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velvetures · 10 months

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Vulnerable pt.1?

A/N: A not-so-little thing I've had for a few weeks, and wanted to see if a part two was something anyone would be interested in reading. If so, please let me know. Summary: You try and get Ghost to relax after a harsh mission and find a bit of a quiet moment. T/W: not proofread :)

Bad intel led to you and your Lieutenant being nearly hunted down and killed by a not-so-small group of arms dealers who caught on quickly to the pair of foreigners lingering just a little bit too close to their sheltered storage garage right in the middle of a market district in the South East. The task force assumed sending in an entire squad would be overkill just for some simple recon information and decided that you and Ghost would be the perfect pair for the job. ‘In and Out…’ Price had said quite offhandedly, sliding the prepared information in two files across the table to you. Only Price’s sources hadn’t double-checked if the area was secure enough for them to enter without full backup on standby. Not necessarily a lethal kind of mistake when bringing you and the Lieutenant into the equation, but there were too many close calls and stray bullets that were clearly heard for either of you to feel super confident in getting away unscathed.

Your only savior was a small farmhouse that had been recently abandoned due to the illegal and dangerous activity that had been surrounding the small city. Modest in size with two bedrooms and running water. Perfect for a makeshift safe house to keep the trackers off your asses until an extraction could be arranged and put into motion. Contrary to belief, the 141 didn’t have the bottomless pit of resources everyone believed they had at their disposal. Which included access to evac and trained air-support teams. This wasn’t a big mission that had a lot of working parts and multiple organizations involved that had enough liquidated funds to through out for a helo and heavy gunners to rescue two operators from the middle of who-the-fuck-knows-where.

That means with busted equipment, inoperable comms, hardly enough ammunition to fight out of a wet paper bag, and zero way of knowing when and if you’d be rescued, there was nothing left to do but try and relax in one of the most difficult predicaments. It left you searching through cabinets for maybe some kind of food to keep the both of you while Ghost did one of his favorite things. Pacing the house from window to window looking for the slightest bit of movement. The trouble being, there wasn’t anything for at least two miles in any direction. The people who owned this place were farmers of some sort, and had placed their home right in the middle of crop fields that gave a very advantageous sightline. While that information gave you quite a bit of comfort, it was not effecting Ghost positively in the slightest.

Your relationship with the Lieutenant was complex, to say the least. When you were first introduced it was for a succession of short co-op missions that were nothing if not brief and very impersonal leaving you with more questions than answers about the man who stayed hidden under the mask. Through some talks that you hadn’t been privy to being in the room for, John Price decided that your skills would be more useful to Task Force 141 than for the U.S. Division of Clandestine Service and offered you a position that you couldn’t possibly decline.

By day-in and day-out contact with Ghost, you got a lot more comfortable with him and learned much of his little idiosyncratic behaviors. Maybe a little too well…. He didn’t particularly act much differently towards you in the grand scheme of things, but something in you felt like trust had been developed to where he could depend on you when the situation called for it.

“Go hit the rack, I’ll take first watch.” He called gruffly from the living room where he had moved a chair from the kitchen to sit facing the front door head on with his MP5 resting lazily on his chest.

You couldn’t help but notice just how damn tired he looked under all that gear and through the black smeared around his eyes. He couldn’t be carrying less than one hundred pounds on him right now; even sitting in that chair with it wasn’t a good enough solution. Let you take a moment or two for yourself, stripping out of your tac vest and heavily weighted gear to drop it on top of the kitchen counter with a little grunt. Two days ago you both got the luxury of sleeping, and since then it’s been nothing but being on the run.

This would be the safest place for you that wasn’t in the belly of an evac bird, and the thought of Ghost not taking the time to sleep sat in your mind like a lead sinker. Leaning against the doorway and watching him for a long moment, you start having thoughts. Dangerous thoughts. Ones that normally wouldn’t surface if you’d been able to separate working with Ghost from the more personal aspect of literally sharing almost every part of your life with him. Thoughts about how you could make him feel better… even if just for the night. That no one was around for miles and whatever happened could safely stay between the pair of you.

By utter carelessness of your position with the team or lack of fear about how the Lieutenant might respond, you walk into the living room and kneel down right in front of him with your fingers reaching out to unlace his dusty boots. Off instinct alone, you expected and watched as his foot flinched away from you. His whole body jumps and stiffens at the contact and sight of you kneeling on the floor. He quickly pauses and collects himself, taking several moments before his gravelly voice breaks the silence.

“What’re you doin’ Sergeant?” His eyes grew heavy and showed more expression than the rest of his massive body as they flashed with confusion and a little swell of anger. That aloofness didn’t hide that slight guardedness of something that made him uncomfortable in one way or another.

“I’m perfectly capable of takin’ care of my fuckin’ self.” He adds with zero discernible sign of either offense or gratitude. You can’t help but smile tiredly, feeling like you’re attempting to soothe a feral wolf into letting you pull it’s paw out of trap.

“I never said you couldn’t L.T.,” You reply gently, reaching back to start unhooking the laces from their claws on his left foot. “Just thought you couldn’t use some affection.” Smirking to yourself, you can’t help but think something this small being considered ‘affection’ didn’t fit anyone save for Ghost. He was just too hard to approach. Walls so thick and tall that it would take someone with patience beyond that of a human to break through and see what rested behind all of that brash posturing and icy disposition.

“You know affection is something I’m averse to,” he utters, watching yet making no effort to stop you. “What you’re doin’ is unnecessary.” A small sound close to a growl escapes from behind the mask when my hand reaches to the back of his leg to help aid my effort of pulling his boot off.

Chuckling softly and sitting the boot down at your side you respond, “I know you don’t like affection,” You’re already working on the other one, purposefully moving slowly as not to overwhelm or spook him. “That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it, L.T..” You can’t help but look up at him almost exhaustedly yet still trying to be reassuring.

“M’fine without it.” He spits out quickly, looking away from your face back down to your progress on the laces, his masked face otherwise unreadable. “Didn’t ask you for this shit, Sergeant.” Tinged with an undercurrent of irritation his deep voice sounds near the bridge of turning to anger.

“Mothering me isn’t in your best interest.” He growls low and threateningly in your face as he bends down to grab the boot sitting next to you and giving it a quick look of observation before sitting it back down closer to him. You just finish taking off his other boot and sit it down next to the other without much more of a verbal fight and put a hand on his thigh to steady your sore legs as you get back up to your feet.

“I’m younger than you Ghost, I can’t mother you.” You reply, holding out your hand for him.

He doesn’t make note or stop you from using him to help yourself up, however, Ghost follows your movements carefully… closely. He’s doing everything in his power to hide his emotions, but there’s still a faint twitch of his lips when he looks down at his boots sitting at his side. You’d done something very unusual, and he knew berating you was what he should’ve done. Yet a flinch of a smile was what really moved Ghost’s mouth. It’s gone before it even surfaces, pushed down by the sight. of you holding out your little hand in front of him. The sounds of his deep breathing fill the quiet house as you both sit there unflinching of each other. The Lieutenant shifts in his chair, readjusting his rifle on his chest.

“Go to bed. It’s late.” His repeated command felt softer now. Wavering a bit with you hand still held out and your fingers wiggling a little.

“Come on,” You hold steady and patient.

Reward comes in the form of feeling Ghost’s heavy and large hand falling into yours and gripping just hard enough to allow you the phantom sensation that you’re actually helping him up from the chair, hearing a short grunt as his back straightens up. Without explanation, you lead the Lieutenant through the small house back towards the only bedroom in the house with an actual bed left behind by the owners, pulling him to the center of the room and turning around to face him.

“Put your arms up for me.”

“Excuse me?” Ghost’s frown can be heard from behind the mask. Despite his apparent bewilderment, he hesitantly obeys, extending his arms above his head with an exhale of a tense breath, looking down at you with dark and questioning eyes. “What are you doing now?”

You just smile and hum to yourself softly, reaching out to begin unclipping and unzipping the sections of his tac vest holding it on his upper body and the multiple ammo belts. Carefully draping them over you shoulder as you release his body from them one by one. Seeing the way Ghost’s body sinks into itself with the weight being pulled off after days without rest. You feel his eyes scan over you, over your hands finding ways to take off his gear for the first time in your life, feeling your way through sunch an unusual yet careful act.

“Bein’ fuckin’ ridiculous…” He growls, covering up the feelings of not being so concealed by barking at you a little.

“Shhh.” Your hush does enough to stop his quiet and brooding complaints.

Long enough for you to kneel back down at his feet and work at the thigh straps over his pants and even remove the ankle holster you’d left alone while taking off his boots. He doesn’t resist this part, just watching you undress him bit by bit with half a mind questioning just what had happened for you to start acting so strangely. You’d always been sweet. Much nicer than your job allowed for. Yet even this was quite off the edge of the character Ghost had built for you over the years. This felt downright intimate for just two operators to be doing.

Then again your shared situation wasn’t exactly one of professionalism at this point. You’d been improvising for nearly a full day just trying to stay alive. Once back on your feet, you take hold of his hand again, this time with a little less caution since you’d already touched him there, and begin pulling at the fingertips to slide his sand and dirt-cakes gloves off. Even seeing his bare skin under his gloves be seen in the dim lamplight of the house, Ghost doesn’t do more than flex his fingers once you’ve rid him of the stiff material.

Purposefully avoiding his mask, you get Ghost down to nothing more than boxers and a t-shirt, even with his help at certain parts without him growling more or acting like you were irritating him. While he still gave off a feeling of all-around grumpiness and more than a little confused as hell, you paid it no mind as you led him towards the edge of the bed and pointed to it with a short yet polite command for him to ’sit’. Right away you noticed his hesitation and the way that his shoulders and arms tensed, his attention solely on you, flashing between your eyes and mouth like he was trying to reassure himself that he’d heard you correctly. But with one small tug on his hand, he turns around and sits on the bed with his feet resting on the floor and his arms braced on both sides of him a little stiffly.

“Now what?” His voice held a bit of rasp to it as he tracked your movement from his side, seeing you climb up into the bed and position yourself on your knees behind him. The close proximity didn’t go unnoticed by the Lieutenant as he cleared his throat, once again interrupting the calm silence in the house. His tension filled the small space between you, heating the gap of air, almost electrifying it.

“Just relax Ghost.” Easily touching his shoulders, you begin working your palms flat against the slopes of his muscled neck.

Purposefully but gently rubbing at the stiff cords of muscle and introducing the sensation to him as easily as possible in the case that it was a bit too overwhelming for him all at once. You knew you’d pushed the boundaries with him much further past anything you’d expected to achieve in one night. But now that he was sitting here in front of you, it was hard not to smile brightly that he was trusting you so much. Allowing your hands to be on him. Accepting that you had positioned the both of you in a very vulnerable position that could lead to a lot more violent options than affectionate ones. Torture and nightmares had given more than a fair share to Ghost, yet he was patiently staving off his own clear hesitation so that you could play out whatever this was turning out to be.

Your command went unacknowledged just like all of Ghost’s from earlier had; His breathing steadily slowing down into a deep and rich, relaxed sort of rhythm. Power of your hands and calming attitude worked faster than you anticipated, leaving the massive man sitting between your thighs begin to release. Tension falling out of his body not only under your hands but by sight of his jaw loosening. You’re even lucky enough to spot him trying to take glances at you from the corner of his eye, only to look back ahead since you were in quite the blindspot. Taking your thumbs in a sweeping motion from the edges of his shoulders inward, you apply pressure on the back of his neck and experimentally reach higher up under the hem of his mask. A dangerous game to play. Rumbling sounds of appreciation filling your ears are better than any sort of medal you could earn or bet you’d ever cash in. His head rolls back slightly with each small circle of your thumbs and fingers, pushing against you. Silently asking for more pressure.

“Feel good?” You ask at just a whisper, not wanting to disturb the warm sort of feeling the room has right now by speaking too loud.

Under the safety of his mask, Ghost’s mouth curves into a smile hearing you. He rolls his head back again, arching slightly to accommodate your small hands struggling to find good purchase to keep working at the intensity he’d been hinting at. A much less controllable sound escapes his mouth when you begin working at a very sore spot he didn’t even know was present right at the base of his skull.

“Keep going,” His sleepy-sounding mutter makes your chest ache.

Grinning at the feeling of his harsh accent and sudden domestication you work away diligently down his back carefully and methodically so as to not miss a single thing. And while it’s not necessarily going to help him much, you go ahead and use your fingernails to gently scratch up and down. It’s then a groan interrupts your focus and you see Ghost shift on the edge of the bed. Believing you’d found the end of your time, you leaned back on your heels and expected him to get up and leave you in the bedroom alone. Watching him tug at his t-shirt and pull it over his head to toss it somewhere across the room was how you were told that Ghost did indeed want more. Only his shirt was getting in the way of something he wasn’t getting.

Hearing him give a deep sigh when your fingertips returned to his now bared skin gave you a rush of adrenaline and nearly caused you to wiggle happily that you’d been able to share this with Ghost. He leans back into you a little more, letting your hands and arms take more of the weight as he groans out;

“You’ve done this before.”

“Yeah, but not for a long time.” You answer, eyes smoothing over the muscles rippling as your hands work at them.

“You’re good,” He grunts, closing his eyes and zeroing in on how to focus his attention between your small hands working so efficiently and the conversation he’d begun. “How’d you get so good at it?” His head turns a little, trying to get at least one good look at you. He keeps shifting now, allowing him to keep you just in the edge of his periphery.

“Had a good teacher for a few years,” You answer, working in tight circles over a large ball of muscle fibers all collected just at the edge of his shoulder blade, earning another growling sound from the Lieutenant.

“Teacher? When?” He asks, giving a slow release of a deep breath giving a short indication that the muscle you’d been working to release was getting a bit uncomfortable. Pulling back for a moment just to give him and your hands a break, you hear him make a noise then lean back a little further, pressing his back against you almost like a dog wanting to be pet more.

“Don’t stop.” He requests in a husky tone. You chuckle aloud, returning your hands and taking a less aggressive approach by smoothing your palms over him in less-than-planned patterns, just enjoying feeling his tattooed and scarred skin under your hands as you think about how to answer him.

“A woman in London taught me,” you start, using your nails again on his skin softly. “In the year or so between my U.S. military discharge and acceptance into the task force with you.” You see the effect of your touch on Ghost as it takes him longer to respond and the way he keeps leaning more and more weight back into you, unable to keep himself from subconsciously trying to get closer. Wanting more whether he’d ever admit it or not. There’s no mistaking it between either of you, he’s enjoying this.

“I assume she was special to you.”

It was your neighbor just across the hallway from you. An older woman named Sarah. Eccentric in modern times, you’d always believed she must’ve been a force to be reckoned with when she wasn’t hindered by an aging body and an even more ailing mind. A massage therapist by trade, and a pianist by heart there wasn’t much that Sarah could accomplish without someone helping her once she became limited in movement living on the eighth floor of the apartment building you shared. Back then you didn’t have much in the way of contacts after leaving the country, and it led to a friendship with the old woman living across from you. Sharing stories, eating dinner together, grocery shopping together when she felt like going out, and trading some skills between each other. After telling Ghost this much with your fingers tracing out letters and shapes over his back, you can sense he’s listening carefully. And Ghost is feeling a slight fuzzy sensation building in the back of his brain, spreading out in a warm wave down to his fingertips and toes.

“She taught me massage since at the time I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life.” Your head falls to the side, examining how the lamplight shines on ghost and deepens the already significant definition in his physique.

