close to home | chapter seventy five
close to home | chapter seventy five
plot: Daryl breaks a promise, and the reader goes after him
series masterlist
Pairing: Eventual Daryl Dixon x f!reader
Word Count: 4,050
Warnings: violence, blood, typical twd
A/N: I've been on such a reading kick lately
The following days were a blur. After your panic attack, Daryl kept an eye on you. After your delirium from the waves of fighting walkers passed, you joined in with the rest of the community. You were doing better. And you were sure it was because of Daryl picking you over the community, even though it made you feel guilty.
Despite the days moving quickly, they were long. Lydia was attacked, and Margo was accidentally killed by Negan. You and Daryl thought Negan was right but couldn’t do anything about it. Then the Whisperers attacked Hilltop, though there wasn’t any real proof. And Michonne took off with Judith to assist them. You stayed back to watch over RJ. Eugene left too after what happened with Rosita--which she happily told you while you and she hung out with your daughters.
Daryl went with Carol to look for Alpha’s horde, which you fought him every step of the way. But you needed to know about the horde, and he promised he would stay on your side of the border. You believed him until they came back with a Whisperer. You wanted to throw him off a cliff for lying to you, but when you found out it was all Carol, your anger dissipated. You knew she wasn't in a good place. You’d found the pills.
But then the Whisperer died. And then Siddiq was killed by Dante, and you and Daryl sat with Josie the entire night. He’d helped deliver her. If Dante wasn’t already dead, you would’ve killed him yourself for ever touching Josie.
Then, a freak named Mary showed up and told Alexandria where the horde was if she got to see Earle’s son. And Lydia went missing after something happened with Carol. And if all that wasn’t the worst of it, finding Daryl’s note was.
Gonna end this. I’m sorry. I love you. Don’t come looking for me.
Well, you did exactly that.
***
“You stupid son of a bitch,” You nearly yelled, throwing your bow down beside the fire. You didn’t care that you had an audience or the surprised--and then very angry--look that crossed your husband's features.
“What the hell are ya doin’ here?”
“You taught me how to track, dumbass! Don’t you think I know how to track you, of all people?” You seethed. Your bag was heavy on your shoulders, and you dropped it. “You didn’t think I would come after you? Do you have any idea how stupid this is?”
Daryl grabbed your arm and pulled you a good fifteen feet away from the small camp, and you pulled your arm free after a few seconds.
“Who has Josie?”
“Rosita.” You glared. “Why, Daryl? After everything that’s happened the past few days.”
“‘Cause I can’ stand lookin’ at ya during all this shit. I can’ stand knowin’ ya lookin’ over ya shoulder for Alpha. I want her dead.”
You crossed your arms. “I want her dead too, but you don’t just walk out like that. How would you like it if I did that?”
“I’d drag ya back by ya ass if ya did.”
“Exactly. We’re a team, Daryl. Since the beginning. Since the damn night we met and we fought our way back to my safehouse. I don’t appreciate this.”
Daryl sighed angrily. “Well, ya here now. Exactly where I didn’ want ya.”
“Josie needs her father.”
“She needs her mother, too.”
Your hard glare dropped. “She needs both of us, Daryl.”
His own anger seemed to deflate, and he nodded slowly. “‘M sorry. Just want this over.”
“I know. So do I. But we work better together, and you know that. So let’s find this mother fucking horde and get home to our daughter.”
Daryl shook his head, but it wasn’t like he had any other choice. “Can’ believe ya fuckin’ followed me out here.” He swung his arm around your shoulder and kissed your forehead. You closed your eyes at the embrace.
“Well, next time don’t be such a dumbass and I won’t have to.”
***
The next day, you found the valley that the horde was supposed to be in. But it was empty, and you didn’t know if you were happy about it or pissed off. Everyone seemed to be the latter, but it wasn’t something you had to worry about this exact second.
You’d only walked about a mile before you came across a river, and Daryl thought Lydia would’ve followed it. You were set to keep following him when you turned back and noticed Carol had stopped by a tree. You inwardly sighed--you couldn’t keep up with her lately, no matter how hard you tried to be there for her.
“Carol, let’s go,” You called out to her. You knew Daryl was behind you when you felt his hand brush against your backside.
“You guys go ahead. I’ll meet you.”
“We should stay together,” You said, but she was already walking toward a small field about twenty yards away.
You glanced at Daryl, sharing an exhausted expression, and followed after her. When she started running, you looped your bow over your shoulder and picked up the pace, a train of obscenities being muttered under your breath.
You were breathless when you came to a trench, a few dead walkers on the ground. Daryl was fighting off a few walkers, and he looked at you for only a second. “Go, get her ass outta there!”
Magna pushed you forward, and you jumped into the trench and pulled yourself out of it, running toward the opening toward whatever structure was ahead. You were going to kill Carol.
It was dark and much cooler in the structure than it was outside, and you paused beside Magna momentarily. But then you heard Carol scream and you quickly ran after her.
“Carol!” You yelled.
“Oh, shit,” Magna cursed, grabbing onto your arm. The weight of her body pulled you forward, and your feet slipped.
You screamed as you dropped a good ten feet, landing on rock. You didn’t have time to focus on your vision before your body rolled. You tasted blood in your mouth as you fell from another ledge and landed harshly on the rock below. You heard your friends landing around you as well.
“Mother fucker,” You cursed, spitting out blood as you rolled over onto your side. Your back ached, and your lip was bleeding from where you must’ve bitten down on it.
“Are you okay?”
You glanced at Carol, who was dusting her shirt off. She helped you up as you replied, “Just peachy.”
You heard your name echoing from above, and you thanked God that Daryl was still up there. “Daryl, don’t come down--.”
You cringed as you heard your husband fall and took a step back when you saw him come down. He landed with a groan, and you were immediately kneeling by his side. “You alright?”
“Ya bleedin’,” He said, using his thumb to wipe the corner of your mouth.
“I’m okay,” You said, standing and helping him to his feet.
You set your hands on your waist as you looked around the cave, trying your best to ignore the groans of walkers below you. You cursed under your breath and grabbed Daryl’s hand as Jerry yelled for everyone’s attention. You looked over to where he pointed, and that was when you saw Alpha.
Your breath hitched in your throat as memories of the barn filled you, and you took a step backward. Daryl squeezed your hand and pulled you closer to him. You could’ve sworn you could feel the tip of her knife dragging across your arms again.
There was a lump in your throat as you looked back at Daryl. “Just take a breath.” He told you.
Nodding, you did as he asked and looked back to where Alpha was, but she was gone. You took another deep breath and looked at Aaron, who was against the wall you fell from.
“Okay, maybe we can get back up,” Aaron said. “If we can get one of you women up there…”
It was a no-go. They tried to lift each and every one of you, but none of you could get a grip. Besides, the wall beyond that was too high.
So you grabbed Daryl’s flashlight and looked around for any other way out of the damn cave. Water was running in from somewhere, and Daryl and Aaron were discussing how to get out of there. You noticed a chain of boulders that looked close enough to jump to, and they stretched across to the other side.
“Shine the light for me over there for me,” You handed the flashlight to Daryl.
“What are ya thinkin’?” Daryl asked but shined where you pointed.
You didn’t reply and took a few steps back. Without a word, you ran the few steps to the ledge and jumped. Daryl immediately yelled after you as you landed on the first boulder, your knees buckling under the weight of your bag and weapon. But your boots were steady, and you stood straight up.
“(Y/N), are you crazy?” Carol yelled.
“Yeah, but she on to somethin’,” Daryl said. He pointed the light to the rock in front of you, and you took a deep breath, steadying yourself before you jumped again.
You climbed around the formation, feeling wisps of fingertips touching your boots and back legs. But they couldn’t grab you. You glanced back at Daryl, who was following closely behind you. You looked back at the ground, who were all looking a little unsure.
You kept moving, getting to the next boulder. It was there that you paused and took a deep breath and turned when Daryl called your name. He tossed you the flashlight, and you caught it one-handed, shining the light so he could get to you.
“Knew I called ya crazy woman for a reason,” Daryl said when he was standing beside you. His arms were on either side of you, effectively pinning you to the boulder so there wasn’t a chance you’d fall or slip.
“Gotta keep our relationship interesting, huh?” You gently teased, though you were sweating profusely and wanted to bang your head against the rock itself. “Starting to wish I never found your note, though.”
“One more jump, baby girl. Let me go first. I can help ya,” Daryl said.
You wanted to roll your eyes and tell him that you’d been perfectly fine, but you knew he was only doing it because he loved you and because he was scared for you. So you shined the light onto the cave wall, with just enough room to jump onto.
When he was on the other side, you tossed him the light and then jumped yourself. His arms were around your waist, and he pulled you tightly against his chest. You could feel his hands shaking as he urged you forward while he waited to help everyone else.
You watched from a safer place as the rest of the group slowly made their way to the other side, and then you sighed with relief when everyone was over safely. Then you followed Daryl through a tunnel, your hand gripping tightly to the back of his vest.
When you reached a larger area, Daryl dug out his matches and handed you a few. While he told Connie to keep everyone, you lit the match and walked slowly, trying to find a cross breeze.
You tuned out the conversation happening behind you as you glanced at Daryl. You paused momentarily, admiring his form and the pull of his arms as he held up the match. Shaking your head, you turned around and got back to work.
“Pst.”
You walked over to Daryl and watched the flame find wind. You smiled and looked up at him. “Nice job, sexy.”
Daryl grunted and put the match out. “Nice thinkin’ with the jumpin’. Gonna have to curse ya out later for it, though.”
You stood on your toes to give him a quick and private--thanks to the boulders--kiss. “You’re welcome for saving your life for the thousandth time.”
***
About an hour later, you sat against a rock wall with your heavy head on Daryl’s shoulder. A half-empty skin of water lay between you two, and you had long since intertwined your fingers.
Daryl’s thumb was absentmindedly rubbing against your hand while he chewed on his other thumb, and no matter how many times you swatted it away, it was there again in a few minutes.
“So,” You whispered low enough so nobody would hear. “Ever wanna do it in a cave?”
Daryl snorted.
“We could find some dark corner,” You teased.
“Ya ain’ quiet enough, darlin’.”
You smiled and squeezed his hand momentarily before kissing his shoulder. You looked up in time to see Carol headed toward you. “I’ll let you two talk,” You said. You knew very well of the tension between them since everything happened with Lydia and just in general. She hadn’t been the same since she got off the boat, and you knew Daryl was missing his friend.
Carol smiled as you passed her, and you walked over to where Jerry was sitting. You smiled widely despite how tired, hot, and sweaty you were. “Jerry, my main squeeze,” You collapsed beside him, setting your bow aside. “How are you holding up?”
The two of you murmured, swapping stories of your children. It was the only thing that kept you from falling apart. Getting back to Josie. You would be damned if you let anything keep you from seeing your daughter.
You’d just settled into a nice silence when you heard Magna screaming ‘skins’. You were on your feet immediately, grabbing your bow and getting an arrow ready. With hardly any light in the cave system, your fingers twitched in anticipation as you followed Jerry toward Magna.
Rounding the corner, you only had a second to see Magna fighting off a freak when another one dropped before you. They swung their arm at you, and you jumped backward, dropping your bow in favor of the machete at your hip. You ducked underneath their next swing and drove your knife up into their stomach, lifting it as high as you could. Then, with a swift pull, you yanked it to the side.
Warm guts hit your boots, and the freak dropped dead just in time for another one to approach you. Before they could make the first move, a knife embedded itself in the back of their skull, and when the body fell, Daryl grabbed your arm and handed you your bow.
In the distance, you could see the last of the freaks running off. You nodded your head toward it, and Daryl yelled for everyone to follow.
You ran for a good few minutes before you lost the figures, and everyone around you needed to stop. You took a deep breath and wiped your sweat from your forehead. You lowered your bow and slung it over your shoulder.
When Jerry found an arrow, you all decided to follow it. If freaks got in, then you could get out. So you followed the arrows until you reached a gap in the wall, and Daryl picked up their trail. You watched anxiously as your husband walked through the tight funnel, and you kept an arrow in your bow in case something happened.
After a few minutes, he gave the signal, and you were the first one to follow him. You fit through the tunnel easily and caught up to Daryl within thirty seconds. You grabbed the back of his vest again until he reached behind you and took your hand in his.
***
“How ya doin’?”
“Oh, I’m just snug as a bug,” You retorted, pulling your body forward in a painful army crawl. You could feel your jeans rip over a particularly sharp rock, and you bit your lip to stifle a colorful choice of words.
You focused on the light above you and the bottoms of Daryl’s boots. It was the only thing keeping you from freaking out. You weren’t claustrophobic by any means, but the idea of being sandwiched between tons of rock and who knows how far underground made you want to cry.
Still, you were doing better than Carol.
You wanted to cry with happiness when you saw Daryl pull himself out of a hole and then shine his flashlight toward you. “Hand up ya bow first. Gonna be a tight fit.”
“That’s what she said,” You laughed humorlessly as you struggled to get the bow off you and then send it up toward your husband. You could just barely make out the glare he sent you, and then you actually did laugh.
His hands wrapped around your wrists, and he helped pull you the rest of the way out. When your feet were on the ground and you were finally standing upright, you threw your arms around him and kissed him.
When you parted, you grabbed your bow. “Don’t act like you don’t like my jokes.”
“Ya got jokes all damn day, every day, since the damn prison.” He replied, shining the light back into the hole, where you could see Kelly slowly making her way.
