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maevemarethyu · 3 years

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The Pack (1/?)

(Not my GIF)

(Bucky Barnes x Reader)

The Night Wolves. New York’s most prolific and secretive gang. Always watching yet somehow always out of reach. Always slipping through the Avengers grasp.

Until they got you.

You were a street rat. A grunt working for the most gruesome group of criminals New York had ever seen.

Captain America wasn’t expecting much when they brought you in, he certainly wasn’t expecting you and his best friend to get along so well. You were a courier, nothing more.

Or so they thought.

Warnings: Violence, Cursing, Talks of Murder, Actual Murder, Talks of Abuse, Kidnapping, Depictions of Abuse, Crude Humor, Sexual Humor, Bucky Barnes (because he needs a warning all in himself), Sad Boi Hours.

The fact that all you could do was pretend to work while Flora and Maeve handled the complete uprooting of your business pissed you off to no end.

Every day for the past four days, you woke up, went for a morning run, went to Mr. Miller’s shop (Surprise, Mr. Miller doesn’t exist), meandered there until closing time, walked home, ate dinner, and went back to sleep.

All while the Avengers thought they were invisibly following you. Day one had been Barnes. Day two was Wilson. Day three was Rogers. Today is was the Scarlet Witch; Wanda Maximoff. You’d think that they would have better disguises than a baseball cap and blue zip-up but, it would appear that was their I’m just a civilian look.

You couldn’t even go to your house. Instead you were forced to stay in the dummy apartment you’d set up when you first got the Wolves up and running. It came in handy, obviously, but it still sucked.

The sat phone goes off in the freezer and you rush to answer it.

“Please, for the love of Bucky Barnes’ thighs, tell me you found me a way out of this hell.” You whine and Maeve laughs on the other end.

“Is that what your praying to now? The Winter Soldier’s thighs?”

“Focus Maeve.”

“I’m not the one praying to a pair of limbs.” She teases before taking on a more serious tone. “We have the new location set up but, it’s going to take time to get everyone transferred.”

“I figured. Please tell me you got us set up in the Maldives. I’d love you forever if you did.”

“Ha Ha. You know I burn easily and, for that, you all must suffer. As for the escape. Flora had an idea.”

You groan at the thought. Flora was smart as a whip and was a tactical genius but, her ideas were taxing to say the least.

“She thought it’d be easier for us to avoid those pesky Avengers if we had eyes on the inside. Ya know, just someone to find out how much they really found out about us and, since you’re already such good friends with them, we figured you’d be the perfect candidate.”

“You do realize I’m the one in charge right? You guys want me to infiltrate the Avengers.” You ask with annoyance. Not because wouldn’t work but, because it would. You already had rapport with the Captain.

“Fine.” You pout. “Use the Mr. Miller cell to call mine and ask me to pick up something in Hell’s Kitchen. I’ll wait until its dark and purposefully go into a dangerous area because I care. I’m willing to make this sacrifice.”

You hear a snort on the other line and roll your eyes.

“Is Paul good? Looks like setting up a fake family tree wasn’t a complete waste of time after all.” You ask and faintly hear Flora yell I told you so in the background.

“He’s fine. The Avengers have him holed up in some five-star cabin up in Maine. The lucky bastard.”

Lucky bastard indeed.

“I hope you’re ready for this Alpha. Your life is about to get a lot more complicated.”

You’d been wandering around Hell’s Kitchen pretending to be lost for almost twenty minutes now. Honestly, who did you have to suck off to get mugged around here? Your feet were starting to ache and there was a knot in your back thanks to the lumpy mattress back at the apartment.

A knife against your back puts you on high alert and you have to hold back a grin because, about damn time.

“Give me your wallet.” The man whispers in your ear and your nose scrunches at the scent of cigarettes and cheap booze.

Tears spring to your eyes and you hold up two shaking hands.

“Please don’t hurt me. I-I’m lost and I just want to go home.” You cry. This wasn’t exactly what your mother had in mind when she made you sign up for drama club in school but, hey, at least you were using your skills.

“Your wallet. Now.” The knife presses deeper into your back and, before you can let out a perfectly believable whimper, pressure is gone. You turn to face your attacker only to see he help in the air by the back of his shirt by none other than Bucky Barnes himself. There was no shy smile on his face tonight, only a fierce scowl as he throws the mugger into a wall and you can’t help but think how good it looks on him.

Thick Thighs and Bucky’s Eyes was about to become your new life motto if he wasn’t careful.

“Are you okay?” He turns to you, eyes canvasing you for any injuries. Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll in the blink of an eye.

“I-I’m okay. Geez I’m so stupid. Mr. Miller said he needed me to pick something up from Lucky’s Pawn Shop and I got all turned a-around. D-Do you think he works for the Wolves.” You whisper the taboo name and add a shiver for good measure.

His eyes dart to the man lying in a crumpled heap and back to you with a frown.

“I don’t think so but, I’d feel better if you took Steve’s offer of staying at the compound. You’re a target now.” He sighs and it’s so nice you’re not sure if you want to jump him or puke.

“I-I think you’re right.” You mutter, looking at the man then back into Bucky’s blue cotton candy eyes; sweet enough to make your teeth rot. “Thank you Sarge. Who know what would have happened if you weren’t around? What were you doing in Hell’s Kitchen so late?”

His eyes dart away from yours as he leads you to his car.

Busted.

“Steve may or may not have had us keep eyes on you for your own protection.”

Sure. Your protection.

Instead of a scoff, you blink up him with owlish eyes. “You mean you’ve been watching over me since I left the tower?”

You don’t think anything you do will ever top the fact that you just made Bucky Barnes blush.

“Not just me. We each took a day to keep tabs on ya.” He mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. He escorts you to an inconspicuous car and opens your door.

What were guys like Bucky called on the internet again?

Right. A Himbo.

Incredibly well intentioned and polite but, not the most observant… Maybe you were being cruel but so was he by just looking that fine all the time.

“Thank you.” Your whisper sounds like a shout in the silent car and, once again, you can see red creeping onto his cheeks whenever a streetlight illuminates the vehicle.

Phase one complete.

“Steve had a room set up for you. Are you hungry?”

The living quarters of the compound were not what you were expecting. It was… homier. High class definitely but, not cold. Every Avenger had their own room but, their kitchen was shared, and the common room was jam packed with bookcases and entertainment systems.

You were in heaven and no longer jealous of your fake father Paul.

“I’m okay, thank you.” You mumble, adding a bit of shyness to your voice to really sell it. “I just want to lie down.”

With you preferably but, we’ll get to that another time.

“Oh, right. This way.”

Bucky leads you down a hall lined with doors; stopping at the one at the very end of the hall and motioning you to go in.

“Holy shit.” You gasp and it’s real because your room is phenomenal. The bed looks big enough to fit an elephant and soft enough to drown in and you couldn’t wait to collapse into it. Floor to ceiling windows give you a view of the city you could never get from your real house. Simply beautiful.

“If you need anything, my room is down to the right and Wanda’s is down to the left. She left for a mission earlier but, is excited to meet you when she gets back.”

You’d heard stories about the Scarlet Witch and her telepathic powers so, you knew to be careful around her. You had enough secrets to drive anyone mad and put you behind bars for several lifetimes.

“The Wanda Maximoff can’t wait to meet me?” You gasp, finally relenting and flopping onto the bed like an ungraceful starfish. “This could very well be the best day of my life. You know, aside from the almost getting mugged part.”

You turn your head towards him just in time to see a chuckle pass through his seashell pink lips. A very good day indeed.

It was a good tactic but, you saw straight through it. The Avengers were still wary of you and believed putting you in proximity of the two members that you were most likely to trust would cause you to slip up; unintentionally let your guard down so they could read you like a book.

You wanted to say something about them thinking you’d be that naïve but, that would only diminish the reputation you had begun to build: a sassy yet timid and troubled girl who had gotten herself mixed in with the wrong crowd. You garnered sympathy and sympathy led to loose lips.

You honestly deserved an Oscar for this shit; Flora definitely owed you a dinner and, once everything got back to normal, you’d wring those street rat’s necks for not doing their job.

“You’ll be safe here. No one’s breaking in to steal your purse.” He reassures and it melts your heart a bit; he really is a nice guy. A really nice guy with a really nice face and a really nice ass.

“Thank you Sarge.” You sigh sincerely. You may be on opposite sides of the law but, you admired him and the other Avengers for what they do. They protect people from people like you. They’ve seen the worst the universe has to offer and none of them turned away. If you were in Barnes position, the next time someone told you the world was ending, you would have told them to put you back in the freezer.

“If you need anything, just ask the AI; her name is FRIDAY. Goodnight Valerie.” He shuts the door with care, leaving you with nothing but your thoughts and a bugged cellphone. This was already going much more smoothly than you had anticipated and you didn’t know whether to be grateful or suspicious. You were leaning towards the latter.

You were being paranoid but, who wouldn’t be in your situation?

You sit up on the bed and observe your new home for the foreseeable future. Would the holier than thou Avengers bug an innocent woman’s room? You liked to think they wouldn’t but, you could never be too sure.

You make a mental note to see if you’d be able to pick up some of your clothes from the apartment as you walk into the bathroom and strip off your jeans that smell more like the streets of New York than the citrus scent you washed them with.

