#you were made to serve humans you were controlled and abused by doctors like her you clearly fear her to some aspect | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

valleyfthdolls · 24 days

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Who's the cast of your story "Freaks" ?

The cast isn't fully fleshed out yet, but the most planned out characters so far include Ashika Ray, Lottie Spektor, Winnipeg Carter, Tara Fei, Virgil Wagnon, and the titular Freaks- malicious spirits attached to each character who prey on their traumas and weaknesses. There is one such Freak for each character.

Content warning for various forms of abuse, mental health issues, mention of human trafficking, and child abandonment under the cut. Nothing is in-detail except mental health stuff.

Also for people in the RP, this does spoil the main parts of Tara's backstory. You can read if you want to, it won't diminish her character or anything, just know that there's still no reason for anyone else's characters to know anything about it until Tara herself actually lets on about it to them. I mean she hasn't even told her BFFs lmao

Libitina "Lottie" Spektor (she/her) is the protagonist of the story. She was removed from the custody of her mother at the age of two due to accusations of trafficking, which were true, and lived in foster care until she was fifteen. Through her youth, she experienced major behavioral issues, and when she was fifteen, she was moved to a group home for teens (15-19) with severe physical and mental health issues under the precedent that it was likely she had a personality disorder. What she actually has is more likely just severe PTSD, which, despite her claims that she's fine and she's not like the other kids at the home, does start to really rear its head as soon as she's there. She's also extremely wary of the home, having something of a sixth sense for hauntings and spirits and basically clocking immediately that the place is haunted. The Freak attached to her is Lola, a feminine ghost with a thick figure whose presence is denoted by the clicking of her tongue. Her face is akin to that of a snake. One of the ways Lola torments Lottie specifically aside from just generally messing with her is grabbing and pinching her wrists. This drives Lottie insane, just because of how wary of touch she is all around. She represents Lottie's fear of not having bodily autonomy or control of her life.

Ashika Ray (she/her) kind of serves as Lottie's foil. Where Lottie is overly mature and mean, Ashika is childish to the point of not being mature enough to care for herself and extremely kind to everyone around her. She lived with her single father until she was four, when he suddenly died in a tragic accident, and she's never really mentally grown up from that time. That's the main reason she's in the group home. She calls one of the caretakers "Auntie" and is overly affectionate and naive, which Lottie uses to mess with her at the beginning, but even someone as jaded and cold as Lottie feels bad about messing with Ashika when she's so pure-hearted and gentle. No matter how anyone treats her, she always tries to be good to them and be their friend. The Freak attached to her is Deva, an imp-like ghost with no discernible gender. Unable to get into her head and cause her to spiral, Deva instead torments Ashika by messing with her things and causing her terrible luck. They represent her sorrow about the unfortunate but unstoppable circumstances that brought her here.

Winnipeg "Winnie" Carter (they/xey/he) lived with their grandpa most of their life. They inherited a lot of health issues from their mother plus some, which made their parents unable to care for them since it was already a lot to take care of their mother, so they were put in the care of their grandfather Alexander so he could "give them the life they deserved" when their parents couldn't. They spent most of their youth in the Winnipeg General Hospital undergoing surgery and treatment, but eventually came to the US to get a specific doctor to operate. After this, they were never healthy enough to return to Canada, so they and their grandpa settled in the US, but Alexander was getting too old to care for them, so they were moved into the group home to help them with their day to day life. They're bitter and moody, but very creative, and they have a very soft spot for Ashika. They love to talk to and play with her, and having someone keep them company like that helps them normalize the idea of needing this kind of care. They remain close with their grandpa and are still in contact with their parents. The Freak attached to him is Bones, a skeletally thin contortionist with an exposed heart and no teeth, whose joints pop and crack when she walks. She represents Winnie's fear of not having a life ahead of him that isn't defined by physical pain and diminished by the shame associated with it.

Tara Fei (she/they/it/dae; but possibly a trans guy who hasn't realized it yet) was raised in a Catholic cult in Saratov, Russia. Her Father was the leader of the cult, and they believed Tara to be essentially the next Mother Mary- the one who would bring the second coming of Jesus. They were very extreme about this belief, and Tara spent most of her life not even being touched because they believed it would dirty her and ruin her purpose. She was isolated from the other children, brainwashed by her Father, who was treated like a god by the cult, and forced to pray and be as pure and modest as she could. When she was fourteen, she ran away and made it to an airport where she got onto a flight to Lhasa, Tibet, where she lived for two months until someone called the cops on her and she was recognized as the missing child from Saratov who was believed to have been taken out of the country. She did manage to get through to the police and some people willing to help her about her situation, though, and she ended up moved to the US to escape her family, where she was given the name Tara Fei. Due to her extreme paranoia, PTSD and psychosis, she was moved into the group home as well. She's usually soft-spoken and gentle, though she has her moments of screaming and yelling and even attacking others when she's afraid, and she has a fascination with religion, spirituality and the occult. She loves to read. The Freak attached to her is Mary, a goat-legged figure wrapped in cloth and often seen praying, whose presence worsens Tara's psychosis. It represents Tara's fear that the cult was right and that she's going to die for violating their rules about her purity.

Virgil Wagnon (he/him) is the son of two French-American immigrants. When he was two years old and still couldn't walk, his parents abandoned him, believing he was never going to be able to do anything for himself, and Virgil deeply internalized this. He had no idea why his parents left, so he came to assume it was his fault for being so boring that they simply forgot about him or, when he was older, so boring that they could not love him. He desperately tries to gain the attention of others and the approval of an audience, covering up everything that makes him human (and by proxy, boring) with masks and fancy prose and self destructive performances. He's stoic, poetic, and polite, but willing to abandon any and all semblances of his personality to perform and make a show of himself, and he can be very cutthroat about it, trying to match the tone of the world around him, which has been, suffice it to say, cruel. He longs for attention and approval, and prides himself on making others smile and laugh. The Freak attached to him is Alice, a three-faced male figure with an appearance sort of like the Mad Hatter and a presence that is composed and theatrical. He just kind of generally harasses and torments Virgil.

The Freaks are less like traditional ghosts of the dead and are more malicious, protective over the house they're settled in, and taking various forms to drive the kids out by any means possible from simply tormenting them until they can't take staying anymore to killing them outright. Since the kids have no other choice but to stay here, though, their attempts aren't quite thwarted, but are lived through. Each ghost attaches to a child, taking the form of their worst traumas, deepest fears, and most painful sorrows, knowing they would rather do anything but confront those struggles, to try to force them out of the house. Though Lottie is the only one who can see and commune with them, all of the others are aware the ghosts are there, at least on a subconscious level. The only one aside from Lottie who wholeheartedly believes it is Tara, but even being skeptical, the others are influenced by the spirits' presences.

#freaks #oc: libitina ''lottie'' spektor #oc: ashika ray #oc: tara fei #oc: virgil wagnon #oc: winnipeg carter #utsbecauseofu #onyx talks too much

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agustdakasuga · 3 years

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Between The Bloodshed | Chapter 12

Genre: Mafia!AU, Angst, Romance, Fluff

Pairing: OT7 x Reader

Characters: Doctor!Reader, Gangster!Namjoon, Gangster!Seokjin, Gangster!Yoongi, Gangster!Hoseok, Gangster!Jimin, Gangster!Taehyung, Gangster!Jungkook

Summary: Being a freelance doctor, this was just supposed to be any other job, helping a private client and taking care of him through his recovery. But you were not expecting to get caught in something so much darker that would change your life entirely.

You’re starting to realise that being around the boys and getting closer to them is harder than you thought. Whether you can mentally take it or not is going to be a challenge.

Warning: This story is fictional and has nothing to do with real life events or the actual members of BTS. It may contain depictions of violence, blood shed/ gore and mentions of abuse. Please read at your own discretion.

Chapter warning(s): Anxiety attack, reader has a nightmare,

“What now-” You lifted your head when you saw someone enter your room. The boy didn’t say anything as he climbed into your bed, pulling you close to him to fall back asleep. You blinked in confusion as you heard soft snores coming from the boy.

“Jungkook. Stop coming in here to escape your brothers.” You said, slightly muffled against the material of his shirt.

“Shhh.” Was all he said, snuggling closer to you. As much as you hated to admit it, the boys were slowly getting closer to you as each day passes. Their company was tolerable.

“Koo, you know this is the first place Namjoon will come find you.” You patted his shoulder.

“Hmm... Koo... I like that nickname.” Jungkook peeked one eye open.

“You’re such a baby.” You scoffed. Jungkook didn’t reply, quickly falling back asleep. You let out a sigh of defeat, running your fingers through his long, black hair.

*KNOCK KNOCK*

“Yes, Namjoon?” You called out, chuckling. Jungkook didn’t move, having fallen into a deep sleep already. The door slowly crept open and Namjoon poked his head in. Seeing the sleeping boy in your arms, he gave a flat look with a sigh. Jungkook was the youngest but he was the heaviest and the bulkiest out of all the 7 boys, which makes his muscle bunny name very fitting.

“Wanna try?” You asked.

“You need to change your locks.” Namjoon crossed his arms.

“Isn’t the first lesson of mafia school how to pick locks? Changing locks wouldn’t be so effective then.” You raised your eyebrows, moving positions so Jungkook laid in your lap instead.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him willingly get close to someone before though. That’s quite a feat.” Namjoon chuckled.

“He’s not going to wake up soon. Maybe try later?” You suggested.

“We’re supposed to have a meeting. He knows this because he was the one that chose this date 2 weeks ago.” Namjoon shook his head. You just shrugged with a smile.

“You spoil him too much. But I’ll be back to get him later.” Namjoon waved before exiting the room. You slid back down, letting Jungkook rest against your chest instead. You were quite particular about the boys having physical contact with you but now, you felt like you needed someone with you.

“It’s too early for this...” You closed your eyes, falling back asleep, considering you can’t escape Jungkook’s grip.

[DREAM]

Your eyes widened as you felt something press against the back of your neck, the cold metal against the warmth of your skin on your neck. Your hand clutched the object that was forced into your hand.

“Do it.” The voice whispered in your ear.

“I can’t.” Your whole body trembled as you cried out. The cocking on the gun behind you made you yelp like a helpless puppy. It pushed you to press the barrel of your gun deeper against the skin. Through your tear-filled eyes, you looked up to meet his eyes.

“It’s okay.” The male before you smiled.

“It’s either you die or him.” The person behind was there yet again. You gasped, tears running down your face.

BANG!

“No!” You screamed, sitting up. Cold sweat covered your forehead and you lifted your shaky hands. There was a ringing in your ears and your vision couldn’t focus. You couldn’t even hear the door open.

“(y/n)!” Someone called out to you but it sounded so distant. Even when Jungkook pulled your trembling figure into his embrace, you were frozen.

“(y/n), calm down. You’re having an anxiety attack. It’s okay, you’re okay. Please.” Jungkook squeezed you even tighter, your cheek pressed against his chest, wetting his shirt with your tears. What was happening? You felt like you lost control of your own body. Jungkook called out to his brothers for help, who came rushing in.

“(y/n). Can you hear me? You’re safe, nothing happened. It was just a nightmare.” Jin cupped your cheeks.

“A... A n-night-m-mare. I-It was too r-real.” You choked.

“But you’re here, we’re all here. Safe and unharmed.” Jungkook said. You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath. You knew only you could pull yourself out of this headspace.

“Let’s give her some breathing room.” Jimin said, making everyone take a step back. You didn’t even notice to looks of worry the boys had.

“I’ll stay here with her, hyungs.” Jungkook turned to the others.

“Call us if anything else happens.” Jin ruffled the maknae’s hair. He nodded, watching his 6 brothers leave. You let out a deep breath, your hands have finally stopped shaking. Jungkook wrapped an arm around you, letting you rest your forehead on his shoulder.

“I hope whatever happened in that nightmare stays there.” You whispered. Jungkook hummed.

“We won’t ever let anything happen to you.” He comforted.

“I need to calm down.” You mumbled. Jungkook proceeded to draw you closer to him, his tattooed arm loosely around you. Instead of pushing him away, you leaned into his secure embrace.

“I’ll be here.” He began to hum a soft tune to calm you down, waiting for you patiently to catch your breath. Mentally, you scolded yourself for being so vulnerable in front of the boys. You haven’t had an anxiety attack in years.

“Can I have a few moments alone?” You croaked.

“Of course.” Jungkook let you go, leaving you in the room. The first thing you did was go into the toilet, emptying the contents of your stomach into the toilet. You stared at your reflection, hair sticking to your face with sweat and your eyes all red and bloodshot. Closing your eyes, you took a few deep breaths to try and get yourself in the right mind again.

“You’re better than this.” You told your reflection. After washing your face, you walked out of the room.

“Iced coffee, please.” You ordered. The maid served your usual order. Instead of going into the dining room, you went out onto the second floor balcony, taking a seat on the same bench as that night when you spoke to Taehyung.

“You’re here.” Someone said.

“Yeah...” You sighed.

“You okay?” He placed a hand on your back. You turned to look at him, letting out a bitter laugh.

“No.” You replied, taking a sip of your coffee. There were many thoughts racing through your mind. You sighed, closing your eyes to just calm your mind for a few seconds.

“You’re finally being honest that you’re not okay, huh?” Hoseok chuckled, leaning back against the seat. He didn’t say anything after that, staring out into the back garden silently.

“My emotions are all over the place. I never get anxiety attacks like that.” You rubbed your face with your hands.

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up learning all about the human psyche. My parents brought me up in an environment that doesn’t let me experience things like that. That’s not me, Hoseok. Anxiety attacks and nightmares? I killed someone with cyanide! No hesitation.” You said in frustration.

“You’re human, (y/n). Certain things just can’t be prevented. Even if you grew up trying to prevent it. And that was an instinctive thing, you didn’t purposely kill him.” Hoseok sighed.

“The fact that I thought I needed to even carry cyanide with me.” You shivered, remembering how the man dropped dead like that.

“We were all like that the first time. Things are rough in our world, it’s either kill or be killed.” Hoseok shrugged.

“I’m just at a lost right now.”

“That’s what we wanted to talk to you about. The boys and I were talking about going on a vacation. We would like you to join us actually. It would be good to relax and unwind.” Hoseok informed.

“A trip? Don’t you guys have work?” You asked.

“We don’t have any urgent stuff, that’s all been taken care of. Our men will handle all the minor stuff for us. Besides, we usually go on vacation around this time of year, anyway. We have a private beach property in Florida, where we plan to go.” He said. You thought about it. Maybe it would be good to go away for a while and get your mind off things.

“When do we leave?” You gave a small smile.

“That’s the spirit! We leave in 3 days. We’re going to have so much fun.” Hoseok patted your head.

“You guys already booked everything without asking me. What if I didn’t want to go?” You laughed.

“Well, then we would have made you come with us under work obligation. You know we would always get what we want.” Hoseok grinned. You shook your head, rolling your eyes. Speaking to Hoseok always made you smile.

“Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.” You said.

“You’re not alone in this, (y/n). We’re all here.” Hoseok kissed your forehead before retreating back into the house.

“You looks horrible.” Yoongi commented as you walked in.

“Thanks, Yoonie.” You groaned, slapping your forehead. Taehyung walked in, his white t shirt and grey hoodie stained a crimson red. He was dragging a wooden bat behind him, leaving a blood trail. He looked up at you and Yoongi with hooded eyes, almost empty.

“Go.” Yoongi nodded up the stairs. Taehyung dropped the bat with a loud sound, trudging up the stairs.

“I think you scared the little one this morning.” Yoongi said, turning back to you.

“Well, I think I’m slowly losing it.”

“I told you to think through it seriously before telling Namjoon you would stay. Now look.” Yoongi surprised you by reaching up to stroke your cheek with his thumb. All you could do was sigh.

“I can do it.” You told him.