You smiled and leaned against the rock, reaching out to pinch his ass. Daryl jumped and smacked your hand away, which made you laugh.
“Can’ ya ever take anythin’ seriously?”
Your smile widened, and you shook your head. “Gotta try and keep my mind off of our impending deaths for a little while.”
“Ya ain’ dyin’. ‘M gettin’ us home to Josie.”
***
When the tunnels led you all to an old mining setup, and after you found Alpha’s horde, you sighed with relief. It meant that there was an exit. And you’d see the sky soon.
So when Daryl found the sun streaming through the ground above you, everyone jumped at once to start clearing a path to dig out of there. But nothing made you more nervous than Kelly finding dynamite, and you prayed that nothing bad would happen.
“Ya seen Carol?”
You looked up from the pile of rocks you and Connie were moving, and you shook your head. “I thought she was with you guys.”
“‘Mma look for her, ya stay here and keep workin’.”
You hesitated but nodded. She couldn’t have gone off far, and Daryl wouldn’t leave you for long. So after he squeezed your forearm, he went to find her.
You’d only been working with Connie for a few more minutes before you heard an explosion, and everything around you started to shake. Dirt fell into your eyes, and you cursed loudly, stumbling backward before someone grabbed you. Fingers worked at your eyes, and when you opened them, you saw Connie signing to you.
Are you okay?
Yes.
“Come on!”
You grabbed your flashlight and shined down the tunnel where Daryl had gone, but you couldn’t see a damn thing. “Son of a bitch,” You muttered before you walked forward.
An arm wrapped around yours, and you were pulled back by Magna and Connie. “What are you doing?”
“They could be hurt,” You stressed. “I’m not leaving my husband down here or Carol.” You pulled your arm away from Magna’s and took off. You knew they followed you by the sound of their boots, but you didn’t stop.
When you saw the glow of a lantern, you nearly cried and ran up to Daryl and Carol; the ladder hurt. You wrapped an arm around her waist and helped Daryl get her back to where your exit was.
“Aaron and Kelly, we got freaks up there!” Jerry strained as he tried to keep the post up.
“You need to go up first. She can’t climb out!” You yelled to Daryl. When you saw the hesitation on his face, you yelled louder, “Go, dammit! You need to pull her out.”
Dirt was spilling from everywhere, and you coughed loudly as you pushed Carol up. She struggled, and Magna had to help you push her until Daryl had her.
As you strained, you saw movement in the distance. “Freaks!” You yelled.
You heard Magna curse loudly. You glanced at the hole above your head, where you could see Daryl getting Carol out. Then you looked at Jerry, who was struggling with holding the post.
You took a deep breath and wrapped your hand around your machete. Then you ran after Magna, toward the freaks.
There was barely any light, and you struggled as dirt continued to rain down on you. But you could see figures, and you swiped your machete at each one. Tears burned your eyes from the dirt, and you felt warm blood spray on your face.
“Get out of here!” Magna screamed.
You saw her go down, and you quickly stabbed one of the freaks in the head before running over to her. Connie was struggling toward you, weapons raised. But she was signing something you couldn’t see, and you helped Magna.
The ground shook before you heard the explosion. The ceiling was coming down, and wooden beams were falling. You couldn’t see Magna or Connie through the cloud of dirt. The last thing you heard was the sound of Magna’s screams.
***
Daryl squinted in the sunlight as he dragged Carol’s body backward. She was nearly unconscious, and Daryl knelt down for a moment, shaking her head. When her eyes blinked slowly, and she nodded, he took a second to look for you before he stood up and ran back over to the hole in the ground.
“(Y/N)?” He yelled, watching Aaron pull someone up from the hole. His stomach twisted in a knot when he saw it was Jerry he was pulling up. “Where’s (Y/N)? Why didn’ ya send her up first?” He yelled as Aaron helped get Jerry out.
The ground started shaking, and Daryl’s eyes widened as he realized what it was. “(Y/N)!” He made a beeline for the open hole.
“Daryl!” Aaron yelled, throwing himself against Daryl’s body and sending them rolling down the hill.
Shards of rock blasted up from the ground and rained around the group. Daryl covered his head as he struggled against Aaron. When the ground settled, and Aaron let him go, his knees went weak.
“No!” He screamed, running toward the pile of rocks. “(Y/N)!” He climbed over the debris, and when he saw the cratered hole the explosion left, when he knew the roof had collapsed, he sank down to his knees to dig through the debris.
He could barely hear Kelly crying; he could barely hear himself crying and grunting with the weight of each rock he threw as he dug.
“Daryl…”
“We gotta dig!” He yelled. “She’s down there, we gotta get her out.”
“Daryl… it’ll take us a week to dig this.”
“Then help me!” Daryl screamed. “That’s my fuckin’ wife down there.”
“We can’t,” Kelly yelled through thick tears. “This blast is going to call walkers and Whisperers from a hundred miles from here. We don’t want our backs pressed up against this mountain when they come. We can’t save them if we’re dead!”
Daryl stared at the pile of rocks as tears fell from his eyes. You couldn’t be dead. You couldn’t be dead. He repeated it over and over in his head. And then his grief, his desperation, turned into white, hot rage.
He walked away slowly and looked at Carol.
“Go ahead and say it to me. I deserve it.” Carol cried.
Daryl’s mind couldn’t even think of a response. All he could see was red. All he could feel was a level of anger that he’d never experienced before.
“Just say it to me,” Carol said. “That’s (Y/N) down there. Our (Y/N). Your (Y/N). Just say it.”
He could see the desperation on her face. The guilt. The self-hatred. His jaw quivered in anger as he thought about you down there, about you being dead.
And then he found his voice.
“If she dead, it’s on you,” He stressed. “And you will be dead to me.”
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(Part 2)
(Part 3)
Posted on July 8, 2022 by Douglas P. Marsh
"The strike was called November 9th, 1903. … The whole state of Colorado was in revolt.” – Mother Jones
It’s well known how, in 1905, the famous “Big” Bill Haywood helped found the Industrial Workers of the World in Chicago with Mother Jones, Lucy Parsons, Eugene V. Debs and others. Fewer know that Colorado – specifically the Colorado Labor Wars – was where Haywood and several other wobbly founders forged bonds of solidarity among miners and learned the pitfalls of business unionism. Or, that it’s where Haywood ran for governor, albeit from inside an Idaho jail cell.
And very few know that Colorado’s most successful strike took place under IWW leadership, during an overlooked surge in the union’s influence between 1927 and 1928.
Western Federation of Miners and the founding of the IWW
Approaching the turn of the 20th century, in the American West’s mining industry, big Capitalists were putting the squeeze on Labor and conditions were increasingly mean. Workers from Idaho, Montana and Colorado began organizing and, in 1893, would form the Western Federation of Miners.
WFM’s initial strikes took place in Colorado, with Cripple Creek’s first miner’s strike of 1894, and after that, in Leadville in 1896-1897. Haywood joined the WFM in 1896 as did another of IWW’s earliest members, Adolphus S. Embree, in 1899.
In Idaho, 1899, mine workers, armed and masked, hijacked a train and blew up mining equipment belonging to operators that refused to sign a WFM contract. The equipment was targeted because it was at the cutting edge in mining technology of the time and thus extremely expensive.
The event terrified bosses on both sides of the national border. At the time, Haywood was also in Idaho, while Embree was farther north in British Columbia, Canada, both mining precious metals. Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg declared martial law, convincing President McKinley to deploy soldiers and detaining over a thousand men in a barn without trial.
By 1903, tensions would erupt into what is now remembered as the Colorado Labor War, where employers brought against workers the most systematic use of violence in U.S. labor history. In the face of brutal suppression, miners executed multiple coordinated direct actions in at least six mining towns throughout the state in 1903 and 1904.
Galvanized in these and other struggles in the region, radical factions within the WFM sent delegates to Chicago in June of 1905 to help found a new organization to compete with the American Federation of Labor in uniting workers from different industries.
The IWW was founded as AFL’s radical alternative – staunchly international and anti-capitalist – fiercely critical of the AFL’s privileging skilled labor and its tolerance of nativist sentiments.
Back in Idaho, Steunenberg was assassinated in a bombing outside his Caldwell residence in late December, 1905.
Colorado and the IWW’s early years
The IWW’s second convention, in 1906, began in open conflict and concluded in schism.
As with many revolutionary organizations, the IWW was internally divided from the outset. Many members drawn from the AFL brought the federation’s reformist tendencies, while WFM dual-carders (workers affiliated with two unions) included members with more conservative beliefs.
“The struggle for control of the organization formed the Second convention into two camps. The majority vote of the convention was in the revolutionary camp. … On the adjournment of the convention the old officials seized the general headquarters, and with the aid of detectives and police held the same, compelling the revolutionists to open up new offices,” – Vincent St. John
A few months after the convention, “Big” Bill Haywood was arrested in Denver at WMF headquarters and transported to Idaho, where he was accused of orchestrating the assassination of former governor Steunenberg. From his Boise jail cell, he won over 16,000 votes for governor of Colorado on the Socialist Party of Colorado ticket while designing WFM posters and reading Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”. By the end of 1907, the WFM would cut ties with IWW, Haywood would leave the WFM in 1908.
Dual-carding wobblies were likely involved in continuing labor disputes in Colorado, including the infamous Ludlow Massacre of 1914. The IWW had held free speech rallies in Denver in 1912 and 1913, and A.S. Embree was seen during the long strike (1910-1914) which preceded the massacre and other events of the Colorado Coal War.
In 1916, IWW leadership determined to wage a major campaign, authorizing “an appropriation of $2,000.00 be made for organizing the miners of California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Utah, Idaho,” (Proceedings of the Tenth Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World. Chicago, 1916, page 61). Embree and another wobbly, Frank Little, were two of the external organizers sent to the field. They arrived to find the IWW forgotten to most miners and a united front among bosses and government agencies.
The Mountain West and the Fall of the IWW
“Guns, revolvers, machine guns came to Bisbee as they did to the front in France. ‘Shoot them back into the mines,’ said the bosses,”.
“Then on July 12th, 1,086 strikers and their sympathizers were herded at the point of guns into cattle cars in which cattle had recently been and which had not yet been cleaned out; they were herded into these box cars, especially made ready, and taken into the desert. Here they were left … without food or water to die,”- Mother Jones
The United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917. Early that summer, workers with IWW Local 800, fighting for better conditions in Arizona’s copper mines, were ready for action. A.S. Embree had been organizing miners operating out of Bisbee, with another IWW leader coordinating from Phoenix. Just before the strike, the Phoenix offices were moved to Salt Lake City, and Embree was cut off.
Though over 2,000 workers joined the Bisbee strike, a posse of even more assembled on behalf of the bosses and selected 1,200 deportees to load onto a train, later to be dumped in the desert over a hundred miles away. They were held in Columbus, New Mexico for over two months by federal troops who had been on the hunt for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.
It was the largest deportation in U.S. labor history.
After release, A.S. Embree would travel north to copper mine strikes in Butte, Montana where IWW organizer Frank Little was lynched, on August 1, 1917. Little was the second of three early IWW martyrs along with Joe Hill, an IWW songwriter, organizer, and activist executed by firing squad in Utah, in 1915, and Wesley Everest, a former Serviceman and Lumberjack who was lynched by a mob while defending his union hall following the 1919 Seattle General Strike.
Embree had earned a reputation in subsequent strikes in and around Montana as IWW’s “ablest tactician” while also returning to Tucson, Arizona to face down incitement of riot charges over events at Bisbee. He was targeted by federal agents from 1917-1920 who provided evidence to prosecutors in Idaho, where he was sent to state prison from 1921 to 1924 on charges of, so-called, “criminal syndicalism.”
Disrupting the copper industry during war-time production led in part to the federal government’s overwhelming and devastating attacks on the IWW. These began on September 5, 1917, when state and local forces initiated raids against IWW offices, as well as private residences of the union’s leaders, all across the U.S.
In the end over 150 wobblies were arrested and charged under the then new Espionage Act. IWW co-founder Eugene V. Debs would be arrested in June of 1918 and sent to prison in April 1919 for speaking publicly against the war, “Big Bill” Haywood fled to Russia in 1921, where he would die seven years later at the age of 59.
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Seraphim 266613336 Wings is a politically odd manga because it expresses an overtly leftist perspective on the existence of borders, apartheid states, refugees, genocide/ethnic cleansing, eugenics and state-sanctioned violence, but uses a Hakka elite-run China as a half-metaphor for Israel in a way that....doesn't quite pan out. The series has trouble condemning the individual actors of this story who are responsible for the state's present condition, but they're not in any way depicted as justified, either. They're more...reactive. Less autonomous. They're set pieces whose political power and ideals are ultimately subordinate to the greater existential threat. I feel as if the standard Mamoru Oshii brand of pessimism wherein everyone from commonfolk to academics to political elites are spiritually debilitated by their society swallows what could be meaningfully illustrated with these powers. If the tone of the story was 1:1 with Jin-Roh, I would be less critical, but Satoshi Kon's touch is so inspired that it leaves me wanting to see more. It feels trite complaining because this series was not completed for A Very Obvious Reason (rip king), so these elements aren't as fleshed out as they were intended to be, but still! It's such an ambitious work that this chasm just makes it feel even more incomplete.
The compromise that Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Oshii agreed on to develop the plot is palpable enough that you can match which sentiments expressed by the series line up with whos body of work. The afterword of the translation I'm reading even humorously expands on it.