Funnily enough, Stark had the same shower as you did at your real home so, you have to pretend to figure out the various knobs just in case. After fiddling for a good five minutes, you set it to just how you like it and hop in with the plan to wash the stress of the past few days down the drain. By now Flora and Maeve should have moved the tier of enforcers to the new location along with a good chunk of your liquid assets to a new offshore account.

A month at the minimum. That’s how long Flora told you this would take and you knew better than to complain about it. This was a very stressful situation for all of you; for everyone involved.

Once you feel thoroughly cleansed, you step out of the shower and wrap yourself in a fluffy towel and exit the bathroom.

A plate on your nightstand catches your attention and the hairs on the back of your neck raise as the smell of delicious lasagna reaches your nose. The note next to the plate says it’s from Sam Wilson and, if you were a normal woman, you’d probably think his effort was thoughtful.

“FRIDAY?” You announce curiously.

“Yes Miss Mason?” She answers and you roll your shoulders. You’d have to get used to having a Stark AI instead of your trusty MARVI.

“Please don’t let anyone into my room when I’m unable to answer the door.”

Tags: @cherryblossomskye @hollarious

#bucky #Bucky Barnes #bucky fanfic #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #marvel

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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 4 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Danny Fenton & Wesley Weston Characters: Danny Fenton, Wesley Weston, Jazz Fenton, Maddie Fenton Additional Tags: Walker is mentioned repeatedly, Phantom Family AU, Revelations, being a lil shit is genetic apparently, Danny swears in stars and constellations and space stuff, Wes swears with cuss words Summary: Prompt from Tumblr: I wish you would write a fic about Danny being a little shit to Vlad by revealing him to Wes. Wes comes over and nearly gets Danny’s half life ended, which leads to further family revelations that leave Danny’s head spinning.

Danny Fenton was having a weird and not particularly pleasant week. His Dad had finally encountered the Box Ghost, who took one look at him and glitched out like a Bethesda character before apparently regaining his memories. Apparently, the Box Ghost was Jason Fenton, older brother of Jack Fenton. The Box Ghost was Danny’s Uncle. That was weird as fuck to discover, especially when he implied that Box Lunch would be a person he’d have to deal with soonish. He was going to have a cousin. His already living cousin, Wes, had decided later that week to ruin Danny’s life by asking him right in front of Jazz and Mom if he still had that giant green dog thing he’d crashed a game with. Danny dragged him up to the third floor of Fentonworks, shoved him into his room, and learned very quickly that Wes had figured out that he was Phantom the moment he focused on him. “Orion, man, you can’t just imply I’m a ghost in front of Mom or Dad!” “Why not?” Wes stared at him like he’d grown a second head - he hadn’t, he knew the sensation - and Danny took a moment to redirect the energy surging to his eyes over his skin and outward. It blanketed the room in a wave and left what Tucker had described as the feeling of touching an old tv and feeling static on your fingers all over the place. Wes rubbed his arm and raised a brow at him. “Wes, tell me what Jack Fenton is going to think if you tell him ‘hey that ghost kid you shoot at all the time is your kid’? Actually, no, how the fuck did you even figure it out?” “You look like you put on your suit and then someone turned on the color inversion filter on their camera. Blue skin, white hair, black and white suit.” Wes paused and poked Danny’s cheek, looking him in the eye. “Your eyes should be orange instead of green though if that were the whole case. How’d this happen? Last time I talked to you, you n Tucker were talking about building a motorcycle that could fly.” “The hoverbike has sorta been put on hold, I’ll admit,” Danny grumbled, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He pulled his hands away from his face and Wes was still there, tall and stupid and overly observant. “If I tell you what happened, do you promise not to out me to my parents?” “I-should I treat this like you’re in the closet?” Wes snorted at the idea. “Closeted dead guy. Alright, I can get that. But uh, if you’re dead, why are you still…” he wiggled his hand and then gestured at Danny’s room. “In a house with ghost hunters?” “Well, to start with, I’m not actually dead. Not entirely, anyway.” Danny sat down on his bed and Wes followed, and after taking a moment to triple check that Vlad’s bugs weren’t in his room with another wave of energy, Danny told Wes the story of the Accident. It was a short story, but he was slow about it. He’d never really discussed it with anyone, Sam and Tucker just sort of knew better than to bring it up and Jazz probably thought he’d tell her himself in his own time. By the time he finished, Wes looked almost as uncomfortable with the situation as Danny felt. “You know, not to sound like a cheesy 90’s cartoon character but this is why you shouldn’t give in to peer pressure.” Danny snorted and laughed at that, and Wes grinned even when Danny elbowed him. “Ok, so I’m putting together that you did a bunch of dumb shit and found yourself decided to be a superhero. What the fuck was up with the dog, or the mayor getting kidnapped? Your eyes were fuckin red when you stole a bunch of shit that one time too.” “Ok in order of what all happened: Axiom labs euthanized their guard dogs and one of them came looking for his squeaky toy but forgot where it was and no matter how many times I shoved Cujo back into the portal-” “ Cujo ?” Wes snorted and ruffled Danny’s hair. “Have you been reading the stuff Sam gives you or did your emo phase just never really end? You have the emo bangs.” “I do not!” Danny huffed, running a hand through his curly hair that, well, Wes couldn’t really ruin a mess, could he? “You’re the one with actual bangs, sasquatch hunter.” “Acknowledging that Big Foot is real doesn’t mean I’m gonna go and shoot it.” Wes crossed his arms and rested them on Danny’s head. “By the way, any idea when that growth spurt is due?” “Bold words for someone with his shins within targeting range.” “I can and will put you in a headlock Astroboy.” “I can slam dunk you through a hoop like your precious balls.” Wes said nothing to this and simply leaned more onto Danny’s head. “If I snap my neck because of you I’m suing. Anyway no matter how often I yeeted Cujo back into the Ghost Zone-” “I beg of you to call it something cooler. Call it the afterlife even, just. Please.” “He just kept digging his way out. So, I looked at his tag, saw that he came from Axiom, and we ended up in there, while getting shot at by the Red Huntress-” “Valerie, right?” “H-” “She appeared as the Huntress literally the same time the dog shit was happening, and I am getting increasingly worried that no one has noticed that she sounds the same in her Red Huntress suit as she does in the Nasty Burger mascot suit.” Wes dropped his arms to Danny’s shoulder, but still rested his chin in his hair, humming loudly. Danny slid into that spot between and snorted when Wes fell onto the bed. “I can’t tell you how pissed she was that I outed her to her dad about being the Huntress so that she wouldn’t get herself killed fighting Pariah Dark. Pretty sure if you tell her or anyone else about that, she’ll shoot you.” “I mean, it’d probably get her swarmed by so much hostility she stops shooting at you, so that’d be a plus. I’d just come back and bug you anyway.” “You’re a jerk, but I guess you’re alright.” Danny flopped back. “The mayor thing was a ghost, this douche bag prison warden named Walker in the GZ who decided that since I broke out of his prison I owe him over a thousand years and he’d make my home a prison instead.” Wes stared at him, clasped his hands flat against each other, and took a deep breath. “There are so many things wrong in that sentence. Why were you in ghost prison?” “I did ghost crimes.” Wes looked and sounded like he was in some deal of pain, and Danny couldn’t help but grin. “Dad’s anniversary present for Mom fell through the portal while I was cleaning up by shooting things into their proper place,” he covered Wes’ mouth as he opened it, “and so I flew in after it, but it was a ‘real world item’ as though the Ghost Zone is fake somehow, and that was ‘Against The Rules’ according to Walker.” Danny rolled his eyes. “I got the present out and back to Dad but I had to like, get to him at your mom’s place.” “Did you fly all the way from Minnesota to Arkansas for a present?” “Arcturus, no, not with my powers.” Danny laughed, laying back on his bed. “That’d take me like, 8 hours at top speed. No, I used the Speeder.” “Have you modified it to get into space?” “Not yet.” “Do you have permission to mod it for space travel?” “Do I have permission to be dead?” “Touche.” “Anyway, Walker is stronger than me, even when possessing a human, so when all eyes and cameras were on me he possessed the mayor and dragged me back inside to make it look like I was dragging him in. Whole invasion was his idea.” “Danny?” “And then with the robberies when my eyes were red, did you know about Circus Gothica? Cause me and some other ghosts were under the control of the ring master of the circus, Freakshow, who had this freakin crystal ball thing that could control ghosts attached to his staff. It shattered after a very long fall, thank Astrea.” “That’s really fucked up. You’ve had a fucked up life.” “Yeah.” Danny shrugged. “I guess I have.” “Know what’s more fucked up about this?” Wes had a too big grin on his face and Danny narrowed his eyes. “Do you remember my mom’s last name?” “Wal..ker… no. ” The two of them were thundering down the stairs in seconds, Danny half shouting in the livingroom. “ Mom was your dad, by chance, a law enforcement officer, or jail warden or something?” Mom looked up at him from the staff she was tinkering with on the table - note to self, sterilize the table before dinner - and blinked at him a couple of times before smiling and nodding. “Why yes, he did. Warden James Lamont Walker ran the Spittoon prison when he was alive. He was a good man, if a bit strict. To my and Alicia’s fury and grief he was murdered during a prison break.” Mom stared off in the distance, the air around her curling with a dark cold that Danny was sure only he could see. Then she softened up a bit and smiled softly at them. “Why?” “No reason, auntie, I was just curious about something and Danny thought we should ask you.” Wes played with the hem of his shirt while maintaining eye contact and Danny wondered if he had a tell for awkwardness like that. Then he realized he was rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you have any pictures of him?” “Oh, yes! They’re in the shed! My boxes are actually labelled.” “Uh oh, careful, Dad might hear of organization and come to tear it up,” Danny said with a laugh, half dragging Wes out the back door. When they were out of his mom’s considerable ear shot, Danny said softly, but with feeling, “Fuck.” “Got locked up by grandpa, huh? That’s like, the worst way to get grounded ever .” Wes snickered and watched Danny run-walk up to the shed, hand glowing so softly you could only see it by staring directly at it as he turned the knob. “There are odds, slim ones, that this is a whole different Walker. It might even be his first name.” “Who the hell names their kid Walker?” “Walter, Wayne and Wesley Weston.” “Alright then.” For a few minutes the two of them searched through the mess known as the Fenton Family Shed for a box with a label neither had thought to ask for. Eventually, they found one labeled Scrapbooks and carefully eased it out of the mess of it all. “Y’knonw, Danny,” Wes said as they opened the box and started flipping through scrapbooks with just enough care not to damage them. “I’m feelin kinda good about investigating a ghost with you. Is this how it is with you n your boyfriend and best friend?” Danny almost tore a page out, turning to stare at Wes. He must’ve felt the temperature drop for a second because he looked up with a raised brow. “What?” “Boyfriend?” “Tucker. Tucker Foley.” Danny’s jaw dropped and Wes’ confusion morphed into a shit eating grin. “You know, Tucker spends most of his time with you Foley? The one you build shit with all the time? The nerd that you get sick in sync with? I’ve seen you lose a pencil and then he puts one behind your ear while you look for the one you lost. You made him a custom gaming computer disguised as a console.” Danny’s face burned red as a tomato at this point and he shoved Wes. “Shut up I’m not dating Tucker!” “I have to ask Jazz about this now, you’re killing me.” Wes snorted and flipped a page. He blinked down at the scrapbook and pointed at a picture. “James Walker. This look anything like him?” Danny took the book and looked at the picture. Looked at the several pictures of the man with his daughters, wearing a black pinstriped suit in a handful of them. And he let out a long, loud groan. “I hate this week, I hate it so much.” Wes started cackling and Danny scowled. “That reminds me.” He kicked Wes in the shins and grinned. “Much better. Also, Wes, I gotta tell you. I’m not one of a kind, as far as my living status goes.” “Oh what, there’s another Schrodinger’s little shit flying around out there?” Wes rubbed his ankle and hissed. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but that fruitloop we call a mayor may have been elected because he possessed literally everyone that was voting.” Wes went silent and stared at him, and Danny nodded. “Think you can pester him instead of me? He wants to kill Dad and thinks that he can get Mom if he does that.” “Danny. My Dad works for Masters.” “This puts you in the perfect position to mess with him, I say. Just act like you’re there to see your dad.” “You oblivious asshole. I fuckin love you, cous.” “Same here, skyscraper.”

#Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Wes Weston #Jazz Fenton #Maddie Fenton #Walker #james walker #Box Ghost #fanfiction #fanphiction #phanfiction #phanphiction #phanfic #fanfic #fanphic #phanphic #prompt fill #Rexy Writes #Phantom Family AU

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the-everlasting-dream · 5 years

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What Happens On The Island.. (Mature) - Sonia x MC

Summary: The part about getting shipwrecked on the island, Sonia didn’t tell her boss about.

A/N: Sooo after Chapter 5 of The Heist: Monaco I knew I couldn’t let that escape without doing something for my MC and Sonia. Considering Blaze’s character, this basically wrote itself. Basic scene and dialogue borrowed from canon.

Sonia FC: Valerie Abou Chacra Blaze FC: Toni Mafud

Song: Bad Boys - Zara Larsson

Word Count: 5.8k - its worth it i promise

Warnings: Erotica, 18+ material, lemon or whatever we’ve decided to call it. I’m not responsible if you wanna ignore the warnings.

Tags: @choicessa , @mariamulroney , @drakewalkerwhipped , @thewolvesss , @mfackenthal , @srawesleyghuewrites , @topsyturvy-dream , @enmchoices , @gardeningourmet @debramcg1106 , @alesana45 , @meladoridarcy, @blackcatkita , @tmarie82 , @annekebbphotography , @lizk77 , @jayjay879 , @tornbetween2loves , @akrenich , @theroyalweisme , @likethetailofacomet , @sleepwalkingelite , @littleblossom-18 , @ooo-barff-ooo , @drakewalker04 , @mkatschoicesblog , @speedyoperarascalparty , @carabeth , @fairydustandsarcasm , @drakewalkerisreal @mrsnazariowrites @androgynousflowerqueen

Cool, calm and collected, as they said. Sonia hated platitudes but not as much as she hated what she termed emotional leakage. She despised the way girls used to — and still did — fawn over the men they were interested in, their innermost feelings written all across their faces for the world to see. She resolved never to be like them Strength and discipline, Hasaan’s voice came back to her. The height of a man's success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. The image of her military instructor, a big rough Lebanese man, appearing back in her mind along with memories of countless drills, hours of torturous labour in the hot sticky Amazonian jungle, drilling into her the two principles she would stand by for the rest of her life.

Or rather until the last few hours.

Blaze, the head of the thieving crew her boss Ansel has tasked her with finding and capturing layed on the sand not too far away from her. She’d been holding him at gunpoint in a speedboat routed to take him straight to jail when a massive storm hit, toppling their tiny vessel. She was determined to make it to a nearby island when she say Blaze get overpowered by a huge wave and something in her couldn’t stand to let him drown. After pulling him to shore with her, she’d lit a fire to warm herself and was watching at he groggily came to.

‘Sonia…’ Blaze's expression was shocked for a moment until it morphed into the smirk she was beginning to associate with him. ‘You really wanted to get me alone huh?’

Her mouth opened to protest. If he should have been annoyed or threatened by the image of his rival sitting calmly across from him, he showed no sign of it, and instead his smirk grew wider.

‘I can’t deny the chemistry between us but stranding us on an island is a bit drastic, don’t you think?’

The corners of her mouth jerked up slightly before Sonia realised it and she immediately recovered herself, going back to her default impassive expression. He was not going to shake her. ‘Surely you can’t think this is the time for jokes?’ Blaze accepted her mocking tone with a grin of his own.

‘How can I resist when I’ve got such a captive audience? Anyways wanna tell me how I got here? Last I remember all you’d lost control of the boat.’

Rolling her eyes internally, Sonia went back to poking at the flames of the small fire she’d built in the time that he was unconscious. What had she been thinking? Blaze was her mark, the target her boss had set her on to be eliminated in whatever means necessary. Yet she couldn’t deny the feeling of guilt she’d felt when the huge wall of water had knocked him over the side of the boat, something strange inside her compelled her, she couldn’t just let him die. Why couldn��t she? It would have made her job a helluva lot easier… She savagely jabbed her stick at the fire.

‘Fine. You wanna know what happened? You went over the side like a goddamn idiot and I…’

Fuck what was wrong with her? Again that feeling in her chest tightened as she risked a quick glance up at his curious expression before fixing her gaze at her feet.

‘…I couldn’t just let you drown.’

The genuine surprise in his tone was unmistakable. ‘You saved my life?’

Anger flared up inside Sonia. Hassan had been right. She never had the guts to make the call.

‘I did what I had to. No need to dwell on it.’

For a moment she thought he was going to push her but Blaze had obviously recovered from his initial shock, his trademark smugness returning.

‘Knew you had a soft spot for me. Admit it, we may be on different sides…’ He paused long enough to tempt her to raise her head in his direction and like a fool she fell for it, catching the glint of mischief in his eyes. ‘You kinda like me..'

Again Sonia couldn’t hide her initial smile, attempting to disguise it with a joke and a roll of her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see the effect he had on her. ‘In your dreams. You must be more oxygen deprived than I thought.’

The words were out of her mouth before she knew it and she chastised herself severely. Fraternising with her prisoner was a surefire way to lose her focus and now that they were alone, she needed to be sharper than ever. She had no idea if Blaze would attempt anything but she inwardly steeled herself to be ready for anything.

‘The sooner we get back to the mainland, the better,’ Sonia announced, more for her own benefit. And the sooner I can get my head back in the game. Been here a few hours and this place is already messing with my head.. She looked out at the water surrounding them. ‘My people are looking for us but they won’t know which island we’re on.’

A wet rustling alerted her that Blaze was sifting through his clothes, obviously going for the ear piece she’d found in the pocket of his jeans when she’d searched him earlier.

‘Don’t bother,’ she told him, glad she could find a flaw in his usual cool facade when the device blinked off. ‘I already tried, I was hoping you’d have something useful under that getup of yours…'

Too late Sonia realised her mistake and Blaze’s smug smirk was back as he sat on a log opposite her. ‘You frisked me? While I was unconscious? If I’d known you were that eager, I’d have woken up a lot sooner.’

His blatant remark made her eyebrows shoot up as she unsuccessfully tried to back track.

‘I wasn’t- that is…’ Come on Sonia, get a hold of yourself.