“I know you can.” He hummed. Namjoon entered and Yoongi pulled away to look at him. With a nod from Namjoon, Yoongi straightened up and walked out to follow the leader. You went to your office to grab your first aid kit, waiting for Taehyung to come in. As expected, he stood by the door, an apprehensive look on his face as you waved for him to enter.

“Come, sit.” You patted the space. He sat on the medical table as you wheeled yourself closer.

“Let’s clean these up first.” You soaked a cotton ball in disinfectant, cleaning the blister wounds on his hands then moving to his face, applying ointment to his bruises and cuts.

“Owww...” He wrinkled his nose, hissing when you touched the cut over his eyebrow. You lightened up on the pressure, applying a bandaid over it.

“Anywhere else?”

“My ribs.” Taehyung lifted his shirt, showing the blooming bruise that was forming there. You nodded, pressing over it lightly to feel for a break. Taehyung squeezed his eyes, looking away as he bit his lip.

“It doesn’t feel broken but it is very inflamed. I’ll ice it then wrap it with tape. Lay down.” You pulled away. You left the room to grab some ice from the freezer in the kitchen, filling the bag. When you entered the room, Taehyung was still sitting up.

“Tae-” He suddenly wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you close to him. You smiled softly, running your fingers through his hair.

“It’s okay.” You comforted. He took a few shaky breaths.

“Come, let me ice your ribs.” You spoke softly, like a mother talking to her son. Taehyung laid down and you softly pressed the ice to the bruise over his ribs. He let out little grunts of pain.

“Are you feeling better?” Taehyung asked.

“An anxiety attack won’t kill me. Give me a little it more credit than that.” You chuckled. Taehyung also had a small smile.

“Is it the guilt?”

“Well, it’s the first time someone died in my hands, intentionally. It takes a while to get used to.” You shrugged, trying to play it cool. Taehyung grabbed your other hand in his.

“I know, I’ve been doing it for years and I still can’t get used to it. Please don’t get used to it, (y/n). Leave the guilt and... killing to us. ” Taehyung whispered sadly. You ran your fingers through his hair. Of course, you were not going to start going on a rampage and killing people. You were still here, only as a doctor to the boys.

“It was all in self defence, Tae. You know that. I’m still here, only as a doctor to heal your injuries. I won’t leave.” You told him.

“I just don’t want to see you going through that again.” Taehyung said. You felt your heart grow warm as Taehyung said that. After you iced his ribs, you dried the area and wrapped his chest.

“Take it easy, these few days.” You advised.

“I will.” He nodded. Giving you once last glance, Taehyung left your office. You cleared up the area and went to sit down at your desk.

“Can I do my session now? Namjoon called for a meeting later.” Yoongi came in. You nodded, closing your book and standing up. Yoongi was doing a mix of shockwave therapy and normal rehab exercises for his shoulder now.

“Let’s start.” You began to do his exercises with him. Yoongi was healing well and the pain he felt was more or less gone but he still wasn’t allowed to start really ‘working’ yet. You didn’t even allow him to drive. You moved his arm slowly, looking for signs of pain.

“How we feeling?” You asked.

“Just the usual stiffness.” He scrunched his nose slightly. You nodded your head, pulling away for a few seconds to note it down.

“There’s a lot of improvement from last time.” You flipped through your notepad. Yoongi nodded his head as you stepped back to guide him through his stretching exercises.

“And we’re done. Get a sip of this and lay down.” You handed him a bottle of cold water. Meanwhile, you grabbed the shockwave machine. Yoongi removed his shirt, laying down on the bed comfortably.

“I’m out of painkillers.” Yoongi said as you put the stickers on his shoulder that connected to the machine.

“I see. How are you sleeping?”

“I don’t wake up because of the pain anymore.” He informed.

“Alright, I’ll give you a milder painkiller to take when necessary. If it doesn��t work for those bad flares, come see me and I’ll give you something stronger.” You told him and he nodded.

“Hoseok told me about the Florida trip?” You cleared your throat, sitting on the wheely stool.

“Yeah. We hope to clear the important work before the trip. It’s been a little hectic so it was a sudden decision to take a short break somewhere. I voted for our lodge is Switzerland but the younger ones like to do water sports on our private beach.” Yoongi sighed.

“Well, where ever we can escape work, I’ll go. I’ll use the break to reset my brain.” You chuckled.

“The others will be excited to hear that you’re going as well.” He mumbled.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” He frowned.

“Are you happy I’m going?” You raised your eyebrows. Yoongi cast you a glance, knowing what you’re trying to get out of him but you just shot him an innocent look.

“What kind of question is that? Whether I’m happy or not shouldn’t matter to you or affect your decision.” He scoffed but you saw the tips of his ears start to blush a light red. You stifled a laugh, wheeling yourself over to your medicine cabinet to pack the painkillers for Yoongi into a pill ox. The machine beeped, signalling the end.

“You’re done for today. Ice it if it’s sore. Same as always.” You smiled, handing him his pillbox. Yoongi nodded and left your office.

“Of course I’m glad you’re going.” He whispered after closing your door. With a shake of his head, he walked to his room to prepare for the meeting tonight with the others.

“We’re here!” Jungkook burst in with Kookie at his feet. Kookie hopped in, once again getting familiar with your office.

“Hello, Kookie.” You bent down to stroke the bunny’s head.

“Just Kookie?”

“Hello to you too, Jungkook.” You complied, reaching up to pat his head like how you did with Kookie.

“No, not Jungkook.” He shook his head.

“Fine. Hello to you too, Koo.” You called him his new nickname. Jungkook threw his head back in laughter. You picked Kookie up, sitting back down on your chair and setting him in your lap comfortably.

“Don’t you have things to do Koo? I heard about the big meeting tonight.” You raised an eyebrow at the maknae, who was just spinning around on your stool.

“Nah, I already know what we’re doing. It’s just announcing that we’re going on vacation and handing over who’s going to be in charge of the businesses and such. Nothing too serious. I’m practically there just to... be there?” He tilted his head with a shrug.

“Whatever it is, I’ll be enjoying my evening alone, relaxing. Oh, well at least just me and Kookie.” You giggled.

“Lucky.” Jungkook pouted.

The boys were getting ready to leave the house, all dressed in their suits, including Yoongi. You leaned against the back of the couch, waiting for your delivery food.

“Sending us off?” Jimin grinned.

“Nope.” You shook your head. The butler came in, carrying bags of food. You smiled, clapping your hands excitedly before receiving them.

“What’s that?” Jin’s eyes widened.

“Fried chicken, tteokbokki, other kinds of delicious food. I already told you that I’ll be feasting on my own.” You showed your food proudly. The boys let out groans at your teasing. Of course, they’d rather stay home and feast, not have to wear stuffy suits and go to some boring meeting. Jungkook pouted, crossing his arms.

“I hate you.”

“Have fun now.” You popped a fry into your mouth and walked towards the glass door to eat at the gazebo.

“Hey, Koo?” You called out to the pouting boy. Jungkook’s eyes lit up, as if expecting that you would offer him a bite of your food before they had to leave for their meeting.

“Pass me a beer from the bar?” You requested. His face fell, trudging over to grab a bottle of beer and opening it before handing it to you.

“Here.” He grumbled.

“Thanks.” You saluted and waddled out into the garden, enjoying the breeze of the evening.

“Save some food for me!” Taehyung yelled out.

“No promises.” You replied before digging in. Of course, you would save some for them when they came back. Imagine their faces when they saw the fried chicken, tteokbokki and other dishes on the living room table.

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b00ket · 3 years

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OC GUIDE

Character sheets will be added later but here’s basic information on them

This post is already long as shit so BACKSTORIES FOR EACH UNDER THE CUT and side characters will be in a reblog later

Name: Amani Ayad

Gender: Female (She/Her)

Height: 5’ 8”

Birthday: July 23rd

Age: 18-22

Romantic/Sexual Orientation: Bisexual (weakness for women 😏👈🏽)

Country of Origin: Karnassos

Languages spoken: Fluent in whatever tf Vesuvians speak, Karnassi, and basic conversational skills in a handful of others

Hobbies: Partying HARD, growing plants, singing & playing Guitar/Fiddle

Magical Abilities:

Herbal Magic

Raw Magic (similar to Asra) (ill put a link that explains it in depth later)

FIREEEE

Personality:

Mischievous and mysterious. A liar. Definitely a flirt. Trust issues and a bit of a coward.

Name: Lucas Karimov

Gender: Male (He/Him)

Height: 7'

Birthday: July 10th

Age: 25-28

Romantic/Sexual Orientation: Demisexual

Country of Origin: Vesuvia

Languages spoken: Vesuvian

Hobbies: Cooking/Baking, Fighting, Gambling, Politics

Magical Abilities:

Learned how to channel whatever magic he produces into bouts of extreme strength

Personality:

Outgoing. Friendly! Altruistic and loyal to a fault. Has a fear of loss. Romantically dense (good luck flirting with him). Anger issues 😳. Holds a grudge. Not white.

Name: Kieran Power

Gender: Who cares (They/Them)

Height: 5’ 8”

Birthday: time is nothing

Age: Stopped keeping track (500~ years)

Romantic/Sexual Orientation: As long as you’re hot (Pansexual)

Country of Origin: A long abandoned village in the Southern Spines

Languages Spoken: Fluent in Most Languages

Hobbies: Throwing Parties, Reading, HOMOEROTIC SWORD FIGHTS, sleeping

Magical Abilities

Magic blocked by their deal

Personality:

Dramatic and they love it. Enjoys causing others pain. Depressed but wont admit it. Quick learner and a master of manipulation. Vengeful and will hold a grudge.

Name: Donovan Nwadike

Gender: Male (He/Him)

Height: 6’ 4”

Birthday: September 20th

Age: 33-36

Romantic/Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Country of Origin: Nopal

Languages Spoken: Vesuvian, whatever you call the language of the Scourge

Hobbies: Sword Making, painting, sculpting

Magical Abilities:

Metal manipulation

Personality:

Quiet and reserved. Incredibly shy. Blames himself for most things that go wrong. Has the most braincells. REALLY STRONG PTSD. Self-sacrificing.

Amani Ayad

Family left Karnassos after Lucio’s murder of their mayor. Her family was labeled as cowards since.

Helped parents with a traveling doctor office. They went around the lands, healing people they come across and providing a meal. Her father helped her control her magic and mother taught her everything she needs to know about healing magic.

Helped a struggling town in the Shining Steppe. The people of that town later tried to raid their traveling doctors office. Someone shot a fire spell at the father that hit the shop instead. It exploded, killing the father and nearly killed Amani. Her mother grabbed her and escaped to a nearby abandoned shack to hide. The mother suspected they would come after the both of them and quickly gave Amani to a merchant ship. The merchant watched after her for a few months before selling her to a Pirate ship.

The crew was welcoming and caring at first, as time went on they demanded more of her (ex. cleaning the whole ship by herself instead of with the crew), and later forced her into being a fighter after discovering her magical Abilities and natural skills in fighting

Was undefeated in the ring. Gained the name “Hand of Death”

Made an attempt to kill the Captain. She failed, the Captain using a hot sword to scar her face before dumping her on the docks of Vesuvia. Was taken in by Lucas a few days later. A year later she made a home in a old abandoned apartment in the Flooded District where she grows herbs and heals anyone who catches her in her shop.

Now she tries to run from her past, replacing it with a new reputation. A party crasher, thief, general nuisance to law enforcement.

Lucas Karimov

Grandparents and Mother were refugees from the genocide of the Kokhuri. The mother fell in love and had 4 children.

They made a home in Vesuvia. Opening up a restaurant/bar called “The Iron Clad Owl”

Were generally poor (giving away free food/giving people money). Lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with Grandparents, 2 aunts, 6 children, parents, 2 dogs, and a parrot named stick

It was a crowded but homey house. They all slept in a giant cuddle pile. It was cute as SHIT

The siblings were all older than Lucas and liked the cause trouble to law enforcement, hang out with orphans and shop for food for da parents. The whole family hated Lucio and his rule from the rip. The aunts often participated in politics and 100% ranted to the children about government. Near the end of Lucio’s rule is when things went off the deep end.

During his rule: Oldest Brother falls into the Canal, dies of blood loss. The only sister was robbed (killed when she tried to fight back).

The plague: The Parents and brother die of the plague, the aunts flee out of fear of dying. Lucas takes up a job as a grave digger to keep the shop open shortly after. A brother gets involved in crime as a hitman. Jargal (brother) steals some food, gets caught and fights against the Scourge as a result.

After Lucio’s death: The brother is attacked by a revenge hitman, he is killed and the grandparents both die in the confrontation. Lucas sells the pets in a last ditch attempt to keep the shop open, the shop is closed. Lucas spirals into a depression, mentally stuck in a numbness that is only punctuated by bouts of anger and irritability. Finds a abandoned cat and adopts her. Befriends Amani.

Now he works as a dock worker, trying to heal old wounds and make lasting change in Vesuvia that finally serves the people.

Kieran Power

Works for a rich family. Is picked on and abused by their employers and other citizens in the village. The mayor’s daughter dies of “an illness” and they blame Kieran & their mother, saying they placed a hex on her.

Kieran’s mother is hung and Kieran escapes the same fate, running to hide in an old shed. A strong winter storm swoops in, trapping Kieran in there without food or warmth. Kieran discovers the body of the daughter with a knife in her heart. Kieran burns hot with rage and a need for revenge.

The Devil appears and offers to make a deal, to give Kieran the power to kill their enemies in exchange for a portion of their soul. Its a self enacted deal, sell a bit more if their soul for more power.

The technicalities of the deal: At least once a week Kieran needs to eat a person (collection of their soul). Without a meal their blood runs cold, the hunger grows, and when it hits a peak they become a beast. This can only be reversed with more than one human sacrifice.

They’ve been alive for centuries. They’ve seen and been subject to abuse that is only solved with more power. They only have a sliver of their soul left, instead choosing to gain power traditionally in the past few years. Gaining money and a powerful reputation. Has lost faith in humanity and believes they are better than them.

Hosts parties as an easy way to get a victim to eat. Really into sword collecting, befriending Donovan and has soft feelings for him.

Is always trying to gain power.

Donovan Nwadike (backstory in development)

Abandoned as a newborn in Vesuvia. Grew up as an orphan.

Thinks he is purposeless, joins a gang of orphans and becomes the punching bag/pushover of the group. Has a small book that he draws in.

Joins Lucio is his army (assuming Lucio has made attempts to expand the “Vesuvian Empire”) and befriends the lead medic.

Becomes a sword maker for Lucio’s army and eventually becomes a solider on the field. A sword to the eye takes his vision in one eye and a magical blast takes off his right arm.

He carries the weight of his actions, people he’s killed, people he couldn’t save on his shoulders. Tries to bring his friends back in a magical ritual, it fails. The ghosts of his friends haunt him, whispering and visible only to him.

Runs a blacksmith shop, his main customer is Kieran who enjoys his sword designs and paintings.

#amanidelaoc #lucasdelaoc #kierandelaoc #donovandelaoc #will be updated as i go

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hey-hamlet · 4 years

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BNHA FIC PROMPTS

A collection of all of the fic ideas from that ask game, as of now. I’ll throw in new ones if i get any and when I remember. Feel free to use any of them, I’d love a link if you did!

with hands to the sky, I beg (what will save us?)

Izuku is a god who asks to be reborn as a human to try and help. He is warned he can’t return to being a god and will join the mortal realm, ever reincarnated. He agrees.

Izuku is a child with faint memories of a life he never lived, who knows too much about the world but not enough about the people around him. He’s not listed as having a quirk but he’s never gotten sick, never been hurt. He scares the other children and the adults don’t like his precocious nature. Inko loves her little miracle.

My Soul is Like a Supernova

Things happen around Izuku. Always have. Everything from earthquakes and villain attacks to miraculous healing and lottery wins. He’s always attracted big events like this - as if even the universe can see how important he is and it warps itself around him.