Not Even Creating Manga Is Safe From Leftist Infighting
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Noumena - Volume 3′s Introduction Transcript.
“The artists are the people who first articulate the unknown, and so the role of artists in a healthy culture is to bring to public awareness elements of being that have not yet entered the collective consciousness. So you can imagine that we’re all living on an island and many of us are in the centre of the island, far enough away so that maybe we can’t even see the shoreline and we can’t see the ocean, that’s where our borders end. […] The artists are right on the edge and they’re expanding the landscape, […] they’re moving the culture forward into the unknown, and they do that by translating what is as of yet unimaginable, but sensed into what is at least imaginable and represented in image and drama and literature. And that’s the precursor to its full formulation in articulated philosophy and thought. And that’s what artists do, they’re problem solvers, they’re problem detectors and problem solvers. That’s what true artists do, and they’re always trying to solve problems.”
Jordan Peterson - Why most creative people give up (2021)
Deoffal Maldoror (b. 1999) is a dark surrealist, expressionist painter and illustrator, living and working in Birmingham, England. Maldoror has always been an avid scribbler long before they could even write and speak, and they have been in art education for close to two decades. As their Master’s in Fine Art comes to a close, this current project is the culmination of their work throughout the pandemic from 2020 to 2022. The devastation and paradigm shift of a post-Covid world revived Maldoror’s personal fascinations with transhumanism and the universal subjects of fear and nihilism within post-modernity, subjects made subsequently into portraiture through their signature aesthetic as a contemporary response to these issues.
Maldoror’s unorthodox portraits reimagine the human profile and face as a medium with the potential to grant greater flesh to dark and taboo subject matters, whilst still grounding the pieces in the egos and self-image concerns of our vanity-centric society. Their art intentionally uses a Rorschach-esque approach to interrogate the audience through its mesmerising detail, all illustrated through an automatic style that further emphasises its abhuman and unhinged disquietedness as post-modern iconography. Maldoror always endeavours to create pictorial philosophy, inspired by the quasi-philosophical literature of Thomas Ligotti, Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, in tandem with actual philosophers such as Eugene Thacker, Georges Bataille, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Immanuel Kant. Their work is a melting pot of influences from all over the world, both in its philosophy and visual references. This intentionally reaction-inducing fusion of philosophy and portraiture uses horror as an allegory for social and psychosomatic commentary.
Maldoror’s primary examples are found in the contemporary horror manga masters Junji Ito and Suehiro Maruo, the disturbing works of post-romantic and surrealist Francisco de Goya, the satire and caricatures of William Hogarth, the ornate gothic works of Gustave Doré’s narrative-based collections, and the ultra-violence centric paintings of Francis Bacon.
The motifs of entropy, social evolution, achromatic aesthetic, the unknown in nothingness, body dysmorphia and existential dread are ever prevalent issues threaded through and living in the very lateral wrinkles and viscera of Maldoror’s creations.
The installation ‘Uzumaki’, consisting of the collection documented in volumes 1 and 2 of ‘Noumena’, is named in tribute to Junji Ito’s seminal work of the same name (1999). Centred on transforming the naturally hypnotic value of the spiral as a pattern symbolic of the cosmic implications of the noumenal world, Ito’s manga stresses a horrific potential in cumulative and therefore overwhelming detail, a process represented by the spiral as a shape that builds infinitely from an infinitesimal point.
Maldoror’s latest project ‘Noumena’ is based primarily on the Kantian subject of the same name, and it’s later adaptation by Antifoundationalist thinker Eugene Thacker to represent the Lovecraftian turn in both contemporary philosophical and horror media discourse. The noumenal world and cosmic pessimism share a symbiotic relationship that inspire Maldoror endlessly, as it represents experiences and horrific potential beyond our sensibilities, assumptions and conventions of what is true and fixed. Maldoror’s portraits exist as a response to the possibility of the noumenal world bleeding into ours, representing that which can exist between our understandings of reality and reality as it could be.
The portraits featured beyond this introduction are caricatures and surrealist fantasies of how humanity and all entities of light in the darkness of the universe are shaped by an achromatic reality beyond our perception. Maldoror’s mission is to elevate the horror genre within contemporary art by recontextualising these concepts as portraiture grounded by philosophical and speculative references.
This third and final volume seeks to illustrate Maldoror’s practice as a studio realist, which, according to their own terminology, describes an artist who is utterly open about their references, their processes and their opinions on the art world at large. Although this means that Maldoror is realistic about the emotional and physical cost of being an artist in this day and age, this doesn’t remove the mystery of the artist for the audience altogether as someone who is capable of greater complex imaginative response to the world and beyond. Instead, as a studio realist, Maldoror wants to illuminate the faculties and philosophies of their practice so as to educate later generations on what it means to care for and nurture a practice that is only successful when based on principles and rigorous discipline.
In an interview with Florence Contemporary Gallery for the Exhibition ‘Reminiscence’ (May 2022), Maldoror gave a summary of their practice as follows:
“A lot of my drawings are impulsive; I don’t like to plan a piece or make exact arrangements in producing art as it is my belief that this keeps the work happily automatic and naturally expressive without looking overworked or forced. This means that I am making new portraits all the time, producing works in batches of about three to six on average whenever I sketch. I draw quickly and without much time wasted in forcing ideas out: most of my ideas are based on recalled images from literature, both academic and fictional. […] The key inspiration behind my visual motifs and aesthetics is the constant compiling of images to which I am exposing myself on a daily basis. The majority of the images that I save aren’t necessarily art related, they just interest me because of their morbidity, unusualness or alternativeness to the mundane. When I’m not gathering images of interest, I’m reading about anything that could trigger a new idea or concept for research […]. I don’t really feel the need for constant stimulation from my peers or to visit exhibitions to be inspired, rather I prefer to allow my imagination to make its own fun out of my own esoteric materials. My practice is very much an echo chamber, and one that produces a lot of work through inexpensive means. Both the intention to remain uncomplicated and totalitarian in my practice and the achromatic nature of my work allows the art to speak for itself.”
Maldoror’s own approach to illustration follows much of the example set by the surrealists, cubists and expressionists of the last century. Instead of caring about classical ideas on precision and giving into tedious over-consideration, practices that can only lead to proof of artist anxiety and imitative failure of better works that predate theirs, Maldoror intuitively makes confident and eccentric quirks in their mark making that they can eventually metamorphosise with each successive stroke. As this volume showcases, sketching and showing the potential of an image from its preliminary stages to its completion is just as important as releasing any set of finished works to the public. This represents not only the skill required to do what artists do, but it also humanises the artist and their practice as grounded in an actual logic and labour that functions on the most basic and universal laws of problem solving. Every creative is actively problem solving in all that they do and it’s crucial to teach those willing to embrace such practices if they want to be prolific and enthusiastic about creativity.
The simplified medium, scale, and focus on faces in particular in Maldoror’s current portraiture is all a conscious decision to grant obscure concepts an appearance and to take the as of yet unimagined into the conscious and into the physical. The themes of these later sketches post-‘Noumena’ are still deeply related to ‘Noumena’ in theory and visual motif, yet their individual themes and exact contexts are still being considered. However, they are already starting to show the potential of the erotic, the emerging use of various figurative elements, the revealed and concealed, the continued use of collaging the abstract, and experimenting with negative space.
This third volume documents the majority of sketches made throughout ‘Noumena’ (started in January and finished in September 2022), and the collection to be made after, although this is currently unnamed and still predominantly in the research phase (as of August 2022). Some of the pieces featured may have altered titles from the ones in their documented image: this is due to retroactive corrections made by Maldoror since many pieces had different original titles prior to their inclusion in ‘The 57’ and ‘The 63’. The remaining sketches with different titles from their images are still being informed by the beginnings of Maldoror’s current research post-‘Noumena’. The majority of the sketches from ‘The 57’ are unfortunately unavailable due to lack of documentation equipment at the time of their making, which is why only five are included in this volume (Mush, Revelation, Primate, Flare and Matter).
The specifications of every piece are: 21 x 29.7cm, graphite pencils on 200gsm paper.
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Short Notes:
This publication and it’s intro is somewhat of an ego stroke, I say this as using writing in the third person and thusly citing a recent interview about my work in my own publication may present me as having such an opinion of myself. However, I only wrote in the third person to keep the written work as objective as I could allow myself to be, and I only stroked my ego where I found it fitting because it is my own publicity after all and I have to show my ego without selling it down the river or having it be overbearing on the page for the audience, I tried to strike a happy medium while attempting to be just as formal and as professional in my language as I could be, that’s what these publications deserved after all the effort but into. This is also an important discussion in this volume in particular as this entire third volume was devoted to my strength as an imaginative and evidently prolific illustrator, especially as a studio realist who sees it as deeply important to question my processes and document whatever I can to inform my ideas and later research, whether that be directly introspective or more conceptual is entirely up to the content of my point and it’s argument as relevant to the material I am discussing etc.
Bar all that, this volume felt like a fitting tribute to the effort and processes of tis project, as the intro both states and prefaces the proof of my ability in the later sketches, while still arguing the future potential of these pieces beyond Noumena, as there is certainly still so much more work to be made and a career to crafted ahead of me, and so these sketches represent that energy to a T. It’s exactly why I referenced the same Jordan Peterson Quote again, except this time it’s longer and with more context compared to that in the essay, this time representing what the concepts and the processes of my work represent, and what they represent in the greater contemporary art culture, pushing the borders further into the unknown and responding to it at each stage to welcome more into public forum and consciousness, an important aspect of provocative works and ideas such as those referenced throughout this project.
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“5 Men Charged In Gang Attack Are Remanded,” Border Cities Star. January 21, 1931. Page 5.
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The case of five men, Roy Formagan, Albert Small, Eugene Nantais, Earl Lauzon, and Peter Meyer, who are involved in a charge of robbery with violence, was adjourned until January 28, when the quintet appeared in Windsor police court today.
The charge is the sequel to an alleged attack made more than a month ago on Arsene Emery, Belle River. Emery was set upon by a gang that severely beat him, fracturing his jaw. He was also robbed of $79. Illegal liquor is alleged to figure in the case.
Police have been investigating the affair ever since the attack, and have picked up the wanted men from time to time, the group appearing in police court today before Magistrate Brodie, for the first time. Louis Brody and F. A. Baillargeon are appearing for the men.
Meyer, Small and Lauzon were released on their own recognizance in the sum of $100. The Crown asked bail of $10,000 for each of the others.
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The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning
Chapter 71: If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...
❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader
❧ Era: Season 10
❧ Pronouns: she/her
❧ Warnings: violence, scary situations, mild swearing
❧ Word Count: 5.7k
❧ In This Chapter: Tensions come to a head in Alexandria, where Lydia is increasingly ostracized. Negan comes to her rescue, but that only makes matters more complicated when he accidentally kills an Alexandrian in the process, and a conflicted Daryl has to maintain order.
❧ A/N: Some more drama inside the walls of Alexandria this chapter. I have to say, I love writing Daryl and Reader as parents/parental figures, and writing protective Daddy Daryl warning Negan to ease up... I mean this gif is so hot. Tell him, Daryl! Tbh I imagine he's a little jealous that Negan's kind of stepping on his territory, trying to be a father figure to Lydia, and a little to Robin, and also protecting Reader. I'm not sure where this will go but I like the implication that Negan is also a little jealous of Daryl...
The last wave of the herd hit that night.
As with all herds, it eventually died down that next morning when you returned with Negan and Aaron, but there was bad news from Daryl’s meeting with the Whisperers.
Alpha knew of all the times the borders had been crossed, so she established new borders, cutting off your group’s hunting grounds.
To make matters worse, Carol had disobeyed the request to be unarmed at the confrontation, pulling a pistol from her pocket and shooting it at Alpha, though missing when Michonne lowered her arm.
Still, it was a reckless, selfish decision that could’ve gotten everyone killed, and you were a little pissed at her for that, so you were giving her the silent treatment, your usual method of signaling disappointment.
Though you couldn’t say it was a declaration of war, tensions were certainly increasing, and you had no doubt that soon they’d come to a head.
Thus, it was time to train. Everyone.
“Robin and I are going out,” you said to Daryl, who stood bent over his bike in his “office.” He was planning on making a trip to the Hilltop in a few days, where the walls had been broken up by a fallen tree, and walkers were beginning to seep in. Michonne, Eugene, and a few others had already left that morning. Needless to say, they needed all the help they could get.
RJ was under your care until they returned, while Judith joined her mother in the journey.
Daryl looked up at you with a grease-stained face, watching you put your arms through your sherpa-lined jean jacket.
“Walls or house?” he asked, as he usually did when you said something so vague.
You huffed. “House. Aaron’s doing some training by the windmill, thought it’d be good to take Robin, and get a little practice in myself.” You lifted your arms to put your hair in a half-ponytail, perhaps the most intricate hairstyling technique you knew, and one you often did with Robin’s hair as well. “What?” you asked, noticing he hadn’t stopped staring at you.
He shook his head back into reality. “Nothin’... You gonna check up on Carol while you’re out?”
You crossed your arms over your chest and leaned against the doorframe as you bit your lip in thought, then shrugged your shoulders. “I wasn’t planning on it. Still pissed at her.”
He leaned up and wiped his hands on a black rag. “She wasn’t thinkin’.”
