#just in a 'almost impossible to be reintegrated into society' way

[ddarker-dreams]

Makishima and hedonism

Congrats btwww <33

Warnings: Yandere themes and unhealthy relationships. 

13k follower event

"You’ve been awfully quiet.” 

Makishima’s observation barely registers in your brain over the pleasure of consuming a solid meal with your own hands for the first time in weeks. Quiet, he says. Hah. Your canines rip into your sandwich like a lion mauling its victim’s carcass. Quiet. You’d love to keep it that way. What a shame it won’t stay like that much longer. 

“There is a reason I didn’t deign to keep you gagged,” he continues, much to your displeasure. “You must have something to say to me.” 

You swallow thickly. 

“Won’t give you the satisfaction,” you murmur, just loud enough to ensure he hears.

The decision to verbally acknowledge his prodding brings with it immediate regret. For every inch you give, he demands a mile. Hence you giving him the cold shoulder for your meal’s duration. Makishima is quick to press his advantage in this little spat, closing his book without bothering to mark his place. A subtle acknowledgment that you will make for finer entertainment over the paperback. 

“It wouldn’t only serve to satisfy me,” he claims. You shoot him a quizzical look. “Keeping all of those tumultuous feelings sealed up inside you... would it not feel better to simply let go? Or could it be...” 

He hums, the sound like nails on a chalkboard to your ears. Whatever follows such a contemplative note rarely entailed anything good for you. 

“You think you can reintegrate into society after this?” 

Bingo. Makishima knows he hit the nail on the head without you needing to utter a single syllable — your abrupt halting in movement confirms everything. 

“I’ve never been one to dismiss a little optimism, but even for you, that’s crossing into the realm of fantasy,” Makishima keeps his tone steady, yet the mocking nature of his words is impossible not to notice. 

You wipe the crumbs gathered at your lips away with your wrist. “Whatever it is you and that hacker are planning... the Public Safety Bureau will catch on. You’re counting on it, even.” 

The fact you plan on holding out until then remains unsaid. 

“From one captor to the next,” he muses, the sentence ending with a dry chuckle. “I might not lock you up in a glass cell, but they most definitely will. Your hue must be darker than the night sky itself.” 

Makishima leans forward, his voice dipping to a soft coo. “’The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,’ dearest. So yield. Allow me to witness the splendor of your soul. And in return, who knows? You might just learn a thing or two about yourself.” 

“I know plenty about myself,” you snap. 

His eyes drop to your hands, which have balled into fists by your side, the veins almost protruding beneath layers of skin from how tightly you clench them.

“Well, apparently,” Makishima starts, a smile playing on his lips, “There’s still much more for you to discover, if you ever gather the courage to do so.” 

#makishima shogo x reader #shogo makishima x reader #yandere makishima shogo x reader #psycho pass x reader #yandere psycho pass x reader #yandere #yandere x reader #13k event #my stuff

[mountmortar]

obsessed with merlin and that one quote by john steinbeck that says “and now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” in the sense of his immortality and him learning to actually live over time, because  think about it. he grew up with the knowledge that one real slip-up of magic in front of somebody would get him burned at the stake, so he always had to pretend like he didn’t have it (even if he was awful at it at times). if he ever got caught, if he wasn’t perfect, he would be dead (presumably, with the whole immortality thing yknow). and then he waltzes into camelot and gets this destiny on a silver platter wherein he learns he’s emrys and he’s meant to protect the once and future king into order to unite albion blah blah blah. and we, as an audience, see that change him: we see less and less of merlin and more and more of emrys as he fixates on protecting arthur so heavily that he’s willing to do damn near anything and kill anyone to ensure that he was safe. he had to be the perfect protector, otherwise all the effort he’s put in and the people he’s lost and his seemingly-abnormal amount of magic was for nothing—he even thinks he might be a monster in the first episode, and in a deleted scene with lancelot he even admits that he used to think he was cursed. he had to be perfect, to be emrys, because if he wasn’t then it was all for nothing.

and then, of course, arthur dies, and life goes on. whether he returns to camelot  afterwards and serves at gwen’s court or wanders away from camelot after that is honestly up to personal interpretation, but i would assume that arthur dying broke something in him because it was confirmation that it was all for nothing, and then his friends and family dying one-by-one after that (gaius, hunith, percival, leon, gwen) would only make it worse. he’d probably go back to assuming that he was cursed, that he was a monster, or something else along those lines—he’d revert back to those ways of thinking of himself that began long before he came to camelot. and then something happens, hundreds of years or so down the line—maybe it’s a normal, everyday event, or a dire situation where someone is in danger, or even if it’s just a thought that pops into his head, but he realizes that wasting away like he is...is just making everything worse. 

so he gets involved somehow. he slowly learns how to properly reintegrate back into society. all of his days are bad days, but he manages to wave hello to his kindly old neighbors and he stops to help a man up when he’s fallen down and, maybe it’s just his imagination, but the sun seems a little brighter for the rest of the day. he starts employing his magic to do everyday things, too—he starts making pictures out of embers again, and he enchants his broom to clean the floor by itself, and he gets a table and turns it bright yellow just because he feels like it, and he's spent so much of his life hiding it that using it in plain sight like this is both unnerving and exciting. he uses his magic to build a little house just enough outside of whatever town he's living in that he can use magic without being seen and he absolutely goes to town on a new garden just because he can. he makes new friends and hangs out with them and laughs, really laughs, at a joke one of them makes for the first time in a long time. and when they pass on, when he feels the heartbreak start to settle in and he wonders why he even tried at all, he realizes his grief is just a symptom of love and that he'd rather feel the pain of loss than nothing at all and that at least he had the honor of knowing them, all these people who brightened up his life, and that their memory would live on forever in a being like him.

he doesn't use his magic in fleeting bursts of self-defense and loneliness anymore⁠—he uses it to clean, to grow, to heal (the earth, mostly, but even people if they know about his magic and will allow him to do so) and he learns and grows and heals with it. sometimes he still wakes up and he's sad to his core, but then he sneezes and flowers sprout at his feet and it's almost impossible not to laugh. he gardens and the sun is warm. he washes the dishes and accidentally breaks one but the only consequence is a broken dish, not people's lives. he doesn't have to be perfect anymore. he can be good.

#i don't know if this made ANY sense but. yeah <3 #it's just a vague idea because i genuinely don't believe that merlin could spend 1500+ years solely wallowing in misery #it's just not like him! it's not who he is! #merlin #text #bbc merlin #merlin emrys #emrys

[duelistkingdom]

you’d come back to me

[first chapter] [master list] [next chapter] [read on ao3]

Summary: Seto Kaiba has been presumed dead for four years after the events of Dark Side of Dimensions. His return causes both unresolved feelings of grief to be brought to the surface and the past to be dragged right back up. In hopes of helping Seto move on and reintegrate back into society at large, Mokuba asks Yugi to work on Spherium II with Seto. Never one to leave a friend hanging, Yugi agrees. Over the course of the project, Seto and Yugi both come to terms with their mutual grief and grow towards a better understanding of each other.

Rating: T

Ships: Yugi Mutou/Seto Kaiba, Mokuba Kaiba/Rebecca Hopkins, Katusya Jonouchi/Mai Kujaku

Warnings: aged up characters, grief, references to suicide

consider supporting me on kofi

Seto didn’t know what he expected when he came back from the afterlife. He hadn’t expected to look up on the screen and see Mokuba, except… He had to be older. Seto hadn’t ever really been good at reading emotions but on most days, he could understand Mokuba’s. The look upon Mokuba’s face could only be anger that melted into relief and shock. “I thought you were dead.”

The accusation rang around Seto’s head. Seto was still 18 and Mokuba… Mokuba was now older than him. He had been most surprised to see Yugi next to him, and if he thought Mokuba gave away the time passing, Yugi showed every bit of the years he missed. Judging by the height Yugi had obtained and the much more mature structure of his face, Seto couldn’t exactly tell how long had gone by but…time obviously had passed. It was etched right there on Yugi and Mokuba’s faces. Seto never could read Yugi very well and he still could not. Something was hiding in those narrowed violet eyes that Seto could not pin down. “How long was I gone,” was all Seto asked, not wanting to admit that every single bone in his body ached. Did reentry cause him harm?  His head certainly hurt - as if he’d banged it hard against something.

He had asked the Pharaoh to come back and the Pharaoh had refused. No, the Pharaoh didn’t just refuse. The Pharaoh told him that it wouldn’t be fair for him to come back. What did that mean? How was it fair he died to begin with? Seto and him had argued in circles and finally, the Pharaoh had snapped and sent him back. He wasn’t even sure how he wound up in the same capsule he was in before he left. As much as he hated to admit it…magic might truly be the only answer. Look at me, Seto thought bitterly, accepting “magic” as a reason. There had to be another reason, right? Seto had no answers for any of the questions he posed to himself. For once, Seto felt ordinary.

“Four years,” Yugi had said and his response sounded clipped. There was none of the warmth that Seto had come to associate with Yugi. To his great surprise, Mokuba held up a hand in front of Yugi, as if blocking him. Yugi made a noise of disgust and left.

“We thought you were dead,” Mokuba said, his voice bordering on hysterical, and it was now that Seto realized he knew exactly where he was. The same place he’d left, actually. How was that possible? How could the Pharaoh have had such perfect aim? “Four years ago, you told me I was in charge and then vanished. Do you know how scared I was? And here you are and… And you look exactly the same! You didn’t tell me anything about what you were doing! Where were you?”

Something told Seto that saying “the afterlife” wouldn’t go over well. However, he didn’t want to be dishonest either. It led to the question of what exactly did he say to explain himself? Seto took a steadying breath. “I was tracking down the Pharaoh,” Seto admitted bitterly. Once again, he was reminded how quickly the Pharaoh’s warm gaze turned sharp, and how the Pharaoh had no interest in even attempting to come back. He’d stated that there are things that someone simply cannot comprehend until they are dead. That the place they were in wasn’t even really the afterlife, but a meeting ground for spirits. That Seto had to go back home. “He sent me back.”

“Good,” Mokuba said, fiercely. Then, he took a breath, held it, and exhaled sharply. His demeanor changed to cold and detached.“You don’t have an office anymore, by the way. I gave it to Yugi. You also aren't the CEO anymore. You’ve been presumed dead for two years now. I don’t even know how to begin to explain you coming back but… I’m glad you’re back.” Seto didn’t understand why he felt like garbage when Mokuba didn’t yell at him. He almost would’ve preferred Mokuba berate him for leaving him high and dry like that. He would’ve preferred for Mokuba to stay in the angry state he’d seen when he first landed. This attempt at a calm, serene response was worse. It felt like he was being handled with kid gloves. Like he was a danger to himself, perhaps. He tried to get up out of the pod and found that it was simply too painful. “Don’t… Don’t do that,” Mokuba gently chastised from the screen. “I’ve sent medics. They’ll help you out.”

Seto was dazed as he was lifted out of the pod onto a stretcher and a neck brace put around his neck. He wondered if this would be common for interdimensional travel. He wondered if Mokuba would be even more upset if he attempted to experiment with it further. Perhaps it would be too much to ask to further work on it. Perhaps he was already pushing it by just showing up. The world had moved on without him. Now that was something that Seto didn’t want to wrap his mind around.

Yugi was trying to calm himself down. Out of all the times for Seto to come sauntering back into his life… Yugi had remembered how distressed Mokuba had been when Seto first went missing four years ago. He’d put his entire life on hold to help Mokuba mourn. Yugi had been broken in two, but he couldn’t help himself when Mokuba showed up on his door in tears. There was no other choice but to take care of Mokuba and help him move forward. It was little surprise when Mokuba’s idea of thanking him for his help was to offer him a job. He even agreed to help pay for the coding classes that Yugi had always wanted, but felt he would never be able to afford.

It was beginning to seem like Mokuba was slowly coming to accept the idea that Seto might never come back when Seto crashed back into Earth. And all Yugi could think was, what if Seto let Mokuba down again in the worst possible way? Yugi had been bottling up a lot of emotions for the past four years, only letting them out in his therapist's office. And even there he found it impossible to be fully honest. How did he begin to explain that the literal other half of his soul walked right out of his life when he was 18? How did he begin to explain his complicated feelings when the only other person who understood what it was like to lose Atem disappeared from the world? And now… He had a lot of complicated feelings about Kaiba coming back.

He was glad Kaiba was alive, of course. He knew it would make Mokuba happy to have his big brother back. Granted, the age difference was slight now. Mokuba was close to turning nineteen. In fact, he was certain that made Mokuba the older sibling now. The thought was a pang in his chest. He couldn’t help but wonder if Mokuba really was going to be okay. Sure, he was certain Mokuba truly was happy and relieved about Seto being back but he couldn’t help but wonder… How complicated were Mokuba’s feelings? He made a mental note to ask Mokuba later how he was holding up.

Yugi pulled out his phone, knowing there was only one person that he could talk to right now. The phone rang only twice before Anzu’s voice came through the line. “Hi, Anzu,” Yugi said softly, leaning up against the wall with a lot of emotions dragging him down. “Uh, so… Kaiba’s back.”

There was a pause on the other end before a slight sigh of relief came from Anzu. “Thank God he’s alive. I’m sure Mokuba must be excited to see his big brother,” Anzu said, pausing before laughing. “Did Kaiba ever grow a beard? How ragged does he look not having access to his luxury lifestyle for four years now?”

“Anzu,” Yugi said, realizing that she didn’t understand. He supposed it wouldn’t be his first thought, either. He, too, would assume that when Kaiba showed back up, he’d actually look four years older. Yugi looked older, Mokuba looked older. “You don’t understand… He looks exactly the same as the day he left. Not a day older.”

“Oh,” she said softly, realization settling in. “Oh no. So, he… He really did go to see Atem, then.”

Yugi nodded, the pain clenching in his heart again. He wasn’t even sure why he felt any level of pain like that for Kaiba simply going to see Atem. Would Yugi have not done the same? He tried to think about that. He supposed as much as he would like to see Atem… Atem had been dead for three thousand years. He was laid to rest four years ago. Yugi was certain that he’d moved on. And yet those scars that had barely healed on his heart had been ripped open fresh again. “Mokuba’s happy to see Kaiba,” Yugi said, willing to give Anzu that. “But I just… I just don’t know what I’m feeling right now.”

“It’s a lot, I know,” Anzu said softly and Yugi wondered what Anzu was doing right now. He knew that Anzu might come home soon. He’d like that. He missed Anzu a lot most days. “You should carefully think over what you want to say to him before you actually talk to him, though. You don’t want to say anything too rash.”

He knew she was right. Anzu was always right, really. “I just… I don’t know what to do,” Yugi admitted. “You and I both saw how upset Mokuba was. How could he do that to Mokuba?”

“I don’t know,” Anzu admitted softly. “You’d have to ask him.”

Seto didn’t approve of the hospital that he’d been placed in. It was just a little too… He wasn’t sure what it was. He knew that he did not approve. The nurses had taken away his laptop and given it to Mokuba, telling him he needed to relax. He wanted his laptop back. He had a lot of emails to get through. As it turned out, leaving for four years to go duel a long dead Pharaoh left a lot of work built up. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to relax when all he could focus on was that.

Mokuba was supposed to come by later. Maybe he could pester Mokuba into handing him back his laptop by convincing him that he needed to work on something Kaiba Corp related. It took him a while to remember that he was no longer the CEO of Kaiba Corp. He wasn’t even sure of the current projects Kaiba Corp was working on. That unsettled him. “Are you sure you’re okay?” That was Yugi’s voice and before Seto could reply, he realized that Yugi was not talking to him. Yugi wasn’t even in his room. Instead, Yugi must be just outside his room. Who he was talking to, Seto wasn’t sure. Their reply was muffled. “You don’t have to pretend to be strong for me.”

“Yugi, I’m okay,” came Mokuba’s voice and Seto recognized that tone. It was the tone he had when he had asked Seto to not try to get out of the dimensional pod. “It’s okay. Seto’s back, so everything’s okay.”

Seto tried to listen harder now. He couldn’t rely on their facial expressions to help him figure out the meaning behind their words. “Mokuba,” came Yugi’s voice. Once again, Seto recognized the tone. It was the same gentle tone he’d used when he told Seto he had to let the Pharaoh go. “You can’t just bottle this up. I want to help.”

He couldn’t hear Mokuba’s reply. If nothing else, he wanted to know how Mokuba truly felt. He needed to know. He needed to know what he had to do to make this up to Mokuba. It seemed like there was something that Yugi knew that Seto didn’t. He was getting a little tired of Yugi knowing something he didn’t.

#rivalshipping #rivalshipping fanfiction #dm rivalshipping #myfanfic #it's Here #fic: you'd come back to me #this isn't going to show up in the tags rip #i bet tumblr's gonna kill posts that mention kofi #oh well

[notaburgler]

Dadzawa  and Eri

Getting Eri comfortable with the usual young child activities was a difficult task, but not impossible. Midorya and Mirio played a vital role. 

She saw them as something more than wannabe heroes. Her life- once shrouded in darkness- was opened to a new beginning filled with laughter and joy. The cultural festival brought a smile to her face none had ever seen before. The dancing and singing and the talent every student exuded gave her hope for a clearer and more promising future. 

Her tiny hands clenched onto Mirio’s hair as she sat upon his shoulders for a good view. It wasn't fear that claimed her, it was happiness. Mirio gladly took the pain in strides, happy to see, for the first time, a genuine smile on her soft face. Hearing her gasp of amazement, feeling her fingers weave tighter between his blonde hair, sensing the weight she felt pressing down on her shoulders lifted. 

Eri was a kid for the first time.