Ghost falls against you even more, and this time he lets his head fall back against you. Trying to counterbalance his weight and keep both of you from falling backwards with just him limp he’s becoming, you wrap on arm around his neck and hold his head in the bend of your arm. He gives another sigh, and settles against you heavily. He. looks at you in silence out of the corner of his eye listening to your explanation.

“Why was she your only friend?” You can’t help but chuckle at his question, resting your chin on his opposite shoulder and bringing your other arm under his to begin scratching and rubbing at his chest, feeling deep and puckered scars littering nearly every inch of him.

“I didn’t know anyone else. And you know me well enough to know that I’m not exactly extroverted.” You smile, tracing lightly up and down his well-defined arm. Ghost couldn’t be more comfortable laid against you.

“Sorry to hear that.” His voice low and husky with his mouth so close to your ear. “She must call or ask about you…”

You shake your head. “No. She died just before I joined you all. Her mind was… failing her. And there was some kind of accident in the middle of the night The police told me she was likely trying to get to the bathroom and fell. She apparently died on impact… they didn’t say what, but I think her head hit something.” You explain quietly. “And you and I both know that means lights out. So she didn’t suffer.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he answers as softly as he can manage after hearing the darker part of your happy memories. “How did it become… intimate, like this?” He asks, nodding to the way you were leaned up against his back with your hand tracing over every inch of him that you could reach. The longer you’ve both let this go, the more boundaries get pushed further out of reach, making it hard for either of you to really know where it could end.

You smile with a blush creeping up your neck onto your cheeks, thankful you’re somewhat hidden out of sight. “This isn’t really what she taught me,” You mutter a bit quiet. “When i was massaging you… yes. That I got taught. But this, it’s… just me.”

Out of your sight Ghost’s face flushes slightly as well, his cheeks a warm rose-color. You’re touching him in a way that he’d never expected. But hearing that you’re not just doing it for… relaxation, it’s a heavy but welcome thought. And Ghost can’t help that his body reacts to it with chills raising all over his skin despite the house being perfectly warm. He lets out a deep breath focusing on your words, repeating him over just to ensure that you’re not saying it one way and him interpreting it differently due to your hands being all over him, making him feel so good. Mind racing, heart pounding, he truly realizes just how vulnerable he is under you at this moment.

“I can stop if you’d like?” You offer, preparing to move away from him.

“No,” His hoarse voice gives away his sudden dry mouth. No matter how much your touch is affecting his body, he’s not willing to stop you right now. You’ve crossed into a level of trust that he can’t think to make you abide by anymore. It’s a foreign feeling for him, but he wants to push through it. Hoping he can feel more of you if he just holds on a little longer to this.

“Don’t stop."

Comments & Reblogs are Appreciated <3

#simon ghost riley #ghost x reader #cod #cod mwii #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #velvetures writes #velvetures

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pluckyredhead · 11 months

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The past few days I've been thinking a lot about the General Slocum disaster.

It's a mostly forgotten story now, but the General Slocum was a passenger steamboat that was used for excursion trips around New York during the turn of the 20th century. In 1904 it caught on fire and sank in the East River, and over a thousand people died (there were less than 1400 aboard to begin with). Most of them were women and children. They were on a church-sponsored picnic outing.

From top to bottom, the story of the General Slocum is about corporate greed, and corruption, and incompetence:

The fire was probably started by a match or cigarette (!) in the Lamp Room, which was full of straw, oily rags, and lamp oil (!).

A child told the captain that the ship was on fire, but the captain ignored him. The crew didn't properly inform the captain of the fire until ten minutes later.

The captain inexplicably made for North Brother Island, even though other islands were closer. Steering directly into headwinds spread the fire faster.

The crew hadn't practiced a fire drill in the past year.

None of the safety equipment on the ship worked, because the steamboat company found it cheaper to pay off safety inspectors than to keep their ships up to code.

There was a hose on board, but it was so old and rotten that it burst when the crew tried to hook it up. The crew then gave up trying to put out the fire or help anyone and abandoned ship.

The lifeboats were wired to the deck, and the wires had then been painted over, rather than removing the lifeboats each time the ship got a fresh coat of paint, so it they were impossible to lower.

The life preservers were filled with cork. They were supposed to weigh a certain amount, so the manufacturer had put lead bars in some of them to make weight.

Others were so old that the cork inside had disintegrated into powder. Solid cork floats. Powdered cork sinks.

That meant that some of the mothers who survived described putting life preservers on their babies and throwing them into the river to escape the flames, and watching them sink.

Very few people could swim at the time, and everyone was wearing the heavy wool clothing of the period. Hundreds of people drowned.

The disaster decimated the immigrant community of Little Germany on the Lower East Side, where most of the deceased were from. Fathers who hadn't been able to attend the picnic because they were working got home to find their wives and children were all dead. Dozens of bodies were either never found, or found but never identified.

Though multiple safety inspectors and employees of the steamboat company were indicted, only the captain - who very much became the scapegoat for the whole thing - was convicted. The steamboat company paid a nominal fine. The one silver lining was that state and federal safety regulations were strengthened in the aftermath.

Like I said at the beginning, this story is mostly forgotten. A lot of historians credit that to the Titanic upstaging it just a few years later. Adella Wotherspoon, who survived the General Slocum as a baby and lived until 2004 (!), said she knew why: "The Slocum people were very poor or middle class. They were often German immigrants. The Titanic and other ships had celebrities."

I don't really have a moral to this story, except that safety regulations matter, ships full of immigrants are just as important as ships full of rich people, and humans have pretty much always been the same, as far as I can tell.

(If you want to know more, I highly recommend Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum by Edward T. O'Donnell, the excellent Wikipedia page, and the Bowery Boys podcast episode on the disaster.)

#general slocum #history #oceangate

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intersectionalpraxis · 5 months

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Full Text:

UK and US striking Yemen - analysis

Last night's strikes on Yemen were severely limited to 76 strikes with about 100 missiles.

Sky News Arabia reported that America had briefed the Houthis before the strikes to prevent a "greater escalation of the war", meaning the whole circus was staged just to show some muscle to the world.

From here, the Houthis have already carried out a complete evacuation of the bases for several days, and most likely they have hidden all the equipment in their mountainous regions.

The strikes were mainly on observation posts and an empty military base, which the Houthis joke that only Saudi Arabia has announced since 2015 that it has destroyed it 3 times. However, 11 members of the movement died from those bombings.

The US cannot afford a major regional war in any case, because in that case it is clear to everyone that Israel will be gone. After all, many analysts in the West also stated that.

The Houthis have threatened to strike the oil platforms in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which will cause a huge jump in the price of oil and a major economic crisis in Europe, which is very dependent on this oil.

On the other hand, all the Biden administration has managed to achieve is to completely close the Suez Canal as a route for commercial ships, not only to Israel but also those to Europe and the United States. Great economic damage.

Immediately after the US and UK launched the strikes, the Houthis hit back with ballistic missiles and US bases across Syria and Iraq were again attacked. Which shows that if the US enters a war in the Middle East in the name of Israel, it will bear great consequences. It will be a war on a grand scale.

What still keeps on Israel breathing is the fact that both sides (US and Iran) are avoiding a major conflict and regional war. The conflict is for now confined to the territory of Israel, which is suffering heavy military and economic damage, while taking out its fury on civilians in Gaza.

This whole show, in my opinion, was performed to divert all attention from the international court of justice where Israel is accused of the genocide it is committing in Gaza by South Africa.

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vase-of-lilies · 9 months

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❀ Pairing: Dark!Vampire!Wanda x Vampire Hunter!Reader(F) (Some Wolf!Bucky x Reader x Wanda)

❀ Warnings: Non-con, dubcon, violence, vampire-esque content, dark!Wanda (she’s a warning…), blood and gore, draining of a body, biting for sexual stimulation, overstimulation, fingering, violence, swearing, use of a dagger, knife play, forced to strip, getting bitten by a vampire but not turning into one, bondage (restraints from ceiling), a punishment, pet names (Sweetheart, little one, etc.), slight somnophilia, spanking, and more!

❀ This is my second entry for @eloquentreverie ’s dusk till dawn challenge! The sentence I chose is:

“Take off your clothes. Slowly. I want to watch you.”

❀ Disclaimer and Authors Note: The pictures only represent aesthetics and themes. There is no certain skin color, body type, ethnicity, or description other than Y/n and “you”. The pictures go to their rightful owners on Pinterest, and the comic-style pictures belong to the beautiful artist Jenifer Prince.

❀ I hope you like this addition to the collection of Creatures and Foreigners! I would die and be resurrected for vampire!wanda. Literally. This is a re-write, since the original was in 3 parts. To keep this organized, I just made it one post!!

It was time… It was time to catch the creature that was terrorizing the beautiful village you live in. Yorkshire is where you are from, where your beautiful home stands. It's a small cottage with a perfect view of the mountains gracing the East, the sunrises your favorite part of the day. When the sun sets in the west, it's when everyone locks their doors with iron chains, keeps a wooden stake by their beds, a garlic circle around their homes, and prays to the [whichever you believe in] and hopes they survive the night.

You finally had the will to change this. To help the people you love feel a little safer at night who were terrified of the vampire who lived in the castle on the South Hill. The dark bricks and stones towered over the town, casting a large shadow over everyone at dusk. That shadow was the sign that it was time to prepare for the worst, for the creatures of the night to begin hunting for their midnight snacks. And lastly, for the vampire to find her next source of blood.

For Wanda, she always loved human blood but never complained with cow, or sheep blood. It was the blood of a fighting soul that tasted best to her. There was something so satisfying watching the life drain from someone’s eyes once their body is empty of their blood. However, whether it was a man or a woman, she loved to torture them before she killed them. She would keep them locked up for days, weeks even, and keep them on their toes. She would feed them one day, and then break their legs the next. She was a storm that you never want to be stuck in the middle of.

Packing your sash full of what you need was not a challenge at all. Each piece of equipment had a slot that it belonged to. One for your wooden sword, a small chain of iron links, garlic garland, iron cross bow, and last but not least your gun with the solid iron pellets ready to kill any vampire you see. It was not very heavy as one would think, having it around your shoulders made it very easy to access everything as well as keeping it light for you to carry around the woods.