“So that gives her an excuse to put your life in danger? And everyone else’s?” Stepping into the garage, you closed the door behind you and approached Daryl, who fidgeted with his greasy fingers in thought. “I know she’s been through something I can’t even imagine, but she’s only going to make things worse, and risk losing more, if she doesn’t act rationally. She’s unstable, Daryl. I hate to say it, but she’s been unstable for a while.”
He leaned against his bike and chewed the inside of his lip in thought. “Yeah, she is. Can’t give up on ‘er, though.”
You smiled and kissed his cheek. “Can’t give up on anyone, least of all Carol. I won’t be mad at her forever, just for now. Like how I’m never mad at you for more than a day or two.”
He scoffed and shook his head, letting his hair cover his face as he looked down. “Just keep away from Negan when you’re out there, okay?”
You had been careful not to reveal all the details about what Negan had said to you two nights before. There was no reason to worry Daryl, what with everything else going on. Certainly, he didn’t need to know that Negan had expressed regret for not killing him, or that he made excuses for what he’d done.
You had told him, though, that Negan saved your life, and that pissed him off more than you thought it would.
In fact, Daryl didn’t like the idea of Negan around you at all. It started after the winter storm, when he caught wind from Robin that Negan had helped save her. From there, Robin had joined Judith in visits to Negan’s cell, and once the council voted to let Negan out, it got even worse, with Lydia also coming to Negan for advice.
It seemed every child in Alexandria had a curiosity about the lone prisoner, and worst of all, they liked him.
“I will,” you said before kissing his lips. “You’re welcome to join us, you know. I mean, I know you don’t need any training, but in case that big giant tries throwing you around again—” He interrupted you with a glare. “Sorry.”
You walked hand-in-hand with Robin towards the windmill, where Aaron was instructing some Alexandrians in knife-fighting, this time with real knives.
Robin watched in awe, her spear in one hand and yours in the other.
“That’s what I wanna learn, Mommy,” she said quietly, trying not to interrupt the training. “Daddy said I’m too small for real knives.”
You nudged her shoulder with your elbow. “Daddy’s right. That spear is a perfect start, sweet pea. Just watch for now. Pay attention to Uncle Aaron.”
She looked up at you with that curious look of hers. “Are you gonna fight, Momma?”
You smirked down at her and brushed the top of her head with your hand, pulling back her wavy locks, brightened to a soft caramel color in the morning sun. It reminded you so much of the color Daryl’s hair used to be, before it was darkened by age. “I might get a few swipes in.”
Just then, Aaron’s voice cut through.
“Stop,” he yelled to the fighters, one of whom had made a perfect opening for their hypothetical opponent to stab them in the abdomen. “You’re dead,” he huffed. “Your eyes were on the ground. Track from head to hands, always. Lose focus and you will get killed. Remember, these people took our friends. They took our land. They must be stopped, again.”
Robin noticeably stiffened in your grip, and you looked down to see her face turn frightened at Aaron’s serious words.
From a distance, you saw Lydia, holding a basket of apples as she watched.
“Hey, there’s Lydia. Looks like she’s got some yummy apples, why don’t you ask to help you pick some, huh? Go on, give me your spear.”
She nodded and jogged over to the older girl, who looked equally as distressed.
“Hey, Lydia,” said Gage, and the two girls turned their attention to him and his friends, Margo and another highwayman, Alfred.
Lydia held Robin’s shoulder and pushed her behind her instinctively as the other teenage boy slipped a burlap sack over his head, with eyes and a mouth cut out in purposeful mocking of her people.
“You think Mommy will take me in?” he asked, and pathetically laughed at his own joke.
You saw the interaction from afar, and exchanged a worried look with Aaron. You began to calmly, but swiftly, make your way over to the girls.
“Oh, right. No, she kicked your ass out,” Gage continued. “Now you’re just a freak.”
Robin glared at the older boy, a familiar scowl that highlighted just how much she looked like her father.
“She’s not a freak,” she said. “She’s our friend.” Robin took Lydia’s hand in hers as she looked up to her, then narrowed her usually wide blue eyes at Gage again. “Now, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Bless the girl’s heart. She was braver than you could ever have been at that age, and knew much more than she should. Still, she bit off more than she could chew, and you quickened your pace a little once you heard her attempts to stand up for Lydia.
“You don’t know anything, kid,” said Alfred. “You’ve been brainwashed.”
“And you,” said Margo, glowering at Lydia. “Get the hell out of here.”
“Hey!” you called over to them, causing the three bullies to turn their heads your way. “Don’t you all have something better to do than picking on children? Really, it’s pathetic.”
Margo scoffed. “Says the one who took her in.” She nudged her head towards Lydia, who was walking off with Robin in hand now. “What do you think you’re doing, anyway? Putting us all in danger so you can play stay-at-home mom?”
You stepped closer to Margo with flared nostrils and a narrowed gaze not unlike Robin’s. “Do I look like a stay-at-home mom to you?” You slightly pointed Robin’s spear towards her neck, causing her to step back a bit. “Leave her alone,” you said, and moved away to look at all three of them. “All of you.” You pointedly glared at the man who spoke directly to Robin, and gestured the end of the spear towards him. “And don’t ever talk to my daughter like that. She’s just a child.”
He scoffed, and just then, Aaron called out to them, ushering them over to join in the training.
Following Lydia and Robin, you ended up only finding the latter, sitting on the steps of your house with her head in her hands alongside RJ, and Dog sitting by their feet, dutifully guarding them as he usually did.
Behind them, freshly drawn graffiti was marked upon your front door. Daryl must not have been home, since surely he would have noticed whoever had done it.
SILENCE THE WHISPERS.
You huffed, and palmed your forehead in frustration before clearing your throat as you approached the house.
“Hey, kiddos,” you said as you sat beside them on the steps. “Where’s Lydia?”
Robin removed one hand from her chin and began to pet Dog, who rested his head atop her lap. You cringed a little as his drool soaked through Robin’s pale yellow sundress.
“She went over to the clotheslines,” she sighed, her long lashes angled downwards as she studied the hair on Dog’s back. “She told me to go home.”
You smiled at the girl’s obedience. She really didn’t have a rebellious bone in her body. Yet, anyway.
“You see who did that to our door?” you asked, looking between RJ and Robin.
“Nope,” said RJ, who then rose to his feet and skipped down the stairs to play fetch with Dog.
Robin shrugged. “Nah,” she said, revealing her slight tendency to speak like Daryl (a habit her teacher, Heather, didn’t appreciate). “Bet it was one of them, though.”
You nodded, knowing she meant one of Gage’s friends. “I’m proud of you for standing up to them,” you said, wrapping your arm around her shoulder and pulling her into your side. “That was very brave of you.”
She smiled shyly, creating dimples and swelled up cheeks, giving meaning to the pet name “chipmunk” you occasionally used for her.
“They were being mean to her,” she said, impressing you with her empathy. “I was just trying to help.”
“You know what it’s like to be picked on, huh?”
“A little,” she said, thinking back to the other kindergartners from last year who had brought her to tears in the schoolyard. “It stinks.”
You kissed her head, and felt her snuggle against your breast, attempting to wrap her short arms around your waist all the while.
“It does,” you agreed.
“Mommy, what does ‘brainwashed’ mean?”
You huffed, and broke out into a small chuckle. “Oh, dear. I guess it means… when someone tries to change the way you think, make you think a certain way.”
She looked up at you curiously, and you met her gaze with a smile. “I’m brainwashed?”
“No, baby,” you said, trying not to reveal how irritated you were with the man who introduced that word to her vocabulary. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What he meant was that he thinks me and your daddy make you think Lydia’s a good girl, that she really isn’t.”
“But she is,” she insisted. “Lydia’s nice.”
“Yes, she is. That’s why he’s wrong. You’re not brainwashed, you’re just… We try to teach you that everyone deserves second chances.”
She quirked her lips in thought, then blinked innocently at you. “Even Negan?”
You raised your eyebrows and sighed, watching RJ give Dog congratulatory pet as you were about to tell her the one thing you hated telling her. “I don’t know.”
Lydia sat cross-legged upon the ground, surrounded by clotheslines draped with laundry that billowed gently in the wind as she played with the worm in her dirty hands.
“You lookin’ for a job, kid?” asked Negan, wheeling a wheelbarrow full of laundry ready for hanging.
“Just trying to clear my head,” she replied.
“It’s your third visit in a week. You keep it up, you’re gonna find some socks with your name on ‘em.”
Daryl rounded the corner of the row of townhouses adjacent to the clotheslines, keeping an eye on Negan.
He’d been unnerved by his presence, seemingly getting closer and closer to all three members of his household, and when he had nothing else to do, he made it a point to check every once in a while that Negan was doing his work, and not bothering any of the three people he saw himself as most responsible for.
Now, listening in on Negan as he spoke to Lydia, he felt his heart rate surge, and he knew it wasn’t good for his health. God forbid he ever caught Negan talking to you or Robin, otherwise he might have a full-blown heart attack.
“Gage and his friends started again today,” she said.
“Again?” asked Negan. “Jesus. All right, kid, obviously you’re havin’ a day, but, you know, what happened to ‘rollin’ with it’?”
“I’m not just gonna smile and take it,” she replied, glaring a little at Negan.
“I didn’t say that, but I also didn’t say run and hide. I mean, shit.”
“You said to kill them with kindness.”
“I did say that.” He knelt down to Lydia’s level, and lowered his voice to speak more calmly. “Look, they are tryin’ to get a reaction outta you. They wanna see you upset. Don’t give that to ‘em. Screw ‘em.”
Without any more patience to listen to Negan’s grating voice, Daryl had enough, and burst through a sheet hanging from one of the clotheslines.
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly to Lydia.
She glowered at him, and Negan just kept kneeling, trying not to face Daryl for as long as he could.
“I’m good,” she said.
“Now,” he growled, and felt somewhere between father and dictator.
She rose to her feet reluctantly, and stormed off between the two men as Negan came up to his full height, taller than Daryl, but not nearly as amped up as him.
You always held the belief that although Daryl was only average in height, he packed enough emotion for two six-foot-four men. You sometimes affectionately referred to the five-foot-ten man as a “meatball,” not particularly tall in stature, but wide and menacing in his strength.
“She is just trying to fit in,” said Negan. Though he’d had brief interactions with Daryl before since the war, he’d never really been this close to him in years.
“Yeah,” he said. “Well, that ain’t ever gonna happen if she hangs out with you, now, is it?”
Communal lunch that day was held in the town hall, as usual, and Lydia decided that it was time for her to take matters into her own hands in regards to Gage, Alfred, and Margo.
Unbeknownst to you, she killed one of the rabbits that had been inhabiting Alexandria for several years now. A family had come in through the walls, and ever since the whole community had a “rabbit problem,” though you found them rather adorable, as did Robin.
She took that rabbit to the luncheon, and more or less traumatized Gage and his friends by cutting the dead animal open in front of them, and splattering Gage with its blood.
Word traveled fast of the incident, and Daryl tried talking to her, though he struggled to get through to her. That was when you went out to find her, and night had fallen quickly as you wandered about Alexandria trying to bring Lydia home for dinner.
“Lydia,” you called out to her, getting closer and closer to the clotheslines where you knew she frequented. “Are you out here?”
You didn’t hear a response, but a thud and the sound of beating from the direction you were heading in.
“Lydia?!” you cried out, and moved faster as you heard terrified cries and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. “Lydia!”
“Get off me!” Lydia yelled, and you rounded the corner of the townhouses to see her pinned to the ground, being hit and physically assaulted by Gage, Margo, and Alfred.
“Hey!” you bellowed, picking up the lightest one, Gage by his flimsy arms, and throwing him off Lydia with all your might.
Lydia managed to kick Margo away from her, but she retaliated by hitting you across the cheek, with so much force you fell to the ground.
“(Y/N)!” cried Lydia, who attempted to crawl over to you, but was once again pinned down by Gage and Alfred.
Disoriented from the hit, you began propping yourself up, just in time to see Margo, with Lydia’s own fighting stick in her hands, about to bludgeon Lydia, presumably to death, if you were going by the look on her face.
“No!” you cried, lifting yourself up, but quickly falling when Alfred rose up to deliver a kick to your groin. You let out a strangled cry, but swung your fist violently at the man, and got in a few good hits just as someone had thrown Margo back and away from Lydia with the force of a thousand winds.
At first you thought it might’ve been Daryl, but the taller, slimmer figure, and the notable walk, told you it could only be one person—Negan.
Negan pushed back Gage, then pointed to him threateningly before turning to kneel down by Lydia, who’d managed to crawl over to you on the ground, where you held her as she cried.
“It’s okay,” you said to her, holding her head and rocking her back and forth, while watching Negan’s every move as he approached. “You’re all right now.”
Her mouth was full of blood and her face was cut up from the sharp, furious knuckles that had battered her, but she was alive, and that was all you could hope for.
“She all right?” asked Negan, moving his hand tentatively to stroke her back as she cried against your shoulder.
“We were just trying to scare her,” said Gage as his voice broke, still on the ground and watching the sobbing girl cling to you.
“Yo, Negan!” Negan’s guard, Brandon, called out as he approached the scene. “What the hell’s going on back here?”
“Holy shit, Margo,” said Alfred as he moved over to her lifeless body, thrown against the wall inadvertently by Negan, and killed in the process.
You continued holding Lydia, stroking her hair as she cried, and even when the others came, she couldn’t bring herself to move away from you.
“(Y/N)! Lydia!” shouted Daryl desperately as he ran over to the two of you. He practically threw himself onto the ground next to you, lifting your head to look at him. His face darkened with worry at the evidence of the violence against you and Lydia. “What happened?” He looked down at Lydia, who immediately fell into Daryl’s lap, still sobbing frantically from the attack.
