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#BRAWLER GUARD SUPREMACY
ausetkmt · 6 months
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White Nationalist ‘Active Clubs’ Are Who ‘Proud Boys Wanted to Be’ – Rolling Stone
This ‘Violence-Ready’ Militia Is Hiding in Plain Sight
White supremacist Active Clubs are growing exponentially — "They’re Who The Proud Boys Wanted To Be," one researcher says
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There’s a new power player on America’s extremist scene. White nationalist “Active Clubs” are growing explosively, and filling a void created by the prosecutions that decimated the leadership of Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. “The Active Clubs are who the Proud Boys thought they were,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “They’re who the Proud Boys wanted to be.”
Active Clubs mix white supremacy and violence, training in kickboxing, among other combat sports. But — at least the moment — they’re not seeking to intimidate the public with swastikas and face tattoos, common to other groups of racist brawlers. Instead, Active Clubs have put forward a slicker, more presentable aesthetic — recruiting new members by touting physical fitness, self-improvement, and “white unity.” 
The Active Clubs are flying below the radar of law enforcement. But as described in a new 50-page report from the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), the network is evolving into a dangerous “stand-by militia” of well-trained, white-nationalist fighters “who can be activated when the need for coordinated violent action on a larger scale arises.”
Here’s what you need to know:
Where Did Active Clubs Come From?
Active Clubs are the creation of Robert Rundo, a white supremacist who operated out of Orange County, California. They’re his second attempt to launch an extremist network. Starting in 2017, Rundo built the “Rise Above Movement” or RAM, which sought to spark the “warrior spirit” in white men and billed itself as the “premier MMA club of the Alt-Right.” 
But the violent street brawling of Rundo and his compatriots quickly invited a crackdown. Rundo and others were charged in 2019 with federal conspiracy to riot for violent California confrontations in places like Huntington Beach and Berkeley, where Rundo and his fighters decked themselves out in “goggles, mouth guards, athletic tape around their wrists, and black face masks with white skeleton designs,” according to the indictment.
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Those charges were tossed out for a time — due to a dispute over the constitutionality of the criminal statute. By the time they were reinstated in 2021, Rundo was in the wind, living in Serbia and other parts of Eastern Europe, where he was picking up new tricks from local hooligans and crafting a vision for what he bills “White Supremacy 3.0.” 
What is White Supremacy 3.0?
This is Rundo’s shorthand for a reboot of tactics and aesthetics among white nationalists. In this rubric, White Supremacy 1.0 refers to the skinheads — flamboyant, scary, in your-face, but self-limiting in building broad appeal. 2.0 was the “Alt-Right” — cleaner cut, far more presentable, but terminally online (Rundo derides them as “keyboard warriors”) and beset by infighting among disparate groups over priorities and tactics.
White Supremacy 3.0 in this context seeks to achieve a mix of publicly-presentable aesthetics, real-world activism, and white-power solidarity. The Active Clubs reflect these ideas in their slogans, including, “Make fascism fun,” “White unity at every opportunity,” and “Being handsome and jacked is more important than being right when it comes to politics.”
How Are Active Clubs Organized?
Active Clubs do not have a top-down hierarchy. They operate instead as an “open network” of locally run cells that all share the same ethos. According to the CEP report, “Active Clubs are supposed to connect and cooperate but stay operationally independent.” The logic behind the distributed power structure is that “infiltrations and arrests of leadership figures, or even the shutdown of an Active Club, should have little if any effect on the Active Club network itself.”
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In May 2022, Rundo celebrated the network’s resilience, insisting “the Active Clubs run on their own. They don´t need me anymore.” In fact, Active Clubs are growing exponentially, even with the group’s founder now in jail. Rundo was caught in Romania in March 2023 and extradited to the U.S. in August to face charges. His trial is set for December.
What do Active Clubs Look Like?
The Active Clubs present themselves as groups of gym bros who pursue mixed martial arts — and just happen to dabble in white power. “They are specifically asked not to talk about ‘The Jews’ when recruiting, but to focus on positive things like brotherhood, community and so on,” says Alexander Ritzmann, the Berlin-based researcher who authored the CEP report. This follows Rundo’s belief that: “A group of strong white men is a fascist statement in itself.”
Embracing the socially-acceptable violence of MMA culture allows active clubs to avoid the attention of law enforcement, who at first glance, Ritzmann says, would encounter what appears to be just “sporty white men — not much to see here.”
But beneath the surface, Active Clubs represent gangs of young white supremacists who are all about the “glorification of brutal violence,” Ritzmann insists. Lewis, the GW extremism researcher, warns that Active Clubs have “truly become the tip of the fascist spear.”
How Do Active Clubs Gain New Members?
The Active Clubs recruit with narratives of white victimhood, an approach that justifies violence in seeking the supposed restoration of white greatness. The Active Clubs, according to the CEP report, recruit at gyms, motocross events, NASCAR races, and perhaps most disturbing, at high schools. “When there’s an increase in violence at a high school,” Ritzmann says, “the recommendation is to show up to provide protection and training for the white male students.”