He sees this as perfectly normal. 1A is begining to notice a stressful pattern.

This one regret of mine

Character study of Inko and how she deeply regrets so many things she’s done in her life, from her husband, to giving up on her carrier, to telling Izuku he couldn’t be a hero and then letting him keep going to UA.

But no matter what she’d never regret her son.

Of souls and lost causes

A good ol’ Izuku sees dead people AU, focused more on his younger years when he’d wander around the city helping as many spirits as he could, only to return home at the end of the day exhausted and dirty to an increasingly worried mother who believed the doctor when he said seeing ghosts as a quirk would be impossible.

my life.your choice

Underground heroics AU (i dont think ive ever posted that au huh): Izuku is the well-known son of japan’s immortal emperor, All for One. Born quirkless, he’s been emotionally abused but violently protected his whole life by his father, his mother killed before his eyes for trying to take him away. He’s never been able to make a choice for himself save for his bodyguard - his childhood friend, Bakugo Katsuki.

Katsuki made a pledge to protect him when they were in kindergarten and he’ll be damned if he breaks it now. And if it takes the two of them joining the resistance, meeting a vigilante by the name of All Might thought long dead and Izuku receiving a near-mythical quirk? Well, that just makes it more exciting, doesn’t it?

I forgot that you existed

Izuku gets hit with a quirk that not only makes people forget him, it prevents them from seeing him as well - all but erasing him from reality for everyone he knows. He can still interact with things but all it manages to do is just UA shut down under fear of villain infiltration. They find Izuku 18 hours later when the quirk wears off - a motion tracking gun trained on his forehead.

certain uncertainties

No one can predict the quirks trapped in One for All or when they’ll show up. Anthology fic of Izuku discovering each of them, some being rather helpful, and at least one piece of merch being sent into a low orbit.

Sometimes goodbye is a second chance

Set in the same universe I wrote console reset in; during the two heroes movie: they never defeat Nine and he slaughters the whole island and his class, leaving Izuku till last. He comes back at the start of their first day on the island and doggedly makes friends with every islander he can because while it hurt seeming them die, it hurt even more knowing he’d never even learnt most of their names.

They win this time the first time they meet him, even if it’s a marathon fight of 8 hours with him and Bakugo doggedly wearing him down. No one dies. Izuku thinks it’s worth dying as many times as he has to to keep the people he loves smiling.

The immortality of the heroic spirit

One of the quirks in One for All is determination: if you have something you desperately want to do, you can’t die - no matter how much blood you lose or home many pieces your body is crushed into - you’ll just heal back to where you were before you died. All Might and Aizawa find this out to horrifying effect during a brutal villain fight they are stuck watching on the news with the rest of a terrified UA.

In hindsight this makes a lot of sense to Izuku. Aizawa wants to scream. All Might has coughed up more blood than is probably healthy and all of 1A bruised hands from where they were clutching each other’s when it got too tense.

Shine on you invincible legacy

Izuku becomes a top 10 hero before hes even out of high school, hitting No.2 the second he graduates and taking No.1 from Hawks literally the next time the ranking is counted. 1A will not stop throwing him parties each time he moves up in the ranking, even if in 3rd year it was every other week. All Might comes to ever one of them.

Shake the Dirt from Your Shoes

Izuku will be a hero and no one will stop him - an AU a fair bit like the beginning of canon except Izuku fights back, remains unending optimistic and maybe engages in a light bit of technically legal vigilantism, accidentally befriending a vast array of heroes and a student or two.

To his horror, they recognise him out of costume as soon as he speaks to them, resulting in a very eventful first day at UA.

do you feel with a heart of steel

Original Sin AU, young Izuku finding feeling emotions difficult and not knowing why. He finds a dying animal on the way home and sits with it, patting it until it passes away. He doesn’t think he feels anything, but his cheeks feel wet.

all you want is milk and honey

Villains have been trying to use Izuku his entire life, much to his annoyance and confusion (I wonder who in his family might make him known to villains? hm). He’s gotten very good at being intimidating, even as a child.

When he gets kidnapped with Bakugo on a primary school field trip he decides to hell with it and breaks out all the stops. Turns out villains don’t tend to want a 10-year-old who can describe in great detail how they would hang you with your own intestines.

Bakugo decides that fuck Izuku being quirkless, he’s kind of amazing.

Even the stars

Izuku dies young and no one but the stars cry for him. They bring him back, but his body is cold and he has a nova burning where his heart should be. A four-year-old who has known death and walked among the stars is a terrifying thing. His skin has a shimmer to it, his eyes look like planets with no visible pupil, and he knows far too much.

The stars still speak to him, and they see everything.

bitter dreams and optimistic nightmares

Bakugo and Izuku grow up good friends, until Izuku is taken by villains age 9.

Bakugo’s determined to be a hero to save Izuku, even if it hurts to be at UA without him.

Izuku hates hurting people but he’s determined to make the most of his horrible situation by leaking information to heroes whenever he can. He’s given to All for One to serve as a lab hand to the doctor when All for One finds out this rag tag outpost of his had been hiding a valuable resource.

They meet at the USJ.

Mind Games for Two Shinsou and Izuku are both gen ed students in the same class, but with Shinsou stubbornly refusing to make friends and Izuku being the vice president they are almost strangers. UA has a no quirkless students policy and Shinsou has accidentally discovered that he student in his class with an analysis quirk, doesn’t, actually, have one. Izuku is aware Shinsou knows. They both want to get into the hero course but are under the impression there is only one spot.

It’s tense.

The Melody Stuck in My Soul

Izuku has an empathy/emotional control quirk that hears other’s emotions like music. He uses this both to read people, to defend himself, and, because hes Izuku, to ramp up his adrenaline/motivation/anger to kick ass. He and Bakugo are friends because baby Bakugo was lowkey impressed Izuku managed to weaponize his tears.

Advantage of the musical element: it gives him something concrete to latch on to and change, and it was very easy to work out which emotions were which. Also he has his own theme song, even if he’s the only one who can hear it.

Disadvantage: He cant turn it off. The stronger the emotion the ‘louder’ the music (it doesn’t cover up natural sounds because its not technically there, you get me?)

Error 404, childhood not found

A Hero’s Son AU, snapshot’s of Izuku’s childhood with No.1 Hero All for One as his abusive father.

Age 4 when his quirk never comes in and All for One abandons all pretences of loving him. Age 6 when he realises his son is intelligent and has a use as a lab assistant for the doctor. Age 8 when Bakugo first realises something is wrong. Age 9 when his father is almost killed by the No.1 villain All Might. Age 9 when he’s made to work in the labs with the doctor.

Age 14 when he meets All Might. Age 15 when he makes it into UA.

Darkness Growing (The Light Ever Smaller)

Villains take over Japan after the current arc, leaving all heroes and students that don’t switch sides on the run. 1A is instantly separated with a few of them being killed, most of the living students with Aizawa and Izuku and Bakugo by themselves, both too stubborn to leave the other.

Aizawa is desperately trying to get to Izuku and Bakugo in an attempt to keep them safe, while the two of them are avoiding Aizawa to keep the rest of their class safe(er), all while avoiding the villains, turncoat heroes and police out to get them. Public support is spotty at best with anyone found ‘harboring a criminal’ given the same punishment as the hero.

Lost soul of last hope

The first wielder has been Izuku’s imaginary friend since he can remember. He’s not very imaginary.

Featuring Izuku with the world’s strangest older brother, Inko coming to the realisation her son can see a ghost, but only one ghost and no one will believe them, Izuku’s quirk being listed as Inko’s because the first wielder can help him fake it, and Izuku wondering why first looks so much like that picture of his father on his mother’s bedside table.

The kids the system failed

100% The 1A run aways au with 1A, Aizawa and Mic being runaways kids of various ages that band together to stay alive and maybe do a little vigilante work on the side.

Izuku has All for One and uses it like you’d expect a traumatised kid to - cautiously at first but when he gets the hang of it there are suddenly no more criminals with quirks in their area, and it looks suspiciously like Uraraka can fly.

Just a second to soon? For the Fic thing?

Aizawa struggles and gets knocked out just before Shigaraki lunges at Tsuyu. She and Izuku are left horribly injured by his quirk with massive facial scarring, and in Tsuyu’s case, the loss of an eye.

Daze

An illusion/fear quirk makes his teachers look like villains and convinces him he’s in danger. They try and stop him without hurting him but it’s difficult considering Izuku is convinced he’s protecting his friends, considering he can only see them broken and bloodied with villains he thought were locked away loaming over them.

Even as Aizawa cuts out his quirk Izuku still tries to shield his friends, snarling ferally.

Morning Glories and Forget-me-nots

A memory quirk of unknown duration hits Izuku, leaving him remembering none of his life. 1A starts to fall apart without one of their pillar’s.

hopeless but not broken

The Long Con au where Izuku asks All Might if he could be a hero without a quirk - he’s really asking if he can stop pretending to be a villain, if he’s worth anything without the quirks he’s been given, if he’s worth something as himself rather than the limited use he can provide. He doesn’t know how to say all of that, so he just asks if he could be a hero.

All Might says no. And Izuku basically decides right then that the only way he’ll ever be able to help people is by being a mole for the heroes like he’s been since he was 10 - that he isn’t worth anything because he’s quirkless and to be considered just as valuable as the people around him are he needs to give his life and more.

He shows up to the bar crying because of All Might and Shigaraki moves his murder plot forward a few months.

Sunflowers and Summer Gardens

All Might starts a garden on campus and 1A like to help. He uses it as a nice place to chill and as physical therapy. He likes to give the different classes bunches of flowers when they sprout.

For Dos and For Donts

Izuku runs into some of his old bullies when out with some of his friends. Uraraka, Iida, Todoroki, Shinsou and Asui intimidate the fuck out of them, and Izuku realises hes not scared of them any more. Then they get frozen yoghurt!

your mistakes, my unbecoming

Aizawa assigns a project on quirk related issues, Izuku ends up with quirkless discrimination, Aizawa assumes his discomfort is just him being upset he doesn’t get to talk about quirks. He doesn’t realise his mistake until he finds Izuku dissociating on the roof.

one and one into the vast

Original Sin AU, All for One and Izuku seeing the vestiges together. One for All sees his brother for the first time and Izuku learns a lot about the voice in his head.

All for One has a mini-crisis about his not son learning he’s a horrific villain, especially considering he has the power to cast his soul out at any time, killing him at will. Izuku doesn’t kill him. He admits its probably not right of him to let AfO remain considering the things he’s done, but All for One is a part of him now and it would be like killing a friend.

All for One quietly decides to hold off on the villainy until all of 1A is dead, for Izuku’s sake.

between the stars of our souls

Izuku and All Might are old gods who keep getting reborn into human forms with their memories regained when they turn 4. Normally finding each other takes a while, and their last reincarnation they never found each other, so this time he resolves to make himself as easy to find as possible, all while saving as many people as he can.

Izuku, aged 4, memories fresh in his head, makes it his mission to get into contact with the man he knows is his father/mentor’s reincarnation. All Might’s agency was not expecting a 4 year old to repeatedly try breaking in to their office, and they especially weren’t expecting him to be so good at it.

you really should have thought this through

Different (and ill-advised) attempts at special moves or team up combo moves. Featuring:

Izuku managing to break Kirishima’s nose.

Uraraka sending Bakugo so high he broke the sound barrier coming back down to earth.

Kaminari and Shouto managing to electrify ice.

Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo levelling a whole suburb (at least it was condemned???)

I'll Break Anything You Give Me

Different times Izuku desperately tried to repair his relationship with Izuku over the years and the one time Bakugo fully grasps how much he fucked up and reaches out his hand to try to fix it for the first time. Probably includes a lot of screaming, Bakugo learning how to say sorry, a field trip and them having a conversation on Aldera’s roof.

Sinking

One for All kind of possesses Izuku during a quiet night at the dorms. One for All, made of 8 people, 7 of which are dead and had their last experiences in life be rather painful and violent, breaks down, Izuku alone not enough to drown them out. They lash out at anyone who tries to touch them, their quirks tearing Izuku’s body apart.

All Might’s vestige reaches out a hand to Izuku to keep his mind from being torn apart as 1A set about both trying to protect Izuku and get Aizawa who was off campus on patrol.

Feat. Bakugo and All Might being the only people with any idea about what’s going on and getting more and more stressed each second that passes. Iida, Uraraka and Todoroki being good heroes and even better friends. Blood King deciding he’s never watching 1A for Aizawa again, and Aizawa deciding he’s never leaving 1A alone ever again.

A Long Way From Home

Shirakumo wakes up in Kurogiri’s body in Tartarus with only shadowed memories of his time as a villain. He’s scared and alone and he just wants to see his friends again, even if he’s scared they hate him because at least that’s something he knows.

Too Far Gone

The other side AU, it comes out Izuku is a villain with (knockoff) All for One and he has a showdown with Mirio. He and Izuku trained together under All Might and Mirio tries to plead with him but Izuku has to basically tell him to go to hell to not ruin his placet as crown prince of the underworld.

Of course, he’s not only doing this to save people, he’s also doing it with All Might’s blessing - taking over from All Might himself serving as a villain after he killed All for One to prevent a power vacuum.

Doesn’t mean that his friends in 1A know that.

Snowy hills and sunlit peaks

Probably an AU about All Might being a mountain spirit with a little shrine that Izuku is the only one who visits - Izuku gets in trouble and All Might manifests himself, saves him, and tells everyone to keep their hands off his human son.

Wilting

Izuku gets sick and he tries to hide it because he’s scared its something serious but he just gets worse and worse. His friends are the ones who eventually step in and comfort him.

I’d probably write two endings with one being a bad end and the other a good end.

My wish came true without me realising

Izuku wakes up one morning, comes downstairs and just starts crying. Everyone panics and he reassures them they are happy tears and that he's just glad to be here. They all call him sappy and give him a hug. Later in the day he and Bakugo chat and Izuku reveals he never even expected to live this long, let alone become a hero. Bakugo grumbles that he’s too stubborn to die, and not to get too cocky. Izuku promises he wont.

#38 of them damn #bnha prompts #mha prompts #prompt list #bnha #mha #bnha au #boku no hero #my hero academia #hero aca

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pastellipanic · 4 years

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Junkenstein's Legend

It isnt a secret that I like Overwatch. It isnt a secret that my favourite event is the Halloween event of Junkensteins revenge. It also isnt a secret that I get hyperfixated onto uncommon things or parts of things. So today, presented by my hyperfixating grey brainmatter, I bring you:

The Full Tale of Junkensteins Revenge

Or, you know, the The Full Tale of Junkensteins Revenge as Theorized by Pastelli During Sleepless Nights. Anyway, we shall start at the beginning!

(Everything in this story is theorized upon the tidbits of canon information from the game, the comics and details of skins, sprays and maps. You are entitled to disagree with my theorization and I will gladly take on any opposing theories if they are given to me with a constructive and positive vibe. I will also gladly have a chat with anyone who is interested in the subject or has ideas I hadnt considered. That being said, Enjoy!)

Chapter 1: The sad beginnings of a mad doctor and his first step onto the battlefield.

