-"

"Raw me instead Rog." you said and his eyes twinkled at you.

"You sure?" he asked reassuringly.

"Yeah, put a baby in me." He laughed at you as he carries your body towards the upper area of the bed.

"We'll tackle that later." he said and he laid you down properly and he hovered you. He kissed you passionately as his hands took the hem of your shirt and pulled it upwards to remove your covers. He caressed you breast for a moment before proceeding to align his manhood to your entrance. He pushed himself inside you. Rocking back and forth slowly until he found a pace perfect for him. His groans and your moans, together with the skin slapping are the only sound that occupies your whole bedroom.

His pace grew faster that made you grabbed sheets like you've never grabbed them before, curling your toes just as he puts a finger on your clit to rub circular motion on it.

"I'm f-fucking close R-roger!" He burried his face between your neck and shoulder, leaving whichever part of your skin his lips landed violet marks.

He brings your leg to his shoulder giving him the ability to hit deeper and the spot that you've wanted.

"T-there it is!" You walls tighten around Roger's cock and soon you felt yourself filling his length which was enough to drag him to his high as well. You felt a pool of hot spurts waving inside you as he dedicatedly rock his hips slower as he finishes off. Roger's body fell onto yours and rested his weight for a short while until he pulls out of you and laid beside you.

"So love. Why did you want to me to raw you and put a fetus there?" Roger asked.

"Because-" he cuts you off.

"Wait!" he stumbled as he got up from the bed rushing to the bathroom and he walks back with a wet washcloth and cleans you up. He set down the washcloth on the table and laid back at your side, body facing yours.

"So the baby?"

"Roger, it's because I'm saying yes. Yes I will marry you."

He stayed still for a moment, in shock, lost for words, it was when he realized You said yes to his proposal last night he came back to the world. Roger kissed you passionately and about to go deeper when he stood up and whisphered "Where is that goddamn ring?" to himself. He walks towards the hatstand and he cupped his coat for the box and goes back a you and knelt at the side of the bed and put the ring in you.

"Just fits you perfectly love." He said and he kissed the diamond ring attached to your finger and pulls you up to stand with him. You shared kiss with Roger and pulls away after.

"Sex number two today?" He asked smirking at you as he carried your body and throw both of you on the bed.

"First sex after being engaged." You answered as you kissed him passionately and instantly transitioned to hungrily.

#queen fanfiction #queen imagines #roger taylor #roger taylor fanfiction #roger taylor imagines #roger taylor smut #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor x reader smut #roger taylor x reader fluff #rtd #rtdwrites

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sonofhistory · 8 years ago

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James Spence Monroe

James Monroe first caught Elizabeth Kortright’s eye in 1785 while he was serving as a member of the Continental Congress. The two married on February 16, 1786 at Trinity Church, New York two days after Valentines Day as it is noted in the account books of the church [x]. Ten months later, in December (the exact date in unknown) their first daughter, Eliza Monroe (purposely named after her mother) was born in Virginia. After the birth, Monroe wrote to mentor Thomas Jefferson,

“Mrs. Monroe hath added a daughter to our society, who tho’ noisy, contributes greatly to its amusement.”

When he was away from his new family (though he painfully did not wish to be so) he would inquire in a few letters that were saved between them: “Has she grown any, and is there any perceptible alteration in her?” He called her “a little monkey” and would close them with “Kiss the little babe for me & take care of yourself & of her." This would be their last child for thirteen years.

It is unknown exactly why James and Elizabeth Monroe did not have anymore children until thirteen years later but it is speculated that Elizabeth was getting pregnant but she was having miscarriages. Although there no record of any miscarriages (or possibly stillbirths), the fact that the couple were able to produce two children after those long years of “hiatus” does prove she was able to have children after the birth Eliza. Another factor that points to this is that Elizabeth had rather fragile health and late onset epilepsy that caused her physical injury. The miscarriages possibly were recorded but as most of Elizabeth’s correspondence was burned by her husband following her death, there is no way to know.

By 1799 when the Monroes did have another son, James, Elizabeth and little Eliza had already resided all over Europe while Monroe was ambassador to France. In May (exact date unknown) 1799, back in Virginia near Charlottesville, Elizabeth Monroe gave birth to a son, James Spence Monroe and as the father pointed out to Janet Montgomery:

“I was balancing for some time what I should call him, and among the worthies of our country...I should have thought more of the names of Jefferson & Montgomery than any we boast of. But his mother is an old fashioned woman & chose...to follow the old fashioned track of calling him after his father... ”

The elder James was ecstatic with his son’s birth and because Monroe burnt a lot of his letters before his own death, we have only a summary of what Thomas Jefferson wrote back to Monroe, replying to letter written about the new infant:

“[Thomas] Jefferson presents his compliments to Colo. Monroe, & his sincere congratulations to him & mrs Monroe on the interesting addition to their family. he wishes to know how mrs Monroe & the youngster do; and would be made very happy if he could offer any thing grateful to [mrs] Monroe. rice, pearl barley &c sometimes useful to the sick, she probably has: if not, they are here at her service.”

When James Spence Monroe was born, his father was governor of Virginia. Due to the infants sickly health, Monroe was taking trips every other day from the capital to his home and than back again. He did not want to risk having Elizabeth travel in her still weakened condition and neither did he want his child to be on the road while still sickly. James Jr would never reach sound health in his sixteen months of life.