The strategy is “tribe and train” — to group off in small, locally run groups that solicit new members and build up their capacity as street fighters. 
How Many Active Clubs Are There?
Since their founding in late 2020, the Active Clubs have grown explosively. There are now nearly 50 active clubs across 34 states, according to the CEP research. The network is also active in Canada, where there are a dozen clubs, and in Europe where 46 clubs can be found across 14 different countries.
In the U.S., the groups are now taking leadership cues from Rundo’s home club, SoCal Active Club. Other prominent cells include the Tennessee Active Club, the Great Lakes Active Club, the Southern Sons Active Club, and the Evergreen Active Club. A typical Active Club ranges from five to 25 members. But they have a broader reach through social media. The Telegram channels of the most popular clubs have hundreds — and as many as thousands — of subscribers.
Most clubs adopt a similar white-power logo, a cross inside a circle. “This is a use — or abuse — of the Celtic cross, and then they put their local spin on it,” Ritzmann says. Despite supposed prohibitions on Nazi symbolism, some clubs have drifted into more overt anti-semitism and racism. The Southern Sons Active Club logo, for example, features SS lightning bolts and a sonnenrad instead of a Celtic cross.
Do the Active Clubs Join Together?
While the clubs largely act alone, Active Clubs have for the past two years, hosted an MMA tournament, with representatives from Active Clubs across America joining in for the fights. The tournament this past August, in Huntington Beach warehouse, also featured participation by members of the the group Patriot Front.
Active Clubs do operate independently, says Morgan Lynn Moon, an investigative researcher at the ADL’s Center on Extremism. But she insists that they “see themselves as part of a connected brotherhood,” adding that “if one Active Club is targeted by a perceived enemy, the entire network feels this need to stand up in solidarity and support.”
Moon points to a late-June clash outside Portland, between local Proud Boys and members an Active Club affiliate called the Rose City Nationalists. Both groups had shown up to menace an LGBTQ Pride event, but wound up scruffling with each other. The conflict was the result of a personal beef, Moon says. “But what I found significant was how Active Clubs across the nation were coming out in solidarity — saying that they were going to start fighting the Proud Boys.”
How Are Active Clubs Financed?
The funding of the Active Clubs is opaque. But at least part of the money comes from sales of a lifestyle apparel brand founded by Rundo called Will2Rise, which sells “militant active wear.” The slick store site not only sells “Active Club” track jackets and hoodies, it also serves as recruitment propaganda and a reinforcer of the aesthetics Rundo wants to model for the network. 
From the outside, the network appears flush. “They travel a lot,” Ritzmann says. “Rundo was offering a French Active Club to pay for their travel so they can attend some of their fight nights. So where does that money come from? It is this shop.” 
What’s the End Game?
The Active Clubs’ primary actions — consisting of covert banner drops, graffiti tagging, and posting Active Club recruitment or “Free Rundo” stickers — may appear relatively innocuous. But this is also training with a nefarious edge. As the CEP report describes it, such actions build “operational and logistical capacities such as scouting target locations, transportation, and avoiding law enforcement.”
Ritzmann also describes that Active Clubs that have been bragging about “tactical casualty care training” — something he notes has nothing to do with kickboxing or MMA fighting. “This is for shooting events,” he says. “Where you need to evacuate wounded people from the area of violence.”
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For now, Active Clubs are in startup mode, pursuing growth. “They want to fill up the tank with as many white men as they can train,” says Ritzmann. The darker purpose, he insists, is to prepare “for the Day-X scenario.” Think: a replay of Jan. 6 or something more dangerous, “when there’s national leadership that needs… a network of violence-ready individuals to serve as a stand-by army.” 
When discussing Active Clubs, Rundo himself has invoked the American Revolution, comparing the network to the Minutemen militias. “They will lose some [members] once they then get very political,” Ritzmann predicts. “But if Active Clubs are allowed to continue to operate and multiply, it increases the likelihood for targeted political violence and terrorism.”
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all-star-crack-ass · 3 years
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GUYS GUYS GUYS HOLY SHIT
Arknights you are so kind to me ily
It took me about 20-30 pills but damn was she worth it
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Jesus Christ my brawler yearning has been sated thank you <3
Aaandd along the way we picked up a Rosa!
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V nice v nice, sad bears are almost all home!(Zima pls your gf are waiting for you)
(Also picked up Meteorite n Specter dupes which was a quite a ride before i was blessed with Flint but still so good)
The actual emotional whiplash T-T
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politicalmamaduck · 4 years
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The Last Shot
A Smuggler Ben Solo/Dark Side Rey arranged marriage fic for @the-reylo-void. Many thanks to @rapturousaurora for betaing, @cosetteskywalker for the above moodboards, and @aionimica for her drawing of Rey in her wedding dress!
Read it on AO3 here, and listen to the playlist here!
Author’s note: Just an epilogue remains after this chapter!
