#also when he wants to retrace a part of his roots and what child him felt even if he can barely remember

[1tsjusty0u]

stricken by questions in the middle of the night. hateno. do you have any fun facts + what does your link think of it + when did he get there and what happened

OH actually i have a few :D

ALRIGHTY!! for fun facts: on page 98 of creating a champion (you can view it for free) its noted that the people in hateno wear warmer clothes because theyre near a very very cold mountain which is mount lanayru and also it has a nordic aesthetic apparently! because of that once i. do research i think im going to make hateno based a bit off finland just for fun. or poland but poland is more of a personal thing. and also requires research. speaking of being at the base of mt lanayru youve probably seen this but theres little mountain symbols all across hateno (like on the signs, the pots, and some secret back sheds)! the mayors house is referred to as a church in the files (TwnObj_Village_HatenoChurch_A_01) for some reason, likely because it has the hylia statue. ALSO. this isnt confirmed at all but before i was researching those little stacked rocks. theyre up above the signs as well as near the mayors house. im half sure theyre cairns, stacked rocks made by humans thats usually for signalling a hiking trail. this site also sparsely mentions them + has insight into the architecture + the ancient tech labs (though i havent read a lot of it </3). anyways those may just be for fun/for visitors/decoration (i like to think its all of them) + its likely rock balancing. i Did find a site like this and while im inclined to trust it i dont think it applies here. also while prewriting the main ideas i thought there was cairns in goron city? but i cant find them so! yeah maybe theyre in totk otherwise theyre just in hateno and tarrey town. also while its raining karin i believe will read a little book thats in oots/wws opening cutscene style with a little prince in blue riding towards the castle. i think its neat but doesnt have too many implications besides possibly reinforcing some tloz games could be the same legend told over and over like a telephone game. also theres more in the second win mod but i cant play it because. not optimized at least for me. also. lots of footage to go into and i dunno how much was truly added

what does link think of it!!! i think he likes it a bit, especially the inn. its just cozy + both loshlo harbor and hateno beach are just kind of good thinking places. loshlo harbor especially, its just a nostalgic place for him. also i feel like he’d have a lot more use for his house than we’re given in game (custom photos, a journal, a chest so you can put items in to store them ((maybe food)), souvenirs (he’d have a lot of those i think. mainly stealing mugs), and also actually being able to cook in there). to be fair the champions photo being the only item we could place in links house had an effect, but i do want this to be. an actual house. also i think he’d get deja vu from being in the house and the harbor. nothing like stunting or debilitating but he’ll be cutting up vegetables or building a sand castle and for a moment a memory? or an image flashes and in that. thing. hes doing the exact same thing hes doing now. same place same thoughts . though some would be more memory flashes, those would be easier to tell as its not deja vu but . like finishing someones sentence without knowing what theyre going to actually say. and then he realizes ‘WAIT A SECOND’

i think he wouldve gotten there later than normal. miphers was done first, did a bit of traveling (partly because he. didnt know where it was despite the map). he probably got there somewhere after his 2nd-3rd divine beast. funnily enough i think it wouldve taken him a While to find lurilen and the forgotten temple. lurilen especially why would he Go There (he didnt read the signs in faron). he finally gets a house but at the cost of capitalism. once he gets the camera he goes to impa and then he takes a Long detour to get every single memory and without getting (too) sidetracked. he thought a fallen star was one once but it disappeared as it turned day so he never found out what that light was until he saw one physically crash into a hill. he actually mightve done the divine beasts before the camera and is delaying clammy ganon

as soon as he saw the house i think he rushed up to it, because even if it Wasnt his house it shouldnt be destroyed!!!! it was like there was a time limit. he panicked when he didnt have the money (he didnt sell gems or dragon parts at the time…) but he prevailed (selling monster parts). he does not like chopping wood.

when he got there there wasnt much fanfare? everybody thought he was Just Some Guy (he never wears the champions tunic, as well as never using the champions weapons because theyll break). he completely didnt see the guard guy and just. activated the shrine. he would learn of the statue through the small glasses child and would probably talk to the statue more if a heart container wasnt just stolen. if he could save scum he would to avoid the encounter entirely but because he cant he may just. let the statue have it. until extremely later and he talks to it again after years. i think hed show the fireflies to the statue. also i dont think he talked to anyone besides bolson and purah and symin. except for the stolen sheeps person + the shopkeeper. everytime hes there he will Always buy milk rice eggs etc. cooking ingredients are something hed never pass up. he would be a regular of yammo despite her traveling.