A sleepy yawn spurred Aizawa into motion, after all, she was in his care. This meant more than simply making sure that her quirk didn’t activate and hurt anyone, it meant making sure she ate her vegetables and got a good night's sleep. I meant keeping her active and reintegrating her back into society. After the trauma she faced at the hands of overhaul, everyone needed to be onboard with helping her.

Present mic spent time with her to teach her about music. Midnight… well, maybe having midnight alone with the girl wasn’t the best idea. The principal gave her comfort around animals, something that would be beneficial seeing as Aizawa had a few cats at home. Class-A made her confident and welcomed her into all of the fun activities they planned: shopping, video games, girls night. She was finally starting to feel young- free. 

Aizawa sat at his desk with a red pen in hand. So many wrong answers… so many. He had hope for them, but it seemed they only cared about the hero side of the course. He couldn’t be too hard on them, they were all aspiring hero’s after all. 

A small tug on his sleeve drew his blood shot attention to his waist where eri stood nervously. 

Outside he remained calm and collected as she had grown to expect from him. But deep inside, he panicked. Did she wet the bed? Did she have another nightmare about Overhaul? Was she hungry or thirsty?

He smiled. A soft turn of his lips, something he had practiced after his Cheshire grin had thrown her into a fit of terror that took days for her to calm down from.

“What is it, Eri?” His large hand nearly eclipsed her head entirely. 

A small huff and a rare smile graced her lips. 

Eri had been building the courage to ask for a few nights. She’d spent hours watching YouTube videos and watching other people interact in hopes of finding the magic words to get what she desired. But when his gaze fell on her, and she was put on the spot, her voice box clammed up and the words got lost inside her nervous tremble. 

Instead of speaking- a possibility she had expected and prepared for- she thrust a paper into his gut all while boring holes in the ground below her feet.

Shocked, he looked down at her tiny stature, trembling with nerves, and smiled softly. With steady and gentle hands, he grabbed the paper pushed lightly into his stomach, Eri’s arms retracting back to her sides. She nervously fiddled with the hem of her dress, anxiously waiting for Aizawa’s response. Her eyes remained trained on the floor, unwilling to face the reality of such a request.

“Oh?” His usual low, gruff voice replaced by a cheerful yip, “what’s this?” He asked as if he hadn’t put the pieces together already.

Eri needed confidence. She needed to be able to look people in the eyes and ask what it is she wanted from them without fear or retaliation or abuse. 

She knew she was no longer in the care of a heartless monster. Her new caretaker is far more understanding and compassionate. 

As small and weak as a mouse, her tiny voice barely made a dent in the silence of the room. With the cup of his ear, and the hunch of his back to get lower to her, he hummed in question. He knew exactly what she said and exactly what she wanted; but that wasn’t the point. The point was to build her up, to make her comfortable in asking questions and asking to do things a normal child would do.

Slightly louder than before, her voice crept up her throat, temporarily snagging in the paranoia that still lingered behind from her days tucked away underground. “Can I?”

He sat back up and looked over the pamphlet. In reality, it was a ruse to give him time to think. Aizawa wondered if that was enough or if he should push her further in hopes of helping her past these fears. But the trembling lip and tear lined eyes set his soul to rest and he gladly accepted her attempts as enough.

Finally, he took a moment to see what it was she wanted: dance classes. Given her complete reluctance to human interaction outside of a small circle of people, would dance classes be a good thing for her? He did know that when she thought no one was looking she would dance around her room with the teddy bear Mirio had won for her at the arcade. But did she know all that would go into this? Was she aware that she would need to put trust in other people to do ballet?

After skimming over the pamphlet, he lowered it to his thighs, “Eri,” he began, “are you sure about this? You’ll be in front of people and you might get a dance partner you don’t know.”

She shuffled her feet as she finally raised her gaze to her caretaker, “I overheard you talking about how I need to get out there more and trust people. So I wanna do this so I can.” Her tears started to trail down her cheeks.

She wasn’t supposed to hear that. 

“Ok, ok….” he sighed looking back over the pamphlet once more, “we can go see what it’s like on my next day off. But you know you don’t have to push yourself so far. Especially with your quirk. But we can talk about that in the morning.” He patted her head and sent her off to sleep.  

****

Eri hid behind Aizawa’s leg as they entered, her grip almost painful on his thigh. “Eri,” he kneeled before her to get eye contact, “this is what you wanted, remember?” He patted her head and led her deeper inside the building. 

“Mr. Aizawa.” The teacher waved as he entered the large studio, “so glad you made it. This must be little Eri?” Her smile was meant to calm the young girl.

He took a seat as she slipped into a loaner uniform. She did her best to follow suit and do as the others did, but she tumble and fall, and feel the disappointment build up. When he saw the tingle of her horn and her face scrunch up, he quickly activated his quirk and rushed to calm her down.

His hand circled gently along her back as he spoke, “you won’t be perfect right off the bat. Just keep trying and don’t get discouraged because you didn’t do it right the first time. Get up, and try again.” 

She nodded, her quirk calming and his hair falling to his face again. 

As the day pressed on, she managed a few spins and twirls. He relished in the sight of her eyes lightning up and a cheerful grin stretching across her face. He couldn’t resist the urge to allow his own lips to curl. The other girls and boys in her class effortlessly took her under their wings and helped when needed. 

Aizawa was proud. The foreign feeling inside of him sniffed his other senses and clouded all other thoughts. A paternal nature took over, his instinct to rush to his feet when she scraped a knee or failed a spin overwhelmed him. He wanted to protect her; to keep her from harm. Anyone that dare cause her any pain would suffer a fate worse than death.

Maybe spending so much time caring for a small child had changed him?

All of that fear. All of that tension inside after each bump and bruise fell from him when she smiled and laugh. When she’d get back up with a huff and determination to do it again, and get it right. It reminded himself of his hero training and learning the use of his capture weapon. He couldn’t help but see himself in the little girl failing over and over again, only to rise from the ashes of defeat and face the challenge head on once more with more vigor and more fight in her.

****

Weeks had passed. Eri loved her dance classes and thanked Aizawa over and over again for allowing her to partake. He noticed the small changes in her confidence. The way she held herself and the comfort she had in her own skin. After day three of class, he no longer needed to go with her, comfortable with the students there enough to know her quirk would be no issue. This may have played a vital role in her confidence as well. Seeing Aizawa leave the studio and allow her to be around people vulnerable to her quirk, that could die at any moment if she lost control, helped her feel a balance inside of her. She proudly stood in front of the mirror, watching her body move and learning the motions of the routine they would perform in a few days time.

He looked forward to it. Seeing her stand on stage, dancing and having fun was more of a gift than anything else. He didn’t care much for the actual routine, he knew she wouldn’t be great, but time would allow her to perfect her art. He cared more about the social aftermath of the event. 

Coming home from hero work after a long day teaching class was exhausting. He sighed, throwing his capture scarf onto the coat rack and sliding his shoes off and his slippers on. With relative ease, his hair was tossed into a ponytail and the bag left on the couch opened to continue his teacherly duties. There was no off time for Shouta Aizawa. If he wasn’t grading papers and coordinating training opportunities, he was saving people and patrolling the city streets. His bones ached, his head throbbed; he wanted nothing more than to either sleep, or be put out of his misery. Every waking moment brought more misery than anticipated the day before. He shouldn’t feel so old when he was still so young. Thirty wasn’t that old, was it? Yes, sometimes his students joked about his age. Maybe telling them wasn’t the best idea. Although future hero’s, they were still kids and were still unintentionally cruel. He felt it though. He felt thirty, there was no doubt there. Increasing his trips to the gym was supposed to help, and to some extent, they did, but he still felt tired and sore all of the time.

As he rested on his overstuffed couch, the urge to sleep hit him like a runaway train. His eyes fluttering shut only to quickly open and be rubbed raw. With a tilted head, he dropped a few of his eye drops into each one and blinked rapidly to disperse the fluid throughout. Only ten at night and he was already ready to tap out. 

****

He waited anxiously now that the other classes had done their routines. He was lucky to have Mirio beside him, otherwise he would have napped through the whole show. Any chance to get rest was taken for the pro. 

A silent stage and quiet, muffled banter among the other parents made him feel out of place. He care for Eri and helped her through tough times; but was he really supposed to be there? He guessed, if anything, he could classify himself as her uncle, even if that was a bit of a stretch. 

“Eri was so excited.” Mirio beemed. His smile was so bright it could have burnt ants under a microscope. 

Aizawa huffed. He knew. The girl was impatient and wore her tutu around the house like a normal part of her attire. In all honesty, he was still disappointed that the clothes he picked out were sniffed by the nurses.

It was almost time. She would soon be walking out with her cute pink tutu and the exorbitantly expensive ballerina shoes. He felt the race in his heart, a flush coming to his face. It was a whole new feeling for him. He’d been afraid for her, afraid for his students. He’d felt exhausted with caring for her in addition to his usual duties, and proud of accomplishments made. Those small accomplishments proved his exhaustion to be more than worth it. But the feeling invading every inch of his body, from his head to his toes, was foreign. Excitement wasn’t an emotion he felt often- especially in regards to another person or something as ridiculous as a child’s ballet recital.

When the time passed that her class was to perform, the excitement he felt twisted and contented to another new feeling: nervousness. He hoped everything was well. A fear crept up on him that maybe Eri was being held up by some brat that didn’t like that she wasn’t part of the front line. 

Aizawa let an audible snarl snake out of his throat in a guttural growl. That little shit Sakura was probably the reason behind it too. She was such a diva and hated that Eri was even in her class. She was rude and pampered by her parents; neither of the once telling the little urchin no. 

He spited her mom and dad across the room. Both so arrogant and cocky. Thinking their kids shit doesn’t stink… whatever, he thought. Who cares? Eri was doing this for her, and overcoming her anxieties. He wouldn’t let some asshole kid and her incompetent parents stop Eri from pursuing something that would do her good.

Mirio hummed, having a good vantage point to the back, “I’m gonna go check on them.” He places his hands on the arm rests to hoist himself up, but a hand stopped him.

“I’ll go. If Eri is under too much stress, I may be needed.”

Mirio smiled after Aizawas attempt to seem uninterested in checking on her. It was rather cute how he came up with a reason on the spot to go see if she was ok. He knew, deep down, that Aizawa was more than just a caretaker for the little girl. He did far more than just make sure she was safe, and fed, and didn’t accidentally use her quirk on someone. If that’s all he was, he wouldn’t be sitting front row, in the best seats. He wouldn’t have urged Mirio to hurry up so they got there early to get those seats. He wouldn’t have been dripping with sweat in anticipation and nervousness. By all accounts, Aizawa was as much this girl's father as any other parent seated in that crowd; and it warmed Mirios heart knowing that even if he wasn’t around, Aizawa would assure that she was happy and healthy. 

Almost ten minutes had passed and the music started. Mirio looked around frantically for the eraser hero. He’d been looking forward to this for weeks- not that Aizawa had said anything. Little nuggets of excitement creeped out of him when the subject came up. A new life would come to his face upon hearing that she finally nailed a spin or that her flexibility had gotten better. He chalked it up to the information only benefiting Eri and her training to control her quirk. “If she can control her body, her quirk will be easier to control.” He's day and leave it at that.

As the curtains opened, the blonde panicked. Aizawa couldn't miss it! Eri would be devastated if she looked out into the crowd and didn’t see her pseudo father sitting proudly up front. 

“Damn.” Mirio prepared to voicelessly tell Eri that he would be back and he hadn’t left her. He was sure she knew since Aizawa was the one to check on her.

Tiny feet tip toed across the wood floor. A line of pretty ballerinas following the teachers instructions in front. The final ballerina, Eri, made her way out. She struggled to stay on her toes, but large hands helped her back up, leaning down to be used as a way to keep her balance. 

Mirio’s heart burst in his chest- dead on site. Aizawa, donning a rose pink tutu, followed with Eri, dancing with the girls on the stage. He was rather good in Mirio’s opinion. Hushed whispers filled the auditorium, and a few flashes of cameras. 

Aizawa would never live this down. 

He would need to find all people and demand that the evidence of this was destroyed. He glanced over to see Mirio, in tears, recording it all. 

A roll of his eyes that allowed him to see the back of his skull was hidden from Eri as she looked up with bright, doe eyes. She was ecstatic. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad? Maybe a photo or two getting out of him being a loving and attentive caretaker to the girl would rest the mind of his students' parents? But the possible negative aftershock of the photos could permanently damage his reputation. 

“Mr. Aizawa?” The teacher raised her brow as he stood awkwardly, “you have to plié.” He muttered under her breath. 

He sighed, and did his best. God he hoped this was worth it.

****

The final routine ended and Eri came running out to him with open arms and a smile.

“I’m so happy Aizawa! I had so much fun and even though I was scared and nervous, you helped me through it! Thank you Aizawa!” She huffed his leg, “now I know I can get through anything as long as I have you here to help me.” Her eyes like saucers looked up to him showing him the hope and passion he hoped this class would bring her.

With a gentle pat to her head, he kneeled down, “you did great.” His smile soft and comforting, “next time, lets try doing it alone, ok?”

#eraserhead #shouta aizawa #eri #my hero academia #sweetness #platonic #cute #eri is adorable #not my best but i tried

[elindooreamagicaljourney]

Another plot update!!

Ages ago, before the humans got kicked out, the elemental spirits and Daemos Lake were common knowledge. Everyone knew about them and the spirits interacted freely with the people of Elindoore. Humans, like most species of Elves, were almost exclusively Nerics, and over time they became jealous of other species ability to use magic. So they journeyed to the lake and tried to take control of it so they could use its power for themselves. They were caught in the act and therefore unsuccessful, which only escalated the pre-existing conflict between humans and the rest of Elindoore. Many spirits were also killed in their attempts to take control, and they did irreparable damage to the lake, which it never fully recovered from. This ultimately resulted in the humans getting kicked out.

After all this happened, the spirits went into hiding in order to protect themselves from those who would try to harness their power. They also used the lake's power to cast a number of protective spells around it, such as forcefields and camouflage spells to make it impossible for anyone else to find the lake. Without the care of the spirits, Elindoore began to suffer, so the spirits found a way to reintegrate themselves into society, but in secret. They disguised themselves as various species (mostly elves) so they could blend in with the people of Elindoore in order to continue their duties in creating, healing and caring for the world.

The humans' attempt to seize control of the Daemos Lake is what inspired the founders of bad guys' organisation to do the same, but instead of just rushing in and trying to claim the lake, they took their time planning, researching and gathering various crystals/artefacts/magical items from around the world to help them. They also spent a great deal of time experimenting with dark/illegal magic in an attempt to find something that could help them locate the lake and/or break the spells protecting it. It was a very gradual process, and finding new, trustworthy agents to work with them took a long time. This is why it took almost 200 years for them to be ready to try and take control.

~Asks are open, feel free to drop me a question!~

#elindoore #elindoore: a magical journey #fantasy #fantasy story #fantasy world #fantasy character #fantasy characters #fantasy writing #fantasy adventure #writing #creative writing #story writing #writer #amateur writer #writeblr #original story #original writing #original character #original content #plot update #story plot #storyline #storyline update

[dannissa13]

NaNo, part three

Living is hard. That’s a dumb realization to have at any age but I find it especially stupid right now. I lived for some time being completely aimless and, in the eyes of the society at large and people who surrounded me, I was also useless and underachieving. That was weird. I was both extremely, extensively depressed, suicidal and anxious, ready to blow at any second, ready to collapse at every opportunity and start crying for minimal to none apparent reason and also angry. So, so angry at everything at the same time. And sad, I was also incredibly sad and seemingly lonely even though I had family and friends. I’ve distanced myself from everyone, lost a lot of contacts with people I used to know and became a complete shut-in with no discernible future or goals or even semblance of purpose. To this day I think about that time and I still feel the same about it. I was truly free. It cost me an arm and a leg, literally, three years of my life or maybe more if you count how much time I needed to reintegrate into the society and start being considered a useful member of it. But I’ll always think of those days, glimpse into my memory for the taste of real freedom. I was able to do what I wanted without any repercussions, I had no stakes, no hurdles to overcome, no one was able to tell me what to do or stop me from doing anything really. I was really fully left to my own devices and was free to do anything I wanted. Turns out I wanted to waste my time on the internet for hours and hours and maybe read books or something, I don’t remember much of this period of my life, it’s all a blur. But in the moments of weakness, when I’m really down, I think about that time and I think about being by myself, all alone and it both hurts and soothes me.

So yeah, living is hard. And living as an actual adult is even harder, with responsibilities, a job, relationships that you need to sustain, health that you need to monitor, money, social status, etc. I lived part of my life as a fake adult, being of age but not going through the motions of adulthood, not being able to support myself in any way or continue my free lifestyle on my own. I know now that the perceived freedom I had was a privilege not a lot of people can afford but to a mentally ill person everything is skewed and distorted. Now, in the real adulthood stage of my life I do a lot of work I previously neglected and manage a lot of things that seemed impossible at previous times. But there’s a catch - I don’t feel happy. I’m not fulfilled by my life, even though I should be, even though I’m working on it so hard. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on therapy which I’ve been going to steadily for almost two years now and I’m not happy yet. I cannot say that I’m not better, I’m just not where I wanted to be. No one tells you that, but therapy, even though it helps immensely, does not, in fact, cure you. It’s a method of making you be capable to fend for yourself against your mental illness or a way of accepting it and learning how to live with it, but in no way, shape or form is this the answer. And so, when you’re fighting back and things go up and you quality of life increases you actually think that it’ll be like that forever. The thing is - mental illness comes back. And now you’re better equipped to fight against it but it’s still a fight that you could potentially lose. And no matter where you are at life or who you’ve become it can resurface at any time and bite ya in the ass. That’s lovely. No one tells you that your depression, anxiety and OCD are here to stay, forever, by your side, they’ll never leave you even though you haven’t had them before. It’s like chronic illness - you “get better” but you never get healthy again. It’s not as bad as it used to be but is still a bit shitty. Sometimes every day is a little bit shitty and it tends to pile up until you just burst and can’t do this anymore. I’m not at that level yet, but things are not looking bright for me either.

