#getting rid of the root of the problem rather than locking it up IS justice. He perceives the problems from much closer than | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theexistentiallyqueer · 4 years

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It’s been a while, what with me being being more active on Twitter these days, but I had some thoughts churning around in my brain and this felt like a better place to post them rather than threading them over there.

This is a post about Persona 5 and restorative justice. Before I go any further, though, a note: this is meta about restorative justice and prison abolition as ethical philosophies only, how it can be expressed/structured in works of fiction, i.e., Persona 5 and Persona 5 Royal, and what the importance of doing so is.

I should also note that I am not a philosopher, a legal scholar, or an activist, I just like to read, and I strongly encourage you to look into the topics I’m discussing in this essay. If you want specific recommendations you can DM me; again, this being meta about a video game, I think linking those titles here would diminish their importance regarding what they’re actually about.

Ready? Okay. Let’s get started.

what is restorative justice?

‘Restorative justice’ is a concept in ethical and legal philosophy that holds itself in contrast to two other kinds of justice: punitive and carceral. Punitive justice is justice as punishment, i.e., an eye for an eye, while carceral justice involves justice as the confinement of criminal offenders. While both have heavy overlaps with one another, they’re distinct in the generality vs the specificity of their outcome: punitive justice can involve the death penalty, property seizure, permanent loss of rights, etc., carceral justice refers strictly just to the incarceration of criminal offenders in institutional facilities (jails, prisons, etc.).

Restorative justice, in contrast, roots itself in the understanding of closing a circle: the best and most holistic way to heal harm one person inflicts on another is to have the person who inflicted the harm make reparations to the person they hurt in a tangible and meaningful way. This can take many forms, and if you’re passingly familiar with restorative justice already, you may have heard about it involving the offender and the victim meeting face-to-face. This does happen sometimes. Personal acknowledgement of the harm you’ve inflicted on someone is important, and direct apologies are important, but these need to also be coupled with actions. The person behind a drunk hit-and-run of a parent could help put their orphaned child through school, or a domestic abuser could be made to take counseling and go on to help deter domestic violence in other households, and so on.

The vast majority of states across the world use punitive/carceral models, though small-scale community trials of restorative justice have been attempted, to varying degrees of success. No one is going to argue that it would be easy to implement, but it is important. Restorative justice is about recognizing that crime, specifically crimes against other people, are fundamentally still about two people: the perpetrator and the victim. And we have to look beyond the words perpetrator and victim to recognize that they are both human beings and challenge ourselves to build a society where our concept of justice means healing hurts instead of retaliation.

It’s not easy, but it is possible. It requires changing your own perceptions of justice and humanity and society and the big wide entire world to have the kind of mindset that allows it to be possible. But it is possible, and I know that from personal experience, because it’s my own mindset and I’ve been through trauma too.

prison abolition and the god of control

Persona 5 has an authority problem. By which I mean, Persona 5 has a problem challenging authority in any way that functionally matters.

The game is drenched in heavy-handed prison imagery, from jail cells to wardens to striped jumpsuits to cuffs and chains to an electric chair. Throughout the long build-up of the main storyline we’re treated to a confectionery delight of punitive justice, stick-it-to-the-man justice: the Thieves find a bad guy who coincidentally has personally hurt or is actively hurting one of their members, and they take it upon themselves to make the bad guy miserable and then send him off to jail. By the end of the arc you’re meant to feel like you accomplished something heroic, that by locking someone up you’re balancing the scales of justice. In the Kamoshida arc Ann even frames this in restorative justice terms, telling him he doesn’t deserve the easy way out of ending his own life and needs to live with his mistakes and repent, but he’s still sent off to jail regardless and Ann and Shiho are left to struggle through the trauma he put them through without anyone to really support them. This repeats itself, over and over: Madarame, Kaneshiro, Okumura, Shido--expose the bad guy, bring him low, publicly shame him, and then send him away (or, in Okumura’s case, watch him die on live TV to riotous cheers from the public).

And what does this all accomplish, in the end? You get to the Depths of Mementos on Christmas Eve to find the souls of humanity locked away in apathy, surrendered willingly to the control of the state, and your targets right there with them, thanking you for helping them return to a place where they don’t have to think of other people as people any more than they did before. In prison, they can forget that they are human beings and that all of the rest of the people in the world are too. The Phantom Thieves march upstairs and defeat the Gnostic manifestation of social control, that being that masquerades itself with lies as the true Biblical god. And then you go back home and the adults tell you that everything is okay now, the system itself isn’t rotten, and you just have to sit back, stop actively participating in the world, and let them take the reins.

It’s one of Persona 5′s most ironic conceits. “Prison abolition....good?” the player asks, and Atlus swats you on the hand and says, “Silly kids, prison abolition completely unnecessary because you can trust the state to not fuck up anyone’s lives anymore ever.” All while using prison imagery to present prisons as institutions inherently divorced from what might constitute actual justice.

Prisons exist because hierarchies exist, and so long as hierarchies exist, inequality will exist and people will commit harm who otherwise likely would not. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Atlus. You can’t frame prisons as an inherently unjust institution used to control people because you didn’t do anything to get rid of the hierarchy. You just gave the hydra a few new heads.

restorative justice and rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is Persona 5′s favorite buzz word, and for all that it’s used the game never really clearly defines what it’s supposed to mean. Yaldabaoth uses it as a euphemism to describe the process by which he creates his ideal puppet, but Yaldabaoth bad, and by the end of the game, Yaldabaoth dead. We get barely any time with Igor after that for Igor to define rehabilitation properly on his terms, which is notable in that Igor is the one who’s supposed to be the spiritual mentor of the wild card within the Persona universe.

We can only infer from that that it’s the player who’s meant to define what rehabilitation is by the end of the game, but because the game fails to take any concrete stance on its themes that could in any way undermine the idea that society isn’t functionally broken, it’s hard to figure out what conclusion we’re supposed to draw. As I stated above, the game immediately walks back any insinuations that it’s the institutions themselves that are rotten by having Sae and Sojiro step in and assume responsibility for making the world just by continuing to operate within the rules society itself has created. If you can’t beat them....join them?

If anything the closest we can get to coming up with a definitive understanding of what the game wants us to understand rehabilitation as is when the protagonist is in juvie. During those months we’re treated to an extended cutscene of all of your maxed out confidants taking action to get you out of jail, but because you can trigger this scene even if you haven’t maxed out all of your confidants, and because the outcome (getting out of juvie) is the same even if you haven’t maxed out any besides Sae, then we’re right back where we started.

But that cutscene still has a sliver of meaning to it despite it being largely window-dressing, because the game does push, over and over, the argument that it’s through your bonds with others, through building a community, that you’ll rehabilitate yourself and find true justice.

And that’s what restorative justice is about: community.

the truth: uncovering it vs deciding it

I can’t find enough words to convey how infuriating it is that Atlus comes so close to telling a restorative justice narrative and then completely drops the ball on displaying it at all in Goro’s character arc.

Goro’s concept of justice is fundamentally punitive, the textbook “you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you back.” In doing so he goes on to hurt a whole bunch of other people: orphaning Futaba, orphaning Haru, triggering a mental shutdown in Ohya’s partner Kayo, and also killing countless millions other instances of mental shutdowns, psychotic breakdowns, bribery, and scandal that caused people material harm and, in a handful of cases, killed them.

Yes, Shido gave him the gun, but Goro pulled the trigger. And in a restorative justice framework, you don’t bypass that fact: you actively interrogate it.

There’s been a lot of really great meta about what the circumstances of Goro’s life were like, including the Japanese foster care system, the social stigma of bastardy in Japan and the impact it has on an illegitimate child’s outcomes, and the ways in which Shido groomed and manipulated Goro into being the tool of violence he made him into. These things aren’t excuses for what Goro does, however: they’re explanations for it. They are the complex social issues that create a situation where a child feels his best choice, indeed maybe his only choice, is to take the gun being offered to him and use it on other people. If you want to prevent more kids from slipping through cracks into those kinds of situations, you need to understand the social ills that made those cracks appear in the first place and you need to fix them. Otherwise there will always be another kid, and another recruiter, and another bad choice, and another gun. Systemic problems require systemic solutions.

Even so, none of that bypasses the fact that it was Goro’s hand on that gun, that it was Goro who performed the physical action of killing Wakaba’s and Okumura’s shadows, and that, as a result of Goro’s direct actions, Wakaba and Okumura died. You can say Okumura deserved it all you like, but Haru doesn’t deserve to be an orphan. Haru deserved to repair her relationship with her father. Okumura deserved the chance to learn and make direct, material amends to the employees he hurt and the families of those who died on his watch, and they deserved to have him give them a better way to heal.