though i think he’d spend a lot less time in hateno than you think. its his home but also he likes to travel + have fresh air and places, and also he visits the champions villages more often than not. except for zoras domain unless he Needs to. otherwise he’d still be in lanayru and visit ruta but still be a bit of a distance away. he also doesnt visit goron city a lot though hes less averse to that. also i think he’d like ebon mountain, especially because its behind his house + he gets a good view. he would tell the guy there the actual heart lake location. also i think fairies spawn there at night (both locations)

i think some locations would be there pre cal but arent post cal. i have the excuse of the mayor mentioning that hateno was still built back from the ground (i can get the dialogue if you want!!) . specifically thered be this one hot chocolate place he’d go to that doesnt exist anymore. through a quest he can get the recipe and share it with the elders but yeah. maybe a library and actual church but shrugs

also sometimes i like to think a time capsule was buried in the backyard/under water. however thats neither here or there + it all depends on the au and how the story goes. he would miss his mom and have mixed feelings on his sister (they were also distant believe it or not. but that was his sister). he’d almost have the same reputation as purah for not leaving the house visibly i think and not talking to almost anyone.

also he hasnt dyed any of his clothes. theyre good enough for him 👍. pre cal he wouldve liked dying the act of dying a piece of fabric a lot

ALSO he doesnt hang the champions weapons in his house. he holds onto them and doesnt let go

one more thing: he’d make a note of picnic/quiet spots. theres one near the village but he doesnt really picnic with anyone even pre cal. he mostly just sits there

i will do tarrey town in the next bit!

[clarasimone]

Q&A Windermere Children: BBC marks Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Iain Glen alongside creative partners.... The made-for-tv feature will be broadcasted in the UK and Germany January 27 2020.... Frankly it moves me (and does not surprise me) to see IG being part of this large scale commemorative event.

https://www.pressparty.com/pg/newsdesk/BBC1/view/201152/

BBC marks Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau

The BBC is marking Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2020) and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau with a special televised Holocaust Memorial Day event, as well as a range of content across TV and radio.

The BBC is producing the national Holocaust Memorial Day event on behalf of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust with the theme of Stand Together.

Other programme highlights include a major new drama telling the story of the Windermere Children, child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust; Robert Rinder helping second and third generations of families who experienced the Holocaust retrace their relatives’ footstep; David Baddiel investigating the history and modern face of Holocaust denial; a moving documentary exploring the untold story of the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp; a special edition of Words And Music on BBC Radio 3.

Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, says: "This is an important moment to stop and reflect on a period in our history which showed both the worst, and the best, of the human spirit. That's why we've invested in drama, documentary and events to mark the 75th anniversary. We'll be telling new stories, as well as sharing first-hand testimonies from those who lived through the horror of the concentration camps.

"It's our responsibility as the nation's public service broadcaster to bring these stories to new generations - and I'd like to thank the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and our European media partners, for their invaluable support. Together, we're offering everyone the chance to reflect on the consequences of prejudice and hatred, and in doing so we'll ensure that the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust are not forgotten."

Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, says: "We are delighted to be working with the BBC to enable millions of people across the country to learn more about the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and more recent genocides through the broadcast of the national ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), as well as additional factual programming.

"At a time when identity-based prejudice and hostility is worryingly prevalent in the UK and internationally, HMD is an opportunity to learn about the consequences of hatred when it is allowed to exist unchecked. At this important moment, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we are asking people to Stand Together against prejudice, and in memory of those who were murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in genocides which have taken place since."

UK Ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s annual event honours survivors of the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution, and the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. The Ceremony will be broadcast on Holocaust Memorial Day itself, 27 January 2020, and will be a particularly significant event due to notable anniversaries - marking 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia. The ceremony is the focal point of Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK. This year, it will focus on the theme Stand Together, with the Ceremony including readings, poetry, music and testimony from survivors of the Holocaust and genocide.

My Family, The Holocaust and Me (BBC One) In this moving new two-part series, Robert Rinder helps second and third generations of families who experienced the Holocaust to retrace their relatives’ footsteps and discover the full truth about what happened to them. Robert also explores further his own family’s Holocaust stories, on both his mum’s and his dad’s sides.

This series reveals what it means to be the children and grandchildren of Holocaust victims and survivors. