#to be clear Lord i do not mind just. no casualties pls

[nameification]

ang malapit-lapit sa bahay ko ng mga natural disasters ToT ganito ba dahil natanong ko sa Diyos kung pwede nanalo si charles

[seatsbythepit]

thoughts on ornstein's summary thing?

Okay, anon, I gotta admit my head has been whirring on this one, I’ve been thinking about your question the whole time I was at work - and I would like to apologize in advance, because it was 100% more eloquent in my head than in the words I’m about to write.

First and foremost, I have to make two “disclaimers”:

The first being that we should all keep in mind that David Ornstein is, at the end of the day, a reporter with sources at the club. He has often been reliable, tends to post only when he’s fairly certain of his information, and probably takes his info in good faith, however we do have to take any and all information (i.e. how certain deals happened, mood of the players/club etc.) with a pinch of salt, purely because only the people who were actually there would know what was said and done etc. But we can of course draw our own conclusions from the actions of the club, past experience, etc.

The second: I am not particularly a good stats/data person, nor do I have a great capacity for economics, I have basic understandings but I can’t venture too deep - so my thoughts come from a more observational/analytical perspective purely from what I’m seeing/hearing/understanding. So, apologies again to anyone who wants me to delve into the mathematical and statistical minutiae of our club, I don’t feel I could do that justice.

So, let’s proceed under the cut because this is going to be fairly long I imagine.

🔽🔽🔽

To address what I think of what Ornstein has presented us with: It is nothing too surprising or shocking. For some this will warrant an eye-roll, for others it may it reignite anger/frustration at the absurdity of our board, there will be some hurt/disappointment with certain players or certain transfers, or the lack thereof in particular positions - and perhaps even some room for consolation or reasoning. But ultimately: Nothing totally new.

(And I have to stress, we will all view the First Team’s situation, and in part some of the academy’s involvement, in different ways - we will come to some similar and some different views, all of which may be right/wrong to different extents. I can only speak for myself when I discuss this.)

I think the transfer window started out fairly well, we sealed Lacazette and Kolasanic in time for summer tour - two very good players, both high achievers in their former leagues. We had some backroom changes too, to coaching staff and to our legal team - nothing too spectacular there, but a little “fresher” to start the window’s activity.

The disappointment comes where deals/transfers were dragged out, things kept getting changed, and ultimately, we perhaps lost/gained in places where we were looking to do the opposite. There of course will be the January window, but I think accompanied with the context of losing our last two PL games a lot of people do not take kindly to indecision and hesitation - though it is granted the influence of other clubs/players on the other side of business will have contributed in certain areas.

All in all, I don’t think too much else would have happened in the window even if we had got 3 wins in a row, maybe one more signing of some notoriety, but nothing too big. (As the Ornstein Recap alludes to, without Alexis’ sale there was no room to budge in terms of a “big” signing [in all honesty I don’t subscribe to the idea that it has to be big or expensive to make a difference, but we could have done with a midfielder or a defender - as some players seemed to have fallen out of favour], again due to the fact that Stan won’t splash the cash.)

I’ll briefly touch on the talk of Hector Bellerin and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in Ornstein’s Recap:

Hector wanting to go back to Barcelona seems to be part truth and part self-fulfilling prophecy, and as Hector said before he is committed to Arsenal and I guess we can only really take his word for it. Not to mention I feel that if you commit to such a long contract as he has, you should honour it - you should honour your commitments unless there is an extreme circumstance that requires you to leave. Note: Losing CL football does not qualify as extreme, no matter how unappealing or shit it may seem to some professional footballers and to some fans.

Perhaps the biggest controversy of the window was the departure of Oxlade-Chamberlain. Again, I am only speaking for myself so: I was disappointed, yes. I didn’t like the way it had been dragged out, I didn’t like the fact that he got to play against Liverpool as it seemed so clear his time was over at the club, it just all felt so unnecessary. I am sad that he chose not to commit himself any further to us - we of course had many years of hoping for “his year”, and last year seemed to be the beginnings of having that only for it to be cut off during this window. He had/has his reasons, what else is there to say? Bitterness has turned to resignation and now to indifference, I have other players at my club that require my support and attention.

I think the real crux of our issues does lay outside of transfers, and more in the boardroom - as I’m sure most will agree. The on-pitch performance/player attitude and fan influence are all (partly) side effects/symptoms of the deeper rot that is our (majority) owner and inactive board. (

All current members of our board have become active between 2005 - 2013.

Sir Chips Keswick was first appointed as an Arsenal director in November 2005 and replaced the outgoing Peter Hill-Wood as Chairman of Arsenal Holdings plc in June 2013.

Ivan Gazidis was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Arsenal Football Club in January 2009.

Arsenal Football Club’s longest-serving director, Ken Friar OBE has been a mainstay of the Club for more than 60 years. (Honestly won’t really include Ken in this, he still serves our club in 23847724 ways and I will fight for him.)

Lord Harris of Peckham was appointed to the Arsenal board in November 2005.

Stan Kroenke became a shareholder in May 2007, was appointed to the Board of Directors in September 2008 and became the majority shareholder of Arsenal Football Club in April 2011.

Josh Kroenke joined the board of Arsenal Football Club in December 2013.

The reason I make note of this is because this coincides fully with the time (10 years) where we were emphatic that we could not/would not be able to compete with our rivals as the Emirates Stadium needed to be paid off, leaving little else for club business. In fact, it required Arsene Wenger reassuring the banks that he would stay for a further 5 years to see that there was a consistency within the club (i.e. making CL every year, which we did.) in order to repay the loans. (It was partly his idea that we move to a bigger stadium in the first place.)

So, for those years I suspect the board didn’t have too much to do, sure there would be fan discontent, and there really was (“Spend some fucking money”, ring a bell?) - we made a few goes at the title and progressed only a little in the CL, no FA Cups, no nothing - but hey, they were in the Bubble of Time, they told us about that time, so we just had to suck it up, right? Fair enough, I suppose. We still did very well to maintain top 4, especially in a time where that money did actually matter a lot.

2013 rolls around, we start to defrost, and fans think “We should really be doing something by now, ffs” But we have to bear in mind two crucial things:

The lucrative nature of the PL, the value, the cash flow, whatever you want to call it - it had grown exponentially in that decade, this meant that “lower clubs” had tv money, advertising and sponsorship that allowed them to be on a more even playing field, the divide between the great, good and mediocre was allowed to shrink.

Stan Kroenke was (and is) the tache with the cash.

I think we know how the rest goes, we got some great players, both known and unknown, big shiny toys and hidden gems, and everything else in between. We won an FA Cup, two…three in fact - but at the very core the slight patch of mold started to grow, the Kroenke effect. We’re held on a tight leash, our system dictates that we can only use what we make in profit to deal with everything, Stan doesn’t want to give us anything, but hey! Apparently, he wants us to do well!

And you can imagine the fan discontent grows and grows, it’s daylight robbery, we pump the club full of cash in the form of shirt sales, tickets, programmes, magazines, merchandising, our tv subscriptions and so forth (because we love it and want to see it thrive.) - and receive very little in return, no desire, no ambition, falsehoods and unfulfilled promises. That is the first boil of anger festering.

The second boil, and the worst casualty, is Arsene Wenger. Arsene loves us, he loves Arsenal Football Club. And because of this he has not only contributed to our stadium, he has declined offer after offer from other clubs, he has taken the full force of any and all criticism/abuse directed at the club and has protected those that sit at a desk (or relax in a different country entirely) above him.

The reason he is a festering boil is because he becomes a way to channel any and all anger, not just the criticisms he receives as manager. The first boil (The Board) can remain subtle, silent and deadly, but the second is pickable, burstable, it is pumped full of bitterness and entitlement, sadness and despair. But Arsene, despite a few words of displeasure, takes it - he allows it to happen because [read the first few sentences above].

So when you take Arsene for what he is, he is brilliant, he is infuriating, he is wise, he is stubborn, he is intelligent and he is heart breaking. Arsene has made mistakes, foolish decisions, perhaps he has been secretive, perhaps he really does need to let loose and expose our board for what we already know and more - but he won’t, at least I think he won’t, because (excuse my strange analogy) I see it like this:

The club is hanging over a cliff edge (within the context of the expectations and demands of a club our size, I know there are 100s who have it worse off than we do.), and Arsene is holding onto us, he won’t let go, because the way he sees it is that if he drops us (if he leaves) we will fall, fall hard and it could be some serious damage to us - this is because of instability the board has given us - BUT in all of this Arsene is getting older, he is under strain, it is getting harder and harder to hold onto us, the magnitude of our plight is no longer manageable the way it was in the late 90s/00s.

He does make mistakes, he does get it wrong, but perhaps it wouldn’t feel so terrible or be so exacerbated if the system above him had the decency to take him away from the pressure, to say “No, this needs to happen”, “It’s okay we will do this”, “We have decided this”, “You need to do this”. For as long as he tries to keep it all together without letting them be held accountable he is going to be hurt and be the cause of hurt, whether that’s fair or not.

Maybe he could let go and nothing too terrible would happen to us and he could go home and rest or turn his work elsewhere, but there’s this sense of responsibility, that deep love, that relentlessness. He doesn’t trust that if he lets go that somebody will come to pick us up and mend us, not under Stan Kroenke, he would not forgive himself if it were to be damaging to his life’s work and life’s love.

So… we’re in a rut, Stan won’t move, Arsene won’t either. And together it creates this friction, this resentment that oozes and pulses in many factions of the support base, we can use social media to micro-analyze and overanalyze, to pick and pick and pick at our wounds with no healing to come with it, only botched plaster jobs and short term solutions, maybe some pain relief in between (trophies/big wins/good team performances/exciting players).

And then the third boil comes from the media who love their clicks for money, the supposed fans who deliberately create more issues with little room for reason or debate, and the pundits (ex-Arsenal players sometimes) who apply logic/expectations/experience from when they were footballers to a vastly different environment of modern football - anything that’s bad is really bad, and anything that’s good can only last for a week. It’s the culture of hyperbole, sensationalism, dramatics, and hypocrisy.

TL;DR: We are burnt out. Something has to give.

In all of this nonsense that has gone completely off topic, we are stuck. Ornstein’s words are only a mirror being held up to remind us that we are still frail as fuck underneath, we are trying hard in some ways and utterly stagnant in others. But it won’t stop me from coming along with my glue and my bandages, it won’t stop me from wishing someone would heal the infection, that someone would remove the rot and start again, and that the most special someone, Arsene Wenger, could move on and not feel like he let us down. He deserves that at least.

[quentatan]

And Hell Followed

We are not body. We are not mind. We are not soul. We are many. We are one. For peace. For prosperity. We are the Ten.

“Dirt, two mikes.” The warning cut through the silence. Some people were praying, some were running sight diagnostics. Most of them were stretching; winning wars is limber work.

The Gargoyle gunners were working hard. Even through the ship’s filters, there was a hint of ozone, and the heavy coilguns were rocking every few seconds. The troop bay was filled with a vibration that was one part gyrodrives, one part repeaters laying down the hate.

“Dirt in thirty.”

Captain Remus was at the ramp, rifle in hand. Everyone pinged green.

“Para Mars,” he commed. In his ears a hundred voices replied.

“Para Sol.”

“Victory or death.”

The ramps dropped, revealing a relatively calm suburban street. Omega poured out, clearing the nearest houses. Maradon hardly seemed like a warzone.

Orcus, this is Santa Claus. Ten seconds. Ho ho ho. Over.

“Christmas is coming. Ten seconds.”