Chapter Thirty: The Throne Room | Chapter Twenty Nine: The Plan | Chapter Twenty Eight: You’re Not Alone | Chapter Twenty Seven: Balance | Chapter Twenty Six: Light to Meet | Chapter Twenty Five: Darkness Rising | Chapter Twenty Four: The Betrayal | Chapter Twenty Three: Stay | Chapter Twenty Two: The Storm | Chapter Twenty One: The Fulcrum | Chapter Twenty: In Darkness | Chapter Nineteen: Rey’s Dream | Chapter Eighteen: Jakku | Chapter Seventeen: The First Flashback | Chapter Sixteen: The Rendezvous | Chapter Fifteen: Tatooine | Chapter Fourteen: The First Mission | Chapter Thirteen: Goodbye to Naboo | Chapter Twelve: The Wedding Night | Chapter Eleven: The Aftermath | Chapter Ten: The Wedding | Chapter Nine: Naboo | Chapter Eight: The Time in Between | Chapter Seven: The Negotiations | Chapter Six: The Duel | Chapter Five: The Discovery | Chapter Four: The Bargain | Chapter Three: The Bounty | Chapter Two: The Meeting | Chapter One: The Treaty
The Supremacy loomed ahead, as massive and imposing as he thought it would be. But Ben Solo was not afraid, though his hands would soon be bound, a purported prisoner for Rey to present to the Supreme Leader, having reclaimed him from the bounty hunter on Tatooine. 
The Resistance fleet flew behind them, even including Chewbacca and Ben’s father in the Millennium Falcon, returned from yet another adventure. Ben and Rey’s vessel arrived much earlier than the fleet to rendezvous with the Knight of Ren and also to maintain the element of surprise, to prevent the First Order from realizing their trap. 
Rey transmitted her personal clearance code as they approached, and nodded at Ben. Her thumb brushed his hands as she bound them. They did not open themselves in the Force to the other’s presence; not yet. They would try to consciously attempt what they had done unconsciously before. Their minds, hearts, and souls were connected, intertwined, in a way neither of them understood, but from which they were willing to learn. 
Rey donned her cloak and her most impressive scowl before lowering their ship’s ramp. 
She and the Knights held their heads high, though many others were turned to stare or in confusion as they passed through the corridors. 
When they approached the tower and turbolift to Snoke’s chambers, they were stopped by a Praetorian Guard who ordered them to halt while he communicated with the others.
The Knights were not granted permission to enter the throne room. They stood, outside, holding hands, ready to reach for their Master and her husband through the Force to buoy them where they could. 
Ben took a deep breath. Of course, the one time in his life where he actually had a solid plan, it wouldn’t work from the beginning. But he trusted the Force, and he masked his presence in it as best he could.
The throne room was enormous, and hideously red. The Praetorian Guards flanked their master, spread out in a semicircle, impassive behind their equally as hideously red masks. 
“Enter, my young apprentice.” Snoke’s voice boomed, reverberating around the round chamber.
Rey pushed Ben before her, her hand at his back as if to control him rather than support him. Ben tried not to show how her touch affected him; he would be calm and dispassionate, no matter how Snoke goaded them, how he affected them, the Dark Side leaking from him like the fog on Dagobah. 
Ben thought of his uncle, and the time he took him to Dagobah, and forced him to confront a malevolent Dark Side vergence in a cave. Luke had explained that the legendary Jedi Master Yoda had him do the same. 
Ben was terrified. He lashed out in the cave, and felt like a failure. 
He would not fail here. He would not allow himself to believe that Snoke suspected a trap. He checked his chrono; the fleet had not arrived yet. 
He forced himself to breathe deeply as they entered the throne room. 
“Well done, my good and faithful apprentice. Young Solo, welcome.” Snoke released Ben’s hands from the binders from across the chamber.
“Come closer, children. So much strength between you. Darkness rises, and light to meet it. I warned my young apprentice that as she grew stronger, her equal in the light would rise.”
At that, Ben’s lightsaber flew across the room and into Snoke’s hand.  
“I did not expect Leia Organa and the Resistance to be so wise when she decided to pair you with her wayward son, my young apprentice. We will give them the death she desires. After the Rebels are gone we will go to the Republic’s new capital planet and obliterate it.” 
In rage, Ben called out to his ‘saber, but it flew around the chamber and hit him in the head, knocking him down. Rey spared him a sympathetic glance; he seethed knowing how Snoke had abused her and how likely it was that he had done something similar to her. 
“Such passion,” Snoke crooned. “The Resistance will soon all be gone. For you, all is lost. You have the spirit of a true Jedi, and for that, you must die. The Jedi Order will end with you and Skywalker.” 
Ben stood up once more. Nothing had gone according to plan. He tried to control his roiling emotions. 
Rey stood next to him, equally as conflicted. “My master?” she asked, disguising her disgust. 
“My worthy apprentice. Daughter of darkness, heir apparent to Emperor Palpatine. Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training and fulfill your destiny.”
Rey turned and looked at Ben as she took her lightsaber off her belt. 
“I know what I have to do,” she said. 
“You think you can turn her? Pathetic child,” Snoke taunted. “I cannot be betrayed. I cannot be beaten. I see her mind. I see her every intent. Yes,” he said, closing his eyes while Rey raised her ‘saber. 