But this isn’t about the loss of Okumura making amends to his family or his victims: this is about Goro Akechi, and the fact that even in Royal his fraught relationship with Haru and Futaba is never explored, barely even addressed. There’s not even any personal, direct acknowledgement from him of the pain he put them through.

You can say he doesn’t care, and that’s fine that he doesn’t care. And it is. He’s a fictional character, this is a video game, they are anime characters.

But Persona 5 flirts with the idea of restorative justice and never fully explores it, and it’s a weaker game for that.

the thin place, the veil between worlds, the line in the sand

This is the last part, I promise, and I’ll be short and brief here, because the truth is that none of this matters, at least not in the way that you think. Persona 5 is a story. It’s a lie that we buy. It’s all zeroes and ones and electrical signals and optical images on a blank black screen.

But art can be powerful. Art is like magic, the deepest magic, the oldest kind. We human beings are creatures of art and poetry, of images and patterns, of music and words. Good art, really good art, can allow us to explore new ideas and critique our internal assumptions about how the world works.

No, fiction doesn’t affect reality, not the way that you think it does.

But if you’ve gotten this far, I just got you to read an essay on restorative justice and prison abolition in regards to a Japanese role-playing game, and that is something to think about.

How do you define rehabilitation? What kind of justice do you believe in? Is the way you conceive those things really the best way?

And how much more interesting could a story that challenges those concepts be?

#persona #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #goro akechi #akira kurusu #meta #words

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thewalkingdead-imagines · 6 years

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Negan Imagine ~ Way Out

Request: Hi!! I was wondering if I could get a Negan imagine where he walks in on Reader trying to kill herself (...). I know it's a touchy subject but my depression has been really bad lately and I just really need some Negan fluff, but I totally understand if you can't do it.. Thanks a lot love❤

Warnings: nearly attempted suicide (I really do hope that I did justice to the request but if this subject triggers you or makes you feel uncomfortable, please don’t read this. In case you’re dealing with any of those problems, please talk to someone you trust and/or seek professional help. You’re great and you’re worth it!)

Your clothes clung soaked in rain water to your skin, some loose hair strands hanging in rattails into your face while your eyes darted outside the window that got hit by thousands of raindrops over and over again. The small hope that the cold rain would somehow wash the thousands of painful feelings and thoughts out of you and get your head clear had vanished out of your body as soon as you had stepped into your room again, minutes or maybe even already an hour ago, you didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. All what mattered was the horrible mixture of emptiness and numbness inside you mixed with the growing unbearable pain that lingered deeply rooted inside your body. Your hands clasped around a small plastic can with sleeping pills inside them, their soft rattling whenever your fingers moved the bottle in your hands letting shivers run up and down your spine. You had never thought you would come this far and come to this point, had always told yourself to be strong and keep fighting until now. But there seemed to be no way out anymore. No way out to mitigate this pain or to even get rid of it. And even though a small tiny bit in you still wished to find such a way, all the doors that could lead you to something better didn’t only seemed to have been shut and locked, by now they had vanished and had left you in a pain filled darkness. And what should you live for anymore or rather, who would need you in this goddamn world anymore? Anybody you had mattered at least a bit to was dead, ripped into shreds by the undead or was now better off without someone as fucked up as you by their side. You were lost, so goddamn lost and every second of it was eating you more up and was leaving more wounds that wouldn’t heal. Instead they would get infected and let more poisons pain of loneliness, emptiness and the disgusting feeling of worthlessness enter your body. And by now, it was just too much. You couldn’t suppress any of it any more, couldn’t bottle it up some more or cover and hide it anymore somewhere inside you, it was getting worse with every day and today was the very day you were breaking in beneath the giant burden that had gathered up on your shoulders. In front of your eyes flashed the faces of your family and friends that had been gone, leaving you as the last lonely one standing before the face of a man joined in. Another shiver ran through your body as your mind forced you to think about him before it persuaded you that also he was better off without you. And after all, he didn’t need you, why should he? He had this place to lead, had his people, those women. He couldn’t need someone as broken and messed up as you, who was nothing more anymore than a picture of misery. In the very end, he wouldn’t miss you, no one would. And maybe it was good this way, maybe it was good that you wouldn’t rip a hole into someone like all of your losses had ripped into you. Your hands clasped the plastic in your hands tighter, your glance falling for a moment at the few scarfs that laid next to you on the bed. As soon as those pills were down your throat, you’d have to use the fabric to secure your ankles and wrists as best as you could to prevent your reanimated corpse from attacking the person who’d find you. If you were going now, you weren’t gonna pull anyone into this. Your eyes shut tightly for a moment as the coldness of your wet clothes let a shudder ran though your body, a sharp breath leaving your lips as the cap of the small can dug into your skin. A whimper escaped your mouth as your thumb ran along the cap, trying to begin to let it pop open before a loud knock on the door let you flinch up. “(Y/N)? Doll, you’re in there?”, you heard Negan’s voice sound through the wood of the door as you held your breath in shock for a moment, hoping that he would just go if he thought that you weren’t inside the room. Another knock of his bat sounded against your door, your body jolting again by its sound before the blood began to freeze in your veins as soon as you heard how the door began to open.