It was a beautiful house. Maybe it qualified as a mansion? Either way there were shells thumping out of it every few seconds. So they were clearing out artillery in the suburbs the old-fashioned way with ground pounders. Well... It didn’t seem fair to call a pulsebeam “old-fashioned”, but scopes were picking up way too many MGs to be fun. So Albert Remus did what any sane man would do. He called in gunships to destroy the pretty mansion.

The seconds counted down and... now it was rubble. Missiles. It was like getting coal under the tree.

“Three bravo, get the brass a BDA, would you?”

“We’re on it, sir.”

Orcus, this is Rampart. Relay Whitewolf. Over.

Rampart, this is Orcus actual. Send relay. over.

Nice house for a FOB. Grid romeo victory alpha tango five six six three zero four seven three two zero. How copy? Over.

Solid copy. Relay violet. Over.

Relay violet. Out.

“Three bravo how’s that piece of paper?”

“Five letters, sir.”

“Alright gents, we’re dusting off, five mikes. PLs on me.”

This house was not particularly beautiful. It did have lots of concrete and was technically not a house. It wasn’t clear what it had been, but it had a large walled yard and some gantries. Whitewolf was hanging out with a few locals when they arrived. It was admittedly odd, but they had stacked bags of concrete for the gantries.

The civilians, it turned out, were a bunch of cops and firefighters. Apparently the Dominion wasn’t too popular in the area of New Vladisgrad.

“Coalition troops, mostly Dominion regulars, hold the city west of MSR Zebra. North of ASR Gazelle are some Earth boys, but main lines are primarily further north at Rittersburg. Rampart has seven divisions pushing west up there. Down here, not much going on. There are some militia south and west of the city, mostly supporting the coalies. Most of the militia from the eastern and northern suburbs are working with these fine ladies and gentlemen of the Asprenova County Sheriff and Fire Departments. We’re here to slowly drive the ‘equatorial scum’ out of their fine city. They will in turn either convince their crosstown cousins to join us or kill them.”

“So... hit and run, some counterinsurgency, until Dominion lines around the capital collapse?”

“Bingo, Al.”

“What are we calling our fancy new abandoned factory?”

“Figured I’d leave it to you. I already got to name the highways.”

“I like Gondolin.”

“You fucking nerd.”

“Shit yeah.”

Three months and nothing had moved. Far to their north, three Commonwealth divisions were stalled in Marsgorod City. To their north, a hundred thousand Ardans were slowly advancing through the Trotsky archipelago. On the far side of the planet, the Carolans were slugging it out in the industrial cities of Novyarkhankhgelsk. The last Dominion orbital stations had fallen last month, but they’d withdrawn their last ships to atmosphere. They still had corvettes running supplies, and loyalists had turned their cities into fortresses. Short of burning civilians out, there wasn’t a way of effectively grounding the Maradonians or silencing their SAMs.

So here we are. At the far end of a thousand miles of Solar troops and some local militia. Sniping across a highway until somebody else moves.

Seven months, we’re still here but things are finally moving. Ardans cleared the Troskies, so three of their divisions are crossing the pole and the other two are coming south.

“Rampart wants to turn their flanks. The Carolans are going to make a concentrated push and try to simply shatter resistance in Novy. The capital metro is too thick though, so the other two Ardan divisions are hitting the north coast. Fourth and Seventh IXIDs are joining the fray as well, coming down over the Transverse Sea, respectively Novy and Koberezh. At the same time, our brothers in the First are shifting to our immediate northern flank.

“Our Apsrenovan friends will be on the southern flank. Our task is to punch a hole through enemy lines west of MSR Zebra. First Expeditioners, reinforced by additional Asprenovan militia, will advance through the northern suburbs to sweep everything to our north. We expect Dominion units to begin withdrawing west and north after that. Hope is, we chase them all the way to Rittersburg where we link up with Fourteenth Ten and cut off militia and guerilla units on the peninsula. From there, we detach to rejoin the Asprenovans and clear out those cut off units while the regulars do the dirty up north. You should have maps on HUD. Any questions?”

