#usmc couple

[lethalchiralium]

AS A REMINDER!

Ghost, Soap, Price, and Gaz wear THESE TAGS.

These are UK ID Disks. They’re noticeably different from the generic US military dog tag as they are round and state information as follows: Identification number, last name, first and middle initials, religion, blood type, and branch.

Graves and Shadows wear THESE tags. These are American Dog Tags - noticeably different from the UK ID Disks. These tags are rectangular and state information as follows: Last name, first name and middle initial, Department of Defense identification number, blood type, and religion. This is the standard US Army Dog Tag.

Some information on these tags vary upon branches. Air Force requires Rh Blood Group System identifier - Marines require Electronic Data Interchange Personnel Identifier (EDIPI), Branch (“USMC”), as well as their gas mask size. The US Navy and US Coast Guard no longer issue dog tags.

I keep reading all of these fics including dog tags on 141 and all I can imagine is American writers imagining American dog tags on UK soldiers, so here is information to make sure that we’re all collectively thinking of the same thing here

Give me a couple days and I’ll research Alejandro and Rudy’s ID tags 🤍

[sgt-tombstone]

idk if I’ve posted about it before but I had an idea that’s been bouncing around for a couple of months for an au that combines both modern warfare timelines into one, and it goes something like this:

(for reference, this starts with ‘09 canon and moves into ‘19 canon! In this, these characters are not distinct, with the exception of Gaz)

————

Soap passes SAS selection, youngest candidate ever, and gets put on Price’s team. Together with Gaz and a small SAS team, the fight against Ultranationalists, gaining allies in Nikolai, loyalists, and USMCs. The death of Victor and Imran Zakhaev leads to the creation of the 141, which includes Soap, Price, Gaz, and Roach, under the command of General Shepherd. Ghost is added after he escapes and kills Roba.

The 141 is sent after Makarov, where Soap gets injured and Price gets captured, presumably killed. Soap gets promoted to captain and becomes field commander of the 141 (Ghost was asked, but rejected the promotion; Soap was always a better leader than him anyway). Soap and Ghost get close, or as close as they’ll let themselves get for being a captain and a lieutenant. They dance around it, the unspoken tension, and never act on it, convinced that they can’t. Three years later, Soap, Roach, and Ghost infiltrate the Russian gulag to rescue an unknown prisoner, who turns out to be Price. Together, the two captains hunt down Makarov while Roach and Ghost are betrayed by Shepherd, who shoots and burns them. Soap and Price are declared war criminals by Shepherd, Makarov goes into hiding, and Soap and Price kill Shepherd. In their hunt for Makarov, Soap is killed, and Price is forced to give up because he never finds any shred of evidence leading him to Makarov’s hiding place.

Instead, he finds Ghost, who is clinging to life in a black site hospital, almost 80% of his body burned, and mourning the loss of Roach. Instead, he finds Soap, who managed to escape in the chaos following the botched assassination attempt of Makarov and go into hiding. Instead, he finds Shepherd, who wasn’t nearly as dead as Price thought he’d been, who’s slowly been working his way back up the political ladder, buying pardons and new staff and blind eyes until he’s right back where he was without anyone being any the wiser.

Soap is rattled by the whole experience. He’s an SAS soldier, sure, but he’s never been betrayed like that, never had to fight and run for his life like that before. His years of being a captain have taken a toll on him, and all he wants to do is restart. Do it all over again. So Price lets him. Demotes him back down to sergeant, makes him do the SAS selection process over again. His scores are just as impressive the second time, and the reduced responsibility lifts a weight off of his shoulders, letting him become a little freer, a little more talkative, a little more… well, Price doesn’t want to say immature, but… It’s a good look on him, in any case. The kid deserves a break; no one was ever meant to shoulder the burden he had to as young as he did. He doesn’t rejoin the 141 for a while, too busy recuperating from his near-death, getting back into shape for the selection process, and actually going through selection, which takes months on its own.

As for Ghost… he’s done this before. He knows this song and dance, knows the weight of betrayal. He’s weathered this storm before and is perfectly fine going back to his regular position. Still a lieutenant, still the Ghost. Except he’s quieter now. More reserved. He only trusts Price, and even that’s a tenuous thing on the best of days. He makes a hard shell mask instead of just wearing a balaclava, and Price can’t blame him. Roach’s death hit hard, the betrayal hit hard, and while he hadn’t been there to see it, learning about Soap’s short death had been hard too. So he lets Ghost do his thing. Watches as his lieutenant spends more time in the gym than is really medically advisable, watches his lieutenant retreat further and further into himself, watches his lieutenant hide from the world and become a perfect soldier again, albeit a far more unstable one. He starts wearing colored contacts that darken his irises to a honey-brown, and he’d never admit it but Price knows it’s because he can’t stand to look in the mirror and see Soap’s eyes staring back. Or maybe he can’t stand to see himself staring back, blue eyes a constant reminder of his own failures. He gets better on the sniper, more practiced at protecting his team, preferring to work alone but always ready to use his scope and trigger to show his loyalty.

The three briefly reunite in Verdansk, which throws all of them for a loop initially, because it’s the first time they’ve all been in the same room in years, but they have more important things to worry about, like keeping Soap from killing Makarov. It’s a close thing, the trauma fresh on all of their minds, but they’re not allowed to kill him; he needs to face justice from the law, not from the wrong end of Soap’s gun.

When Piccadilly Circus gets attacked, Price finds Garrick and adopts him, and the hunt for the Al-Qatala terrorists begins. They head to Urzikstan to find Sulaman, where his capture and subsequent escape lead Alex Keller, Farah, and Hadir to be recognized as terrorists themselves. Eventually, Price and Kyle meet up with Alex and Farah to hunt down Hadir after his betrayal.

They find him and hand him over to the Russians, then launch an attack on Barkov’s chemical factory, leading to Barkov’s death. Alex, too, seems to die in the resulting explosion.

After that, Task Force 141 is cleared and reinstated and given permission to continue operations. Their goal isn’t Makarov anymore; he’s gone to ground, likely never to be found again unless he starts stirring up trouble. Instead, the Zakhaev family has started reviving old family traditions. Price has to focus on that, not the twinge of familiarity and grief when he hears that Kyle goes by Gaz, not the tendrils of apprehension at the notion of bringing Ghost and Soap back together and with such a different dynamic than before, and definitely not the thought that he might be getting too old for this shit. He focuses on what he knows, and there’s little he knows better than the Zakhaev family.

It takes a year, but they eventually hunt him down and kill him, with the help of Alex, Farah, and the Shadow Company.

And then Ghorbrani is killed in Al Mazrah by the Shadow Company, under the command of Shepherd and Laswell, who knows nothing about Shepherd’s past. Ghorbrani’s death incites Hassan, which spurs the 141 to find him. Shepherd isn’t the one giving the orders, though; he knows better than that. Instead, he pawns the mission control off on Laswell, who directs them to Al Mazrah. It’s the first time Ghost and Soap are working together since both of their apparent deaths, and it’s… okay. Ghost obviously isn’t used to this new version of Soap, this chatterbox who seems so full of life, so different from his gruff previous commanding officer. And Soap obviously isn’t used to this new version of Ghost, who is far more reserved, less open. There’s a learning curve for both of them, but they deal with it well enough. They’re both soldiers, after all, and damn good ones at that. They fall into a rhythm of sorts, or at least a tentative understanding. Price thinks that it has to be good enough; he’s too busy working with their newest member, the only one who isn’t aware of the shared past between the other three operatives. It’s almost refreshing, the clean slate that Gaz, this Gaz, brings to the table.

Ghost and Soap travel to Las Almas to hunt for Hassan along with Alejandro and Rodolfo, and the change of location and new allies loosens them both up a little. Not a lot, but enough to start trusting each other again. Not that they never did, but still. There’s a lot of history there, and a completely new dynamic to get a handle on. Eventually, they catch Hassan but have to release him shortly after.

And then Soap volunteers to infiltrate the mansion to find El Sin Nombre. It’s the first time Ghost has seen him take on any sort of leading role, anything voluntarily putting himself in unnecessary danger since his demotion, and it shifts something in his mind, a fundamental piece of his psyche that had been holding him back from truly seeing Soap as his sergeant instead of his ex-captain. By the time El Sin Nombre is captured, Ghost has truly stepped into the role of Soap’s lieutenant and Soap has settled comfortably in the role of Ghost’s sergeant. It’s still not perfect, Ghost sometimes pushes too hard and Soap can’t help but push back, but it’s better now.

And then they get betrayed again. They realize Shepherd is alive and back in power. They realize the Shadow Company was never on their side. They realize they were played for fools. Again.

It’s infinitely traumatic in a split second. Soap gets shot and Ghost doesn’t see red in anger, he sees red in fear. He hadn’t seen Soap’s previous non-death, but he can’t bring himself to even entertain the thought of losing him now. Not when they’ve finally found a semi-solid footing either each other again. So he yells at him to run, to get out of there, and he does what he does best: he finds a good vantage point and he protects his team. He protects Soap.

He can’t help but to fall back on old habits, little joking asides that he thought he’d never utter again, but it seems to calm Soap down. The walls between them break down in those rainy streets across their comms; they take several steps back towards who they used to be, or maybe that’s just Ghost. Maybe Soap’s newfound lightness brings out the long-buried traces of optimism in him (optimism isn’t the right word, he knows; he’s never been optimistic, but there’s definitely… something… he’s a little scared to put any other name to it). He tells Soap that he likes him alive, and it almost sounds like a confession, a truth and hidden fear that neither of them had been willing to voice after their reunion. They share details about themselves, things that they hadn’t even shared as captain and lieutenant, and when Ghost calls Soap “Johnny” and Johnny doesn’t stop him… Maybe they can finally have what they’ve always denied themselves. Maybe this is their sign, their second chance, their universe-granted green light. Or maybe Ghost is just getting delirious with fear and pain and anger.

They make it out of Las Almas alive, and the drive to the safe house is spent in silence, as if neither of them is willing to broach the subject. Again, maybe that’s just Ghost. Soap seems to be busy trying not to bleed out in the passenger seat.

Laswell has to swear up and down that she didn’t know about Shepherd’s intentions or past before they trust her again, but her help in rescuing Alejandro and the rest of Los Vaqueros goes a long way. Soap kill Graves in Las Almas and Ghost kills Hassan in Chicago, and they can’t go after Shepherd, so they shift their focus to the next biggest fish: the Konni Group, who have rescued Makarov from prison.

————

The rest of MWII and MWIII proceed as normal. (Unless you want to ignore canon, which is very valid, in which case you can make up your own ending about how Makarov snd Shepherd die and Soap and Ghost’s happily ever after. Go crazy.)

I know a lot of people are very passionate about these two timelines staying separate , and with good reason, but I wanted to do this as a sort of thought exercise for myself. I’ve never played the original games, so any mistakes are entirely my fault as I relied heavily on the CoD wiki pages and timeline. If I missed any loose ends between the original and reboot timelines, no I didn’t (it’s very likely lmao, tying up so many mismatched plot points was pretty difficult but I think I took a decent enough stab at it)

[layce2015]

Supernatural (Dean Winchester x Female!Reader)

The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester

Masterlist pt 1

Masterlist pt 2

"You expect me to believe you're CDC?" The doctor asked us after the boys and I showed him our CDC badges. "Excuse me?" I said, confused. "It's just that you're a day early. First time in history I haven't sat on my ass waiting for you people." the doctor said. "New administration. A change you can believe in." Dean said. "Right." the doctor said before she leads us to the morgue.

Once there, the doctor pulls the corpse of Mr Xavier out of a freezer, who  looks like a dead eighty-year-old. "Meet Xavier. Date of birth, April third, nineteen eighty-four." she said and the boys and I exchange confused glances with her.

"I know. I ran the DNA twice. That's definitely him." She said, as if reading our thoughts. "Well, he wasn't big on the sunscreen, huh?" Dean jokes. "So, what's your theory?" Sam asked. "All I know is, decedent's male, twenty-five years old and he died of old age." the doctor said before she walks away.

"You were right about this one. It's definitely a job." I said to Bobby in my phone as we leave the hospital. "Thought so. Any other stiffs in town?" Bobby asked me. "Just the one body." I said. "Anything else?" Bobby asked. "Couple missing persons, but usual for a town this size." I said. "Well, check 'em out." Bobby said.

"You think they're connected?" I asked him as we get to the Impala. "Call it a hunch." Bobby said. "You got it. And, by the way, how you doing?" I asked him. "Doing?" Bobby asked, confused. "Yeah. You know, just...in general?" I said. "Oh, you mean my legs. Well, I'm just weepin' in my Haagen-Dazs. Idjit." Bobby said, with harsh sarcasm, before he hangs up. I roll my eyes and put my phone away.

Dean sits on an ottoman, looking at a framed photo of an old man, Cliff Whitlow, while Sam and I sit in a couple of armchairs and Mrs. Whitlow sits on the sofa. "That's the most recent." she tells us as Dean hands the photo to Sam and I look at the picture over his shoulder.

The photo is of Cliff as a golf tournament champion, Miami Palms June 2009, holding a golf club and trophy. A USMC tattoo is visible on his right arm. "How long has he been missing?" I asked her. "Oh, I knew right away when he didn't come home Tuesday night." Mrs Whitlow said.

"Is there someplace he likes to go after work, maybe? A favorite bar?" Dean asked and she laughs. "No. Tuesdays, he always works a bit late, but he always comes straight home." She tells us. "May I use your facilities, ma'am?" I asked, getting an idea.

I enters the office, looking back over my shoulder, and head over the desk. I scoop up a pile of papers off the desk and rifle the rest of the desk and the pockets of Cliff's coat.

I pull out a receipt and look at it: it's for Madame Liu's Golden Palace and totals over $250. "Working late my ass." I grumble. 

That night, the boys and I walk along the corridor of the Golden Palace. "Well, at least he's consistent. Same room every Tuesday, hourly rates." Sam said. "Hope I got that kind of kick when I'm his age." Dean said and I shake my head. "Yeah, like either of us will live that long." I said. "True." Dean said and he and I share a look.

"So...what do you think's in there?" Sam asked. "A wrinkly, gooey corpse." Dean said as we stop outside room 44. Sam pulls out his lockpick kit and selects two while Dean and I keep watch. A man starts shouting inside the room. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh! Oh, God!"

The boys and I look at each other and slam the door open. "Hey! What the—" the man exclaimed. He is bed, naked, with a woman who is barely dressed.

"Oh." Sam said. 

"God." Dean mutters as another woman comes out from under the covers.

"Awkward." I mutteres. "It's gooey." Sam said as both women flee the bed. "Sorry. Uh, got the wrong room." Dean said. "Close the door!" the man shouts and we start to leave but Sam stops and stares at the man.

"Hey." He said and I turn and notice that the man has a USMC tattoo that looks exactly like Cliff Whitlow's. "Nice tattoo." Sam said as he goes back into the room. "Happen to know anybody named Cliff Whitlow?" Sam asked the man. He shakes his head. "Never heard of him." the man said.

"Well, that's weird." Sam said and he pulls an ID out of the wallet that was apparently in the man's pants. "'Cause you're carrying his wallet." Sam said as Dean goes over to the bed and yanks up the covers to look underneath. "Huh." Dean said as he drops the sheets. "Your wife told us about your, uh, birthmark there. That's nice. Well, you look great. Cliff. Did you get some work done?" Dean asked and Cliff shakes his head and sighs.

"Could you give us some privacy?" Cliff asked the two women, who are now robed. Cliff goes to put on a robe and hands them some money and they leave. "Please don't tell my wife." Cliff pleads to us as he shuts the door. "Slow down." I said to him. "I'm begging you. As far as she knows, I'm dead. For the love of God, let's keep it that way." he pleads to us. 

"How can you possibly be Cliff Whitlow?" Dean asked him. "I can't tell you." Cliff said. "Well, either you tell us or we tell the missus." I said, folding my arms across my chest. "Okay! Okay! It was a game." Cliff said, panicked. "Like...XBox?" Sam asked, confused. "What's XBox? No. Poker. High stakes. Instead of cash, you play for years." Cliff said.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Dean asked. "Look, I know it sounds crazy. Guy comes up to me at a bar, invites me to play. Gives me twenty-five of these weirdo poker chips, right? Chants some mumbo humbo over them, says now they're twenty-five years. I'm laughing, but then I come out up. And look at me." Cliff said. "What was he chanting?" Sam asked and Cliff laughs.

"How should I know? All I know is, my bad hip's good, I threw away my glasses. One of those ladies was here for free! Man's some kind of miracle worker." Cliff said. "What does this miracle worker look like?" I asked. "Just a guy. Maybe thirty-five, brown hair. Irish accent. His name was Patrick." Cliff said.

"All right, all right. Where's this game at?" Dean asked him. "He said he likes to keep moving. Never stays in one bar long. And he finds you." Cliff said. "Thank you, Cliff." Dean said and we head for the door but Dean stops and turns to Cliff. "Oh, and, uh...stay classy." he said and we leave.

"It sounds crazy, right?" Dean said to Bobby over the phone as we get into the Impala, phone was on speaker so Sam and I could hear. "No. There's lore on it. Goes back centuries. Traveling card player pops into town. You beat him, you get your best years back. 'Course, most folks lose." Bobby said. "Well, that would explain the crunchy corpse." Dean said.

"Supposedly, this player's a hell of a card shark. Got a lot of years in the bank. You find the bar he's working in yet?" Bobby asked. "There's a lot of dives in this town. We're gonna have to split up." Dean said. "Well, why you still talking to me?" Bobby growls and he hangs up and Dean shuts his phone.

After looking around at some bars and not finding anything, Sam and I met up and I call Dean. "Find anything?" I asked him once he answered. "Yeah, a whole bunch of squat. You?" he asked me. "No, not a thing. Sam also didn't come up with anything." I said. 

"All right. Well, you come up dry, circle back to the motel in two. Your turn to grab dinner." Dean said and I laugh, lightly. "Let me guess, your usual with extra bacon?" I said and Dean chuckles. "You know me so well." Dean said and I smile before I hang up.

I turn to Sam. "Hungry?" I asked him and he smiles. "Starving." He said and I gesture for him to follow me and we go to a nearby fast food place. 

We got into the restaurant, ordered our food and waited for it. As we waited, Sam was looking over at the little play place this restaurant had for young kids. The sounds of kids screaming, talking and running around as they climb into the jungle gym or slide down the slide.

"You know, I kinda miss having that innocence." Sam said and I nod. "Yeah, having not a care in the world and not worry about monsters and demons..." I said. "Or the end of the world." Sam said and I nod. "Especially, that." I said. "All you worried about was homework and what the next new toy was gonna be." I said.

"Then it gets crazy as teenagers." Sam said and I giggle and nod. "Oh, God, yeah. Hormones are the worse. So confusing when your body was changing. And getting interested in dating." I said and Sam laughs. "Yeah, I remember getting so nervous around girls and kissing." Sam said and I give him a playful look. "What? You weren't nervous when you kissed me." I said and Sam groans.

"Oh, God, you had to bring that up. We were kids!" He said and I laugh. "I still remember when you asked me. You were like I just...want to see what's it like." I said, doing a high pitch voice mimicking Sam. "Hey, you were the only person I trusted and I remember you were just as curious." Sam said and I laugh. "Oh, I'm not denying it. But it is funny to kinda look back on. Especially after we shared that kiss and both of us agreed that it was weird." I said.

"Yeah..." he said and I stare at him and he has the oh, crap look on his face. "I-I-I mean, you weren't bad, it was just....weird kissing you...I mean..." Sam stammers, in a panic, and I laugh. "Sam, it's okay. I get it." I said as I pat his arm, he lets out a soft chuckle and we share a smile. "Besides, I get to say I've gotten to kiss both the Winchester Brothers." I said and Sam shakes his head. "Yeah, I'll bet." He laughs. "It's on my resume. Hard-working, Always on time, got to kiss the Winchester Brothers." I said and we laugh.

"But we both agree to never tell Dean." Sam said. "Oh yeah, definitely." I said just as our order number was called out.

Later, we make it to the motel and Sam opens it and we enter, Sam was carrying the sodas as I carried the bag of food and we put it on the table. "Hey, Dean? You find anything?" Sam called out. "Uh, you might say." an unfamiliar raspy voice replied.

Startled, Sam and I turn and draw our guns, aiming at this old man in a bathrobe. He had short white hair and he looked about maybe sixty or seventy years old. "Who the hell are you!?" I asked the old man as he raised his hands. "Guys, relax. It's me." he said and I furrow my brow while Sam lowers his gun.

"Dean?" Sam said, confused, and I look over at him then over at the old man, confused. "Hi." Dean said and my jaw drops as I lower my gun. "What the hell happened?" I asked him, shocked. "I, you know...found the game." Dean replied as he heads for the food and picks up a burger.

"You f—I thought you said you were g-good at poker." Sam exclaimed. "I am. Shut up." Dean grumbles then he gestures to us. "So, you two were just gonna shoot some old guy? Is that it?" Dean asked and I make a noise of disbelief. "We didn't know what you were. I mean, have you seen you? You look like—" I said, shocked.

"The old chick in Titanic. I know. Shut up." Dean said, his mouth full of the burger. "I was gonna say the Crypt Keeper." I said and Dean glares at me. "I would've said Emperor Palpatine." Sam said as a door thuds open and Bobby rolls in.

"I see you two met John McCain there." Bobby said, nodding towards Dean. "Yeah. Either of you want to tell us what happened?" Sam asked, still just as shocked as me. "Bobby's an idiot. That's what happened." Dean said. "Hey, nobody asked you to play." Bobby yells then the two began to argue.

"Right. I should have just let you die." Dean said. "And for damn sure, nobody asked you to lose!" Bobby said and Sam looks over at me and smiles. "It's like Grumpy Old Men." he said and I stifle a laugh just as both Bobby and Dean turn to him. "Shut up, Sam." they said, in unison, then they turn to each other and continue to argue.

"What the hell were you thinking? He's a witch. He's been playing poker since guys wore tights." Dean said to Bobby. "You just don't get it." Bobby growls. "Yeah, I get it, Bobby. You saw a chance to turn the hands of the clock back and get out of that damn chair. Pretty tempting. I can imagine." said Dean. "No, you can't." Bobby growls. "You got me. I never been paralyzed. But I tell you something—I've been to hell, and there's an archangel there wanting me to drop the soap. Look at me! My junk's rustier than yours! You hear me bellyaching? Huh?" Dean yells at him. "Uh, actually, yeah." I said then Dean places a hand on his chest.

"Oh!" Dean groans and he sits down, still holding his burger. "I'm having a heart attack." he said and Sam looks worried while I go over to Dean. "No, you're not." Bobby said. "What is it?" Dean asked as I kneel next to his seat and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Acid reflux. Guys your age can't digest certain foods. You're gonna need to put down that cheeseburger." Bobby said. Dean sighs and puts down the burger.

"So, you want to keep emoting, or you want to talk about solving this little issue of yours? It's got to be about the chips." Bobby said. "I slid 'em across, Patrick did his little witchy number, and you prettied up in a hurry." Dean said. "I mean, what are you all thinking? Some kind of magic chips or something?" Sam asked. "Definitely." Bobby said as Sam sits down.

"You remember what he chanted?" Dean asked Bobby.  "Yep—every word." Bobby said. "All right, then let's find out where he stashes his chips." I said. "And steal me fifty. Benjamin Button me back into burger shape. What do you think?" Dean asked and I look at the bathrobe he was wearing. "I think you ought to put some clothes on." I said to him.

Later, there was a knock at the door and Dean, who now is fully dressed, goes to answer the door. A young maid, with a cart and an armful of towels, standing at the door. "Ready for housekeeping, sir?" she asked. "Yes, ma'am." Dean said as Sam and I walk up next to Dean.

"You ready?" I asked him and the housekeeper smiled at us. "It's so nice to see you and your boyfriend take your grandpa out on the town." She said, nodding at me and Sam, and Dean looks at her, offended, while I hold back a laugh. "Oh, yeah, it's great." Sam said, trying not to laugh as well. "But watch out, he'll try to flirt with you." I said to her as I pat Dean's arm and she laughs.

"Oh, that's like my grandfather. He hits on anything that moves, too." she said as she heads past us and Dean glares at me and Sam while we stifle our laugh. "Yeah, he's a handful." I said and the housekeeper giggles and I look at Bobby, who was smiling as well, then I look back at Dean. "Can we just go?" He asked us, annoyed. 

Bobby, Dean, Sam and I sit in Bobby's van and watch people go by. The witch guy, Patrick, comes out of a building then he checks his watch and crosses the street without looking, noticing too late that a car is coming: it slams right into him. The driver gets out and checks his injuries then he runs over to a construction crew nearby.

"Guys, get some help! He came out of nowhere! Right out in front of me!" he yells and the boys and I all stare at this when another car drives by, Patrick in the driver's seat. The driver and the construction workers look between him and where Patrick got hit by the driver's car.

Dean laughs. "I got to say, I kind of like the guy." he said. 