I’m a hack writer, I always knew I was bad and thought that I was at peace with that. Turns out you can still be hurt by something even though you know that it’s true. No one gives two shits about me trying hard, even if I give it my all it might be not enough. Sometimes I honestly feel like I’m not getting any better at writing and sometimes I make up a sentence that makes me feel like a genius. It’s all bullshit in the end. I’m an honest to god boring mediocrity and I’m also incredibly lazy, so even knowing that my shit isn’t that good I won’t do anything about that, because I’ve already done the work and can’t be bothered to redo it. So yeah, I suck as a writer.

I’ve also forgot how hard it is, pun intended, to write sex believably as well as keeping it hot and intriguing without being cliched. So, I’m unable to finish a single goddamn sex scene in otherwise completed fic and it’s driving me nuts. It was much easier to do this a few years ago and I honestly have no idea what happened to me. But I’ve also written around a thousand words for a sequel for this fucking unfinished fic and it’s getting ridiculous. The time is running out and I’m thinking about turning the NaNoWriMo from a month into a “until I’m done with every work I’ve started”. It’s not gonna last, I know that, but if I’m not trying I won’t get any results.

It’s too late to post this but I’m still gonna do that. Farewell, for now. I have shit to figure out.

#dannissa writes #nanowrimo #i write stuff #writing #textpost #text #iwritestuff #mental health

[scripttorture]

İ have a character who is a ghost. He has his house and have everything in it to entertain himself. He could leave but he didn't because everyone at his town knew who he was. The years pass (like 50 years) and i was wondering , do you think he "keep sane"? Would he show signs of solitary confinement?

You haven’t actually said if he’s alone in this house. So I’m assuming heis and that he’s got no human contact. If that’s wrong then so is a lot of what follows.

 It really depends on how you want to write ghosts in your story. I canonly advise you on what this would do to a normal human being. If you decideyou want to make your ghosts work differently to normal human beings that’syour choice- it’s about what fits your story.

 On a normal human being this sort of social isolation for such anextreme length of time would probably kill the majority of people.

 I’vegot a Masterpost on solitary confinement here.

 There’s more research on solitary than most other torture methods thoughthere isn’t always consistency. We know it’s hugely damaging. The estimated‘safe’ period of confinement for an adult is about a week.

 The vast majority of the research on solitary was done on prisonersconfined in cells. The quality of these cells varies drastically from countryto country (and indeed within countries). Some of the commonly reportedphysical health problems associated with solitary confinement may be due topoor cell conditions. Eyesight problems for example may well be caused by poorquality lighting in cells.

 That said the vast majority ofthe major health issues seen in victims of solitary are caused by socialisolation. The mental health problems listed in the Masterpost: suicidalurges, depression, anxiety, mood swings, hallucinations and so forth- those areall natural responses in our species to being alone for extended periods. We'resocial creatures.

 A 'nice' living space with entertainment facilities may provide someprotective effect, but that effect is going to be so small that for such anextreme period of time it wouldn't make a difference at all.

 The protective factors that might make a difference for the sort of timeframe you want are either: an individual who is unusually resistant toisolation (they do exist but they are rare) or a political prisoner who has a'cause' they feel extremely strongly about.

 I tend to caution against writing characters who are unusually resistantto solitary. That's because there's a strong tendency in fiction to ignore ordownplay the extremely damaging effects of solitary confinement. We tend totreat it as if it's 'no big deal'. And using extremely resistant charactersrisks playing into that.

 Even if a character wasextraordinarily resistant to the effects of isolation I’m unaware of any individual surviving in isolationfor such an extremely long period of time. I know that extremely resistantindividuals have been known to go years with little human contact and few longterm problems.

 But I have never encountered a case where someone spent several decades in isolation and didn’t come out with massive mentalhealth problems.

 You could write this in such away that what’s ‘normal’ for a ghost is drastically different to what’s‘normal’ for a living person. If you do I’d strongly advise you to make thatdifference clear and perhaps even make it explicit that this sort ofconfinement would kill a living human being.

 A person kept in solitary confinement for 50 years would at the veryleast have serious mental health problems.

 I’d….actually be tempted to just judge this sort of time frame as lethalfor this type of torture. The reason I’m hesitating to do so is because so fewpeople have been confined for that long. The sample size is small and thatmeans I don’t want to jump to conclusions without evidence.

 But…over a week is an unhealthy period of time. After more than a monthyou start getting into a time frame where the victim is probably never going tomake a ‘complete’ recovery. After a year you’re talking about really severe,long lasting effects that would impact every aspect of daily life. After adecade you’re looking at an individual that has probably survived multiple suicideattempts. You’re talking about a character who wouldn’t be able to functionunaided in society anymore. A character that may well be legally insane and unable to tell fantasy from reality. A characterthat would, even with the best of treatment, be at incredibly high risk ofsuicide and may well have mutilated themselves.

 Multiple decades- I’m not even sure where I’d start.

 If this wasn’t a fantasy ask I’d be suggesting either drasticallyreducing the time the character is confined (something closer to a year) orcutting out solitary confinement altogether.

 If you’re writing the character as more-or-less a normal human being,then I’d still strongly recommend you do that.

 Something closer to five years would still give you a character withsevere and long-lasting mental health problems.

 It’s impossible to predict symptoms but in that sort of time frame anawful lot of victims report some sort of suicide attempt or self harming. Themajority also report at least periods of depression and anxiety. Symptoms canvary with time and they also vary between individuals.

 I tend to recommend picking symptoms based on what you feel fits thecharacter and story. With solitary confinement we have slight more statisticalstudies on the prevalence of symptoms, though these don’t always agree.Generally depression and anxiety tend to be rated the most common symptoms andhallucinations and psychosis are generally rated as the least (though rates canstill be as high as 30%).

 If the character was confined for five years with no human contact I’drecommend picking 5-7 symptoms from the list and showing them consistently throughoutthe story, at a level where they’re negatively impacting every aspect of thecharacter’s life.

 I’d say that difficulty interacting with other people would be almost certainafter that sort of time. I tend to recommend learning difficulties and memoryproblems to authors purely because they’re common in reality and under representedin fiction.

 I’d also strongly recommend showing physical symptoms as well becausepeople tend to forget about solitary confinement causing them. Feelings ofweakness, lethargy or insomnia can fit in most stories.

 I used headaches the last time I wrote a character in solitaryconfinement, partly because the character had had similar symptoms caused byinflammation in the past. If you think a particular symptom would fit well withthe character, add something to the story or give a chance for the character todevelop and grow then use that.

 If it was me- I’d probably write the character being confined for aneven shorter period of time, something more like a year. That would give me acharacter who would still have multiple severe symptoms to learn to deal withand trouble socialising with people/reintegrating into society. But they wouldn’tbe in quite so…dire a position.

 And well- personally I’m only willing to write a limited number of suicideattempts or self-harming episodes per story. I find them extremely emotionallydraining to write and they can be extremely effecting for readers too.

 Finally there’sa very good free online resource on the effects of solitary confinementavailable here.

 I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw suicide #tw self harm #tw self mutilation #solitary confinement #time frames for torture #fantasy ask #ghosts #Anonymous

[luxalstreimart]

Lux Alstreim (main)

♰ BASIC INFORMATION:

Full Name: Luxanna Serafine Fibonacci Alstreim

Nicknames: Lux 

Gender: Female 

Age: 29

Hometown: Florence, Italy

A mortal who is a conduit for a goddess

CHARACTER APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM: Antonia Lydia

Hair: Blonde

Skin: Olive

Eyes: Emerald Green

Height: 5′9

Weight: 120 lbs

PERSONALITY:

Lux is known to be highly impulsive. She would often do the first thing that pops into her mind without thinking about any of the consequences. She is also quite impossible to read and her moods are often erratic. She developed a habit of never settling down in one area and would often move from one country to another. 

GENERAL CHARACTER INFORMATION:

Relationship Status: dating someone

Place of residence: Villa Bramasole, Florence, Italy

Place of Birth: Milan, Italy 

Occupation: Art Curator, Artist, Sculptor

Group/Guild/Clan affiliation: Italian Art Society

Wealth Status: Upper Class 

CHARACTER ABILITIES AND PROFICIENCY:

Oil painting

Watercolor painting

Pastel painting

Acrylic painting

Hot wax painting or Encaustic painting

Spray Painting

Fresco secco paintings - wall painting technique

Gouache - opaque watercolor medium

Enamel paintings

Tempera paintings (are very long lasting)

Sand Painting

Marble Sculpting

Clay Pottery Making 

HISTORY/BACKGROUND:

Parents: Alessandro Rossi and Carlotta Fibonacci (mortal)

Grade School and Middle School: Marymount Private School - Florence

High School: Hollywood Arts (freshmen year), St Louis School Milan Private School (sophomore to senior year) 

College: Bachelor of Art in Fine Art Painting at Royal College of Art

Graduate School: Master of Philosophy in Arts & Humanities at Royal College of Art

EARLY LIFE

Luxanna was born on the 29th of October. She was the only biological child of a Sicilian oil magnate (who was rumored to be connected to an underground mafia organization) and a French-Italian wine company heiress. She grew up in her maternal grandfather’s vineyard which was popularly known as the Marchesi di Fibonacci and was located on the outskirts of Florence, Italy. 

As a young girl, she grew up to be very sociable and had a handful of friends during her primary school years but the main highlight of her childhood years remains to be her closeness to her family. She was showered with affection by almost her entire family. Her father indulged her with weekly trips to other European cities and would never say no to any of her desires despite going against her mother’s wishes. This would later lead to her selfish behaviors and tendencies to have difficulty in handling rejection. On the contrary, her mother was a fiercely disciplinarian figure in her life which made Lux have a hard time developing utmost affection for her. Even at such a young age, her mother pressured her heavily in the hopes of making her a classy society lady when she grows up (just like herself ). She was often pressured to excel in different aspects of her life such as academics and extracurricular activities like her violin lessons, gymnastics, and her equestrian training.

Due to differing parental techniques and irreconcilable differences, her mother and father grew more and more distant from each other as the years gone by. Lux would often watch them quarrel in front of her and she knew that her parents couldn’t be in the same room without quarreling. She developed a habit of escaping to her grandmother’s villa whenever the arguments escalated and as a way to comfort her, her grandmother would often give her a set of brushes and a few pieces of paper while her grandfather helped her paint figures on the sheets of paper. This made her fall in love with painting to which her mother didn’t approve of because Luxanna neglected her lessons in school just doodling on the back of her notebook.

On her 11th birthday, her grandmother gave her a set of natural China-bristle paint brushes. The present gave her so much excitement which drove her to paint abstract-shaped flowers all over her bedroom wall. The next morning, her mother found her sleeping across the bedroom floor covered in splotches of acrylic paint. Nevertheless, she was heavily scolded and her mother took away her brushes. This made her harbor feelings of hatred for her mother and it was also the event that severed the final string that was barely holding her parent’s loveless marriage together. 

TEENAGE YEARS 

When her parent’s divorce was finalized after a 2 years of dispute over the shared properties, it was timely that her father struck a temporary deal with a petroleum oil company based in Los Angeles. She knew right away that she would rather move out of Italy and live with her father than stay with her mother. She was enrolled in a high school in downtown Los Angeles and was taken back by the cultural difference. There was no denying that she stood out from the high school due to her conservative upbringing and her innate childish innocence. Later on, she managed to charm most of her schoolmates and she finally integrated to the status quo. Her core values were slightly tainted with the influence instilled by her new friends and her dysfunctional relationship with her mother worsened upon hearing the news of her mother’s engagement to another man. It also didn’t help that her father started dating a young actress who was in her 20s. She felt alone and it drove her to develop a habit of experimenting with weed and alcohol. She was soon caught by her father and after the contract was done, they moved back to Italy but this time, they stayed in Milan where her paternal grandparents are. 

She was sent to a boarding school in Milan and it was a struggle for her to reintegrate back to her original culture. It took her a few months to settle back in and for some miraculous reason, she finally stopped her rebellious tendencies. She found a great support system with her friends and she started to heal from the wounds that her mother imposed on her early childhood years. Spending most of her year in Milan made her miss Los Angeles so her father enrolled her in the prestigious summer art camp where she made friends with individuals from all over the world and was even able to get acquainted with different art mentors. This exposed her to more art styles and helped develop some of her art techniques. 

COLLEGE YEARS

She was admitted to the Royal College of Art based in London. Being the daughter of a successful businessman from a well-connected family made it easier for her to secure a spot in such a competitive field and it was a well-known fact that her uncle is the chancellor of the college of arts.  Despite being doubted by some of her classmates, she managed to excel in her academics and even qualified for a scholarship. She also joined a sorority club and a young artist organization wherein she met her closest friends. She was known to be enigmatic and kept her contact to a minimum with some of her classmates due to distrust. She was often seen to be working late in one of the school studios during the weekdays and would often spend her time in various cities during the weekends. She would sometimes attend college parties with her sorority sisters but it wasn’t exactly her cup of tea. She preferred the company of older individuals as she admired their wisdom and wit.

She soon graduated with high accolades and applied for her Masters degree in the same university. As expected, she also graduated with honors and eventually, learned how to be more trusting of other people. She made the bold decision to move back to Florence near her grandparent’s vineyard and started her first real job as an art curator in Uffizi Gallery which is located in Firenze, Florence, Italy. 

TRAGEDY STRIKES

One faithful night, she was on her way home when a jealous Sicilian woman followed her. She had been mistaken as the mistress of a Sicilian mafioso for she also bore the same Greco-Romanian looks as the mistress. The wife of the mafioso decided to take the matters in her own hands and hit the back of the young Luxanna’s head with a wooden club. The first strike immediately knocked her down on the dirt road and she lost consciousness from the hardness of the strike. The woman clubbed her one more time before running away from the scene after being spotted by one of the bystanders. 

She was brought to the hospital by the bystander and she suffered from a traumatic blow through her head for which the significant damage through her brain induced a comatose state. 

HIDDEN DIVINITY

The goddess “Theia” is the titan goddess of the sight and heavenly light. Her true form currently resides as an immortal being in Etro but she would often have mortal conduits for whenever she seeks to visit the Earth. Unlike her fellow titans who are brooding and power-hungry, she is seen to be a merciful goddess and often take pity in the souls of young females. 

Despite her abilities to grant immortality, she does not interfere with the normal physiologic ages of her conduits and cause further upset in the balance of the universe. She also refuses to take over numerous hosts at the same time and would often just settle on a single host until the body of the host ceases to exist.

Her most recent conduit’s body, a fire bender named Summer Natsumi de Luca, died from a tragic car accident and the divine essence left her body once her newly deceased soul was taken by the angel of death. Realizing what just happened, the titan goddess was immediately drawn to the life essence which was pouring out from the dying, Luxanna Alstreim. She arrived at the hospital room and watched as she was slowly drifting from the dead and the living with a blank expression. ‘How young and pitiful!’ she said to herself. She approached her with a calm demeanor and held her hand to see every inch of her memories. She watched as the memories replayed and felt all the hurt and angst that she manifested during her life. She deemed her to be kind-hearted and a suitable candidate to encase her mortal side. 

The angel of death soon arrived to claim the young Luxanna but stopped in his tracks when he saw Theia holding her hand. A smile was spread across his seraphic yet gloomy face and he teasingly uttered, “My dear goddess, when will you ever stop giving chances to these mortals?”. She flashed an all-knowing smile and whispered, “She still has a lot potential, Azrael.” The angel of death shook his head and let out a deep sigh. He knew he wouldn’t be able to convince her to stop as he had been failing to do so for the past millennia. He said, “I believe master Hades would not be pleased once he finds out about this and I hope to not be punished for this!” She leaned her head closer to the face of the young Luxanna and she whispered, “Hush now, my child. You have my full-protection and besides, Hades would hesitate to bring me any harm. I have his full adoration.” She closed her eyes and planted a soft kiss on the pale lips of the young lady. The mortal essence of the goddess immediately filled her and she awoke with tears streaming down her face. She had been claimed by the goddess and surges of memories came back to her. She had been revived but it held a curse, she was doomed to remember some of the memories from the latest conduit. 

PRESENT TIMES

She currently lives in Florence, Italy and works as an art curator for the different museums all over the city. She still gets nightmares from the old conduit’s memories but she chose to never speak about them. During the merging of Theia’s soul, she also inherited some of the titan goddess’ memories and for that, she became aware of the existence of Theia’s family in mortal forms. She would later reunite with the Astrals and eventually, change her mortal name to ‘Alstreim’. 

Unlike the former conduits, she is aware of the goddess’ spirit flowing through her and uses this to her advantage by regularly asking for the goddess’ blessings. In return, Theia would be able to inhabit her body in order to visit her daughter’s mortal home whom she had been been cursed not to enter (For more backstory about Theia, please read on her biography). 

DISCLAIMER: 

- The backstory of Luxanna was heavily inspired by Mary Corleone’s in the Godfather III. 

- The goddess Theia’s personality was inspired by Granmamare from Ponyo. 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

[raendown]

@fineillsignup You requested this a million years ago and I cannot apologize enough that it took me so long to get to it!

Pairing: GaaraKarin Soulmate au: The one where once you meet you start to have dreams of your soulmate's memories

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

They met because of some sort of rehabilitation program her distant relative had come up with – or so she understood. Stupid Uzumaki Naruto insisted that almost all the criminals taken in to custody at the end of the Fourth Great War be given a chance at redemption. Karin rather thought she’d passed redemption a long time ago but she certainly wasn’t about to say no to the chance of escaping jail time. She’d had quite enough of being chained down and locked away.

Apparently part of the program mandated that those who participate be reintegrated in to the society they had the least connection to, in an effort to create a fresh start. Karin had little to no connection with Suna, having only been there a couple of times, and she was given little say in being shipped off to the middle of the desert at the height of summer. If she were in the habit of being honest with herself, Karin might have admitted that she was glad to be going somewhere she might be even a little bit free of her shadowed past. Too bad she wasn’t in that habit.

Some might consider it an honor to be greeted by the Kazekage himself upon arriving in the village. She knew exactly why he was here, however. Gaara of the Sand was here in official capacity to take custody of the ex-con coming to live in his domain. How nice of him.

What she didn’t expect was for him to announce that he was taking personal responsibility for her. His siblings didn’t seem too thrilled with the idea either.

“Is that wise?” the puppeteer asked hesitantly.

“Naruto offered me a second chance when I needed it,” the Kazekage said in his raspy voice. “I feel it’s only right that I give the same chance to anyone he feels is worthy.”

Karin wasn’t sure what shocked her more: that everyone else simply accepted the idea that easily or that someone had called her worthy. There were few people in this world who would call her worthy of anything – except worthy of a good swift kick perhaps, as Suigetsu might say. The offer was more than she had expected though, more than she knew anyone in her situation could hope for, so she said not a word against it and remained silent as she shook the Kazekage’s hand.

It took less than a day for the younger man – he was younger than her, how was that fair!? – to convince Karin to call him by his given name. She’d never been much of a fan of formality so that suited her just fine.

On the other hand, it took three full days for the first dream to come.

There wasn’t nearly the detail that all the mushy romance films promised. The world seemed dark and close, too close, like she was drowning at the bottom of a thick black sea. No light existed but for the sickly yellow glow that came from herself. Only she wasn’t herself, she was someone else. There was hatred in her, rage and anger and fear and so much loneliness she thought surely any moment she would split apart at the seams with it.

She woke panting and shaking, terrified of herself in a way she’d never been before. Something deep inside her knew that this was no ordinary dream, that it was a memory of the one her soul had been connected to since birth. The knowledge make her more sad than she knew she was capable of being. The sheer violence of the emotions she had felt from them was devastating and a great deal of it had been turned inwards. She could hardly believe that someone out there had ever felt like that.

It took several hours to shake off the cobwebs of her nightmare. She was silent as she was escorted to breakfast with Gaara and his suspicious siblings, not speaking a single word all throughout the meal. She followed the Kazekage to his office and sat upon a bench by the window, surrounded by the books she had asked for to amuse herself yet not reading any of them. She couldn’t seem to concentrate.

Gaara noticed, of course. Even after such a short time she had come to realize that Gaara had a habit of noticing the smallest details. She was the sort of young man who read the fine print of a document and picked up on all the petty little things that someone was trying to sneak by him. He was the type to really listen when a person was speaking, watching their expression and their body language and listening for the nuances in their voice. He didn’t always understand but he did always notice.

Upon seeing the strange mood that Karin was in that morning, Gaara declared himself tired of paperwork and announced his intention to check up on the reconstruction of the local hospital. She followed the one who held her proverbial leash without question, wandering after him under the watchful eye of everyone they passed. It seemed odd to her that the leader of their village was allowed to go about without any guards but it wasn’t something she was going to bring up. The absence of any other people permanently eyeing her with distrust worked out in her favor, after all.

The hospital was a strange mix of perfectly organized medical staff and messy disorganized construction. Gaara led them through a few sections, speaking with the heads of different projects and quietly answering questions from adoring citizens.

Karin crossed her arms and pretended to huff. She’d never seen someone so universally adored except perhaps Naruto. During her time serving under Orochimaru she had seen her fair share of fanatic followers. She’d seen people trapped by circumstance, serving against their will. And she’d seen people like herself, acknowledging power but following only because of a lack of anywhere else to go. It occurred to her to wonder if this is what the younger man had intended for her to see when he decided to rehabilitate her himself.

Probably not. He didn’t seem the manipulative sort.

What truly changed her day was when they entered the pediatric ward. Children of all different ages sat cozied in their beds, sick and wounded and yet happier than she had ever been at their age. They greeted the sight of their leader with smiles and exclamations of joy, some climbing out of their beds to come gather at his feet. It was disgustingly heartwarming and more effort went in to pretending she wasn’t affected than Karin really felt was warranted.

Incredibly, she was less upset when that effort failed than she thought she would be. Upon seeing the longing way she eyed the children around her, Gaara took her back the next day. And then the next. For a solid week he made it a part of their daily routine to stop by the pediatric ward of the hospital where Karin sat surrounded by children, interacting little but watching them enjoy the childhood that she had never been able to.

A day later she had another dream – a dream of childhood. It was not innocent.

She dreamed of blood and screaming, pain over her left temple. The air around her was obscured with a moving barrier but her vision was too hazy to see what it was made of. Just beyond the barrier she could see the form of an adult man slumped and dying. Something in her knew that this man was simultaneously the most important man in her world and her worst enemy. No one will ever love me, she heard herself thinking. So I must only love myself.

When she sat upright in her bed there were tears upon her face and a heavy weight in her chest that threatened to pull her under the water when she stumbled to the bathroom and slipped in to a hot bath. She’d never given much thought to her soulmate or the life that they had lived while she’d been suffering. It never occurred to her that, somewhere out there, they might have been suffering too. It occurred to her now as she soaked in the water, avoiding the beginning of her day, lifting one arm in to the air above her to gaze upon the teeth marks which littered her skin.

To shy away from what she was had never been her style. She had been nothing more than a tool for most of her life – pretty much all her life – and it showed in the marks that covered her from neck to toe. Karin had decided at a young age to own those marks, refusing to shy away from wearing revealing clothing. She presented herself with the confidence of someone with flawless skin. Hadn’t she just as much right to be beautiful as the next girl?

Her arm slipped back under the water with a soft ripple. What would her soulmate think of them? Would they see them as flaws? Honorable battle wounds? Just another scar earned in the senseless war between villages?

And why had she only begun to dream now? They said that most people only began to dream when they met their soulmate for the first time. She’d been exposed to so many new people since coming to Suna. It might be nearly impossible to pinpoint who she was bonded with unless her dreams gave her more details. Karin stood from her bath with a heavy sigh, eyes avoiding the mirror as she wrapped herself in a towel and gave in to the morning.

Gaara appeared to pick up on her mood easily, somehow managing to get through his office work in record time and have them on their way to the shopping district before noon had arrived. His words were perfectly calm as he said something about finding a suitable birthday present for his sister and yet Karin felt as though his motives lay in a different direction. Every time she was in the slightest funk this man always seemed to pick up on it and do something to help her out of it. It was the strangest thing. It was also strangely touching.

Karin couldn’t remember the last time she had gone shopping even just for necessities, let alone just a leisurely trip to the market on the off chance they might come up with some good gift ideas. She felt oddly light as she flitted from stall to stall, enthralled with the unique merchandise sold here in the desert. If she’d known Suna sold silks like these she would never have dressed herself in such inferior fabrics!

When Gaara stopped her to suggest they head back for something to eat, Karin realized three things. The first was that it had been hours already. She and the Kazekage of the Sand had spent hours doing nothing but freely walking through the marketplace, peering in to this stall or that, picking up an item here or there, and watching the entertainment found on random corners, tossing coins to each one they passed. In the end they hadn’t even gotten a present for his chief advisor and eldest sibling.

The second thing she realized was that for a very short while she had been happy, utterly carefree. Not once during those hours had she thought of her past or the strange memories being passed to her in her sleep. All she had focused on was the new discoveries waiting around every corner, brashly calling out each new find to her calm and passive escort. Gaara was like the steady center to the whirlwind she kicked up through the marketplace.

The third thing which Karin realized, the thing which furrowed her brow in serious contemplation, was that he really didn’t have to do any of this. She wondered why someone like him would take so much time out of their day simply to cater to the volatile moods of someone like her. She was a criminal and him the leader of a village. Shouldn’t he look down on her? Gaara never seemed to look down on anyone, to her confusion.

It took four days for the next dream to come to her. During that time she was allowed to visit the hospital each day, finding her own small corner of hope in watching over these tiny lives. Her knees nearly buckled with shock when Gaara enquired as to whether she might consider working with them as part of her rehabilitation. She could hardly believe that she would be trusted with the village’s children, their most precious commodity. Despite her shock, though, she was quick to jump on the idea. She could do good. She could do something that was hers.

When the dream did come it was nothing like the ones before. She dreamed of a rising sun in the shape of a boy. The boy was so bright she could hardly stand to look and yet felt compelled to anyway, as though her only chance for a future lay in his hands. It was like finding salvation in human form and knowing that it had come for her bearing a forgiveness she had forgotten that she even needed.

Upon waking the next morning she was crying not for her soulmate but for herself, full of too many conflicting emotions. She wanted to rage against the world – and for a short while she did. Karin shrieked out her frustration, fluttering her legs under the sheets and throwing her pillows against the wall. When finally she calmed it was only to gather one of her pillows back to her chest and weep in to the soft cotton covering. She was glad that her soulmate had found a path back to the light but where was her salvation? Why did it always seem like she was the one left behind in the darkness?

As he always did, Gaara read her mood easily. She wasn’t that surprised at this point when he took them away from his office after only a short while. What did surprise her was when he led her to a private training field, an enclosed area of sand and packed dirt, a few scrubby trees along one wall and target posts set up along another.

“If you would like to express yourself I will not take it as an act of aggression,” he told her. Karin stared, for a few moments stunned in to immobility.

Then she turned away from him as she flew to pieces.

Golden chains burst from her back as she bent forward and screamed as loud as she could, whipping the air in a physical manifestation of her tempestuous emotions. Why her? Why could she never catch a god damned break? And why did she have to be happy for some person she couldn’t remember meeting? It wasn’t fair! She wanted to be happy too! She wanted forgiveness too! Had she not gone through enough by now?

When shrieking no longer felt satisfying, Karin allowed her chakra chains to lash out around her at random, tearing at the earth and reaching for the clouds as though to pull them down on her own head. Her feet stomped and her fists waved and, strangely, it made her feel better. It took perhaps a bit longer than it should have for her to return to a rational state but it felt so good to just let it all out. She wondered how Gaara had known that this is what she had needed. Did he know why? She even found a small part of herself wondering what he thought of her display.

A quick peek showed that he was an unmoved as always, standing stolidly in the corner with his eyes trained steadily on her. Karin panted from the exertion but made no move to do anything else, unable to break eye contact. Instead of feeling trapped by his unwavering gaze she felt grounded, like she were borrowing his steadiness. More than that, she felt for perhaps the first time since she was a child that she was not alone.

It was beyond anything she had ever experienced and she didn’t know how to handle it, how to react to something so positive and open. She had wanted salvation. Was this it?

Karin fell to her knees, letting her legs splay to either side and sinking farther down until her bottom touched the ground. The powerful golden chains in the air around her dissolved in to glittering dust as the tears came again. She covered her face with both hands as quiet footsteps approached, stopping right next to her shoulder. Gaara took the time to collect his thoughts before speaking.

“I like to come here when I need to…let off some steam.” It was hard to imagine someone as composed as him needing to let off some steam. “I find it a good place to remind myself that the earth does not care for our anger. See the way it already heals itself?”

Lifting her head, Karin blinked around, immediately seeing what he was talking about. The shifting sands of the desert had already filled in the places where her chains had dug deep, covering the evidence of her outburst with so little thought.

“Well someone should care when we’re angry!” she insisted, returning her eyes to his and pretending very hard that she wasn’t merely seeking the stability that he seemed to offer so freely. Gaara tilted his head in a bird-like manner, in that way of his that said he thought he had to answer to some human behavior but wasn’t quite sure.

“That is why we should care for each other, is it not?”

She found herself staring at him again. He always seemed to know just what she needed and, even more incredibly, he almost seemed eager to give it. Karin made a wan expression, tired by her emotions and wanting nothing more than to curl up in his quiet office for the rest of the day.

“Why do you bother with me?” she asked. “There’s other people that you could have passed this burden to. Why deal with me yourself?” That no one else would have wanted her went unsaid. In response, he knelt down beside her, hesitantly reaching out one hand.

“I do not sleep often; a habit left over from my time as the One-Tail jinchūriki. I have slept only three times since you arrived in my village and only once did I dream. I…dreamed of being eaten. So many faceless jaws tearing at my skin and drinking of my chakra. I begged them to stop and still they took.” Karin couldn’t have moved if she wanted to, staying as still as a statue under the hand which brushed against the marks on her skin. “Uzumaki Naruto gave me a second chance to become a better person. I wanted to give you the same because I think everyone deserves that chance. That you turned out to be my soulmate is merely extra incentive. I bother because I wish for you to be happy.”

Just like that her tears changed. They became less of a mourning and more of an expression of relief. Karin felt as though the weight of the world had been pushing her down for so long without her noticing and now suddenly it had lifted.

Gaara of the Sand, Fifth Kazekage of Sunagakure, was her soulmate. He had seen the same darkness that she had and he had climbed back out of it, had earned every bloody step of his own redemption. And he had offered the same to her, not out of obligation from one soulmate to another, but simply out of the goodness of his heart. He was firm where she was wilted. He was calm where she was violent. He was the center to her storm. He was her future.

When Gaara stood and held out his hand Karin did not hesitate to take it.

He was her new dream.

#redheaded shenanigans just for yunyu #soulmate collection #rae writes #gaakarin #gaara #karin #fanfiction #naruto shippuden

[bookramblings]

Something in The Water

Author: Catherine Steadman

Published by: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 340

Format: Paperback

My Rating ★★★1/2

On our dream honeymoon to the tropical island of Bora Bora, newly married couple Mark and Erin go scuba diving. Everything is perfect. Until they find something in the water.

Erin and Mark decide to keep their discovery a secret. No one else need know; they trust each other implicitly.

But someone else does know. And in situations like these, it is far better to trust no one, not even those closest to you…

My thoughts

Erin is a documentary filmmaker and is engaged to handsome, successful, financial advisor Mark. The two have a nearly perfect relationship—each balances the other out, and is able to cheer the other up when down.

Erin is creating a documentary about prisoners reintegrating into society after their release. She has a strong interest in the world of crime, and this grows as she continues work on her film project about three people who are being released from prison. The documentary examines closely the lives of these three individuals and starts out as a project but ends up taking a sinister turn.

Putting a pause on the filming, Erin takes a break and she and Mark leave rainy England for a dream honeymoon in Bora Bora.During their honeymoon, Mark and Erin spend their days hiking, eating exotic meals, basking in the sun, and enjoying each other’s company. It certainly seems like the perfect honeymoon.  Erin even faces her fear of water to go scuba diving in the ocean with Mark. But after a big storm makes the waters cloudy, they are forced to change their dive location to a different island about an hour off the shore of Bora Bora.  This is when they make the discovery, stumbling across a mysterious black bag in the ocean. Let's just say, the items in the bag are highly suspicious.

I must admit I found myself in a bit of a lengthy reading slump through much of the first part of the book. The story just seemed to take so long to get going, and I found the slow build of getting to know the characters just a bit too mundane at times. I didn’t find the main characters particularly likeable, and instead of Mark and Erin, the most memorable for me were the three prisoners at the heart of Erin’s documentary.

It wasn’t really until around Chapter fourteen that I found myself far more interested in the plot. My only real issue with Something in the Waterwas how long it took to actually get going. At several points I found my interest dwindle and it felt pretty difficult to keep reading.  My god was this book slow up until about halfway through for me. I felt like nothing was happening and I was struggling to complete chapter after chapter. Finally it picked up around half way through when the pair found the mysterious bag in the ocean. The story takes an interesting turn here and I was finally keen to see how things would unfold. The writing picks up in pace at this point and I began to engage with the plot, finding the story suddenly far more intriguing.

All in all, the plot was highly improbable, and it disappointed me in how unrealistic certain aspects of the plot became. I felt that some of the events that transpired from Mark and Erin's decisions were just too far fetched. I think it would be almost impossible to get away with some of the things that Mark and Erin got away with in the book, and this took away from the suspense and realism of the story. However, the story itself was entertaining for the most part.

Overall I have to say I was left a little underwhelmed with this one. Despite enjoying some parts of the second half, it was a fairly good read but took too long to find it’s feet. I felt that this had a really tantalizing premise for a story, and it simply didn’t live up to its potential unfortunately.  Something in the Waterwas basically just an average thriller for me with a decent ending. I’d hoped for so much more.

Overall reaction:

#somethinginthewater #bookramblingsbyolivia #bookreviews #bookstagram

[duelistkingdom]

you’d come back to me

chapter eight: suggestion

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Summary: Seto Kaiba has been presumed dead for four years after the events of Dark Side of Dimensions. His return causes both unresolved feelings of grief to be brought to the surface and the past to be dragged right back up. In hopes of helping Seto move on and reintegrate back into society at large, Mokuba asks Yugi to work on Spherium II with Seto. Never one to leave a friend hanging, Yugi agrees. Over the course of the project, Seto and Yugi both come to terms with their mutual grief and grow towards a better understanding of each other.

Rating: T

Ships: Yugi Mutou/Seto Kaiba, Mokuba Kaiba/Rebecca Hopkins, Katusya Jonouchi/Mai Kujaku

Warnings: aged up characters, grief, references to suicide

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On the first day of development, Seto immediately began to question all of Yugi’s choices in design. “This could be far more effective if we do this instead,” Seto said as he spread out a new code that would take far longer than the allotted time to implement. “I don’t know why you’re doing it that way.”

“We only have a year to get a working prototype to show investors, Kaiba,” Yugi said for what felt like the fiftieth time that day. He was certain that it was, at most, the fifth time. “I’ve already told you it would be unfair on the team to do it that way so we’re doing it the easier way.”

“If you want it to be effective, you should do things right the first time,” Seto snapped and Yugi glared up at him. Once again, Yugi was annoyed that he stopped an inch short of six feet tall. It was hard to be intimidating when Seto was still ever so slightly taller than him and had to wear some sort of heeled boot on top of it. “We should do things this way.”

“Kaiba, believe it or not, the team is not made of robots and we have new rules in place where we’re not allowed to stay in the building past 11 pm,” Yugi said, back straightening out to his fullest height. His eye line still barely met Seto’s nose. “It would be impossible to do things the way you outlined, so we’re keeping things the way I designed.”

“I used to stay at work all night,” Seto countered, not seeming to realize what a very bad argument that was. In fact, Yugi couldn’t help but smirk in response because as far as he was concerned, Seto made his point for him. This seemed to bother Seto, however. “Stop smirking at me. I stayed at work all night and it was fine!”

“Kaiba, you do realize that might just be the worst argument anyone’s ever made right,” Yugi asked as he raised a brow at Seto, enjoying the flush that appeared right across Seto’s cheeks. He couldn’t believe he was ever intimidated by Seto. Seto was basically putty in his hands. “If you did something, that’s proof enough that it does not work. We’re keeping it the way it is. Thank you for your input, now get back to work.”

To his great surprise, Seto shuffled off without another word. Perhaps working with Seto would be a lot easier than expected.

 “Mokie,” Rebecca called as she burst right into Mokuba’s office, her badge pinned to the pocket of her pink and blue jacket. Mokuba looked up from his work, a surprised look on his face. While Rebecca did, indeed, frequently visit, she normally at least called ahead. Though he couldn’t say he was complaining as he noted she’d paired the jacket with a pink skirt that showcased her legs. “Whatcha planning for my birthday?”

Mokuba wished he could say he was surprised that Rebecca would think that this was an appropriate reason to visit him at work but he really wasn’t. At least it wasn’t as bad as when she dropped by to ask him about fabrics for the apartment’s couch. She’d been convinced it was dire and refused to admit it could have waited until he got home. “I thought you said you wanted the details of your birthday to be a surprise,” Mokuba remarked as he took a look at the calendar. There were only three days left until Rebecca’s birthday on December 28th. “You also said Christmas gifts do not count towards your birthday gifts.”

“Hanukkah gifts do not count to the overall total either,” Rebecca said seriously, eyeing Mokuba suspiciously. “You should make sure everyone knows that. It might start on the 25th but that doesn’t mean they can cheap out on my gifts.”

“Of course, Rebecca,” Mokuba said, almost amused. He had to admire Rebecca's tenacity. It was part of her charm, after all. He made a mental note to remind Yugi about Rebecca’s gift demands as his hands rested on her hips. “I wouldn't dream of letting you get cheaped out on your gifts, my love.”

Rebecca was instantly mollified by the pet name, a soft smile appearing on her face as she leaned in to press a quick kiss to Mokuba’s cheek. “Good,” she said softly, hopping off the desk and winking at him. “I’ll see you at home, darling!”

Mokuba grinned as he looked over her backside as she walked out the office. As much as he was certain that was another thing that could’ve waited until he got home, he did feel a little more relaxed about going back into working on this project. In fact, he actually didn’t want to get back to work at all.

 Yugi checked his watch, keeping a close eye on the time. Jonouchi’s Duel was at six pm and he needed to be at the stadium an hour before the Duel. The tournament that Jonouchi was dueling in had been excited to have snagged Jonouchi for their roster. He took his dueling rather seriously, always working to improve his deck. Yugi had passively mentioned how Jonouchi’s deck had improved to user saggithedarkclown that he’d started to regularly chat with online, who expressed a little bit of doubt that Jonouchi might be able to secure victory. Yugi had a small bet with the user riding on Jonouchi’s victory now.

As expected, the stadium was already a madhouse when Yugi got there. Everyone was chattering with excitement as Yugi was directed to enter through the back. He wound up driving under the stadium and directed to the valet. A security guard met with Yugi, handing him a badge that secured access backstage and made a joke about how it was a formality. Yugi grinned, joking back about how rules are rules. It would be impossible for him to ignore that people knew who he was at this point. “Where’s Jonouchi?”

“He’s getting ready,” the guard said as he led Yugi towards his dressing room. Yugi noted that the halls of the stadium were cold and impersonal until they turned down the hall that led to his usual room. Posters from past exhibition matches and promotions for other events decorated the walls. The few things that weren’t Duel Monsters related stuck out the most. “You’ll see him when the Duel starts. Sorry about that, Mr. Mutou.”

As much as he’d like to wish Jonouchi luck before the Duel, he wasn’t about to break the rules for it. Jonouchi would know that Yugi was rooting for him, after all. He thanked the guard as he ducked into his dressing room. Yugi changed into his professional Dueling attire, noting it over in the mirror. He was still embarrassed by how much it still looked like his old school uniform. He’d been wanting to replace it for the longest time but his manager had insisted this was what people wanted to see. Yugi had a hard time believing that. The backstage of a stadium was the same lineal space it always was. If it were not for the clock on the wall or the watch on his wrist, Yugi could’ve easily lost track of time. “Mr. Mutou,” came the voice of one of the security guards from outside his dressing room. “You’re on.”

His boots clicked on the concrete floor of the hallway with the sounds of the crowd getting louder as he approached the pitch. Before he went out, a stage hand pinned a microphone to his tank top and pressed the battery pack into his back pocket within seconds. She gave him a thumbs up before ducking out of sight as quickly as possible and he stepped onto the platform, staring upwards at the opening that would lift him up into the center of the pitch.

No matter how many times he did this, it always felt strange. The roar from the audience was deafening and the lights in his face prevented him from getting a good look at the audience. Still, he grinned, spreading his arms out as if he wasn’t uncomfortable. “Welcome to the Duel we’ve all been waiting for,” Yugi announced, stepping off the platform onto the field and spinning around as if he could see beyond the first row of the audience. He grinned when he saw Mokuba, Honda, Bakura, Mai, and Otogi in the front row. “Katsuya Jonouchi is going to face off against Ryota Kajiki! A rematch, as it were, for those of you who remember Jonouchi’s time in Battle City!”

The crowd went into a frenzy as Ryota entered the pitch and waved up towards the crowd. Yugi grinned at Ryota. Yugi was glad that the first Duel that Jonouchi had in this tournament was against this Duelist. Ryota was as honorable as ever and always proved to be a real challenge. “I Duel with the raw power of the ocean behind me,” Ryota called, holding up his Duel Disk in a theatrical manner. “Not many have managed to withstand the powerful monsters that hide in the sea!”

“Ryota’s a three time champion, with his most recent victory being in Nagasaki, where he took the top prize. He’s known for his signature Umi based strategies,” Yugi announced. “He seeks to challenge Jonouchi for the Domino City title today! And now, here he comes - Katsuya Jonouchi!”

If the crowd had been frenzied for Ryota, they were absolutely feral when Jonouchi entered the pitch and tossed his bangs out of his eyes with a glean in his eyes. “Been a while, Kajiki,” Jonouchi called out with a grin on his face and activated his Duel Disk. “I’ll warn ya now: I’m not gonna cower away from a challenge! Let’s have a fun Duel!”

“Most of you remember Katsuya’s rise from underdog to third place at Battle City to four time champion,” Yugi called out as he gestured over to his friend with a grin across his features. The crowd roared, and Yugi laughed. “Katsuya, like Ryota, is seeking to proceed forward in the Domino City regional championships in hopes of going to nationals! With his fierce Red Eyes Black Dragon and warriors by his side, he’ll be a tough one to beat!”

“Remember, fair play, fair Duel,” Yugi said as he pulled out the coin, tossing it up in the air. “Heads, Katsuya goes first, tails, Ryota goes first.” He caught it in the air as the drone flew around him, catching the fact that the coin toss came up tails. “Ryota will start! Each player will start with 8000 life points with no draw on the first turn. If a player fails to make a move within five minutes on their turn, they will automatically lose. Duel, start!”

Yugi took a step back, watching the Duel with a sense of pride taking over. Jonouchi really had managed to come a long way since his first Duel. In fact, Jonouchi had managed to get his trusty Red Eyes on the field by turn two. By turn four, Red Eyes Slash Dragon was on the field and equipped with Axe of Despair and Gearfried. “And that’s not all, Kajiki,” Jonouchi said, sounding proud of himself. “I’m tributing from my hand another Red Eyes Black Dragon to bring out Red-Eyes Alternative Black Dragon! And I’ll be setting three cards before heading into my battle phase!”

From there, Yugi saw how that one turn had decided the entire Duel. Ryota never recovered from Jonouchi destroying Umi on the fifth turn with Heavy Storm nor the fact that he’d used that move to set Red-Eyes Fang with Chain. Ryota’s life points hit zero by turn ten - a hard earned victory on Jonouchi’s part. “Katsuya Jonouchi is the winner,” Yugi declared, stepping forward to congratulate Jonouchi on his win.

 “You know you didn’t have to fly in for Rebecca’s birthday,” Yugi said as he picked up Anzu at the airport. The unspoken statement was that despite the fact he said she didn’t have to, Rebecca would have been disappointed to not have Anzu at her party. And well, Yugi would have missed having Anzu around too. “Aren’t you busy with rehearsals?”

“I wanted to come,” Anzu said as she tossed her bag in the backseat of Yugi’s car and climbed into the front seat with a bright smile. There might have been a time when that smile might have done strange things to Yugi’s heart. However, now, it was just the smile of a friend who had been there by his side since he was a child. “Thanks for letting me crash on your couch, by the way.”

“Hey, no problem. You know my couch is open for you whenever you want to come home,” Yugi said. “I miss you when you aren’t here.”

“Is Kaiba really driving you that crazy?”

“He’s the worst project partner to ever exist,” Yugi said, more out of impulse than anything else. Last night, Seto had wanted to stay late and Yugi had to put his foot down. While Yugi didn’t mention he had to be up early to pick Anzu up, he did remind Seto that most of the team would like to get home to their families. Seto, naturally, had insisted that working late was good for a person. “He doesn’t seem to get that he’s not the only one working on this project. I asked Mokuba about it and apparently it was the same when he was making the Duel Disk system.”

“Kaiba’s always been intense,” Anzu said thoughtfully. “I suppose you shouldn’t be too surprised that he’s intense with work.”

“I suppose,” Yugi said with a sigh, shaking his head slightly. He couldn’t help but think about all the times Kaiba had blown off the team building nights. At every turn, Kaiba wanted to undermine Yugi’s leadership. Now that was the part that pissed Yugi off the most. “Just wish he’d get that this is supposed to be a team effort. He seemed shocked that it wasn’t just him and I working on the project.”

Anzu pursed her lips, tilting her head slightly. “Did Mokuba mention if Kaiba’s ever worked with a team before? This might be the first time he’s actually worked with a team.”

Yugi gave her a lopsided grin. There was a good chance she was right. He’d never really known Kaiba to be much of a team player. Not only that, it was obvious that Kaiba was smart enough to create the projects he had on his own. “Are you suggesting that I simply aggressively apply friendship to my problems with Kaiba?”

“It’s worked before,” Anzu teased with a light shrug. “Besides… you and I both know teamwork is best with people you’re friends with. Oh! Maybe you should try inviting him to hang out after work one on one! That would help establish a rapport.”

“It might help since he’s blown off every single group night,” Yugi admitted. Plus he could see if Kaiba had changed at all in the past four years. Sure, Kaiba hadn’t physically aged but maybe something was different. Maybe Kaiba was not the Kaiba from his memories. “I think that also it’d help Kaiba to relax around me. He’s always so tense.”

“In that case, it might be good for the two of you to hang out without work involved,” Anzu said brightly. “Might help him relax and help him realize that the team nights don’t have to be so scary. You’ve always been good at helping stressed out people relax.”

Yugi laughed, shaking his head. “Anzu, I think that it would take a miracle to make Kaiba relax.”

Just then, his phone pinged and Yugi glanced towards his phone. Normally he’d pull over to see if it was another message from saggithedarkclown but with Anzu in the car… “Did you want me to check who messaged you,” Anzu asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Yugi admitted with a light blush across his cheeks. “I’d actually like that.”

Anzu picked up his phone, checking it before giggling. “It’s from someone called Saggi The Dark Clown,” she remarked, raising a brow at him. “Interesting username. I thought Jou had that sniped.”

“Jou claims he sold it and I’m inclined to believe him cause this guy types a little formally compared to Jou,” Yugi said with a shrug. “So whoever Saggi is -”

“You call him Saggi,” Anzu asked, interrupting with a laugh before waving her hand with a teasing smile. “Sorry, I’m being rude. Tell me more.”

“Thanks for being mature about this,” Yugi said, the blush on his face darkening. He wished he wasn’t prone to blushing. Anzu was sure to pick up on that. “Anyway. Saggi was posting about being out of the game for four years and wanted to get back into the swing of things and wanted to know more about the meta. I’ve just… been helping him. That’s all.”

“Oh is that all,” she teased, a twinkle in her eyes. “Why Yugi! Have you finally started to crush on someone new? This is fantastic news!”

“Oh no,” Yugi groaned. “Don’t tell the rest of the gang.”

“Jou would be so happy to hear that you’re starting to move,” Anzu protested. “And you know that Ryou and Honda would also be happy for you too. You’ve been stuck in this state for so long, Yugi. They’d want to hear you’re doing better.”

Yugi sighed. “Let me tell them on my own,” he said softly, knowing Anzu was right. They’d absolutely be happy to hear that he was no longer stuck on Atem. It’d been a long time since Yugi had allowed himself to fall for anyone. He’d been terrified to fall and risk losing them again. It was terrifying still, actually. “It’s still just someone I’m talking to online about Duel Monsters, anyway. It’s not really a crush.”

Anzu laughed. “It would be like you to fall for someone over a game,” she teased. “I’m happy for you, though. I hope this works for you.”

 Seto didn’t understand why he had to wear a tuxedo specifically for Rebecca’s birthday party. In fact, he also wasn’t sure why Mokuba insisted that Seto buy a grand total of ten gifts for Rebecca. He was fairly certain Rebecca was Jewish. He didn’t understand why he had to buy her a Christmas gift to begin with, nor did he understand why his Hannakuh gift couldn’t count towards her birthday gift. He messed with the Kaiba Corp branded cufflinks on his suit jacket, wondering why anyone would want so much attention on them during their birthday. He also didn’t know what was wrong with having the birthday in the apartment. No, Mokuba had rented out a ballroom for Rebecca’s birthday.

In fact, everything about this seemed over the top. He was certain that more than Mokuba and Rebecca’s usual friend group was going to show up considering the amount of food at the banquet table and the ostentatiously large cake. A DJ had been hired and he was setting up his equipment while Mokuba seemed to be dealing with the staff. From what Seto could tell, it seemed like the staff and Mokuba had a rapport going on. Mokuba laughed at something one of the employees said and Seto was stunned to realize that it seemed like Mokuba was a natural leader. A pang in his chest as he realized that yet again, he never got to see Mokuba develop this skill in his absence. Mokuba had pulled his long hair back into a ponytail and the long hair was the only thing Seto recognized in his brother. His brother had taken to wearing suits of varying colors. Today, it was a baby blue suit with a pink tie and a pale lavender vest.

Seto hadn’t seen Rebecca yet. In fact, he was certain the only reason Mokuba insisted that Seto help set up the party was to talk to him about how things were going with Yugi on Spherium II. He wouldn’t be sure how to answer that question. In many ways, it was going poorly. Yugi insisted on ending the work day early, losing valuable hours because Yugi wanted to go home early. It seemed like Yugi didn’t really care about getting this project done as quickly as possible. He hadn’t even begun to form what he would tell Mokuba when Mokuba had strode over to where he was standing. “You know I didn’t expect you to stand around and do nothing,” Mokuba remarked casually. “I hope you aren’t doing this to Yugi at work.”

“I’m not,” Seto said defensively. “I just don’t get the point of having a birthday party at all. People get older every year. No point in celebrating it.”

“Some people like their birthdays,” Mokuba said with a shrug. “Rebecca happens to like celebrating her birthday. And well, might as well indulge her since it doesn’t harm anything. Plus twenty-one’s a big deal for Americans.”

“I suppose,” Seto said, remembering Rebecca’s threat to break his legs if he ruined her birthday the way he ruined his own birthday. He didn’t think he’d ruined anything but he’d prefer not to test Rebecca. “You seem to really care about her.”

“Yeah,” Mokuba said softly. “She’s smart and driven and keeps me down to Earth. I wish you two would get along.”

Seto noted the look on Mokuba’s face in an attempt to better understand the meaning behind those words. It seemed it really did bother Mokuba that he and Rebecca did not get along. How peculiar. He wouldn’t think Rebecca and his relationship wouldn’t have an impact on Rebecca and Mokuba’s relationship or his and Mokuba’s relationship but it seemed it did. “Alright,” Seto said, just as soft. He didn’t want Mokuba to be upset. He’d already done enough damage in that regard. Seto was certain he’d have to spend the rest of his life making up for his past mistakes to Mokuba at this rate. “I’ll try to be nice today. Shame that can’t count as my gift to her.”