Wanda, being one of the only vampires in Yorkshire, knew she was being hunted. She could sense the tension coming closer to her castle every step you took down the newly stoned and paved pathway. She could smell your villager blood from miles away. It was a scent she could decipher in a split second. Cow blood smelled cold, almost like a winter morning. But human blood smelled like the moon had created it, making it much more appetizing than a mere animal.

~~~~~~~

You could see the dark bricks of the castle from a far, your wooden sword drawn and ready to strike anything in its path. The forest became silent, indicating a predator was near and hungry. Leaves were heard crunching under fast footsteps coming closer and closer by the second. Your head whipped from right to left, not knowing where these footsteps were exactly.

“Show yourself creature!” You shouted into the darkness of the forest.

“Who are you?” A dark voice echoed in your surroundings, not pointing in a certain direction.

Not shying from her, you answer honestly. “Y/n, of Yorkshire.”

She chuckles, “Ah, so townsfolk, hm?” She watches from behind a tree as you struggle to find where her voice is coming from. She senses your fear, so to make matters worse she drags her nails against the trees creating an ear-splitting noise, making you drop your weapon and cover your ears.

“Ah!!” You shout in pain. As you pull your hands from your ears your skin is coated in the sticky, crimson liquid. “Your time has come, y-you evil creature!”

Wanda chuckles at your struggle, “My time will never come… but yours have.”

Your brows furrow and you reach for your iron bar. You smirk as you hear the hissing of the vampire, her power of sounding everywhere fading significantly, pointing in the direction of where she could be. “Don’t fucking come near me!” She growls, hiding behind another tree.

“Oh, so I found your weakness…”

She whimpers in response, “Don’t t-touch me!” Lighting your lantern, your eyes catch movement, and you grab the chainlink and throw it to where you see her.

“Aha! Finally!” You walk over to her, smirking at her as she falls to the ground. “You are going to grant me a fortune…” You say darkly, looking at her with false pity in your eyes. Around you, a growling catches you off guard. Looking around, you don’t see anything immediately, but what Wanda says churns your stomach.

“Y-your in t-tr-trouble.” She stutters, moving away from you slightly. Wanda smirks and you jump back in fear as a large black wolf shields the vampire. Grabbing your dagger, you lunge forward with no fear.

“She’s mine!” You growl, slashing the wolfs shoulder making him whimper but he pushes through and pounces on you, biting your leg and ripping a chunk of skin off. You scream in pain, and scamper back as He rips the chains off of Wandas body.

The last weapon you grab is your gun. You cock it back and point it at both the vampire and the wolf. “Stay back!” A whimper leaves your throat as you scoot back again, your leg dragging against the damp and cold soil below you.

Wanda glares at you her eyes turning red and a red light appearing at her hands. Before you can pull the trigger, she flings the gun from your hands and your head follows it. Like lightning, your sash of tools was cut from your body and you were flung over Wandas shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Your arms and uninjured leg flail as you fight against the strong grip of Wandas arms around you, and as you look down from over her shoulder you see the wolf looking up at you smugly. He was with her all along, he wasn’t trying to take her too… You sighed and continued to struggle, all the way to the castle, down two flights of stairs, and through a door to a dungeon full of cells. She throws you onto a dingy cot in the corner of a cell, cuffs your wrists with metal cuffs that don’t hurt her, and leaned against the bars.

“Let me go you monster!!” You pull the chains connected to the wall hoping to break them. But to no avail were you able to get out of the rings that locked your wrists.

“Not happening.” Wanda states, staring at you from the edge of the cell. She looks at your leg and her hands turn red once again. You were scared as you felt the tingle in your leg, watching in awe as the chuck of skin missing from your leg was miraculously healed with only a few scars. It was just like the townsfolk said, she will torture you one day, and heal you the next. Making you unaware of what is going to happen next.

You growl and shout at her. “What do you want from me??” You look up at her, tugging and pulling against the chains again.

A hard slap across your face shuts you up, and you fall against the cot in surprise. You feel the hand shaped sting and a bruise already starting to form from how hard she hit you. “You tried to kill me and wanted to kill my baby!” She rubs soft circles against the wolfs slick black fur, and he whines softly as she grazes over the cut on his shoulder.

You look at the wolf who is now eye level with me and you glare as you see your blood staining his teeth. “F-fuck you.” You whisper at him, scooting back as you feel blood dripping from your nose, the act of the slap causing trauma to your nose as well.

“Oh don’t listen to her baby,” Wanda says calmly as she kneels next to the wolf beside her. “You’re such a good boy.” She smiles as he lets out a happy ‘arf’ and you roll your eyes at them.

“He’s a dumb dog.” You scoff, leaning against the cool brick wall as you hold a piece of your dress against your nose. To your surprise she slaps you again, making you whimper once again.

“He’s not just a dumb dog!” She shouts, outraged at your utter disrespect towards her loyal friend. As she was about to lunge at you, a gust of wind blows against your body and you look up to see a greek god of a man, who was formerly the wolf. You yelp in astonishment, never thinking that a werwolf and a vampire would ever be on the same team.

“Mistress, she’s not worth it.” The man says, holding Wanda by her hips as she tries to scratch and punch at you. You scoot impossibly further from them, and you see Wanda visibly relax as the man holds her hips in his hands.

“Bucky, she hurt you… she has to pay.” She whispers, ghosting her fingers over the wound on his shoulder.

He only chuckles and cups her cheek. “Hey, it’s ok… it’ll heal up in no time. She’s weak, it barely hurt.” He kisses her lips, and gently runs his fingers through her hair. You growl and you look away from them, telling yourself internally that you are strong and that you almost had the vampire until the stupid dog showed up.

She only sighs, staring up at him. “Such a good boy, protecting your mistress…” You mute them in your head as you look around, trying to find any way of escape. Pulling against the chains keeping you locked to the wall was not an option anymore, and fighting was practically useless against either monsters. Maybe it would be a good idea to cooperate. NO! No, don’t fall for her enchantment. She is evil.

As Wanda sends a final slap to Buckys ass, he leaves the cell and you jump at the door slamming. It was when you were alone with Wanda that your fear really kicked in. “Hmm… look at you all scared.” She saunters over to you, a sadistic smile pulling at her lips. Chills are sent up your spine and a shiver shortly follows. You are vigorously pulling at the chains, whimpering every inch she comes closer to you.

She sits down on the cot next to you, grabbing your newly healed leg and digging her finger nails into the sensitive skin. “Ah!! St-stop! Stop!” You sob, trying to push her away with all your might. She doesn’t budge and chuckles.

“Now why would I do that?” She raises her brows at your reaction, smiling as you writhe against her, your whimpers music to her ears. She is arouse by your writhing and she digs her nails even deeper, tears free-falling down your cheeks. She ignores your pleas, shaking her head in disappointment. “You hurt my love. I certainly won’t stand for that.”

You turn your head, your teary eyes focusing on the lines of the bricks stacked around you in your small cell, trying to ignore the pain in your leg. “What d-do you want f-from me?” You ask in a shaky voice, trembling under Wandas touch. You are confused as you feel warmth on your leg where her fingers had drawn blood.

“You taste so fucking good…” She whispers. You furrow your brows and you realize she had tasted your blood. You pull at the chains, managing to kick her away from you as you struggle. She growls, having none of what you are giving her. She pounces on top of you, making you groan in pain. “Be grateful I didn’t kill you!”

A pained whimper makes you resent her even more, so you gather spit in your mouth and spew it onto Wandas face. She wipes the spit away in disgust and smacks you across the face again, much harder this time. Your vision becomes blurry and your head feels like it is in a daze. “Please, l-let m-me go,” You stutter, whimpering as you feel helpless looking up at her from your position below her.

She ignores you and she runs her nose against your neck and to your ear “No,” she whispers, her fangs barely grazing your neck. With a smirk, she closes her jaw, puncturing your skin with her teeth. You scream in pain, your back arching against her as you struggle underneath her.

It takes everything for Wanda to not drain you, so she pulls back reluctantly. “Shit, you taste like heaven,” she moans at the taste of your blood, smiling as she licks up the puncture wounds adorning your neck. “Mmm, you look better like this…” She says, looking at your writhing and twitching body on the cot. She bites her lip, her pussy starting to form a slick spot on her under garments. Her smirk scares you, and you stare at the ceiling trying to pull at the chains but failing miserably.

“Please, n-n-no mo-more,” you curl against yourself, trying to hide your vulnerable form from your captor. She smacks your thigh, making you turn around on your back again. She chuckles darkly and bites her lip once again.

“Look at you…” She says, not pitying you one ounce. It takes much strength to try and sit up, but you manage to do so with a lot of pain. Bowing your head into her lap, you beg her to make the pain stop.

“Please! Pl-please it hurts s-so b-b-bad!” The bite pulses in pain, my blood pumping to try and close the wound. Sobs and whimpers make your body shake, and Wanda takes notice to her puncture wound on your neck. She sighs and begins to heal it, gently lifting you up.

“It’s ok…” She says, rubbing small circles on your back as she lays you down on the pillow at the top of the cot. You quietly thank her as you feel the wounds on your neck close, the pain ceasing completely.

“Why are you keeping me here?” You ask in a raspy voice, confused as to why she hasn’t killed you yet. She looks at you with a tilt of her head, thinking as to why she is keeping you. She smiles to herself and comes to a conclusion.

“Because I like you. I don’t like that you hurt my baby, but I do like you.” You shook your head. Because she liked you? What is that supposed to mean? Not wanting to be on her bad side, you take the time to apologize.

“I-im sorry I hurt him. I was trying to make my town finally proud of me.” You sigh softly, scooting away from her and pulling at the chains again.

“It’s ok sweetheart, you’re safe with me.” She whispers.

“Dont you understand that Im scared of you?” You whimper, “Y-you bit me, a-and hurt me,” Your eyes meet hers, your confusion making you angry. “What is my purpose? A-am I just a toy? What am I?” You ask her, salty tears rolling in beads down your cheeks. She sighs and wipes the tears from your skin, giving you a soft kiss on the nose, ignoring your questions.

“You’ll get used to me, I promise.” She smiles and pulls away.

Your eyes narrow, as she stands up, leaving you. “What am I? Pl-please tell me!” You ask desperately, standing up with her but only making it so far until the chains pull you back.

“Ill see you tomorrow, sweetheart.” Wanda says with a soft smile on her lips, closing the cell door and locking it. She makes her way up the stairs, ignoring your screams and profanities as she locks the dungeon door behind her and hanging the keys on the hook right next to it.

When the sun rose the next morning, you waited anxiously for Wanda to come back down. Maybe she forgot about you, or doesn’t want to deal with you. What you dreaded most was the fact she may use you as a human blood bag and kill you. You didn’t fear death, you feared the feeling of your blood draining slowly from your body. The blood bubbling at every bite she leaves on you. The fear blocked the fact that it was morning, and she was most likely asleep in the darkness of her chambers above you.

As you waited, you too fell asleep, dreaming of a place where you would rather be. Safe and in your best friends presence. “Steve… I miss you so much,” You whisper before fully dozing off. Deep in sleep, you don’t hear the metal cell door open and Wandas soft footsteps enter the room. You were too focused on staying warm in your shivering state.

Wanda took note of your cold and shaking body, so she waved her hand and a soft, furry blanket appeared around your body. She smiled as you cuddled into the soft material and watched you sleep for a moment. Falling out of her staring trance, she sits down on the cot next to you. She gently rubs your back whispering, “Sweetheart? Sweetheart, wake up.” Instinctively you lean into the soft hand against your back, but the memories bombard their way back into your head making you sit straight up and scoot all the way back.

You stared at Wanda with wide eyes, scared of her further intentions. You are confused as she hands you a bowl of cut up fruit and vegetables, curious as to where she got this food. “Here you go, eat up.” You furrow your brows and look down at the fruit, picking at it. Fishing for some type of sign of poison. Wanda just chuckles and leans against her hand as she watches you. “I promise, its not poisoned. You need to eat, especially after I drank some of your blood yesterday.”

Exhaling the breath you were not aware you were holding, you pick up a ruby, red strawberry. Ripe and firm to the touch. You close your eyes and let out a satisfied hum as you take a bite, the sweet tasting strawberry surrounding your tongue with glorious flavor.

Wanda moves closer to you, sitting right next to you as you eat. She nuzzles her nose against your neck where two little fang marks sit proudly. You don’t take notice of her fully, the delicious fruit distracting you from Wandas intrusions, even lifting your head up in response. She hums a small chuckle and kisses your cheek, “You are so beautiful, little one. So beautiful.” Freezing your chewing, you swallow and look up at her in slight surprise, her comment catching you off guard.

Butterflies flutter in your belly at the closeness between the two of you, her warm breath against your lips and chin. “Do you really think so?” You whisper, not believing what she is saying at first.

She nods, “I do, you’re so pretty…” She whispers back, kissing the soft skin of your neck. “And you smell so good, little one.” She hums as her nose moves up your neck, her lips pressing soft kisses in between soft sniffs. The gentleness of her gestures makes you drop the glass bowl in your hands, causing it to shatter against the stone floor.

Both you and Wanda jump and she pulls away quickly. “Damnit, I can’t get many bowls or plates these days.” She murmurs, starting to collect the broken shards.

“I-im sorry, I-it slipped,” You stutter, kneeling down to help pick up the shards too. You were too quick with the glass, cutting your finger in the process making you pull back with a wince. A small amount of blood oozes from the small cut and Wanda freezes, her pupils blown full at the smell of the exposed blood.

She holds back, grabbing a small cloth from her dress and hands it to you, “Here.” She says curtly, but she is stopped. She tilts her head as you hold your hand out.

“I can see how much you want it,” You say softly, wincing as she gently holds your hand in hers.

“Are you sure?” She asks hesitantly, softly moaning at the smell as she gets closer. You nod and she brings your finger to her lips, licking the wound and emitting a low hum at the taste. Her eyes close and you look at her curiously. She is in a euphoric state, she is vulnerable and not paying attention when she is drinking your blood. Slowly you begin to become dizzy, the amount of blood coming from your finger increasing by the second.

Before you can warn her, you fall against the mattress, fully losing consciousness at the loss of blood. Wanda sighs, laying down beside you on the bed. “It’s ok, I got you…” She whispers, her hand roaming the front of your body softly. Her hands cup your breasts, her finger grazing your pebbling nipple from under the fabric of your dress. Wanting to feel more, she unties the twine keeping the leather vest of your dress on and she smiles as it comes loose, your breasts showing themselves under the thin tunic.

She reaches down your tunic, rubbing your bud softly between her fingers. Her lips kiss your neck, moving slowly down to your slightly exposed back. You feel her as you sleep, but you can’t comprehend anything to stop her. A small whimper exits your mouth and she pulls away for a moment, waiting for you to settle down again. Once your breathing is even, she explores further, lifting your shirt from your tucked in skirt.

Her hand smoothes over your belly and just over the waist band of your undergarments, pushing under the fabric and to your soft curls underneath. She smiles as she buries her face in your neck, her fingers softly opening your petals and gently running her fingers over your slit. As she holds your folds open, she rubs circles over your clit, making you moan quietly in your sleep.

As she pleasures you, she bites your neck softly only sucking a small amount of blood this time. Your gasp makes her smile around the wound on your neck and it makes her want even more of you. Her finger moves faster around your sensitive bud, your back arching against her front. Your legs open even more as you lay your head back against her.

As she moves even faster, a strong and mind numbing orgasm washes over you, pushing you over the edge. Your legs shake in your sleep, and Wanda smirks as she removes her fingers from your undergarments. She brings her fingers to her mouth and hums in delight. “Absolutely delicious, my love.” She whispers in your ear, smirking as your breaths calm down from pants, to a normal rhythm again. Her hand moves to your breasts again, just holding the soft flesh in her hand and palming against them.

She sighs as she senses you waking up, and makes sure everything is back in order; your shirt tucked into your skirt, tunic back in place, and laces on your leather vest tied with a bow at the top. Sitting up, she frowns at the raw skin and dried blood from around your wrists and unlocks the cuffs. She wraps her hands around the raw flesh and heals them in an instant, kissing them softly.

She has hope that when the sun sets and the moon rises, you will no longer be in pain. “Mm, such a beautiful girl…” She whispers before she leaves the cell for the night, not thinking twice of the unlocked chains and completely forgetting to lock the cell and dungeon doors.

~~~~~~~

You were only asleep for a small amount of time, waking up without Wanda anywhere to be seen. You sigh and sit up, feeling quite odd in your lower regions. However, the lack of metal around your wrists made every other thought disappear. Being able to walk around the cell felt nice, but your curiosity took you further. Right to the door. As you pushed, you were even more astonished as it opened.

Pushing your luck even further, you walk up the spiral staircase to the door of the dungeon. With a gentle nudge, it squeaks open to reveal a large corridor, torches lit on each wall and blood red curtains hanging from each tall window. You were trapped and you were finally free, but the first thought you had was, ‘Where is Wanda?’

You wandered through the hallways, finding your way to the great hall, you come across a grand staircase. Alining the stairs was beautiful red and gold carpet and above it was a dark and spider web-covered, crystal chandelier. It shimmered as the fired torches flickered around the hall. You start to make your way upstairs, and as you walked down yet another hallway, you are stopped by a growl behind you and a searing pain in your leg.

You instantly scream in agony, struggling against the iron jaws of the werwolf. He didn’t let up, even after hitting his head as he dragged you down the hall and to a bed room. Wandas bed room. Your eyes widen and you dig your nails into the carpet, only resulting in bleeding fingers. As you entered her room, you look up in fear as the woman towers over you.

“Well, what do we have here?” Wanda tuts, looking down at you.

You sob loudly as the wolf digs his teeth into your freshly healed leg. You yelp and you look up at her, “I- I wasn’t going t-to es-escape! I wa-wa- AHHH!” The wolf bites down even harder and you try your best to hit him, but it doesn’t phase him.

“Buck, stand down…” She says, calling off the dog. She grabs you harshly by your shirt and drags you to her bed, throwing you on the mattress. “Don’t lie to me!” She growls, glaring at you as you push yourself away from her, scooting to the top of the bed.

At this point you weigh out your options: One, you try to escape and get killed by Wanda, “Buck” the dog, or your village when you get back with no vampire. Or two, you stay here and get food, possibly a lover, and a pet dog. The latter sounded more than enjoyable and you break saying, “I- I promise! Th- the chains we-were off me wh-wh-when I woke up! P-please! I- I don't want t-to leave!”

“Are you sure?” She asks with a growl, crawling towards you with a scowl on her face. “If you’re lying, I’ll feed you to him…” She says, pointing to Bucky who falsely lunges at you just to scare you. As you jump back from him, Wanda only chuckles.

“I-I’m not lying! Y-you’re so kind, a-and fed m-me!” You try, and Wanda sits down across from you on the bed. She grabs your ankle and pulls you to her. Her hands glow a bright red and the pain subsides from your leg again. You sigh in relief, hoping that she will forgive you.

As she looks at you, she shakes her head and sighs softly. “I believe you, but there will be consequences.”

Letting out a breath, you nod in understanding. “Y-yes I understand, please forgive me, i-it won’t ever happen again.” You sob, following her gentle movements as she pulls you to her arms. Your head falls onto her chest and she comforts you as you calm down.

“I forgive you, little one,” She whispers, kissing your head softly and tickling the skin of your arm. “Now let’s go, I need to punish you.” She says, sitting up. Suddenly cold as ice again. Her bipolar emotions confuse you, just like the village said, she keeps you on your toes.

She hardly grabs your wrist and pulls you down the flights of stairs to the dungeon again. You swiftly follow her, trying to keep up with her fast walking pace. Once in the dungeon, she pulls you to a different portion of the room, one full of many torture devices now considered controversial to use. You freeze as you take in the new surroundings and you jump as the bars slam closed and lock behind you.

Wanda steps into the far wall of the room and grabs her tools she desires: Rope and a wooden paddle. You stared in horror at the tools as she lays them down on the table next to a long chain connected to the ceiling. From a hidden sheath on the side of her thigh, she pulls out a sharp dagger, pointing it at you.

She stalks towards you, holding the knife at the height of your neck. Backing up, you whimper as your back hits the cold, metal bars, Wanda then putting the tip of the blade against your neck. “Strip.” She says, pulling away from you. Frozen in fear, you don’t account for her command and you stare at her. To make you cooperate, she sends a glowing ball of energy towards you making you duck in response.

“Im going to repeat myself, and you better listen this time…” She says in a dark voice, only warning you once. “Now, Take off your clothes. Slowly. I want to watch you.”

Swallowing your pride, you obey her. Untying the twine holding your vest over your torso, untucking your tunic from your skirt, pulling the string from around the back, and finally the removing of it all. Wanda was in fact a very patient women, and she made that clear. She growls at your speed and makes her hand light up with energy again. “Slower…” She says. Once again, you obey.

One piece of clothing after another, no less than four (4) seconds between each. Finally, you were down to your brazier and pantyhose. Wanda watches at you, a sadistic smile on her face as she saunters towards you with the dagger in hand. She grabs your wrist and pulls you to the middle of the floor. Of course you struggled. Wanda was angry, and you had only seen a sliver of it.