By June of 1800, a smallpox outbreak occurred in the town and Monroe wrote to Madison that “[he is] forbidden to inoculate our child on acct. of his teething & having the Hg. cough, my family will probably soon move up the country." Due to the babies teething, James Spence had become sick with whooping cough by mid summer of 1800. In August, the family spent time in the country air of their home in Albemarle, thinking the fresh air would be beneficial to the young boy's health. August 6th, the father wrote to Madison,

“Our child has a fever, did not sleep last night nor on the road. I fear he will not rest to night. We shall have the Dr. with him tomorrow, & his gums lancd as we hope that is the only cause of his present indisposition.”

Teething was becoming so difficult and painful, a surgeon was called to lance his gums to try and alleviate the problem. By August 13th, the symptoms shortly vanished, but J.S. (as he was referred to in Monroe’s letters) was still suffering from a fever.

“I returned from Richmond yesterday (wednesday) and found my child better than when I left him. The dangerous simptoms of the thrush seem to be past, and the hooping cough has nearly left him, so that extreme debility, is his present chief complaint.”

Monroe had to leave to attend to business in Richmond because he was still the governor of Virginia. In the same letter, Monroe noted that the constant rides back and forth between the governors palace and his family home and son’s bedside was taking and toll on James Sr’s health:

“I have been so much worsted by my ride down & back, in the sun, that I can scarcely sit up [today], and my family are not less wearied with the duties which devolve on it in my absence. At present we have no plan but that of ending this state of things.”

The next day on August 14th, the child seemed to be in recovery, Monroe headed back to the capital:

"...since my last my child has had no relapse of his former complaints, but I have recd. a notice which shews I ought to be at Richmd.”

A few times reports were surfacing of a yellow fever outbreak in Norfolk. On August 20th, he arranged for his family to travel to Caroline County to pay a visit to his sister, Elizabeth Buckner, again believing the fresh country air would be good for little James's health. Writing on September 9th that

“Mrs. M. is gone on a visit to my sister Buckner in Caroline, and writes me she and Eliza are well & the child much improved. By moving him abt. he will I hope get the better soon of those diseases of childhood, & recover his strength.”

Monroe had spent much of August traveling between Albemarle County, where his young son was seriously ill, and Richmond, where he and the Council of State took steps to quarantine Norfolk for yellow fever. In Richmond on the afternoon of Saturday, August 30th, Monroe received information that an insurrection by slaves in the surrounding area would strike the city that night. He communicated with the mayors of Richmond and Petersburg and called out militia to protect the capitol building and public stores of arms and ammunition. Heavy rainfall that made roads and bridges impassable forestalled the beginning of the revolt that night, but Monroe soon received information to convince him that the plan for rebellion was still in place. The legislature was not in session, but with the concurrence of the council on Tuesday, September 2nd the governor alerted all Virginia militia regiments and strengthened the guard on key locations in and around the capital city. He also communicated with local civil officials.

The evening of September 2nd the first group of suspects was brought to Richmond from the vicinity of the Henrico County plantation of Thomas H. Prosser, whose slave Gabriel had been named as the primary leader of the intended revolt. Under Virginia law of more than a century’s standing, the trial of a slave accused of committing a capital offense was to take place without a jury before a court of oyer and terminer assembled for the purpose. According to a 1786 statute, which was a modified version of a bill in the great revision of the state’s law code that Thomas Jefferson and others had drafted some years earlier, a slave could only be condemned to death by unanimous decision of the court of oyer and terminer, and the state would compensate the owner for the value of the executed slave. The first executions for participation in the conspiracy occurred on Friday, September 12th. In the end, twenty-six slaves including Gabriel were hanged. The council agreed to some of the requests from Monroe for pardons or temporary reprieves of condemned men.

The crisis and anxiety of Gabriel’s Rebellion topped with the stress of his son’s sickness was coming to odds with Monroe whose health worsened in this period. Monroe was receiving constant information from his family on the condition of his son. Elizabeth had taken James Spence and went to Fredricksburg where again they believed ever better air would help. The infant’s illness took a turn for the worse on September 20th and on the 22nd, Monroe was writing to Thomas Jefferson that

“...the dangerous indisposition of my child deprives now of that pleasure. Our Infant is in the utmost danger & I begin to fear that we shall want that consolation wh. I was abt. to offer to the afflicted Mr. & Mrs. Carr.”

James Madison cheerfully wrote Monroe back on September 24th that he and Dolley “are glad to hear that your little son has mended so much, as well as that Mrs. M & the rest of you continue well.” James Spence Monroe was on a rapid decline. On the morning of the 28th, Monroe wrote a letter to the Virginia Counsil State saying he was not going to attend the meeting in the afternoon due to the health of his son. After finishing the letter, Monroe set off down his horse unknown that the night of the 28th would J.S’s last, and it would be the final night they would have with their son. He arrived the in the night when the sun had already set after traveling for miles by horse. James Spence Monroe at the age of only sixteen months died at ten pm on September 28th, 1800.