“I see her turning the lightsaber to strike true.” Snoke did not see Ben’s ‘saber next to him on his throne, also turning. 
 “And now, foolish child, she ignites it, and kills her true enemy!” 
Rey’s saber did not ignite, but Ben’s, sitting on the throne armrest, did, impaling Snoke. 
Rey twitched her fingers, and Ben’s lightsaber floated across the room, responding to Rey’s call as if the most natural, simple thing in the galaxy. 
Snoke’s halved remains collapsed on the throne. 
Snoke was gone, his dark shadow forever erased from the galaxy, but the Praetorian Guards remained, their red armor resistant to lightsaber plasma.
Ben stood, looking at Rey with wonder and awe in his face. They turned, and faced their foes, moving seamlessly. 
The Force flowed through them. They moved, breathed, fought as one. Her hand reached for his thigh, their backs pressed together, a deadly dance unfurling. 
Outside the throne room, battles of another kind had begun. 
The Knights, left to their own devices, chose not to demurely wait and waste time outside the throne room, but instead ran amok about the ship, causing chaos as they went. 
The Resistance fleet had arrived and began their attack. 
Ben spun away from Rey, towards another of the guards. He punched and kicked as he fought, like a brawler, the way his dad and uncles Chewbacca and Lando had taught him. 
Rey snarled as a guard approached her, wielding its weapon like a deadly viper. The guard sliced her right arm, drawing Ben’s attention. He spun to meet three guards at once, their weapons interlocking and refusing to yield. 
Rey swung wildly at the guard who had sliced her arm. Ben grabbed a guard’s weapon and began wielding both, until both stuck to another guard’s spear. He dropped both, and was charged by a final guard. 
There were only two guards remaining; one dueling Rey and the other headlocking Ben. Rey was wrapped in the guard’s arms, but shrieking, dropped her ‘saber to her other hand and slashed the guard about its middle. 
“Ben!” she yelled, seeing him struggling to breathe behind the guard’s arms and weapon. She hurled her ‘saber across the room. 
Ben caught it, ignited it and de-ignited it, and felt the life drain behind him, a black hole in the guard’s mask where the blade had been. 
The room was in flames. Bodies and blood littered the floor. The Supremacy was being rocked by cannonfire and bombardment.
Rey and Ben stood, breathing heavily, at the center of the chaos, of death and destruction, glistening with sweat and tears. 
Rey extended her hand, reaching for Ben, who grasped it. They hurried to regroup with the Knights and flee, never to return again. 
The Resistance leadership could create and deal with a new armistice, a new treaty through which the Republic could be born anew once again. 
But Rey and Ben had each other, and that was all that mattered to them. 
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tressieandmavreth · 6 years
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Get Up (Pt. IV of IV)
[[tl;dr: Tressie and Mav’reth go out for an evening of romance and gladiatorial bloodsport on Nar Shaddaa, and they end up participating a bit more than they had bargained for. *** CW: Language, violence, some sexual themes. *** Written by @tehlaen, who plays Mav’reth; Tressie belongs to @carasilvaart​.]]
Whatever disappointment Mav’reth had felt with the undercard fights notwithstanding, the main attraction surpassed her every expectation. Tressie and Mav found themselves on their feet more than once, howling for blood with all their fellow spectators. To Mav’s critical eye, the fighters were magnificent, matching their foes in primal savagery and feral, animal cunning. Pity at least one wouldn't survive the night.
Kohnir’s blaster bolt could have simply gone wild and ended up blazing toward Aubriena’s throat, but the Zakuulan whirled her saberpike up and around, deflecting it into a Mawrorr’s eye. After that particularly exhilarating exchange, Mav’reth dropped back into her seat and leaned on Tressie’s shoulder, panting breathlessly.
Black imitation-nerfhide, trimmed with red and orange, obstructed her view, and Mav’reth glanced up in irritation. The sandy-haired human, his stocky build equal parts fat and muscle, gave her a dismissive look and sneered at Tressie. “Get up and get out, De’Roachez. You don’t belong here.”
Fury rolled off Tressie in waves, and Mav was torn between mirroring in it… and exulting in it.
Her lover bared her teeth in a snarl. “Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, Zubner, and stick ta dealin’ to sewer-scags. This here’s my turf, ‘n you get one chance to leave upright.”
The Rodian said something in that absurd language of theirs and Zubner scoffed. “Fuckin’ right. You come in here tryin’ ta show off, dressin’ like a Cartel underboss with some pretty piece of ass hangin’ on yer arm. Doll yerself up all ya want, yer still nothin’ but gutter trash.”
Muscles bunched under Mav’s fingers as Tressie started to her feet. Before she could, the Sith gave an exaggerated, loud yawn. When she had the attention of all four, she swung her head to look at Tressie. Large, opal eyes blinked slowly, and in her sharpest, haughtiest Kaas City accent, Mav said, “Tressie, darling… I can’t see.”
“Who zis, De’Roachez? Yer a nobody, but she seems classy. Looks expensive, too,” Zubner said with a lecherous grin. “Gotta be a whore. Can’t imagine somebody like her’d be fuckin’ caught dead with a worthless, wannabe streetpunk like you if she wasn’t gettin’ paid.”