“Here are you, hell, I’ve been searching my ass off”, you heard him chuckle while you kept staying in your position, not moving an inch while your hands slowly enclosed the can in your hands to let it vanish between your palms. You heard Negan’s footsteps coming closer before you suddenly heard his deep voice once again. “Shit Baby, you’ve been outside in this shitty weather? Why-”, he began before he abruptly stopped as soon as your eyes caught his tall frame from the corner of your eyes while you could feel how his glance was burning into you. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”, you heard him quietly ask, his voice soft while the panic in you rose as he slowly came closer. He should just go, leave you alone and let you finally leave this goddamn misery. But instead of following your silent prayers, he came quietly closer and crouched down in front of you, his glance trying to desperately let it meet yours, while your eyes darted outside as the panic in you rose some more. “Sweetheart?”, you heard him asking again, concern swinging in his voice as his hand reached carefully out to your leg before his touch made you jolt up. A gasp left your lips as the flinching of your body made you lose your grasp on the can that had been buried deeply in your nervously sweating palms, before you felt the plastic slipping out of your hands. Your eyes widened as the can hit the floor, the loosened cap flying off as the pills spilled over the floor, your panicking glance already trying to find the can to prevent Negan from grabbing it first. “Wha-”, Negan’s voice began as his large hand reached out to the can right as it had fallen into your field of view before your shaking voice cut him off. “Just headache pills-...I-I’ve been having having some headache and I just-”, you began, your mind trying to make something up by the speed of light as you tried to reach out to his hand to get the can out of his grasps. But instead he got it closer to himself, your heart pounding harshly against your chest, a lump already forming in your throat as he rolled the plastic in his hands until the label got visible. “Sleeping pills”, he mumbled, before you could see in his face and his eyes which were still darting at the sticker, that he began to combine and realize what was happening or what would have happened if he hadn’t entered the room. “(Y/N), wha...fuck, why?”, he stumbled helplessly and clearly over challenged, his eyes darting up and right into yours as he gulped harshly. “Negan...just go...please”, you mumbled, trying to not lose control over your trembling body as he already shook his head. “No, (Y/N) fuck no, I-I’m not leaving you to-”, he began, not able to speak out this last word as his with pain filled eyes roamed over your face, trying to find reasons and answers. ”Please tell me you haven’t taken any of these fuckers yet”, his trembling voice asked, panic beginning to spread out in his eyes before you shook your head. “I haven’t but-”, you began before the lump in your throat cut you off while your lips quivered slightly as trembles erupted your body, that got stronger with each second his glance was stuck longer on you. “I can’t anymore...I-...I’m too weak for this I-”, you began, your voice shaking as Negan shook his head while his eyes still refused to let go of you. “Bullshit, you’re not too weak, you-...fuck (Y/N), you’re one of the fucking strongest people I know”, he said, his voice trembling as you quickly cut him off. “No, I’m not, I-...why are you still here, Negan?”, your trembling voice brought out, first tears beginning to urge up into your eyes. “I-”, Negan began, his voice breaking off before he pulled himself together, “(Y/N), I care about you...a whole fucking lot.” For a short moment, his words managed to bring a tiny bit of warmth into your body, right before the overwhelming tsunami of pain washed over you again and dragged the warmth out of you. “I wouldn’t ever fucking forgive my goddamn self if I’d-...I won’t forgive me that I haven’t noticed how...fuck, how shitty you feel so now I won’t leave you alone in this crap”, he said, gulping harshly as his worried eyes were still glued on you before you heard his uneasy voice again. “Just...hell, just please let me help you somehow”, he said, his shaking breath letting his chest rumble as he carefully, even cautiously, got out of his crouched position and sat down next to you on the bed, still keeping some space between the two of you to find out how close you let him. Your clouded eyes wandered away from him, catching the pills on the floor for the fraction of a second that let a cold shiver run through your body before your poisonous thoughts spoke out of you again. “And I don’t wanna be a burden to you...you got enough shit to do”, you mumbled as you saw from the corner of your eyes how Negan’s glance was still darted at you, his brows puckering worried before he quickly spoke up again. “No I fucking don’t. All I gotta do right now is taking some fucking