The next day, Monroe wrote a letter to the Virginia Counsil State again, repeated the same reason of why he would not be attending, this time his son was not ill, he was dead. Monroe wrote to Madison and in a letter that featured nothing other than what is below:

“An unhappy event has occurr’d which has overwhelmed us with grief. At ten last night our beloved babe departed this life after several days sickness, wh. attended the cuting his eye teeth in the last stage, when we flatter’d ourselves the danger had passed. I cannot give you an idea of the effect this event has produc’d on my family, or of my own affliction in being a partner and spectator of the scene. Many things have occurr’d my friend, in these late years that abated my sensibility to the affrs. of this world, but this has roused me beyond what I thought it was possible I cod. be. Knowing the interest you take in our welfare, I perform a painful task in communicating to you and family this great calamity.”

The father was witness to his own son’s death after months of poor health and worrying that finally came to a close. Above, Monroe believed that he was numb to loss until James Spence died and that he had known no other grief in his life and that he would never recover. Monroe grieved deeply over the loss and his health dipped into a decline due to his constant travel, and Elizabeth's health suffered for many months due to her own grief. Neither James nor Elizabeth ever fully recovered.

Before departing for ambassadorship in France in 1803, months after the birth of their third and final child, Maria Hester Monroe, Monroe asked his uncle and mentor Joseph Jones to to place a small gravestone over the spot where his child was laid to rest at St. John’s church in Richmond, Virginia. Saying that he wanted “something more permanent than the memory of our estimable friends who tend his deposit there.” He directed that the stone should bare the buried’s initials J.S.M. and nothing else. Sadly, this grave has never been located.

#wrote it up finally #james spence monroe #james monroe #american history #us history #history #elizabeth monroe #eliza monroe hay #maria hester gouveneur #joseph jones

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wrestlewriting · 8 years ago

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Insolence, Pt. 6 [Adam Cole]

Title: Insolence, Part Six of ? (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five)

Characters: Adam Cole/OC(Brenna, because it’s easier for me to write with names in stories)

Genre: Angst. Regret. Resolve.

Length: ~4,200 words

Warnings: Cursing.

Summary/Inspo: Aftermath (n.) - Consequence. Result.

@catie-kaboom @libby-rose-2016 @legitlunatic @valeonmars @barbelly28 @danapotterwwe @alexahood21 @rollinstrash @covergirlcollarbones @thedeboniardevistation

If you want to be added to the tag list, just let your girl know! :)

(This chapter brought to you by the musical stylings of Chris Stapleton.)

I fucked up.

You stared down at your phone as the bar moved across the top of the screen, indicating the message was being sent to Candice. It was late morning, and you were sprawled on your back on your bed in your hotel room, fully dressed for the day and packed to leave. But you didn’t feel ready to do that, given the amount of feelings running through your mind. You had thought about messaging your best friend at home, Lauren, but you felt given Candice was more familiar with Adam, she was the best friend you needed to seek out in this moment. You’d tell Lauren everything later.

When you initially woke up, you had a minor headache, which after some ibuprofen and water was finally soothed. You at first hadn’t lucidly remember last night…and then you had. It all came crashing back down on you. There were some blurry edges around parts of your conversation with Adam, but you clearly remembered all of the actions. Him touching you, you touching him. You initiating the kiss. Him letting you…then stopping you. His words to you.

You don’t want this.

Who was he to tell you what you wanted? You didn’t even know what you wanted! You certainly hadn’t wanted to make up with him only to then make out with him. Yet, here you were, the morning after, all of that having happened. Because in the moment last night, you had in fact wanted to kiss him. Apparently? You still weren’t sure what motivated your actions honestly.

He was just there, being so sweet, and you had been drinking, though you weren’t drunk, and something just made you want to do it. A clouded judgement call because he was kind of pretty? A craving for intimacy that you hadn’t had in months? A stupid decision as a stupid attempt at further reconciliation? Hey Adam, instead of yelling at you, let me put my tongue down your throat, you mocked yourself in your own head. Dumbass.

Your phone ringing brought you back to the present. It didn’t surprise you to see it was Candice calling, and after swiping on the screen, you pressed the object to your ear.

“I fucked up,” you reiterated.

“I got that,” she replied. “What did you do?”

“I kissed Adam.” You figured straight to the point would be best.

“You WHAT?”

“I kissed Adam,” you repeated, before groaning and throwing a hand over your face. For some reason saying it out loud to your best friend brought a new side of realism to the situation.

“You said kissed right? Not killed? Kissed?”

“Yes, Candice, I kissed Adam, OK? Please stop making me say it. It doesn’t feel right saying it,” you emphasized.

“…why?”

“For real? Uh, first off, maybe because, it’s Adam?”

“OK, and…?”

“Candice, you’re fucking with me right?” You couldn’t understand why she was suddenly less shocked by the situation, as though who it had happened with was somehow logical to her. It shouldn’t be. It wasn’t to you.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, yes you kissing Adam is completely unexpected. But you kissing anyone would be unexpected to me right now, to be honest,” she explained.

“It was unexpected to me too,” you assured her, just short of resentfully. “But did it have to be Adam?”

“What led to it?”

You went on to give her a brief summation of the night; dinner where he ignored you, you confronting him, him exploding, which then led to the discussion in his hotel room. Your apologies to each other. The scotch and wine. His cryptic statements to you about being different and also his disclosure to no longer being in a relationship. The TV movie. His reassurance that things would be just fine for the two of you now. Your actions.

By the end, you felt even more confused than you had before. Nothing in your narrative seemed to tell you why you had kissed him. Replaying it back to Candice, you had hoped some part of it would stick out, as if to say ‘yes, THIS is why you did that’. But nothing did. You again told Candice about your lack of understanding of your own actions, especially given the history you had with Adam.

“You guys are comfortable with each other, right? He’s not some stranger. And knowing you, moving on from Evan…it’s not going to be with a stranger. And I’m not saying like you and Adam are going to have a relationship now, but I get why the first person you kissed since Evan was someone like Adam, someone you know. It’s like he’s…safe, I guess?” Candice words made sense you supposed, but they didn’t bring you as much relief as you had hoped.

“Whyyyyy did I push to reconcile with him?” You bemoaned, closing your eyes. “I should have just let him ignore me and ignored him back. But no, I had to have answers and now here we are, no better off than before!”

“I dunno, I think kissing someone is better than punching them.”

“That’s because you’re pure and innocent and kinky things don’t matter to you.”

“OK, but…not what I meant by that,” Candice giggled.

“Seriously, I punched him a few months ago. He was one of the people I wanted to see least up until, shit, until last night practically,” you realized. “Why the hell did kissing him make sense to me last night? I wasn’t that drunk, I know I wasn’t.”

“Well…he’s not exactly the most unattractive man in the world,” your friend highlighted. “And you had been drinking, however little or much, so you weren’t 100% on the defense. And you guys were being all emotional and close and ya know, it’s really not as far-fetched as you think it is. He’s pretty much the only guy I can think of in our lives where it’s not like it would be incestuous or just weird or wrong for you to kiss.”

“But it IS weird,” you argued. “I feel weird.”

“Do you feel weird because you kissed Adam? Or because you think you aren’t hating what you did overall as much as you should?”

“Both?” You were guessing, at best. “I mean, I know I can move on from Evan, logically I’m sure I will, but I hadn’t plan to at this point.”

“I don’t think you can plan those kinds of things, hon,” Candice replied, her tone gentle. “You can’t just be like ‘OK, and on this Tuesday is the day I will no longer miss my husband and I will start being interested in someone else’.”

“I know that,” you sighed. “I just mean…I kind of, I guess, had it in my head that it’d be at least a year before I even contemplated it? Like, I still miss him, every day. Because the most random things make me think of him. And who he was to me, that can’t just be replaced. It just…I don’t hurt the same, but it aches a lot.”

“Of course it does. That’s part of the healing process. It doesn’t happen just over night, and I’m sure for years to come, you’ll still have that ache in some ways. But Brenna, telling yourself you have a timeline to handle your grief and move on, that’s just setting yourself up to fail.”

You knew she was right, deep in your soul you knew it, but it didn’t feel OK to you entirely. How could you justify being with a man for nine years, and moving on from him in under one? Granted, it was now 11 months ago you’d lost him, but even so. It wasn’t a year.

“And again, it’s not like you slept with Adam last night. You kissed him. That’s pretty low-level stuff right there honestly. Not saying that if you had slept with him it would be make you the devil, but just kissing him definitely doesn’t make you the devil,” Candice guaranteed.

“How do I face him after this, Candice? Like seriously. We’ve been at each other’s throats for weeks,” you pointed out.

“Not last night you weren’t. You were at each other’s mouths.” You could hear the smirking pride on her face in her voice.

“You’re not cute,” you declared coolly.

“I’m adorable,” she argued cheerfully, before becoming serious again. “Bren, listen to me, I know Adam. He’s a downright jackass to a lot of people, and he means it. And he’s been a jackass to you, but he never meant it. He wanted to make things right with you for a while, and yea, maybe he’s gone about it the wrong way, but then so have you. You both have done things that haven’t been the smartest or the best or whatever. But this kiss? I can promise you, this isn’t going to be the final straw for you guys.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, you both want to be in each other’s lives too much. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have spent all this time fighting and what not.”

You were vaguely upset at how much sense Candice was making now. You couldn’t argue her point. Clearly you cared about Adam, about his friendship, or else, she was right, you wouldn’t keep confronting him and fighting him and demanding explanations. If you didn’t care at all, after that first confrontation, you would have left well enough alone.

“Maybe all this fighting was just foreplay for you both?” Candice considered, causing you to roll your eyes.

“…I take back my earlier ‘innocent’ comment about you.”

“Oh, shut up. And also, Joey Ryan, kind of one of my best friends. I know things that I cannot un-know thanks to him,” Candice stated, and you could envision her shuddering, making you laugh.

“Yea, he’s a wealth of filthy knowledge,” you agreed. “Also, the internet. Scary place, yo.”

“For real,” your friend giggled with concurrence. “Look, just, don’t work yourself up, OK? This will be fine.”

“I don’t believe you, but sure,” you responded. “I guess I should just go face him and get it over with.”

“Stop acting like you’re going to your death,” Candice chided. “Just, please take this piece of advice: do go face him and don’t let this not get talked about. That’s how you guys got yourselves in this mess to start.”

“Yea…communication, not our strong point.”

“Oh, yea, no,” she agreed quickly. “Definitely not.”

After saying your goodbyes to Candice, you laid on your bed for a moment longer, trying to feel at all settled in the situation. But you didn’t. So you supposed it was just best to get on with it.

You grabbed up your bags, and checked out of the hotel, before getting in to a cab. The Briscoes had offered to wait for you, but you had sent them on their way earlier. It was nothing against them necessarily; you just wanted as much time to think and be and plan by yourself as possible.

The cab got you to the venue much quicker than you had anticipated. After paying and getting your items out, you walked in to the venue with your suitcase rolling behind you. Finding the girls’ locker room was easy enough, and you set your stuff in a corner. Taking your phone from your purse, you took in a deep breath, and set out to find Adam.

It didn’t take you too long to navigate the backstage area. You passed many people you knew, saying quick greetings to them, but continuing on your way. When you didn’t locate him, you wandered out in to the actual arena part of the building. And sure enough he was standing around in a group, talking and laughing amongst themselves.

You watched Adam for a moment, knowing this was what you had to do, no matter how worried or nervous or scared you were. Doing your best to have your head held high, you walked over to the group. Greetings were exchanged amongst all of you, with some brief chit chat and smiles. You gently set your hand on Adam’s arm, causing his blue eyes to come to yours for the first time since you had walked up.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Yea.” His response was short, curt, and led to you both, without further words, walking away from the group. You walked side by side with him, though you were the one leading the two of you along. You wound your way through the hallways, further back in to the event center, until you saw an empty room that didn’t look like it would be occupied any time soon. You walked in, Adam following, shutting the door after himself.

There wasn’t much in the room, a longer table, a couple of scattered chairs. You didn’t feel like sitting, too wired with emotions. You kept a few feet between yourself and Adam, who had taken to leaning back against the wall beside the door. He was regarding you, his face without expression, which didn’t help you feel any better either. You couldn’t read anything about him in that moment; was he just as unsettled by last night as you were? Did he not care at all?

“What’s up?”

That was his opening question? You started to realize that maybe he wasn’t bothered by last night like you were. Maybe he didn’t even remember it? Oh god, did he not remember it? Were you the only one who knew what had transgressed between the two of you? Should you just not say anything then?

“I just…wanted to talk about last night,” you explained, a noticeable lack of conviction in your tone.

“Alcohol is a hell of a thing, Bren. It’s OK. And I know you didn’t truly…want to do that with me last night, it was just a thing that happened.”

So he did remember. That was good to know. But you couldn’t help but get irked at the fact that he was, once again, telling you what you wanted. What right did he have in doing that? Why did he get to make judgement calls on your behalf now at all times?

“Can you please stop telling me what I want? I’m sick of you thinking you know what’s best for me.”

“I’m right though!” He argued back, stepping away from the wall, so he was standing upright, though there was still distance between you both.

“How the hell can you know that?” You challenged, your hands going to your hips.

“Because I know you,” Adam said. “And I know that right now, this isn’t what you need with me.”

After his statement, he appeared to deflate some, the angry tension leaving his posture. You watched on curiously, his words not making much sense. Need with him? You observed him as he ran a hand over the top of his hair, before crossing his arms over his chest. He seemed to close in on himself in this stance.

“How?” You inquired again, but this time with your voice having lost most of its own heated edge. “What does that even mean?”

“How many years have we known each other?” He countered, switching the topic quickly.

“I don’t know. Five? Six?”

“And that whole time, you were always with Evan. From the day I met you, you were in a relationship with Evan. We all knew it, everyone, and it just…it put you in this…different category for all of us. We could only see you as friend, or little sister, or whatever. It took away any of that confusion or choice in the matter.”

There was that word again. Different. Different. Why were you always so different to him?

“Adam…I don’t understand…”

“Come on Bren, yes you do,” he argued, practically pleading with you, his arms dropping to his sides. “You’re not new to this business, world we live in. You know how it plays out with women around here a lot of the times. But you…you got to transcend all of that bullshit. We didn’t have to try to figure you out, how’d you be. It was obvious you were just here for wrestling, and making friends and family. No one could try to sleep with you or any of that shit either because it just wasn’t an option.”

“OK? Is there something wrong with that?”

“No, no, of course not,” Adam insisted. “But that was…then.”

You knew you had to ask what he meant, but you dreaded doing so. This conversation had taken such a sharp turn. He had clearly come prepared to speak with you, had gotten his thoughts in order. And you had a feeling you knew where this was headed, but you weren’t positive, and you definitely weren’t ready to handle it if you were right. You wanted to be wrong, didn’t want any more inconsistency around the two of you. Taking a shallow breath, you pushed on, because ignoring things was what got you in this chaos in the first place basically. You had promised Candice after all.

“…and now?”

“Now…you’re my friend, Brenna. … But for some fucking stupid reason, I can’t just keep you in that box the same way anymore,” he said, sounding mad at himself about this. “Without Evan…that wall, that distance we’ve always had to have just because…is gone. And now you’re not… Look, I told you before, you’re not just one of the guys, Bren. You never were really, and you’re just…definitely not now.”