Unbridled rage flushed Tressie’s face the purple of a fresh bruise and her citrine eyes blazed like blasterfire. The human made a big show of ignoring her reaction as he leered at Mav’reth. “Whatcha say, sweet thang? Why don’t ya come with us and we’ll give ya what this pathetic gutter-scag can’t?”
Mav’reth didn’t speak Gamorrese, but the porcine alien’s vulgar, jerking motion at his crotch made his meaning plain. Tressie rocketed to her feet. Her fists balled at her sides and she leaned forward on her toes, her nose scant centimeters from Zubner’s. The human stared at her defiantly, lip curled in a sneer.
It was Mav’s voice that broke the silence of the standoff. “Tressie, my love…” Her lover didn't turn to face her, but Mav knew she had her attention. She stretched languidly, then regarded Zubner and his lackeys under hooded lids. “Rid me of this noisome pest, would you, darling?”
Tressie’s chin jerked in a sharp nod. Her eyes blazed as she growled, “Disrespect me here, on my turf, that’s just plain stupid. Disrespect my Lady ‘n I’m gonna slow-roast you til yer skin starts boilin’ off the bone, so ya can watch as my akk dogs start eatin’ ya alive. You got one chance, ‘n only one chance, ta apologize to the Lady for bein’ a brainless, no-manners shitwad ‘n disappear, if ya wanna make it outta here alive.”
The human laughed, then hocked and spat. The gob of saliva hit the floor, barely missing Mav’s feet, but the impact speckled her skin with spit through the open toes of her slippers. Mav’s eyes flashed and her fingers curled, nearly overwhelmed by her desire to rip his jawbone free from his skull and use it to gouge out his eyes. She restrained herself; this was Tressie’s fight, on Tressie’s turf, and stealing her kill would make her weak in the eyes of all who were watching, and all the people they’d tell.
Before either of them could make a move to draw, the announcer came over the speakers. “Just a reminder, sentients and gentlebeings: the only gunplay that goes on here is in the arena! Violators will be disintegrated, and maybe their friends, too, for good measure.”
“Works fer me,” Tressie snarled. “You ‘n me. No blasters, no blades, just fists. ‘N tell yer friends ta stay out of it or once I finish with you, They’re next.”
“Ha! Like I need backup to deal with you.”
Tressie began to shrug out of her shoulder holster and unbuckled the gunbelt as Zubner did the same. She turned to Mav’reth to hand her the bundle of weaponry, and the Sith grabbed her chin in strong fingers. Her pale eyes held Tressie’s gaze and she pitched her voice low. “I won’t waste my breath telling you I love you; you should know that by now. What I will say…” Her fingers tightened and pulled Tressie into a deep kiss that was almost savage in its intensity. “Win.”
“You done yet?” Zubner jeered. “Good idea, get one last kiss from ‘er, ‘cause she ain’t gonna be doin’ much kissin’ once I get done with her.”
Mav’reth’s eyes narrowed and her lip curled in a snarl. Tressie mirrored the expression and gave her a sharp nod.
Mav’s snarl shifted into a predatory grin as Tressie’s muscles tensed. She sat back in her seat, sipping at the dark Rishi rum in Tressie’s glass. Not usually her preferred poison, but it felt like it fit the scene.
In one smooth motion, Tressie dropped into a crouch with her legs coiled under her, spun, and exploded out of her crouch like a pouncing vorntiger. The sudden ferocity took Zubner by surprise, and he backpedaled unsteadily, a flurry of sharp jabs at his ribs and short, sharp hooks keeping him on his heels. Mav noted approvingly that Tressie was carefully choosing her shots; without even minimal padding or wrapping, striking the jaw or other bones could easily break her knuckles.
A sharp jab flattened Zubner’s mushroom nose. His eyes opened wide in shock and he shook his head, spraying flecks of blood all around. His shoulders drew in and he set his feet, fists up in a cautious guard.
WHatever his shortcomings, Zubner was not stupid--at least not in matters of violence. He waited for Tressie to spend her momentum, and at a short pause in the flurry of punches, he short a haymaker left at her ribs.
Tressie’s eyes shot open and she twisted, the bone-shattering strike grazing her side instead of cracking her sternum. She danced back out of rang and regarded Zubner warily.
Mav’reth’s opal eyes flicked between the two and she could see in the set of Tressie’s eyes that the two were making the same assessments. Zubner was a brawler, slow and plodding, but it’d be stupid and potentially fatal to forget that the flab covered muscles like durasteel cable. THe punches he threw at her head and torso had roughly the same kinetic energy behind them as a rogue comet, fully capable of knocking Tressie’s teeth down her throat.
Tressie, by contrast, was nimble and wiry, constantly moving so as not to give Zubner an easy target. She couldn't match Zubner for brute strength and weight, but she had the advantage in speed, reach and flexibility. She compensated by striking hard and fast at spots she’d already hit, forcing Zubner to fight defensively to protect his injuries.