“Whitewolf?”

“The ORCA will be infiltrating ahead of time, make sure we don’t run into any surprises and provide a little distraction. Checking your maps, gridzone RVAT 564 475, there’s an apartment building and a small metro station. Belief is enemy have been stockpiling missiles in the station and have an access tunnel to the apartments. Whitewolf are going to blow the station somehow just as we’re crossing the MSR. Santa Claus takes care of the bad guys.”

So we’re a few hours into Operation Reacharound and shit’s further south than we are. Whitewolf blew the metro station and a shitload of ordnance in it, and we’re all safely on the west side of New Vladisgrad. The Fourth Imperial Division made landfall in Novy easy enough and met up with the Carolans, so even though the equatorial skies are still contested, major industrial capacity is cut off.

The probems are to our north. We connected with 1/1 and pushed Coalition regulars out of the city, but lasers out of Rittersburg hit our gunships pretty hard. So their southern flank is anchored at Rittersburg. The problem with that is the failure of Seventh IXID, who are strung out in West Koberezh but held there. Ardan Third Corps is similarly situated along the North Coast.

What it looks like is that instead of shifting weapons to Novy, the Coalies were shifting personnel back here. The only upsides are that the Fourth Imperials are joining Seventh, and the Asprenova Peninsula is cut off. Rittersburg is strongly defended, but we have it surrounded on three sides.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the news out of Eastern Marsgorod.”

Clement sneered. “Fucking barbaric.”

“Well, it brings our casualties into the hundreds of thousands, but it gives us one advantage.”

“Alan, how the hell is there an upside to those cunts dropping a city on our men?” Hadrian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Two words: better scopes.”

Some of the gathered officers whispered to each other. Most of them were still staring at the live images out of the city. Clouds of dust where there had been skyscrapers and several Allied divisions. Coszic looked up at the young general. “I like it.”

“They started this. We need to finish it.”

The whispers quieted. Alan Young was right in more ways than one. This ward had dragged on for longer even than some of them had served. Thousands of cities had burned and millions were dead. Back home, images of the Midworlds alight with pulsebeams and lasers were causing horror. Replacements were told stories of “fire like a flood”, and planets turned to ash. It wasn’t all that hyperbolic. Still, nothing they’d seen compared to Maradon. It had been rather sedate when it began, but Dominion forces had rapidly solidified their lines and bogged down several dozen Allied divisions on the continent of Komelsk.

Viktr broke the silence. He was the only one who had served through the whole bloody affair. His cousin Michael had fallen in the first wave of attacks and scarcely a week later he and Olympia had been over this very planet, probing its defensive and crippling half a dozen cruisers in the process. He’d been over New Folsom when they got Solars out. When Regus Secundus fell, it was his fleet in orbit. It was by his command that the attacks on Maradon had been methodical, cautious. He’d seen more bloodshed than his entire staff combined.

“My cousin is young and he is rash. Burn them until the survivors surrender.”

“My lord,” Clement and Wyzowscky bowed. Coszic just smiled. The man had a disturbing amount of enthusiasm for overwhelming force.

The officers began to shuffle out. Clement and Coszic were discussing details with Alan while Viktr stood quiet.

“Tell them first. Tell them that hell is coming.”

Casanova, Cane and Abel were sitting in the troop bay of a Gargoyle as it flew into Marsgorod. The city was covered in ash, block-sized chunks seemingly plucked from it. Transports and gunships buzzed around them. There were still weapons discharging here and there, but most of the Dominion troops in the city were gathered at sports stadiums and airports to formally surrender.

“Fuck man...”

“Talk about laying down the hate.”

Marlin sidled up but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. They were all thinking the same thing.

And I beheld a pale horse, its rider was named Death, and Hell followed behind him. Revelation 6:8a