“Good girl… hold your wrists together.” She says, holding the dagger to your neck again. You felt immense fear as you held them together, and sucked in a breath as a tendril of red energy wraps its way around the dagger keeping it against your neck. Wanda moves around you, grabbing the rope from the wooden cart settled near by. She comes to your front again and begins to wrap a few rings of rope around your wrists. Circle by circle of rope, you were rendered unable to move your hands anywhere, only your arms could move up and down.

You whimpered as Wanda wrapped a heavy padlock around the middle of the rope and easily pulled your arms up to the hook hanging above you. She steps away, taking the dagger with her and moves to the far wall. Using her strength, she pulls the chains connected to the ceiling up higher than it was before, pulling you up with them. You arms pulled against your body and when she finished locking the chains in place, you could barely graze the floor with your toes.

Whimpers left your mouth and you could’t hide the fear anymore. Salty tears fell down your cheeks and landed on your chest and the floor. With false pity, Wanda pouted her lip. “Aw, don’t cry little one… It will only hurt a little.” Her voice was full of lies, and you knew this pain would be excruciating.

Tears fell down your cheeks, but Wanda paid no attention to your emotions, only your reactions to the sensations she was going to give you. In an instant, she had cut through the thin material of your brazier leaving your breasts exposed to her. She smiles and leans down, kissing the ample skin of your right breast. Your nipples harden in the cold atmosphere of the room, Wandas mouth and hand going straight to them. She rubs, licks, sucks, rolls, and pleasures your buds, pushing a burning desire in your lower belly. She could sense this and smirks as she runs the knife down your torso.

She turns the knife against your stomach, tilting it and smirking at the small bit of blood pooling at the surface of the small cut. “Mm, I can smell you… my god you smell so fucking good, little one.” She smiles against your breast and kisses along your belly all the way to the small cut just above your belly button. As her lips encase the wound, she moans in delight at the taste of your blood. Her sharp fangs graze against your skin and she nips as she moves lower.

Her dagger is now in the waist band of your underwear, teasing the fabric, slowly tearing it. As she makes it through the elastic, she puts the knife down and rips your underwear in two, tossing the fabric at your feet. As you stand bare in front of her, she stands back, a smirk adorning her face. “So beautiful…” She whispers, starting to circle your hanging body. You cross your legs, trying to cover your most intimate parts, but are quickly stopped as Wandas hand slaps your thigh. “No, keep them open. I want to see what’s mine!” She growls, smoothing her hand over the skin of your legs.

As she stands behind you, she grabs the paddle, spinning it in her hands. “Alright, how many should we do?” She asks to no one in particular. She hums and chuckles, “How about until you bleed?” She whispers in your ear, biting your earlobe. She takes a step back and raises the paddle, swinging it against your ass, hard. You scream in agony, attempting to walk forward, only moving right back to where you were. Wanda admires the red mark on your ass, smiling as she rubs her hand against your burning skin.

Another swat, another scream. More tears fall down your face with each and every hit from the wooden paddle, yet the fiery feeling in your gut gets stronger. It was a confusing feeling, getting aroused from being beaten.

It felt like ages when Wanda finally stopped. Your ass was sore, bloody, and bruised. A dark black and purple spot forming on each cheek. She puts the paddle down and reaches for more rope. You silently groan at the thought of there being anymore to come. Gently, Wanda grabs your knee, wrapping the rope around it and pulling the excess rope to the hook above you. The raises your leg, slowly starting to expose your slick folds to her. She follows by securing your other leg in the same fashion.

Now fulling spread out for her, she hums at her work. “Are you ready for the good part?” She asks.

You shake your head and look at her, “N-nothing g-g-good is going to co-come.” You stutter, your voice scratchy from the previous screaming. She sighs and shakes her head.

“You poor, little thing. There are so many things I can make good, if only you would obey, and submit to me.” She steps closer, her hands holding your hips.

You look down at her, whimpering in response. Your silence is enough of an answer to her, indicating you were not falling for her games just yet. She removes one hand off of your hip and looks down at your pussy. “Look how wet you are,” she says, rubbing her hand over your soaked lips. You struggle to close your legs, the rope rendering you completely un able to move. Her fingers spread your pussy open, your clit revealing its throbbing self.

Your slick covers Wandas fingers as she dips her fingers close to your hole, smirking at your reaction. “You must be so sensitive, huh? Your ass all bruised. Is that what made you so wet?” She tilts her head up, looking for an answer. You shake your head quickly, not wanting to admit that it was the exact reason you were wet.

To your horror, Wanda approaches the chain holding you up again. She raises it until you are much higher than before, your body swaying with her movement. Wrapping the chain around the hook to keep you where you are, she returns to you, your pussy right in front of her face. “I’ve been waiting to taste your delicious nectar all day…” She says, kissing your inner thighs softly.

You hold your breath as she takes her first taste of you, her tongue licking a stripe right between your petals. Her tongue swirled around your clit, the bud inching to be touched. You can’t deny it, the pleasure that she is bestowing upon you is mind-shattering. The moans from your mouth make Wanda smile, her fingers coming to join her mouth.

She sucks on your clit, her lips closing around it, and her fingers poking at your hole. You try to avoid her but it doesn’t work. As she continues to suck on your sensitive clit, two fingers slide into your pussy. You let out a soft sob, an unintended moan slipping out right after. Something inside of Wanda loves the sounds you make, her pussy feeling the same tension as yours.

As she works her fingers in and out of your cunt, you are already close to your first orgasm and Wanda can’t wait to see it. She witnessed one while you were asleep, but she knew it was nothing like when you would be awake. Faster her fingers became, and your moans became louder as they curl inside of you, rubbing against that one good spot.

One soft graze of her teeth against your clit was what sent you over the edge. Your legs shake, your orgasm passing through your whole body. Your mind was empty and seeing white, your chest was heaving, your pussy was throbbing, and your toes curled in pleasure. But Wanda didn’t stop.

An hour went by. She devoured your cunt, not letting you take a break. Five orgasms later, she finally pulled away from your pussy, letting you rest. You were exhausted, your eyes barely able to stay open and your mind unable to comprehend how long you had been tied up. Wanda looked up at you, kissing and rubbing your legs to soothe you. “It’s ok, little one, its all over now.” She says with a soft smile, your head hanging in front of your arms and looking down at her.

She walks to the wall and gently lowers you to the ground. She unties your legs, but keeps the rope around your wrists. Picking you up, she brings you to your cell again, laying down with you. She pulls your tied arms over her head, forcing you to hold her and she hums as she nuzzles into your neck.

You lay silently, sleep taking over your system. Wanda hums a quiet lullaby, knowing deep down you loved every minute you were in that dungeon. Maybe someday she will move you out of the dungeon and into a room of your own. Or even her room. But at this moment in time, she wanted to hold you and tell you everything is going to be ok, because it will be. She will protect you and never let you go despite your desperate attempts to escape. Some days she purposely lets you escape, get halfway into the forest, and have Bucky drag you right back into your cell.

It is laughable what effort you put into it, even though you know she will catch you Every. Single. Time.

And you accepted that. She won no matter what. You even learned that Bucky really likes his chin scratched in his wolf form, but you both have a love-hate relationship. Always calling him a dog, or a mutt, and him calling you a blood bag.

Wanda kept her word and protected you from anything that was thrown your way. In return, you kept her full of nutrients and energy. She used you for dessert, blood and body both. You learned to love it. Everything Wanda did to you, for you, with you, was out of love. Love and of course, lust. Your blood kept her alive, and she looked forward to it after a long night of hunting.

She deserved it. After all, she saved you from your horrible town, right?

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octuscle · 1 year

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Alpha Jackass

Since a few pieces of equipment for an outdoor gym had been added to the playground in the neighbourhood, more and more young people from the neighbouring social housing flats had been hanging around there. Most of them were young men with roots in the Balkans or the Middle East. Since then, Robert liked to sit on a bench with a book and watch the fellas working out. Even though no one in his family or circle of friends had had a problem with his coming out, he couldn't tell anyone that he was into this kind of young men who celebrated their cult of brotherhood and masculinity. In his family, people were not macho, but tolerant and open-minded. In his family you didn't lift iron, you went to yoga, did power walking or played golf. Of course, that was the world he had grown up in. And that world wasn't bad either. Still, he got a boner when a group of teenagers walked close enough to him after practice that he could smell their sweat. Robert occasionally hated himself for not being able to stand by his sexual fantasies at 18. He hoped that once he graduated from school, once he was at university, it would be easier for him.

It was a warm evening in late spring when he sat on his bench again. The last lads had just gone home. And one of them had obviously left his sports bag behind. Robert looked around several times. There was no one else around. He went to the sports bag and opened it. The stench that wafted towards him was breathtaking in every way. Robert made sure once more that no one was around and undressed. And got into the still warm and damp training pants. The feeling was overwhelming! He took the sweaty training shirt, the smelly socks and the trainers and put everything on. He reached for his mobile phone and took a selfie. With his curly blond hair and his still baby fat, he looked ridiculous. But he felt great. He wanted to be sweaty every night, he wanted to feel his muscles burning every night. For the last few weeks he had been watching closely how his secret idols worked out. Theoretically, all the procedures were available to him. But practically, he had no experience. He started with a rowing machine and was surprised how quickly he became familiar with it. And how quickly he broke a sweat. He loved the feeling.

After a few sets on the various machines, he took off his shirt. He was sweating like a pig. Now he needed a few pull-ups. For that he took a heavy chain from his bag as a weight and went to the bar. Just as he finished his last set, his phone rang. Or rather, it was playing his current favourite track by a gangsta rapper who was very popular with him and his bros at the moment. "Yo Fey, where are you?" asked one of his homies. "Your shisha is waiting!"

Shit, Feyzullah had completely lost track of time during his workout. As he usually did. He could forget about showering. He pulled on his hoodie, stuffed the rest of his clothes into his bag. As he walked to the bus, he checked the selfie he had taken before training. He really was an alpha jackass! Let's see how his followers on Instagram saw it.

Realised at the request of et12317. I hope you like it!

#male tf #muscle tf #quickie tf #reality change

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xxavengingangelxx · 8 months

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Long Way From Home 8/8

Ya'll know the drill. I assume this isn't ya'll's first rodeo when it comes to reading this but alas, because it's a dark fic, I will post triggers again. MDNI, 18+ TRIGGERS: Implied/attempted suicide, self-harm, torture, brainwashing, physical abuse, mind fuckery, Stockholm syndrome-related mental gymnastics, trauma bonding, mentions of foster care, threatened/implied/referenced rape, EXTREMELY dubious consent, flashbacks of torture, female being drugged. Self-hate in this one :( If I miss, any let me know, please! DARK FIC!

This fic is almost coming to an end...kind of. At an end! This will be the first part of the series. After MW3 comes out, I can start posting part 2. Now I've decided on an ending and just know I'm not a believer in happy, fluffy endings because that's just not real life. Read my other Graves/Reader fic As the; Rush Comes to see ;) @josieguts because they asked to be tagged :)

Thanks for all the love! I was so scared putting this out there.

Back on base, you learned that each Shadow kept track of how many enemy combatants they’d killed on the inside of their vests. They’d taken yours and proudly added two tally marks before giving it back to you.

One Shadow mentioned the possibility of you being charged with war crimes. Graves mentioned not to worry about it. The military thought you were dead and his company was in the process of creating another identity for you. Now, once you were on paper in Shadow Company, you had to be a little more careful about how you handled that anger in the field.

War crimes? You?

What did Graves say again? Don’t worry about it. Just another reason to stick around.

So they taught you less lethal forms of combat. The training had you on a hair-trigger and while you responded immediately to threats or attempts to grab you with nonlethal interventions, it was made clear to you that any threat on your life should be met with deadly force.

It got to the point to where you could seriously hurt someone with just your hands despite your small size. Add a sidearm or even a knife and that made you deadlier. Enemy combatant men especially just rubbed you the wrong way. They way they looked at you. Despite your gear they knew you were female. They’d smirk until they met your glare. It had gotten to the point to where just looking at an enemy made them do a double take. Your glare had that much hatred in it.

But they never limited your access to weapons, sidearms, or knives. Because they wanted you alive.

“But no more killing people just because, ‘kay, darlin’?”

But you kept at it, your anger getting the better of you in the field more often than not. Before you knew it you counted 14 tally marks on the inside of your vest. Shadows had added each one proudly. The more the more pieces of shit you killed, the less pieces of shit were left alive on Earth according to them. Graves didn’t care, either. These were terrorists you were eliminating.

It wasn’t really a problem because you were technically dead. No one could trace those deaths back to you. If someone tried hard enough, they’d be traced back to the only female operator in Shadow Company. You didn’t have a real name. You stuck out though. You were a lot smaller than the rest of the crew and you were the only one with pink accents to your gear. Despite the heavy equipment, your female figure was still obvious.

While raising hell in the Middle East you’d picked up a nickname. Several, actually. Because you were female, Middle Eastern enemy combatants, mostly men, had of course attached genderized terms to the epithets they gave you. Angel of Death was one. But the one that stuck and the one that Shadow Company picked up and labeled you with? Ice Queen, IQ for short.

Naturally, these sexist Middle Eastern enemy soldiers had assumed you and Graves to be a married couple because they could not imagine a woman your age not being married and not being under the control of a man. Graves had picked up his own monicker: Blue-Eyed Devil. Blue eyes were rare out here and so Graves also stuck out in a way.

The Blue-Eyed Devil, his wife the Ice Queen, and his men, Shadow Company were seen as terrorists in these lands and all of you had bounties on your heads.

Graves got less physical with you because you were entirely cooperative. There was not even the slightest disobedience left in your body or your mind. As far as you knew you and Graves were one. You were so far gone from your previous self but you didn’t know it. You’d forgotten who you once were. That woman had died long ago.

Graves sometimes still got physical with you, though. Just not like he used to. Instead of inflicting pain to make you suffer, Graves inflicted pain to elicit pleasure.

Some nights Graves was almost brutal. He’d have you on your knees before him, his fist grasping your soft hair in such a strong grasp that side of your head ached when he eventually let you sleep. You’d feel tears escaping from your eyes which were shut so tight it almost hurt as he quite literally fucked your throat.

And you…

You

Got

Off

It.

Graves could hold you down in bed and fuck you so hard you stayed in bed a little longer because you were nervous that others would notice you walking differently.

But that was okay. Because whenever he pulled that shit, you'd edge him mercilessly. Over and over.

But sometimes he became physical in an entirely different way. Sometimes you and him engaged in that delicious, slow burn sex that lasted…and lasted. It would leave you both hot, sweaty, and drowsy. Graves would lie in bed with you and just hold you sometimes. He’d listen as your heartrate went from rapid and erratic to slow and lethargic. He liked resting his head on your chest in between your breasts as you laid on your back and tried to fight off sleep. But he was like a warm weighted blanket and more often than not sleep won.

Sleep would often conquer you both those nights.

The room you shared was always private. Off limits. But you couldn't help but wonder what you both looked like. You under Graves. Sometimes your legs would still be spread with him between him. Sometimes he would just lie over you, legs and all. His face, especially his cheekbones would be colored red from your recent sexual efforts. His hair tousled and ruffled. He'd be on your chest trying to catch his breath while you ran lazy fingers through that messy sex hair. Your fair skin wouldn't be able to hide your post-orgasm blush, either. Your other arm would be rubbing his arm while your long hair fanned out behind you on the bed.