We followed Patrick to an apartment building then we watch him leave the building, get in his car, and drive off. The boys and I exchange looks, none of us could believe our luck and we get out of the truck. We get to the building and Dean holds the door open while Sam rolls Bobby inside, I follow close behind. Sam then let Bobby roll himself until he stops and sighs.

"Well, I'm out." Bobby said and I look over and see a sign on the elevator that reads ELEVATOR OUT OF ORDER SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. Sam and I look at it, then at Bobby, and both of us sigh.

Minutes later, Sam and I jog up a flight of stairs with no difficulty. We stop at the landing to see Dean walking up one step at a time. "Dean." Sam said as he points to a sign with a large 2. Dean sighs and Sam and I continue up the stairs.

Sam and I leave the stairwell but I stop and wait for a few minutes as Dean, eventually, makes it up the stairs, breathing hard. "C'mon, you old fart." I teased and he glares at me again. "Don't give me that look, this is your fault." I said. "Technically...it's..Bobby's." Dean said, in between breathes. "Good point, both of you were being stupid." I scolded and I turn and walk down the hallway.

We come up to the door of room 3701 and Sam sorts through his lockpicks. He then picks the lock and opens it, the three of us enter. We look around the nice room until Dean said. "Guys?"

Sam and I go over to see that he had opened an armoire with a false back, where there was a safe. "Dime-store model. Piece of cake." Dean said and he turns the dial, squinting and leans in and out, obviously  the numbers are too blurred for him to read.

"It's like Mission: Pathetic. Watch out." Sam said and he pushes Dean out of the way and turns the dial: it opens quickly. There are quite a few poker chips in the safe. "I could have done that." Dean grumbles. "Honey, by the time you would've gotten to it, Sam and I would have reached old age as well." I said as Sam starts to grab handfuls of chips.

"What are you doing?" A female voice asked and we turn around to see a dark blonde haired woman, wearing a black dress and a large silver locket. "Aren't you the chick from the bar?" Dean asked her. "I'm a lot more than that." she said and she throws up a hand, clenches a fist, and twists. Dean doubles over. "Dean!" I said, worried, as Patrick hurries up and puts a hand on the girl's arm.

"It's all right, sweetheart. It's all right. They're harmless." He said to her and the girl lets Dean go while Patrick steps forward to us. "You three want chips? Take 'em. They're just chips, Einsteins. It's showmanship. This may come as a shock, but the magic does not lie in a pile of crappy plywood or in any phony abracadabra. It's in the nine-hundred-year-old witch. You three want years? Score 'em the old-fashioned way. Texas hold 'em." He explains as he chews on his toothpick.

"Fine. Let's do it." Dean demands and Patrick pulls a card out of a pocket. It's the eight of hearts. "What card am I holding up?" he asked and Dean squints at it and doesn't answer. "That's what I thought. If your eyesight's that bad, what about your memory? I'm not a murderer. You two, on the other hand..." Patrick said as he looks at me and Sam, Dean turns to us.

"No, guys." Dean said, in a warning tone.

"Dean." Sam and I said, exasperated.

"What, these two not much of a player? Okay, well, happy trails, Dean. Enjoy the twilight of your life. Should have taken better care of that ticker, though." Patrick said and he opens the door. "You're free to go." he said and Dean leaves, Sam and I follow.

"Oh, but, you two..." Patrick said and we turn as he points at me and Sam. "Your brother's situation—that's punishment enough, but I can't let you leave without a small parting gift." He said then he claps three times.

"What are you doing?" I asked him, confused. "You two'll find out soon enough." Patrick said. "Let's get out of here, guys." Dean said and we leave, he-witch closes the door behind us.

We head for the outside door when I noticed Sam scratching the inside of his thighs. At that moment, I felt a painful feeling in my lower stomach area, a pretty familiar feeling that I experience once a month. 

I place my hand over my lower stomach as Sam opens the door for us and he scratches some more. "Dude..." Dean said to Sam, who turns to him. "I believe that he-witch gave you the clap." Dean said and Sam goes stiff at this then marches off.

Dean laughs and he turns to me, noticing me clutching my lower stomach. "What did he give you, princess?" Dean asked and I glare at him. "Cramps. Really bad one. So, if you want to live long enough to de-age, I'd suggest you shut up." I growled at him and I walk away.

The next day, the boys and I head towards the motel. "Little help here?" Bobby asked, annoyed, and I forgot...to get to the motel we have to go up an incline. So I go and push Bobby up. "You know, I still think Sam or I should play." I said. "No, no, no. Neither of you are good enough. I'm better. Bobby's way better. We both lost." Dean said. "Exactly." Bobby said.

"So, what? So (y/n) and I don't get a say in this?" Sam asked, annoyed. "Sammy, when you get to be our age—" Dean said and I give a look of disbelief at Dean. "You're thirty, Dean!" I shouted, annoyed. "Look, I've watched you hustle plenty of poker—" I started to say but Bobby talks over me.

"Knowing the game is not enough, (y/n). It's not about playing the cards." He said. "It's about playing the other guy. I know that." I said. "Well, hooray for you. All I'm saying is, I played this guy. I know his style. I can take him." Bobby said. "No, Bobby. You don't have enough years in the bank." Dean said. "I got enough." Bobby mumbles. "No, you'll die if you lose, Bobby." Sam said.

"So what if I do, huh? What exactly am I living for, huh? The damn apocalypse? Watching men die bloody while I sit in this chair, can't take a step to help 'em?" Bobby asked, angrily. "Bobby—" Dean said, exasperated. "No, no. It's the facts. I'm old...and broke down...and I can't..." Bobby stops to take a moment to breathe. "I ain't a hunter no more. I'm useless. And if I wasn't such a coward, I'd have stuck a gun in my mouth day I got home from the hospital." Bobby admits and all of us fall silent.

"Bobby, you are not playing again. I'm not letting you do that. There's another way out of this. There's got to be. And I'm gonna find it." I said and I walk pass the boys, angrily. 

*3rd Person POV*

Dean opens the door so Bobby can roll in, then Sam and Dean walk in as Bobby looks up and stops abruptly. Lia, Patrick's assistant, is sitting on the bed, holding up a piece of paper. "Take it. It'll help you." she said and Bobby rolls closer and takes it.

"What is this?" he asked. "The most powerful reversal spell you've ever laid your eyes on." she replied. "And it reverses what?" Sam asked. "Patrick's work—all of it." Lia replied. "You—you saying I could be normal again?" Dean asked. "You and everyone else he's ever played. Who's still alive." Lia said, correcting herself at that last part.

"Why the hell should we trust you?" Dean asked her. "Trust me, don't trust me. I don't care. The spell is real." she said and she gets up and heads for the door. "If it zaps everyone, don't that include your man?" Bobby asked her. "And me, too. I look good for my age." she said.

"Lady, this don't add up for squat. Why would you want that?" Bobby asked her, suspiciously. "I have my reasons." Lia replied then she looks at her silver locket. "Do it quick. We leave town tomorrow." she said and she leaves. Dean, Sam and Bobby watch her go, then look at each other.

Meanwhile, under the bar, Patrick chews on a toothpick, a glass of whiskey in front of him. On the table are five cards in a row, the eight of spades, five and four of clubs, king of diamonds, and jack of hearts, and a pile of poker chips, about three dozen. His opponent, an old man named Hesh, clinks his poker chips against each other (he has at most ten), looking at his two face-down cards.

Patrick looks at his own cards: the kings of hearts and spades, for three of a kind. Hesh has the nines of clubs and diamonds for one pair and he throws a few chips on the pile. "Bet." Hesh said and Patrick takes out his toothpick.

"I sense you've got me by the jewels on this one, Hesh. I fold." Be said and Hesh collects his chips. "What are you up—like thirteen years there, Hesh? What do you say we call it a day?" Patrick said and Hesh chuckles. "Thanks, Patrick." he said and Patrick looks up.

"Hesh here is gonna live to see his granddaughter's bat mitzvah." Patrick said and Hesh turns around to see who he was talking to. It is (y/n). "Isn't that right, Hesh?" Patrick asked Hesh, who turns back to him. "Thanks again, Patrick." Hesh said. "Shalom, my friend. Shalom." Patrick said and Hesh gets up and leaves.

Patrick then shuffles the cards. "That was nice of you." (y/n) said. "I'm a nice guy. What can I do you for, miss?" he asked as he keeps shuffling then (y/n) sits down. "Deal." she said and Patrick smirks at her. "And your name?" He asked her. "(Y/n)." She replied.

At the cemetery, Bobby sits at the foot of a grave while Dean and Sam dig. "Jawbone of a murderer. Great." Dean grumbles as he sticks the shovel in the dirt, breathing hard. "You know, this really sucks. How do we even know her spell's gonna work?" Dean asked. "We don't. But we ain't got a Plan B. Now, less flappin' and more diggin'." Bobby yells and Dean goes to move another scoop of dirt while Sam keeps going.

Then something cracks. "Oh, God!" Dean moans and Bobby rolls his eyes while Sam shakes his head and continues to dig. "My elbows! I'm all creaky." Dean moans. "Hurry up, you crybaby." Bobby spat at him. "Pound it up your ass, Ironsides." Dean growls.

"One little grave. And you got your brother helping you." Bobby said. "Then you do it." Dean said. "Fine. I'll hop right in." Bobby said, sarcastically. "Guys." Sam said, exasperated, but Dean and Bobby continue to argue. "Well, least your legs are numb." Dean sneers. "Shut up and dig, Grandma." Bobby spat and Dean goes back to digging.

"Oh! Now it's my back!" Dean groans,m as he leans forward and Sam sighs, annoyed. "Can you straighten up?" Bobby asked him. "Yeah, but a little sympathy wouldn't hurt." Dean said. "Butt cheek tingling?" Bobby asked Dean and he turns to him. "Well, that's kind of personal." Dean said.

"So yeah?" Bobby said, questioning, and Dean looks up. "It's sciatica. You'll live. Keep digging." Bobby said, not caring, and Dean glares at him. "You know, Bobby, killing you is officially on my bucket list." Dean said and Sam looks over at him. "Dean, can we just hurry and get this done. I don't know how much longer (y/n) can keep him distracted." Sam said as he continues to dig.

"I still don't like that (y/n) is playing that game." Dean grumbles as he goes back to digging. “She insisted.” Sam said. “That woman can be real stubborn sometimes.” Dean grumbled. “I wonder where she gets that from.” Sam teased and Dean shoots him a dirty look.

"Anyway, I trust her. Between the two of us, I think (y/n) has a better chance with him." Sam said. “Geez, why don’t you marry her?” Dean said, sarcastically. “Not her type. She seems to be into 70 year old men.” Sam joked and Dean glares at him again. “Cut that chitchat, boys, and keep digging.” Bobby ordered.

Patrick chews on his toothpick, he has a glass of whiskey on the table, two cards in his hand, and several stacks of chips. Several chips are piled in the middle of the table next to the four of diamonds, a red court card, a black seven, the three of hearts, and a black two. He takes the toothpick out.

"I like you, (y/n). I do. You're smart, and your heart's clearly in the right place." He said but (y/n) doesn't respond. Then Patrick throws down his toothpick and drinks his whiskey. "I can tell a lot about a person by looking." He said. "You mean you're psychic." (y/n) said and Patrick snorts a laugh. "No. That'd be cheating. I'm talking about good old-fashioned intuition." he said and (y/n) nods. 

"Right. Let's just play." she said as Patrick drinks more whiskey. "We are playing." he said and he puts the glass down next to the toothpick. "Does your boyfriend know you're here?" Patrick asked her, suspiciously. "Bet five." (y/n) said as she drops a stack of five chips on the pile. She has a lot fewer chips left than Patrick. "Didn't think so." Patrick said, smiling.

He puts one stack of five on another and adds that stack to the pile. "I raise. Here you are, right? Trying to clean up their mess, and they still want to sit you at the kiddie table." Patrick said and (y/n) looks down. 

"You're not a little girl anymore, (y/n)." Patrick tells her as he toys with a few chips. (Y/n) looks up at him as he continues. "Then again, maybe you are. You're in over your head here, (y/n). I mean, you can keep making these moves—you know, playing it cautious, playing the percentages. But I'm still gonna kick your ass into the nursing home." Patrick taunts. 

"Does this armchair-psychology routine usually work for you?" (Y/n) asked and Patrick laughs. "You tell me. You're the one who's losing." Patrick said as he chews his toothpick.