The two settled into an equilibrium that, far too quickly for Mav’reth’s liking, stagnated and turned to stalemate. Tressie ducked in, fired off a few well-aimed shots, and ducked back out of reach before one of Zubner’s killer retaliations could connect.
Everyone present could tell how the fight would go. For Tressie it was a battle of attrition, hammering the same sore spots ‘til the pain made the human drop his guard. Zubner, conversely, only needed to land one solid shot to the torso or head to put Tressie down. The Pureblood was younger, fitter, and faster, and if she paced herself and didn’t fall for idiot feints, she’d wear Zubner down.
And thus the stalemate. Both fought cagily, playing it safe. Mav’reth frowned severely; warfare--not to mention a youth at the Korriban Academy--had carved into her psyche and her hide the lesson that stalemate is broken by doing something unexpected. And in her experience, victory went to the bold and the unpredictable.
Gnawing dread and roiling anger vied for supremacy in the Sith’s mind as Zubner acted to break the impasse. With an agility Mav wouldn’t have thought him capable of, Zubner feinted and, when Tresise moved to block, opened his fist and wrapped sausage fingers in a vise grip around her forearm, planted his foot, and twisted his bulky form, giving Tressie’s arm a savage yank. He wrenched her arm and wrung a cry of pain from her throat. Tressie stumbled toward him and into his waiting arms. Zubner’s arm wrapped around her torso, crushing her wiry frame against him and pinning her arm to her side.
The arm around her ribs tightened, constricting her breath. She twisted and wriggled, feet kicking ineffectually against his shins. Her free arm--her dominant left, by some miracle--flailed, trying to both fend off the punches from Zubner’s free hand and strike at him. Her fingers clawed, scratching his eyes, and he jerked his head from side to side to keep her thumb out of his eye socket.
The saving grace--and one that probably saved Tressie’s life--was that, this close in, Zubner couldn’t put his full strength behind the punches he rained on Tressie. Instead he hammered at the side of her head, he flattened her nose, and he pounded at her cheek and lips.
Mav watched ing rowing horror as blood poured from Tressie’s shredded lips and her broken nose. BLood dripped from one ear and her left eye was rapidly swelling shut.
I. Am. Sith. She scourged herself inwardly. Fear is for the weak and the doomed.
Mav’reth channeled her fear into burning, seething rage. Anger at Zubner for his impudence and disrespect and for daring to strike at Tressie. Anger at Tressie for her stupidity in assuming her foe would adhere to her idiot rules of fair play, and for not going straight for the kill, and for hobbling Mav’reth with foolish notions about respect and keeping up appearances and not getting involved. At herself for knowing that Tressie was right and wanting to get involved regardless.
An expression of murderous and almost childlike glee shone on Zubner’s face. Mav’reth struggled to keep her fury at heel and not indulge her desire to carve the look off the human’s face with a shard of glass. Tressie’s knee came up sharply, and while Mav’reth would have preferred to see Zubner collapse screaming and clutching his crushed testicles, the glancing blow was enough to loosen his death-grip.
Tressie wriggled free--and her knees gave out from under her. Mav’s momentary elation withered as quickly as it had blossomed. Tressie fell onto her back, and although she curled her neck forward, the back of her head still slammed against the permacrete. The blood oozing from her torn scalp gleamed oily black in the darkness.
Dazed, Tressie’s head tipped back, staring upside down through Mav’reth’s face. Grey gnawed at the edges of her vision, and her eyes didn’t want to point in the same direction. Until… Her sight tunneled and focused on Mav’reth’s face. The Sith’s elegant features contorted in a mask of  primal, unbridled fury. Mav’reth’s opal eyes held Tressie’s gaze, as irresistible as being drawn past the event horizon. They blazed and went supernova. Mav’reth’s lips might have moved;  Tressie couldn’t be sure, because she couldn’t look away from that stare. Later, she’d lie awake, wondering if she heard Mav’reth’s voice in her head because of some Sith bullshit, or because she’d so strongly internalized her lover’s expectations and mindset.
“GET. UP.”
Mav’reth and Tressie’s eyes remained locked for  heartbeat that lasted a lifetime. NEither broke eye contact to look at Zubner, standing over Tressie with his foot raised to crush her kneecap.
Tressie tucked her arms inward and rolled into Zubner’s ankle. The human--already unsteady on one foot--windmilled his arms to get his balance. Tressie gathered her limbs under her, then exploded out of her crouch. SHe slammed into Zubner, throwing the teetering human wholly off balance. His arms flailed wildly and Tressie jumped on him, knocking him from his feet.
She kept her grip on him, following him to the ground. The arc of Zubner’s skull as he fell intersected with the alusteel frame of Mav’reth’s chair, and Mav felt as much as heard the sharp KRAKK of parting bone as the side of his head met the metal.
Stunned, the human’s eyes jerked wildly and his hands flailed ineffectually to ward off Tressie. Slender, bloody fingers tangled in dirty hair and she slammed his head again and again against the permacrete. He thrashed weakly but couldn’t break her grip, and she held him by the hair as she rained blows on his cheek, ear and throat.