“They attacked her,” you said, still touching the girl in an attempt to comfort her as she curled into the fetal position beside Daryl. “Negan…”
“You freak,” said Gage, who then yelled down at her. “This is your fault!”
“It was Negan!” shouted Alfred. “Negan killed her!”
Lydia raised her head and cried out in defense of Negan. “No, it wasn’t him! He didn’t do anything wrong! (Y/N), you saw it!”
You gaped between her and Daryl, who was quick to yell orders at the guards, trying to keep the gathering crowd at bay.
“Now get him outta here!” he bellowed. “Move!”
“No, he didn’t do anything wrong! Please”
“I know, I know, I know,” Daryl repeated softly, trying to soothe Lydia as well as he knew how.
She was taken to the infirmary, while Daryl helped you home, though you assured him you didn’t need it, as you got off much less beaten than Lydia.
He dropped you off inside and went back to the infirmary to pick up Lydia, where he talked to her, comforted her as he would his own child.
When he brought her home, you immediately bolted up from the couch and helped her downstairs to her bedroom, where her bed was pulled back and ready for her to sleep.
“You just rest now,” you said, carefully helping her into bed, with Daryl pulling the covers over her trembling body. “You need anything, hon? Want me to bring you some dinner?”
She blinked small tears at your words as she shook her head and sniffled. “I’m good.”
You mustered a small smile, and brushed back her hair before tentatively leaning down to kiss her forehead, hoping it wasn’t too invasive. You just couldn’t help it, though. She was like your other daughter now, no matter how different from you she was.
“Call us if you need anything,” you said, and lifted yourself from her bed to join Daryl in walking out of the darkened room, carrying a lantern with you.
“Negan saved my life,” she said through sniffles, and you both turned to look back at her. “You saw it.”
You lowered your head briefly, and looked back up to nod in understanding. “I know… Goodnight.”
Upstairs, Daryl tried to get you to rest, but you were intent on having a normal family dinner, dishing out plates for Robin and RJ as they sat at the table, lit by the flickering flames of the chandelier above.
“What’s going to happen to Negan?” asked Robin while chewing her green beans.
You looked across the table at Daryl, who opted to answer the question. “Council’s gonna decide. They’re meetin’ right now.” Without you, of course. You already gave your brief testimony to Gabriel.
“Is Lydia okay?” asked RJ.
“Fine,” you said, smiling at the little boy, then poking your fork towards his plate, upon which his Brussels sprouts hadn’t been touched. “Eat your vegetables, please. They’re good for you.”
Robin slid the salt across the wood table. “Salt makes ‘em better, RJ,” she said.
RJ eagerly took the shaker from her hand, and doused the green spheres with white crystals, causing you to exchange knowing smirks with Daryl across the table.
“Eat up,” he said to the boy, trying to hide his laugh.
RJ stabbed one sprout with his fork, and popped it into his mouth, then immediately scrunched his face at the overly salty taste.
You snorted at his grimace, and all three of you burst out into chuckles when the boy spat the chewed up vegetable back onto his plate.
“Yuck!” he exclaimed.
“Too much salt, buddy?” asked Daryl, leaning forward to pour some water from the pitcher into his glass, all the while grinning from ear to ear at the boy’s mistake.
“I’m never eating vegetables again,” he proclaimed after washing the salt from his mouth. “Gross.”
You shook your head and laughed. “I’m going to get you to eat a vegetable before your mother comes home if it’s the last thing I do.”
Despite your fussing after dinner, Daryl insisted that you go to bed early to let him and the kids clean up. You did as he asked, and Daryl tucked the kids in shortly after, and made up his mind that he needed to speak to his former captor.
There was a full moon that night, bigger than usual and sending beams of cool, bluish-white moonlight down onto Alexandria.
Negan was still awake, as if waiting for him.
“How’s the kid doin’?” he asked, laying on his cot and looking up aimlessly at the ceiling he came to know so well.
“She’s banged up,” replied Daryl, calmer than he usually was for an interaction with Negan. “But she’ll be all right.”
He nodded, and looked over at Daryl, whose face was illuminated by the moonlight pouring through the tiny windows in his cell as he stood on the other side.
“How’s (Y/N)?”
Daryl swallowed hard and gripped the iron bars of Negan’s cell, his knuckles blanched from strain at the sound of your name coming from his mouth.
“Asleep,” said Daryl, not willing to entertain the idea that Negan cared about your health.
Negan scoffed. “Go figure.”
“You know, the people out there are talkin’ about puttin’ you down, sayin’ Rick ain’t around to save you no more, maybe they should’ve done it a long time ago.”
He huffed and swung his legs over the edge of the bed to sit up. “If you came here lookin’ for a confession, just keep walkin’. It was an accident. And for the record, screw her. She was a goddamn asshole beatin’ on a kid. World’s better off… But you already know that, don’t you?” He chuckled to himself. “You came down here to look me in the eye because you don’t know what to do with me. Shit, all that time you spent fantasizing about my death, all that time you actually tried to kill me, and now look at ya. You’re not so sure.”
The way Daryl looked at Negan, like he was about ready to rip down those bars and beat him to a pulp, only spurred him on, giving him the confidence (or arrogance, rather) to keep talking.
“Whether you like it or not, I saved Lydia. I saved your little girl. I saved your wife. Twice. Now, I’m not saying I’m a better father or husband than you, ‘cause that just ain’t true, but I’m also not sayin’ that you’re not thinkin’ that, and it’s eating you up a little inside that you don’t know if I’m the good guy or the bad guy… Am I right?”
Daryl moved closer, allowing his face to be consumed in shadow, away from the light of the window. It did well to hide his flared nostrils, and his dark, almost animalistically angry eyes.
“You listen to me,” he growled. “Real close. You and I ain’t never been in a room before, not toe to toe, and there ain’t nobody to save you right now.”
“What do you want me to do, Daryl? I mean, the people out there, they are out for blood. Guys like you and me, we can smell that from a mile away.”
Daryl put aside his thoughts, his desire to explain that he and Negan were nothing alike, but he tried to remain unaffected by Negan’s attempts to get a rise out of him, like his mention of you and Robin. It infuriated him, but he wasn’t going to let it get to him, at least not in front of Negan.
“Why help Lydia? You ain’t no hero.”
“No,” agreed Negan. “No, I’m not. I’m a sucker. See, I started believing in your way of life, your moral code. Hell, you even gave me a little taste of freedom, just so you could yank it away when I actually did the right thing. You gotta admit, that is pretty messed up. And we both know I appreciate some messed-up shit.” He broke out into an obnoxious grin, and Daryl turned to make his way out, having had about as much time around Negan as he could handle without losing his cool and reverting to his hothead tendencies.
“You’re gonna get your chance to tell your side,” he said, but stopped himself just as he got to the door, and turned back around to face Negan again, unable to completely go without giving him a warning. “Can’t keep you away from Lydia,” he said. “But you stay away from my kid, and my wife, or I’ll be the one decidin’ your fate.”
“I’d never hurt them,” Negan said, his smile fading and becoming more serious now. “Robin’s a good kid, and (Y/N)—”
“You keep ‘er name outta your mouth.”
Negan nodded with some semblance of understanding, but continued nevertheless. “She’s one of the best people this place has, and she cares about Lydia. She saw what happened.”
Daryl held back his tongue, infuriated that Negan even had the capacity to think about you. He slammed the door as he left, and tried not to think about him again for the rest of the night.
After a smoke, a talk with Carol, and a conversation on the radio with Michonne, he checked in on the children, Robin asleep in her bed, and RJ snuggled up in his temporary cot beside her, then retreated to your bedroom where he stripped himself of his clothes to finally get some sleep in the early morning hours, careful not to wake you, though you were in and out of a shallow sleep already.
“You smell like smoke,” you muttered against your pillow, then turned to face him, naked as he tucked himself into his side of the bed.
He sunk into his pillow and huffed in exasperation. “Needed it.”
You wrapped your arms around his and rested your head in the crook of his shoulder. Your nose became engulfed in his hair, soft and exuding a musky, but comforting, scent.
“I know,” you sighed, and kissed his bare shoulder. “Everything’s a shitshow.”
He hummed in agreement, and closed his eyes as you reached up to scratch his chin. “You feelin’ okay? Need another aspirin or anythin’?”
“Mmm,” you hummed, already falling back into sleep. “My pussy hurts.”
Daryl snorted at your vulgarity, but quickly became serious when he remembered you had been kicked rather violently in the groin. “Should see the doctor tomorrow, sweetheart.”
“No,” you mumbled, snuggling into his chest. “I’m fine. Not like we wanted any more babies anyway.”
He shook his head. “Don’t think that’s how that works. Been kicked in the balls more times than I can count, still made our little peanut.”
You smiled against his chest, and pressed a kiss there, too. “I love our little peanut.”
“Yeah,” he said, playing with the ends of your hair and twirling them around his fingers. “Me too… Hey, hon?”
“Mhm?”
“You saw what happened? What Negan did?”
“I did,” you answered, and blinked your eyes open. “He got them off Lydia. Margo was about to hit her in the head with that stick, but he pushed her back. She must’ve hit the wall hard, and I guess that’s what did it.”
“He killed ‘er?”
You sighed as you rubbed your hand absentmindedly over Daryl’s stomach. “It was an accident, but yeah. He killed her… to save Lydia. I—I don’t know if they would’ve killed me, I like to think they wouldn’t, but if Negan hadn’t showed up, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to take them alone, unarmed. It could’ve been a lot worse for both of us.”
He fell silent, opting instead to stroke your back, and moving his finger over the strap of your silken nightgown.
“I don’t think Negan should be punished for this,” you said, and raised your head to look Daryl in the eyes. “He was in the right this time.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “That’s what pisses me off.”
You leaned up to kiss his jawline, then trailed your lips to his mouth to kiss him there, gently massaging his lips with yours until you pulled away.
“Don’t let him get to you,” you said quietly. “It’s not worth it. I’m not saying he’s changed, but he isn’t all the same. I think tonight made me really see that finally.”
Daryl chewed his lip in thought, thinking about what Negan had said, about how he’d never hurt you.
He couldn’t really believe him, not in good consciousness. He still was bitter that Negan had saved you, Robin, and Lydia when he should’ve been there to do so, but even more than that, he just wished everything would stop being so damn complicated.
“Daryl?” you asked after he hadn’t spoken for a while. You pinned his hair back behind his ear, and traced the helix with your index finger, admiring just how perfect he was to you. Even his ears were the cutest things you’d ever seen. There wasn’t a part of him you didn’t adore with every last breath. “Hey,” you whispered, your voice like a gentle breeze caressing the petals of springtime blooms, “what’s going on in that funny old head of yours, mister man?”
He shook his head and broke out into a crooked smile. “Nothin’,” he said. “Jus’ thinkin’ about how damn lucky I am. How the hell did you fall in love with me, crazy woman?”
You couldn’t count on one hand how many times he’d asked you that. You always came up with a different answer, since there wasn’t just one thing that made you fall in love with him. You weren’t entirely sure why he even asked that question anymore, but you had a feeling he just liked being reminded of how much you loved him.
You laughed and settled your head on his chest again as he pulled you tighter. “Well,” you sighed, “I guess it all started when you looked at me. I mean, how could any self-respecting woman not be absolutely smitten by the brave, smart, strong, kind, handsome, loyal, noble, sexy—”
He cut you off with a groan, to which you let out one of the snorts he found so endearing. “You bes’ get yourself to sleep, woman, ‘fore you run outta words.”
“I could never run out of words for you, cutie pie.” You leaned up to kiss his nose, then rolled over in his arms to let him spoon you as he usually did. “Grumpy,” you said as he moved his chest against your back. “That’s another one.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, tucking his face into your hair.
You wrapped your arm over his and traced the outline of the skull tattoo on his hand. He’d done the stick and poke almost seven years ago now, so its shape was second nature to you. “Funny… Shy… Cute… Cuddly, like a big, warm, fuzzy teddy bear.”
He tightened his arm around your stomach and squeezed a hiccup out of you. “Daryl!” you giggled, gently hitting his hand.
“Woman,” he said before kissing your cheek, “I ain’t gonna be so cuddly if you don’t get your ass to sleep so’s I can sleep.”
“Did I already say grumpy?”
~
Thanks for reading! Likes, comments, and reblogs of any kind are always appreciated!
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Black History Month Anti-Racist Reader [updated]
in honor of Black history month, i wanna share all the free PDFs i have that pertain to anti-racist theory. this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the important texts out there, just the ones i have in my collection. i believe in free dissemination of important content. that said, please use your spare money this month to support Black educators, Black creators and mutual aid funds that benefit the Black community.
Race & Colonialism
Various Authors - Racism in America: A Reader
David Rogers and Moira Bowman - A History: The Construction of Race and Racism (flyer, quick overview)
Barbara Fields - Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America
W. E. B. Du Bois - The Souls of Black Folk
Walter Rodney - How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Edward Said - Orientalism
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - Can the Subaltern Speak?