Doctor Jamison Junkenstein was a young lad who worked for the local Lord Reinhardt in a town of Adlersbrunn located in the outskirts of Black Forest. He was a brilliant mechanic, engineer and had no fear of working with electricity, hence he had gotten the job in the first place. While his social skills were limited and his fame in the town stained, he was a hard worker and a genius in his own field. At some point during his career, he got bored of the same old electricity and piping, and began to experiment in robotics. His first one was a crude little thing but he was proud of it, so he decided to continue on this path. He began to dream of building live automatons, creatures that could think and feel for themselves. Perhaps it was the fact that he yearned for someone to befriend whilst the townspeople mistreated and disrespected him for his oddities, or perhaps it was his pride towards his own intelligence. However it may be, he started spending more time upon making the automatons, "omnics" as he called them or "Zomnics" as they were later called by the townspeople for their ghastly slow movements. Lord Reinhardt was displeased by him giving his time to such silly things, even more so when Junkenstein came to his door to show them. Every time he made adjustments and showed them to the Lord, he waved the "useless trinkets" away, and everytime his already feeble fame deteriorated in peoples rumours. Madman, lunatic and fool were quickly becoming synonyms for his name. This only spurred him on in his quest to prove them wrong. The metal husks laying in his laboratory soon turned to dug up corpses, the wires he used to put inside turned to stitches on the flesh and what he couldnt understand in anatomy he changed into machinery. Soon he had a body, half organic half inorganic, and all he needed was to make it come alive. Bloodpumping didnt work. Watershocks didnt work. Exchanging the heart into a running motor didnt work. Atlast he tried using electricity to bring his creation to life, unsuccessfully. Junkenstein was exhausted, abused and even his trust in his skills had failed him. He was on the brink of quitting and burying that stupid project, until...

Witch of the Wilds appeared!

The Witch of the Wilds was a well known individual, feared by all near and far for her magic. It was rumoured she could turn coal into gold, make waterfalls run upwards and burn a castle with the flick of her wrist. She was also known from her coming to people at their darkest hour and offering a solution... for a price. And thats exactly what she offered Junkenstein, a solution to his problems; the spark of life. She only asked for a favor, one she would come collect in a nearby future and one that he couldnt refuse. He accepted. He had nothing to lose. Applying the spark of life onto his machine, he started the creatures heart and mind. There were a lot of things that went through its mind when it woke, curiosity and giddiness, but most importantly: Panic. In a furious frenzy it tore itself from its bindings and ran out, into the streets of Adlersbrunn. The townspeople, upon seeing the monster, immediately screamed, cried, yelled, attacked and fled. The monster had no sympathy for people so cruel as the baker who hit it or the children kicking its shins, so he let out his rage onto the masses. It was carnage.

Junkenstein was happy. He had succeeded! His monster was doing exactly what he wanted; avenging the years of societal neglect and bullying Junkenstein had gone through. Yet he had no control over the monster, and no idea how to get it to the Lords doorstep. A couple of hours of manipulating the routes and trying to get the monster where he wanted, he finally got to the door.... Only to find that while he was busy, so was the Lord. He had hired a few wanderers to protect him when he had heard of the happenings in the town. An old soldier searching for a fight, an alchemist practizing her talent, an archer running from the past and a gunslinger hunting for easy money. Only four they were against the doctor, his monster and his minions, and against the Witch of the Wilds and her fearsome ally; a cursed pumpkinheaded man by the name of Reaper. And only four they were who beat him, leaving his corpse battered onto the rocktiles of the yard. His monster was perished, the Witch had fled and the Reaper had gone with her. The wanderers went inside to claim their prize.

Chapter 2: How to tame a monster and revive a doctor.

As the wanderers left the scene, Witch of the Wilds saw her chance to do her work. She quickly used the spark of life to revive Junkenstein, giving his bruised flesh some tidying up whilst doing it, and watched as he sat up. Safe to say, he was pissed to have lost. He wanted to charge right back into fight, but was stopped by the Witch. She managed to make him change his mind, to wait for a year and build his army before trying again, and give her some time to get allies. Gathering what he could of the broken zomnics, Junkenstein found the corpse of his monster and decided to take it back to his lab for revival. He wasnt sure if the creature would run out again or stay, but he wanted to still show the town that he could make something living. This time, when rising from the cold metal table, the monster sat still and stared at Junkenstein. During the fight it had noted that the doctor didnt attack him, even defending him from the attacking gunslinger. It decided to stay near him, for no other reason than that it trusted him. Junkenstein was thrilled to have a friend, even if it did smell of decay a bit.

11 months went by in peace. The town healed, forgot about the incident and, assuming that the wrecked corpse of a homeless man was Junkensteins, buried the past with it. Meanwhile the doctor had other things to think about. He had built an army of zomnics, had tamed the monster and befriended it, had taught it to speak a little and had served the Witch on a few occasions. On some days he still liked to venture into town to see how life was going there. At one point he had almost forgiven the town, before he had come to learn of a new game for the children based after the mocking of his person. Thats when his short temper blew into pieces and he jumped to make an announcement in the middle of the town. He raged, mocked, spat at the townspeople, before revealing his identity and announcing that all of them would perish under his boot. Seeing a dead man back from the grave gave quite a scare to the town, making them panickedly run to the local Lords. They decided that a meeting was to be held to consider this new threat. Some voted to kill Junkenstein again, yet it was deemed to be an ineffective solution due to him coming back the last time. Some voted to trap him and enslave him for the rest of his days, but it was a futile idea for someone like him to be trapped. He would just squirm his way out like the vermin he was. It was decided that Adlersbrunn was to be evacuated. All people were to be gathered into Lord Reinhardts castle, to have few protectors stay behind until they could safely escape. Lord Reinhardt sent word to three people in order to get protection for this event. A Countess from a family of Hunters that had shut herself from the world. An old friend of the Lord who traveled the world, hunting dragons. And a Monk with his Apprentice, answering to a higher calling than human.

Meanwhile the Witch of the Wilds was gathering her allies, having gotten an interesting offer from a dragon in the Black Forest. The dragon offered to lend one of their servants the powers of a dragon and give that servant into the Witches hands for the battle. The Witch was intrigued but suspicious, so she asked what the dragon wanted in return. Nothing. It wanted the greater good and it knew that the Witch wanted that too. Adlersbrunn was filled with people and people were filled with fears of the unknown. The Black Forest was filled with the unknown, and therefore they were hunted. Silver bullet battles, witch burnings and burials of the undead had plagued the creatures of the forest for long enough, and it was time for the people to leave them alone. If not by peace, then by force. Junkenstein was a great tool for the Witches cause, but she still needed more power, therefore she agreed to take the servant of the dragon onto the battlefield as her ally.

Chapter 3: Junkensteins Revenge 2, Electric Boogaloo

The fight happens almost the same as last, but this time the tables have turned. The wanderers struggle to keep up with the Summoners dragonfire blasts, the bombs lobbed by Junkenstein and the gunfire from Reapers guns. While they dont win the fight, they manage to hold them off just enough time for the townspeople to flee far away from Junkensteins grasp. Instead of a petrified Lord, Junkenstein is greeted by an empty castle. At first he seems gleeful, running to hop on the throne. Once he sits down and looks around, he bursts into tears. After all these years of pain, he doesnt even get his revenge. He doesnt get to have his victory even at his brightest moment. The monster tries to comfort its creator, succeeding just to quiet him enough for the Witch to speak. Its time for the favor he owes her.

Before, she wanted him to leave the town as well, but seeing how he was alone already she wanted something else. She wanted him to be a guardian for the black forest. No town would ever become of Adlersbrunn ever again and no one would step a foot into Black forest while the doctor was alive, to ensure that the creatures could live in peace.

He accepted, as he was to do, and remained the only human left.

Chapter 4: The time that we dont speak too much about because honestly nothing happens

Some hundred years passed in quiet. Adlersbrunn collapsed and became ruins of what it once was. Junkenstein guarded the forest and helped the creatures inside it, at one point building a bride for his monster. (Nothing too much is said about what happened to her or where she went) The monster learned and lived, helping Junkenstein with his work. Due to both of them having been revived with the spark of life, they had become immortal. (Unless killed) Witch of the Wilds passed peacefully after a long life. Reaper found his head and his curse was lifted. Life was good.

Chapter 5: Junkenstein of Eichenwalde

One day Junkenstein realizes that where Adlersbrunn once was, is now something new. People have come and started building a town, so he disguises himself and goes to investigate. These people have migrated here from the north, calling this place Eichenwalde, and seem to be very nice. They offer him food and water, the kids want to play with him and the grown ups tell stories of the North to him. He doesnt see an issue with them coming here to stay, since they seem nice and the forest has few creatures left to protect. When a little girl tries to run into the woods, Junkenstein holds her back and tells her not to go. Intrigued, the little girl asks why. The doctor starts telling about monsters and creatures to scare the kids, but they are more interested in hearing his ghost stories, so he obliges to tell them one. He tells about a mad scientist who created a monster and how the monster now lurks in the woods. The kids are excited and the adults think of it as a great legend. It becomes a habit for Junkenstein to come into the town to tell ghost stories to kids. One day, when its Halloween, he notices a difference. The town has changed their style into old fashioned clothes, their mechanical cars to wooden carriage and posters of a fake Mad scientist and a Monster litter the walls. The kids are playing as the characters from his stories and running around with mouths filled with candy. The legend has come into a tradition of a reenactment.

One day, a man arrives into the town, and raises some questions in Junkenstein. The man looks like the Lord. Speaks like the Lord. Walks like the Lord. Has the same mannerisms as the Lord. He even introduces himself as Reinhardt to the disguised Junkenstein. The Lord escaped. It would make sense for him to have started again somewhere else. This could be his descendant, without knowledge of the legend. Who would want such an odd story to be passed down to their descendants? Who would even believe it? Junkenstein keeps an eye on the man and, even when he leaves, the monster follows him for a while. It doesnt seem like he is a threat of any kind. The life goes on in Eichenwalde, with Junkenstein telling stories and living his life with the monster. Every year his story is celebrated in front of him, without any idea that it is truer than any other tale told.

The End.

It took me 3 hours to write this down and I know it starts showing at the end. Also, there are still some mysteries in the story that have absolutely no canon to even start theorizing from. (Aka The Sombra Situation. Theres literally only one spray and a skin where she is linked in any way.)

Also, some very fun theories that I didnt know how to incorporate into the story are:

McCree gets bitten by a werewolf after the first fight

The first fight is the original Junkensteins revenge-gamemode. The second fight is the Endless gamemode.

Canonically the countess killed the Monks master, and I like to think its because of this they lost. They couldnt trust eachother.

When Summoner is close by the air gets heated.(Almost Canon. It is implied in voicelines)

Junkenstein is implied to be so chatty that he keeps talking/laughing during the fight

The Countess is from a family of Vampire hunters, who was bitten by a vampire and was ashamed. The reason she joins the battle is to honor her familys name and hunt for one last time.

It took me 3 separate days to research the canon elements, put them onto a paper and theorize around them and now I finally got this written down in here.

If you are interested in the notes I have, here you can read them: (Mostly in english, but might have some finnish words in there)

Now go my children! Hyperfixate onto this and share my pain!

(Also I would appreciate that if you take this theory and post it somewhere else, that you would credit me and tell your friends I said Hi!)

#overwatch #junkensteins revenge #junkenstein #junkrat #roadhog #mercy #reaper #symmetra #halloween #hyperfixation #theory

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musical-chick-13 · 3 years

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And Theon bc I love him

WHAT A COINCIDENCE I LOVE HIM TOO (this answer is gonna be a combination of books and show)

Send me a character and I’ll tell you the following:

• Did they live up to their potential? / In what ways was their potential unachieved?

-I would say yes. The only negative I have about his general arc is his death (which, see below). But Theon from the very beginning was, though not a particularly nice person, still relatable. Feeling othered, wanting to be accepted by an immediate environment that doesn’t accept you, isolated from and ostracized by your family, and the tension that comes between serving the different types of familial relationships in your life. Theon has no idea who he is, tossed aside by his blood family for not growing up with them and being “soft,” aka sort-of moral and having emotions that aren’t selfish rage or smugness (which, yep, that second part is a mood, see: my entire childhood and how no one wanted to be around an “emotional” “soft” child). And from there, he spirals out of control in a way that, while certainly not admirable by any stretch of the imagination, is still understandable in the context of the narrative and his characterization. And from there, after going through hell and quite literally losing himself (even to the point of straight-up denying rescue), he builds himself back up gradually, to the point where he expressed extreme regret for what he’s done, helps an innocent woman escape a truly horrifying situation, acknowledges that his family is generally garbage, and (in-show b/c again books aren’t finished), helping to restore his sister to power, rescuing her after his PTSD relapses while confronting Euron, and ultimately opting to protect the Starks come hell or high water in order to genuinely atone for what he’s done. He is no longer conflicted because he wants to do the right thing, and that right thing is defending the kingdom from the White Walkers and making sure Sansa and Bran are safe. And it’s no longer about fulfilling a duty or finding a family to fill the void. Because now he has found himself. I will contend that Theon has one of the best, most nuanced, most organic redemption arcs of all time. I will forever be grateful that I got to see that piece of storytelling unfold.

Although, I would love to know what he thought of Dany. A missed opportunity, that.

• How they negatively and positively affected the story.

-Positive: His arc of identity and finding where your loyalties lie ties into the overall theme of “How do you find yourself in a world where goodness, authenticity, and honesty are often punished and increasingly rare?” And it proves that governmental politics aren’t the only defining factors in decisions: familial politics can be just as difficult and dangerous, which adds yet another rich, complicated layer to the overall story. He has a genuine, honest-to-Drowned-God redemption arc, which is...not really present anywhere else in the story (no, Jaime is not on a Redemption Quest, I will die on this hill). But I think the biggest draw of Theon’s presence is that it deconstructs the whole “Character Revenge Fantasy” idea. He does bad things. We want him to be punished. But not like that. No one deserves that. How far is too far? What does retribution really look like? Given how easily that idea can be abused and go off the rails, is retribution even something to strive for? What is the point of using extreme violence/torture/mutilation/breaking someone’s psyche when it doesn’t really accomplish anything? Isn’t atonement and genuine justice a better option? It certainly was for Theon. He could only piece himself back together and do anything meaningful once he was out of his abusive environment. All of these are imporant questions that are posed by his existence in the narrative.

-Negative: Idk if I have much to say here. My biggest problem is his death (see below), but that’s not really a negative story effect so much as...being disappointing and narratively irrelevant. I gotta say, his introduction via his sister was...really weird. I genuinely have no idea why GRRM wrote that. It never came up again or had any kind of narrative ramifications and kind of cast a strange, uncomfortable light on his relationship with Asha/Yara for the remainder of the story. I can ignore and enjoy their later relationship it if I don’t think about it too hard, though, so I guess I’ll chalk it up to GRRM having a Bad Idea.

• What my favorite arc for them is.

-All of it?? Theon’s journey is kind of...one big arc, which is why I think it works so well. He has this overarching redemption plot which spans the entire series and informs every decision he makes (for good or for bad, depending on where in the aforementioned journey he is). The redemption arc isn’t bogged down with side plots or other pieces of narrative clutter, meaning it has time to grow and, thus, be gradual and realistic. If I had to choose a specific point, it’s probably when he tries to reintegrate back into society via supporting Yara. Gaining the Iron Islands’ support for her ruling, spiriting away with Euron’s fleet, and ultimately rescuing his sister after her capture. He can’t just go back into society. He’s scared. He has really bad PTSD. But he recognizes that putting his home in good hands is something bigger than just him because it’s Yara’s home, too. I just...I really love family relationships, y’all.

• What I think of their ending.

-I’m not really sure how I feel about this one. I get that the series is GrimDark™ and that people who make the right choice and fight for good die all the time, but Theon dying just felt...wrong. To me.

And, like...I get it. It makes sense to parallel his original descent into villainy (cemented by executing those two boys and pretending they were Bran and Rickon) with him dying to protect Bran himself. It ties into the whole very common trope of completing a full redemption arc by committing a completely selfless act at great personal cost. It’s kind of like the whole Missy thing in Doctor Who (which...hoo boy, that post is coming, make no mistake), where selfishness is directly opposed by making the ultimate sacrifice with no motivation for personal gain. And the fact that the last words he ever heard were “You’re a good man?” I cannot even begin to describe how much that makes me sob. But...honestly, I’m really tired of this idea that redemption has to end in death in order to be achieved or “complete.” I think it’s much more poignant to have a redeemed character live to help build a better world. Because what’s the point of telling people to be better if the “reward” is death? No one’s going to want to reform themselves if they think that’ll be the result.