“Rebecca’s touchy with gifts,” Mokuba said, seriously. “She’s used to her gifts being lumped together and her birthday being treated as another holiday stressor. I don’t want her to think she’s just a stress point.” He paused before grinning as if he’d come up with a brilliant idea. “Maybe you two should hang out more. Get to know each other. I really think you’d like her if you just got to know her.”

Seto gave a soft “tch” before relanting. “Fine,” Seto said as he thought about all the times he’d been alone with Rebecca. Every time, it felt like he was with a caged lioness who was on the hunt for her young. “I’ll try to find more time to spend with her.”

Seto was surprised when the doors opened and who should walk in but Ryou wearing an odd tweed suit. “Hi, Mokuba,” Ryou said, holding up a large gift. “I hope Rebecca likes this. I saw it and thought that she might also think of her grandfather when looking at this.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll love it,” Mokuba said with a laugh. “Especially if it came from your shop. I swear, your shop shows up on the bank statement at least three times a month.”

“The tricky part is finding something she hasn’t bought already,” Ryou said with a rather soft smile as he went to place it with the rest of the gifts. Seto had noted that the table already had at least ten gifts on it. “Can’t complain too much. Keeps business steady.”

Seto didn’t know that Rebecca liked occult stuff. He shouldn’t have been surprised considering how many of Mokuba’s friends were enraptured by the occult. For whatever reason, they just seemed to attract occult nonsense. A thought scratched at his head, reminding him that he had forced his way to the afterlife to see a dead man. He supposed he didn’t have much of a leg to stand on in that regard anymore. He’d accepted that magic, for whatever reason, was real. Who was he to stand here and pretend otherwise? It still made his skin crawl knowing there were things that he could not properly explain despite coming to this conclusion.

This line of thought plagued him as other guests began to pour in. As expected, he didn’t recognize all of them. He had to suspect some of them were either duelists or students from Rebecca’s school. In fact, some of them seemed on the older side compared to Rebecca - easily in their late twenties or early thirties. Then again… Rebecca was a PhD candidate. He had to imagine that chances to talk to people her age in that kind of program were few and far between. That was something they could connect on, Seto considered.

Much like Rebecca, Seto never really had many chances to connect to people his age. He was, after all, the CEO of a major corporation by the age of fifteen. All the people he’d interacted with at that time were twenty plus years older than him. Perhaps that was why he’d reacted the way he had to Yugi and his friends. He didn’t know how to interact with people his age. He froze as he remembered that Yugi and his friends weren’t exactly his age anymore. He was completely disconnected from them now.

He was so caught in his thoughts that he never expected the wind to be knocked out of him like this when Yugi finally arrived with none other than Anzu on his arm. He didn’t know why he was so surprised. Hadn’t he already pinged them as dating? He couldn’t help but note they were matching. Anzu had a chiffon dress in yellow on and Yugi himself was wearing a gold vest with a black tie underneath his suit. Yugi seemed to be laughing at something she said and his cheeks were slightly tinged pink. Why did this scene bother Seto?

It took him a few moments to pinpoint the emotion. Was this jealousy? Was he jealous of Anzu? Did he want to be with Yugi? He took more note of Anzu than he ever had. He knew she’d been cast as Black Magician Girl in some musical on Broadway. He doubted it was actually Broadway but he hadn’t bothered to double check at the time. If he had to guess, he supposed she was traditionally beautiful. The kind of face he might see in a museum while other girls remarked upon how much they looked like that.

He was staring just a little too long. “Mokie said I have to try to make an effort to get to know you,” came a voice and it took Seto a minute to ping it as Rebecca. He’d been so focused on Anzu and Yugi that he’d forgotten the rest of the world existed. How embarrassing. “Hello? Earth to Seto?”

Seto turned towards Rebecca and instantly noted that Rebecca had ditched her glasses for the day. He suspected that Mokuba had a hand in the dress she wore as it looked just a tad out of budget for a university student. “Sorry,” Seto said, not really sorry at all. “I was just thinking. Er… Mokuba said I have to be nice to you today. Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Good,” Rebecca said and for once, she didn’t look close to murdering him. In fact… she seemed almost a little relaxed. He was guessing that the party must have something to do with that. “Thanks… so… uh. I actually…” She seemed a little bit lost. What could she possibly have to say that would leave her looking this confused? He’d never known Rebecca to mince her words. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I was harsh on you for the past few months. It’s just… when you disappeared… you weren’t there, but I was. Mokie was heartbroken and I know that you probably didn’t mean to cause that now. I was just scared that you’d hurt Mokie again and that wasn’t fair of me. So… start over?”

Seto was taken aback. Her hostility had been because she cared about Mokuba. He could respect that, actually. If everything she’d done towards him was out of concern for Mokuba, Seto had a newfound admiration for Rebecca. “If that was your reason, then I suppose I can’t fault you for it,” Seto admitted. It seemed both Yugi and Rebecca had similar reasons to be angry with him and it all came back to Mokuba. He didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself for hurting Mokuba. “And I would rather you keep holding me accountable for that. It’s better I don’t try to brush it aside.”

Rebecca eyed him critically. “I don’t want to keep harping on it,” she said slowly, tilting her head. Seto had noted long ago that Rebecca had to crane her neck upward when it came both to Mokuba and him. Today, she didn’t need to and could almost meet his eyes. He could only assume this meant she was wearing heels underneath her dress. “The past is the past. Nothing any of us can do can change it. All we can do is try to be our best every day. Right, Seto?”

There was something fierce in her voice. It seemed like this statement was very important. And Seto wanted to agree with her. It seemed full of promise if he could just let go of the past and stride to the future. “Of course,” Seto said softly. Was it not him who said that they could break free of the prison of reality? That the future was theirs to shape as they saw fit? It all required him to put the past squarely in the past, however. Could he do that? Let go of all his grief and rage? He wanted to. He’d never wanted anything more in his entire life. “In that case, Rebecca. Let’s just move forward. I’d like to get to know my brother’s girlfriend properly.”

It seemed he passed. Rebecca smiled brightly as she grabbed his hand. “You’ve got so much to learn,” she said as she pulled him towards the dance floor. “Let’s take it one step at a time, okay?”

#myfanfic #fic: you'd come back to me #rivalshipping fanfiction #dm rivalshipping #dm rivalshipping fanfiction

[auratusuniverse]

Beyond the Room (Working Title)

Peridot wanted to fix it. She couldn’t stand the guilt anymore.

A “Fix-it” AU of Clouds

Because everyone deserves a “happy” ending, right?

Inspired by Star Trek Voyager’s mobile emitter (Thanks for the idea, @coreywwilliams!) and @swordtheguy‘s Gem OC Spinel, Peridot is about to change what used to be a firm future. There will be consequences for her actions, however

(That title is probably going to change)

Connverse, Amedot

Chapter 1 Below the Read More

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Peridot knew she could make it right. She could make everything right.

If she figured out how to do this, everyone would forgive her. She could truly be a part of the team.

The opportunity had presented itself on Steven’s 18th birthday. A Roaming Eye had landed looking for Jasper. Peridot quickly told Amethyst of her plan to go to a base she had heard of but never been to, but she would need her help getting there. Amethyst would need to  impersonate the lost gem.

No one else was made aware of the plan, Peridot and Amethyst having left with the rubies before the rest of the gems could say anything. No one knew when they would return.

It had been less than a week when the ground started to rumble and a long-forgotten enemy resurfaced.

Malachite had returned and in an instant Garnet realized what was happening.

The future that had been once been so set in stone was now changing once again.

Malachite was back, on schedule since the time that Connie was killed, but now Peridot was not here to be shattered. If She could fuse with Pearl and Steven, they could survive this battle and almost all of the team would be in tact. It would almost be like the original future she had seen when Steven first met Connie on the beach would be coming true.

If Peridot was successful in whatever she had planned, the rest of the future would change forever.

And possibly not for the better.

~

“So, what are we grabbing again?” Amethyst asked as the ship landed inside of Pink Diamond’s base, the Rubies leaving to get ready for their next mission.

“I need to grab a device that will work alongside holographic cloud projections from Rose’s Room as well as someone who will allow for an easier transition when the projection attempts to reintegrate with society.”

“English, nerd,” Amethyst sighed.

“I’m going to grab something that will bring a projection from Rose’s Room to life,” Peridot stated. “What? Oh no. You aren’t trying to bring back Connie, are you? Steven is finally getting better! This will seriously mess up all of his progress!” Amethyst argued.

“Look. This is the only way I can make things right. I’ve gone through all of the calculations and all of the variables and this is the only way I can make Steven truly forgive me!” Peridot cried. “I can’t stand him resenting me!”

“He doesn’t resent you, dude! He knows it was an accident! He said he forgave you!”

“It doesn’t feel like it!” Peridot shrieked. “Every time he looks at me, I can see it in his eyes! He’ll never forgive me unless I make it right!”

“Peridot, you can’t un-ring a bell and you can’t un-kill Connie.”

Peridot sighed.

“I’m sorry, Amethyst.”

“What?”

Amethyst didn’t have time to react a Peridot punched her in the gut as hard as she could before reaching up and twisting the quartz’s neck. Amethyst retreated into her gem and Peridot stood up, holding Amethyst’s inert gem. She sighed and bubbled the quartz.p.

“I had to do it. I can’t let anyone stop me. It’s for the good of the team,” Peridot sighed. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

Peridot stepped out of the ship, catching the attention of the Ruby with a gem for an eye.

“Where’s Jasper?”

“She needed a moment,” Peridot started. “It was too painful for her to join us in her former Diamond’s base after all. I will be making the report for her instead.”

The Ruby simply nodded and Peridot continued towards the door. She would need to be quick.

She hoped that she would be able to take what she needed. She just needed to play her role.

~

The Druzy Quartz that stood on the beach had not existed in a long time. They felt different. Something had changed.

Of course. Steven was here now, not Rose.

They looked out at the ocean to see Malachite rising from the sea. It seemed almost impossible that it had taken so long for the angry fusion to finally reach Beach City. They still weren’t sure how Malachite had been held together for so long.

Perhaps Lapis and Jasper didn’t exist anymore.

The thought troubled the fusion, but they had to hold together and be strong.

They needed to protect Beach City.

As they grappled with the rage-filled fusion, they could feel deep sadness from the part of them that Steven occupied.

If things had been different, we wouldn’t have to do this …

“Hold together, “ Druzy Quartz whispered to themselves. “We need to be strong …”

When Malachite lashed out and twisted the arm that Druzy knew held one of Garnet’s gems, they felt a rage boil up from the Rose Quartz component.

No one hurt Steven’s family.

~

The mobile emitter was easy enough to obtain. No one had used it in centuries, but Peridot was certain that she would be able to make it work.

The Spinel would be much more difficult to obtain.

She dug through the base’s records, looking for any records of a Spinel that she could use. One that wouldn’t be missed.

It wasn’t until she came across the logs for the Human Zoo that it struck her.

The Spinels had been repurposed.

She knew now what needed to be done. She would need to convince one of the Era One Peridots to relinquish a set of the trackers that were now being used on the humans.

Surely they wouldn’t miss just one set.

As she made her way through the base, she rehearsed what she would need to say to the Peridots. She needed to make it convincing. She needed them to hand over the Spinels.

She needed them to look past her inadequacies.

She passed several Amethyst guards and it suddenly struck her that this was what had happened to the Amethysts that had been created on Earth. They were stuck here at a rarely used base. When she passed a tiny Carnelian and a thin Jasper, she felt a twinge of guilt.

Amethyst would have loved meeting them. Perhaps she would have finally felt the way that Peridot had always thought of her as. She would have felt like a proper, Earth Amethyst, even with her short stature.

She would have to make it up to her someday.

When she finally arrived in the human receiving office, she was horrified to find that the system was now completely automated.

No. Not completely.

A lone Peridot gem was embedded in the control panel.

As Peridot searched for the Spinels, she made a mental note to remember to come back and free her sister some day.

It wasn’t fair that an Era One Peridot would be treated this way.

She would need to make it right eventually.

When she finally arrived back at the Roaming Eye, she bid the Rubies farewell. She didn’t even remember the excuse she gave them for why they couldn’t say goodbye to Jasper. It didn’t matter anyway.

Rubies were generally not bright enough to realize they had been tricked.

She sat at the command console and cradled the Spinel earrings in her hands.

She needed to free them.

They had a job to do now..

#steven universe #su fanfic #connie maheswaran #peridot steven universe #connverse #amedot #angst #there will still be angst #just not as much #maybe #clouds au au #an au of an au #i told myself I was done with this storyline and now there are two ficlets and this!

[vardasvapors]

On Númenor and the Shire

Regarding analyses that are very keen-eyed about certain connections, but whose conclusions drive me nuts, I wanted to take note of some interpretations of this excellent spiel by Erendis to Ancalimë from the Unfinished Tales’s “Aldarion and Erendis,” in the first millennium of the Second Age, long before the Akallabeth:

“The long life that they [Numenorean men] were granted deceives them, and they dally in the world, children in mind, until age finds them - and then many only forsake play out of doors for play in their houses. They turn their play into great matters and great matters into play. They would be craftsmen and loremasters and heroes all at once; and women to them are but fires on the hearth - for others to tend, until they are tired of play in the eve­ning. All things were made for their service: hills are for quarries, river to furnish water or to turn wheels, trees for boards, women for their body’s need, or if fair to adorn their table and hearth; and children to be teased when nothing else is to do - but they would as soon play with their hounds’ whelps. To all they are gracious and kind, merry as larks in the morning (if the sun shines); for they are never wrathful if they can avoid it. Men should be gay, they hold, generous as the rich, giving away what they do not need. Anger they show only when they become aware, suddenly, that there are other wills in the world beside their own. Then they will be as ruthless as the seawind if anything dare to withstand them.”

Now my gripe is that when people do take notice of this, it just flops with a “haha, this is what Numenor was REALLY like INSTEAD of a good society like the other accounts claim, Erendis has LAID IT BARE because she knows the TRUTH unlike everyone else, this dismantles and erases everything, everyone was solely like this and never like anything else and Numenor was ACTUALLY rotten and this uniform narrow society is what Elros ignorantly built lmao”

Erendis noticing these things so early is a great bit of writing, but the smug and one-dimensional fannish hollowing I’ve seen of it is, as usual, eyerolling. That is not how populations work. Or societies in general, especially those with a nobility and a non-nobility. (Though haha it’s certainly far from the first time this fandom has treated an entire fictional race as a monolith in a way that would be breathtakingly racist in real life, or conflated a description of the nobility with the entire population, because lmao poor people don’t count as people and certainly don’t influence society, don’t be silly guys.) But also, it ignores the actually interesting aspect of this quote. Which is, the negative tendencies which Erendis identifies as those that emerge most visibly among this population, are marvelously apt and well-selected and organic, as they are all the inevitable and inescapable negative backhand, as I like to call it, of a prosperous, peaceful, isolated society like Early Numenor. One that has no need to struggle or fight for anything, and has no first-hand experience, only legends and lore, of the sort of collective trauma, suffering, and loss that can define a people, as it defined the Edain in earlier times.

The positives of such a society, on the other hand, are also the opportunity and ease and plenty and resources, and trust in the stability of their community, and the lack of danger or anxiety about their way of life even for the poorest, which allows the Numenoreans to collectively and culturally, not just individually, embody and prioritize a life of being kind and non-violent and accepting and generous and curious and patient and knowledgeable and educated and creative and full of zest and adventure and progress. The two sides are in no way contradictory or opposed to one another. They are both results of the exact same thing - the cocktail of human nature + environmental circumstances + culture and history. Numenor’s social elements draw a fantastically clear-cut picture - free of confounding variables and subject to the law of conservation of detail, as befits a fictional society - of what happens when human beings with the Numenoreans’ past are placed in the Numenoreans’ present circumstances. Compare other societies with different circumstances and history, where the main social ills are ones unknown to the Numenoreans, and yet are less prone to the privilege-based ills most common to Numenoreans, and which have strengths borne of hardship more difficult for the Numenoreans to retain.

I think a problem with a lot of interpretations of the term “double-edged” is the tendency to interpret it as “actually, bad instead of good like it seems” rather than, you know, double-edged. Where the good edge might be as sharp or sharper than the bad edge. Whether the general central thrust of the society is defined (at any given point in time) as positive or negative depends (in-universe) on how good their society’s mechanisms for self-correcting and limiting the negatives are; and (narratively), what lens or timeframe the society is being viewed from. Erendis’ spiel is powerfully perceptive and insightful foreshadowing, but still incomplete, only one person’s viewpoint, and by no means an objective one – though she nails it in that the privilege issue is the reason why Numenorean noblemen, emphasis on both noble and men, are the ones most susceptible to these pitfalls.

The Achilles Heel of the Numenoreans is the blindness of privilege, which shelters them from consequences and therefore renders their other negative traits (and the seriousness of the danger of these traits festering and growing unchecked) far less visible than they ought to be, which in turn makes them even more difficult to limit and self-correct.

In terms of the Tolkien universe specifically, this is a part of Arda Marred, where societies, being a part of the world, are plagued by bone-deep catch-22s that make the negatives inescapable, impossible to entirely or permanently eradicate, and eternally insidious and and encroaching, seeping like water into the tiniest cracks to corrode and crumble even the best and healthiest societies from the inside out, always in danger of overcoming the societies’ positive elements and structures and consuming them. All people can do is use their intelligence and wisdom and strength to tirelessly self-correct and guard against the pitfalls, repeatedly avoiding corruption and decline for another day, another year, another century, another millennium, to give another generation a good childhood, a good life, a good death, a good legacy. This requires a level of clear-eyed perspective and humility and self-awareness born of experience – but the turnover of mortal life, and the blindness of privilege, and both working in tandem, do a very good job of hampering it.