A little later, Patrick shuffles the cards, chewing his toothpick. He has thirty or thirty-five chips and (y/n) fifteen or twenty. She plays with a few of her chips while Lia walks in. Patrick puts down the toothpick and Lia leans down to kiss Patrick. Patrick looks at (y/n) and winks. "Little break?" he asked and (y/n) nods.

(Y/n) bursts out of doors that reads EMMIT'S PUB DELIVERY RING. She looks around and spots Dean. "How's it going in there?" he asked her and she scoffs. "How do you think it's going? What about you? You have everything you need?" (y/n) asked him and he nods. "We still need a little he-witch DNA." Dean said and (y/n) holds up a toothpick

"He was chewing it." she said as Dean takes it. "Hurry up, Dean. Please." She pleads and Dean grins a bit. "You know, I love it when you beg." He said and (y/n) rolls her eyes. "Oh, God." She groans. "Yeah, just like that!" Dean teased and (y/n) glares at him. "Shut up!" She said.

“You know, if we weren’t so pressed for time I would suggested a quickie behind that dumpster.” Dean said, pointing the toothpick towards a nearby dumpster. “Get out of here, you pig!” (Y/n) commanded and she turns to walk back towards the door. "Besides, your old ass couldn't keep up with me." She teased, looking over her shoulder and winking at Dean, before heading back inside and leaving Dean standing there, stunned and a little turned on.

Oh, when I get back to normal, she's gonna get it... Dean thought as he turned then started rubbing his sore arm from all the digging he had to do. 

(Y/n) plays with her chips when Patrick sits back down. Lia stands behind Patrick, who pushes the deck of cards across the table.

"Airmidh mi air maponus, dia na hogalachd. Gairmidh mi air sucellus, dia na time." Bobby recites, reading from Lia's paper while Sam and Dean stand at the bowl full of burning things. Dean throws a handful of an item in the flames, which flare up blue.

"Till an-dràsda obair uile gu bheilair a bhith deànta. Mar sin bitheadh." Bobby said then he looks up at Dean. "Drop it in." he tells Dean, who looks at the toothpick and adds it to the fire. 

"Well? How do I look?" Dean asked after a moment of silence but Bobby and Sam don't reply. The truthful answer is eighty years old.

Back at the bar, Patrick looks at (y/n). "Question." Patrick said and he holds up a toothpick. "Is this what you meant to give your boyfriend?" Patrick asked her but (y/n) doesn't let her expression change. Lia flicks a glance at the toothpick.

"The one you gave him never passed my lips. Won't do a scrap of good." Patrick growls and he throws the toothpick across the table. "I don't like cheating, (y/n)." Patrick said, in a threatening tone, then he stretches out his hand and clenches a fist. (y/n) stiffens, gasping for breath, while Lia watches. (y/n) puts a hand to her throat.

"Stop it!" Lia shouts as she grabs Patrick's wrist. "Patrick, let her go!" Lia shouts. "She tried to kill us!" Patrick yells. "I did it! I gave her the spell!" Lia shouts at him. Patrick, shocked, releases (y/n) and looks up at Lia as (y/n) gasps in air.

"What?" he asked her as he stands up and touches Lia's face. "Why...why would you do that?" he asked her, upset. "You know why." Lia said then she touches her silver locket. "You know." she whispers and Patrick looks away for a moment, then sits down.

"Keep. Playing." Patrick mutters and Lia looks away while (y/n) glances at her.

Bobby is driving his van while Dean is sitting next to him and Sam in the backseat. "Everything we put in that spell was kosher." Bobby said. "Yeah, everything except the damn toothpick." Dean said. "You two got to go get a speck of DNA. Strap on your track shoes." Bobby said as he looks at Dean, who rolls his eyes. "Oh, goody. More stairs." Dean mutters, sarcastically.

More than a dozen chips are piled next to the eight of hearts, the queens of clubs and diamonds, and the two of diamonds. Patrick discards a card and deals the ace of clubs, (y/n) has her hands folded against her mouth.

"It's too damn clean in here. First witch I ever heard of didn't spew bodily fluids all over the place." Dean said to Bobby over the phone as he and Sam look around Patrick's apartment. "Toothbrush, comb—anything." Bobby said as Sam and Dean continue to search.

(Y/n) stacks five chips next to another five next to the pile. "Well, look at you—the percentage player betting the farm. Awful transparent of you, (y/n). I mean, if I had a monster hand like you have, I'd trap you. But you get so excited, you bet yourself right out of a big pot." Patrick said then he sniffs and picks up his face-down cards. "I fold." he said as he discards his cards.

"Set of ladies, I'm guessing." Patrick said as (y/n) collects a couple dozen chips and turns over her cards: the three of clubs and five of diamonds, for one pair of queens. "Nice bluff. If we had time, I could make a real player out of you." Patrick said as (y/n) stacks her chips. "I got time." she said, sternly, and Patrick grins.

"Maybe. But I can't say the same for Dean. Your boyfriend's gonna be dead soon." Patrick taunts and (y/n) looks up at him. "And when I say soon..." Patrick said then he leans forward. "I mean minutes." He informs her and (y/n)'s expression changes, fearful, and she stands up.

Patrkck extends a fist to yank her back down with witchcraft. "The game's not over till I say it is. Blinds." Patrick growls and he slaps down two chips and (y/n) one.

Dean spots a wine glass on a table, still with a little wine left undrunk. But then he starts toward it and stops. "(Y/n)..." he whispers and starts slumping on the floor, groaning. "Dean!" Sam exclaimed as he runs to his brother.

Patrick deals two face-down cards apiece. (y/n) glances at hers and adds another chip to the pot. "So." Patrick mutters as he slaps down three cards and spreads them out: the ace of spades and fours of hearts and clubs. (y/n) eyes the cards.

"When it's about your boyfriend, you get so emotional, your brain just flies right out the window." He said, illustrating with a hand gesture. "Good to know." He said, smiling. "Go to hell." (y/n) spat at him, viciously, then she shoves all her chips into the middle. "I'm all in." she said and Lia glances at her. 

Patrick sighs as he checks his cards. "Don't do that, (y/n)." He said. "I can't leave until it's over? Fine. It's over. Now, where's Dean?" (Y/n) asked him, angrily. "Look, there's poker and then there's suicide." Patrick warns her. "Just play the hand." (Y/n) said.

"Sam? Dean? Boys, you there?" Bobby asked through the phone while Dean gasps, weakly. "C'mon, Dean!" Sam said, worried. "Boys?!" Bobby calls out and Sam runs to the phone. "Bobby!" Sam exclaimed once the phone gets to his ear. "What's going on?" Bobby asked as Dean starts to go still. "DEAN!" Sam screams, fearfully.

Patrick adds all his chips to the pot. "Fine." he said and he discards a card and deals the seven of diamonds and the nine of spades. (Y/n) and Patrick stare each other down, (y/n) worried, Patrick smug, Lia nervous.

Patrick turns over his face-down cards: aces of clubs and diamonds. "I'm sorry, kid. Aces full." Patrick said as (y/n) looks at the cards. Then she lets out a breath then glances at Lia. "You're crying." she said, questioning, while Lia sniffles, looking away.

"For a witch, you're so nice, it's actually kind of creepy. It's okay." (y/n) said then she looks at Patrick. "It was a great hand." she said and Patrick moves to collect the chips: the only hands that can beat a full house with three aces are a four of a kind and a straight flush. The flop cards are three different suits, so he knows (y/n) cannot possibly have a straight flush, and he knows the odds are very slim that (y/n) has the remaining two fours.

"Just—" (y/n) started to say then Patrick looks up. "—not as great as—" (y/n) said and she turns over her face-down cards, the fours of diamonds and spades. She knew she had a four of a kind from the moment the flop cards were dealt; the only way to beat a four of a kind is with a straight flush, which she knew Patrick could not possibly have.

"—as four fours." she finished and Patrick glances up at her, then down at the cards. (y/n) takes a deep breath and lets it out while Patrick leans back. "Well played. You know, that whole...going-out-of-your-head bit—very method." Patrick said and (y/n) smirk.

"Well, there's more to you than meets the eye." Patrick said as he raises his glass, (y/n) nods. "Cash these in for Dean, please." she said and Patrick nods and sets down the glass. "With pleasure." he said, smiling.

"Boys, you hear me? Damn it, boys!" Bobby shouts then he spots something inside the building and turns to look. Someone comes out the door: it's Sam then he steps aside, revealing Dean now thirty again. He holds out his arms, grinning, and does a little dance as he approaches the van.

Bobby stares as Dean jumps up, clicking his heels in the air, while Sam shakes his head. "Idjits." Bobby mumbles under his breath.

*(y/n)'s POV*

I was sitting at the motel when the door to the room opens. I look up and see Sam pushing Bobby in the room, and following him is Dean now looking his normal self. "Dean!" I said, happily, and he goes over to me, pulls me into him and kisses me.

"Well...you're welcome." I said after we break the kiss. "So...No tricks—you actually beat the guy?" Bobby asked me and I pull out of Dean's embrace and spread my arms. "How the hell?" Sam asked me as Dean grabs a burger. "Luck and...a few tricks I learned from my dad." I said, smirking, and the boys give me an impressed look. "That's my girl!" Dean said and I smile.

"Hey. I'll see y'all guys later." Sam said as he grabs his jacket. "Where you going?" Dean asked him. "Uh...mm, nowhere." Sam said and we all look at him. "A booster shot. Don't say it." Sam said and he leaves. 

"Well, I guess we can get the van loaded." Bobby groans while Dean sets his burger down. He holds up a finger and clears his throat. "I shouldn't have called you an idiot." Dean said to him. "Which time?" Bobby asked him.

"I'm sorry. I mean, I actually—I, I—I get it. Getting old ain't a bachelor party. And dealing with the crap you got to deal with—" Dean said and Bobby rolls his eyes. "Don't you go on pity patrol." Bobby grumbles. "I'm not. I'm not. I'm just...I'm saying, you know, if I was in your shoes..." Dean said. "You'd never stop complaining." Bobby said and Dean stares for a moment.

"Fair enough. You're not useless, Bobby." Dean said. "Okay. Good talk." Bobby said and he goes to roll away but Dean steps in his path. "No, wait a minute. Listen to me." He said and he sits down next to me on the bed and sighs.

"You don't stop being a soldier 'cause you got wounded in battle. Okay? No matter what shape you're in, bottom line is, you're family. I don't know if you've noticed, but me, (y/n) and Sam, we don't have much left. I can't do this without you. I can't. So don't you dare think about checking out. I don't want to hear that again." Dean said to him and there was a long silence as I look between the two men, my heart was actually breaking for Bobby. I know it must be devastating and hard without having the ability to walk.

"Okay." Bobby said. "Okay. Good." Dean said. "Thanks. Now, we done feeling our feelings? 'Cause I'd like to get out of this room before we both start growing lady parts." Bobby said and I snort out a chuckle. "Yeah, we're done." Dean said then he and I get up.

I grab my bag as Dean picks up his burger, looks at it, and puts it back down then picks up his bag. "Let's go, Ironsides." Dean said as he slings his bag over his shoulder and heads for the door. "Oh, that one's sticking, huh?" Bobby asked and Dean looks back, smiling, and he takes my hand and we leave the room.

@rach5ive @kitsun369 @itzabbyxx @cevans-winchester @ellie-andthemachine

[compacflt]

question: how do you find your research/sources? yours and dancing disasters' icemav fics are so inside baseball i love it, but how do you go about doing research?

I just read a lot & google stuff I don't know & am curious about. not that hard to start learning. and in terms of reading I've been interested in military history & milfiction my whole life. mostly related to the US army, actually--im extremely new to naval history and naval literature; all of that interest was driven by top gun. I've also been fortunate enough to visit a lot of the places I write about--ive been to Pearl Harbor a couple times & San Diego MANY times, for instance, and I've toured a few aircraft carriers and military bases. I've also finally bitten the bullet and kinda shifted my career path towards aerospace, so I've been learning a lot just by working in the aerospace & defense sector/spending a lot of time with people who do.

that's obviously not to say that I am somehow Educated in all this stuff. im pretty open on this blog about me being young & naive & wrong much of the time about how the real world works. so, you know, a lot of shit I just Make Up according to my preconceived notions of the military & the world.

here is my recommended military/navy reading list, some fiction and some nonfiction.

someone also asked recently if I had read anything good in the last 6 months--yes!! three new additions to my reading list: a) Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. So goddamn good. If you have to read only one novel about the Iraq War, make it this one. It's more about America than it is about Iraq. b) Redeployment by Phil Klay. This one is a collection of short stories about Marines in Iraq, written by a USMC vet, talk about inside baseball. Crazy amounts of jargon in here, basically a "to-google" list. won the national book award which idk if it deserved, but it's good. c) No true glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah by Bing West. currently reading this one, really well done so far, talks a lot about how fucked the US strategy was in Iraq with Fallujah serving as a metonymy/case study for the war itself.

again... this is all mostly close-quarters-combat (infantry) literature, I really am not that interested in the navy/Air Force that much outside of top gun lol

though I did recently remember that in early 2022, before I was into top gun, I read "Wingmen" by Ensan Case, which is actually a gay US naval aviator romance set in WWII published in 1979! it's really authentic and kind of sad, obviously, since it was a 1940s navy gay love story published in 1979. I don't actually think Wingmen influenced how I wrote wwgattai or how I think of TG/TGM but I just remembered that I read that book in February 2022 and going "oh my god they were wingmen" so maybe you might find that book interesting.