I think the thing that Bugs Me™ the most is that Theon never really got to have a moment of peace when he was alive. Sansa gained the North’s love and at least had a secure childhood. Ned and Cat were happily married for years. Arya had parents who loved her and a good relationship with Jon. Jon fell in love with Ygritte and found his Night Watch Bros, and Robb (in show verse) had some very happy moments with Talisa. Davos put great stock in what he considered fulfilling friendships with Stannis and Shireen; Brienne was treated respectfully by Renly, Catelyn, and Sansa; Missandei and Grey Worm had each other and their friendship with Dany, who herself had many personal successes in her quest for the Iron Throne and saw the death of her abusive brother. Cersei even had moments with Jaime (who himself had several notable military victories and at least some time with Myrcella, as well as being gladly and deeply in love, however dysfunctional that love was), times when she successfully fought off enemies (including her dad), and some sweet moments with Tommen, as well as a huge victory via blown-up sept at the end of season 6. Theon was treated as a second-class family member by the Starks his whole life by being “traded” to them as a condition of war resolution AS A BABY, is immediately disparaged and mistreated by his immediate family when he tries to return to them, makes terrible decisions that almost cost him his conscience completely, is brutally tortured by Ramsay, is on the run with his sister from Euron almost immediately after, and has a PTSD attack that ultimatly results in him having to launch a rescue mission. And then he fights ice zombies. And then he dies. He never really...got to be happy at all? There was never any kind of “win” for him. Not even survival. The narrative couldn’t even give him that.

TLDR: Theon’s death seemed less shock-value-y than others (like, for example, Shireen or Missandei or, heck, Melisandre even), and it isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. It’s narratively-informed and it makes sense as an emotional through-line, but, ultimately, Redemption Cemented By Selfless Death is a tired trope, and I honestly thought this story (which...you know...serves as a deconstruction of common fantasy tropes/book tropes in general) was better than that.

• When I wish they had died. / If I think they should’ve died.

-So here’s where we get personal™ kids.

So, it’s no secret that I am...severely mentally ill. I’ve talked about expression/presentation of mental illness in regard to Cersei a lot on this blog, and how that (as paradoxical as it may seem) helped bring a sense of comfort and emotional resonance to me. Theon, post-Ramsay, has, I think, a very clear case of PTSD. Theon is one of the few characters I’ve seen where his mental illness isn’t the cause of the bad, violent, dangerous choices he makes. It only takes root after he has made the decision and conscious effort to better himself, and it, rather than demonizing him, serve to humanize him. His trauma didn’t define him. And although a PTSD attack led to him unintentionally losing Yara to Euron’s capture, he makes every effort to rescue her, a goal he does end up achieving. It is so rare I get to see a character who goes through these things, successfully fight them and come out with positive qualities at the end. Like...switching topics a bit here, Jaime going back to King’s Landing to (try to) escape and ultimately die with Cersei made sense to me because, as Jaime says, he is a hateful man. He never made much of an honest effort to be anything else. And he never truly wanted to be good; he just wanted to be liked. He wanted to adopt some personality that would make him feel less disconnected from the rest of the world. But Theon...genuinely feels remorse for everything he’s done. He makes a concerted effort to do everything in his power to improve the lives of people he believes are good and deserve to be safe. So, just...killing him off in a Completely Selfless Sacrifice (like...you know how a lot of mentally ill people put themselves through suffering-like OCD rituals, bottling feelings, self-harm, even suicide-in a misplaced attempt to “help” or “protect other people”) seemed antithetical to everything we saw of his arc.

Ultimately, with such a humanizing, empathetic portrayal of trauma and mental health struggles, seeing Theon be killed off just...pissed me off. I am so tired of seeing mentally ill characters die. I really want to believe that I can live through and thrive in spite of the things that afflict me, and I get example after example of characters not being allowed to do that. It feels awful, quite frankly. And it makes hope that much harder.

I also just feel like...there was nothing the story gained from his death? I get the thematic parallels as mentioned earlier, but it didn’t really move the story forward in any significant way. It didn’t motivate other characters to do anything, it had no political ramifications, it didn’t serve to contribute to any kind of happy ending or commentary on society, it just...was sad. Again, I thought this story was better than that.

#theon greyjoy #got #my son #mental illness in media #meta #redemption arcs #tw: self harm mention #tw: suicide mention

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uraharasandals · 4 years

Text

Intellectual Discussion Time

[Edited 3.8.2020: ‘Dominant’ gene to ‘recessive’ gene]

In an attempt to procrastinate on my requests writing, and to pull myself away from college apps, I decided to present to you this issue that have been nagging me for a long time, and something that I felt Asagiri didn’t really address. (Or maybe it’s just me, and feel free to criticise or tell me off in the notes/reblogging)

[note that I haven’t read the light series at all so if there’s something revealed in those do let me know]

So within the BSD universe we see a lot of worldbuilding that resembles urban fantasy (i.e. a subgenre of fantasy that incorporates ‘supernatural’ elements in an urban setting; other prominent works in this genre include The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare), where there are organisations of ‘gifted’ individuals using Abilities, like the Port Mafia and the ADA.

But there are significant plotholes within this; 1) how abilities came about, 2) how are abilities ‘shaped’, 3) implications of having abilities and 4) the question of ‘where are the other ability users?’.

1) How Abilities Came About

The thing is, we don’t really see how abilities emerge? In other works, such as Katekyo Hitman Reborn, we know that their powers come from their rings. Other magical girl anime shows us that their devices/staffs/whatever gave them those special powers. In fact, a main theme in all of these fantasy anime was introducing the reason behind the emergence of powers in the beginning. You often see magical girl animes starting with the protagonist gaining a staff or a charm or whatever, and they learn how to use their powers throughout the entire show.

But here’s the thing in BSD; we don’t know how abilities came about. Whether it is a dominant gene thing, or whether it was from some kind of device or experiment or whatever. While we do know how characters originally without abilities gain them (in Kyouka, whose ability was transferred to her by her mother), it is assumed that all characters in the show are born with them. But then how did this come about? We know that the rest of the society consists of normal human beings without abilities (the clerks at the ADA is a clear example), so it must be an external factor causing the appearance of abilities in the beginning.

(I think there was something in the manga about Atsushi’s abilities; it revealed that someone injected him with stuff, or was it in Dead Apple? Anyways, if my memory serves me correct, we can say that Atsushi’s abilities came from experiments)

My theory concerning abilities have two strands of reasoning. The first one (spoilers to those who haven’t read the manga) is that it came about as experimenting from the war preceding the series. If you look carefully, a lot of the characters were involved in the war, either directly or indirectly; Yosano, who was an infantry nurse; Mori, who was a physician; Gide, a missionary soldier, to name a few. It is mentioned that abilities was a huge asset in winning the war, and that Japan had been actively recruiting ability users to help them gain victory. There is no explicit mention of this, but seeing as Japan has had a history of experimentation on others, it is possible that scientists have decided to ‘mass-produce’ soldiers with abilities in the war.

Another theory is the issue of a recessive gene. To put it simply, certain mutations in the human body results in different appearances, such as albinos or blue eyes. Likely this is the same in the BSD universe, except with abilities. This would explain the ‘original’ ability users who were born with their abilities. It is also possible that this gene may be more male-oriented, which would explain the unequal ratio of male to female ability users. (9, excluding Higuchi and including light novel and manga characters; there’s around 40 male ability users). It would also explain the Akutagawa and Tanizaki siblings; both brothers have abilities, yet their younger sisters don’t. [spoilers] It would also explain why both Tachihara and his older brother have abilities, despite him being the younger sibling.

2) How Are Abilities ‘Shaped’

While we know that Asagiri designed each character’s ability in accordance or inspired by the original author (I’ll probably talk about this in another post), the fact remains that within the universe, there is no knowing how these abilities are shaped, or why they are unique to each character. An example of an explanation tackling this would be Bleach; because their zanpakutou (i.e. the source of their powers) are different and responds to each Shinigami’s unique soul, therefore the abilities are shaped in accordance to the soul.

But again, there is no basis for how these abilities are shaped besides the link to their original writers. How are abilities like Dazai’s and Yosano’s considered ‘rare’ if all abilities are unique? And how are abilities classified even? From our own instincts we know that some troupes are overused, like element manipulation or animal transformation (looking at you, Atsushi) but other than that, I would say most, if not all, abilities are pretty unique. The only overlapping of abilities is Gide’s and Odasaku’s, and it is hinted that when two ability users fight each other, there is the occurrence of a ‘singularity’ -- which is again, never mentioned again.

3) Implications of Having Abilities

This is by far my favourite plothole to discuss. We know that abilities is not common in the BSD society; in fact, it is something that is considered unique. If that is so, how are abilities received by the general public?

From what we’ve seen in the show, abilities are treated like a skill, and hence could be weld for different purposes, making it resemble a double-edged sword. We see those who use it for evil/own purposes, such as the Decay of Angels and the Rats, but most of them use it for the better good, like the ADA. Some are even incorporated in higher government, like the Hunting Dogs, and the Gifted Special Operations Division.

But then if abilities are unique, how are they viewed by other normal, non-ability welding characters? I don’t think the universe is as flawless as to have other normal people simply accepting them as a daily fact of life, the continuous exposure of governmental flaws contradicts this. In fact, there are no opinions at all towards ability users during the whole series. There is no indication of fear towards them, and reception of powers differ depends on the organisation the characters belong to.

While there is not much normal people --> ability user reactions, Atsushi’s situation did reveal a glimpse into this plothole. It was mentioned that his parents abandoned him at a trash dump, and that he was constantly bullied and harassed at the orphanage. We don’t know what the reason behind his parents’ actions were, but we do know that he was locked up because of his ability to turn into a tiger. However, in the series this is played off as ‘because he couldn’t control his powers’, instead of actual fear towards the tiger.

Another example of ability user reactions was the one towards Yosano, though this is somewhat skeptical because of the context and situation. In the war, Yosano was able to heal the soldiers and make them able to fight again. Though it is assumed most of the soldiers were normal people, the situation they were in forced them to appreciate her abilities (imagine consulting a doctor who has to chop you up before they could heal you, would you appreciate thta?), so it doesn’t really reflect what the general society as a whole think of ability users.

4) ‘Where Are the Other Ability Users?’

In the series, we’ve only seen the ability users who have affiliated themselves with a certain organisation; the ADA, Port Mafia, the Guild, the Rats, etc etc. and we assume that this is true. Going by this logic, Asagiri is presenting the idea of ‘teams are stronger and safer’ which, going back to my third point, would likely mean that ability users may have been targeted at the beginning, which resulted in the rise of these organisations. But that is not the case; we have clerks working for the ADA with no abilities.

Another reasoning about this would be that someone decided ability users working in a team would be able to exploit their abilities to the full and have more freedom and autonomy. This logic, I suspect, is used by the Port Mafia, the Rats and the Guild.

But then there has to be other ability users. Atsushi, for one, was one of those individuals wandering around with no knowledge of abilities. From what was known about Akutagawa and Dazai’s background, it is assumed they are also picked up somewhere and groomed for the Port Mafia.

So then, where are these other ability users?

In the BSD universe, we are exposed to the knowledge of ability users throughout the globe. In Dead Apple, Kunikida’s briefing shows that there are ability users from Singapore and other places; the Rats, the Guild and Agatha Christie is also proof that ability users are spread all over the globe and that international ability users exist.

However, we aren’t really shown much exposure to these other ability users except in fights and their wars. What bothers me most is that the series made it seem as if the ability users belonging to organisations are the only ability users around, and that there are no others. You could literally depict a scene in which some rogue ability user misuses their ability and the ADA had to step in, yet aside from skirmishes with the Port Mafia and helping the police department, they don’t really show what happens when ability user confronts ability user.

The only time they gave us a hint of what happens when ability user confronts a lone ability user was in the OVA, where Kunikida confronts his old acquaintance. Though he was driven by his own ambitions, I’m guessing the majority of ability users who knew about their powers might be driven to use them for bad purposes and abuse them to their whim, especially when they don’t have organisations to take them in. Zettai Karen Children is an anime that explores the use of ability users in government and as a police force against ability users who misuse their powers; a few parallels could be drawn between these two works as well.

At any rate, there is no doubt BSD is an absolutely fantastic anime that I love to death, but I think these plotholes should be addressed and just,,,these are my two cents to the community :D

(Also sorry I wrote this at like 2am at night so if this is disorganised or doesn’t make sense,,,you know why)

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd meta #bungou stray dogs meta

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monsterfuneral · 4 years

Text

1960 / The Comfort

Headcanon Series: Paul’s Life Through The Decades

Warnings: Fluff, Family bonding, Paul is finally happy, then I rip it away :), character death, brief mention of cancer, angst, kidnapping, trauma responses (abuse resulting in memory loss)

Words: 1.4k

Author’s Note: This one just makes me soft man, also Daisy is an OC I made specifically for these headcanons I hope you like her. Anyway this is my personal favorite part so I hope you guys enjoy!

Questions regarding any of these headcanon posts are greatly welcomed! If you have your own headcanons or questions regarding mine, I would love to hear them! See you guys in the next part!

Series Masterlist

---

- When I tell you Paul embraced the 60s with open arms I mean it. His previous vengeful nature had finally been shooed aside and he was left with a new decade to start fresh, and he did. They had finally moved to a new place, David’s hometown, Santa Carla. The three vampires moved into an old hotel that had been sucked underground by an earthquake, though David didn’t divulge much about his life or what this place truly meant to him, being a pretty private person he kept his lips tightly sealed.

- Paul had come to love walking around at night, the ocean breeze ruffling his now shaggy hair as he stared up into the night sky. He had found peace in being alone with his racing thoughts, sometimes commentating with himself about the things he saw or thought about in order to keep himself entertained. He was mostly thankful that the others finally trusted him to be alone again, he didn’t have Dwayne trailing after him in order to make sure he didn’t slip back into old habits.

- He also started attending concerts more. Music had always been something he thoroughly enjoyed. But his parents restricted it being played in the house growing up, unless it was strictly gospel, saying any other form of music was a pathway leading straight to the devil’s door. Thankfully now without being underneath his parent’s judgemental gaze, he allowed himself to be consumed by music. Plus he knew by now he would be going to hell either way, so why not indulge yourself in the simple pleasures? So he sang along with a joyful smile on his face.

- One of the most memorable nights of Paul’s undead life was after his first concert he attended. He had met a boy hanging by his waist over the railing of a bridge giggling to himself as he stared down at the intimidating drop. Paul asked what exactly he was doing and the stranger just said “I feel like I'm flying, man.” His words were slightly slurred and his shoulder length curls were blowing in the wind revealing his boyish face, the apples of his cheeks glowing red from the chilly air and probably a little something else.

- It was safe to say he was curious about this one. Such a strange man in loose fitting clothes just wandering about in the night clearly inebriated without a care in the world. They hit it off pretty quickly, Marko’s personality was so different from his vampire companions. Paul was able to make jokes without the fear of complete silence, or David’s infuriating smirk. Marko was a bright light in Paul’s darkness, someone who he felt an instant connection to. They would both ramble back and forth, Marko meshing perfectly with Paul’s mile-a-minute mind and Paul keeping a close eye on the wreckless stoner who seemed to have a smile that could outshine the sun.

Marko was what brought out Paul’s true self. The wild child his parents claimed him to be apparently wasn’t as wrong as he had thought.

- Marko had introduced him to his friend Daisy, an older woman who had a gap-toothed smile and wild red curls. She, much like Marko, was a beam of light. They had told him the story of how they met, how Marko had been homeless in New York after his mother was murdered, and how he had found Daisy when they both hopped into the same boxcar on a train. Marko had said she was like a mother to him and it warmed Paul’s heart seeing how close they were.