In a weird way, an occurrence that embodies the same phenomenon as Numenor’s indivisibly bundled positives and negatives is probably, well….the Shire. Yeah, okay sure, lmao I know, but really. The Shire is prosperous, peaceful, joyous, harmonious, stable, and in a perpetual state of renewal, regrowth, and sustainability, populated by a people who are reasonable and practical in their accomplishments and characterized by common sense, resilience, and adaptability. The negative backhand is a tendency to be complacent, narrow-minded, ignorant of and uninterested in the world outside or the fragility of their haven, obsessed with trivial properness, and dismissive of anything or anyone unusual. The society where there has not been a murder in living memory and whose law enforcement is almost unemployed, also falls into frivolous gossiping, finicky disapproval, and calling people crazy for not conforming. This is not dumping two random handfuls of good and bad traits in the same vat. The good and bad spring from the exact same source - the peace and shelter and comfort.

The big differences are, first, the obvious part with Numenor’s military might and political power and expansion, so these two societies’ roles in the world are on opposite ends of the spectrum. But the second difference, looking at Early Numenor, is that the peculiar hubris of the Shire is knocked stone cold dead by Lotho and Saruman, and the scouring and recovery is fastidiously calmed and controlled - by Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin, who have grown and seen a lot and can think and act outside the box - and the Shire is reintegrated and cast forward into the future as something that can grow and build on its people’s new experience and understanding of hardship and loss, and to deepen in wisdom, mature in spirit, and guard against the likes of Lotho et al with greater tenacity and resilience. A modest hint, one might say, at Arda Remade, albeit with a very mild and brief - comparatively speaking - process of creative destruction/eucatastrophe. But if not for the luck of having the four hobbits of the Fellowship - most especially Frodo, who forbids to the very last any insidious intrusion of any self-perpetuating corrupting elements like vengeance or cruelty or bitterness - the Shire would not have reintegrated or healed so well, and may well have declined into nastiness, suspicion, rigidity, and fearful hostility, killing off all its positives in its attempt to preserve itself and recover from its domination.

For Numenor, there is no similar stroke of luck to re-rail them and help them reintegrate from their damaged state into something even better and stronger before they - pardon the pun - get in too deep. The emergency of Sauron’s rise twists Numenor’s worst long-term tendencies into their most prized short-term assets. Any potential influence by other peoples (such as dwarves and men less privilege-cushioned than they, or by elves who have Frodo-esque helpful first-hand experience with this brand of stupidity) is first weakened and then later rebuffed. At the very edge, Tar-Palantir’s efforts as a single individual are not enough. Tar-Miriel’s rule is usurped. The momentum of their decline is artificially accelerated to the breaking point by Sauron. For Numenor, the negative backhand overtakes the positive elements of their society, becomes ingrained in their power structures, and consumes them.

#numenor #erendis #akallabeth #lord of the rings #the silmarillion #the shire #second age #long post #meta etc #queuenya

[livethinking]

Grégoire Ahongbonon: the eyes that free from chains

«I’m just a mechanic, I don’t know anything, everything I’m able to do is fix car pneumatics. I looked for Jesus Christ in the poor, in the oppressed and in the abandoned, so that was borne story academics and doctors are interested to: they always ask me to tell it». [1]

It’s an extraordinary story, that of Grégoire Ahngbonon, former mechanic, who, after misery, spiritual crisis, grief, he managed to survive, to embrace Christ’s teaching again and go closer to the Other with the whole himself. Grégoire Ahongbonon is a simple man, with a soft gaze (as one can see in pictures), but full of brave and active altruism; a man who won over his own prejudices and fears to welcome the different and save them from those who persists to search the humanity in other ones’ eyes. And Grégoire always managed to do it, even when the mind of who’s before him is haunted with ghosts of mental illness, when words are a verbal codes impossible to decipher, when just a caress is enough to shut up those demons; and this what Grégoire does, saving sick people, he heals them, he givers them dignity and frees them from the chains of prejudice and superstition, and from the real ones.

« But for me the most important thing is not necessarily healing every single person. It’s the dignity of each person. That’s our struggle».[2]

Grégoire Ahongbonon’s life was not easy. He lived difficult moment, tragedies, as he told Valerio Petrarca, an Italian anthropologist. Grégoire was born in 12th March 1952 in a small village near Koutongbé, in Benin, from where he moved to Ivory Coast in 1971, wherein he worked as mechanic, got success and became rich, but moving away from Christian religion, to which he was very close. In a few time, though, he lost everything, he got poor and tried to kill himself, an event that made him get closer to God and Church again. This getting close culminated with a peregrination in Jerusalem, the Holy City. Here, like the prodigal son, he came back to religion, made Christ’s teaching his categorical imperatives, exceeding the limits of fear provoked by not recognise the Other. His gaze became human and now he’s not scared of showing sympathy for who’s victim of the worst indigence, he’s not scared to dig down the abyss and being the light to who’s lost himself.

Thus, the journey stroke a chord in him and, back in Ivory Coast, he proposed to his wife to start a smal prayer group, then to help the poor and the imprisoned, and finally to mental ill people who, in Western Africa, are «the forgotten of the forgotten».[3]

Those harsh lands but full of life, between Benin, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, where voodoo religion has a great control on the society and believes the deviations of thought and behaviour should be treated literally with chains, and Christian religion with prayers.

«Looking for Jesus in the outcast, I started to see what I didn’t see before. And thus the story of the mentally ill begun. It was 1990 or 1991. The mentally ill in Africa are a shame for their own family, a shame for society, a shame for public power. They’re abandoned by everyone. You can see them eating garbage, sleeping outside, on the street. Everyone is scared of them. I too was scared of them. I too was scared of the mentally ill. One day, I see a mentally ill person, naked as usual, who was rummaging through the junk, searching for something to eat. But that day I looked at him in a different way. I stopped myself and spying him, I told myself: but that Jesus I look for in church, that Jesus I look for in prayer groups, that Jesus I look for in sacraments, is he the same Jesus who suffers inside this sick man? And if this is so, why should I be afraid of him? If he’s Jesus, why being scared?».[4]

What Grégoire Ahongbonon will do for the mentally ill is something extraordinary, especially in Western Africa. There it’s believed, according to voodoo belief, the mentally ill are possessed by spirits, so that they are up chained to trees, vexed as long as they confess their sins and free themselves. The same is believed by some Christians. Indeed, there are prayer centre where the mentally ill, still chained, are left outside to pray, until they heal from the disease. Grégoire helped a young man reduced to these conditions and he got disgusted: although they’re sick, are they not still human? Don’t they need dignity? Grégoire decided, with his wife’s support, to help them, first bringing them food and helping them washing, then transforming the hospital church to a rescue centre; finally, he founded the St Camille Association and opened clinics in Benin, Ivory Coast and in Burkina Faso. Every year, several psychiatrists comes from Europe to treat the mentally ill according to modern psychiatric theories, nurses take care of the patients and the association works to give dignity to these people, finding a job and a home for them. And many, many women and men, healed from their disorder, can bear witness of the success of the great work of Grégoire, a symbo, of humanity, true charity, sense of Otherness. And all this happened because of a glance. A sincere glance, a deep and human glance. ««There was a prayer centre here where there were more than 250 sick people. But today, there are no more sick people there, because when we started, the families saw the results, and they went unchained the sick people and brought them to us».[5]

People and the family of the sick people started noticing that Grégoire’s method works. The psychotic crisis are not provoked, as priests say, by spirits, but from disorder of behaviour and thought, real and concrete things. Through Christian mercy, Grégoire Ahongbonon imposed the epistemological sense of the world. The results are evident and many and many prayer centre closed, families don’t ask consults to priests or traditional healers, but to Grégoire and his association volunteers. The sick got really healed and not just that: they found a job, they’re taught a profession and, if they want, reintegrated into their villages or families.

Among the many stories of healing thanks to Grégoire’s association, there is that of Judikael, told by BBC. Judikael has suffered of strong psychotic crisis that often showed up with him getting himself naked and run around the city. His grandmother tried everything, consulting priests or traditional healers (but refusing to chain her grandson) but nothing has been enough. On day, she got to know about the St Camille Association and Grégoire. So that Judikael was hospitalised in one of the clinics of the association, where doctors diagnosed a form of schizophrenia. «[…] Judikael now comes once a month as an out-patient to get his injection. He has been treated at Saint Camille for almost a year, and takes one pill every day to silence the voices in his head.

He still struggles with some of the side-effects of his medication, which makes him sleepy and numb in the jaw and mouth, but he has started training as a tailor» [6] the work his beloved grandmother did.

(Pics from BBC news)

Giving the mental ill the dignity of human beings again: this is Grégoire Ahongbonon’s goal. And this happens only creating a healthy and comfortable environment, heal the sick under the respect of their humanity, teach them a profession and reintegrate them into society. Fighting as long as the forgotten of the forgotten get the right of being recognised, as long as the chains, the real and the metaphorical ones, got broken. «Because as long as there is one man in chains, it is the humanity that is chained. When I see a man tied to wood or in chains, I see my own image. And it’s the image of each and every one of us». [7] So, Grégoire Ahongbonon keeps working today, in a global pandemic, to save these women and these men (indeed, he won the Dr Guislan Award in December 2020), giving the whole humanity a great teaching.

Notes

[1] [PETRARCA, Valerio, I pazzi di Grégoire, Palermo, Sellerio editore, 2008, p. 146

[2] THE NEW YORK TIMES, “The chains of Mental Illness in West Africa”, in YouTube, 10.12.2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKd9MxBzAUc&t=301s retrieved 18th January 2021)

[3] MINISTRI DEGLI INFERMI RELIGIOSI CAMILLANI, “Grégoire Ahongbonon: quello che vivo è più forte di me”, in camillani.org, 02.5.2020, web (https://www.camilliani.org/gregoire-ahongbonon-quello-che-vivo-e-piu-forte-di-me/ retrieved 18th January 2021)

[4] PETRARCA, Valerio, I pazzi di Grégoire, p. 147

[5] THE NEW YORK TIMES, “The chains of Mental Illness in West Africa”, in YouTube, 10.12.2015

[6] ADJOVI, Laeila, “Ahngbonon: freeing people chained for being ill”, in BBC NEWS, 02.17.2016, web (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35586177 retrieved in 18th January 2021)

[7] in THE NEW YORK TIMES, “The chains of Mental Illness in West Africa”, in YouTube, 12.10.2015

Sources

ADJOVI, Laeila, “Ahngbonon: freeing people chained for being ill”, in BBC NEWS, 02.17.2016, web (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35586177 retrieved in 18th January 2021)

MINISTRI DEGLI INFERMI RELIGIOSI CAMILLANI, “Grégoire Ahongbonon: quello che vivo è più forte di me”, in camillani.org, 02.5.2020, web (https://www.camilliani.org/gregoire-ahongbonon-quello-che-vivo-e-piu-forte-di-me/ consultato il 18th January 2021)

PETRARCA, Valerio, I pazzi di Grégoire, 5ª ed., Palermo, Sellerio editore, 2008

THE NEW YORK TIMES, “The chains of Mental Illness in West Africa”, in YouTube, 10.12.2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKd9MxBzAUc&t=301s consultato il 18th January 2021)

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, “Humble beginnings: Grégoire Ahongbonon and the St Camille Association”, in who.int, 2005, web (https://www.who.int/features/2005/mental_health/beginnings/en/ consultato il 18th January 2021)

#human rights #Burkina Faso #Ivory Coast #Culture #writing #Western Africa #blogging #charity #mental disorder #Grégoire Ahongbonon #mental illness #Africa #innocent victims #mental ill #Benin

[blindnegation]

White Noise: on the American riots

In a riot the chains are shaken to the earth, and, for a time, police face the proletariat unbound by the divisions which had previously wrenched it apart. Days or even weeks of unrest follow that shatter and burn the objects serving as effigies to the rioters’ anger. This is the most common and the most elementary form of struggle[1]. A sharp division is thus drawn between those who stand with the rioters and those who side with the forces of order. When the working class takes to the streets in violation of the law, of the commodity and property, the police are there – waiting for them. It is impossible to be agnostic about the situation, and various commentators can thus be viewed almost for the first time; all pretension is stripped away regarding their true class sympathies[2]. Reporters protesting as they are treated like rioters even as they laud the restoration of order, crying that they are there to deliver the message of the present society into every household are probably the most despicable but also the most useful in this regard. The Spectacle, as ever, seeks to prevent the unification of the class it dominates: the pseudo-community of production and consumption has been disrupted and must be re-asserted; those in the street must be isolated from those who are merely witnesses to unrest; and rioters must be divided amongst themselves as a prelude to their pacification and reintegration. In times such as these, the police, normally dispersed into routine patrols for surveillance and intimidation, are concentrated for their original purpose: the suppression of the streets[3]. In this way is the power of the bourgeois class safeguarded, with the state serving as the enforcer of all social division. Social peace is maintained through the unceasing violence of separation and the alienated consciousness it, in part, produces.

“Tout le monde déteste la police”, cry the French, and it is heard and recognized the world over as one of the few universal truths; and as such, an aspect of the truth of bourgeois order universalized. The police baton separates and drives away so that those divisions are reasserted, so the class in the street cannot experience what it grasps for any length of time. If the moment of the riot is moved beyond its beginnings, if such class unity is maintained and spreads beyond the street, then the entire bourgeois order is threatened; the present society is suddenly contingent and malleable, the power of one class is temporarily bent and, in some places, broken. Looting and burning are “negating practices”[4] in a world where the commodity and property encompass everything, and the police are the force which opposes them lest they develop into more sophisticated forms[5]. The overwhelming violence of the police demonstrates the violence of bourgeois society to all with eyes to be stung, lungs to be choked, and backs to be beaten for no reason beyond standing in the street opposite those who claim to be servants to all citizens. The truth is revealed: they are servants of none but the class which rules all others, and their duty is to violate all who would stand against them. The police are a bundle of contradictions and those are demonstrated most clearly in the riot: those who seek to prevent violence do violence in the name of the law, who seek to bring murderers to justice murder as representatives of the state, and who are charged to prevent antisocial behavior behave in the most antisocial and disreputable fashion with impunity. Every citizen or non-citizen who throws a brick through a window is less violent than any police officer, for glass can be replaced but eyes are lost forever[6]. The maintenance of the present society has as its cost the lives of those who would seek to change it, even in some small way.

The riots in America raged for two weeks and demonstrations are still ongoing, threatening to accelerate at any time. Such convulsions are too rare in a society marked by extraordinary levels of police violence, but the murder of George Floyd proved too much even for a country inured to such conduct[7]. All who witnessed the footage of the Minnesotan police officer kneeling with indifference on Floyd’s neck as he writhed in pain and distress understand why such an outburst was necessary. What must also be understood is why the police reprisals were also just as necessary. That his colleagues did nothing but stare down the onlookers demonstrates the unity of the police against all opposition. The police constitute a semi-independent force, a few short steps away from an official paramilitary organization, that by safeguarding their own power preserve the carceral authority of the state. In another instance which has gained widespread coverage, an elderly septuagenarian was brutalized and left bleeding on the concrete: what was the reaction of the Buffalo riot police when two of them were suspended? An entire tactical department – 57 officers in total – resigned from the ‘emergency response team’[8]. Their police union, as a bastion of reaction and corruption, backed the officers, claiming the old man fell backwards independently of the officer pushing him with his baton. This mirrors the early claims that Floyd was not killed but instead died due to health complications exacerbated by the police officers kneeling on his neck and back. That the officer in question has been arrested and charged with second degree murder has doubtless infuriated police across the country[9]. The cruelty of the police is the result of their acculturation to using force and the threat of force as part of their daily work[10], and what police fear most is any external limitation on the means and ways of their violent conduct; in that regard, they are among the most vain and covetous forces in history. As a salient example, the New York Police Department’s annual budget is as opaque and secretive as any official agency of the federal government[11]. The price of order is the unaccountability of the police to criticism, facilitated most obviously by the concealment of names and badge numbers in violation of their own guidelines, as well as the switching off or removal of bodycams. Attempts to further regulate police conduct only invite opportunities for further violations. The present society has granted them widespread immunity when it comes to the practical application of force on the streets and the indulgence of their exorbitant budgetary requests.

Calls to defund or divest from the police are not its abolition. Even one of the more radical proposals, the “People’s Budget” of BLM-LA, does not propose abolition but only a spending reduction to 5.72% down from 53.8%[12]. With luck and continual pressure these movements will gain traction and serve to partially curtail the largess enjoyed by police departments across the country – but only for a time. The unspoken result of a drastic cut in police funding is to starve the private prison industry of a prime source of revenue: the labor-power of the incarcerated. This industry, in league with the police, will fight and in time regain whatever ground is claimed by their opposing movements. Their power will wax and wane in a relative sense, but it will endure. The contradictions of American class society ensure a militant police force and the ‘prison-industrial complex’ will inevitably resurge against efforts to promote ‘community’ policing, which lowers incarceration rates and thus budget allocations and private contributions to police departments[13]. As the trend is towards capital accumulation above all else, the same unfortunate trend is towards greater rates of incarceration and larger budgets for police forces. The enormous prison population in the US is a direct result of the ‘War on Drugs’ initiated in the 1980s, which fueled a massive expansion of prison construction and privatization, and there is no sign this population will substantially reverse[14]. The biggest growth in recent years comes from incarcerations by ICE. As drug war incarcerations declined from the 2009 peak there was an immediate response to focus on immigration and the detention of non-citizens[15]. This trend must be fought as it is ultimately the proletariat who fill the prisons and find themselves working for pennies instead of dollars as part and parcel of their ‘rehabilitation’. Fraught though it must be, only a greater abolition will finish the struggle.