That mask you wore around everyone but Graves? It started to come off around Shadows. You saw them as older brothers, really. And they protected you like no one’s business.

One of those edgy, overly eager enemy soldiers had gotten the drop on you once when you had been busy trying to pull intel off an enemy device.

Said enemy combatant had been able to knock you off your feet. And climbed on top of you. He got four punches in, shattering your goggles and making the fragments scatter while some scratched your face.

Four hits.

Shadows were never far behind. You were never alone. The enemy soldiers had a nickname for Shadows, too. Hellhounds. Shadows were quick to pull this man off you. They dragged him off somewhere and tortured him slow.

They’d let you kill him.

You’d taken off the shattered goggles. They hurt your face anyway seeing as this motherfucker had caused your face to be cut in several places from the sharp plastic when they broke from his punches. You’d stopped wearing a mask around Shadows long ago. You approached said enemy and shot him point blank.

He made the 15th kill. Shadows added one more tally to your vest when you got back to base.

Addicted. That was the only term you would use to describe how you felt towards Graves and how he felt towards you.

Neither of you could function without the other for long.

You had no idea what you would do if something happened to him. Or if for some reason you were taken from him.

While on base you got whatever the hell you wanted. That top-of-the-line computer to run code with your hacker Shadow friend? Bought and paid for. Noice-cancelling headphones to blast music through? Done. “Just don’t run your hearing, ‘kay, sweetheart? I need you sharp,” Graves said. Graves loved showing off that he had a female on his team that was all his and so when you wanted dark pink highlights in your hair? Go for it.

You remembered your past, dead identity reading about trauma bonding and wondering if Graves felt bad about all the shit he’d put your through before you started cooperating. Sometimes when a captor started feeling for a captive they might look back and feel…uncomfortable…unsettled with how they had treated said captive in the past. You noted how Graves had not inflicted any of the torture you’d suffered since you got to his black site. He’d had his men do it. And he’d turned away more than a few times preferring they drug you than keep inflicting pain.

Sometimes you’d catch Graves looking at you. Not in a sexual way. Not a predatory way. Not in an I own you type of way. You couldn’t quite describe it. But you wondered if it was because he missed your past self’s easy smile and joking manner. They way you could always pull him into conversation no matter that kind of shit day he’d had.

But that wasn’t you anymore and you had no plans of returning to that persona.

You still hadn’t smiled.

And you still barely talked.

“Konni Group,”

“What?”

“Konni Group,” Graves repeated.

“What’s that?” you asked, attempting to catch your breath. You were laid on his chest this time, feeling sleepy after one of those slow burn sex episodes.

“The reason might have to team up with an old foe,” Graves responded.

#phillip graves #cod mw2 #cod mwii #phillip graves x reader #graves x reader #mw2 141

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nicklloydnow · 6 months

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“When we spoke this week, she made clear that the decision of whether Ukraine wins or loses is now on us — almost entirely. As Congress debates how much more money to authorize for Ukraine’s assistance amid growing Republican opposition, she says that what we are really debating is our own future. Do we want to live in the kind of world that will result if Ukraine loses?

Hill is clear about her answer. A world in which Putin chalks up a win in Ukraine is one where the U.S.’s standing in the world is diminished, where Iran and North Korea are emboldened, where China dominates the Indo-Pacific, where the Middle East becomes more unstable and where nuclear proliferation takes off, among allies as well as enemies.

“Ukraine has become a battlefield now for America and America’s own future — whether we see it or not — for our own defensive posture and preparedness, for our reputation and our leadership,” she told me. “For Putin, Ukraine is a proxy war against the United States, to remove the United States from the world stage.”

(…)

“The problem is that many members of Congress don’t want to see President Biden win on any front,” she said. “People are incapable now of separating off ‘giving Biden a win’ from actually allowing Ukraine to win. They are thinking less about U.S. national security, European security, international security and foreign policy, and much more about how they can humiliate Biden.”

“In that regard,” she continued, “whether they like it or not, members of Congress are doing exactly the same thing as Vladimir Putin. They hate that. They want to refute that. But Vladimir Putin wants Biden to lose, and they want Biden to be seen to lose as well.”

(…)

Ukraine has succeeded so far because of massive military support from European allies and other partners. So in that regard, we’ve now reached a tipping point between whether Ukraine continues to win in terms of having sufficient fighting power to stave Russia off, or whether it actually starts to lose because it doesn’t have the equipment, the heavy weaponry, the ammunition. That external support is going to be determinative.

(…)

It’s a question of whether Ukraine has enough resources, financial resources, not just to keep going on the battlefield, but also to keep the country together at home. And up until now you’re still seeing a lot of European countries stepping up. Not just you know, the United States, but definitely the EU, Japan, South Korea and others. Japan recently made an offer of additional major financial support. The Germans have said that they’ll make sure that the Ukrainian economy will continue to not just survive, but thrive, and over the longer term, they’ll help rebuild. This is still somewhat positive.

On the political side, however, we’ve got the problems of the policy battlefields on the domestic front. Ukraine has now become a domestic political issue in a whole range of countries, not just here in the United States, but in countries like Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany and many more. And that’s an issue where it’s going to be very hard for Ukraine to win. Because when you get into the transactional issues of domestic politics, and you’re no longer thinking about national security, or these larger imperatives, then Ukraine dies a thousand deaths from all of the transactional efforts that domestic politicians engage in. Most political constituents, no matter the country, can’t really see beyond their own narrow interests.

(…)

One thing that we need to bear in mind here is that Putin turned for assistance to two countries that should give Americans and members of Congress pause — Iran and North Korea. Russia has had significant shortfalls of ammunition and sophisticated technology because of sanctions and other constraints. Ammunition has come from North Korea, which continues to provide Russia with all kinds of rounds for shells, and Iran has stepped up with the production of drones. Iran and North Korea both see this as a kind of international opening for them. If Russia prevails on the battlefield, you can be sure that Iran and North Korea will get benefits from this. We already see Russia shifting its position on the Iranian nuclear front, and we also see Russia making a major shift in its relationship with Israel. Putin has gone from being a major supporter of Israel, to now an opponent, and has switched from what was always very careful public rhetoric about Israel to pretty antisemitic statements. Putin never denigrated Jews in the past. On the contrary, he presented himself as a supporter of the Jewish population. This is a dramatic shift and clearly because of Iran. Now, whether Iran asked Putin to do this, I honestly can’t say, but we can all see this deepening relationship between Russia and Iran. That is a real problem for the administration and for others who are now looking at the Middle East and trying to figure out how to stop a broader war with Lebanon, with the Houthis in Yemen, and all of the Iranian proxies, because Iran and Russia have become fused together now in two conflicts.

(…)

But it’s not just China and Russia who are learning from this war. So are we. We’ve seen the impact of drone warfare and we’re thinking about how we deal with this ourselves. We’ve been kind of shocked to see how much wars like this take up ammunition stocks — this is not the type of war that we’ve fought for a very long time. When we’re thinking about our own defense, our own national security, we need to be looking very carefully at this conflict. The way that Putin has played with the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons, the use of drones on the battlefield, the use of mines, the use of ships and blockades in the Black Sea, the difficulty of pushing forward in a counteroffensive against these deep entrenchments, how various military systems including defensive equipment actually perform in real time and conditions. We can see how effective our ATACMS were, for example, our Patriot batteries. This is, in a way, a proving ground for our own equipment.

(…)

Well, there’ll be multiple ways he will define it, one of which is defeating the United States, politically, psychologically and symbolically. If the United States doesn’t pass the supplemental [bill to approve aid to Ukraine], and we get this chorus of members of Congress calling for the United States to pull away from Ukraine, Putin will be able to switch this around and say, “There you go. The United States is an unreliable ally. The United States is not a world leader.” And there will be a chilling effect for all our other allies. In the past, Putin has actually, for example, approached the Japanese and said, “Look, we can be your interlocutor with China. The United States is not going to be there to assist you in a crunch.” And that’s certainly what this is going to look like. The Japanese, the South Koreans, the Vietnamese, others that we have bilateral treaties with, are going to wonder, “OK, the United States made such a push here to support Ukraine, along with other European members of NATO, and now they’ve just walked away from it.” And you put that on top of Afghanistan and the withdrawal, also the withdrawal from Iraq, withdrawal from Syria, and the whole fraught history of United States interventions in the last two decades, and Putin will be able to present a pretty potent narrative about the United States’ inability to maintain its commitments and forfeiting its role as an international leader. So that that becomes a major political win.

(…)

We’ll be at each others’ throats. There’ll be no way in which this is going to turn out well. There’ll be a lot of frustration on the part of people who thought that this was the easier option when we reel from crisis to crisis. There’ll also be the shame, frankly, and the disgrace of having let the Ukrainians down. I think it would create a firestorm of recrimination. And it will also embolden so many other actors to take their own steps.

One key challenge is going to be the nuclear front. There’s several different ways in which we can look at the nuclear front. There’s the moral imperative. We pushed Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons that it had inherited from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. And we gave assurances along with the United Kingdom, that Ukraine would not end up in the situation that it is in now. We guaranteed its territorial integrity and sovereignty and independence and also assured Ukraine that we would step up to help. This opens up a whole can of worms related first to the moral jeopardy of this, that we obviously don’t stick to our word.

But also in terms of nuclear weapons, we could face proliferation issues with Japan, South Korea, other countries — even NATO countries who currently see themselves covered under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. They will start to worry about how much we would actually support them when they needed it, and how vulnerable they are to pressure or attack by another nuclear power. Think about the dynamics between India and Pakistan, for example, or China and India, or China and South Korea and Japan; and the predicament of leaders in other countries who will be thinking right now that, “I’m going to be extremely vulnerable — so perhaps I should be getting my own nuclear weapon.” You’re hearing talk about this in Germany, for example. You hear it all the time in places like Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, we know that they have nuclear aspirations. So this opens up a whole set of different discussions.

(…)

That it’s actually being spent at home! That’s the irony. Because every time you send a weapon to the Ukrainians, it’s an American weapon. You’re not buying somebody else’s weapons to go to Ukraine. It’s also a fraction of our defense budget.

It’s really a circular process here. We are providing weapons to Ukraine, we’re buying them from major manufacturers of defense systems here in the United States, which are obviously providing jobs for the people who are making them. And then we’re going back and we’re ordering more because we’re replenishing and upgrading our own weapons stocks. This is all part of our own system. These defense manufacturers account for huge numbers of jobs across the whole of the United States, so arming Ukraine means significant job creation and retention across the United States and also in Europe and elsewhere.

People in Congress know that, it’s just that they’re playing a different game. They want to play up this issue of “it should be spent at home” because of the transactional nature of congressional supplemental bills.

Let’s just put it frankly — this is all about the upcoming presidential election. It’s less about Ukraine and it’s more about the fact that we have an election coming up next year. The problem is that many members of Congress don’t want to see President Biden win on any front. People are incapable now of separating off “giving Biden a win” from actually allowing Ukraine to win. They are thinking less about U.S. national security, European security, international security and foreign policy, and much more about how they can humiliate Biden.

In that regard, whether they like it or not, members of Congress are doing exactly the same thing as Vladimir Putin. They hate that. They want to refute that. But Vladimir Putin wants Biden to lose, and they want Biden to be seen to lose as well.

For Vladimir Putin now Ukraine has become a proxy war. It’s not a proxy war by the United States against Russia. We’re trying to get Russia out of Ukraine, period. But for Putin, Ukraine is a proxy war against the United States, to remove the United States from the world stage. He’s trying to use Gaza, and Israel like that now, as well. He’s trying to whip up anti-United States sentiment wherever he can. I’ve just come back from Europe and from a whole host of conferences where there’s just so much rage and grievance about the United States and Putin is fanning the flames.

Putin sees Biden as a major opponent. He is an obstacle for Putin to be able to win on the battlefield of Ukraine. So Putin wants Biden to fail. Putin would be thrilled if Trump would come back to power because he also anticipates that Trump will pull the United States out of NATO, that Trump will rupture the U.S. alliance system, and that Trump will hand over Ukraine. So right at this particular moment, Putin sees an awful lot that he can get out of undermining Biden’s position.

Now, the problem, of course, is that currently many members of Congress and others are thinking about whether they want to run to be vice president for Trump, and what they should perhaps do now to support Trump and pave the way for his presidency. So the idea of giving Biden anything that could positively affect the election is just a bridge too far.

(…)

We’re not doing anything to put Putin in political jeopardy. We’re just fighting with ourselves all the time. And we can’t see past that. Biden’s got to try to help Ukraine, but can he get enough people to see past the election and also see the jeopardy we are in? We are in peril. We don’t see it. There’s such an anti-American wave that’s out there in the world. People want to see America fail and pulled down to size.

Ukraine has become a battlefield now, for America and America’s own future — whether we see it or not — for our own defensive posture and preparedness, for our reputation and our leadership.

American leadership is still very important. But other countries are starting to make plans for a world without us at this particular point. And you can be sure that Vladimir Putin, and President Xi and many others will be pretty ecstatic if we give up on Ukraine. And that could happen just as soon as December or January, because if Congress goes home for the holidays without passing the supplemental, and everyone’s back in their constituencies, there’s a lot of stuff that can happen in their absence, in that vacuum, that void that we have created. Everybody else in the rest of the world would be wondering, not just, “Where is America?” but, “What on earth has happened to America?” And if President Trump thinks that he’s going to be the leader of the free world when he comes back into office — well, think again. There won’t be a free world to be leading at all. And that’s not an overstatement. That’s just a fact.

(…)

So the best case scenario is, of course, one in which Ukraine continues to be able to hold its own and if we helped build it up militarily, where it can make another push or another series of pushes. If we think about World War Two and other wars, there were multiple offensive efforts, counteroffensives, and you just kept on trying until you succeeded. It will be very difficult to have an absolute victory over Russia. But what you want to have is Ukraine in a position to have a negotiation, a diplomatic solution, on its terms, not on Russia’s terms. A solution in which Ukraine is recognized as the party in the right, as the aggrieved party by the whole of the international community, and where Ukraine is, if not completely in territory, but materially and in every other way possible, made whole.

Another aspect of having this war resolved on Ukraine’s terms is that Russia is going to have to pay for or contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine in some fashion. That is another major reason why Putin would see the U.S. and its allies stepping back as a major win, because then there’d be no leverage whatsoever or pressure put on Russia for rebuilding Ukraine. Russia could just step back, wash its hands of all of this and let everybody else fix what it broke.

So the best possible outcome here, beyond Ukraine being able to prevail on the battlefield, is a negotiated settlement that is in Ukraine’s favor, that leads to commitments to its security and reconstruction, and leads to some soul searching in Russia. That’s not going to happen under these current circumstances. The only way that that happens is when Russia believes that everybody else has the fortitude and staying power for this conflict. And right now, that’s not what we’re displaying at all. Actually, we’re looking pretty pathetic, I can’t think of any other way to describe it. And for Putin, this is just such a gift. This is such a gift.

(…)

He’s about to, and it’s on us. We’re at the point where it’s on us. If we leave the field, then he will win. His calculation is that our domestic politics and our own interests override everything, and that we no longer have a sense of national security, or of our role in international affairs. This is a moment for him to get rid of not just Pax Americana, but America as a major global player.

(…)

The decision is ours, this decision is entirely ours. We’re just falling all over ourselves to engage in self-harm at the moment. Ukraine shouldn’t be a partisan issue. I just hope that people are going to be able to dig deep, and realize the moment that they’re in.”