Your head was spinning, you felt jittery all over. Had he really just told you that? What was he really trying to say? What was going on right now? You weren’t prepared for this conversation. You had come to him, thinking you just needed to smooth over some weirdness from a kiss, laugh it off, move on. You hadn’t even at all entertained the idea that this discussion would go so off the rails for you.

“I don’t like this, this lack of control I have with you. That’s not me. I’m always in charge, I always have a plan,” he declared, appearing to take your silence as a need for more clarification. “But with you…I never know what I’m doing, what you’re doing. It bugs the hell out of me that the second I see you, I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

“To be fair, neither do I really,” you spoke quietly, and a smile twitched on his face.

“I figured as much,” he replied.

You chewed at your lip, finding it harder and harder to keep looking at him, wanting more than anything to just hide into yourself right now. This was just too much. You had no idea what to say. You still weren’t even fully understanding his intent at this point either. It was a bit ambiguous whatever his aim was in telling you all this.

“I’m not trying to come at you and overwhelm you,” Adam stated, seemingly not oblivious to your body language and reaction. “And I’m also not saying I have some like, long-standing unrequited crush on you. Anything that this is, it’s because of recent events. So what I’m saying is, when it comes to you and being just your friend, this is new territory for me and I don’t know what to do because everything is just so different now.”

“Stop saying different,” you requested, your distaste growing for that word more and more each time it was used. It didn’t tell you anything concrete, it just made you more unsure each time. And that was getting on your nerves.

“I’m sorry? I don’t know what else to call it though. Because that’s what it is,” he explained. “You, your world, you in my world, anything between us…it’s different now. We can’t pretend it’s not.”

“I know it’s not,” you asserted. “Believe me, I’m well aware my entire life isn’t what it was a year ago.”

“Then you have to understand, in some way, why I’m having a hard time figuring you, us, out,” Adam reasoned.

“I mean, yea, sure. It’s not like last night, the last few weeks, haven’t confused me and made me question everything too. But I just…I didn’t think it ran as deep as it apparently does,” you said, uncertain and dazed.

“Things changed in Atlanta for me,” he admitted, looking at you, almost with guilt. “Before that too, to some extent. The way you are to me…I don’t know. I’m not sure how to be around you anymore. You weren’t a part of my life for so many months, and then you were, and it’s just been…crazy. And kissing you last night…”

“Do you regret it?” Your question cut him off, and his face changed to one of surprise. He clearly wasn’t thinking you were going to ask him that.

“…Yes? …No? I mean, I know I should…” He trailed off, just watching you, almost helpless in his inability to give you a direct answer.

“…but you don’t.” You finished for him, your voice a whisper. You didn’t know why his words, these words, affected you so much more than the others. You thought you regretted the kiss, in some ways at least. You had to. It hadn’t been premeditated. It hadn’t been an idea you had until it happened. It certainly had not been a part of your life plan.

“Not entirely.”

His admission made your heart rate increase more than it was already was. You had not expected any of this. You had expected Adam to be on the same page as you, slightly puzzled and weirded out, and just trying to move past last night’s events. You had not expected it to mean anything to him, beyond a drunken-at-best mistake. You certainly hadn’t expected him to have any type of muddled feelings for you that weren’t exclusively of the friend variety.

“I liked kissing you,” he murmured, causing your breath to catch even further. “I hadn’t wanted to stop it last night.”

“…you did though?”

“Because I had to,” Adam stressed. He sighed, looking down to the ground for a moment, before taking in a breath of his own, and looking back up to you. “We haven’t been able to, not once, be together without something…eventful happening lately. You…no matter that it’s been almost a year, you’re still in a lot of ways getting over Evan, I know that. And I can’t…both of those aren’t things I can ignore.”

He paused, his gaze gentle as he looked you over. It took all your resolve to look back at him. You were uncomfortable; not because of what he was telling you necessarily, but because this situation was so surprising and so foreign. He was right in saying that since you had accosted him in December, things hadn’t been calm in the least.

“I just…I had to stop it last night,” he reaffirmed. “What I think of you, whatever that is, I can’t let that be important right now. I’ll figure it out myself. But while doing that, I’m not going to let you put yourself in a position for more problems to handle. You don’t need that.”

Despite him telling you want you needed again, this time it didn’t rub you the wrong way like it usually did. Somewhere in you, you appreciated his sentiments actually. You appreciated he was cognizant of your on-going healing heartbreak. He was trying to look out for your best interest, and was putting your mental wellbeing above his in a way. Despite his own confusion, desire, wants, what have you, he was putting yours first.

“Look, let’s just, try to be the friends we have been literally fighting to be for weeks now, OK? We’ll just hang out, be around each other, let things settle down a bit. I think that’s what we need right now.”

“Yea…OK,” you agreed, halfheartedly. You knew he had a valid point, that things had been nothing but chaos for the two of you for weeks. And whatever feelings he was having for you now, he hadn’t anticipated he’d have. You hadn’t anticipated you’d kiss him either. There was just too much emotion, too much confusion, in every interaction you had with each other lately. Maybe some respectable distance would do you both good.

“You know, this has been hard on me too. The whole, category, box, whatever, thing,” you disclosed. “In a different way than you, but it’s still changed. I mean, I was always the advice giver, the person that people trusted to keep their secrets and take care of them, and that it was OK to be human with me without judgement. And then with everything that happened…roles got reversed in a lot of ways. I was the one people had to take care of. It wasn’t easy for me to accept that.”