After a short time--that was likely interminable for the poor Zubner--his weak flailing slowed. He shuddered violently once and went still. It took Tressie a few moments to realize he was no longer moving.
The too-brief stillness was broken when the late--or soon-to-be late--Zubner’s Gamorrean lackey squealed in anger and alarm. Thick fingers groped for the blaster at his hip.
A primal scream tore from Mav’reth’s throat, equal parts fury and exultation, finally free to unleash her rage. Her fingers tightened, shattering the glass in her hand. She surge dto her feet, utterly unmindful of the broken glass shredding her palm. Bloody fingers clutched at the largest shard as she lunged for the Gamorrean. Her other hand clamped around the porcine alien’s throat, his windpipe creaking and cracking under her grip. Fury flooded her limbs and she lifted the Gamorrean off the ground by the neck. Stubby legs kicked and thrashed and Mav allowed herself a brief instant to revel in his terror.
Her bloody hand crossed her body and buried the glass shard in the Gamorrean’s side above his hip. She stared into his wide, terrified eyes and drew the improvised knife across his belly. The glass, with Mav’reth’s raw physical strength behind it, ripped through the cheap jacket and thick hide and opened a ragged, gaping tear from one hip to the other.
Three strides took Mav’reth and the screaming Gamorrean to the short rail of the terrace and the forcefield separating the audience from the arena. It was meant to repel bottles and other detritus thrown from the stands, and to dissipate stray blasterbolts. It was not, however, spec’d to resist a 150kg Gamorrean, propelled by the unchained wrath of a Lord of the Sith. A four-meter section of the field sputtered, flickered, and shorted out. Muscles bunched in Mav’reth’s arm and she hurled the squealing alien through the gap and into the arena. He hit the sand twenty meters below with a sickening thud and the wet crack of snapping bones. Not the neck, Mav’reth mused as the squealing continued unabated. He was, therefore, still alive as the pack of sauroid tonitrans--sensing much less dangerous prey--fell on him and began to devour him.
Mav’reth spun to stare at the Rodian, her bloodlust still raging. The bug-eyed alien’s compound eyes were hard to read, but he jerked back and forth between looking at the possibly-living Zubner and the avatar of death clad in a backless, shimmersilk evening gown.
The Sith kept eye contact--as much as she could with a compound-eyed alien--as she moved to remove his dilemma. Bloody fingers wrapped around the unmoving Zubner’s ankle and dragged him to the terrace railing. She stooped and grabbed him by the collar and belt, then hoisted him effortlessly and flung him to join what was left of his friend.
The Rodian fled. Mav’reth--with blood seeping from the wound still embedded with broken glass--stared at the alien’s retreating back. She was giving serious consideration to chasing him down, to burying serrated fangs in the back of his neck, to feeling the delectable KRONCH of vertebrae between her jaws…
She was drawn from her reverie by Tressie’s panting and groaning. Her lover sat slumped back against her chair, too exhausted to lift herself up into it. Mav’reth turned back to her and gave her a beaming, loving smile. “May I, darling?” she asked and offered Tressie her hands to help her up.
Tressie grunted inarticulately and Mav’reth pulled her easily to her feet. “Shall we stay for the remainder of the show, Tressie, dearest? Or shall we see to your concussion, broken fingers and knuckles, popped eardrum, torn lips, and hairline skull fractures?”
Tressie gave Mav’reth a wary, sidelong look from her good eye as she listed off her injuries matter-of-factly. A disapproving frown tugged painfully at her shredded lip and she hissed to herself. “Love, ya know I don’t like it when ya use that Force bantha-shit on me, even if it’s jus’ ta see how bad I’m hurt.”
Mav’reth snorted and surreptitiously wiped blood from her hand on her dress--where Tressie couldn’t see. “I didn’t, darling. You might not have noticed,” she quipped dryly, “but I’m something of a connoisseur of bloodshed and bodily harm. The injuries of a fistfight are rather… uncomplicated.”
Tressie shrugged and winced as the gesture shifted her wrenched shoulder. “If ya won’t be disappointed, I think I’d rather get some kolton ‘n somethin’ ta take the edge off.”
“Mmm. I didn’t get the fight I expected, my love, but I’m not at all disappointed. In point of fact, Mav’reth said, lips curled in a predatory grin, “I believe I prefer the show I got to the one I came for. Besides… For what I’ve got in mind for you, I need you in fighting trim.”
Tressie leaned heavily on Mav’reth as the Sith led her lover to the exit, her arm over Mav’s shoulder and Mav’s arm supporting her around her waist. “Mav… Ya know I love showin’ off fer ya, but…” She hissed in pain. “I don’t think I’mma be up for another brawl like that again real soon.”
Mav’reth stopped and turned with her arm still around Tressie’s waist. Her other hand caressed Tressie’s cheek tenderly and she leaned in to kiss the point of her chin, between her jawspurs. Her eyes smoldered and the growl in her voice sent shivers up Tressie’s spine.
“Not what I had in mind, my love.”