Cheryl Harris - Whiteness As Property
Feminism & Gender
Angela Davis - Women, Race and Class
Kimberlé Crenshaw - Mapping the Margins:
Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color
Kimberlé Crenshaw - Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex
Kimberlé Crenshaw - Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected (flyer)
Audre Lorde - The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (speech)
Audre Lorde - Age, Race, Class,
and Sex: Women Redefining Difference
Mikki Kendall - Hood Feminism
María Lugones - Heterosexualism and the Colonial /
Modern Gender System
María Lugones - Toward a Decolonial Feminism
Chandra Mohanty - Feminism Without Borders
Chandra Mohanty - Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses
Jessie Daniels - The Trouble with White Feminism: Whiteness,
Digital Feminism and the Intersectional Internet
Moya Bailey and Trudy - On Misogynoir: Citation, Erasure, and Plagiarism
Eugenics
Robert Wilson - Dehumanization, Disability and Eugenics
Angela Davis - Racism, Birth Control and Reprodutive Rights
Sanjana Manjeshwar - America's Forgotten History of Forced Sterilization (article in the Berkeley Political Review)
Ann Winfield - Resuscitating Bad Science: Eugenics Past and Present
Philip Jenkins - Eugenics, Crime and Ideology: The Case of Progressive Pennsylvania
Jonathan Simon - The Legacy of Eugenic Thought in Contemporary Judicial Realism About American Crime
Laura Appleman - Pandemic Eugenics: Discrimination, Disability and Detention during Covid-19
Prison Abolition
Angela Davis - Are Prisons Obsolete?
Angela Davis - Race and Criminalization: Black Americans and the Punishment Industry
Angela Davis - From the Prison of Slavery to the Slavery of Prisons
Angela Davis - Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition
Angela Davis - Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist
Cassie Miller - The Biggest Lie in the White Supremacist Propaganda Playbook:
Unraveling the Truth About ‘Black-on-White Crime'
Mary Koss and Mary Achilles - Restorative Justice Responses to Sexual Assault
*
(also this is just a link to my readings folder which includes these and more texts about politics, sociology, history, as well as the psychology of trauma)
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thonking about zelenin and jimenez :( i do enjoy their very negative character arcs in that it's like. them being so insecure about very specific things that lead them to their paths of choice that are interesting
zelenin being insecure about her role on the mission bc she feels she's useless and an outsider to the crew, and has been confronted by her powerlessness seeing people around her suffer and die at the hands of demons. so ofc she's kind of easy prey for mastema, who right from his first appearance intentionally comes to her only in times of insecurity as this kind of gracious savior.
and her becoming an angel is all about becoming something like what he has shown himself to be for her, she wants to be that for other people (so yeah kind of white saviory but i mean. white women realism truly)
offering the purpose and power and respect (of her 'choice' in the matter of becoming an angel or not, paying special mention to the consequence and irreversability of it, which itself she feeds off of because she appreciates being respected enough to be told the weight of it and having it still for all appearances put in her hands 'despite' all that)
and ofc it's in this choice that she ends up completely neglecting her original purposes and responsibility towards her crewmates and their mission, for her Higher Calling(TM). i mean the act of becoming an angel is itself shown as an act whereby you trade your free will to become a servant to Law. so like, congrats in your search for community and independence you became an indoctrinated pawn. big F. i do think it's interesting how she's shown as like...still human enough though? Especially in the redux I do actually like the law route in that one if only because it shows that she can maintain enough humanity inside of her to rebel.
sort of fits with how even though angels have the whole superiority over humans thing, when humans become angels through the act of choice they can becoming higher tier angels than regular ones? Like either the metatron route of becoming God's lapdog or the zelenin redux route of rebelling for a slightly more nuanced law (tho like. thinking that the route of all conflict is uhh. competitiveness or smth? "violence" as a very non nuanced term. is completely ridiculous and very much the kind of thing some white lady would come up w/ lol)
as for jimenez, my thoughts on him are more scattered just bc I think chaos as an ideological concept in smt as far as i'm aware from the 2 games i've played is like. more scattered and all over the place than how Law is defined. just because it is by it's intended nature supposed to be this non/loosely hierarchical anarchist system that in strange journey specifically just kinda reads as eco fascist and more generally just kinda reads as eugenics (in a different way than Law. like if chaos is social darwinist eugenics then Law is more of an ethnostate kind of fascism. libertarian eugenics maybe)
but yeah anyway just. the most prominent thing w/ him being his fear of death, and chaos ideologically being a very "fear of death is stupid #YOLO" kind of club. specifically thinking of one of the crew lines after you kill him in at least neutral where it's mentioned he was kind of the crewmate most attached to life itself, and whether he understood the full implications of advocating his "live and die by the blade" thing. like many things to say regarding the contrast between both him and zelenin being outsiders towards the main crew and how jimenez specifically sort of self-imposes that, and specifically for him the racialized toxic masculinity machismo element towards his character that i do wonder how intentional that was on the writer's part.
but also the compassion he was shown to be capable of towards bugaboo, which i would argue bordered on paternalistic because of how willing he was to become so disaffected towards his fellow humans while only being willing to open up to bugaboo who, for all intents of how he was written, is barely a character and thus treated narratively as almost a pet honestly. like...yeah no tbh i think it all comes down to the fact that bugaboo is barely a character and more just entirely a plot device.
like on one hand bugaboo being a tool to show that jimenez is capable of compassion and does crave companionship only he's too jaded to ask that of his fellows, that he'd seek it in demons specifically bc of how divorced they are from humans (and follow smt logic demons being both more honest/clear in their intentions and more two-faced and capiricous in their foes and affections, as reflections of humanity) is like. like damn! it's interesting! but bc we don't get the same back-and-forth between bugaboo and jimenez that we do zelenin and mastema it just kinda falls flat.
that him becoming a demon was a choice made under pressure instead of aware and consentual is interesting tho. like, his was a choice made by necessity bc he's never been given the same luxury of choice as that zelenin (implicitly reflecting her status as a respected educated scientist from assumptively a mid-to-high socio-economic background).
and that his decision was implied to be kind of a mix between wanting to save bugaboo and his desire for strength and a general desperation-born willingness to abandon his fears, his responsibilities, and more or less completely dissociate himself with all claims to his past identity for this vacuous ideal of freedom he's chasing. like hm!! hm!!! it's very interesting i think jimenez is a very complex guy
BUT yeah at the end of the day i know they kind of exist less as characters with agency and more archetypes to illustrate abstract ideological constructs, and thus there are parts of both of their characterizations where i'm like WHY (i know it is bc it is a DS game from like 2013 that didn't have the specs to create a more immersion and complexity and so made these decisions through pre-charted planning for its narrative structure)
So!! Yeah Jimenez and zelenin are both interesting and for all their apparent differences and differing ways they go abt things they are very similar at their cores of being this odd mix of compassionate, cold-hearted, kind of entitled but deeply lonely people who secretly long for recognition and just. A place to belong. So yeah tldr this is a needlessly long way to say omg narrative parallels <3
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Let’s not forget about Hunter Biden’s laptop. You know, liberals. The one that showed “10% for “the big guy” (Joe Biden). The one with all sorts of scandalous material. That same one potentially had child porn on it. You spent years and years pushing a fake dossier, but now that a real scandal has appeared, you’re quiet.
Let’s not forget Joe Biden was getting money from Hunter Biden who was getting money from Ukraine, Russia, and China.
Surely, you will hold him accountable?
No, no. You won’t. You won’t even look in the same direction as him if blame is to be put on the table because he has a D next to his name and you voted for him. You haven’t held him accountable for 47 years, the course of which he has:
Called bankers “shyl*cks” (anti Semitic term)
Said “you ain’t black” to minorities if they didn’t vote for him (obvious racism)
Opposed school desegregation because he didn’t want his kids growing up in a “racial jungle” (obvious racism)
Said “Obama is the first clean, bright, articulate African American” (obvious racism)
Vowed to take away 2A rights on numerous occasions
Supported the crime bill that imprisoned often non-violent felons.
Upheld the system that you on the far left have spent years calling racist
Picked a running mate who unjustly imprisoned 1500 black people.
Said to American workers “I don’t work for you”
Suggested he’d put in place anti-free speech laws.
Participated in an administration that enjoyed dropping bombs on hospitals and children (“But TRUMP!!!111”-pulled us out of those wars? Yes, Trump did)
Picked a guy who said life isn’t worth living after the age of 75 (yikes!)
Pushes(d)clearly eugenic based policies (Planned Parenthood)
Was a big part of the administration that mobilized the IRS against political dissidents
Was a big part of the administration that spied on American citizens
Wants(ed) to take away our energy independence and economy (oil)
Pushed (ing) for 6 weeks of lockdowns (another way to ruin the economy)
Wants (ed) huge tax increases on everyone
Refused to condemn left wing violence (antifa, BLM, etc)
Voted for an endless war
Was part of the administration that said such classic hits such as “Russia and China aren’t competition for us” (he himself has said this before!)
Has already broken campaign promises (not declaring himself the victor until it was official- it isn’t official yet)
Has a LONG history of sniffing women and children, making them even MORE uncomfortable by GROPING THEM. Yes, even the children.
Was a big part of the administration that built (and used) the cages and passed the law that would put those cages to use- you proceeded to blame orange man for this, but not after first denying for months the “crisis at the border” that Loud Orange Man mentioned on several occasions.
Established the “largest voter fraud organization in American politics”
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Saaye Ye Mere Hain Tujh Mein Samaaye - Chapter 5 - Final
Fandom: Chimera (Korean Drama)
Ship: eventual Cha Jae Hwan/Lee Joong Yeop
Rating: M for Mature
Story Synopsis: Two years after Seo Hyun Tae's murder and the Korean National Police Agency's failure to capture his killer, the TH-5 scandal once again surges in popularity across international newspapers after illegal sales of Evergreen are recorded in the US and UK. With Seoryun executives now on trial for cross-border crimes, Jerome Edwards and his team of British experts are asked to speak on behalf of the Korean Prosecution Service against Seoryun. Tasked with protecting Lee Joong Yeop's life until the trial date, Cha Jae Hwan wrestles with feelings of despair and reckons with his own declining mental health as Lee Joong Yeop reenters his life after two years of radio silence. Along the way, he enlists Eugene Hathaway's help in protecting the older man, just as ghosts of their shared past start to crawl out of the shadows. [post-canon, eventual Cha Jae Hwan/Lee Joong Yeop, platonic Cha Jae Hwan & Eugene Hathaway]
Chapter Synopsis: Cha Jae Hwan is in love with Lee Joong Yeop.
Warnings: References to Depression, Identity Issues, Mental Health Issues, Suicide Attempt, Canon-typical Violence, Angst with a Happy Ending
—
And that's a wrap! I originally wrote 20k over the weekend, but somewhere along the way, revisions and extensions turned it into this roughly 30k behemoth. Hope y'all enjoyed my corny version of Chimera season two, where the old queers get their happy ending. (~˘▾˘)~
Thanks again for reading! If you gotta moment, leave a review! This is my last published fic for 2021. See y’all in 2022! :D
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Season 1, episode 4: Cut the Shit
Spoiler alert!!! This is a rewatch recap of Snowpiercer s1e4: Without their Maker. Naturally, it is full of spoilers for that episode. However, it also contains spoilers for some other episodes of season 1 and season 2. You have been warned!
It’s Jinju’s turn to do the voiceover this episode. She sharpens a knife, but don’t worry - she’s just making sushi for her date tonight! The cooking scenes, however, are intercut with scenes of Erik dripping in blood from last night’s murder spree. Jinju’s monologue swings so rapidly between self-deprecation and assertions of saving the world that I think I need some of that First class Gravol.
After the opening credits and a cool outside shot of the train at night, there’s a knock on Melanie’s door. It’s Bennett. He’s come to stand next to Melanie’s little eugenics library (holy shit have you seen the titles of some of those books??? ‘The Science of Human Perfection’?! Yikes!) and straddle the line between flirting and patronising. She gives him the sarcastic response he deserves, and then they share a tangerine while chatting about goat farts.
Meanwhile, Till insists that she’s not afraid to be seen with Jinju: she just doesn’t want to walk to work with her girlfriend because there’s already enough track talk about her. I love Bess Till as much as the next queer fan of fictional violence, but… is she really interesting enough to garner track talk? Jinju thinks it’s bullshit, too, and calls Till out. Till then explains that she’s worried about what her friends will think about her dating uptrain. I love Bess Till as much as the next queer fan of fictional violence, but… does she really have friends? Jinju doesn’t really understand Till’s concerns, and resorts to every lesbian’s preferred method for comforting a partner: paraphrasing Orphan Black quotes.
Before Jinju has time to crack out her Helena impression, the phone rings. Melanie Cavill doesn’t fuck around with a “good morning” or try to gently lead in with “I have some bad news”: she straight-up just tells Jinju that Nikki Genêt is dead.
Creepy Klimpt is crying on the floor, and unfortunately Melanie is the only person around to comfort him. She does exactly what I would do in this situation: tells him one (1) nice thing, then asks him to stop crying. They need to smuggle the body to the lab so that they can get some secret data about the drawers. But it’s too late: Layton, Roche and Till are already on the scene. Layton is piiiiiiissed that Melanie didn’t immediately use the description he gave her last night to capture the killer. Till finally does some good detectiving: she remembers that the border is closed! Because she just had to pass through it from Second. Y'know… from her girlfriend’s place? She nervously waits for someone to denounce her as a class traitor, but absolutely nobody in the room gives a fuck.
Meanwhile, Erik is nursing a beer in the Third class mess hall. Apparently none of the staff are suspicious of the blood that is undoubtedly all over his suit. His first class booze tokens cause a bit of a stir, though.