“I know,” he assured you sympathetically. “We all just…have a lot to come to terms with, I guess. But we’ll get here, Bren.”

“I hope so.” And you really did. You had come much too far in the past eleven months for it all to go to hell now. Even though you hadn’t predicted you’d be here in this situation with Adam, you knew all you could do now was see it through. However it turned out though, that was very much up for debate.

Y’all please don’t hate me!! It’s not the end, I promise. I’ve got a handful of chapters still planned at this point. But it’ll all depend on how the writing goes. Sometimes it takes me places I didn’t plan honestly. :)

UPDATED: Part Seven is up.

#adam cole fan fiction #adam cole imagine #adam cole fanfic #Adam Cole #wrestling fanfic #wrestling fan fiction #wrestling fan fic #wrestling imagine #roh fanfic #roh imagine #insolence

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newseveryhourly · 5 years ago

Link

Well, there is lots going on in Flynn World.The president’s former national-security advisor, Michael Flynn, is obviously elated that, on Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit granted his petition for a writ of mandamus -- i.e., it instructed District Judge Emmet Sullivan to grant the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case against him. I have a column about the ruling up on the homepage.As reported by NR’s Zachary Evans, moreover, Flynn defense lawyer Sidney Powell has filed an intriguing supplement the defense’s concurrence in the Justice Department’s dismissal motion. The supplement, also filed on Wednesday, includes notes said to have been handwritten by Peter Strzok, then a top FBI counterintelligence agent (and, of course, later fired for sundry misconduct).It is being widely reported that the notes concern a now infamous White House meeting about Flynn that took place on January 5, 2017. (I began writing about that meeting as soon as we learned about it in early 2018, and it is central to my book about the Trump–Russia investigation, Ball of Collusion). The meeting included the top political and law-enforcement leadership of the Obama administration -- President Obama, Vice President Biden, national-security advisor Susan Rice, deputy attorney general Sally Yates, and FBI director James Comey -- notwithstanding the insistence of Obama apologists that the administration did not permit law enforcement to be influenced by politics. (I would counter that mixing the two was the administration’s M-O).I suspect the Strzok notes are about the January 5 meeting, too. There is, however, confusion on this point.The short supplement Ms. Powell filed states that Strzok’s notes are “believed to be of January 4, 2017” (emphasis added). Now, Powell received these notes from the Justice Department as part of its continuing review of the Flynn case (which was prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff). Obviously, she is privy to more information about the case than we are, and we do not know what, if anything, DOJ told her about the provenance of the notes. That said, I am skeptical about the January 4 dating.If it’s right, that would mean there were two meetings involving the same five people regarding the same subject matter on consecutive days. It seems highly unlikely to me that President Obama and Vice President Biden, along with Rice, met with Comey and Yates on both January 4 and 5. Plus, in connection with its motion to dismiss Flynn case, the government has previously disclosed FBI interviews of former deputy AG Yates and Mary McCord, formerly the chief of DOJ’s National Security Division. Both of them indicated that Yates did not know until January 5 that the FBI had intercepted conversations between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. That was a somewhat embarrassing admission for them to make, so I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt it. (Yates should have been briefed before the White House meeting by McCord, who had been alerted by the FBI’s then-deputy director, Andrew McCabe, on January 3. Perhaps McCord did not realize Yates was going to the White House on the morning of January 5; she had scheduled a briefing for Yates that afternoon. As a result, Yates first learned about the Flynn–Kislyak calls when Comey and Obama discussed them in her presence at the White House meeting.)Another peculiar thing: We have no basis to believe Strzok was present at the January 5 White House pow-wow -- at least the follow-on meeting involving the five top-tier officials, several rungs above Strzok.On that score, note that there were really two meetings on January 5. The first was for the chiefs of four intelligence agencies -- FBI, CIA, NSA, and ODNI -- to brief the president (presumably, along with his Veep and national security advisor) on their report assessing Russia’s interference in the 2020 election. The second was the follow-on meeting, involving only Obama, Biden, Rice, Yates, and Comey. There were several more people in attendance at the first January 5 meeting. Strzok was deeply involved in the assessment report. I don’t know how much staff the intel chiefs brought along to make their presentation to Obama, so I suppose it’s possible Strzok was there, but I’ve never heard that before. Plus, Strzok’s notes appear to refer to the follow-on meeting, involving only the five highest ranking officials.It is more likely, then, that Strzok’s notes were taken when someone later briefed him about the White House meeting that Strzok did not attend. I am hypothesizing here, of course, but if I’m right, we should bear in mind that the notes would reflect, at best, a second-hand account. That would not make them inaccurate, necessarily, but it’s worth bearing in mind.The difference between January 4 and 5 is significant, and not just because it is unlikely that there were two meetings involving the five major players. January 4 is the date of the “closing memo” the FBI had completed to shut down its case on Flynn due to lack of evidence that he was a clandestine agent of Russia.In addition to that memo, the Justice Department previously disclosed to Powell important texts from that