care of you”, he said, gulping harshly once again before he stroke over his stubble, “And that’s no burden, not in any fucking way. Don’t fucking think that.” His voice was softer than his words made it seem, but exactly these words rushed through you and stirred some more emotions up. The lump in your throat grew in you as his caring words fought against the pain and your thoughts that kept terrorizing you and tried to drag you back into the darkness. ”You probably got no fucking idea how often you’ve already kept me from losing my shit”, he said, his tone soothing while he got a bit closer as he seemed to still see the tension and ounce of doubt in your body. “And I’m not doing that ‘cause I feel urged or outta fucking pity. I want to and 'cause you mean an assload to me...fuck, more than anybody else here. That’s why”, he added as the stirring in your body turned into waves that let all of the mess well up in you, your eyes now glued to the pills that could have ended it all if Negan hadn’t stepped into your room. It was an odd feeling, almost as if you had the devil and an angel sitting on each one of your shoulders. And while the angel told you to believe Negan’s words, let yourself fall for once and to believe in the hope that there was a way out for you, the devil embodied the pain and the darkness that kept telling you that everything was lost, that you wouldn’t get out of this anymore and that Negan’s words were just creating false hope that would drag your pain out into an end with more agony instead of a fast end with the pills right at your feet. This all began to wash over you repeatedly, trying to bring you down, trying to conquer you until it slowly began to break out of you as the first tear began to roll over your cheek as a harbinger for everything that was still boiling in you. “Oh fuck, Baby”, you heard Negan mumble as he his eyes caught the tear before you felt his hand carefully reaching out to you and placing softly on your thigh. And with that, his touch, it broke completely out of you. Shivers let your body shake and tremble, whimpers mixing in-between the sobs that began to force their way out of your body. “Come here”, you just heard Negan say before you felt his arms wrapping around you and beginning to pull you into his warm embrace. And you let him, something in you longed for release and to just be held as the whole bottled up pain streamed out of you. Your sobs filled the room before they got muffled as soon as your face buried into the curve of his neck, your tears beginning to stain his white shirt beneath the leather jacket as he hooked your legs over his to embrace you tighter. His arms kept you close against his own body, holding you while his one of his large, warm hands switched between stroking soothingly over your back and caressing over your hair and the bit of your cheek that wasn’t pressed against his skin. And the sobs just kept coming and coming, seeming as if they were trying to pump out the mess out of your body while you heard Negan mumbling soothing words in-between his gentle touches. Cradling you against his chest, he seemed to try a balance between helping you to let everything once for all out and calming you down while your whole body got erupted by the sobs that sent shudders through you. You had no idea for how long those sobs left your lips, but at some point your body grew too weak to let them out anymore as it turned into a trembling and exhausting figure that could only manage to replace the sobs with whimpers. You found yourself clinging to him, while you just longed for more of his warmth and comfort he provided for your cold and still wet body after you hadn’t been able to let those positive feelings come just close to you for so long. Negan’s head leaned against yours as your breath finally began to calm down while his fingers caressed the back of your neck until you heard his voice. “Would be alright if you’d come with me? Back to my room? Just...just to get out of this here”, he quietly asked, your mind was a muddled mess, still half in some kind of trance but by now, the room began to feel like a cage and you needed to get out if it and away from these pills that were still letting your inner demons flare up with each time you saw just a glimpse of them. ”Okay”, you just got out, your voice weak and crackling even by this small word. And with that, Negan grabbed Lucille and laid her carefully into your lap before he adjusted his arms and heft you up, before you could even think of getting on your own weak legs. So you stayed huddled up to him, your arms slinging around his neck to help him a little while he began to carry you out of the dark room and something felt that with leaving this very room, you could at least leave a tiny bit of the darkness that had almost eaten you completely up behind. Negan carried you until you heard the sound of him kicking his heavy wooden door open, heard it shutting again behind the both of you and felt him letting you down on