[dr-futbol-blog]

Duet, Pt. 9

Hours and hours later McKay wakes up in a strange bed, in a strange room, naked and with no recollection of how he got there. He fell asleep on his stomach and wakes up sleeping on his back. We are meant to think that this is hilarious rather than terrifying because he had been drooling slightly in his sleep.

We follow McKay's gaze glide over pictures on the nightstand and stop at the one of Cadman in full regalia with what are likely her parents, indicating a military ceremony. Interesting here is that his eyes gloss right over the picture of three young and attractive women to the sight of a military uniform, and then come to a stop at her father. It is the only man in his line of sight that catches his attention.

Now, the photo of Cadman flanked by two of her attractive friends is relevant for later, but she also has a frame that says "best friend" with a photo inside. The photo appears to be of a dog, a German Shepherd, which is not only a nice contrast to the picture of McKay's pussy on his nightstand but also connects or parallels her with Sheppard.

In Letters from Pegasus (S01E17) McKay talked about cats and dogs in his video message, saying that while he had a dog as a child, he prefers cats. However, he described his cat with very dog-like qualities: loyalty, enjoying his company and waiting for him to get home. Where McKay himself possesses many cat-like qualities, these dog-like qualities seemed descriptive of Sheppard, and it's not a coincidence that we find a Shepherd here, confined to the role of best friend. Cadman has many things in common with Sheppard, seemingly up to and including bisexuality, and it invites us to ask what Cadman's character can tell us about Sheppard.

So, McKay wakes up in a strange bed. McKay has drooled a bit while asleep and wipes it off of his face first thing, this really is gold star comedy right here. If we switch their genders, people would suddenly have a much easier time seeing just how creepy this whole set-up is (young soldier possesses the body of a middle aged scientist who wakes up naked in bed with her her body worn out). Cadman is young and a marine, so we might chalk her cavalier attitude toward sexuality and gender up to having to overcompensate in the hypermasculine environment of the USMC. This can also be seen in the decor of her room, full of gym equipment. She's clearly a gym bro and acts like one.

While momentarily confused, McKay very quickly shifts gears into bewildered:

McKay: Where am I? Where are my clothes?! Cadman: Can't we sleep just a little longer? McKay: It is two in the afternoon! Where the hell are we?

McKay is freaking out. This is very obviously the first time he has woken up naked in bed with a woman and he's just not alright with that. Not to even mention that it's late in the afternoon and he's missed almost a whole day of work, time that he could have used figuring this thing out and getting Cadman her own body back.

Cadman: We're in my room. Your mattress sucks. McKay: That is a prescription mattress, I need that for my back.

It is interesting in that we are asked to pay attention to McKay's bed while he is lying naked here, on a bed that clearly fits two. And as mentioned, McKay's bed seems to be the same size, only shot from a different angle. Both beds are wider than Sheppard's teeny tiny bed. While usually couples might prefer much bigger beds, given that the Lanteans seem to have preferred narrow beds (they might not even have used beds for sex for all we know; they might not even have pair-bonded the way humans do despite the sexcapades and may have preferred to sleep alone), and this bed is the largest bed we see on the show. Even Teyla's bed, seen in this same episode, seems smaller (although it, too, is likely the same size as it is also shot from a different angle). And by mentioning McKay's new mattress, we are asked to pay attention to this fact, to the size of his bed and how many people it fits.

Also, this indicates McKay is suffering from back pain. Orthopedic mattresses are used by people who sleep with pain, people who are in active recovery from injury, and athletes or other people who are active. They also support good spine alignment which is especially important if one were to sleep, say, on their side. The way that we have seen both McKay and Sheppard sleep, they sure could use mattresses like that. Both men also sustained injuries during the first year so such mattresses would also benefit both of them for that reason. Not to mention the fact that if you spent more time in a bed than you used to, you start paying attention to the kind of mattress you want. In effect, we are told that McKay has the kind of mattress that young women don't like but middle aged men do. But McKay currently has many other things in mind than his mattress:

McKay: Now, how the hell did we get here?' Cadman: I walked here while you were sleeping. McKay: You did what?! Cadman: Yeah, well, it was a lot easier to use your body when you were asleep.

She flat out says that she used his body. She also tells him that she's seen his dick (or ass). McKay is not alright with this woman seeing his dick (or ass). He's not alright with any of this. McKay draws up the sheet over his chest like a woman covering her breasts, which just tells us how uncomfortable he is with Cadman seeing any part of him in an intimate, non-professional setting. He is really quite angry by all of this.

McKay: Pants! Where are my pants? Cadman: They're over on the chair. Seen it! McKay: We have gotta set some boundaries! Cadman: Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I'm kinda used to sleeping in the buff. McKay: You have crossed a line here, Cadman. Cadman: I guarantee it was more traumatic for me.

Again, Cadman's line here is meant to take the sting out the fact that what she's done here is morally dubious. Just because she is a woman and younger than him does not make this alright. He has every right not to want to share his body with women, and it seems as though McKay is not alright with sharing his body with any woman in any fashion whatsoever. There is nothing erotic about this scene. Comedic, yes, as the comedy comes from the flipping of usual gender roles (usually you'd have a woman covering herself up, not wanting to be seen by a strange man and hence putting McKay, a man, in this female role is unexpected and hence farcical). But note that none of this is evidence that McKay is just bad with women and hence inexperienced. He is very clear about the fact that he does not want a woman to see him naked, ever. His voice actually breaks when he mentions setting boundaries, witnessing to just how upset this makes him.

McKay: Why are my legs burning? Cadman: Oh, I took us for a run before we went to bed. McKay: Why in the world would you do that? Cadman: Because it helps me unwind.

Cadman is a track star, a gym bro, a sport junkie. Action Jackson. Fine. But using the word "unwind" here is also suspect because it invites us to think what ever else she might have done to unwind in the minimum 12 hours that she controlled his body. And why would her taking him for a run make his legs burn? We just saw him trek through the woods for hours with Ford without complaining about his legs, and he was running faster than Cadman was on the field. McKay may not be a runner but he's not nearly in as bad a shape as we're lead to believe. Why are his legs burning?

Also, she says "before we went to bed" as though they really had slept together. Only, he didn't consent to any of that. She basically roofied him, and seems to have done all manner of things he has no knowledge of. And as this starts dawning on him, he realizes he really has no idea what she has done with him:

McKay: OK, OK, this is very important. Did you ingest any citrus? I am deathly allergic to citrus. Cadman: Uh-oh. McKay: Uh-oh? Cadman: Rodney, look. I worked out, I came here and I went to bed. Jeez, loosen up! McKay: I would love to, but every muscle in my body is sore from your stupid workout!

He mentions the citrus thing because it's the most acute of the things he wants to know she didn't do with his body, but it is by far not the only thing. The fear in his voice here is evidence of the degree of violation he feels from her actions. She tries to make it into a joke and she doesn't even seem remorseful for having used him. Yes, she's trapped, but that does not give her the right to take without asking. And the fact that she's acting like he's a stick in the mud just goes to show that she really has no idea why McKay is so upset about this. She thinks she's doing him favours by arranging dates, taking him out for a run, helping him unwind, teaching him about women.

Cadman has a USMC poster on her wall that says "Think fast," and as an explosives expert, she probably is very quick on her feet, she thinks fast and makes decisions on instinct without thinking things through. She has an impulsive nature. And where such qualities can serve one well on the field, and this certainly is something she shares with Sheppard, the same characteristics can make it very difficult to sustain relationships. But at the same time, it's McKay we find standing in front of this poster, and he is also having to think very fast in this situation. There's a lot riding on Cadman never figuring out why this is so upsetting to him.

The fact that we are shown the interiors of both Cadman and McKay's quarters is also meaningful in that they seem to reflect their respective internal landscapes. And the decor tells us that McKay is cerebral, he considers himself a mind first and foremost. Cadman, on the other hand, is corporal, she's first and foremost a body and physical being. In this, they are contrasted. Cadman is the body, McKay is the mind, and it is the fact that currently Cadman lacks a body and McKay does not have full access to his mind that makes the experience awful for both of them.

It does not seem to have even occurred to Cadman that McKay might not want to learn about women, and certainly does not want women to use his body, in bed or otherwise. Even in this episode, it is heavily, heavily implied that Rodney McKay is a gay man, and that just makes this whole scene creepier. It's a violation of his boundaries.

While Cadman never seems to catch up to just why McKay is upset about this, she does get that he is upset and hence attempts to ameliorate the situation by changing the subject:

Cadman: So what's on the board for today? McKay: More of the same. Why, do you have any ideas? Cadman: Yeah, actually I do. McKay: Don't look!

McKay has covered his body with a sheet and really seems to not want Cadman to see him naked. And the mainstream audience probably interprets this as him having hang-ups about his body. He's not an athlete, he's not in male model shape and hence is shy about letting a woman see him naked. If he was a manly man and confident with his body, he'd walk around with his dick swinging. But because he is not, we find him with the sheet wrapped around him like a woman, attempting to put on his underwear while covering up like a teenage girl putting on a bathing suit inside her towel at the beach. Here, with Cadman's gym paraphernalia lying around her room, we're invited to compare the two of them and to find Cadman more masculine even though she is a girl. But the thing is, like Sheppard well knows, none of this makes McKay not a man. He is very much a man. He is merely unwilling to share himself with a woman. His male body is not for her consumption. A woman watching him gives him no pleasure, it only makes him feel anxious.

The following scene is interesting, too. We find Ronon and Teyla sparring in the gym where they are joined by Sheppard. The scenes are connected by the same red free standing punching target in the background, both in Cadman's room and at the gym. Ronon and Teyla's sparring may even reflect the mental tug-of-war that is going on inside McKay's mind.

Regardless, Sheppard seems upset seeing them at it. He could also just be upset and it has nothing to do with the scene before him, but he does come across as awfully sour:

Sheppard: I thought we were supposed to be sparring today? Teyla: You were late, so Ronon and I...

As we learned in the previous scene, it's past two in the afternoon, and Sheppard was late arriving at a prearranged sparring date with Teyla. Previously, we've seen them spar before lunch (The Gift, S01E18) which may or may not be their usual time for sparring. They seem to do it regularly. While we don't know just how long Ronon and Teyla have been at it, it seems like Sheppard is not just a little late, he's a lot late. And given that they have their ear pieces, he could have informed Teyla that he was running late if he had been awake. Not being awake is the only reason for him to run late without having informed the person waiting for him about it. Which is interesting. Because we learned in the previous scene that it's two in the afternoon and Sheppard certainly is not someone who seems to sleep in. If anything, he seems to require less sleep than others. And given that we also saw him up and about in front of McKay's quarters in the previous night, we know he was awake late. And although he did bid McKay good night, it didn't seem like he was off to bed himself.

But we never ever learn what Sheppard had been doing. We don't get a hint of why he's late, why he seems to have slept in. But we do know that he did sleep from the fact that his jacket is much more rumpled now than it was the previous night.

Sheppard had been in his fatigues all day when we saw him in front of McKay's quarters but they were still fairly neat. Now, as he turns his back, we can clearly see that the condition of his outfit is worse, it has clearly been slept in. So again, as he apparently had in The Runner (S02E03), Sheppard seems to have slept in his clothes. He hadn't even taken the jacket off which, as we saw with McKay, is the minimum one might do to get comfortable. This happening once is an accident. This happening twice is a pattern. This is also a contrast to Cadman making McKay sleep in the nude. And while now both McKay and Sheppard seem to sleep with their clothes, because we never previously saw Sheppard's jacket in this condition, we may assume that he used to sleep in something much less than this.

But the fact that he's still in his clothes from yesterday also means that he hasn't showered. Although he might be cool, Sheppard is far from fine himself. Sheppard also looks tired, his hair is a mess. His reaction time also seems slower, as he's late to react to Ronon slamming Teyla into the mat:

Sheppard: What the hell do you think you're doing? Dex: I wouldn't have hurt her. Sheppard: You sure the hell looked like you were going to. You OK? Teyla: I am fine. I told him that he did not have to go easy on me. Sheppard: You've gotta be careful what you say to this guy.