day. On the afternoon of January 4, Strzok texted the Flynn case agent (believed to be Joe Pientka, though the name is redacted in the disclosure) and was relieved to learn that the Flynn case (“Crossfire Razor”) had not yet been formally closed in the bureau’s files, even though nearly all the steps necessary to do so (including getting Comey’s approval) had been taken.Strzok promptly reported that the case remained open to Lisa Page, McCabe’s counsel (and Strzok’s paramour). She replied, “phew . . . . But yeah, that’s amazing that he’s still open. Good I guess.” Strzok’s agreed: “Yeah, our utter incompetence actually helps us.Strzok subsequently told Pientka, “7th floor involved” -- meaning the FBI’s top hierarchy, Comey and McCabe. The issue at the time was that the bureau “need[ed] to decide to what to do with” Flynn with respect to “the [redacted].” I suspect what’s redacted is a reference to the Flynn–Kislyak communications the FBI had intercepted. Pientka said, “I heard that might be the case yesterday [i.e., January 3]. Did DD [i.e., Deputy Director McCabe] send that material over?” As noted above, we know McCabe had become aware of the Flynn–Kislyak calls on January 3 because that’s when he informed DOJ’s McCord about them.To recap: In the January 4 texts, Strzok observed that the FBI’s brass was trying to figure out what to do about the new Flynn information (i.e., the intercepted Kislyak calls) and expressing relief that the case was still open -- i.e., the bureau would not have to come up with a reason to either reopen the case or start a new case, neither of which could have been justified by the non-incriminatory substance of Flynn’s discussions with the Russian ambassador. The newly revealed notes attributed to Strzok contain no reference to Obama, the Justice Department, or any White House meeting. It is likely, therefore, that on January 4, Strzok and others at the FBI were preparing for Comey’s scheduled briefing of Obama the following morning. It is improbable that Obama, Biden, Rice, Yates, and Comey had a meeting on January 4, and then met again on January 5.Now, onto what Strzok’s notes actually say. If I am right that they reflect what he was told about the January 5 meeting, which he did not attend, they don’t tell us much that we didn’t already know.The handwritten notes appear in our Zachary Evans’s report, linked above. What follows is a rendering of what Strzok’s chicken-scratch says, based on my discussion with others knowledgeable about the case and my own perusal. The notes refer to people by initials, so let me first interpret those: “NSA” is National Security Advisor Rice; “D” is Director Comey; “DAG” is Deputy Attorney General Yates; “VP” is Vice President Biden; and “P” is President Obama. There is also a reference that looks like “Apple” -- I am not convinced that “Apple” is what it says, nor do I know to whom or what it refers. Where I’ve added explanatory observations, my initials -- “ACM” appear in the brackets.Here is what the notes say:> NSA-D-DAG: Flynn cuts. Other countries [ACM: I’m not confident in “countries”]> > D-DAG: Lean forward on unless [ACM: all of it is hard to make out, and I’m not confident in “unless”]> > VP: “Logan Act”> > P: These are unusual times> > VP: I’ve been [ACM: there’s a scratch out] on the intel committee for ten years and I never> > P: Make sure you look at things and have the right people on it [ACM: “over” instead of “at” has also been suggested to me, but it looks like “at”.]> > P: Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling transition team?> > D: Flynn -> Kislyak calls but appear legit> > Apple — Happy New Year. Yeah right.Not very enlightening. “Flynn cuts” refers to summaries of communications intercepted under FISA. The notes suggest that Biden may have been a more active participant in the discussion than previously revealed. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone: The former vice president is a garrulous sort. In any event, his reference to the Logan Act, in quotes, could well mean that he was repeating something someone else had already said rather than making a suggestion on his own. (McCord’s interview indicated that the absurd notion of prosecuting Flynn under the Logan Act may have originated in the ODNI, and it may have been developed in discussions between the ODNI and FBI. The Justice Department appears to have been skeptical about it, at least internally.)I do think that there is significance in Strzok’s notation of Comey acknowledging that the Flynn–Kislyak calls appeared legitimate. Strzok was a high-ranking FBI official who (a) had contact with Comey, (b) was in regular communication with McCabe’s office, and (c) worked closely with other bureau people who had regular access to Comey and McCabe. As a result, he was in a position to know Comey’s (and the FBI’s) take on the Flynn–Kislyak calls. Furthermore, as I observed above, the FBI was very relieved that the Flynn case had not been closed in their filing system. That only makes sense if they suddenly wanted to continue the investigation despite the lack of a valid reason for doing so. If the bureau had believed the Flynn–Kislyak calls were incriminating, the agents would not have cared whether the case had been formally closed because they’d know they had well-founded reasons to reopen it.That said, it is not a revelation that Comey knew there was nothing illegitimate about the incoming national security advisor’s discussions with the Russian ambassador. We already knew, from New York Times reporting, that the FBI had told “Obama advisers” that there was no evidence of a corrupt quid pro quo in the Flynn–Kislyak calls. And we already knew from Susan Rice’s January 20, 2017, “Note to File” email that Comey told Obama there was “no indication thus far that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak[.]”Consequently, if Strzok was accurately reporting his own or some other bureau official’s recollection that Comey said the Flynn–Kislyak calls “appear legit,” that confirms other accounts previously disclosed.In a nutshell, Strzok’s notes are significant in what they confirm, but they probably do not reveal anything new.