In the Nightcar (because where else would a military Commander and a Lead Brakeman meet?), Grey and Roche talk about “their men” in a way that’s making Till look straight to the camera like she’s in an episode of The Office.
Grey, Roche and Ruth don’t want Layton finding out even more details about the train, which is very sensible of them! Unfortunately, Melanie is planning to take Layton on yet another sightseeing tour of Snowpiercer’s weak points today. Grey also doesn’t want Layton visiting First, but Melanie tells him: tough shit! Mr. Wilford planned the route specially!
Melanie quietly promises Layton that she’ll take him up to First when the others are busy. Before they can discuss it further, Miss Audrey descends the staircase. She’s dressed in her best funeral attire, and after giving Melanie a death glare (as well as distracting Till from work for a few gay seconds), she takes Layton on a little trip to the hall of mirrors while the funfair’s clowns plan their next act.
Talking of clowns: Osweiller is back on the job! Till is not happy to see her drug-dealing little brother, but their dad boss says they have to play nicely together. She storms off to her room, and I don’t blame her.
Audrey and Layton circle each other in the hall of mirrors, and I don’t know anything about making TV but that must have been a fucking nightmare to film? How did they manage to avoid getting any camera operators in shot? Impressive! He wants to know all the secrets she learns at work, but no can do: he’s forgotten about therapist/hypnotist/singer/bartender/sex worker/compère - client confidentiality. But what’s not confidential is the fact that Melanie has never been to therapy. I’m gonna go ahead and say that you probably don’t need to be a detective to work that one out?
Layton suggests that Nikki’s death - because apparently no one gives a fuck about the other two people who were murdered that night - could be the spark they need to start their revolution. Audrey tentatively agrees - but warns Layton to be careful. Then Melanie comes to pick Layton up, and we’re treated to this:
I could watch hours of footage of Miss Audrey hating Melanie Cavill.
Down in the tail, Lights is excited: she’s never seen a blue chip before! Murray is apparently feeling more optimistic today, and suggests that it could open heaps of doors. They come up with a plan to dress up, chip out of sanitation crew, and find Astrid: an ex-tailie who apprenticed out six years ago. Big John volunteers to try it on his next shift, then descends into a coughing fit. Lights looks worried, and Josie steps in to massage John’s fragile male ego so hard that he doesn’t even realise that she’s telling him it was a stupid idea.
Since that time Josie completely got away with killing two Jackboots in the rebellion, she has apparently become convinced that she has the power of invisibility! No one will notice if she starts sneaking around uptrain! Before anyone can suggest that maybe someone who’s actually on sanitation crew should take the chip, Lights beckons Josie over and bandages it to her wrist.
When the Jackboots call for the sanitation crew, Josie marches forward with such purpose that anyone with any common sense should very obviously not let her cover her friend’s shift. But the Jackboots let her through, because they’re in a hurry: it’s nearly time for the show’s traditional full naked ass shot! Today, the honour falls to the Last Australian in the sanitation shower. That’s four for four! Why?!
As if his trip to the hall of mirrors wasn’t enough fun for one day, Melanie takes Layton to visit an art gallery! He complains to Melanie that Firsties fucked the planet, so they shouldn’t get to own art. Melanie tells him that she grew up poor, and he doesn’t seem convinced until she tells him that his anger is justified, and he should use it. That’s the kind of pep talk we could all do with! Validation! Permission to go apeshit! But then she ruins it: she tells him to lean into all the tailie stereotypes to fuck with the Firsties, and I’m left wondering how many times Melanie Cavill dated someone just to piss off her parents in a very offensive way.
Much to the amusement and horror of the Firsties, Layton rises to Melanie’s challenge.
When Ruth doesn’t immediately answer Layton’s question about where the bodyguards are, Layton makes some kind of cryptic threat against her. The interaction doesn’t make a lot of sense, but we find out that Ruth has taken fourteen arms in the tail, which is a nice/horrible bit of detail. Then LJ, like Zarah and Creepy Klimpt before her, decides to offer up incriminating information without being questioned. LJ’s ex-lawyer mother is distinctly unimpressed - not only with her daughter, but also because she’s in the presence of a peasant! She goes full Karen and literally demands to speak to the manager.
Melanie calls the engine, and Bennett answers. After a quick flirt, Melanie goes to pass the phone over to Lilah. I’m not sure whether they were planning for Bennett to do his best Wilford impression or to crack out the soundboard, but either option would have been much more fun to watch than what actually happens: Lilah Folger - yes, that Lilah Folger - backs down. What?! That seems so out of character! Now I want to speak to the manager!
Downtrain, the sanitation crew are on their lunchbreak. We get our proper introduction to Sweary!Josie, who was apparently expecting sanitation duty to be… not gross?
The only clothes that the sanitation crew have collected are pyjamas. The plain white t-shirt and run-of-the mill bottoms are a very unsubtle contrast to all the beautiful, silky dressing gowns the Firsties are wearing this episode. I am, once again, baffled that Big John thought he’d be the best person to sneak out? There is absolutely no way that he’d be able to squeeze into that child-sized t-shirt!
Up in First, Layton tosses Erik’s room. We get a bit of backstory about the Folgers’ private dick harvester: he’s an ex-marine, and they hired him when the freeze hit. Layton finds a J-hook on a shelf, and LJ informs everyone that the tool is used for beekeeping, torture, and penisectomies. The bees died three years ago, and the old hives are in storage.
Ruth offers to do some PR for the Folgers, so the three of them head to the other room and… leave their teenage daughter with the detective? I know that they don’t necessarily suspect her of anything (somehow), but surely that’s just objectively a bad idea? They know what she’s like, right?
Downtrain, Josie has inexplicably managed to find Astrid within about five minutes! She should definitely buy a lottery ticket the next chance she gets. Josie tells Astrid there’s no time for questions, then promptly stares out at the sunrise for five minutes before… asking Astrid a question. Astrid is too sweet to point out the hypocrisy, and skips straight to telling Josie why Layton was brought uptrain. Josie then casually asks Astrid to risk her life to help the tail. Astrid doesn’t take much convincing, so they fist bump and share some lumpy porridge. It genuinely does not look better than the bug bars, but Josie seems to enjoy it.
LJ doesn’t think Erik had a very good childhood. Neither Layton nor Melanie mention anything about pots or kettles, but it’s clearly a struggle. In the other room, Lilah Sr. can “just hear the track talk” about their situation. LJ tries to distract Layton from his line of questioning with remote controlled curtains, but Melanie steps in to keep them on track. LJ does an incredible job of overacting the part of the confused, innocent girl who has never chopped off a dick in her life, but she’s not fooling Melanie and Layton.
The next few scenes come thick and fast: Melanie, in a rare show of care for the welfare of passengers, confronts LJ’s parents about the fact that their adult bodyguard groomed their teenage daughter. Josie makes it back to sanitation without a second to spare. Till and Osweiller squabble about gun terminology on their way to the beehive storage container.
Then, the Brakemen see Erik in the container. But it turns out he knows parkour! Erik easily escapes the Brakemen, and desperately tries to run home to his cat. That’s right - it’s finally time to meet my favourite character! Up in the Folgers’ car, LJ makes introductions between Layton and Snowpeter.
Layton’s day just keeps getting better! Granted, the three murder victims were a rough start. But since then he’s gone to the fair with Audrey, the art gallery with Melanie, had a free breakfast in a fancy restaurant and now he gets to pet a cat! What’s next?!
Oh. LJ’s going to sing and dance to a creepy song, accuse Layton of cannibalism, and admit to wanting to “eat a dude” to make people scared of her. That’s what’s next. It’s a useful breakthrough for the case, I suppose, but definitely a step down on the fun scale from petting a cat.
Next, we cut to Jinju. She’s picking up a gift for Till. Cute! But Erik crashes in and takes her hostage before we find out what the gift is (beyond ‘clothes’). If anyone has been able to figure it out, please let me know!
Layton and LJ are still dancing around the fact that they both know she’s the real dick chopper - and, yes, the dancing is still literal for LJ. It is truly astounding that she doesn’t have a parent or lawyer present - especially given the fact that Lilah Sr. is both! But alas, the only third party in the room is Snowpeter, and he’s unable to stop her from literally doing this:
Dickus choppiamus!
In the market, Erik is trapped. There are Brakemen and Jackboots looking for him all over. When they find him, he tries to make his escape by shooting into the air while using Jinju as a human shield. Till - who is surrounded by armoured Jackboots, but wearing no armour herself - runs straight towards the serial killer with the loaded weapon. Her dad boss is going to have some serious words with her later. She must really like that second class cabin.
Till leads the group of Brakemen and Jackboots in a start-and-stop chase that’s comically impeded by doors every few seconds. Till manages to jam her shoulder into one set of doors just before they close, and her dad and brother colleagues have to stop her getting crushed. When Erik and Jinju head for the subtrain, Till wastes no time lifting the hatch and starting to climb down after them, before quickly jumping back out again to dodge a bullet. It’s reassuring to discover that she has at least one tiny shred of survival instinct left!
Although Grey is with the group, for some reason it’s Roche who phones in orders to the Jackboots in the subtrain. Jinju tries her best at hostage negotiation, but Erik isn’t interested. It’s mere seconds before they’re surrounded. The Jackboots start to advance, but Till throws herself in front of them in case their movement spooks Erik into shooting her girlfriend. Osweiller copies his big sister without question and also gets in the way of a Jackboot, which is weirdly kind of sweet for him!
Erik decides not to shoot his hostage: instead, he fires at a box on the wall. I’m not sure what the box is: there’s a label on it, but it’s dirtier than the s1e1-inspired Mel/Ruth fanfiction. The box explodes, and Erik is immediately injured by some shrapnel. Jinju curls up against the wall, while six (6!) Jackboots lay into Erik with axes. Roche makes another phone call, reporting Erik’s death to Melanie. And again, Melanie Cavill doesn’t fuck around with any preamble: she hangs up and immediately informs the Folgers, “He’s dead.”
LJ fake cries against her mother’s shoulder, while Melanie and Layton have a full conversation using just tiny movements of their eyes and heads. It’s impressive! Then, Layton informs the room that LJ instructed Erik to kill the first two victims. Lilah Karens out again, and LJ tries to take on Layton and a Jackboot with her dick remover.
In the next scene, Melanie and Layton are in the hospitality announcement booth. Melanie informs the passengers that the murderer is dead, and another suspect is in custody. Layton sets up the title for the next episode, by reminding Melanie that justice needs to be delivered. Melanie ignores his comment, and offers to buy him a drink in a tone that clearly indicates that she means a drink of poison.
Layton’s big day out ends with a trip to the aquarium car. He must be exhausted! He waits for Melanie to drink first, which is definitely a smart move - just not enough. She tries to play more games, and he tells her he just wants to go back to the tail. Then, she finally reveals what we’ve all known since the strawberries speech: he’s seen too much, and can’t be allowed back. Finally, she reveals the other thing they both know: Layton has figured out that Melanie Wilford. A moment later, the roofies kick in.
The penultimate scene is in the tail, presumably a few days in the future. Charlie Bucket Murray finds a golden ticket silver capsule in a chocolate bug bar! Looks like that scrap of wire won’t be the only passenger getting a trip to a chocolate factory! Murray runs all the way home to show the message to Grandpa Josie, who leaps out of bed and dances around the room! But then, they actually read the message. Layton’s missing.
We immediately find out why: in the drawer room, Creepy Klimpt is busy sticking props to Layton’s face. Melanie watches over him, and tells him to keep Layton off-book - to make it harder for Josie to find him next episode.
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:o Do you have any Ayato sexuality headcanons? Like him being gay and aromantic asexual mayhaps? 😏
I do! I’ve been meaning to talk more about this absolute bastard!
Ayato didn’t come of age under the best circumstances. He’s going through puberty in Aogiri, and they aren’t exactly great at guiding a young boy through a battlefield let alone puberty, so he’s doing Very Bad With All That
He’s both gay and homophobic, this dumbass has problems
Homophobia isn’t all that common with ghouls. Because of their “talk shit get hit” policy, bigotry gets nipped in the bud by hordes of queer ghouls who eat those people alive both metaphorically and literally. Unfortunately for Ayato, Aogiri has some… less than great ideas on what makes ghouls great. A lot of it is weird, bordering on eugenics-y “we’ve bred and evolved for greatness and our children’s blood will be thick with the power of our strongest” and all that. He is brought into this unique situation where “good” is living on to reproduce and make strong children, and “bad” is his personal experiences with Jason and Nico who are the only queer people he knows of. These are absolute dogshit role models but this emotionally neglected teenager doesn’t have anything better
Things do get better when he gets dragged kicking and screaming back to anteiku. While adjusting to living there again, he sees Kaneki and Hide kiss and immediately recoils because THEY ARE BEING GAYS
After awhile of “is this allowed?” and probably saying some slurs, Ayato gets reintroduced to the Talk Shit Get Hit policy by his sister. He’s made to sit down and get talked to about why the fuck he thinks like that, he tells them about how things like that were portrayed in Aogiri, and it’s pretty clear that this dude just legit doesn’t know what gay people are. They just try their best to teach him about different identities. He catches on pretty quick and even reluctantly apologizes to Ken and Hide, and he just tries to put the whole thing behind him
The thing is though, Ayato is gay as shit. He just thought everyone wasn’t attracted to girls but was just supposed to go with them anyway, and his little teen crush on Nishiki isn’t helping him pretend that he doesn’t like guys. Plus now he has access to the internet. Unfortunately for him he doesn’t know what an Internet history is so it took two clicks for Touka to find pages and pages of “boys kissing”
It takes him awhile to come out, and even then he just grumbled that he was gay quietly while in the car with Touka and Renji. They told the cafe when they got back, and once Ayato was done being angry that there was a betting pool on how long it would take him to come out, he was surprised by how little it changed. Only now his family and several anteiku guys are openly telling him about all the things he’s done that made them knew he was fruity years before he did. It seems like he was the last to know
He’s still figuring things out, but it’s looking like he’s a gay greyromantic. He likes boys romantically on rare occasions, though mostly he’s So Horny All The Time and dudes are So Pretty. He’s not so big on the details though, if anyone ever asks him about it he’ll just say he’s queer and never specify
Speaking of So Horny All The Time, At some point Touka had to teach him how to delete computer history because they use the same laptop and he’s been looking up some Things she Does Not Want To See. They’re both embarrassed and they never talk about it again
Once ghouls are decriminalized he can go to high school and interact with other kids his age. By now he’s the first to put someone’s head through a locker if they’re being homophobic. He’s also met a cute human boy that he’s been trying not to threaten with violence because he cannot cope with feeling all soft and giddy over someone
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Deeply funny to have yr two main fandoms in the past two years be X-Men and Friends at the Table and see Partizan REALLY hit the fucking mark in terms of “we’re going explore the nature of being marginalized citizens of empire and critique the inherent violence of borders and the nation-state, and also we’re gonna have a fun tournament episode with a climactic ending” and Dawn of X going “is it fucked up to create a eugenics-y imperial state that wins at capitalism? well we don’t really wanna think about that. or have a plot either.”