She cleared her throat. ‘I needed to take stock of what resources we had, and make sure you didn’t have any concealed weapons..’ ‘I’m sure you were very thorough.’

She could feel his grin. ‘Found anything… of interest?

She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘Not in the slightest. If you hadn’t cut me off before I gave Ansel our coordinates, at least my people would know where to start looking.’

Blaze’s eyes hardened a little, reminding her of the differing sides they were on. ‘The way I see it, I bought my crew some time to find us.’

Sonia had to give credit where it was due, drawing random patterns in the sand. ‘That was a smart move, I’ll give you that. If it didn’t piss me off so much I’d actually be impressed.’

‘Oh I’ve got a lot more where that came from.’

The light from the fire flickered in Blaze’s eyes and he held her gaze just long enough to wonder whether he meant anything else by that statement.

‘We should figure out how big this island is, get to the other coast if possible,’ he spoke up re-entering her thoughts to their current situation.

‘Agreed. We should examine our surroundings and see if we can find anything useful. But I don’t need you slowing me down.' With his long legs, that was a very minuscule possibility but Sonia couldn’t resist the jab just to remind him again what sides they were on, hoping to get just as much of a reaction from him as he seemed to have no trouble getting plenty from her. However Blaze seemed infuriatingly unshaken.

‘Don’t worry chief.’ A ghost of a grin played on his lips. ‘I can hold my own.’

That stupid handsome face of his seemed to taunt her, eyebrows raising in just the slightest to see how she would react and another rush of irritation filled Sonia. She had been trained in a hard school but how was he getting past her defences so easily? She may as well have been one of those prattling airheads she despised so much. Before she could embarrass herself any further, Sonia made a split second decision.

‘Fine. But you’d better keep up with me ‘cause I’m not waiting for you.’ With that she stood up and stalked off into the forest, not bothering to look behind her if Blaze was following or not.

As she’d predicted, he had no trouble catching up but she still continued on at the cracking pace she’d set, determined not to show any more weakness. Patches of moonlight filtered through the scraggly canopy providing some visibility through the undergrowth, allowing them to pick throw way through the knots of foliage that covered the ground.

At some point, Sonia glanced up to get her bearings again, everything looking the same in the dim light. In that moment she hadn’t been watching where she put her feet and in her haste her shoe caught on an overgrown tree root, pitching her straight towards the ground. Instinctively she threw her hands out to brace for impact against the dirt but it never came. Instead, strong hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her upright again. She glanced up to see Blaze staring down at her with mild concern in his dark eyes.

‘You okay?’

She nodded, feeling the warmth from his body in such close proximity to hers seep through her still-damp clothes as the faint smell of his cologne reached her nose. They’d just been tossed off a boat and waterlogged, how did he still smell so good?

In that moment Sonia was acutely aware of how blue his eyes were now that she had a proper look at them. She’d never seen such a vivid shade of blue, particularly in someone of his ethnicity so close to her own and she took a moment to silently appreciate that. He allowed her to look, the intense gaze they shared setting off a spark of heat in her lower abdomen. A bat screech ripped through the air breaking her from her trance and suddenly aware that she’d been staring too long, she cleared her throat, stepping decisively out of his hold, her mid section cold from where his hands had been.

‘Thanks.’

‘Well you did save my life. Guess we’re equal now..’

Making the executive decision to ignore the comment, she turned and continued to march through the forest, much more observant of where she put her feet this time, not wanting to have a repeat of that incident.

Or did she?

Sonia shook her head to clear it, blaming it on the island and the obvious oxygen deprivation she’d experience for her lapses in judgement. She still felt the spark of heat in her belly, though it had grown to become a tiny flame and immediately chastised herself once again. She was working in security for one of the most extravagant weddings of the decade and he was the conman attempting to upstage her efforts. She should hate him, turn him in, be abhorred by the kind of person he was to attempt to pull off the very thing she was hoping to avoid.

Yet she couldn’t deny the obvious chemistry she felt between them. He clearly must have felt it too or else he wouldn’t have been teasing her so much right? She shook her head. Maybe that just been so long since she… Under the cover of the trees, her face turned away from Blaze’s Sonia blushed at the realisation of how much time had passed since… Yes it had to be that. Her imagination running away from her, making her concoct things that weren’t there.

Strength and discipline, Sonia. Don’t you forget that. Out of the corner of her eye, she barely registered Blaze’s arm surging forward and her instincts dialled to eleven, ready to execute a perfect right hook when her mind intervened to see he was just holding a branch out of her way so she could avoid getting hit.

‘I don’t need your assistance,’ she snapped haughtily, embarrassed. Hasaan would have been livid at her for be caught dreaming for the second time. Still the polite side of her refused to let this go unnoticed. ‘But thanks..’

Blaze waved a hand in dismissal, making her frown. The last thing she wanted to be was indebted to a glorified burglar. The pause made Sonia stop and consider her bearings. They had reached the edge of the forest now and she could see a path leading to a small beach.

Just how far had they gone?

Sonia turned around to ask him and her eyes immediately widened at the sight she was met with. Blaze had stopped a few paces behind her, arms bent behind his head to grab the collar of his t-shirt. She could not for the life of her tear her gaze away from the way the corded muscles flexed as he pulled the garment over his head, ruffling his dark hair in the process as the moonlight shining through the scraggly trees lit up his athletic figure. Her eyes drifted lower of their own accord and her breath caught in her throat as the sight of his muscled chest, sporting just the right amount of neatly clipped dark hair that ran down his torso, past his still flexed abs before the narrow line disappeared past the hem of his jeans, hung low on his hips.

Of course he was perfect.

Her mouth suddenly seemed dry and she caught herself running her tongue over her lips to wet them, displeased at the amount of emotional leakage she had allowed herself exhibit.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ She snapped, more annoyed at herself than him.

Blaze lifted his tousled head, casting her a quizzical look that somehow still managed to make her lower belly tingle. ‘Taking my shirt off?’

Sonia sighed in irritation. ‘I can see that. Why is that necessary?’

‘I don’t know about you sweetheart but my clothes are sopping wet after you just got us tossed out of our vehicle and stranded on a damn island with no backup. I prefer to return to civilisation without a head cold.'

‘Don’t call me sweetheart,’ she snapped backhandedly, the feeling her own drenched outfit became much more noticeable.

Blaze regarded her for a moment, arms crossed over his bare chest as his eyes gave her a once over. ‘Yeah you’re definitely not sweet. Salty’s more like it.’

‘I am not salty!’

He shrugged his muscled shoulders and she wondering how the action was both annoying and attractive at the same time. ‘Whatever you say, chief.’

Sonia rolled her eyes, understanding that she was clearly not going to win this. When they resumed their pace, she detected a soft clinking from beside her and looked over to see two dog tags hanging from a silver chain around Blaze’s neck, illuminated by the silvery light of the moon. Squinting she could make out Arabic lettering stamped there, her mother tongue she’d never bothered to learn.

‘Didn’t take you for the sentimental type,’ she ventured, tipping her chin at them.

Following her gaze, Blaze immediately folded his arms across his chest to hide the tags from her view, his tone closed when he spoke. ‘Curiosity isn’t a good look on you chief.’

Judging by the total shift in his mood, she’d obviously touched on a sensitive subject and when Sonia opened her mouth to apologise, he cut her off with a pointed finger at a dark shape washed up on the beach. ‘Look.’

‘Our speedboat?’

Stepping closer, her eyes scanned the small object, slightly battered by the storm but in one piece nonetheless. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me. That means we…'

Blaze grinned back at her widely. 'We’ve found a way off this godforsaken island.’

A matching smile of relief broke out across her own face and in her excitement she grabbed his arm, shaking it in glee. Then her rational mind seemed to kick in and she abruptly dropped his arm when she remembered who he was, who she was and what roles they were playing.

‘This changes nothing,’ she declared, not sure if it was for his benefit or hers.

He shrugged and they both made their way over to the vessel. Climbing in, Sonia began to sift through paraphernalia that had accumulated in the bottom, spying a pair of oars.

‘I don’t mean to kill the mood, but there’s a hole in our boat.’

Blaze's voice rang into her ear much closer than she was have expected and she turned in surprise only to find him right there in her space, the only thing separating them being the side of the hull.

For the second time in god knows how long, Sonia found herself staring up at her “prisoner", her own heart hammering her rib cage at just how close they were. The heat in her belly reignited for renewed vigour, standing so close she could feel his body heat radiating towards her. Her gaze dropped to his lips, inches away from her own, suddenly looking very enticing. If she wanted to, all she had to do was stretch up onto her toes and …. Her conscience tapped her on the shoulder and she forced herself to look away.

‘What have you got in mind?’ Blaze asked.

Definitely not wondering what it’d be like to kiss you.

‘We should fix it… fix the boat…’ She stammered, finding it very hard to concentrate with him shirtless and leaning on the side.

‘They teach you any of that in wilderness survival camp?'

‘Yeah we should… we should check the back, see if there’s anything that could help us there.’

In her haste to put some space between them, Sonia misjudged the height of the boat’s raised interior in comparison to the ground below and her foot caught on the railing when she tried to swing her other leg over, tipping her off balance.