- David and Dwayne had even tagged along on occasion to smoking circles, listening to Daisy go on about her life before and after being homeless. She was a sentimental person who felt like she belonged with the trees more than anywhere else, saying her soul had been drawn to the forest and she never looked back. The two vampires had also gotten along with Marko, it felt like things were finally evened out when the five of them were together. There were no hissing arguments between David and Paul, no petty cold shoulder, just a bonfire and a shared joint and some stories being told.

- Daisy had even taught Paul about the wonders of astrology, and gifted him one of her favorite crystals much like she had done with Marko when they first met. She, like Marko, had become a beacon of light in his life, like a sister to him. She was always dragging him up to dance around the fire to her favorite Janis Joplin song, singing the lyrics with a half smoked joint between her fingers. He truly felt at home, for the first time ever, he felt loved and wanted.

- While he knew David and Dwayne cared for him, this felt different. This was a kind of bond that made him truly believe that soulmates were real, the deep connection he had with Daisy and Marko felt like nothing he had ever felt before, and there was absolutely no way he would give it up.

- Marko and Daisy had ended up finding out what they were when Paul got too high one night and let it slip. But much to everyone’s surprise neither Marko nor Daisy minded. They had told them about how they had met a handful of vampires and even werewolves during their adventures, so they weren’t exactly strangers to the supernatural. That only served to bring them all closer together, with their secret out in the open it was all smooth sailing.

- Until Daisy got sick. They all began noticing her wincing, the pained look on her face whenever she would move, the way she seemed weaker and found it hard to walk some days. Without access to doctors it was hard to figure out exactly what it was, at first they had assumed it was just something small, but she only got worse.

- They had come to the conclusion that it had to be some kind of cancer. That was when Paul had helplessly begged Daisy to let them turn her, unshed tears in his blue eyes as he crouched down next to her sleeping bag.

- But she only smiled, cupping his cheek gently before saying “I’m not meant to live forever kid, souls like mine are meant to die out.” She almost seemed at peace when it came to the idea of dying.

- When she started to get more and more sick she eventually told them where she wanted to be buried. Deep in the forest underneath a large oak tree.

- So when Daisy finally gave her last breath by the fire, Paul and Marko did exactly as she asked. They had cried at her grave until the sky started to lighten and the threat of Paul dying too was almost unavoidable.

- The next night Paul urgently asked Marko to become one of them, saying he couldn’t lose his best friend, his soulmate.

- It didn’t take much to convince Marko, after all he had quite literally lost the only person who he stayed human for, but that didn’t mean he had to lose everything. So he turned and joined them happily. Marko’s adjustment to vampirism was rocky but not nearly as bad as Paul’s, he had cravings and would sometimes go overboard but he had three people to help him gain control, he wasn’t alone like Paul had felt.

- By 1964 Paul had finally become closer to David again. He had taken Dwayne’s advice and talked to him about all the things that had eaten away at him for the past two decades, Dwayne and Marko serving as mediators when things got a little more heated. But they had come to an agreement, an understanding.

- But it seemed just as the dust was settling again things only got kicked up again when a couple of vampire hunters ambushed Paul one night, kidnapping him and using him as bait to lure in the others. The abuse he endured had left spots in his memory, not able to even remember just how bad things had gotten, it was all just flashes of him screaming and begging for mercy.

- David quite literally tore through the hunters in order to save Paul, a crazed look in his eyes which only softened when Paul was finally safe. It almost felt like for the first time in three decades Paul had been reduced back to the cowering boy he was when David first met him. It was a hard sight for all of them to take in, especially Marko. It took a good five years for Paul to fully recover from the traumatic experience.

But now his relationship with David had been set in stone, David had proven that he would go to any lengths to keep the boys safe, no matter how dangerous.

#paul imagine #paul the lost boys #paul #the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #the lost boys imagine #the lost boys imagines #the lost boys headcanons #the lost boys headcanon #tlb imagine #tlb headcanon #tlb #tlb 1987 #monster writes

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behindthebrokenglass · 3 years

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Good morning my fellow bloggers, readers, or anyone really looking for a daily topic to relate to. I constantly wish that someone stumbles upon these posts, so I can have a voice and show others they are not alone, and that they can have a voice too. I feel like our rights as citizens and human beings that we should be allowed and feel OKAY to speak up without the fear of judgment and consequences. considerably speaking here in America the first amendment gives you that freedom. Freedom to me is just a word, a feeling that developed into a concept America can’t even hold. Internationally freedom is ripped from us wherever we go.

When I feel like life’s topics can be a bit too heavy, I resort to Netflix. Watching a bloody horror movie makes things feel so much better on my side of life’s spectrum. Mostly because I still have a right arm, a left leg and Freddy Krueger wasn’t my nightmare on Elm street. Maybe the reason I watch these crime scenarios is to stimulate a scary feeling when I actually end up laughing instead. Now that’s twisted! Trying to dissect my own brain is where my true crime obsession kicks in. It is my go to for understanding the criminal mind and the mindset of a victim. I have a deep yearning of exposing these 50 shades of grey the world likes to cover up and hide away. I stumbled upon a Netflix documentary called , “Athlete A.” This one hit way too close to home for me. I try to bring light with new perspectives to share with people during my personal blogging time. Well, maybe because it’s easier to voice things out this way. Also the amount of other people out there struggling just like me and you or maybe just a bi-standard trying to understand. A familiar story to tell, can at least bring you one important thing to hold onto. HOPE.

This documentary I watched is about a well known doctor, a predatory coach who moved from gym to gym, state to state. Well, why would a predator stick to one specific location? Of course moving around to different locations makes it harder for authorities to catch up with your tracks as long as you stay inconsistent. Yet, there was one specific consistency that stuck out. The amount of victims who reported and made complaints that went UNHEARD or it was just stuck into another file in another cabinet is deranged. So, who is Dr. Larry Nassar ? A serial rapist, and sex offender. He was served over as the USA Olympic gymnastics trainer and physician. Nassar was also a prominent member of the community and a former teacher at the Michigan State University. He was a doctor specializing in Osteopathic medicine at the time for the women’s gymnastics and crew teams. In medical school he worked as a trainer and then became a volunteer doing community work. He opened a foundation for autistic children and the community viewed him as a “larger than life, better than real person” (in the words of Tim Evans, an investigator reporter for Indianapolis). He even obtained 2,700 votes for a position on the Holt School board in Michigan. WOW! Busy man..... the sad thing about this is, is USA Gymnastics for USA olympics tried to help cover it up.

Bela and Martha Karolyi held a training camp for the USA gymnastics where Nassar worked. They based their training methods off of cruelty to get their athletes to work harder. This came around In the mid 60’s to around 1973 the Romanians decided to up their game in the Olympic gymnastics competition by having their athletes start training young. It really begun to solidify after the first youngest Romanian gold olympics champion Nadia Comaneci, a 14 year old female had won the olympics (1976). The coach’s had the benefit of having more control over the girls because they were younger. Bela and Martha Karolyi had trained Nadia and had proved their methods to be effective. They would have absolute total control over them. They slapped the girls, controlled their weight, called them names, and were very very cruel. After they came to America, they decided to bring those methods with them when they opened up their training camp for USA gymnastics. They developed a “wholesome image” that was vital to upkeep. Steve penny All the president of USA gymnastics cared about was business and money. Manipulating a child’s dreams to sell a brand.

Finally, a slip through the crack has opened. A former victim of this man and his procedures had spoken up and came forward with the same allegations a current victim had complained about. This finally prompted an open investigation. She had gone to explain that she was too young to know if what he was doing was right or wrong, or even normal. She expressed how the abuse victims are not treated well. That they are mocked, questioned, blamed and shamed. After the allegations were made, the girls were harassed, their ex boyfriends got involved, they had information dug up about them to hold against them. Very cruel people called them “whores” said “she was drunk” “ look at her she was asking for it” Just the thought of me speaking out against my predator with his authority is almost more terrifying than when it happened. The thought of what’s next if I say anything at all.... is the exact same reasons these girls stayed quiet for so long. It is in fact the most terrifying thing and the only thing in this world I am actually afraid of. The thought of “well, nobody will believe me” - “I already reported it and nothing happened”- “he’s a hero in the communities eyes but a monster in my own” - “but here I stand knowing I’m not alone.... waiting for the day someone says something so I can then come forward too” all these thoughts rushing, circulating, over and over..time after time. “When will it ever be the time?”...... hope.

As much as I fantasize over the concept of an eye for an eye, it wouldn’t fix anything besides making the whole damn world go blind. Society is already blind to this common form of sex abuse. A person in authority with good standing politically can do as he pleases as long as he stays consistent with his manipulation. This narcissistic behavior may never go away but should be put away. What these men fear the most is taking public accountability. Their stigma, reputation, and self image is more important than anything to them. For almost everyone of these girls, this is their first sexual experience. When you take the ability to love and express love from somebody and to totally damage it.....It profoundly effects their spirit, their psyche and emotional development. A man with power can take and steal YOU from YOU that will take an entire lifetime to ever get back. ONE VOICE....can lead to So Many other voices. I want to have hope.... my grandmother once told me to stop hoping and start believing.... I am trying.

#true crime #usa gymnastics #netflix #just watched #voice #freedom of speech #victims #50 shades of grey #usa today #spoilertv #documentary #you matter #your voice matters #internationally #ghost

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trying-write-fanfics · 4 years

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Shouji Mezo X Reader part 30 Remember

“What happened that you ended up with a non-student for you to take care of?” Mandalay asked.

“The court is staging it as punishment for the girl and I being stuck with each other, she’s a criminal who I caught with excessive force. She’s a minor, so jail was out of the question. The real reason this is all happening is because she is Dr. (last name)‘s daughter, and they’re looking for proof of child abuse or neglect.” Aizawa explained.

“You’re kidding! You got tangled with the (last name) family? Are you afraid that letting her loose in the wild like that, she might escape.” Mandalay was shocked.

“Y/n has no reason to escape. It seems like she has nothing waiting for her outside UA. She could have tried ten times over, but hasn't.” Aizawa explained.

“What’s her quirk, if I may ask.”

“From what I understand it’s a quirk that can copy other quirks, but she doesn’t need another person to reference, as long as she understands how the quirk works and it’s in her power she can copy it. It also can’t be something like yours where it affects other people’s abilities.” Aizawa explained. “It would be a scary quirk for someone like her to have, but she’s cursed with a violent backlash. To counter that she knows martial arts pretty well.”

“Do you think her mother had anything to do with that?”

“No doubt.”

“She could make a good hero if she can manage the backlash-“

“She doesn’t want to be a hero.” Aizawa quickly said.

“Why did you bring her to the camp then? No one else at UA could watch her.”

“She doesn’t have full control over the power. If she accidentally uses it, she can bust a lung. I can’t do much for her, but I don’t think a failed experiment should have a live painful existence isolated, and ignored.”

“You’re a good man, Aizawa. Raising kids is hard, especially kids you didn’t prepare for. I’m sure you’re doing all you can.”

“It’s hard. I can’t expel her when she acts out. She didn’t sign up to be here. She doesn’t have the drive of a hero, but she still helps the class more than I could imagine. Right now she hates me, for implying her mother probably experimented on her.” Aizawa explained.

“Well she is still a kid. She may have not known what was happening when it did.” Mandalay offered a suggestion.

“Her hand bones are different from the rest, meaning it was probably cut off because they knew she could regenerate another hand.” Aizawa summed up his research.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have let her join the rest of the students for this exercise.” Mandalay sighed.

“I need her to feel threatened right now. If she doesn’t activate her quirk, she won’t know how to use it.”

The class freaked out as Deku has to save Mineta from a dragon looking monster. Koda tried talking to them, but his rare voice fell on deaf ears. The class learned that these monsters weren’t alive, but dirt. The class began to work together and look, bait, fight, anything against the monsters.

“There’s theee more coming from the left.” Shouji called out to his class.

Y/n looked down at her hand, hesitating to help out. These dirt monsters weren’t human like the opponents she was used to, she couldn’t just grab their wrists. What type of quirk would be good against this monsters? What if these hands were never hers? She caught a glance of Todoroki icing a monster up. This was her punishment but this was what the class had been waiting for. She was wasting time here, not knowing what future she wanted, she only knew she didn’t want to be a hero. She didn’t want to save people. She couldn’t even save her family’s dreams of someone becoming a hero.

“Two more from the east are coming this way.” Shouji called the class.

Y/n looked gazed at Shouji’s contribution. He was a great asset to the class, assisting them or else they would be more blind to the situation. He wasn’t fighting yet, but his arms were shaping and reforming to what they needed to fit. Y/n sucked in her gut taking the deepest breath she could and charged at the mud monster. It’s voice screeched and hit her with its tail, launching her deeper in the forest.

“Y/n!” She heard some students yell as she was flung.

Y/n landed in a bush luckily. This was the time to use her quirk that she so desperately wanted to perfect and now she was nervous getting in everyone’s way! Y/n activated her quirk. Her arm grew, stretching itself and cooling around the dirt monster’s leg. Then her arm pulled her body to the monster, allowing herself to kick the monster without letting go. The body shattered with a powerful kick like that. It was her first kill in the beast: forest.

“Holy shit.” She whispered.

“Y/n behind you!” Scotch on the rocks yelled (sero)

He was correct, another monster was ready to attack from behind. Without thinking, Y/n’s body activated the quirk once more. She turned her arms into a long flexible, hard steel and smacked the beast to the side. Her stomach began to ache, but she didn’t allow it to slow her down.

Eyes of the class would check on her over time. They were surprised to her quirk in action, how she changed the properties of her arms to fit the battle. They knew it was a protority to keep her safe, but she seemed tough on her own. She knew how to use physical combat with and without her quirk.

Shouji kept warning the class about the position of the enemy’s. His eyes in his face couldn’t help but to steal glances at Y/n. Her whole persona was hard to keep up with. She was upset and hurt from Aizawa’s words, but here in the summer sun, she looked absolutely powerful. Thriving. Stunning. Her quirk was suppose to hurt her for using its power, but nothing seemed to stop her. She was holding her own, just like she was against Aizawa, the class, and all other challenges she faced. Shouji did find Y/n beautiful, but her power and abilities were breath taking. He’s seen her after using her power so many times, imaging the hidden pain she was in, but she was proving to the class she wasn’t behind them, that she could keep up, without having hero being her dream career.

They kept fighting and fighting. The color of the sky changed from blue to orange. The class lost so much of their stamina. The monsters died down, but the students could barely walk. Y/n’s eye sight got only fizzy from the hours of training she just endured. That doctors theory was true, if she just kept using her quirk the backlash wouldn’t be as bad. She ran into a couple trees but since she was behind, no one saw. The voice of the pussy cat dolls lead her back to the class where arrangements were being made. Y/n silently listened the class.

“Get your bags off the bus and then we’ll serve you dinner.” Aizawa told the class.

#shouji mezo #Shouji Mezou #shoji mezo #mezo shouji #xreader #shouji x reader #shoji x reader #bnha #bnha fanfiction #bnha x reader #series

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miss-spooky-eyes · 3 years

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OC Inspirations: Devinahl & Indy

I was (delightfully) tagged by @vespertine-legacy a while ago and I’ve hesitated to do this because I knew I was going to talk WAY too much - but it was weighing on me, so I decided to open up about the sources from which I stole, that is, drew inspiration for Devinahl and Indirae.

What three fictional characters is your OC a combination of?

This doesn’t apply to every OC - not even mine - but its certainly true for a few : Many of our characters are, to an extent, inspired by characters we see in movies, books, games, TV shows, etc.

Does this apply to any of your OCs? Was it a conscious decision on your part or not? Is your OC a combination of three (or more) fictional characters?