“The skeptics are correct that our recent counteroffensive did not achieve the lightning-fast liberation of occupied land, as the Ukrainian military managed in the fall of 2022 in the Kharkiv region and the city of Kherson. Observers, including some in Ukraine, anticipated similar results over the past several months, and when immediate success did not materialize, many succumbed to doom and gloom. But pessimism is unwarranted, and it would be a mistake to let defeatism shape our policy decisions going forward. Instead, policymakers in Washington and other capitals should keep the big picture in mind and stay on track. A Ukrainian victory will require strategic endurance and vision—as with our recent counteroffensive, the liberation of every square mile of territory requires enormous sacrifice by our soldiers—but there is no question that victory is attainable.

(…)

The current phase of the war is not easy for Ukraine or for our partners. Everyone wants quick, Hollywood-style breakthroughs on the battlefield that will bring a quick collapse of Russia’s occupation. Although our objectives will not be reached overnight, continued international support for Ukraine will, over time, ensure that local counteroffensives achieve tangible results on the frontlines, gradually destroying Russian forces and thwarting Putin’s plans for a protracted war.

Some skeptics counter that although such goals are just, they simply aren’t achievable. In fact, our objectives will remain militarily feasible as long as three factors are in place: adequate military aid, including jets, drones, air defense, artillery rounds, and long-range capabilities that allow us to strike deep behind enemy lines; the rapid development of industrial capacity in the United States and Europe as well as in Ukraine, both to cover Ukraine’s military needs and to replenish U.S. and European defense stocks; and a principled and realistic approach to the prospect of negotiations with Russia.

With these elements in place, our effort will bring marked progress on the frontlines. Yet that requires not veering off course and concluding that the fight is hopeless simply because one stage has fallen short of some observers’ expectations. Even with significant challenges, Ukraine has achieved notable results in recent months. We won the battle for the Black Sea and thereby restored a steady flow of maritime exports, benefiting both our economy and global food security. We’ve made gains on the southern front, recently securing a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River. And elsewhere, we have held off enormous Russian assaults and inflicted major losses on Russian forces, including by thwarting their attempts on Avdiivka and Kupiansk. Despite their gargantuan effort, Russian troops failed to secure any gains on the ground.

(…)

The problem is not just that a cease-fire now would reward Russian aggression. Instead of ending the war, a cease-fire would simply pause the fighting until Russia is ready to make another push inland. In the meantime, it would allow Russian occupying troops to reinforce their positions with concrete and minefields, making it nearly impossible to drive them away in the future and condemning millions of Ukrainians to decades of repression under occupation. Russia’s 2024 budget for the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, amounting to 3.2 trillion Russian rubles (around $35 billion), is clear evidence of Moscow’s plan to dig in for the long haul and suppress resistance to Russian occupation authorities.

Moreover, whatever the arguments that such a scenario would be less costly for Ukraine and its partners, the reality is that such a negotiated cease-fire is not even on the table. Between 2014 and 2022, we endured approximately 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia in various formats, as well as 20 attempts to establish a cease-fire in the smaller war that followed Russia’s 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of Ukraine’s east. Our partners pressed Moscow to be constructive, and when they ran into the Kremlin’s diplomatic wall, they insisted that Ukraine had to take the “first step,” if only to demonstrate that Russia was the problem. Following this flawed logic, Ukraine made some painful concessions. Where did it lead? To Russia's full-scale attack on February 24, 2022. Declaring yet again that Ukraine must take the first step is both immoral and naive.

(…)

Skeptics also argue that supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom is too expensive and cannot be sustained indefinitely. We in Ukraine are fully aware of the amounts of assistance that we have received from the United States, European countries, and other allies, and we are immensely grateful to the governments, legislators, and individuals who have extended a helping hand to our country at war. We manage the support in the most transparent and accountable way: U.S. inspectors of military aid to Ukraine have found no evidence of significant waste, fraud, or abuse.

This support is not, and never has been, charity. Every dollar invested in Ukraine’s defense returns clear security dividends for its supporters. It has enabled Ukraine to successfully rebuff Russian aggression and avert a disastrous escalation in Europe. And Ukraine has done all this with American assistance totaling roughly three percent of the annual U.S. defense budget. What is more, most of this money has in fact been spent in the United States, funding the U.S. defense industry, supporting the development of cutting-edge technology, and creating American jobs—a reason that some local business leaders in the United States have publicly opposed withholding or cutting military aid to Ukraine.

Moreover, while the United States is Ukraine’s top defense partner—and Washington’s leadership in rallying support for Ukraine has been exemplary and essential—the United States has hardly borne the burden alone. As NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, recently noted, other NATO members, including European countries and Canada, account for more than half of Ukraine’s military aid. A number of countries have provided more support as a percentage of GDP than the United States has: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. Germany's assistance continues to grow, making it Ukraine's largest European supporter in absolute terms.

Attempts by some skeptics to brand Ukraine’s fight for freedom as just another futile “forever war” ignore these facts. Ukraine has never asked for American boots on the ground. The deal is fair: our partners provide us with what we need to win, and we do the rest of the job ourselves, defending not only our borders but also the borders of global democracy.

The United States has spent decades, and hundreds of billions of dollars, building and protecting an international order that could sustain and protect democracy and market economies, thus ensuring security and prosperity for Americans. It would be foolish to give up on that investment now. If democracy is allowed to fall in Ukraine, adversaries of the United States will perceive weakness and understand that aggression pays. The price tag for defending U.S. national security against such threats would be many times higher than the one for supporting Ukraine and could spark decades of global turbulence with an uncertain outcome.

(…)

At the end of last month, I attended a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels. What struck me most was the disparity between the mood inside the chamber and the mood outside it. On the sidelines, reporters opened their questions by asserting that the war had reached a “stalemate” and that “war fatigue” would cripple support, before wondering why Ukraine wouldn’t offer to trade territory for peace. Yet such defeatist narratives were absent in the official discussions, with ministers making a firm commitment to additional military aid and sustained support.

However prevalent a false narrative of attrition becomes, we should not allow it to set policymaking and our shared strategy on a disastrous course. Nor should we be duped into believing that Moscow is ready for a fair negotiated solution. Opting to accept Putin’s territorial demands and reward his aggression would be an admission of failure, which would be costly for Ukraine, for the United States and its allies, and for the entire global security architecture. Staying the course is a difficult task. But we know how to win, and we will.”

#fiona hill #dmytro kuleba #putin #trump #biden #russia #ukraine #war #nato

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tomorrowusa · 7 months

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Ukrainians are fighting for the survival of their own country. Russians are fighting to make Putin look less like a complete imbecile. So guess which side has better morale.

Hundreds of thousands of military age Russian males fled Russia so they wouldn't get drafted. Now some active duty Russian soldiers are following them out of the country. Armenia is one of their chosen destinations.

Sitting in a basement studio hidden in the centre of Yerevan, Artyom reflected on his decision to desert the Russian army after a year spent fighting in Ukraine. Just two weeks earlier, the former platoon commander was living in a trench. He has since abandoned his post and fled to the Armenian capital. “I did not want to participate in this war. I wanted no part in the imperialistic habits of our ruler,” he said. “But I do feel guilt in front of Ukraine. Guilt that I didn’t do this earlier … I could have said no, I just didn’t know what the consequences would be.” [ ... ] Desertion and “voluntary” surrender are punishable by lengthy jail terms in Russia, and Artyom said his commanders threatened him with prison if he dared to leave his post. He said he also heard stories of service personnel being locked up in basements in eastern Ukraine after refusing to fight, reports that have been backed up by independent Russian news organisations. “Worst-case scenario was to end up in a ‘Storm-Z’ squad,” he said, referring to so-called “punishment battalions” sent to the most exposed parts of the front with heavy losses. His chance came last month when his commander gave him a few days off, at which point he decided to flee with the help of a Russian anti-war organisation. “I knew I only had two-three days before they would start looking for me, so I had to be quick,” he said. Russian authorities have since opened up a criminal case against him. He arrived in Armenia via a third country. Like Georgia and Kazakhstan, Russians can also enter Armenia without a visa, and all three countries serve as a logical first stop for those looking to escape the fighting.

As we've written previously, Russian soldiers are poorly trained, given shoddy weapons, and often have to buy their own supplies. The Russian Army is really shit. Putin tries to compensate for this by just sending massive waves of these poorly equipped soldiers against Ukraine. Predictably, Russia suffers enormous fatalities.

The major losses suffered by Russia means that Putin needs 20,000 more mobilized troops cannon fodder every month.

Russia mobilizes over 20,000 people monthly for Ukraine war

Russian forces have been engaged in a costly and futile attack on Avdiivka near Donetsk. It's going about as you'd expect for a large but third-rate army.

Record Russian armor, personnel losses in failed attempt to take Avdiivka by storm

youtube

Russia is in a quagmire and Putin is hoping that the world will get distracted by the Middle East.

Putin is also hoping that House Republicans will do his dirty work for him.

Sarah Longwell and Bill Kristol have compiled a list of GOP House members and rated them on their support for Ukraine. Ominously, Speaker "MAGA Mike" Johnson gets a rating of Very Poor. However there are 82 House Republicans who get a rating of Excellent and 43 who get an Okay. Check the list to see if you are represented by any in the 125 member pro-Ukraine segment.

GOP Congressional Report Card - Republicans For Ukraine

Contact them and urge them strongly to give a high priority to support for Ukraine. Use language which would appeal to Republican thinking; mentioning Ronald Reagan's opposition to the Evil Empire in the 1980s is a plus.

For contact information and to find out exactly who represents your district, check out this site. Have your ZIP+4 ready.

Find Your Representative | house.gov

If your rep is a Democrat, send a message thanking him or her for past support for Ukraine and urge them not to forget about Ukraine in upcoming budget negotiations.

#invasion of ukraine #stand with ukraine #russian deserters #armenia #russia #vladimir putin #the evil empire #us house of representatives #aid for ukraine #avdiivka #дезертирство #идите лесо��!#неисправное оружие #мобилизация #воинская повинность #пушечное мясо #уехать из россии #путин – это лжедмитрий iv а не пётр великий #союз постсоветских клептократических ватников #военные преступления #путин хуйло #нарушение россией будапештского меморандума #руки прочь от украины!#геть з україни #вторгнення оркостану в україну #україна переможе #авдіївка #слава україні!#героям слава!#Youtube

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warningorder · 11 months

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THE LAST STAND OF THE GUARDS

The Gulf War’s Ground Campaign and Iraqi Resistance

Good day everybody! Since I loudly declared I would be leaving Twitter until the Afrikaner rodent was dead or missing, I felt I should post this pet-project of mine here instead of on Twitter as a thread.

The Gulf War, at least in its political aspects, was a modern iteration of the Battle of Waterloo, as it represented the decisive military triumph of reaction over progress and development. It was, as Victor Hugo once described Waterloo, “intentionally a counter-revolutionary victory”. It was Iraq against the status-quo. It was the revolutionary Arabism of Baghdad against the triumphant imperialism of Washington D.C, the reactionary backwardness of Riyadh, the comprador-ship and treacherous realpolitik of Cairo and Damascus. The final extinction of that vast people which had been in eruption for thirty-five years, since 1956–such was the dream.

However, that is not what I will be talking about today. See, as much as I would like to delve into the political & historical consequences of this great war, I wish to cover its military details, unlike what Hugo did with Waterloo. Today, I shall be focusing of the Coalition’s ground offensive and the Iraqis’ doomed attempt at resistance. So let’s set the scene.

Bombs over Baghdad and Gorbachev’s Deal

A month has passed since the Coalition started its massive air campaign over the skies of Iraq. A vast armada of close to 2.800 jets and hundreds of cruise missiles hit Iraq’s industrial centers, civilian infrastructure, energy production facilities, even research reactors, with the goal of quite simply returning Iraq, until then the Middle East’s sole modern economy, back into the stone age. More bombs were dropped on Iraq in a month than were dropped on Berlin, Germany’s capital, throughout all of WW2. The Coalition had more or less proven its point, and Iraq wanted out.

An agreement was reached with the Soviet Union, with the hopes that this would present a fait accompli to the Coalition and have them cease the bombings (and hopefully even end the sanctions). According to this agreement, Iraqi ground forces would immediately begin pulling out their units from the “Kuwaiti Theatre of Operations”, with the last units leaving in around a few weeks. In fact, a shadow retreat was already being allowed to happen, with individual divisions ‘melting away’ and reconstituting themselves back in Baghdad. With Tariq Aziz (Iraq’s Deputy PM & Foreign Minister) announcing Gorbachev’s deal and the pullout of all Iraqi forces from the KTO on the radio on the 22nd of February, this shadow retreat suddenly turned into a large and chaotic movement of units still under air attacks, with large traffic queues and more-or-less total abandonment of all Iraqi defensive works which had been prepared in the south of Iraq as well as inside Kuwait (like the well-known “Saddam line”).

As Iraqi troops were hastily withdrawing from their prepared defensive positions and clogging up the vast road networks of Iraq and Kuwait with huge lines of trucks, heavy vehicle transporters, tanks and other military equipment, the Coalition knew it had to act fast. The conclusion of the Gulf Crisis through Soviet mediation and without a crushing defeat of the mass of the Iraqi military was considered an unacceptable result, and thus plans were quickly drawn up to lunge forward at the retreating enemy columns and shatter the mass of the Iraqi military as it was attempting a cumbersome and chaotic march back towards Baghdad, Karbala, Najaf and Basra.

The first Coalition attacks struck (and quickly scattered) vastly outnumbered and confused stragglers from infantry divisions which had been attempting to withdraw from their prepared defensive fortifications. After quickly dealing with these minor centers of resistance, the Coalition units started a large-scale ground offensive relying on shock and speed to either cut off the retreat of Iraqi units on the road or to hit them from the behind and shatter them. Iraq’s military leadership, after shaking off the violent shock of the ground attack (and in their eyes, from the shock of Gorbachev’s betrayal), made the hard and rational, yet arguably callous, choice of ordering their armored-mechanized Republican Guard formations to immediately turn 180 degrees and lunge forward towards the Coalition offensive to either meet them in hastily and rather shoddily improvised defensive positions or to counter attack them with the purpose of delaying their general advance, so the rest of the 50 division strong Iraqi military could withdraw back to Iraq relatively unscathed. With great difficulty, these ‘elite’ formations were able to extract themselves from the large traffic jam which had almost entirely paralyzed the movement of panic-stricken Iraqi units and prepare themselves for the coming battle. This would be their last stand, for they were the modern iteration of Napoleon’s Old Guard, who had been cut down by British musket fire yet fought until destruction, to the bitter end.

Although the Republican Guard had been the preferred target of continuous Coalition air attacks from the outbreak of the war, they had not suffered serious losses due to their safety precautions and effective camouflage procedures. In an interview, a Republican Guard commander claimed that despite attacks from the most advanced planes at the Coalition’s disposal, his forces had suffered relatively few losses. In fact, attacks by A-10 aircraft would have to be called off for the rest of the campaign after suffering significant losses due to RG operated Strela-10 SAM systems.

When the ground offensive got underway on the 24th of February, the Coalition forces stepped up their bombing campaign on the Republican Guard, using large numbers of aircraft and combat helicopters that attacked them constantly. To make sure his units could set up mutually supporting defensive lines in the chaos of the 180 degrees turn and expected attacks by the Coalition’s tank forces, the commander of the Republican Guard decided to transfer the ‘Tawakalna’ RG Division to rear positions in order to close the gap between the ‘Adnan’ and ‘Al-Medina’ RG Divisions.