For the second time that night, Sonia found herself plastered across Blaze’s body, her hands planted on his bare chest, feeling the muscles flex as his hands settled comfortably on her waist, their faces inches away. The fire roared up in her belly as his blue gaze drifted down to settle on her lips and she knew he was thinking about kissing her. They stood locked in that position for one long desirous moment before it became too much for her to bear, his touch, his smell, the anticipation of what it would feel like to taste him in her mouth, all male, all for her, in a single tryst that could be their dirty little secret if she so wished. Everything about this went against everything she stood by but she couldn’t deny that every part of her wanted, desire, needed this, more than she could fathom.

Unable to contain her need any longer, Sonia pressed her lips to his in one swift motion and Blaze responded immediately, stroking the fire in her belly to new heights. Her eyes tilted shut and she allowed herself to get lost in the moment and in him. It was everything she’d imagined and more, the taste of him etched itself onto her brain and once she’d tried it, she knew she’d never forget it. Desire flooded through her as he deepened the kiss, hands beginning to explore her body but she couldn’t concentrate on anything other than the sensation of his tongue licking her lower lip, requesting access which she readily gave him.

'This changes nothing.’ She pushed at his chest.

'Who says it does?’ he drawled huskily, reconnecting their lips again as he began to tug at her clothes.

'I’m still gonna be coming after your ass,' Sonia murmured, mouth still pressed against his, word forming around the kisses they exchanged.

Blaze pulled back, mischief glinting in his eyes. 'God I hope so.'

She frowned, he had to know what this was to her. 'I mean it, I’m still working for Ans-'

‘Mmm you talk too much.’

He cut her off with a kiss so passionate, Sonia swore she saw stars. Moaning she drew him in closer, kissing him harder as they began to grind against each other desperately at the side of the boat. She was so wet, she wondered if he could feel it through the layers of their already damp clothes. They parted for another gasp of air and weaving her fingers into his soft hair, she pulled him to her roughly, lips slamming onto each others as they fumbled their way to the flat back of the speedboat.

Up til now she’d had a code. Right was right and wrong was wrong. Black and white, she’d always seen the world like that but now that she was looking into his eyes, Sonia realised there was a bit of grey there too. As her back bumped into the side of the speedboat, Blaze tugged on her long hair, exposing her neck to lick the soft skin there and she took her opportunity to explore his body, hands running over the taut fired in the muscles of his chest, biceps corded tight as he reached down to knead her ass. She’d never been touched like this, been manhandled by someone who had absolutely no doubt in himself whatsoever.

‘What do you want Sonia?’ he growled the words into her skin, sending aftershocks rippling down her body.

Her hips seemed to move with a mind of their own, grinding sloppily where they met his hardening member over the top of their clothes. Wasn’t that enough of an answer for him? Or was he really going to make her say it?

As if in answer to her question, Blaze pulled away, hair dishevelled from where she’d run her hands through it, eyes locked on hers with an intensity that dared her to lie.

‘Tell me what you want.’

Lips still stinging from their ferocious kisses, Sonia swallowed, so choked with need too distracted by the sensation of his fingers playing at the edge of her shirt.

‘Tell me what you want.’ The commanding tone pulled an answer from her.

‘I want you to take me.’

Her voice sounded pathetic even to her own ears but she barely got time to dwell on it before his lips were back on hers, kissing her harder than she’d ever been kissed before. HIs hands, thieves hands, worked at her clothes quicker than her lust-addled mind could follow and she couldn’t help a gasp of surprise when the cool night air caressed her breasts. Blaze took a step back, having stripped down to his boxers now, eyes roaming liberally over her body and she had a strange urge to cover up under his intense gaze.

'I don’t do this very often,’ she told him in a small voice, crossing her arms across her chest protectively.

’Doesn’t bother me,’ he replied, his nonchalance surprising her. ‘You’re a pretty girl, don’t doubt that for a second.’

Strangely comforted by his words, Sonia welcomed him back into her arms, fingers threading into his hair as he leaned down to coax her nipples to full attention, lavishing them with both his hands and tongue until her skin rippled with goosebumps. She couldn’t help a low moan from escaping when he worked at the fastening of her pants, tapping her once to lift her ass so he could pull the damp material off her body.

'Jesus, how longs it been Sonia?’ Blaze asked at the sight of her plain, completely un-sexy cotton panties, running his fingers over the dampening material.

Sonia was glad for a low lighting to hide the blush from her cheeks. She hated how transparent she was to him but the fire inside her far out burned that it threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t let him see how weak she was for him and willed her defensiveness to kick in again.

‘Shut up and get back to it Blaze.'

‘As the lady commands,’ he replied snarkily before returning to that commanding tone. ‘Lie down.’

That position would be putting her at a disadvantage, sprawled out across the back of the boat, far away from anything she could have used as a weapon in case this turned south. One glance back at Blaze told Sonia, that was right where he wanted her. She however complied. Blaze hooked his fingers under the material of her panties, blue eyes never leaving hers as he slowly and deliberately pulled them down her legs. On the way back up, he gave her thighs tiny kitten licks before blowing on her dripping sex lightly. She silently thanked the gods she’d had the sense to go for a wax earlier that week.

Looking her right in the eye, Blaze softly traced the folds of her sex, steadily avoiding her clit. He was teasing her, having his way with her while she was at his mercy. She dug her nails into his arm, silently urging him to go deeper shut her eyes at the contact and he finally moved closer to her soaking lips, centered his tongue at the lowest point of her glistening core. Sonia felt herself inhale sharply as finally his tongue met her lips.

Ever so softly he ran the tip of his tongue up the full length of her tight slit, ending with a flick across the nub of her throbbing clit, eliciting a strangled gasp from her. She felt the tip of his finger apply just slight pressure to her sex just as Blaze's mouth returned to her slit, his tongue probing deep between her lips and licking from bottom to top before he added another finger. She moaned finally feeling the full effect of his mouth on her pussy, every ripple of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She reached down with one hand and grabbed at his dark hair to try and hold him there and provide some support for the feelings that rose in her, radiating up from between her legs. He licked her expertly, knowing exactly what to do to urge her body towards her climax while all she could do was grab at her breasts massaging as she continued to moan, arching her back off the boat’s edge.

It could have been hours or just minutes Sonia couldn’t tell all she could focus on was the sensation of Blaze’s fingers working inside her, alternating in a pattern designed perfectly to bring her to the edge. You deserve better, he’d said. Was this better? Her core sure seemed to think so, the heat boiling to an unbearable degree before it finally exploded and her vision swam. Body convulsing, she came with a loud wordless gasp, unable to concentrate on anything other than the electricity cracking through her body.

She was panting like she’d just ran a marathon at full sprint and stared up at him with slightly unfocused eyes.

‘Y-You clearly d-do this a lot,’ her voice was a strangled murmur.

Blaze’s signature smirk curved across his mouth, still wet with her juices. 'Often enough.'

Oh that smirk would be the death of her.

Just one glance at that smile had her ready to go again, so lust driven for him that, she barely recognised herself at this point. Now that she’d had a taste of what he could really do, there was little her principles could do to stop her from pulling him in for another heated kiss, this time enhanced by the flavour of herself mingling on his tongue as it slipped effortlessly into her mouth.

Usually she would have blushed in embarrassment but tonight she just couldn’t get enough of the taste of them together, hands boldly reaching for his underwear, taking a peek at the brand of good measure — Calvin Klein, why am I not surprised…? — when he ground his hardening member into her open palm. Gods he was going to be huge, and this wasn’t even at full size yet and for a moment Sonia hesitated, doubting if she could take all of him without being split in half. Blaze didn’t give her a moment to dwell on this, kissing her so deeply she knew she’d never get the taste of him out of her mouth. That was all she needed, she was ready now and he picked up on it immediately.

He shrugged out of his underwear and his member sprang up against his belly, the veiny ridges illuminated perfectly in the light of the moon. Sonia couldn’t help her mouth from dropping open. However big she’d imagined him to be he was even bigger, definitely the biggest she’d seen ever.

Sonia felt the head of his cock nudge her opening, willing herself to relax as Blaze easily manoeuvred himself into the tight opening, lubricated her juices he continued to slowly push into her, half inch by half inch. Pushed to the very edge from all his teasing and the raw sexual tension that had been building the entire night, Sonia could already feel her orgasm build as soon as he entered her. This slow press into her depths kept the feeling building but only delayed any relief. It was one of the best feelings she decided, amidst the intense pleasure surging through her. At this angle, he filled her to the absolute brim and she couldn’t help watching herself take every inch he gave her before her eyes flicked up to his, watching him watch her face contort in ecastasy. She’d never been filled as totally and completely as she was right then, knowing no one she’d ever been with or would ever be with would measure up either length or width.

With Blaze’s eyes trained on hard, she took his cock, first in slow strokes that rubbed onto the g-spot on the front wall of her pussy then faster, pressing forward, exploring her depths. Finally, Blaze’s hips hit her own, his balls pressed between them and she couldn’t help but writhe, moaning, tightening her walls further to force some movement as he waited, his cock buried inside and filling her. A low growl erupted from his throat, enjoying the feeling as she squeezed his cock tightly then he slowly flexed his ass, his thighs pressing against the softness of her, pushing just slightly further with each small slow thrust keeping his cock fully embedded between. They’d barely started and already she could feel the wave of pleasure begin to come to a crest, the relief she desired was almost here.