the edge of his bed. A shudder ran through your body as his warmth left you and instead the cold and damp clothes got some attention from your body. ”Fuck, you’re freezing...you gotta get out of these damn wet clothes and warm up”, you heard Negan say as he crouched down in front of you again, his warm hands cupping yours as your from the tears red-rimmed eyes first saw into his again. His glance was still filled with utter concern and as one of his hands reached up to stroke a hair strand out of your face and caress your cheek with his thumb for a small moment, you felt that angel on your shoulder beginning to overpower the devil on the other side who still tried all it could to take control of your mind. ”Alright I got an idea”, he mumbled after a short moment and let out a small sigh, before he spoke up again. ”I’ll let you some hot bath in and take care of the rest, you alright with that?”, he asked, his tone still soft and warm while you just decided to let him do this for you. You quietly nodded while a small smile painted on Negan’s lips before he got with a small strained breath up on his feet again, grabbed Lucille and placed her directly next to you. ”She’s gonna stay right by your side”, he said, the small even uplifting smile still on his lips as he stroke once more over your hair before he made his way over to the bathroom while Lucille leaned against your leg. You didn’t know every piece of the puzzle to Negan’s past yet, but you knew enough to know what this bat meant to him and leaving her now by your side was a way bigger act of affection than it would seem to most people. Negan left the bathroom door open as he let the bath in while you could even feel his glance darting over and over again at you to make sure you were as fine as you could be in this mess of a state you were. Your glance wandered to Negan’s beloved weapon next to you as your hand found the end of her handle, your fingers beginning to draw circles over the wood to keep the thoughts and feelings that wanted to get you down once again away from you. And while you were busy with drawing circles over Lucille, you heard Negan in between rummaging in some cabinets before a pleasant and comforting scent began to fill the air. You looked up again and saw Negan pouring something into the tub that began to build up a big bunch of bubbles before his glance met yours once again while he walked back over to you. Moments later you found yourself standing on wobbly and weak legs in his bathroom, still caught somewhere in the trance this whole thing had set you in. Negan was still careful, making sure that he made you feel as comfortable as he could before you let him help you to get out of the damp clothes that clung to your body as you didn’t even care anymore if he saw you naked or not. With everything that had happened before you had shown yourself way more exposed than with taking off your clothes and the way he handled you, you felt comfortable as soon as you he helped your weak body to climb into the bathtub before you let yourself sink into the hot bubble bath. For a short moment Negan walked past you and got something out of the bunch of stuff he had managed to get out of his cabinets earlier before walking with a light lilac colored bottle of shampoo in his hands back to you and sat down on the broad edge of the bathtub. ”Now I haven’t used this one yet, thought it wouldn’t fit too much to me”, he mumbled as he looked with a small chuckle back to you before he looked at the sticker on the bottle and rose his voice once again ,”so you get to be the very first one to smell like ‘Lavender & Rose Summer-night Dream’” His small chuckle made a tiny smile grow on your lips while your mind was still fighting with the darkness and pain inside of you, even though you wanted this here right now, you wanted and wished for that there was actually a way to something better and you wanted that your hopelessness from before was proven wrong. Whatever was happening in these moments, you just wanted it to work even though the fear in you was high that you would fall again and shatter on the ground harder than ever before. And then you tried to just let yourself concentrate on Negan. His hands first shoved some warm water over your shoulders and back to warm your body up, he let some water flow over your hair to get it a bit wetter before he poured some of the comforting smelling shampoo into his hands. Slowly, his fingers ran through your hair and began to massage your scalp as he spread the shampoo over your head. Even though the consoling touch made it seem tempting, you didn’t want to close your eyes. You wanted to stay right there and not only feel but also see him. Something in you still feared that if you would close your eyes now, the thoughts would come back as well as the pictures that used to terrorize you way too often. But next to all that, the pure fact that he was doing all this for you without the bat of an eyelid and genuinely showed his care for you was