Now, Sheppard says that one has to be careful saying things to Ronon but we haven't actually seen Ronon do anything that might warrant this.

So far, Ronon has been doing pretty much everything Sheppard has asked him to do. He took the utensils and attempted to eat with them, he tried out the weapons Sheppard showed him, and he sparred with the marines out of Sheppard's request. Teyla told him not to take it easy on her, so he didn't. Sure, Sheppard himself has probably tried to be careful in his use of words around Ronon because he is working him over, is trying to convince the man into coming to a certain predetermined conclusion (to stay and join his team) but there is nothing Ronon himself has done that warrants this caution. While their sparring does seem intense, Sheppard's reaction is nonetheless overblown here.

Where Ronon had saved McKay's life and Sheppard was hoping that he could use the man for this purpose in the future, he's still unsure if Ronon is controllable as an asset. He needs him to make sure McKay is safe but at the same time, he needs to be sure that Ronon is not a threat to McKay himself. And seeing him slam Teyla down like this, it did make him wonder because, unlike Cadman, he has learned to think things through after getting to know McKay. Maybe he wanted this to happen too much. He definitely had too much riding on this. He needed to get a second opinion from someone that he knows wouldn't allow him to put McKay into jeopardy.

Continued in Pt. 10

[basstards-depresso]

It seems like I have finally managed to get it together and write a (somewhat?) comprehensible introduction for Sharlene.

Anyways. Here’s a quick sketch and without any further ado:

Name: Sharlene Smith

Nickname: Tony

Gender: she/her

Nationality: American (sometimes she flexes her Irish heritage, though. Has some Eastern European percentage as well)

Age: 29

Height: ~5’7 (173cm)

Family status: single as hell

Job status: employed, currently on leave due to poor mental state (this lil’ shit did NOT pass the vibe check)

Affiliation: KorTac, USMC (former)

Family members: father, mother, twin sister (Mari)

Hobbies: journaling, drawing, watching hours-long documentaries/essays, occasionally dancing (yes, she still does the ballet)

Food preferences: spicy food. Not the white spicy, though. She’s been building up her spice tolerance with a pack of Buldak a day

Talents: quickly picks up languages, is ambidextrous (her left hand is just as functional as the right one), is actually a natural children-animal magnet (they seem to like her), stores LOADS of useless information. Ah, she also has a knack for being a failure

Vices: she’s not a chain smoker, but the amount of nicotine she consumes is still slightly concerning.

Social media: has a couple accounts, but they’re private and she doesn’t really post much. Might yap occasionally, though

Bio: Nearing the age of thirty, Sharlene finally realizes that the life she lives does not truly belong to herself and is, in fact, a chain of unfortunate circumstances and poor choices. Being severely depressed and sent on leave, she tries to find her own purpose, reconnect with family and hopefully find strength and courage to finally voice her own thoughts and feelings.

[dwcmarshalarts]

more questions!

Why is major vespira’s uniform slightly different to that of the rest of the navy when it’s been shown before that naval marines dress the same as sailors (that piece showing off the marines & terizikan ground forces) and is it just an accidental oversight or similar to how USMC officers have different uniforms than enlisted marines?

2. It’s really weird to say “can I be your friend” however I was wondering what your thoughts were on more casual world-building discussion were, because you have inspired me with some aspects, like the civil war piece you made regarding how quickly the fancy parade uniforms of the us army went downhill during the civil war & the realities of who’d actually be wearing it, and it’d be great to have a kinda forum you’d be okay with to discuss various ideas and topics, especially because I’ve recently been trying to get into civil war related mythos, especially with the union

3. Damek critou, as far as I know dames is a character owned by another person yet is the main character of one of your side stories? if so that’s cool and I’d love to hear how that came about, aswell as I’d love to hear a little bit more about what’s actually happening in that story, as I’ve gotten the basic premise of cute traumatised lil blue fox gets whisked away by a dashing rebel officer after getting bored of Rafans 6am meetings (not exactly but that’s the gist of it I presume :pp)

4. Not really a question, but I sent a few more asks in but accidentally turned on incognito, one of them was about your characters (Xever’s unit) and what they were like to interact with as people, in a civilian and military setting with subordinates and strangers (because asking if they accepts hugs is kinda boring) because they all seem pretty interesting (also who’s the lieutenant? :pp)

1. Naval Marines and Voidmen (non-Marine soldiers on the Circuit’s ships) do have the same fatigues, but they don’t dress the same overall. The NM are a unique subdivision of the Navy which have their own internal command structure, they just happen to share some resources, and ultimately answer to their Naval Commanders- most often the folks in charge of their ship or squadron. As such, NM get their own dress uniforms.

2. My take on worldbuilding generally is that I think it is a fundamental aspect of writing stories, and I’m thankful that as of the recent couple years, plenty of people are interested in jumping aboard and doing their own. That said, I think there is a tendency with “going too far” into it, and people get very lost in the sauce. I used to be the consummate worldbuilder back when I was working on my In the Red series, but after a while I kind of noticed that a lot of the world-building that I was doing at the time was just a rote regurgitation of what I knew about real world history. This was also a trend with a lot of what I was seeing from contemporaries, no shade meant, but that was just what I was seeing. I stopped, as a result, and spent a while focusing mainly on the characters in my other series, which would become the flagship “Percivals” stories. I would only really start worldbuilding again after I had a clear idea for the character development and arcs, as well as how they, in conjunction to the world around us, would be relatable to a reader. That way, I could pull not from the rote history, but from what *drives* developments.

Not to mention, I’ve begun growing a little less patient with the worldbuilding-forward story aspects, as it can end up making a story feel less “real” or “lived in,” and break some of the immersion. A good worldbuild is one where you don’t think about the worldbuild. There’s this great line about dialogue in films where characters shouldn’t state information that they should already know, just because the audience needs to be let in on some exposition. This is true about worldbuilding as well. Take from our real world too: how often do people think about the Seven Year’s War? How many people drive past the Winfield Scott Hancock statue in Washington DC and consciously thinking about his role in commanding US Forces at Gettysburg? How many people think about the makeup of a fleet of ships-of-the-line when they pass by Nelson’s Column? The answer is- most people don’t even think about it. They don’t bat an eye and keep going about their lives- and- yes, these historical events have shaped the course of history. But more goes on than just those big events- I haven’t even mentioned mundane, bureaucratic processes that reshape neighborhoods, or public constructions that alter a landscape. Oftentimes, those things get overlooked for flashy, “historical” events, when in many cases, boring legislation or changes in regulation end up being far more wide reaching in scope, both in their immediate effect, and later down the line.

The truth behind the matter is that the key to good, “lived in” worldbuilding is restraint. Restraint of putting everything out there, restraint of not giving every single detail to a reader/viewer. Yes, worldbuild, yes, write about the logistics system in x nation, but have the restraint to keep it in the background as yet another mundane thing. Once you treat a world as having been naturally evolved as opposed to artificially developed, with highlights and whatnot, that’ll be when it’ll feel properly lived in.

As for any further discussion- I’m a little busy a lot of the time haha. If you have any more questions, I can always answer them, or get around to answering them through my inbox. Thank you for your interest!

3. I’ve known Damek for a little bit, and as we’re both interested in sci fi, we’ve had conversations about theoretical placement of his character in the Percivals for a bit. I did a piece for him a while ago that was a commission and I set that in-universe. As an idea, it was kind of just sitting there for a while. In the mean time, I had started another stand-alone story with Ezo (another person’s character who I’m chill with) and built up the antagonist for that story, an ICC Admiral Rafan Spex. Back then, he was a mustache-twirling villain who was unambiguously sinister. Andor, the Star Wars show, did a lot to give me an idea for what Critou could be like. After doing some thinking, I rewrote the Spex character, and connected it to Damek to bridge the two stories, and serve as the basis for a three-arc, eleven chapter story. I’ve written the synopses for every chapter except 11, but I won’t be releasing that widely any time soon to avoid overt spoilers.

4. The officers in Xever’s unit are pretty chill, for the most part. Maybe with the exception of Wynn. Now, I’ll admit, this is a pretty broad question, and one that I wouldn’t be able to reasonably or concisely answer in a single post, but I’ll go over Xever to start with. Xever has had a very rigid, and turbulent upbringing. His father was, for most of his crucial, developing years, a broken man with dead career prospects whose own father was also harsh and austere military patriarch. Xever only really ever connected with his brother, whose death early on in his military career robbed him of companionship, and turned his mother into a fish-out-of-water shut-in, too hurt by the loss to be too active. Despite Xever finding some peace with Tycho for a short while, Xever’s lack of broader social interaction made him socially awkward, ripe for bullying during the Academy. His interests, mainly music and introspective, vulnerable ideas were simply not the same as his peers, and that along with being gay, compounded his insecurities. He’d eventually get through the Academy (not without hiccups) but as he quickly rose through the ranks (largely by family connections), he was still largely socially awkward and masked that by talking to his coworkers in Ground Forces with very by-the-book, stock-standard speech. He’d been to explore himself more off-work, especially in the company of Tycho, and be more loose, particularly in areas where his father would be unlikely to know about. This would have made him more sociable and chill in the long run, but due to events in the story, that would be cut short.

Knowing this, we can tell a couple things: without support from others, or the comfort of well-rehearsed, by the book answers, Xever can be quite socially awkward, both to professional comrades and civilians.

Good question though, I’ll likely make more structured, separate posts about the other characters in time! Likely next will be about Ewan Figes, followed by Tycho, then Wynn, Rodriguez, and Dyer.

[casbooks]

Book Review: Tough Rugged Bastards

Just finished Tough Rugged Bastards by John A. Dailey and I have mixed emotions. There were some parts of this book that were written incredibly, but taken as a whole… overall, it wasn't. While the title states that this is the memoir of a life in USMC SpecOps.

The overwhelming fact is that you don't really realize WHAT the book is about until you're almost done, and you're left asking… that's it? It's not a memoir of a life, though there are elements of that. It's really just the story of how Det 1 came to be and their single deployment to Iraq. Which is fine! I love that as a topic! Except… it does such an uneven job covering that, that you literally learn almost as much, if not more, by a quick glance at the Wikipedia article about it.

The author is a GOOD writer, very deft with prose and storytelling, which comes across page after page. The problem is that he has a tendency to constantly digress away from the point of the story and wander all over time and thought without any sense of cohesion. He has the tendency to play loose and fast with time, ex: you're talking about his first days in the marines, and the next you're getting a lecture on ultramarathon running after his retirement, and it's such a jarring left turn that you're scratching your head wondering WHY, why is that here and not at the end? It starts off with a tale of Afghanistan and you're like GREAT! Let's hear more about that, but don't expect to because he'll only reference Afghanistan here and there, but not really discuss it. Same with his Embassy duties.

But the worst part is that he has a tendency to be hyper specific about things that could be talked about less, and tends to wax poetic and barely glance at things that should have been the crux of the book! You'll learn a lot about Stoicism and how to be a good instructor but when he talks about the battle of Najaf where "proceeded to demoralize the militiaman by "wiping out" dozens of enemy combatants, confusing them as to the point of origin of the unrelenting lethal fire… kept their marksman on their SR-25s around the clock" (per wiki) you really only get detail about the first shot fired, and then… nothing else really. You get some good detail about looking for 3 bombers, but it's really just a small part of the book when compared to how deep he goes into selecting gear and training and whatever else is on his mind at that moment. Especially about what it means to be a warrior. He goes deep into that multiple times, and what it takes to be a good Operator and a good this and that and that's fine, but when that is such a huge part of the book, and being in Iraq, Afghanistan, a scout sniper, a member of force recon, and the rest isn't, well there's a jarring imbalance. It's not his memoir, it's a good overview of how Det One/Raiders started, the schools, and his thoughts… with a couple of stories about the rest.

3 stars

[frogblast-the-ventcore]

Colonel Liasa D'Argan (to the left in reference photo) - the commanding officer of the USS Sorcerer's embarked Starfleet Marine Corps battalion, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, which traces its lineage and traditions to the United States Marine Corps, which supplied troops to the United Earth Starfleet as part of it's MACO initiative.

A sister unit to the original 2d Battalion, 5th Marines of the USMC (which still exists on Earth, as part of the United States armed forces, which sits under United Earth command via the United Nations), 2/5 is a veteran unit, having fought in the 2256 Klingon War, Cardassian Wars, Tzenkethi War, and the Dominion War, embodying their "Retreat, hell!" motto, borrowed from their terrestrial forebears.