'Oooooohhhhh god!' Sonia exclaimed as her orgasm descended on her with no warning and her head spun with euphoria, barely able to keep herself steady. Strong tremors wracked her body as she soaked his cock with her juices, chest panting heavily. Body spent, she looked up at Blaze through half lidded eyes as he slowly pulled out and a flicker of confusion rippled through her. Wasn’t he going to…?

One moment those blue eyes seared into hers and his hands were on her hips, turning her onto her stomach in one smooth motion so abruptly, Sonia heard herself squeak in alarm. This time Blaze wasn’t gentle with burying himself entirely in her and she moaned so loud. His message was clear, she’d had her turn, now it was his. Breasts plastered across the boat’s edge, there was a slight quiver in her arms as she tried to push herself back onto him but ultimately failed, unable to match his incredible stamina. She moaned for him, his name, incoherent sounds, all letting him know she was ready for more and sped up his thrusts, trying to push down and focus the pressure on the front wall of her pussy and g-spot. Both their bodies slick with sweat, slammed together loudly in the night air. The boat began to shift slightly under the force of their fucking, threatening to give out under them and send them sailing out to sea but Sonia dug her toes into the sand, determined not to let anything get in the way of the glorious euphoria coursing through her.

Blaze’s hips hit her ass over and over, plunging himself into her as a hand wrapped itself into her dark hair. Sonia clutched at his strong forearms propping himself on the surface of the boat until the sensation of having him in her finally exploded in an inferno that flashed her vision white hot.

‘Oh Blaaaaaaze- God!! !' She screamed into the night, as his fingers flicked her clit in time with the flames that set her on fire. 'Oh, fuck, oh, oh god, oh god, oh god.’ She moaned loudly, grasped desperately at the boat, one hand above her head the other on the edge as she gasping for air, grinding herself back onto him to get as much out of her orgasm as possible while her legs began to shake uncontrollably.

Blaze’s thrusts began to lose their fluid rhythm, becoming more erratic as he slammed himself into her a few more times before yanking out of her pulsing sex and pumping himself furiously sending thick spurts of cum onto her ass and lower back, with a groan. The contact making her flinch at the contact, still hypersensitive, barely registering as he fell forward onto his arms leaning over her body. She was completely and utterly sated, spent beyond her limit and despite her instincts, the act of keeping her eyes open suddenly seemed too much to execute and Sonia drifted off into a deep sleep. The whirr of a motor boat shook her from the sleep and she glanced up in time to see Blaze stepping into the vessel, welcomed by a man and woman she could not recognise. She glanced down in a panic but found that somehow she was now fully clothed, almost as if nothing had happened. If not for the slight soreness between her legs, she would have been tempted to think she’d dreamt it up.

‘Where do you think you're going?’ She snapped in irritation, making him glance over his shoulder back at her.

‘Away from here…?’

‘But.. but..’ Sonia cursed herself for fumbling, her mistake only bringing that devilish smirk back to Blaze’s face.

‘Sorry sweetheart I had a good time but we’ve both got jobs to do and I intend to do it before your people find me,’ he gestured over his shoulder where another boat was approaching.

‘You can’t just leave!’ She yelled back running after him but their boat was already setting off into sea.

'Relax Chief,’ That devilishly handsome grin of his widened and Blaze had the audacity to wink at her as he sped out of view, calling out across the water. ‘What happens on the island, stays on the island!'

#sonia x mc #THM sonia #THM #the heist: monaco #blaze is up for anything #choices thm #playchoices #choices fandom #choices fanfiction #lemon #30 diamond scene #n*fw

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d2kvirus · 5 years

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Dickheads of the Month: October 2018

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of October 2018 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

The entire Jamal Khashoggi affair has been one hell of a shitshow, starting with the Saudi Arabian government sending a hit squad to Turkey to murder him when he visited the Turkish embassy and then, after weeks of pretending that Khashoggi was alive and well, stating that he died when he got into a fight - because apparently the Saudi definition of a fight involves having fifteen people, one carrying a bonesaw, ambushing somebody before torturing and murdering them. In response to this cock and bull story, the font of 90% of the world cock and bull stories Donald Trump states he wholeheartedly believed the Saudi’s version of events (until, two days later, saying that he didn’t) in an effort to deflect attention away from how he blew off any suggestion that the FBI should launch an investigation because, while Khashoggi may have resided in Virginia and worked for the Washington Post, he wasn't a US citizen so fuck him. The British response wasn’t much better either, with Jeremy ...Hunt waffling on about how Brits and Saudis had shared values just days after Khashoggi’s disappearance - all of which left us with a situation where Turkey’s dictatorial leader Recip Erdogan was somehow the voice of reason in the whole affair

It’s funny how we’re supposed to think there’s no connection between Cesar Sayoc Jr embracing Trump’s rhetoric wholeheartedly and him sending bombs in the mail to several of Trump’s most frequent targets - sort of like how we’re supposed to think there was no connection between Trump’s rhetoric and Brandon Griesemer threatening to go on a shooting rampage at CNN’s HQ back in January, or Robert Chain threatening to blow up the Boston Globe’s offices back in August. One thing’s for certain, though: those 4chan dullards saying the left can’t meme have been very, very quiet since it emerged that Trumpists’ meme ability is a tad more explosive than they’d like to admit

On the subject of the MAGAbomber, let’s not forget that countless Twitter hate preachers such as Paul Joseph Watson, Candace Owens and EducatingLiberals were all so quick to claim that the Democrats were sending the bombs to themselves as a false flag attack they were boldly predicting, and not one of them has retracted their original comment - or think that, by deleting it, nobody remembers it. That’s not how screengrabs work.

In the wake of the Tree of Life shooting Gab hid behind a blanket statement about the “alleged terrorist” responsible for the shootings - which presumably sounded better for PR purposes that stating “We’re currently having hosting problems as a direct result of one of our many antisemetic users posting material claiming he was going to shoot up a synagogue and we sat back and did nothing, which made us look like negligent dickheads when that user then went and shot up a synagogue”

As the Tory conference took place there was obviously going to be a lot to choose from, so I’ll compile it in one supersized entry: starting at the top we had Theresa May claim that austerity was over in spite of the fact the previous day Philip Hammond, who happens to be Chancellor, said the exact opposite - but far more ridiculous than her apparent ignorance of what other members of her cabinet said in their speeches is the fact ABBA are threatening legal action over her unauthorised use of their music for her cringe-inducing entrance; then there was Jeremy ...Hunt demanding respect from the EU before promptly comparing them to the Soviet Union; the waffling buffoon Boris Johnson went on a dog whistle spree that mainly consisted of saying Jeremy Corbyn’s name a bunch while also saying there’s nothing wrong with police using their stop & search powers to harass black people; and then we had Chris Grayling write so many punchlines about his ineptitude as Transport Secretary by arriving on stage seven minutes late for his own speech, before promptly trying to blame eight years of rail mismanagement under Tory rule on Labour

While there is plenty of justified criticism for Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov turning UFC 229 into a pub car park in Maidstone on a Friday night (which conveniently drew attention away from McGregor getting utterly annihilated in the bout), plenty should also be aimed at Dana White for his mealy-mouthed response afterwards where he failed to take responsibility for the situation, not least his complete failure to punish McGregor in any way for trashing Khabib’s bus or his repeated Islamophobic slurs against Khabib in the months leading up to the fight

Not only is Philip Green the sort of shithead who sexually and racially harassed members of staff, but he's also the kind of shithead who pays his lawyers half a million quid to issue a gagging order on it being revealed he’s the sort of shithead who sexually and racially harassed his staff - which I’m sure pissed off the thousands of former BHS employees who saw him scarper with their pension fund, as they can take a wild guess where that half million quid came from

The Tory conference must not have gone as well as hoped considering Sajid Javid repeated the repeatedly debunked lie about there being parts of London that are no-go areas for non-Muslims, and the fact Javid is regurgitating lies that Nigel Farage told Fox News says a hell of a lot doesn’t it?

Taking a page from her husband’s playbook Melania Trump claimed she is the most bullied woman in America, a week after her husband publicly bullied Christine Blassey Ford in the exact same way that his supporters had been doing for several weeks beforehand. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she also claimed that if a woman is going to make an accusation of sexual misconduct they need to have evidence - which sounds an awful lot like telling them to keep their mouths shut, doesn’t it?

In a bid to prove that they should not be boycotted by readers wondering why the paper had turned into the Daily Express in recent years The Guardian ran an op-ed piece where Theresa May said any Labour voters dissatisfied with Jeremy Corbyn should vote Tory, which reeks of desperation just as much on May’s part as it does the Guardian’s

It appears that Esther McVey is unaware that people can see that she spent months saying that Universal Credit is perfectly fine until she suddenly turns around and says, actually, it's not fine - or maybe she can, given the amount of gagging orders she handed out to try and avoid the tsunami of criticism headed her way

Waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage demonstrated how desperate he is for attention these days by popping up on Fox News to say that Americans should be far more worried about the Jewish influence in their country than any rumours of Russian influence - a mere 48 hours after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting left eleven people dead at the hands of a white supremacist with a track record of posting antisemitic material to their Gab profile

Definitely not using the inquest into the Westminster terror attack as an excuse to clear his name and/or conscience, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Craig Mackey claimed that the reason he locked himself in his car and instructed the driver to get the hell out of there while PC Keith Palmer was being stabbed to death yards away was because he didn’t have a stab-proof vest as if that’s any form of consolation to Palmer’s relatives given he didn't have one either. What's worse, the inquest somehow came to the conclusion that Mackey acted properly, as opposed to showing extreme cowardice

To prove just how caring and tolerant the Tory party are we have Daniel Phillips O’Leary, Jake Thurman, Ross Horton, Josh Hocking, Charlie Edleston-Haynes and friends pictured wearing shirts featuring slogans such as “Fuck the NHS”, “Enoch was right” in support of racist ideologue Enoch Powell, at least two of them with the Star of David and the word “Jude” written on them that is both anti-semitic and the terminology of the fucking Nazi Party, while one of them was also flashing a white supremacy gesture to camera while another was done up to look like Adolf Hitler. Yes, “tolerant” is the word I’d think of there...