helping to battle and prevent any of the poisonous thoughts from coming back in. Quietly you heard Negan humming a melody as he continued to caress and massage the shampoo into your hair while the hot water managed to let your body begin to relax and to let out some of the tension that was stuck in it. You had no idea for how long Negan continued his comforting massage but when he began to carefully wash the shampoo out of your hair the hot water from before was already turning colder. ”Let’s get you out of this”, Negan mumbled shortly later as his hand wrapped around yours to help you out of the bathtub before he quickly grabbed two towels. Carefully he began to dry you up and let you wrap one towel around your body as he softly rubbed and dried your hair with the other before he grabbed a big white and fluffy bathrobe. ”It’s mine so this fucker’s gonna be a bit too fucking big but it’s comfy as fuck” Negan chuckled quietly as he wrapped the soft fabric around your shoulders, his scent enclosing you directly while you got your arms into the sleeves and slung the cozy fabric closer around yourself. Negan’s arms found their way back around you as they pulled you into his embrace and held you tightly while your face leaned back against his warm neck before you heard his voice again. ”No matter fucking what, you always got me, alright? I want you to know that”, Negan mumbled into your hair as he leaned his head against yours and pulled you a little closer as you felt some more warmth forming in your body. ”Alright”, you mumbled back as you found yourself cuddling closer into his embrace and began to feel how the painful loneliness you had felt got fought with every bit more you got yourself to believe in his words. Warm sheets replaced Negan’s arms not much later as you laid in his big bed, carefully tucked in while he was sitting at the edge of the mattress and caressed the back of your neck, his glance still glued at you. “I know I can’t just fix you with all this shit. If I could, hell I’d pack you for hours...days into the damn bathtub and shampoo your hair till my fucking hands bleed and smell until the fucking end of time like goddamn lavender, rose and shit...but I know I can’t”, he mumbled, a bit pain in his voice and glance as he let his rough fingers slowly stroke a few loose hair strands out of your face. “Carson...I think he’s got experience in this...if you want...and as soon as you feel ready, we- you could talk to him”, he quietly added, his eyes now meeting yours as you quietly nodded, still overwhelmed once again by what he was doing for you. “Shit will get better, I promise”, you heard him say, the movements of his fingers stopping for a moment as he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on your temple while you allowed yourself to close your eyes for the first time. And different to what you had feared, there were no thoughts or pictures that popped up right in front of your eyes. You knew they were still there, of course they were, but in these moments you could manage to just enjoy the feeling of Negan’s lips on your skin and the feeling that someone was caring deeply about you and wanted, maybe even needed you by their side. ”Thank you”, you quietly mumbled, your lips curling into a small smile before you felt him sliding beneath the sheets until his strong arms wrapped around you once again. Affection, even love, they aren’t the one, single cure for what you were going through nor would they just let all this pain magically vanish. That’s just not the way it works. But something in you finally gave you the feeling that a door had appeared again that had something bright shining though the gap beneath it. It was a long path to this door, literally a path of trial and tribulation but you knew now that you didn’t have to take this rocky road alone, you had someone by your side who would help you to find a key and to find a way through the darkness, until you could step through this very door into a brighter future.

(the gif isn’t mine/I found it on google/credit to the original owner) tagging: @lovesjdm @jeffreydeanneganstrash @negans-network @sweetwittlebosco   @myrabbitholetoneverland @amysuemc @ashzombie13 @warriorqueen1991 @collette04 @trashimaginezblog @dragongirl420  @dasani-saraai @timeladyrikaofgallifrey @dinodiegos @missmotherhen @kinkygamertrash @beahippie23 @xabeautifultragedyx @negansmagic@starwarsandstufff @bdohe21 @lovesjdm @vanilla-negan @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @roselover159@mamarhee @mini-me-ow @bellawindixon @dlb1999 @the-writingdead@thelittlewolf45 @collette04 @adixon13 @nijiru @twentyonewalkers @originalwinchestervamp @readytourie @jtklover123 @i-am-lady-anarchy @marauderspads @humble-thumb @hp-hogwartsexpress @mydeliciousdandelion @unholyjs @dancing-in-embers @doggosarefun @xojeffreydeanmorgan (In case you want to be tagged or untagged for specific things or everything I write, just let me know)

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