If so - post some GIFs / pics and tell us about them! What does your OC draw from other characters?

Too much Devinahl & Indy chat after the cut.

DEVINAHL

The truth is that when I came to creating my Imperial Agent Devinahl, and in particular fleshing out her backstory in far, far too much detail, there were some sources that I went to extremely explicitly and deliberately. And chief among them was ...

1. Garak, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

That’s right. Garak from Deep Space Nine. Plain, simple Garak. Outcast. Exile. Spy. Addict. Perennial liar. Patriot. Terrorist. Would-be genocider. Very good tailor.

(If you haven’t seen DS9, then you need to. It’s like Star Trek, but if it was actually good? And Garak is a big part of what elevates it.)

Is it weird to compare my ancient video game Barbie/gorgeous sex bomb badass assassin and seductress to a cold-blooded space lizard who spends his days hemming pants? Possibly. But there are aspects of Garak’s character that, consciously and unconsciously, I made parts of Devinahl’s DNA.

Firstly, Garak is a patriot. He loves Cardassia so much that despite seeing its flaws with absolute clarity, despite having been exiled and reviled by it, he would die without question to serve it (of course, he’d much rather make someone else die). And while seeing that as a weakness, despite knowing that the Cardassia he has committed to serving is disappearing before his eyes, there is still a part of him that believes that that commitment - that neverending sacrifice - is noble. The only noble part of him. That’s central to Devinahl’s character (which is, in turn, the way I made sense of the IA storyline). That while hating and despising the Sith, she would nevertheless believe in the Empire - not so much believe that it is good (at best, I think she sees it as order and stability where the Republic is corruption and chaos) as believe that her commitment to it is the only redeeming thing available to her.

Secondly, the way that Garak will take his needs, vulnerabilities, sincere emotions and package them in ways which gets him what he has to have to keep going, without ever giving up full control? Particularly in the extraordinary episode The Wire, in which a dying Garak tells Dr Bashir a series of lies about himself in order to elicit Bashir’s forgiveness, because he needs to be sincerely forgiven but without ever telling the truth?

Out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren’t? My dear doctor, they’re all true. Even the lies?

That is everything I tried to do with Dev, particularly in my fic about her and SCORPIO, particularly when it comes to her and Arcann. To know what she needs, as Garak needs absolution from Bashir, and tell just enough truth - put herself into just vulnerable enough a position - to get it, but never without reserving something, holding something back, whether it’s the knowledge that she can maneouvre herself out of SCORPIO’s clutches at any time or her real name? That’s a fucking survivor.

Thirdly, the relationship between Devinahl and Sifter (the spymaster who finds her as a traumatised child and grooms her for Intelligence) and specifically, the deathbed scene I wrote in Riddle was directly inspired by Garak’s relationship with Enabran Tain and that death scene.

Yes, Devinahl was not Sifter’s actual daughter, but in every real sense she was formed by Sifter - and had Sifter had just one day with Dev like Tain had with Garak, Dev would have been lost. She would have turned herself into a carbon copy of Sifter, and she would have died. But the bittersweetness? The acknowledgement that the parental figure you love will never, not even now that they’re dying, love you as you want them to?

‘I should have killed your mother before you were born. You have always been a weakness I can't afford.’ ‘So you've told me. Many times. ...’ ‘Elim, remember that day…in the country. You must've been almost five.’ ‘How can I forget it? It was the only day.’

(The love and infinite sadness with which Andrew Robinson says that line, ‘It was the only day’? I’m crying just thinking about it. Anyway, it was everything I was thinking about and wanted to achieve in that scene.)

Oh ... and Devinahl’s ambiguous relationship with her implants? Well, Garak also has an implant in his head. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

2. Oryx from Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

A novel character rather than from TV or movies, I hope that’s OK. And I know that there are ... very problematic elements to the way Atwood writes about Oryx, her family, her culture, her background. But she was one of the strongest elements that went into creating Devinahl and her backstory.

There were specific aspects of the story Oryx tells to Jimmie - particularly the parts about being told to scream and make a fuss if a man tries to take you away to a hotel room, and then being told not to make a fuss when a man tries to take you away to a hotel room - that became part of Dev’s story. But there was also a general attitude and way of looking at life I wanted to capture and incorporate. Oryx’s philosophy of value?

Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. . . . but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.

I wanted to create a character who could look at life and suffering and abuse, even her own, and view it in that dispassionate way which horrifies someone from my middle-class Western background - and then I wanted to test that idea, to bring it up against SCORPIO and have SCORPIO try to break it down with torture, to see if it was just a cool facade/necessary illusion. I wimped out of really testing that belief, instead having Dev always know that she could get out of her situation/having her find a way to be loved without truly having to sacrifice her protective patterns ... but if I was a little braver and better, I’d have tested it to breaking point. How far can a character go who thinks like that while still remaining, on some level, compassionate/human/likeable?

3. Saffron (Firefly)

I could have gone Black Widow (definitely the inspiration for Dev’s aesthetic in terms of outfit etc). But the plain truth is that I thought more about Saffron while dreaming up Devinahl/writing her backstory than I did about Black Widow (yes, Widow turned her weakness into strength in a manipulative fashion all the time, but Garak did it better, and other than that she mainly looked after boys in a way that I did not want Dev to be limited to).

Firefly, for a show that had - what - 13 episodes? - exercises far too much of a hold on my imagination and Saffron, especially in the first episode in which she appeared, was such a tremendous character. The way that she found exactly the triggers to turn each member of the crew inside out? (And if she’d had more time, it absolutely would have worked on Wash and Inara, too - it only didn’t because she had to hurry.) Dev has that. I can’t write it, because I suck, but she has it.

Oh, and nobody will ever know Devinahl’s real name (apart from you, if you read my fic about her backstory) and she’d die before letting you know it. That’s straight from Saffron. As is, I suppose, the man who would accept her just as she is without needing to push to know her secrets, except it worked out a little better for Dev and Arcann than it did for Yolanda and Durran Haymer because Dev and Arcann will always have pegging.

INDIRAE

(This will be a lot shorter than the section on Devinahl, I promise.)

1. Steve Rogers, Captain America (and whatever else)

I have never been super into the MCU, but the key reference I used to find a way into Indy’s character, back when she was nothing more than a cool-looking Cathar Bounty Hunter, was Steve Rogers. (November can attest to this)

Indy’s physical size - she’s six foot if she’s an inch, and big - is key to her personality, but equally key is the idea that she would always experience that size as uncomfortable and slightly alien to her. Like Steve Rogers, she started out as the scrawny kid always getting beat up by everybody ... And when she got her strength (with a hefty assist from the toxic waste run-off into what was her family’s only source of water) and suddenly got TALL and STRONG? She did not like bullies - which was what led her to help Coda out of a jam at the spacesport and started them on their road.

(If there’s a better way to play the BH storyline than as a stone-cold mercenary with an utterly unwilling heart of gold ... then I don’t know about it.)

2. Xena, Xena Warrior Princess

I’ll be completely fucking straight with anybody about this (so to speak): I love Xena, I had an obsession with it as a teenager I’m still unpacking, and the show tends to feed into my characters in an ... odd way.

Indy is physically imposing like Xena, is the main thing; and her dynamic with Coda owes a lot to Xena’s with Gabrielle (although Coda is as big and tough as Indy, she is the fast talker/smooth operator to Indy’s laconic strongman). I wanted Indy to dominate action scenes the way that Xena does, be that kind of a force of nature; and watch her struggle to find ways to channel that charisma, to need Coda’s help to understand how to do it.

3. Dottie Henson, A League of Their Own

OK, first of all, I do not want to hear any kind of mockery. This is, unironically, one of my favourite films of all time.

Again, we come back to the core theme of a character struggling with her own greatness/potential. That’s what is the most fascinating through-line of A League of Their Own: Dottie, this unbelievable baseball player/physical presence (yes, she’s very tall, just like Indy) who is so terrified to admit that she wants anything more than her smalltown life and dreadful husband, even while the evidence of her talent and passion for the game is burning up these ... fields? Diamonds? I don’t know baseball apart from this film.

Indy certainly hides behind not wanting to be a bounty hunter. She doesn’t believe in any Mandalorian nonsense about romanticising what is an unglamorous job. She’s just doing it for credits and afterwards, once she’s secured her family’s future, she’s totally going to go home and settle down in some acceptable, domestic way. Being on the Mantis with Coda, it’s absolutely just a means to an end. She doesn’t want to be there, she doesn’t care about it, it’s not who she is, she doesn’t need it. This life, the adventure, the freedom, the fighting for survival, it’s certainly not what gets inside her and what lights her up, no, not at all.

Oh, and Dottie is also a reluctant leader. She doesn’t see why her talent should put her in the position of telling other people what to do - but then, on the other hand, she sees so clearly what they need to be doing, and when she says to do it, they listen. She doesn’t want to carry this team, but they’re only a team so long as she carries them.

(Don’t worry, Coda’s not going to let her lie to herself for too long.)

#swtor #excessively long answers to memes #oc: devinahl #oc: indirae

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c-ptsdrecovery · 4 years

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“A family is the first and most significant school we attend on how to relate to others. When this learning process, which takes years, is adequate, an individual acquires two abilities. The first is the ability to establish bonds, to engage in interactions with others that, given the right circumstances, may develop naturally into intimate relationships. The second ability is achieving and maintaining autonomy. Like most animals, human beings are utterly dependent when they are born. The process of achieving autonomy is long and complex, and can go awry in many ways.

What is central is that these two abilities, to establish bonds and to achieve autonomy, are complementary; neither can be reached independently of the other since each is the guarantee of the other (Bowlby, 1999). For the purposes of this paper, a dysfunctional family is one that doesn’t teach its members (or facilitate their learning of) how to relate to others, both inside and outside the family so that members can form bonds and achieve autonomy in their relationships with other people.

Two broad areas of relationship to consider in making a comparison between dysfunctional families and cults are distrust and dependence:

...According to Erickson (1950), trust is a basic interpersonal emotion necessary for healthy relationships. Trust in oneself and trust in others usually develop at the same time, with the growth of one encouraging the growth of the other. A deficiency of one also encourages a deficiency of the other. When trust is absent or deficient, relationships will be based instead on subtle or intense forms of control, which clears the way to abusive relationships.

... Both dysfunctional families and cults exhibit perversions of trust—that is, there may be deference or obedience between members, but neither is based on a well-founded belief in the good sense or good will of the other individual. Rather, members have been persuaded that the person in charge, or the controller, is more knowing or deserving or powerful; they also have learned that the consequences of disobedience to that individual may be harmful to them.

Dependence. A dysfunctional family makes its members weaker in many of the same ways that a cult makes its members weaker: In both contexts, members’ autonomy, critical thinking, identity, and dignity are suppressed or distorted to serve the needs of those in control (Langone, 1992). Both dysfunctional families and cults make their members more dependent upon their family or cult, and consequently weaker. Even if members of a dysfunctional family become estranged, there is often a psychological dependence rather than a healthy integration with people outside the coercive environment of which they were part. Similarly, members of a cultic group are dependent on their leader in a way that depletes rather than enhances their own strength; and often this tendency to unhealthy dependence on another continues even if the persons are able to leave the group.

“...When a parent isn’t able to differentiate between her needs and the needs of her child, she is quite plainly violating the boundaries that her offspring needs in order to grow. In addition to being deprived of his own space, the child isn’t allowed to make his own decisions. While one factor underlying such a lack of boundaries is a lack of trust in a child’s ability to make appropriate decisions, another factor often is a lack of trust by the parent in herself. As a consequence, as a psychoanalyst would say, she will project that insecurity onto her child. In families in which members trust themselves and each other, the members are able to differentiate between their own needs and the needs of others, which allows healthy boundaries to develop. In these families, privacy is permitted without being regarded as a threat. When this process of building boundaries is thwarted, members of the family may either become overly dependent on others’ opinions to make decisions, or they may ignore the advice or opinions of others when that input might be necessary or helpful.

...As in a family that assumes only the parents are qualified to make decisions about their child, a cult leader who insists that followers obey a myriad of minor rules throughout the day may implicitly communicate that the followers cannot measure up spiritually without him. The unspoken assumption is that “Without me, you are nothing.” People who have been involved in cultic groups, especially those born or raised in them, often find the very concept of boundaries difficult to grasp. They are so accustomed to another person invading and controlling their emotional and psychological lives that they may find themselves literally unable to make decisions about even the smallest details of daily life, such as what to eat, when to sleep, how to dress, or what to say to others in social situations.

Families who do not grant privacy to each other by means of healthy boundaries (loving distance) also tend not to trust what is outside their family; so they also are often more closed toward the outer world. In such families, all needs must be fulfilled within the family. Family members may view other families and people as threatening or dangerous, and therefore the family limits outside contacts. Thus, a child who has been invited to spend the night at a schoolmate’s home may be discouraged from doing that, or may be allowed only reluctantly and after being presented with a long string of precautions. Or parents may view other families as useless or boring. Consequently, the children in these families will tend to see the world outside as threatening or uninteresting and so remain, whenever possible, within the walls of their family. These families will remain isolated from other families, and therefore will hamper their members’ chances to integrate in other environments.

... Unhealthy families often have rules related to talking about feelings, especially uncomfortable feelings. For instance, a child may grow up feeling that it is shameful to display weakness or show confusion. These unspoken restrictions prevent family members from talking about problems, or even recognizing their existence, let alone taking steps to improve the situation.

...In both dysfunctional families and cults, the definition of who you are depends on whether you behave or feel according to the rules. Because the definition of who you are comes from the group and not from within you, you have to conform to the group not only to be accepted by them, but also to be accepted by yourself. Your identity is always at stake. The price you pay may be to disconnect from your inner being, where the feelings that are deemed bad by the group occur. To be accepted by the group, you must alienate from yourself. Both members of a dysfunctional family and members of a cult dissociate themselves in order to cope with the contradiction between the information that arrives from outside and from within. As a result, both family members and members of cults develop a basic insecurity that causes them to become very vulnerable.

... Thus, in a healthy family, a child with musical talent may be permitted to pursue that passion, even if the parents’ preference was that the child become a doctor, engineer, or farmer. Parents respect their child’s identity as it really is, not as they wish it were. They do not force their child into a role that is unnatural for the child. Nevertheless, in the process of the child and the parents trying to assert their initially different views, some degree of tension will arise. Dysfunctional families are that way to a great extent because they are not able to tolerate this tension, so they suppress it.

... In a dysfunctional family or group, the force of the group annihilates the separateness of the individuals in it. The people who hold the power in the family or the group decide what is good for the individuals in the group, ignoring that it might be bad for the individuals who make it up.

Dysfunctional Outcomes

Fusion or disconnection. Persons who cannot find freedom within a family may feel that the only way to be free is to cut all ties, that the only alternative to being enmeshed is disconnection. Often, they carry this behavior into other life relationships; these individuals will relate to people in other parts of their lives either by fusing with or by completely disconnecting themselves from others.

Controlling or being controlled. Those who leave an enmeshed family or a cult may relate to others in ways that reflect the control dynamic to which they are accustomed:

“I will try to control you. I want to know what you are doing at any given moment, what you are thinking about, what your problems are. I need for you to be dependent upon me.” Interestingly, in this type of relationship, the person exerting control is actually more needy than the person being controlled. This is the dynamic of the cultic leader, who depends upon controlling his followers to support his grandiose sense of himself.

“I will [paradoxically] require you to control me” (this is the complementary position of the previous example): “I will allow you to know everything about me. I will let you know constantly about my actions. I will share with you all my problems and worries and will let you solve them.” People who were taught by their family that being controlled was the condition for being accepted and loved may repeat that behavior as adults in social life and in romantic relationships. Likewise in cults, members are made to believe that the leader’s control over every aspect of their lives demonstrates his love for them.