‘Mother of All Battles’

On the division’s way to its new position, they suffered an air attack followed immediately by an extensive armored assault in which 3 divisions from the American 7th Corps took part, with massive air support. The battle - known as ‘Battle of 73 Easting - was fought mainly between elements of the ‘Tawakalna’ Division and forces from the US 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, the 1st Infantry Division and 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. American artillery and MLRS batteries played an important role in the battle.

The ‘Tawakalna’ Division fought an incredibly hard battle in difficult visibility conditions due to heavy dust that was stirred on the sandy terrain. Some of its formations were badly damaged but the division succeeded in reaching its rear positions, ending its participation in the war. Parallel to this, the Americans also attacked the lines of the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ and ‘Adnan’ RG Divisions, even succeeding penetrating the Iraqi defensive lines on the morning of 27 February. As a result of the withdrawal and partial destruction of the ‘Tawakalna’ Division, Republican Guard Commander Gen. Iyad al-Rawi ordered the ‘Hammurabi’ RG Division to advance its 17th Armored Brigade to occupy new positions on the border between the sectors of the ‘Adnan’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions.

The brigade moved to its new positions followed by 2 additional mechanized brigades and prepared for a counter attack. According to their version, the Iraqis sought a confrontation with the Americans advancing towards them from the West, and all of the Republican Guard’s artillery units bombarded American positions for over 3 hours. Next, the 17th Armored Brigade along with 21st Commando Brigade attacked in the sector of the ‘Adnan’ Division in Rumelia and managed to push back the forces that had occupied the defensive positions of one of its battalions. The ‘Adnan’ Division was later instructed to move in the direction of al-Qurna.

Another clash occurred between forces of the ‘Al-Medina’ Division and the American 7th Corps on the night of 26-27 February, after the latter attacked the Iraqi 14th Mechanized Brigade. The division mounted a counter attack with its 2nd Armored Brigade, reinforced by additional battalions, forcing the enemy to withdraw its forces to the rear. As a result, the American forces in the area increased their artillery fire in order to block the Republican Guard forces, who were attacking relentlessly and even making minor advances in some sectors.

The American 1st Infantry Division, which tried to advance across the sand dunes to flank the Iraqi line from behind, got stuck in this area, becoming a target for Iraqi artilllery and retreating helter-skelter from the area. At that point, forces from the ‘Hammurabi’ Division arrived in force in the sector between the ‘Adnan’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions, deploying to mount a counter attack along with the ‘Al-Medina’ Division— a move that had the potential to threaten and encircle forces from the American 7th Corps in the Iraqi view.

While all this was taking place, forces of the US 18th Corps attacked the Special Forces Division of the Republican Guard in the Nasiriyah sector. An American force the size of a brigade (from the 101st) was also operating inside Iraqi territory in the Basra-Nasiriyah axis. The corps’ forces (82nd and 24th Divisions) mounted a frontal assault on the Iraqi positions from the south and west, attempting to gain control over them. Brutal fighting developed and continued throughout the day and into the night of 26-27 February, with the Iraqis, supported by heavy artillery fire, demonstrating very stubborn fighting spirit. In the end, the attack was stopped by the resistance of the Special Forces Division and by the heavy fog which covered the entire area.

Post-Battle Assessment

The Iraqis viewed these two battles - of the ‘Hammurabi’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions and of the special forces in the Nasiriyah area - as a great victory for the Republican Guard, which had warded off a combined attack of two American corps on Basra and Southern Iraq. In their eyes, these developments, along with the 7th Corps’ failure to slice through the lines of the Republican Guard’s armored forces, had prevented the Coalition forces from taking control of Southern Iraq, destroying the mass of the retreating Iraqi military and/or disrupting their withdrawal back to Iraq. They portrayed the battles conducted by the Republican Guard as being among the greatest armored battles fought in modern history since WW2 in terms of the size of the formations and the number of armored vehicles taking part.

In their eyes, they had at least temporarily succeeded in effectively defending against and pushing back various American assaults, and even partially enveloping the American 1st Infantry Division, albeit very briefly. They concluded that the American High Command’s concerns about the 7th Corps taking further casualties and even being pushed back by the ‘Hammurabi’ and ‘Al-Medina’ Divisions caused them to agree to a ceasefire on the 28th of February and to put an end to the fighting. However, the Gulf War as a whole caused horrendous losses to Iraqi ground forces, who according to statistics from the USAF lost 2.500 tanks, 1.500 APCs, and 2.200 artillery pieces to enemy ground and air fire. However, later studies of Iraqi casualties during the war have shown them to have taken around 15.000 to 25.000 casualties, indicating that the RG had, in the end, succeeded in its task of sacrificing its own armored-mechanized brigades and divisions to allow the mass of the Iraqi army in the KTO (around 900.000 men) to retreat relatively unscathed back into Iraq. These forces, as well as the remnants of the RG, would prove pivotal in the Iraqi government’s response to the uprisings and mass-infiltration attempts of 1991.

Thanks for your attention! For further reading I would recommend Majid Khadduri’s “War in the Gulf”, the “Iraqi Perspectives Project” article covering the Gulf War, Pesach Malovany’s “Wars of Modern Babylon” and lastly the article “Correcting Myths about the Persian Gulf War: Last Stand of the Tawakalna Division”.

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usafphantom2 · 1 year

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IMAGES: BUFFs return to Guam in new deployment of the Bomber Task Force

Implementation of the B-52 occurred after a recent hurricane in the region.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 06/16/2023 - 19:33 in Military, War Zones

More than 200 aviators and four B-52 Stratofortresses bombers assigned to the 23º Bomber Squadron, from Minot Air Base, North Dakota, arrived at Andersen Air Base, Guam on June 14 to conduct missions from the Bomber Task Force - or BTF.

BTF deployments and operations support U.S. Indo-Pacific Command missions by integrating strategic bomber capabilities into a joint and coalition environment.

The deployment in Guam has been less than a month since the island was hit by super-tufão Mawar, leading the U.S. Air Force to send its Natural Disaster Recovery Team to Andersen. The base did not report serious injuries or damage to the aircraft, but some facilities were damaged or lost power during the storm. The permanent change of season change to Andersen was interrupted for 60 days to facilitate recovery.

“Being here in the Indo-Pacific with the Bomber Task Force allows our forces to show our ability to unfold anytime, anywhere, in support of the fighting commander's goals,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Loucks, commander of this recent U.S. Air Force BTF. "Training and operating in the priority theater allows us to demonstrate our continued readiness, willingness and commitment to our allies and partners."

This marks the second deployment of B-52s in Guam in three months - four bombers from Barksdale Air Base, Louisiana, arrived on March 30 and returned home at the end of April. During this time, they completed 29 outbreaks while integrating with four allied partners, according to a statement from the Pacific Air Forces.

On the other side of the world, another deployment of the Bomber Task Force is underway in Europe - B-1s from Dyess Air Base, Texas, landed at the Fairford RAF Base, United Kingdom, on May 23 and participated in the Arctic Challenge Exercise and Air Defender 23, as well as a mission in the Middle East.

The B-52s in the Pacific will also be occupied - previous USAF bomber rotations flew over the Korean Peninsula as part of the U.S. commitment to South Korea.

The B-52H Stratofortress, nicknamed BUFF (Big, Ugly, Fat and Fellow), is a long-range, nuclear and conventional heavy bomber that can perform a variety of missions. The B-52H can fly at high subsonic speeds at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet, with a fuel-free combat range of more than 8,800 miles and can carry precision-guided ammunition with precision navigation around the world.

The U.S. maintains a strong and reliable strategic bomber force that increases the security and stability of allies and partners. BTF missions allow crews to maintain a high state of readiness and proficiency and validate the USAF's always-ready global attack capability.

Tags: Military AviationBoeing B-52H StratofortressBTFUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air ForceWar Zones - Indo-Asia-Pacific

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Daytona Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work around the world of aviation.

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etherealsupportclown · 10 months

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Okay so the past 4 years have been heavy on my mind. With climate change, a pandemic, and an increasingly hostile political climate for anyone who isn’t a WASP, suffice to say I reached my limit. I don’t know exactly when it happened but a few months ago I decided that I was tired of being miserable. And like I know how that sounds but hear me out I swear I’m not a headspace ad. I started paying attention to all the things in my life that sucked, most social media, really any platform where I’m fighting an algorithm. Activism in the ineffective form it can take online, just things that made me miserable having interacted with them. And I started cutting them out, or better even, finding positive replacements. Instagram sucked because I never saw content from the people I actually wanted to interact with, and everywhere I looked id see posts about some new tragedy. And to put it bluntly, I cannot care about everything. I do care for the good of humanity and for the overturning of oppressors. But me reposting something on Instagram wasn’t doing any actionable change that I could see and constantly being bombarded with the evils of the world made me jaded. So I deleted Instagram and have shifted my focus onto local politics, I may not know what’s going on in the Middle East at this very moment but I know who’s running for school board and how my vote affects that. I'm barely an adult, I'm not equipped to navigate foreign policy! so instead I'll focus my attention where i can actually make a change. I’m trying to focus on what is good and what can change, rather than who is evil and who controls me. And I cannot express enough how freeing it is, I have hope for the future again for the first time since I was a kid. I’m not choosing to be ignorant I know that real and direct action is imperative to our planet’s survival but I also know that living in the miserable shadow of that truth won’t help me fix the problem. I’m not sure if any of that makes sense but if you take anything away from this dear reader let it be this, do not waste your time wallowing in misery just because it’s comfortable, you have the free will to see the world how you want to! And I hope you see a beautiful world full of hope.

Take care <3

-Greg

#text #climate and environment #positivity

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ukrainenews · 1 year

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Daily Wrap Up March 4-6, 2023

Under the cut:

Ukraine said on Monday its troops were still fighting against the attempted encirclement of Bakhmut, while Washington said that even if the eastern city should fall to Russia's offensive, it would not necessarily give Moscow momentum in the war.

NATO intelligence estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the North Atlantic alliance told CNN on Monday. The official cautioned the five to one ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.

The city council in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has declared Monday a day of mourning after 13 people were killed when a rocket hit a high-rise residential building earlier this week, the council's secretary Anatoliy Kurtiev said.

Most of Ukraine’s winter grain crops – winter wheat and barley – are in good condition and could produce a good harvest, Ukraine’s academy of agricultural science was quoted as saying on Monday.

Negotiations to return the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to Ukraine’s control are not progressing, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Sunday.

According to the U.K. Defense Ministry's intelligence update on March 6, the Russian military has been deploying 60-year-old T-62 main battle tanks as a result of continued heavy equipment losses. Furthermore, there is a "realistic possibility" that the 1st Guards Tank Army, Russia's elite tank force, will be re-equipped with the T-62s, the U.K. Defense Ministry added.

“Ukraine said on Monday its troops were still fighting against the attempted encirclement of Bakhmut, while Washington said that even if the eastern city should fall to Russia's offensive, it would not necessarily give Moscow momentum in the war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said he discussed the Bakhmut operation with the chief of the general staff and commander of ground forces, who both spoke in favour of "further strengthening positions in Bakhmut" to continue the defensive operation.

Russia is trying to surround Bakhmut to secure what would be its first major gain in more than half a year, at the culmination of a winter offensive that has brought the bloodiest fighting of the war.

After Russian gains in recent weeks, Ukrainian troops have been reinforcing positions west of Bakhmut in apparent preparation for a possible retreat. However, the reports from commanders on Monday suggested they had not yet decided to pull out.

The intense battle has depleted both sides' artillery reserves, with thousands of shells fired daily along the eastern and southern fronts. Kyiv's European allies are working on a deal to procure more ammunition for the fight.

In the latest sign of a feud between Russia's military and the Wagner private army leading its Bakhmut assault, Wagner's boss demanded more ammunition and said his aide had been barred from the military's operational headquarters.

Speaking to reporters in the Middle East, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would not predict when or if Ukrainian troops might leave the city, but that its fall "won't necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight".

"I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value," Austin said.

Moscow says capturing the city would be a step towards its major objective of seizing the full territory of the surrounding Donbas region. Kyiv says Russia's losses in trying to seize a city reduced to rubble could determine the future course of the war by destroying combat power ahead of decisive battles later this year.

Ukraine's ground forces commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, visited Bakhmut on Sunday, according to the military. He said that Wagner had thrown additional forces into the fight but that Ukraine's soldiers were fighting on.

Volodymyr Nazarenko, a Ukrainian commander in Bakhmut, said there had been no order to retreat and "the defence is holding", albeit in grim conditions.

"The situation in Bakhmut and around it is utter hell, as it is on the entire eastern front," Nazarenko said in a video posted on Telegram.”-via Reuters

“NATO intelligence estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the North Atlantic alliance told CNN on Monday.

The official cautioned the five to one ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.

The official spoke to CNN on the condition they remain anonymous because they are not allowed to discuss this intelligence. Despite the favorable ratio, they also said Ukraine was suffering significant losses defending the city.

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed they were inflicting heavy losses on Russia as Moscow tried to take Bakhmut.

“Our defenders inflicted significant losses on the enemy, destroyed a large number of vehicles, forced Wagner's best assault units to fight and reduced the enemy's offensive potential,” Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukraine’s land forces said after a visit to Bakhmut on Sunday. The Institute for the Study of War also said Russia’s efforts to capture Bakhmut had significantly deteriorated its capacity for additional offensives.

“The Russian military will likely struggle to maintain any subsequent offensive operations for some months, giving Ukraine a chance to seize the initiative;” it said on Monday.”-via CNN

“The city council in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has declared Monday a day of mourning after 13 people were killed when a rocket hit a high-rise residential building earlier this week, the council's secretary Anatoliy Kurtiev said.

“This is a great grief for the whole Zaporizhzhia. That is why tomorrow is declared a day of mourning in our city. Together, let us honor the cherished memory of everyone whose life was cut short forever on that tragic night in March,” Kurtiev said on Telegram Sunday.

Rescuers from the State Emergency Service searched for survivors for four days after the strike hit Thursday. Crews found men, women and a small child deceased.

Nine people — including one pregnant woman — were rescued from the rubble early Thursday, the State Emergency Service reported. Five others remain missing, Kurtiev said.

“Let's also thank the rescuers of the State Emergency Service who have been clearing the rubble for almost four days, day and night, without a break. They are our heroes. We bow to them,” he said. Kurtiev added that a city council meeting will be held Monday with the surviving residents of the affected building.”-via CNN

“Most of Ukraine’s winter grain crops – winter wheat and barley – are in good condition and could produce a good harvest, Ukraine’s academy of agricultural science was quoted as saying on Monday.

“The analysis of the viability of winter wheat … showed that the vast majority of plants were in relatively good condition,” the APK-Inform consultancy quoted a report by the academy as saying, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters reports the winter wheat area sown for the 2023 harvest decreased to about 4.1m hectares from more than 6m sown a year earlier as a result of Russia’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year.

Of the winter wheat sown last year, only 4.9m hectares were harvested in Ukrainian-controlled territory, as Russian forces occupied some areas.

Ukraine’s wheat harvest declined to 20.2m tonnes in 2022 from 32.2m tonnes in 2021. Overall grain output fell to around 54m tonnes from a record 86m in 2021.”-via The Guardian

“Negotiations to return the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to Ukraine’s control are not progressing, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Sunday.

“The situation is currently at a standstill,” the energy minister said during the Ukrainian national telethon “United News.”

The nuclear plant, which is Europe’s largest, has been under Russian control since March last year.

“Our position, which we voice on all international platforms, is that any negotiations on ZNPP should be based on: first, demilitarization of the plant, second, withdrawal of (Russian nuclear company) Rosatom employees from ZNPP. Thirdly, Ukrainian personnel should be able to operate the nuclear facility without pressure,” the minister said. “But in response to this, we received (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's null and void decree that ZNPP is 'federal property,'" the energy minister said.