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BOOKS I READ IN 2021
(Meaning, as these are mostly academic books I read for research purposes, to keep up with the specialist literature, or to expand my knowledge of a topic, I read the majority of the book - monographs or collection where I read a single chapter or introduction or just combed the footnotes aren’t include. Neither are theses or articles, unfortunately, even though I read a lot of both this years. One of the tragedies of Canadian academic history in specific is that few theses get turned into monographs or even articles, and this is a function more of market forces and resources than interest or need. Books I re-read to take extensive notes are marked with an asterisk. The last four entries I’m still reading!)
First Row:
Warwick Anderson, Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health, and Racial Destiny in Australia
Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World
Andrew Wakefield, The Disordered Police State: German Cameralism as Science and Practice
Aidan Forh, Barbed Wire Imperialism: Britain's Empire of Camps, 1876-1903
Johann Chapoutot, The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi
Norman Laporte and Ralf Hofrogge, Weimar Communism as Mass Movement: 1918-1933
Vivian Gornick, The Romance of American Communism
Peter C. Van Wyck, The Highway of the Atom
Angus McLaren, Our Own Master Race: Eugenics in Canada, 1885-1945
Marie-Aimée Cliche, Abuse or punishment? Violence toward Children in Quebec Families, 1850-1969
Second Row:
Marcelo Hoffman, The Role of Investigations in Radical Political Struggles
David R. Ambaras, Bad Youth: Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Japan
Robyn C. Spencer, The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland
Eric Strikweda, The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929-39*
Michael Boudreau, City of Order: Crime and Society in Halifax, 1918-35
Lorne Brown, When Freedom was Lost: The Unemployed, the Agitator, and the State
H. V. Nelles, The Politics of Development: Forests, Mines, and Hydro-Electric Power in Ontario, 1849-1941*
Ethan Blue, Doing Time in the Great Depression: Everyday Life in Texas and California Prisons*
Joe Sim, Punishment and Prisons: Power and the Carceral State
Alyson Brown, Inter-war Penal Policy and Crime in England: The Dartmoor Convict Prison Riot, 1932*
Third Row
Martin Wiener, Reconstructing the Criminal: Culture, Law, and Policy in England, 1830–1914
Frank Dikötter and Ian Brown, Cultures of Confinement: A History of the Prison in Africa, Asia and Latin America
Robert Ovetz, When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict from 1877 to 1921
Bert Useem and Peter Kimball, States of Siege: U.S. Prison Riots, 1971-1986
Robert Adams, Prison riots in Britain and the USA*
Lloyd Ohlin, Sociology and the Field of Corrections
Thomas Mathiesen, The Defences of the Weak: A Sociological Study of a Norwegian Correctional Institution
Chris Clarkson and Melissa Munn, Disruptive Prisoners: Resistance, Reform, and the New Deal
Robert Chase, We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners' Rights in Postwar America
Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier, Rethinking the American Prison Movement
Fourth Row
Robert Chase, Caging Borders and Carceral States: Incarcerations, Immigration Detentions, and Resistance
Joshua Page, Michelle Phelps, and Philip Russell Goodman, Breaking the Pendulum: The Long Struggle Over Criminal Justice
Thai Jones, More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives and New York's Year of Anarchy
Regina Kunzel, Criminal Intimacy: Prison and the Uneven History of Modern American Sexuality
Ian Miller, A History of Force Feeding: Hunger Strikes, Prisons and Medical Ethics, 1909–1974
Alexander Berkman, Opening the gates: The Rise of the Prisoner's Movement
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California's Juvenile Justice System
Markus Dubber, The Dual Penal State: The Crisis of Criminal Law in Comparative-Historical Perspective
Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America
Michel Margairaz, Danielle Tartakowsky ed. 1968, entre libération et libéralisation
Fifth Row
Rudi Mathee, Persia in Crisis: Safavid Decline and the Fall of Isfahan
Franca Iacovetta & Wendy Mitchinson, On the Case: Explorations in Social History
Walter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam, 1862-1940*
Sarah Haley, No mercy here: gender, punishment, and the making of Jim Crow modernity
Sara M. Benson, The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law
Bryan D. Palmer and Gaétan Héroux, Toronto's Poor: A Rebellious History
Archambault Prison Theatre Group, No Big Deal!
Jen Manion, Liberty's Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America
Anne Guérin, Prisonniers en révolte: Quotidien carcéral, mutineries et politique pénitentiaire en France (1970-1980)
Larry Wolff, Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment
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A Child With a Crest
Summary: A birthing woman waits for her husband to return.
Rating: R - Content features heavy themes. Not suitable for most audiences. Consult warnings before proceeding.
Graphic depictions of infanticide, eugenics and domestic violence. Reader discretion is highly advised.
Words: 1700
Notes: I warned ya that my fluff fever would not last long.
He is gone again. My husband. There is nothing I can do but wait.
It was the fifth day of Garland Moon. The nights were shorter and the days were warmer. Soon, the Day of Love will be upon us, and I hope an heir is a better gift than any old garland.
The midwife has bathed the baby and placed it in my arms, even though he told her not to until he returns. I am numb. When I look into the red, wailing face of my child, I feel nothing. I do not dare. My breasts ache in response to its cry. I suppose that means I should feed it, but I do not dare do that, either. It gets nothing. No milk. No name. No right to exist. Not until my husband says so.
Do not get too attached, I tell myself. Not this time. There will come a moment for you to indulge, but not now and not today.
It is much worse than the last time. The waiting, that is. The time seems to extend infinitely while I was left alone in my chambers, with it on my arms and a heart full with terrors. I was afraid then, too, but I was so certain that everything would be all right in the end. I was a naïve girl, then, and I did not know the reality of my condition in this house.
It was plain bad luck that I conceived during a time when my husband was so frequently away from home. He is an important man, the Margrave, often too busy for such trivialities as wife and family. The Sreng barbarians were acting out once more that Moon, and so he was out in the border, keeping them in check. I was faithful, though. The child was definitively his.
He did not believe me. He called me all manner of vile names, he threw accusations at me, but he never once laid hand nor iron on me. He would never do that, unless I provoked him. He is a good man, and good men do not hurt deserving wives.
When the child was born, he did not even come to look at it. Instead, the cleric who birthed it took a sample of its blood and the Margrave ran to the church to have it tested. A child with a Crest is a necessity in those wildlands, and the Western Church is kind enough to test blood samples of the nobles and bannermen of the region, lest we waste resources on those who will not be able to fight for us when time comes.
These are matters of public record, the bishop in Arianrhod was quick to point out whenever questioned about it. The noblemen had every right to check whether their wives had made a scandal of myself and besmirched their good names.
I waited, then as now, knowing I had done no wrong, but terrified nonetheless. I rocked that baby, murmuring soothing words, telling it and myself that everything would be all right. Only that time, I had the misfortune to believe in my own words. My husband would see that I had not been unfaithful, and all would be well.
When he returned, yellow eyes blazing with cold fury like a ravenous wolf, he spared no glance for the midwife, only snapping, "Out!" before rounding on me.
He stood at the foot of my bed, the Lance of Ruin in his hand, glaring. I kept my eyes lowered, hunching protectively over my baby.
"What is wrong, milord?" I asked, willing my voice not to shake.
"What is wrong?!" He hissed. "What is wrong, you fucking useless bitch, is that thing attached to your tit. Put it away from you this instant, or by all that is pure and powerful, you will wish that you had."
Trembling but obedient, I laid the keening baby on the bed. My husband settled the Relic down by the door and strode over to it, lifting the child with an expression of revulsion. He turned towards the door.
"W-where are you taking it, milord?" I asked, my voice faltering and my eyes filling with tears.
"I will not have this abomination in my house." He said, simple and cold, with no attachment to anything.
As soon as he came, he was gone, taking the weapon and slamming shut the door behind him.
The infant's wail drifted back to me from the corridor for a moment, then a flash of red light appeared under the door, and the sound abruptly ceased. A scream of anguish tore from my throat. I slumped onto the bed, curled around my aching and empty womb.
I do not know how long I lay there. Ten minutes. An hour. Longer still. When he returned, I threw myself at him with a cry of rage. I would have clawed those cold eyes out of his head if I had reached him, but he held his weapon, and I had nothing but my own hands.
He shoves the dull end of the Lance of Ruin against my womb with murderous force. Pain lit every nerve of my body and I crumpled to the floor. It was over almost as soon as it began, but I did not try to rise.
"Why?" I wailed.
"The test came back negative." He spat. "You bore me a Crestless bastard, you worthless cunt! I thought I was getting a wife of unquestionable breed who would bear me a powerful heir. Your family sold me a bill of goods. You are a disgrace to your name. I should send you back to them in pieces."
"Please." I begged, raising my tear-streaked face to look at him. "Give me one more chance. It was not my fault! I-I will do better next time. I promise I…!"
With a look of sneering disgust, he turned on his heel and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him once more.
He gave me another chance, though, because he is a fair man. A good man. This is my last chance. I suppose he had to, to save face. It would have done him any more good than me if word had got out that I had borne him a Crestless child, lest the bannermen think the blood is thinning. So, it was kept quiet, and he put the word about that the baby had been born dead. The midwife was paid handsomely for her silence. It was not the first time such a thing had happened, after all, and it would not be the last.
I did not conceive again for nearly a year. My husband is such an important man, always busy, rarely home. Yet, he did his duty in my bed, and a year later, I was with child for a second time.
Now, I wait, cradling another infant to my breast, so warm and alive, murmuring the same soothing words that the other once heard, but not believing them at all.
The worst that could happen would be for him to kill this baby, too, and send me back to my family in disgrace. I have no illusions about how they would greet a daughter who had borne two Crestless sons. It would be better for everyone if the Margrave kills us both.
He would be right to do it, after all. There is no reason why a good, Goddess-fearing nobleman should permit a Crestless child to pass between his wife's thighs. To allow such a child to live is anathema to all that we hold true, and a noblewoman who cannot bear a Crested child is worthless. A man such as my husband is entitled to a proper wife who can bear him the heir he deserves.
However… I can see, with my clear eyes and strong conviction, that my baby is so strong and perfect and beautiful. I cannot wish it dead, no matter what its faults. I cannot just sit by and let it happen. Not again. I could try to run now, before he comes back. I would not get far, though. Not carrying a baby. Not with my body exhausted by birth and fear.
Even if I did run, where could I hide? There was no household in Faerghus who would shelter the runaway wife of the Margrave, the Royal Guard would look for me anywhere and everywhere in Fódlan, and a man has a legal right to his wife and child to do as he pleases.
I am not a coward. I will not run. I will stay and face him. Better that I should die fighting for myself and my child, even if there is no point to it, and no hope.
Footsteps are heard from downstairs. He is back. My husband. Our time has run out. A shiver of fear rolls down my spine. I wonder if anyone will miss me when I am gone, I wonder if I will go to a place where I can be with my babies, if I deserve blessings after letting my oldest child just be killed with a stroke of a lance.
I wish there was something more I could do than be afraid, but there is nothing left. Nothing but me and it.
Footsteps in the corridor. My baby is crying. I am holding it too tightly, but I cannot seem to loosen my grip.
The door opens, and he is standing there, silhouetted by the light from the hallway. He crosses the room to stand beside my bed, eyes unreadable.
"Give him to me, milady." He says in a low voice.
My breath catches in my throat. Him, not it.
I cannot refuse him. He is too powerful, too commanding. Arms shaking, I offer my baby up to him. He lifts the child into his arms.
"Sylvain Gautier." He murmurs, cradling our child's head in his palm. "Welcome, my son."
I feel dizzy, faint with relief I had not dared to hope for. We will live, Sylvain and I, because my husband decrees it. and one day, he will be a powerful, proud, and righteous Margrave, just like his father.
*_*_*_*_*
Fire Emblem Masterlist
Three Houses Masterlist
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