Rebellion. Similarly, those who leave an enmeshed family or a cult through rebellion may relate to others in ways that reflect this need to rebel: “I will reject you through constant criticism and disdain. I will defensively attack you because I expect you to try to control me.” “I will [paradoxically] communicate that you should reject me because I am unworthy, volatile, and untrustworthy.”

#ouch #cults #dysfunctional family #toxic family #toxic parents

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alkaliyogi · 4 years

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WE ARE CURRENTLY IN HELLS PIT OF FIRE AND MISERY…

How did we get here?

2020 is shaping-up to be quite a year; we lost Kobe an important figure to sports yes, but more importantly a role model for black fathers and especially fathers to beautiful brown skinned girls. Now we have COVID, deaths, social distancing and possibly (and I shudder at this thought) mandatory vaccines in the near future.

Many people lack the vitality and life-force energy required to participate in a democracy. This is not by accident. It was designed this way.

There is a long history of manipulation of the human race at the hands of the 1% of the 1%- this is what I predict will happen on the other side of COVID;

Travel will become more of a nightmare than it already is. More abuse at the hands of underpaid/overworked security personnel and undignified body searches. I worked in aviation for over 10 years- if you still believe that Arab men flew those aircrafts into the Pentagon and World Trade Towers you are ignorant of the concept of protected air space. The planet’s only Superpower had comprehensive protected air space before, during and after the “attack” on America. Military and law enforcement of this great land long adopted the motto of “shoot first, ask questions later” long before Bin Laden was a spec in his father’s testicles. Besides, who spends more on their military and the protection of their own country than the world’s Superpower?

Already, we are subjected to unnecessary liquid restrictions- you can’t even bring a tub of hummus onboard with you...pause for reaction. If you choose to believe that restricting liquids has saved your life, I invite you to watch a lighthearted episode of “Adam Ruins Everything” where they covered ‘security theatre’ designed to provide you, the average citizen, with little more than a false sense of security. And if you look at what constitutes a ‘potential terrorist’-it’s a pretty broad net covering how you wear your baseball cap all the way to facial hair grooming standards. Seems like legalized stereotyping, unless of course you’re a polished white male in corporate America.

But perhaps in the fight against mandatory vaccines- even the average white male may find himself in the trenches with us.

Will it be vaccines passports or vaccines with hardware implanted in our bodies? Will we eventually replace handheld passports for data stored in a fingerprint, retina or swab sample? Is that where we’re headed to already? Let’s keep things in perspective, shall we? Thousands of people died on September 11th. Millions more have died at the end of a gun- but the policy makers are very selective with what tragedies they will amplify and how they’ll pick and choose (based on their own agenda) when to introduce new bills or change laws. So even though innocent children die every single year in the greatest country on earth- purchased votes by the NRA (formerly the KKK) prevent amendments to the Second Amendment. Ain’t that something? An Amendment that can’t be amended. You’d think it was written by God and not men. Illusions of grandeur coupled with idolizing the forefathers of America is the exact opposite of being Christian, spiritual, a person of faith, etc. The is the same type of fandom associated with pre-adolescent girls and boy bands.

An inside job designed to illicit fear of a common enemy (and weapons of mass destruction) became justification for us giving away many of our personal freedoms (i.e. fingerprints scans, eye retina scans, mass surveillance by our smart phones, email providers, search engines, CCTV, etc.). Does this sound familiar? It’s happened before and millions were executed as a result. Hitler wanted complete control of his people- unwavering compliance and that’s exactly where we are headed if The Gates Foundation and the WHO have anything to say about it. China is already practicing this type of population control with their face-recognition software and social behavioural grading system that assigns citizens a credit score that impacts your ability to navigate everything in your life from career, to housing to who and how one travel. Is this what we want? Who benefits? Not you, not I.

There is growing evidence that COVID is a man-made (military controlled) virus. To many this may seem utterly ridiculous. I would invite you to research this information as discovered by numerous holistic doctors (who have been censored on Google but are searchable on Qwant, a reliable search engine free from the prying eyes of Google surveillance. If you’re wondering why the government would allow for something like a manufactured virus to be unleased on it’s on citizens let me help you. It begins with big pharma and ends with decreasing the human population.

As it stands today over 300,000 people have died- not from COVID but from underlying health issues. Like an episode of Black Mirror- doctors and health professionals are threatened if they don’t adhere to naming COVID as the cause of death. It doesn’t take a genius to observe that the overwhelming majority of people that contracted COVID recovered because they did not have underlying health issues. The Italian Parliament recently went viral for stating this. I’ll say it again, the COVID virus does not kill. Ask any self-respecting health professional/scientist that is not on the receiving end of grants issued by big pharma. Even the CDC has been corrupted, pick-up a copy of Marcia Angell’s book; The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It. Marcia Angell was the first woman to serve as Editor-In-Chief at The New England Journal of Medicine, the most influential science journal in the world. She’s done her part to warn us of how drug companies collude not for the benefit of the public, but for their own gain. History will show unequivocally that the real tragedy was not COVID- but the mandatory vaccines that have polluted our bodies for years with unsafe levels of heavy metals, formaldehyde, MSG and more to render your well enough to stay alive and on medications until you die. Newer vaccines will also render you sterile. That is the pandemic we’re headed towards.

Big pharma is greater and more powerful than any government on the planet. And what’s more, they’ve purchased almost every single politician there is to be purchased. In medicine, the first rule is ‘Do no harm’. In Aviation the first rule is ‘if we don’t know, we don’t go’. Thousands of people have had their lives permanently changed when their once healthy children were exposed to vaccines that left them autistic, some children have even died. Unless you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that vaccines are not harmful and toxic (which they have not proven) why do we agree to subject perfectly healthy, clean bodies to foreign matter? And no, vaccines did not eradicate polio- you can still catch that shit. The difference is more people have access to clean food and water today than ever before. As more and more countries develop, more of the planet’s population can practice better hygiene. Vaccines have cured nothing. Measles, malaria, hepatitis are still around!

Fun fact: the US government actually owns more patents of the measles virus than anyone else. Something to chew on.

Are we going to roll over and pretend that the supposed benefits of a vaccine for a non-lethal virus outweighs the damage is can have to the nervous system and reproductive functions of millions of people? We’re already dying a slow death with pollution in the air, water, food and soil we’re consuming. A great portion of the population is already unable to conceive naturally- which is your body’s way of telling you your currently too sick to create new life. So, what do we do? We employee fertility specialists to implant us with embryos instead of addressing the foundational causes and habits for our body’s rejection of bringing new life to our sick planet.

The world’s population is nearing 8 billion- very few people have died during this pandemic relative to deaths associated to lung cancer, breast cancer, heart disease, medical drug overdoses, etc. It’s sad that we lost anyone. I live in Brooklyn, New York so I’m not removed from the collective loss we’re experiencing. Let’s also take a moment to step back and take a deep breath. This was never a reason to make us anxious, depressed and fearful of each other. This is how they separate and then conquer us. And it’s certainly not a reason to change our way of living and give away more personal freedoms (that were fought and paid for).

I’m calling on citizens of the world. Stand-up! We are many in numbers- they are few. Don’t let them violate you or anyone else in a way that is not humane.

One last interesting fact to research- the United States Supreme Court or Congress (depending on which article you come across) that vaccines are ‘unavoidably unsafe’. And the kicker? If you or a loved one are damaged from a vaccine you can’t sue the vaccine manufacturers. How’s that for democracy?! Look it up for yourselves, but not on Google.

Stay up!

Alkali Yogi

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phroyd · 5 years

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Alabama is a Third-World Country Within The United States! - Phroyd

PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. — In the days since police officers arrested Marshae Jones, saying she had started a fight that resulted in her unborn baby getting fatally shot, the hate mail has poured in.

“I will encourage all U.S. business owners to boycott your town,” a woman from San Diego wrote on the Facebook page of the Pleasant Grove Police Department.

“Misogynist trash,” wrote another.

“Fire the chief and arresting officers,” wrote a third.

But Robert Knight, the police chief, said his officers had little choice in the matter.

“If the laws are there, we are sworn to enforce them,” he said. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

Around the country, the case of Ms. Jones — who was indicted by a grand jury for manslaughter — has served as a stark illustration of how pregnant women can be judged and punished when a fetus is treated as a person by the justice system.

Activists have also cited it as a demonstration of the dangers of the “personhood” movement, which pushes for the rights of fetuses to be recognized as equal to — or even more important than — the rights of the mothers who carry them. And many are now watching as the movement gains momentum in Alabama, which already has some of the most restrictive reproductive rights laws in the country.

But in Pleasant Grove, a city of 10,000 people on the western outskirts of Birmingham, the case appears to have caused little controversy. Gun rights are popular here. Reproductive rights are not. Many conversations in the city focused on how harshly Ms. Jones should be punished, not whether she was culpable.

Outside Hill’s Foodland, the city’s only grocery store, two mothers raising money for the Pleasant Grove middle school cheerleading squad said that both Ms. Jones, 28, and the woman who shot her should face some consequences — perhaps anger management classes — for the death of a fetus.

“In the state of Alabama, an unborn baby has the same rights as a living child,” said Sharonda Hall, 38, who just earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is hoping to attend law school. “Most people agree with it.”

Others said prison time would be appropriate. Inside a local restaurant, the Olipita Mediterranean & American Grill, Forrest Brown, 64, a retired musician, said that from what he had heard so far about the case, he believed the indictment was fair.

“You have to go by the law,” he said.

The notion that the law should treat a fetus like a person is widely held in Alabama. Lawmakers passed the most restrictive anti-abortion bill in the country in May, banning abortions at any stage of pregnancy, even in cases of rape or incest. A protest against the measure in Birmingham drew only about 2,000 people, in a metropolitan area that is home to more than one million.

Last November, Alabama voters approved a ballot measure that amended the state’s constitution to recognize the “sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children.”

In the wake of that vote, a Madison County judge ruled that a 19-year-old man could pursue a wrongful-death lawsuit against a clinic and a pharmaceutical company that provided an abortion pill to his girlfriend.

It is that case — not the case of Ms. Jones — that pushes the envelope of “personhood” for many in Alabama.

Brent Helms, the attorney who filed the wrongful-death suit on a contingency basis, said that case law had already established personhood for fetuses who perish at the hands of reckless people, such as drunken drivers or domestic abusers. His is the first case, he said, to “establish personhood for even an unborn aborted child.”

He acknowledged that conferring “personhood” so early in a pregnancy had the potential to affect everything from fertility treatment — which discards fertilized eggs that aren’t used — to the freedom of women who play risky sports or drink wine.

“At this stage, we don’t know all of the ramifications,” he said. “Every time I speak to someone, they come up with something new.”

Years of legal precedent in Alabama have set the stage for this debate.

“Under Alabama law, life begins at conception,” said Bryan Fair, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. “The question is whether that is consistent with federal constitutional law.”

He said that in a case like Ms. Jones’s, the federal courts could be asked to decide whether the state law that defines a fetus as a person is trumped by the constitutionally protected rights to due process and equal protection, an uncertain prospect under the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

Hundreds of women have been prosecuted in the state for exposing their fetuses to controlled substances under a 2006 “chemical endangerment” law, according to an investigation by ProPublica and Al.com. In Pleasant Grove, three women who were addicted to drugs have been prosecuted for chemical endangerment in recent years.

Last year, Jessica Lindsey, 29, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to chemical endangerment for using heroin while pregnant. Raven West, a heroin addict who gave birth to a stillborn baby, received a five-year suspended sentence last year. And Alexandra Laird, who gave birth to two children who tested positive for heroin, received two suspended 10-year sentences and access to a treatment program, according to court records.

The cases have sometimes put police at odds with doctors who argued that prosecuting pregnant addicts discourages them from seeking treatment they need. But in each of those cases, Lt. Danny Reid of the Pleasant Grove Police, who serves as a spokesman of the 16-officer department, gave passionate public statements about the need to protect the rights of the unborn.

A similar approach can be seen in the case of Ms. Jones. Shortly after the shooting, which took place in December, Lieutenant Reid told reporters that the mother’s culpability will be presented to a grand jury.

“The investigation showed that the only true victim in this was the unborn baby,” he said then. “It was the mother of the child who initiated and continued the fight.”

Ms. Jones was five months pregnant and working at a company in Pleasant Grove that sells fuel for fires, when she got involved in an altercation in the parking lot of the Dollar General store.

The fight stemmed from a long-simmering feud with a female co-worker, Ebony Jemison, 23, over a man who worked at the same company. Ms. Jones spotted Ms. Jemison in the parking lot and started a fight with her, according to a law enforcement officer with direct knowledge of the investigation who did not want to be identified. By the officer’s account, Ms. Jones was winning the fight and had Ms. Jemison pinned in her car.

After taking repeated blows, the officer said, Ms. Jemison reached for a gun, and fired point blank into Ms. Jones’s stomach. Ms. Jones was driven to a hospital in a car that apparently broke down on the way. Paramedics eventually arrived and took her to a hospital, but her fetus — struck by a bullet — died.

This account of the fight differs from others that have been offered in recent days, which have suggested that Ms. Jemison fired a warning shot at the ground and the bullet bounced up and hit Ms. Jones in the belly.

Pleasant Grove officers initially arrested Ms. Jemison. But the grand jury declined to indict her, concluding that she had acted in self-defense. It then took the unusual step of indicting Ms. Jones, for “initiating a fight knowing she was five months pregnant.” The police were surprised by the decision, according to the law enforcement officer, but agreed with its logic.

Reached by phone on Friday night, the forewoman of the grand jury, Mischelle Cagle, said she was unaware of the national furor. She declined to discuss the details of the case, but said that it was one of hundreds of cases the jury had heard over the course of a few days. She said the jurors did their best to probe for the truth and follow Alabama law.

“You think certain things, but then when you look at the law, it’s different,” she said.

Since the furor erupted, prosecutors have distanced themselves from the charges.

A statement from the office of Lynneice Washington, the district attorney for part of Jefferson County, emphasized that no decision had yet been made about whether to go to trial, file lesser charges against Ms. Jones or dismiss the case altogether. A decision is expected within the week.

“Foremost, it should be stated that this is a truly tragic case,” the statement said. “We feel sympathy for the families involved, including Ms. Jones, who lost her unborn child.”

Ms. Washington, a Democrat, became Alabama’s first black female district attorney when she was elected in 2016 by a slim margin of about 300 votes. The case is being closely watched by liberal reproductive rights advocates in Birmingham, as well as conservative voters in her district.

Ms. Jones was taken into custody on Wednesday, and posted bail the following day with the help of her family and the Yellowhammer Fund, an organization that supports abortion rights. Her attorney Mark White, whose law firm has taken on the case, said Ms. Jones was resting in an undisclosed location.

“She’s devastated,” he said.

After being shot, Ms. Jones lost her unborn baby, her job and her house, which burned down in an unrelated incident, Mr. White said. Now she is facing criminal prosecution in a case that could land her in prison for years, depriving her 6-year-old daughter of a mother.

“If you look at the five top stress factors that humans can experience, she may be the only person we’ve encountered that got all five simultaneously,” Mr. White said.

Mr. White said many lawyers in Birmingham were outraged about how his client had been treated, and urged his law firm to take her case. His legal team spent the weekend poring over case law and investigating the facts.

“By Monday morning, we will file a motion to dismiss that will show this indictment to be illegal, inappropriate and unprecedented,” he said. “The motion will also give examples of the additional dangers this type of prosecution presents for the rule of law.”

Ms. Jones’s lawyers have not decided whether to challenge the notion of conferring “personhood” on a fetus, which is enshrined in Alabama law.

Indeed, even Ms. Jones views the fetus that died in the shooting as a baby. She gave it a name — Marlaysia Jones. She had it cremated and the ashes placed in an urn.

Phroyd

#alabama #fetus #indictment

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