The substance of this abolition will not be found in autonomous zones; petty communes which, while admirable in their intent, remain wholly inadequate to their ambitions. One such AZ has sprung up in Seattle – the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone – in the city which became famous for the late 90s protests against ‘globalization’[16]. Due to their loathing of authority or hierarchy of any kind, the pretensions of various autonomists and anarchists are always more vulnerable to paid informants, absurd internal disputes[17], and, above all, the repressive power of the state; that anathema has never ceased to be their superior. Police infiltrators are another threat, one, from past experience, ‘non-hierarchical’ movements struggle to expel[18]. They can be anyone willing to step around the barriers declaring the end of the United States. What now would they see? A banner reading “THIS SPACE IS NOW PROPERTY OF THE SEATTLE PEOPLE”[19]. Minarchism is alive and well in the form of a street occupation with some spillover into a local park[20]. The few that have been interviewed by media “envisioned education initiatives, programs to address homelessness and building a community movement where unarmed police are designed to de-escalate”, or, “a vision of a future with fewer police officers”[21]. In this instance, the CHAZ is inadequate in ambition as well as means. Less police brutality is seen as a more ‘realistic’ demand than the end of policing in a half-dozen city blocks. For some, the minimum goal is to demonstrate the irrelevance of police[22]. Other voices are more strident, with a list of 30 demands to city authorities[23] which amounts to a grandiose form of begging. The abolition of policing, it should go without saying, cannot be demanded. These initial results can be attributed to the CHAZ’s spontaneous outgrowth from a reaction to police brutality.

More practically, any movement which attempts to ‘flow like water’ will only pool and stagnate if it holds one place. Holding territory is of lesser importance than maintaining the discipline of intent and the associations necessary for revolution to be possible. The police demonstrate a lesson shunned by most self-styled revolutionaries: the need to back one another even if something terrible is happening. The police are at peace with what they are and they enforce this peace amongst themselves. To allay any fears, what revolutionaries do to each other is always of concern but what they do to others, especially their enemies, should not threaten their unity. ‘Do unto others’, and what has been done to revolutionaries everywhere leaves a broad field open. Most revolutionaries fail to follow through on the implications of their own desires, hence we see police abolition parlayed into policing with a human face, and why any revolutionary terror would be abhorred more than the state of things which produced it. This self-consciousness is the ironic hallmark of contemporary liberalism, which decries the present but simultaneously believes this is the best of all possible worlds. The BLM movement is rapidly becoming integrated into the consciousness of American liberalism, but that will not leave it unchanged. Minnesotans, at least, have followed through more than most. The burning of a police station is more than symbolic towards police in general: it seeks the direct abolition of police presence in a particular human geography. “Police were returned to the realm of history” [24], which was an important moment for the American left. This does not mean Minnesotans will be successful. If Seattle is any indication, the loss of one precinct merely increases police response times to local calls by 15 minutes[25]. Consequently, this direct abolition is distinct from what Crimethinc. have designated “the material abolition of the existing state of things”[26]. For them, burning and looting is an end in itself – the beginning and end of negating practice[27]. A “structure fire” can temporarily remove the presence of certain relations by removing those who practice them. Absent a wider, deeper abolition they will inevitably return. Material structures are not social relations; class is not based in “material forces and buildings” but relations between people. So long as there are police, policing will return.

Self-limitation should not compromise the impetus of this movement and its towering achievement. That the Seattle BLM occupation, or CHAZ, has yet to burn its own precinct could be considered a tactical decision[28] but that would imply the movement successfully drove out the police. The opposite is true: they withdrew. It is more indicative that the CHAZ will fall short of the achievements of Minnesota. Should the police be allowed to return the results will be clear. For now, a twilight world exists in Seattle where things are not the same but at the same time not as they should be. The appropriation of a few city blocks is a novel occurrence for that society which values property of all kinds so highly, but unless the blinkers are taken off and the situation taken seriously for what it is, rather than a mere opportunity seized to spite the police, it will not be commensurate with what it could become. What is necessary remains a total critique of the present society, the ruthless critique of their own ambitions, and the recognition that their defeat is imminent so long as they remain isolated in struggle. The state will not sit idly by indefinitely. One AZ will not break the general isolation that reigns across the present society, anymore than one burned precinct will abolish the police, but here a principle of collective defense should be invoked: an attack on the CHAZ, with its impressive mural, is an attack on the movement as a whole. There should be consequences everywhere if the police move in force to reassert their authority. That said, there is no community that is not alienated from itself so long as the present mode of production continues, and so radical ‘community building’ remains an alienated form of struggle. Whatever ‘community’ is built can only be a reflection of the present society; a society improved, stripped of its most avaricious and repressive features, but otherwise the same. In that sense, there is no community, only a movement to advance; no demands, only practices that negate; and no option but to root out the liberalism endemic to the movement. Failure to do so will bury the CHAZ and their marginal success in clearing the street of police. It’s not enough to get it “half right”[29] as these riots have inevitably done. The movement will grow into one that abolishes the present state of things or it will succumb, as in the past, to its own limitations.

Endnotes

[1] Riots are “instances of collective self-assertion by the working-class – or by ethnic or racial fractions of the class”. David Whitehouse, “Origins of the police”, Works in theory, December 7, 2014 (Last updated March, 2016). Accessed from: https://worxintheory.wordpress.com/2014/12/07/origins-of-the-police/

[2] “[A] revolutionary event, by bringing existing problems into the open, provokes its opponents into an unhabitual lucidity”. Guy Debord [unsigned], “The Decline and Fall of the Spectacle-Commodity Economy”, trans. Ken Knabb, Internationale Situationniste #10, March, 1966; first translated by Donald Nicolson-Smith and distributed in the USA in 1965. Accessed from: https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/decline.html

[3] The police are those “whose job it is to ensure that a given product of human labor remains a commodity.” Debord, “The Decline”. ; As Whitehouse wrote, “the police are a response to crowds, not to crime”. See also his comments on their “dual function”. Whitehouse, “Origins”.

[4] Debord, “The Decline”.

[5] “The street is the proving ground for much of working-class politics, and the ruling class is fully aware of that.” Whitehouse, “Origins”.

[6] “For those who reduce people to objects, objects seem to acquire human qualities and truly human manifestations appear as unconscious ‘animal behavior’”. Debord, “The Decline”.

[7] In this way, Floyd resembles Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who self-immolated and thus catalyzed the Arab Spring. Both were unwilling martyrs to an intolerable state of things.

[8] They remain police officers but are no longer part of the ERT. Contrary to some media reports, the officers quit not in solidarity with each other but because the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, with union support, refused to pay any legal fees resulting from police conduct. In other words, those who resigned refused to be riot police without unconditional legal backing. Madison Carter, “EXCLUSIVE: Two Buffalo Police ERT members say resignation was not in solidarity with suspended officers”, WKBW Buffalo, June 5, 2020 (Last updated June 8, 2020). Accessible from: https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/exclusive-two-buffalo-police-ert-members-say-resignation-was-not-in-solidarity-with-suspended-officers

[9] The officer will still receive his pension whatever the verdict on his case. Jason Silverstein, “Former officer charged with killing George Floyd could receive over $1 million in pension benefits, even if convicted”, CBS News, June 12, 2020 (Last updated June 13, 2020). Accessible from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/derek-chauvin-police-officer-charged-george-floyd-death-1-million-pension-benefits/

[10] “Routine patrol work is crucial to creating a mindset among police that their violence is for the greater good.” Whitehouse, “Origins”.

[11] “Much of the agency’s intelligence budget mirrors the opacity of agencies like the CIA and the NSA, only without any oversight. Every spy group in Washington has to submit even their most sensitive expenditures to Congress… The NYPD has no such oversight over some of its most sensitive spending”. Albert Fox Cahn, “What’s the real NYPD budget? Nobody knows”, New York Daily News, May 29, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-whats-real-nypd-budget-nobody-knows-20200529-6vbqldjwfbghthepqnjr3teeky-story.html

[12] Peoples Budget LA, “The People’s Budget: Los Angeles 2020-2021”, May 26, 2020. Accessed from: https://peoplesbudgetla.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/peoplesbudgetreport_may26.pdf

[13] As CoreCivic wrote in 2010: “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws.” Kara Gotsch and Vinay Basti, “Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: U.S. Growth in Private Prisons”, The Sentencing Project, August 2, 2018. Accessed from: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/

[14] “At the [current] pace of decarceration since 2009, averaging 1% annually, it will take 65 years — until 2085 — to cut the U.S. prison population in half.” Nazgol Ghandnoosh, “U.S. Prison Decline: Insufficient to Undo Mass Incarceration”, The Sentencing Project, May 19, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/u-s-prison-decline-insufficient-undo-mass-incarceration/

[15] “Beginning in 2009, Congress established a quota for immigrant detention beds under appropriations law”. Gotsch & Basti, “Capitalizing”.

[16] “The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization was held in Seattle from Nov. 30 through Dec. 3, 1999, and while representatives from 135 WTO member countries attempted to agree on issues and agenda for a new round of negotiations around further deregulating international trade, tens of thousands of protesters came through the city's streets.” Zosha Millman, “20 years later: Looking back at the Battle in Seattle, the WTO riots”, SeattlePI, November 30, 2019. Accessed from: https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattle-history/article/WTO-Riots-Battle-Seattle-1999-anniversary-13431709.php

[17] They are also vulnerable to opportunists looking to make a name for themselves. Media have focused on the so-called ‘warlord’ of the CHAZ who patrolled the streets with his followers. Despite how troubling this behavior is, it could be considered a ‘family matter’ and white observers should not read too much into it. Nyar, “FULL VIDEO: Raz Simone, Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone Graffiti Incident”, Youtube, 55:40, June 10, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrjhcDVBV5k

[18] As experienced during the anti-globalization movement, “intentional lack of hierarchy left organizers with little ability to act on their suspicions of infiltration, even as they were becoming more deft at sussing out such provocateurs.” Ryan Grim and Jon Schwarz, “A Short History of U.S. Law Enforcement Infiltrating Protests”, The Intercept, June 3, 2020 (Last updated June 10, 2020). Accessed from: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/02/history-united-states-government-infiltration-protests/

[19] Ryan W. Miller, “CHAZ, a 'no Cop Co-op': Here's what Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone looks like”, USA Today, June 12, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/12/seattle-protest-chaz-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-police-free/3173968001/

[20] Evan Bush, “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone becomes political flashpoint, as Durkan rebukes Trump’s message to ‘take back’ city”, The Seattle Times, June 11, 2020 (Last updated June 12, 2020). Accessed from: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-becomes-political-flashpoint-as-durkan-rebukes-trumps-message-to-take-back-city/ ; The unofficial CHAZ website can be accessed at https://chaz.zone/ (Last updated June 15, 2020).

[21] Evan Bush, “Welcome to the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where Seattle protesters gather without police”, The Seattle Times, June 10, 2020 (Last updated June 12, 2020). Accessed from: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/welcome-to-the-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone-where-seattle-protesters-gather-without-police/ ; A ‘community safety volunteer’ remarked, "We want the community to run exactly how it has been, just without a militant police presence". Rich Smith, “An Exceedingly Chill Day at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”, The Stranger, June 11, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/11/43888539/an-exceedingly-chill-day-at-the-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone

[22] “We are trying to prove through action and practice that we don’t need [the police] and we can fulfill the community’s needs without them”. Mike Baker, “Free Food, Free Speech and Free of Police: Inside Seattle’s ‘Autonomous Zone’”, The New York Times, June 11, 2020 (Last updated June 12, 2020). Accessed from: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/seattle-autonomous-zone.html

[23] The most notable of which is this: “We demand the people of Seattle seek out and proudly support Black-owned businesses. Your money is our power and sustainability.” FreeCapitolHill, “The Demands of the Collective Black Voices At Free Capitol Hill to the Government of Seattle, Washington”, Medium, June 10, 2020. Accessed from: https://medium.com/@seattleblmanon3/the-demands-of-the-collective-black-voices-at-free-capitol-hill-to-the-government-of-seattle-ddaee51d3e47

[24] Vicky Osterweil, “Burning Down the 3rd Police Precinct Changed Everything”, The Nation, June 12, 2020. Available from: https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/police-precinct-minneapolis/

[25] Evan Bush, “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”.

[26] Crimethinc., “The Siege of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis: An Account and Analysis”, June 10, 2020. Available from: https://crimethinc.com/2020/06/10/the-siege-of-the-third-precinct-in-minneapolis-an-account-and-analysis

[27] “Riots abolish capitalist social relations”, which amounts to a form of liberalism as it implies all that is required is looting, redistribution, and the burning of offensive structures. Everything else can remain the same. Ibid.

[28] Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan implied there were threats to burn the precinct and thus doing so might provoke a violent police reprisal. But there are also those who argue to seize it. As one ‘organizer’ remarked, “They gave us this precinct, and we’re not going to destroy this motherfucker”. Chase Burns, Rich Smith, and Jasmyne Keimig, “The Dawn of ‘Free Capitol Hill’”, The Stranger, June 9, 2020. Accessed from: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2020/06/09/43873501/the-dawn-of-free-capitol-hill

[29] “[T]hey seized the means of distribution, distributed the products of their [collective] labor, and then burned the facilities to the ground.” Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, “Authoritarian Leftists: Kill the Cop in Your Head”, The Anarchist Library, November 25, 2011; pamphlet produced by the staff of Black Autonomy, A Newspaper of Anarchism and Black Revolution, first printed April, 1996. Available from: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lorenzo-kom-boa-ervin-authoritarian-leftists

[thetruedeception]

Post Civil Rights Act

Discrimination is still very present in this nation. Many people believe that after Martin Luther King marched on Washington and the Civil Rights Act was passed that all was right with the world and racism just vanished but that most definitely was not the case. Things still remained highly segregated and many white people still wanted nothing to do with minorities in general. Schools today are more segregated than they were 60 years, when segregation was extremely prevalent and integration was a completely foreign concept. A lot of the discrimination that goes on today does not only have to do with the legal segregation that occurred decades ago but also because of the notoriously known campaign of the “War on Drugs” that happened all throughout the 1980’s.

The document “13th” lovely executed all of the consequences of this infamous “war”. They basically state how crack became the focus of all police forces and that was a drug predominantly used by African-Americans because of the economic disadvantage that people of color have to whites. Anyway, my point is police officers then began to solely target African-American men, to be exact, because they believed this would help the drug problem in America. This then just became a vicious cycle of more times than not, falsely incriminating black men in order to keep them incarcerated and a slave of the state essentially. So, yet again here come the chains right back on. This is when police brutality began to really take off because cops just began to do whatever they wanted with the kind of authority they had. Mostly areas of low-income were targeted because that was where the crack was. Then, came along the “Just Say No” movement which just catered to re emphasizing the whole “War on Drugs” rhetoric. People in high positions of authority have blatantly confessed to the fact that the entire movement was just a big trap to capture African-Americans yet again just through the law and that is not the the only example of institutionalized and systemic racism but thank you for that President Ronald Reagan and Ms. Nancy Reagan.

Another way, the “war” was unfair was because also the convictions for crack versus cocaine were completely disproportionate, when in reality if anything cocaine should have the worser conviction yet that is not the world we live in, unfortunately. Also, just in general black men are more likely to face worser sentences than their white counterparts for the same crimes. So after African-Americans are aggressively detained and get an unfair due process because they do not have a “jury full of their peers”, they then serve an unreasonable amount of time to then be thrown back out to society with so many disadvantages that it is almost impossible to reintegrate back into societal life thus rendering the black man trapped in a life of crime. It is like every step of the way black people just have absolutely like no chance to survive because the law in this country is literally set up around fundamentally racist ideals and was solely once just for the policing and punishing of black people.

If we focus only on police brutality though, the cases are just ridiculous. And, of course, one cannot bring up police brutality without mentioning the tragic Trayvon Martin case which tore the hearts of millions all around the world to be honest. Basically, a community security patrolman named George Zimmerman shot fifteen year old Trayvon Martin several times because he looked “suspicious”, mind you all Trayvon did was be black in the wrong place at the wrong time essentially. To further highlight the injustice of the “just” laws set in place in this country, Zimmerman did not serve time for the crime because he is white and lives in America where white privilege is a real evident thing. This caused a complete uproar and brought about the composition of the “Black Lives Matter” movement which gained and continues to gain a lot of momentum because police brutality still goes on even after so many cases have gone public and that is because white people still govern white people and the power and authority remains within the race and no one is left to be held accountable for their actions.  

Legally, America is still extremely racist. The laws also affect and shape society as well. For example, when it comes to the workplace people of color are constantly being discriminated against in all kinds of aspects. African-Americans have to constantly worry about what they look like in the workplace because sadly, any other culture or form of expression that is not White America is not welcomed in work environments. On top of physical appearances also, wage differences still occur and people are literally economically discriminated. Also, people of color do not usually gain positions of power because as always, the power tends to remain within the race.

In conclusion, racism still exists and social inequality still continues to go on in America. The only difference between racism now and during the Jim Crow era is that it is a lot more insidious now. You have to dig a little deeper to find it, not that much deeper because it is still very prevalent but just a tad bit deeper than the surface. It is all not very fabricated and systemic as opposed to it being very personal cases all over the country. African Americans are constantly being disenfranchised left and right in America. See? The battle really has not ended.

https://www.netflix.com/watch/80091741?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C3%2C9555c270abff06b64a88d00056c8566e9381afe6%3Af11645cb2ae1950b286d1378c983c04cfd463952%2C%2C

#thebattlehasnotended racismissystemicnow