There was two levels of dickheadishness from Rockstar Games in a matter of days. Firstly they proudly stated that their devs were working 100 hour weeks in order to have Red Dead Redemption 2 finished on time, an announcement they made just as the debate about game devs treatment of their staff was back in the spotlight after reports of Telltale Games expecting their staff to work a hellish schedule in order to meet a release date, and a few days later - having coerced their staff to say that, actually, they were “only” working 80 hour weeks and not the full 100 as if that’s any better - Rockstar followed that up by announcing that independent game shops would not receive copies of RDR2 until at least a week after the major stores, hitting them hard in the pocket as a result

In yet another desperate shriek for attention Roseanne Barr wailed about how terrible it is that her character was filled off in Roseanne reboot The Connors by an opioid overdose - apparently failing to not only see the irony considering she tried to blame her batshit outbursts about Valerie Jarrett and George Soros on an ambien, but also failing to consider that they couldn't have killed off her character due to a joke, voting Trump, or thinking the bitch was WHIIIIIIIIIIIIITE that were the other excuses Barr used when trying to avoid taking responsibility for getting her show cancelled

Continuing to justify the no confidence vote she received from the local party Kate Hoey decided the wisest thing to do would be to retweet posts from Avi Yemini - because when you really want to prove that you’re a credible MP for your constituents, retweeting somebody banned from social media for both antisemitism and Islamophobia who also happens to associate with Tommy Robinson, you’re not helping yourself

Doing a fine job of making it impossible to differentiate between NBC and Fox News we had Megyn Kelly say that blackface is not offensive as long as it’s done for Halloween, because apparently Halloween is a gateway to Purge Night

Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz decided to be an edgelord by tweeting a photo of him stood next to a cigar store Indian at Disneyland just so he could make a snide jibe in the direction of Elizabeth Warren, which implies he wasn't paying attention during those two years he was on the House Oversight Committee

If it wasn’t galling enough that Lancashire Council decided to spend £38,000 of their budget on new iPhones for themselves, they soon raked in £43,000 by doubling bus fares for disabled people

Demonstrating their levels of editorial competence, the Daily Mail reported on a story where Indonesian pallbearers caught by a gust of wind dropped the body they were carrying into a swimming pool...having failed to verify that the video footage they were using as the basis of this story was taken from an Indonesian soap opera

Ever the edgelord Rod Liddle used a column in the Sunday Times to encourage Islamists residing in Tower Hamlets to blow themselves up - mainly because he doesn't live near the area so he wouldn't have to worry about the after effects of countless people blowing themselves up in a populated area, although he doesn’t seem to understand that just because his not living in Tower Hamlets hasn’t prevented these comments sounding like the deranged ramblings of an Islamophobic moron

Am I the only person who thinks the Banksy stunt where he shredded one of his artworks the second it was sold at auction looked an awful lot like a child throwing a tantrum, only for their mollycoddling parents to say how clever they were for doing so?

It apparently didn’t occur to William Sitwell that sending an e-mail to one of his staff asking for an article about “killing vegans” or tying them up to “Force-feed them meat” makes him look like an intolerant arse, especially since he then sent another e-mail suggesting vegans were all liars who couldn’t resist a bacon sandwich. Funnily enough his position as editor of Waitrose Food magazine did not last long after that...

According to increasingly bitter musician Jon Crosby anyone who believes that a healthcare system that doesn't financially cripple the country’s citizens with medical bills is, and this is a direct quote, an "anti Semite Nazi apologizing communist bigot" who must be blocked from his Facebook page so he can continue posting Alex Jones levels of ignorant tripe such as that old chestnut of the shamefully ignorant, the “Hitler was a SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!!!!1″ argument, without anyone pointing out that he’s a complete fucking idiot

And last but by no means least, there’s harasser of attempted rape victims and the only person on earth who thinks blaming the victims of a mass shooting for their being shot Donald Trump, who believes that addressing Hurricane Michael is far less important than hanging around with his new best friend Kanye West

#dickheads of the month

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politicaltheatre · 6 years

Text

Pardon Me

Hi all,

I'll be taking the summer off this year. I have some other projects that need my attention. If you enjoy my recent writing and have not yet had the chance to check out my archive, please do. If you enjoyed my earlier writing and not my recent efforts, don't give up hope; I'll be back in September (should we make it) refreshed and with plenty to write about.

Before I go, a few last thoughts on the news of the past week, in particular the condemnation of Roseanne Barr and Donald Trump's choice of pardons.

* * *

That Roseanne Barr already had a history of racist tweets isn't news. It certainly shouldn't have been to executives at ABC. They wanted a show and an outsize personality that would appeal to Trump voters. Fair enough, they're a business and courting a demographic whose identity is based in being the ones not courted can be a solid business move.

In broadcasting the new, right-wing flavor Roseanne, however, they sent a message - to Barr and to Trump supporters - that certain bad behavior is acceptable so long as everybody's making money, a message straight from the Trump campaign playbook. The price for that, of course, is somebody taking that message to heart. So, again, it should have surprised no one that Trump supporter Roseanne Barr did just that.

Think about it, the commercial success of a show centered around Barr's comedy and Barr herself must have taunted her, as a cocktail party might taunt an alcoholic. The version of Roseanne Barr presented on TV requires scripting. It requires softening edges. It requires attempting to communicate in a way that respects others' feelings. Even in comedy, it requires restraint. That isn't easy for most personalities; for Barr, the temptation to break out and rub those others' collective noses in it must have be almost unbearable.

From her put upon housewife standup routines to the now-dead reboot of her show, Barr has built a career on chafing at being made to constrain herself, and at representing people who feel the same way. If you've been wondering how the woman who led the first incarnation of Roseanne, with its then-controversial condemnation of misogyny, homophobia, and, yes, racism, could wind up supporting a misogynistic, homophobic, racist and spewing hate filled tweets along with him, well, you need to recognize the angry, selfish child that's been there from the start.

The targets of Barr's bile may have changed from one pole to the other, but her motivations haven't. In that, she's been nothing but consistent. She is, in her mind, exceptional, in the way that spoiled children think they are and right wing pundits think America is. Like a sullen teen, she acts out because she thinks it's a "fuck you" to authority, which is to say, a "fuck you" to anyone demanding she be accountable to others.

In the 80s, authority was telling her to shut up about equality and human rights; today, due in no small part to artists such as herself, the cultural pendulum has swung the other way, making the figures of authority those who tell others not to misogynist, homophobic or racist. Seen this way, it isn't that she believed that there would be no consequences for such an extremely racist tweet, it's that she believed there shouldn't have to be.

That, as much as anything, drives her to court controversy. She could criticize Valerie Jarrett on her merits, or lack thereof, but adding the racist insult gave her a thrill, like walking up to the edge of a cliff, like giving a vice-principal the finger. So, while her racism may be as deeply felt as a provocative cartoon on a t-shirt, her apologies have been, too. She's been made to pay a price for her lack of restraint, and that pisses her off.

It may be gratifying to see her get her long overdue comeuppance. It may give those who hate Trump a huge, tremendous, bigly amount of pleasure to see her lose her show, her agents, and probably a lot of money. And yet, it most assuredly will not represent a cultural shift in the way the downfalls of Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Jeffrey Tambor, and others have. For one thing, none of them supported Trump; Trump supporters have made this political, which for the indefensible is the best defense (Samantha Bee's own thrill-seeking use of the c-word didn't help). For another, she is "just" a comedian, "just" an actress, "just" a woman.

We still lower our expectations for people we think of as less powerful, less of a threat. Racism, of course, is a threat. Like sexual assault, it's a means to the end of being free from accountability and free from the guilt and shame of having harmed others. It should have its moment of reckoning. We should take a long, unflinching look at it and punish those who embrace it. And yet. And yet. Let us not hold our collective breath.

This is the point where we get talk about Donald Trump. It would be nice to think that his pardon of long deceased heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson is a sign of that moment of reckoning for racism, but that would be wrong. It, like Roseanne Barr's comeuppance, was long overdue, but it was a PR stunt sandwiched in between some other presidential decrees, on of which was another pardon for a man named Dinesh D'Souza.

D'Souza has an even longer track record of provocative racism than Barr does, going back to his days at Dartmouth College in the early 80s. His racism back then was easy enough for many (too many) to excuse as a youthful "fuck you" to the 70s' cultural demand for accountability. D'Souza has parlayed that willingness to be racist into jobs working for Ronald Reagan, right-wing think tanks, and as a talking head on Fox News. Just a century ago, his racism for hire would have been right at home next to op-eds by the likes of famed auther Jack London, describing Jack Johnson and other non-whites in just about the same terms Barr used against Valerie Jarrett.