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I like your Star Wars stories and tiny details in films, so... Snoke’s red guard : who are they ? Where do they come from ? What’s their story ? Do you have an idea about that ?
they’re probably an elite class of warriors cultivated by Snoke himself but tbh I think I prefer to think of them as a bunch of hired muscle, scraped up from various low-class parts of the galaxy and pressed into service.
they have no feelings about the First Order v. Republic fight, except they appreciate getting paid. They think Snoke is odd, with all the gold lamé and portentous speeches and requiring they dress up in matte red armor, but he’s certainly not the weirdest boss they’ve ever had. (Cergtin “Smokes” Djevik worked for a Hutt crime lord, once upon a time. And he’ll tell you: Hutts are fucking weird. That’s not being speciest, that’s just facts.) Good pay and benefits will excuse a lot of eccentricity though, and the threat of being choked or tortured with the Force makes for an effective deterrent. Standing around looking forbidding on the off-chance they might have to draw a weapon isn’t the worst job any of them have had.
They compare them, sometimes; their worst jobs. They decided Shyun “Knives” from Corellia had the worst, an awful combo of riot control for almost no pay. That’s what you get, for dealing with legitimate governments, Esson trilled cheerfully, dodging the blade aimed at his gills. 
Knives has grey in her hair now, and swears she thanks Snoke every day for funding her retirement. (Well—then. Did thank. Would have. Past tense.)
There is—was an odd sort of camaraderie to it. None of them were as sophisticated as the roles they were expected to play, with the armor and the titles and the enforced stoicism. But that’s what you get, conscripting brawlers and criminals into your service. The brotherhood of less-than-honorable soldiers, thrust into an Imperial-like military. Their loyalty was bought and sold, not held; they weren’t native to the asceticism or the black-and-grey, the plainness. As a way of….well, they would get together, sometimes, for games of sabacc and drinking and mocking the First Order officers with their stiff spines and immaculate uniforms. 
Once, that ginger upstart, Hugs or Hux or whatever his name was, had tried to interrupt them. They’d pelted him with sabacc chips and beer bottles until he’d ducked from the room under their assault, shouting. And they’d laughed, the eight or twelve of them—whoever had been able to come that evening, out of the full rotation of Snoke’s praetorian guard. There were eighteen of them, all told; some human and some humanoid and they’d shared armor, weapons. Everything smelled of some other sentient.
Praetorian,  Aleack had scoffed, laying out his straight flush. What the fuck is a praetorian?
Kriff if I don’t know, Sover said cheerfully, tossing in a handful of chips. Anyway, I call.
Snoke didn’t care what they did otherwise, so long as they showed up on time for shift change. So they keep company with one another on the Supremacy, sometimes through idle conversation in the halls and sometimes through sharing a bed.They have a room they refer to as theirs in the general sense, mostly bare and ugly, scattered with loose pieces of armor and the occasional datapad; others’ weapons left out under threat of punishment for touching them. The only decoration is darts board. It has a crude drawing of Snoke’s face, though sometimes it’s replaced by Hug’s, or Ren’s, or whoever is annoying them at that moment. (Sometimes it’s a stranger’s. They’re not impolite enough to ask, if they don’t recognize it; every sentient is entitled to secret grudges.)
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karadin · 7 years
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How the Irish, a reviled immigrant community, became white in America
In the popular press, the Irish were depicted as subhuman. They were carriers of disease. They were drawn as lazy, clannish, unclean, drunken brawlers who wallowed in crime and bred like rats. Most disturbingly, the Irish were Roman Catholics coming to an overwhelmingly Protestant nation and their devotion to the pope made their allegiance to the United States suspect.
In 1840, at the beginning of the great wave of Irish immigration, there was only a handful of Irish police officers on the force. ... By the end of the year, Irish made up more than one-quarter of the New York City police, and by the end of the century, more than half the city’s police and more than 75 percent of its firefighters were Irish Americans. In addition, Irish were disproportionately represented among prosecutors, judges and prison guards. Soon, the Irish cop was a stock figure in American culture. Once known as apelike barbarians, the Irish were now able to show themselves as the most selfless and patriotic civil servants. 
 But there is a simpler, less complex explanation for how this country eventually came to view the Irish as regular, good, American white people:
They just did it.
“Whiteness” isn’t real. Ultimately, race is a social construct, and “white” is just some dumb shit that people made up a long time ago to build a fence around their idea of self-supremacy. The Irish didn’t suddenly calm down, put down the Guinness, put their noses to the grindstone and work their way into an exclusive club. They had the same historical trajectory in America as the Polish, Italians and Jewish people. Their melanin-less skin just afforded them an opportunity to blend in that black people will never get.
The “great white race” is as real as a mermaid riding a unicorn on the back of a dragon while listening to dope lyrics from Lil Uzi, and that’s why white supremacy is so stupid. People who perpetuate that bullshit should be paid the same attention as alt-right advocates, Hoteps, flat-earthers and anyone who owns an Iggy Azalea album.
if you start thinking about how poorly we treat immigrants and how we live in a new era of intolerance and hate, just remember how the Irish became white. Because just like St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, whiteness and racism itself—it’s an American tradition that has existed for a long time.
Michael Harriot
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