A Dominion War veteran, the 62-year old Colonel Liasa is a member of the towering mammalian Jeselian species, standing over 9 feet tall, and projecting an air of command and decorum larger even than her size. Often commanding her troops from the frontline, swathed in standard issue SFMC powered armor, the Colonel also supplies her Marines for the traditional duties of protecting shore parties, VBSS duties, and assisting in shipboard gunnery (a section of 2/5 Marines is normally assigned to starboard Phaser Control Room #5 during space combat).

Colonel D'Argan has been married for 40 years to the Sorcerer's Chief Medical Officer, the Caitian CMDR Dr. Ny'Kara; the couple has nineteen children (twelve Caitian, six Jeselian, and one Jeselian-Caitian hybrid, the latter via an experimental version of the Phlox-Wilder hybrid fertilization method).

[minefield-of-a-ninja]

28 DAYS: CHAPTER NINE

Summary: Dean Winchester is an addict and an alcoholic, a USMC veteran, a father, and an older brother. As Battalion Chief with Lawrence Fire & Medical, Dean comes under investigation when he makes a dangerous and impulsive decision, defying his superiors and abandoning the team he is supposed to lead. He is given a choice to go to rehab for 28 days or jail. His lawyer insists on rehab, and Dean begrudgingly abides.

Chapter warnings/tags: mentioning thoughts of self-destruction

Words in this chapter: 2,100

Author’s notes: you might recognize a few nuggets (per Stuie) from SPN here.

Many thanks to @brrose-apothecary and @stusbunker for pre-reads and for being my friends.

text divider by @talesmaniac89

CHAPTER NINE

“My buddy, Cas, he’s... well, he used to be my buddy,” Dean pauses, squinting down at the smoldering butt between his thumb and fingers. 

Meg remains silent next to him. 

Dean assumes she knows as well as he does that he can’t predict whether his friends before rehab will still be his friends after. Not to mention friends like Castiel, the authority Dean defied when he took it upon himself to burn his life and career to the ground in that high school fire three weeks ago.

“Cas is a widower with a teenage daughter,” Dean continues, taking a drag from his cigarette.

“He’s a weird little guy.” He exhales smoke and chuckles, looking at Meg sideways. “You’d like him.”

Meg snorts, flicking her ash before taking a drag of her own. 

“I, uhh... Cas was my boss. He’s the big chief.”

Meg quietly listens as smoke rolls from between her lips.

He and Meg are as close as he’s ever been with anyone. They share things, and he considers her to be a real friend. They’re all so fucked up, bleeding emotion right and left, that it’s taken no time to bond, even when they don’t know every central life point of each other. Until this moment, Dean didn’t realize that he had yet to tell Meg what landed his ass here in the first place.

He drags his gaze from her cherry lips and focuses on his shrinking cigarette. 

“I fucked up.” Dean bobs his head, then takes the last drag from his smoke before tossing it toward the bucket of sand as he exhales. “I’m a firefighter — battalion chief, 15 years of service, saved lives and homes — but I fucked up that day.”

Dean thinks about the stories everyone has and that Jack is so enthusiastic about. He’s not been forced to tell his story, but he’s hungry for that last connection with his newfound family here. The desire to share swirls in his chest, threatening to pop out, sloppy and chaotic.

When he peeks at Meg, she’s listening closely without a hint of judgment.

Dean slowly and quietly tells her what happened that day. How he’d been at Gordon’s until the wee hours, drinking and fucking his way between a couple of women he barely knew. How he stumbled home less than two hours before getting called in on a conflagration.

“What’s a conflagration?” Meg asks, lighting two cigarettes at once before exhaling and handing one of the smokes to Dean.

“It’s a... thanks,” he pauses, accepting the cigarette from her and taking a drag. “A conflagration’s a big fire that’s on target to destroy a lot of property, land... take a lot of lives.”

Meg exhales and nods, squinting through the haze of smoke. “So you showed up drunk to a killer fire?”

Dean slowly blinks and nods. “BAC of .23 six hours after leaving my drug dealer’s house, yeah.”

Meg whistles.

“Waltzed into that job with a vial of coke in my pocket and more substances in my system than a raver on a Saturday night. And Cas, my boss and best friend... he told me to...” Dean pauses and draws a deep, clean breath. “He told me to stop — to stand down — and I ignored him.”

He takes a long pull from his smoke, recalling that morning, not wanting to leave anything out.

“Do you know why you ignored him?”

Dean looks at Meg. She looks like she knows the answer already, even though Dean didn’t even realize it until now.

“I was in self-destruct mode.”

Meg nods and huddles in closer, narrowing her gaze.

“Two years ago, I’d never be out ‘til three in the morning, never test those boundaries.  But the farther I got from a real life, the less I cared about bein’ careful.”

His words hang in the air between them. He can almost see them mocking, shiny, and bubblegum pink like something out of an after-school special.

“Real life,” Meg hums. “What’s not real about your life right now?”

Dean shakes his head and takes the last drag from his cigarette. “I wanna settle down with someone. I want a house with a yard, not an apartment. I want Em... I want where I live to be her home.”

Meg nods, sitting back and finishing her own cigarette. “So now you know.”

Dean chuckles, tossing his butt toward the sand bucket.

The reason he brought Cas up, to begin with, was because he thought Cas and Meg would like each other. They have a similar sense of humor and have made Dean feel less awkward about different stages in his life with distinctive grace and compassion. He doesn't know if Cas will speak to him at this point, but he can’t keep himself from imagining two of his favorite people becoming favorites of each other.

Sam pulls out of the hug before Dean.

“Lydia said you looked good. She was right.” He nods, clapping a hand over his brother’s shoulder. “How’re your injuries healing?”

“Good.” Dean misses the embrace. He wishes he wasn’t so needy, but holding his baby brother has always been the best cure for his ills. “You sure I don’t look skinny? Lydia said I looked skinny.”

“No, man. You look great. It’s been a while.” Sam looks cagey as he glances around at the other patients and their guests.

Dean doubts Sam’s comment was meant as a kick to the gut, but it sure as fuck feels like one.  

When Sam was a kid, he looked up to Dean. He used to tell Dean that he couldn’t wait to be big and strong like him. Now Sam looks at him with pity. Dean wonders if one day he might earn back even a fraction of Sam’s admiration.

“Want a cup of coffee or anything?” Dean tries to be hospitable, but rehab isn’t exactly the Ritz.

“No, thanks, I’m good.” 

Dean also tries not to get pissy about Sam’s really fucking noticeable uneasiness. 

“Let’s take a walk, Sammy.” He doesn’t wait for Sam to argue; he turns and heads toward the trailhead he walked with Meg and Pamela earlier that morning.

Thankfully, Sam follows without further ado. Once they’re on the trail and other voices are a distant hum, Sam relaxes, and Dean breathes a sigh of relief.

“So,” Sam starts. “You’ll be out of here in, what, a week?”

Dean chuckles, dropping his gaze to his booted feet on the packed trail. “Sammy, you and me both know that you know exactly when I’m gettin’ outta here. You’re the one who set this all up, remember?”

Sam bobs his head, matching his brother’s stride. “Just trying to start a conversation, Dean.”

His voice is quiet and contrite, and Dean feels like an ass for calling Sam on the bogus question.

“Sorry, man. I know this ain’t easy. But, yeah, eight days, actually.”

Sam nods, looking over at Dean. “How d’you... how are you feeling about it?”

Dean smiles up into the partly cloudy blue sky. “Scared.”

Sam slows to a stop, and Dean does the same.

“Do you need more time?” Sam asks, concern furrowing his brow.

Dean shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter, dude. Gotta take the training wheels off sooner or later.”

Sam nods thoughtfully. “Have you found a sponsor yet?”

“Not yet. Next week.”

Sam gazes off into the woods, stress rolling off him like a stench.

“Hey.” Dean reaches out and tugs the wrist cuff of Sam’s flannel shirt to get his attention.

“I hate that you’re scared, Dean.” Sam holds Dean’s gaze. “I’m glad you’re being honest, but I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”

Dean nods, carefully choosing his next words.

“I’d rather be scared than what I was three weeks ago. Scared means careful. It means I got somethin’ to lose and to look forward to. It means I got my baby girl back, and this time I’m keepin’ her.”

Sam steps in and grabs Dean in another hug. This one lasts longer than the first, and Dean basks in it.

“My mom died in a house fire when I was four.”

These are the things that haunt him. He could be insolent and say they’re the reasons he drinks, but the truth is, they’re more than that. 

“After the fire, Dad changed; he, uh... followed a downward spiral.” Dean shakes his head and chuckles. “He was angry, usually at me.”

Dean avoids using the words he and Billie discussed. He avoids saying that John was abusive because this is his story, not John’s. And he avoids looking anyone in particular directly in the eyes.

“Started workin’ at the family garage before I was in middle school. Child labor laws be damned, I guess.” He huffs another sardonic laugh.

In less than a month, Billie Pilgrim has given Dean the space and permission to believe he was hurt and abused and has suffered trauma. Stating the facts out loud in front of a live audience solidifies that belief.

“It felt good, though, ya know? Like I was doin’ somethin’ special. And I was a quick learner.”

Dean genuinely smiles, remembering how Bobby would brag to John about what Dean had learned that day.

“I was never great at school. Dropped out during the 8th grade, settled into the role of Mom and Dad to Sammy...”

He pauses for a deep breath. 

“Sometimes I can’t believe how good he turned out.” Dean shakes his head and then continues. “When I was 17... I got caught with a couple high school girls doin’ what teenagers do when their parents aren’t home. Dad was... well, Dad about it. He shipped me off to Afghanistan.”

Dean briefly flicks his gaze up to Pamela, who nods, mouthing thank you.

“Later, Dad’d tell everyone it was my choice — to follow in the footsteps of my old man and become a Marine, but I was fuckin’ terrified, man.” He looks down at his hands in his lap. “I served two tours before Sammy graduated high school. He sent me a copy of an offer letter for a full ride to Stanford... I came right home — I knew Dad was gonna fuckin’ lose it.” 

Dean clears his throat, shifting in his seat.

“We fought — Dad and me. I was just tryna run interference for Sam to get his shit and... it was bad. I said some things. John... my dad, he was so mad, like red-faced, veins bulgin’ out...”

Dean finally looks around the circle. Everyone is listening; even Crowley is engrossed.

“Turns out he was in the middle of a massive heart attack. Killed him on the spot. Not even CPR brought him back long enough for me to say I was sorry and g’bye.”

Dean stops talking. There’s more to his story, but that’s all he can do for the day. 

“Thank you for sharing, Dean,” Cain speaks.

Dean nods, staring at his feet.

“Does anyone want to say anything to Dean?”

Jack immediately raises his hand.

“Yes, Jack,” Cain smiles.

“Dean, you should know that these are just things you’ve done and things that have happened to you, not who you are.” 

Dean looks up at Jack and smiles.

“Yeah, I know. But the mark... it’s still there, ya know?”

Jack nods.

“What’s Billie always say? No one’s a monolith?” Meg asks.

Dean grins at her. That was one of the first deep lessons he learned from Billie.

He wasn’t exaggerating when he told Sam he was scared. Hell, he still hasn’t looked at his email, and he deleted his text logs with Gordon and others like him without even taking a peek.

But Dean’s armed with tools from Billie and Cain, and he has a community to rely on in a way he’s never felt he had before. There are things and people — feelings that he wants to experience differently, or maybe even for the first time.

Maybe he did have support before, and he was just too numb to feel it.

Regardless, this is a new day.

Dean’s 16 years old. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat of the Impala, and John’s sitting shotgun. 

John’s teaching him to drive, to get his learner’s permit, and Dean is nervous and excited, hands gripping the wheel. 

This isn’t a memory; it’s a dream. Dean knows this because, in reality, John taught Dean to drive when he was eight. He put a couch cushion on the front seat and tied blocks to Dean’s tennis shoes.

In the dream, Sam’s in the backseat, begging to take a turn. 

Finally, they pull up to the house — the family house — and Dean parks in the driveway. 

John looks over at his oldest child then and says, "Perfect landing, son." 

Chapter 10

Please let me know what you think!

Series Masterlist

MJ’s Masterlist

[usafphantom2]

Photo: Taken by my Aircraft Commander in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia, 1991-2 Desert Calm after wrapping up a mission. Notice the Mustache (was mandatory), Sleeves pushed up, Desert Boots, Ray Bans, Casio Watch and the ridiculous Desert Hat. I was assigned to the 42nd AREFS out of Loring AFB ME.