What we must remember is that D'Souza is above all a champion of never having to be accountable to others. When Donald Trump pardoned him, he was sending a message that D'Souza, still very much alive, represents the kind of man he values. This message was sent not just to the racists running for office and/or hoping to vote for Trump again in 2020, but to those currently under investigation who are hoping to work for him or somebody like him again.

A virtual "Get Out Of Jail Free" card is the ultimate carrot for anyone facing actual jail time. It's why Trump pardoned disgraced Arizona racist Joe Arpaio and why he pardoned Scooter Libby. You remember Scooter Libby, right? He was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. He was the man who took the fall for outing an active, undercover CIA officer as an act of political revenge, thus endangering her, her contacts, her assets, and, well, us. Libby was loyal, took the blame, kept his mouth shut, and did his time. And now he's free and making good money again.

As long as everybody's making money, that's all that counts, right?

Have a great summer. I mean that.

- Daniel Ward

#roseanne barr #racism #twitter #ambien #accountability #politics #donald trump #pardons #samantha bee #jack johnson #jack london #dinesh d'souza #scooter libby #dick cheney #valerie plame #joe arpaio #long reads

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reading-writing-revolution · 7 years

Link

“What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.

The world order we know is already over, and Russia is moving fast to grab the advantage. Can Trump figure out the new war in time to win it?

A little over a year ago, on a pleasant late fall evening, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend best described as a Ukrainian freedom fighter. He was smoking a cigarette while we watched Southeast DC hipsters bustle by and talked about ‘the war’ — the big war, being waged by Russia against all of us, which from this porch felt very far away. I can’t remember what prompted it — some discussion of whether the government in Kyiv was doing something that would piss off the EU — but he took a long drag off his cigarette and said, offhand: “Russia. The EU. It’s all just more Molotov-Ribbentrop shit.”

His casual reference to the Hitler-Stalin pact dividing Eastern Europe before WWII was meant as a reminder that Ukraine must decide its future for itself, rather than let it be negotiated between great powers. But it haunted me, this idea that modern revolutionaries no longer felt some special affinity with the West. Was it the belief in collective defense that was weakening, or the underlying certitude that Western values would prevail?

Story Continued Below

Months later, on a different porch thousands of miles away, an Estonian filmmaker casually explained to me that he was buying a boat to get his family out when the Russians came, so he could focus on the resistance. In between were a hundred other exchanges — with Balts and Ukrainians, Georgians and Moldovans — that answered my question and exposed the new reality on the Russian frontier: the belief that, ultimately, everyone would be left to fend for themselves. Increasingly, people in Russia’s sphere of influence were deciding that the values that were supposed to bind the West together could no longer hold. That the world order Americans depend on had already come apart.

From Moscow, Vladimir Putin has seized the momentum of this unraveling, exacting critical damage to the underpinnings of the liberal world order in a shockingly short time. As he builds a new system to replace the one we know, attempts by America and its allies to repair the damage have been limited and slow. Even this week, as Barack Obama tries to confront Russia’s open and unprecedented interference in our political process, the outgoing White House is so far responding to 21st century hybrid information warfare with last century’s diplomatic toolkit: the expulsion of spies, targeted sanctions, potential asset seizure. The incoming administration, while promising a new approach, has betrayed a similar lack of vision. Their promised attempt at another “reset” with Russia is a rehash of a policy that has utterly failed the past two American administrations.

What both administrations fail to realize is that the West is already at war, whether it wants to be or not. It may not be a war we recognize, but it is a war. This war seeks, at home and abroad, to erode our values, our democracy, and our institutional strength; to dilute our ability to sort fact from fiction, or moral right from wrong; and to convince us to make decisions against our own best interests.

Those on the Russian frontier, like my friends from Ukraine and Estonia, have already seen the Kremlin’s new toolkit at work. The most visible example may be “green men,” the unlabeled Russian-backed forces that suddenly popped up to seize the Crimean peninsula and occupy eastern Ukraine. But the wider battle is more subtle, a war of subversion rather than domination. The recent interference in the American elections means that these shadow tactics have now been deployed – with surprising effectiveness – not just against American allies, but against America itself. And the only way forward for America and the West is to embrace the spirit of the age that Putin has created, plow through the chaos, and focus on building what comes next.

President-elect Trump has characteristics that can aid him in defining what comes next. He is, first and foremost, a rule-breaker, not quantifiable by metrics we know. In a time of inconceivable change, that can be an incredible asset. He comes across as a straight talker, and he can be blunt with the American people about the threats we face. He is a man of many narratives, and can find a way to sell these decisions to the American people. He believes in strength, and knows hard power is necessary.

So far, Trump seems far more likely than any of his predecessors to accelerate, rather than resist, the unwinding of the postwar order. And that could be a very bad — or an unexpectedly good — thing. So far, he has chosen to act as if the West no longer matters, seemingly blind to the danger that Putin’s Russia presents to American security and American society. The question ahead of us is whether Trump will aid the Kremlin’s goals with his anti-globalist, anti-NATO rhetoric– or whether he’ll clearly see the end of the old order, grasp the nature of the war we are in, and have the vision and the confrontational spirit to win it.

***

To understand the shift underway in the world, and to stop being outmaneuvered, we first need to see the Russian state for what it really is. Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed. This freed the Russian security state from its last constraints. In 1991, there were around 800,000 official KGB agents in Russia. They spent a decade reorganizing themselves into the newly-minted FSB, expanding and absorbing other instruments of power, including criminal networks, other security services, economic interests, and parts of the political elite. They rejected the liberal, democratic Russia that President Boris Yeltsin was trying to build.

Following the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings that the FSB almost certainly planned, former FSB director Vladimir Putin was installed as President. We should not ignore the significance of these events. An internal operation planned by the security services killed hundreds of Russian citizens. It was used as the pretext to re-launch a bloody, devastating internal war led by emergent strongman Putin. Tens of thousands of Chechen civilians and fighters and Russian conscripts died. The narrative was controlled to make the enemy clear and Putin victorious. This information environment forced a specific political objective: Yeltsin resigned and handed power to Putin on New Year’s Eve 1999.

From beginning to end, the operation took three months. This is how the Russian security state shook off the controls of political councils or representative democracy. This is how it thinks and how it acts — then, and now. Blood or war might be required, but controlling information and the national response to that information is what matters. Many Russians, scarred by the unrelenting economic, social, and security hardship of the 1990s, welcomed the rise of the security state, and still widely support it, even as it has hollowed out the Russian economy and civic institutions. Today, as a result, Russia is little more than a ghastly hybrid of an overblown police state and a criminal network with an economy the size of Italy — and the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.

Even Russian policy hands, raised on the Western understanding of traditional power dynamics, find the implications of this hard to understand. This Russia does not aspire to be like us, or to make itself stronger than we are. Rather, its leaders want the West—and specifically NATO and America — to become weaker and more fractured until we are as broken as they perceive themselves to be. No reset can be successful, regardless the personality driving it, because Putin’s Russia requires the United States of America as its enemy.

We can only confront this by fully understanding how the Kremlin sees the world. Its worldview and objectives are made abundantly clear in speeches, op-eds, official policy and national strategy documents, journal articles, interviews, and, in some cases, fiction writing of Russian officials and ideologues. We should understand several things from this material.

First, it is a war. A thing to be won, decisively — not a thing to be negotiated or bargained. It’s all one war: Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, the Baltics, Georgia. It’s what Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s ‘grey cardinal’ and lead propagandist, dubbed ”non-linear war” in his science fiction story “Without Sky,” in 2014.

Second, it’s all one war machine. Military, technological, information, diplomatic, economic, cultural, criminal, and other tools are all controlled by the state and deployed toward one set of strategic objectives. This is the Gerasimov doctrine, penned by Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of the General Staff, in 2013. Political warfare is meant to achieve specific political outcomes favorable to the Kremlin: it is preferred to physical conflict because it is cheap and easy. The Kremlin has many notches in its belt in this category, some of which have been attributed, many likely not. It’s a mistake to see this campaign in the traditional terms of political alliances: rarely has the goal been to install overtly pro-Russian governments. Far more often, the goal is simply to replace Western-style democratic regimes with illiberal, populist, or nationalist ones.

Third, information warfare is not about creating an alternate truth, but eroding our basic ability to distinguish truth at all. It is not “propaganda” as we’ve come to think of it, but the less obvious techniques known in Russia as “active measures” and “reflexive control”. Both are designed to make us, the targets, act against our own best interests.

Fourth, the diplomatic side of this non-linear war isn’t a foreign policy aimed at building a new pro-Russian bloc, Instead, it’s what the Kremlin calls a “multi-vector” foreign policy, undermining the strength of Western institutions by coalescing alternate — ideally temporary and limited — centers of power. Rather than a stable world order undergirded by the U.S. and its allies, the goal is an unstable new world order of “all against all.” The Kremlin has tried to accelerate this process by both inflaming crises that overwhelm the Western response (for example, the migration crisis in Europe, and the war in eastern Ukraine) and by showing superiority in ‘solving’ crises the West could not (for example, bombing Syria into submission, regardless of the cost, to show Russia can impose stability in the Middle East when the West cannot).”

Solid commentary.

#russia #putin #soviet block #new world order #illiberal #disruptions #attack #warm war #cyber war

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