Zaporizhzhia is among the Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia in violation of international law, and as part of that seizure, Putin has declared the plant Russian property and installed workers there.

As Russia continues to occupy the plant, Halushchenko claimed Ukraine is receiving “alarming signals” from experts with the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency working at the plant. The minister accused the Russian side of “behaving extremely unprofessionally” at the nuclear site.

Last week, the head of IAEA, Rafael Grossi, expressed concern about the situation in the plant, citing delays in rotations of its team of experts in the facility, an increased security presence on-site and nearby fighting.”-via CNN

“According to the U.K. Defense Ministry's intelligence update on March 6, the Russian military has been deploying 60-year-old T-62 main battle tanks as a result of continued heavy equipment losses.

Furthermore, there is a "realistic possibility" that the 1st Guards Tank Army, Russia's elite tank force, will be re-equipped with the T-62s, the U.K. Defense Ministry added.

According to the ministry, about 800 T-62s have been taken out of storage and equipped with better sighting systems that will "highly likely improve" their performance during nighttime operations.

The report also states that Russian BTR-50 armored personnel carriers, first fielded in 1954, have also been deployed in Ukraine in recent days.

According to the defense ministry, these older tank models are subject to "many vulnerabilities on the modern battlefield" due to the lack of modern explosive reactive armor.

According to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces, Russia has lost 3,423 tanks, 6,703 armored fighting vehicles, 5,307 vehicles and fuel tanks in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.”-via Kyiv Independent

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #Bakhmut #zaporizhzhya nuclear plant #nato #Zaporizhzhia

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revlyncox · 8 months

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Resilience and Repair

For both Unitarian Universalist and Jewish congregations beginning again for a new year, practices such as truth telling, accountability, mutual care, contemplative practice, and organizing for justice reconnect us with each other, our ground of being, and our values. This fall, we come together after the hottest summer on record, leading us to renew our commitment to the planet as well. The spiritual themes of return and renewal for UU and Jewish communities at this time of year resonate with the three aspects of climate resilience: mitigation, adaptation, and justice. This sermon was written by the Rev. Lyn Cox and delivered to The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick, NJ, on September 17, 2023.

I live in a neighborhood that is abundant with tall, mature trees, set into rolling hills and hollows. Most of the homes were built in the middle of the twentieth century, new enough to welcome diversity, old enough that our neighborhood is run by the city and not by a homeowners association or gated community corporation.

Forested back yards mean that the sunlight is in the front yard, where the road creates a clearing, and so those of us who grow vegetables have our gardens in the front. I have gotten to know the other gardeners on my street, and I know the neighbors who walk their dogs or take their fitness walks past me when I’m out in the yard. We trade excess tomatoes and basil in the summer, and exchange seeds along with our Purim mishloach manot baskets of hamantaschen cookies in the spring. We share stories about which crops are growing better or worse than they used to, trying to adjust what we plant and when to the way the changing climate affects our little hillside.

Our neighborhood’s age also means we have elevated power lines, the kind that are easily brought down by falling trees. It is not at all uncommon for us to lose power in a thunderstorm or windstorm or after a heavy snow. Messages on the neighborhood email list keep track of who has power, who has a fireplace with a kettle where neighbors can come warm up their coffee, who has ice and a cooler, and which café is open for people to come and charge their phones. I wouldn’t say we have completely overcome the problem of isolation and individualism in American life, but there are glimmers of interdependence.

September means that, on sunny days, more walkers are taking advantage of the cool air and stopping for conversations while I’m trying to reduce the chaos that the garden has become. It means the occasional extra squash shows up on our doorstep. And it means hurricane season, when we are more likely to get one of those storms. So, in the fall, we are called together in community, drawn by the patterns of sun and rain to remember that people need one another. And, in these times of increasingly frequent extreme weather events, we know that we need one another more than ever.

What we are learning, at least on a small scale, is climate adaptation, which is part of climate resilience. The Union of Concerned Scientists says:

Climate resilience is about successfully coping with and managing the impacts of climate change while preventing those impacts from growing worse. A climate resilient society would be low-carbon and equipped to deal with the realities of a warmer world. (They continue)

There’s only one real way to achieve climate resilience: cut the heat-trapping emissions that drive climate change while adapting to the changes that are unavoidable–and to do so in ways that make the world more equitable and just, not less.

The Union of Concerned Scientists describes three aspects of climate resilience: mitigation, adaptation, and justice. Mitigation means working to slow down the pace of climate change. Adaptation means “adjusting the ways we live, work, and play” so that we can care for one another given the realities that are already here. Justice means prioritizing the needs and the agency of those among us who face the greatest harm from climate change, such as people of color, people living in poverty, people with disabilities, seniors, and young children.

The three aspects of climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and climate justice mirror some of the religious themes we lift up in UU communities and some of the themes lifted up in Jewish communities as we renew the liturgical year in the fall. In UU communities, we have practices of honesty, assessment, and repair that mirror the mitigation aspect of climate resilience. We have spiritual and community practices of grounding and transformation to keep us in relationship with each other and with the Spirit of Life, and these resonate with the adaptation aspect of climate resilience. In UU communities, we have strategies and practices that move us toward equity, healing, and liberation; these are connected with the justice aspect of climate resilience.

Meanwhile, the Jewish-UU’s among us and our Jewish friends, family, and neighbors observing the High Holidays may be reflecting on teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah; sometimes translated as turning or repentance, spiritual practice or prayer, and righteousness or justice. All three are understood to be practices that are both individual and communal. Jewish environmental activists are quick to point out the relevance of teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah for facing up to the realities of climate change; for finding energy and hope in spiritual community for the work ahead; and taking action to care for each other and the earth so that all may thrive. [Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action is one place to start if you are interested in organizing for the planet from a Jewish perspective.]

If those definitions of teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah went by too fast, don’t worry, I will come back to them. My point here is that mitigation, adaptation, and justice–the three aspects of climate resilience–have spiritual and religious resonance, especially this time of year.

First, let’s talk about mitigation. This is the first thing people usually think of with respect to climate action. This is the calling that is drawing some of our folks to public witness today, and we thank them for giving voice to this imperative. Nationally, we must fund the scientific research that gives us reliable data, we need to pay attention to that data, and change our policies and economic practices accordingly. As I just quoted from the Union of Concerned Scientists, switching from coal and gas to renewable energy is essential. Investing in clean and convenient public transit is essential. I am sure you are familiar with the whole menu of policy changes that go along with climate mitigation.

For UU’s, climate mitigation is an aspect of our practice of speaking the truth in love. In our environmental consciousness, we take stock of what is actually happening with the climate and what is actually happening with strategies for fossil fuel elimination, we acknowledge harm, and we begin to put strategies in place that are within our power to do.

Facing up to the truth is both spiritual and embodied. Becoming awake to reality, and being able to hold that reality without running to illusion or distraction, are some of the gifts of meditation. It takes strength of mind, heart, and soul to acknowledge truth and harm, and to conjure the hope and imagination necessary to turn toward change.

On the practical side, our mitigation strategies are both local and global. Locally, we can use green energy when we have the opportunity. We can put time and talent and treasure into maintaining the building for maximum fuel efficiency. Your flexibility with remote work for your Minister, Music Director, and Administrator is also an aspect of mitigating climate harm. In the wider world, working with our denominational partners such as UU Faith Action, UU the Vote, and Side With Love, we harness our collective power to advocate for just, equitable, and sustainable state, national, and international policy.

In Jewish communities around the High Holidays, making teshuvah, turning toward community and right relationship and away from harm, is one of the three points of emphasis. Teshuvah sometimes gets translated as “repentance,” and it’s important to understand that that word has different resonance in the Jewish tradition than it does in the Christian-dominated general understanding.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is the author of this year’s UUA Common Read, On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World. Drawing on the twelfth-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, Ruttenberg describes the phases of teshuva and reads them through a trauma-informed lens. She writes that teshuva includes confession, starting to change, making amends, delivering an apology, and making a different choice in the future. It’s a relational process, not performative.

The confession aspect, where we acknowledge the harm we have caused, is about basing our actions in truth. In our personal relationships and in our relationship with the earth, we need truth before we can begin repair. Teshuvah as applied to climate resilience means acknowledging what humans have done to the planet and turning toward change.

During the High Holidays, Jewish communities listen to the sound of the shofar, a wind instrument made from a ram’s horn. The sound wakes up the people and calls them to turn again toward truth, connection, and right action. When I go to interfaith public witness events, it is not uncommon for my Jewish colleagues to bring a shofar. Sometimes we all need a signal that it is time to rally, time to rise, time to come together for transformation. Yet the sound of the shofar doesn’t last forever. At some point, the musician takes a breath. As we continue teshuva, turning toward change, we add the phase of deepening our connections and adapting to life in right relationship.

The second part of climate resilience, adaptation, is about how we invest in our communities and change the ways we live, work, and play, given the reality that climate change is here. Once again, the action steps available are individual, local, and global; with corresponding needs for institutional connection and collective organizing. We can start with something achievable on a smaller scale like planting trees in areas with a lot of asphalt to reduce extreme heat. Out in our cities and towns and statewide, we can advocate for investments in the electrical grid so that we have fewer power outages during extreme weather. Our organizing partners at the UUA and UU Faith Action New Jersey and experts like the Union of Concerned Scientists can help us to focus our work on the concrete, big-picture parts of adaptation.

That being said, the adaptation that weaves into climate resilience is more than technical solutions and policy platforms. It is a question of how we care for each other and keep each other as safe as we can given the changes that are already taking place in a warming climate. We invoke the attitude of the two siblings in this morning’s Time for All Ages story, holding the wellbeing of others in our thoughts and letting a sense of abundance infuse our encounters with others. Adaptation means we must connect more deeply and truly and broadly than we have before, because we understand our interdependence more thoroughly than we ever have before.

Connection and interdependence are theological words for us as Unitarian Universalists. Climate resilience is a conversation that belongs in spiritual community. In our songs, and our art, and our fellowship, and our learning, we are a people of imagination. We hold up a vision for a better world, and we do our best to create a foretaste of that better world among us. Mutual care and the practices of centering and connection that help us to keep that care flowing are some of the core purposes of a congregation.

Maintaining the energy for life, let alone for climate action, requires that we also make time for love, for art, for awe and wonder. Anger and fear are real, and we need to acknowledge those feelings and cope with them, and also have room for the whole range of human experience so that we don’t burn out. [Joanna Macy is a Buddhist and Deep Ecology scholar who has written about this extensively. You can also check out the book Climate Resilience by Kylie Flanagan, which contains interviews with 39 climate leaders.] The practices of connection–connection with each other and with the ground of being–enliven our days and help us to stay on the path to a just and sustainable world. For people who pray, prayer might do the same. Yoga, hiking, creating fiber art, or singing are other practices that we can think of as spiritual. They are ways of being fully present, and can be gateways to understanding ourselves as part of something larger than ourselves.

In Jewish community, this point resonates with tefillah, practices of prayer and spiritual connection. The ways of being that help people to feel rooted in their community and tradition, the habits that help people to find serenity and comfort in their higher power, the experiences that invoke a sense of awe and wonder, these bring strength to the individual and to the whole. People who are grounded and connected are better able to keep their commitments and to act in congruence with their values. Jewish climate activists suggest that tefillah encompasses not only formal prayer, but also everyday practices that show gratitude for the abundance with which we have been entrusted and that sanctify our interdependence with the earth. These practices can include things like composting, growing native plants, and using a rain barrel, especially if they are practices learned and shared in community. [If you are part of the Jewish community and interested in spiritual connections between people and the planet, check out Adamah, an organization that does classes, camps, and retreats.] An orientation of mindfulness can be part of adaptation and climate resilience.

Even as we aggressively cut emissions, we know that it will take decades to mitigate the carbon pollution that is already here, and so we must adapt to a changing climate. There are community and public policy strategies for the practical parts of adaptation, and we will pursue those in our congregations, neighborhoods, and advocacy organizations. Yet we also need to remember that adaptation requires flexibility and cooperation. It is spiritual work, and we can support our ability to adapt with individual and collective spiritual practice.

The third aspect of climate resilience is climate justice. We are aware that the people who have contributed the least to global warming are the people who are most at risk from its effects. In our local communities, we see this when fossil fuel plants and trash incinerators are located near the homes of marginalized people. We see it when the U.S. military shirks its responsibility to clean up shipyards and testing sites where they have left toxic waste around low income communities and communities of color. We see it when an extreme weather disaster is imminent and there is no credible plan to evacuate people with disabilities or low-income people without cars. Climate change affects everyone, and the harm falls disproportionately on those with the least privilege.

Climate justice, therefore, prioritizes the needs and the agency of communities that have been marginalized as we make plans for mitigation and adaptation. As Unitarian Universalists, whether we approach describing ourselves from the perspective of the eight principles or from the perspective of the values and covenant in the proposed Article II revision, our UU movement has the pursuit of justice written into its DNA. Whether climate justice should be included among our concerns is not really a question. What we do need to consider is how we go about that work, and how we see the connections between other issues and climate justice. Advocacy for policies that keep people housed and protected from extreme weather is climate justice. Agricultural policy that dismantles institutional racism against farmers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color is part of climate justice. When we work with coalitions and community partners, and when we heed the leaders of organizations representing groups of people who are most affected by a given issue, we are more likely to notice the connections and to be part of the transformation toward a just, equitable, and sustainable world.

Similarly, the UU-Jewish members among us and our Jewish family and friends add tzedakah to teshuva and tefilla as one of the three watch words for the High Holidays. Tzedakah can be translated as philanthropy or charity. Many families have a tzedakah box where children can put coins or a percentage of their allowance to donate to a worthy cause. But, more literally, tzedakah means justice or righteousness. [Aviya Kushner has an interesting exploration of this word in The Forward.] In Jewish wisdom, material support for those in need is about a realignment of resources. Tzedakah, righteous action, is an ethical obligation, not a spontaneous whim of pity or goodwill. So, Jewish activists organizing for equitable transit planning and clean air in low income communities are also performing acts of justice and righteousness; they are also doing tzedaka. [T'ruah is a Jewish organization doing human rights work, related to climate justice insofar as everything is related to the climate. Their name comes from one of the sounds of the shofar.]

As the autumn brings us together with a combination of weather patterns and liturgical traditions, we are reminded once again that we are part of something larger than ourselves. We are in a community of communities, interdependent with other people and the planet and the universe as a whole. As Unitarian Universalists, the Ingathering season reminds us of practices like speaking the truth in love, accepting accountability, caring for our neighbors in concrete ways, committing to contemplative practices that help us to adapt, and organizing for justice. Meanwhile, our Jewish neighbors are applying teshuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah to their own ethical commitments as they observe the High Holidays. And people of all faiths and no faith are waking up to the possibilities of climate resilience, combining the work of mitigation, adaptation, and justice.

Climate resilience is broad and complex. We could be overwhelmed by all of the possibilities and connections, but the good news is that there are a number of places to start. Each one of us is called to accept our gifts and to use them in the spirit of love, and we each have a unique way of responding to that call. Some are drawn to mutual care, some to policy advocacy, some to public witness, some to building coalitions and community organizing, some to creating the moments of beauty and reflection that help sustain the community. It is a new year, time to begin again. The way you travel the path ahead may be uniquely your own. Yet let us travel together as we move toward repairing the world with sustainability, care, mindfulness, and justice.

May it be so.

#unitarian universalism #climate justice #climate resilience

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