Why I’ve Been Writing All These Stories

I’ve written about this subject sporadically a couple of times answering questions, but this time, I’m going to give it some structure. I’ll give it a title and save it, so I don’t have to write it again. It’s a bit long winded, so forgive me.

When I was a kid, I was close with all my grandparents. I was blessed in knowing all four of them. But on my father’s side, my father’s last name was different than my grandfather’s last name. It turned out that my grandmother had divorced my biological grandfather in the late ‘50s. Nobody ever really talked about my biological grandfather. My grandmother and gotten rid of almost all photos. So, I never knew him or even of him until I was much older. As it turned out, he passed away in 1977. If anyone in the family knew, they never mentioned it to me.

Two or three years ago, my father’s youngest brother decided to request my biological grandfather’s military service records from the Marine Corps. I spent the next year or two figuring out (the USN is different from the USAF and the USMC is even more different from the USN) that he had been a gunner on the Douglas SBD Dauntless with the VMSB-244, had joined at 16 ½ years old, was awarded an Air Medal by the Army Air Corps for shooting a Zero down while flying in a B-24 out of Midway (not the big battle) before he had turned 18 years old.

He then went to the Solomon Islands. He flew many missions bombing and strafing Rabaul amongst other targets. He had his camp bombed in between missions, and in one case, his own squadron was dropping bombs, and the spotters were in their own camp. The bombs were falling just outside the perimeter. He lost many of the gunners he had trained with over the course of his service.

I found he likely flew on missions where Papy Boyington likely flew cover for his unit (still researching this one), John F Kennedy was in a PT boat right around the corner, Richard Nixon had been running a SCAT (intra theater passenger and cargo flying service) squadron he used, and Gene Rodenberry was collocated with him at one point.

Eventually, the unit burned out, they were ordered to stand down in June 1944 and he had a Casualty Card filed for Combat Fatigue. He wasn’t even 20 years old yet, and the war was over for him. D-day, the invasion of Europe. happened right when he was headed home.

When he got back to the states, he went AWOL several times, obviously having difficulties readjusting to non-combat life. The Marines just gave him an honorable discharge and let him go (it was a common practice at that time.) He met my grandmother, they married and had several children, but he never really adjusted. No steady employment, liberal use of alcohol, and a short temper, which is how and why my grandmother left him. He was a bonified war hero who was permanently damaged by the war, and his life after the war was mostly sad. Fortunately, it does seem that he found some solace before he passed away, he had re-married and by all accounts it seems to have been a happy marriage.

The details of the story were amazing to me. He sat in the back of an aircraft, performed death defying feats (dive bombing is some serious stuff), and faced backwards. Not so dissimilar to me, 45 years later, flying in the back of a KC-135, refueling other aircraft in the air, facing backwards.

Due to the amount of time that has passed since WWII, tracking down some details has been very difficult. His unit was not famous during his time frame. Just a bunch of line guys, doing their jobs. For all purposes, there is nobody to ask if you have a question and want to get the answer from the horse’s mouth, they are all gone.

I shared this research with my father’s family, and my children as well. One thing I was looking for was a cause for my grandfather’s behavior in the ‘50s. I didn’t really find anything concrete, but there were indications.

There was so much information, I started writing a document with all the details, it’s over a hundred pages long, with background information to set the context. If you’re into that kind of stuff, it’s interesting, but not everybody is a fan of history, let alone World War II history, or worse yet, US Marine Corps aviation in the Solomon Islands. Of course, my current version is still in draft. It isn’t finished yet.

Anway, now eleven paragraphs later, I’m finally getting to my point. My son started asking what I did while I was in the Air Force. He’d heard the stories since he was little, but he doesn’t remember the details. He specifically asked me to start writing some of it down. I’d been making little notes, writing down passages.

At the same time, I’d been on Twitter reading a lot, and I love aviation, so I followed that. All these photos, some of the exact same airframes I flew on, made me want to write and share my experiences.

Then, in the beginning of August (this year 2024), I wrote something that took off a bit. The title was “What are the most amazing things you’ve seen as a Boom Operator”. It got about 70,000 impressions, 42 reposts and I thought, maybe people are interested in hearing my stories. I also considered the idea of being able to make some income from these stories, and these days, additional income would be helpful. Although, I am starting to wonder if I’ll really be able to make that happen, five million impressions in three months is a high bar at the moment and I’m worried I might run out of quality material. I mean, nobody wants to read about how I spent six weeks doing nothing (yup… it happened.)

I know my stories are not really all that special in the sense that there were many other people doing the same thing I was, and many of them did it much better than I did, and many of them knew much more than I did. I was never high ranking, was never in charge, was never a mission planner, never a Test boom, I was mostly just a line boom operator who flew when they told me to and went TDY went they told me to. I enjoyed that until I got married, had children, and then after a while, I didn’t enjoy it anymore. Other disciplines grabbed my attention. So, I moved on, but I still thoroughly enjoyed my time flying and always looked back on it fondly.

So, all these passages that I’ve been writing, I’ve been writing in word documents and saving. Twitter/X is not my primary data cache. Eventually, I’ll try to put them all together into some coherent format so they can be read and not be a complete mess, and I’ll be able to give that to my kids and let them have it for when they get curious about their history. I’m sure they’ll put it in the closet until one day, in the future, they will suddenly wonder… and I might not be there to ask.

I have no problem sharing all these stories with everyone in the meanwhile. As they say, the more the merrier. The feedback has jogged my memory on quite a few things, and I also feel that my writing and storytelling is improving because of both the practice and the feedback.

It may not be the largest audience now, but for the most part, I’ve been getting positive feedback, and as long as that is the case, I’ll continue to share what I’ve been writing.

If I were to sum it all up into one sentence, I’d say, I’m writing these passages to preserve the memory for my children and I enjoy doing it, everything else is gravy. (maybe that’s all I should publish, problem is though, it doesn’t tell a story, does it?)

@tcamp202 via X

[randamhajile]

I fuckin hate narrative driven ads coz they're always like

[Shot of woman and man stumbling in to each other on college campus] [cut to them making dinner together with McCormack brand spices conspicuously on counter] [scene of their beautiful wedding] [shot of the married couple looking over baby in baby carriage while the man has a USMC shirt on] [scene of the mother and toddlers tearfully waving goodbye at the father as he walks away in military uniform waving back] [shot of woman looking wistfully at photo of husband while she makes a delicious meal for her children with McCormack (tm) brand spices] [cut to knock on the door as two men in uniforms look sternly and offer her a triangle folded american flag] [scene of mother and children crying at funeral as soldiers play military salute on horn] [cut to destitute mother, mascara stained face, looks at photo of husband, then down to trembling hands holding a gun, then over to show McCormack (c) spices on counter as mother looks at them and cracks a faint smile] [final scene of woman and extended family dressed in black having a delicious home cooked dinner together] [text appears over scene]

For making memories, or celebrating them, always choose McCormack (tm) (c) (r) spices. It's gonna be great

[swede1952]

Good morning. 🍄🍄🍄

14 November 2023

Growing old happens suddenly, doesn't it, or it seems to do that sometimes. Where I worked, before I retired, I needed a badge, well more of an ID card or pass. I had to get a new one every couple of years, so they took a new photo of me. Every time I joked that something was wrong with the camera. It was kind of corny I know, but I'm an introvert and struggle to hold a conversation, particularly with strangers. Whoops, I skipped the track didn't I. Well back to growing old. In my office, I have a black and white photo of my company at the USMC Infantry Training Regiment at Camp Pendleton in 1971. I'm in the photo and I think I know which Marine I am but I'm not at all certain.

“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is.” - Ellen DeGeneres

[sweet-like-hypoglycemia]

My shoulder pain is out of control today 😔

All I did was empty barbell squats yesterday, and just the pressure from the bar on my right shoulder has it all fucked up today. Last time I saw a doctor he x-rayed it and said my bones looked good besides a lil inflammation, and offered a cortisone shot, which I took (felt wonderful for a while).

I'm so damn worried about joining the USMC and being in horrible pain from wearing the packs.

Guess I should go back to the doctor? They never seem to find the source of any of my pains or ailments, and then I'm in the hole a couple hundred $. Ugh!

[expvrgction]

Kahann, davoth and doomslayer's opinion on demon-human hybrids? (You dont have to do all of them:))

"..." The Slayer remains silent for a while. "Hard to say, especially now that I know of Hell's history. I would still have no issues taking on those who pose threats upon my world and people, regardless of their origins. On the other..."

"There's that kid. Ain't nothing like her shithead of a father. Tulip deserves better than losing her ma, too, and having to take the throne Davoth left behind. I would've gone off the deeper end than I had before if I was in that situation."

"On the off chance that bastard resurrects though, I'm going to fucking kill him again. It's one thing to take a lot of shit I have ever cared about, but his biggest robbery of all, 'sides my family? My old USMC crew? Daisy?"

"...Why the fuck did he take her."

---

Now that's a question Kahann doesn't hear everyday. He may as well give answers.

"I have seen couple hybrids before, and how they view themselves and how their respective societies view them vary. Some are hunted down regardless of how they would feel about their genealogical origins, or may be just plain shunned. I met a few who are loved and respected by those around them, but even then it would take a long time to build trust when you have the blood of fiends in your vessel."

"Now that you say it, my niece is one. She definitely is burdened by the fact that she is the daughter of one of the worst god-tyrants in galactic history, and that she has to inherit the mess he left behind. I wish I could go and see her, but Hell has become far more difficult to access now."

"It's for the best, though. Blazkowicz would have to, as he'd say, 'do the same damn dance' again, otherwise."

[sanchezpoetry]

      My addictive tendencies and general issues are currently in full swing. But my relationship with alcohol specifically isn’t just the fact that I’m a drunk raised around addicts. It served various purposes before. It served as my anxiety medication, my painkiller, my anti-depressant, my coping mechanism and my celebratory/relaxation method, my sleeping aid, and even a method to make art (through writing. The majority of my Entire first book was written when I had a buzz)

       I refuse to take painkillers. Being so powerlifting and martial arts oriented, I tend to push my body A LOT. (Another symptom of my addictive tendencies) and I would/do often get various aches and pains as a result. But I refuse to take painkillers because there’s no doubt in my mind that I would probably end up as a hardcore junkie the way my ex was. There was a reason I was so hopelessly attracted to her. I’m a very anxious person, and alcohol helps with that A LOT. As it does with my depression. Same goes for anti-depressants and anxiety medication. I have severe sleeping issues, and at one time, alcohol was the way that I would force myself to sleep. As odd as it sounds, I don’t care much for eating, and my predisposition to enjoy drinking makes that even worse.

Sometimes I wonder how much of it is really my addictions manifesting, or if it’s just a really bad habit that gets catastrophic when coupled with my various other issues, that all become ever more exacerbated because I’ve been working nights. Various nurses and doctors have all told me that what I’m feeling is perfectly normal considering that I’m working in a way that contradicts human biology. Many others have stated that it isn’t really anything other than working nights for so long that’s fucking me up so much. And honestly, as much as I say I’m an alcoholic, I’m not nearly at the level my family was/is.

Getting back to the basics and my original plan when I was intended to temporarily switch to nights is essentially where I’m at now. A lot of things and mistakes happened from when I started to now. The biggest one being that this night bullshit is becoming permanent/long term.  I learned a lot about myself, health, and overall human biology. It’s taken almost a whole year of working nights, but I came up with a general rule list to make sure I stay on a healthy path.

-        No drinking/reading/eating before sleep.

-        No carbs (only lean meats, fruits, and vegetables)

-        No type of exercise any less than 8 hours before I intend to sleep (Exercise when you wake up)

-        No coffee any less than 8 hours before I intend to sleep.

-        No napping. (Suck it up, and force yourself to stay awake)

-        Prioritize sleep (7 to 9 hours tops)

-        Make sure to get sunlight as much as possible.

-        Rely on discipline and knowledge to build routines.

-        Medication serves as an AID, not as something to rely on.

   One of the most amusing things about everything I’m talking about is, I’m one of the most well-disciplined and hard working addicts you will ever meet. I’ve built up my levels of discipline, knowledge basis, reading, art making, and mental/physical strength to the highest and most scrutinous levels that they have ever been. And that includes when I was in the USMC, in college, and even a competitive high school athlete. So in the grand scheme of things at this point, I’m actually the best I’ve ever been. This season of my life has both heightened my strengths and exacerbated my flaws simultaneously. And it is extremely difficult to get an accurate reading on my self-analysis.

      The only real option is to increase my discipline, knowledge, and overall mentality. Move forward, improve myself, and let nothing, not even myself get in my way.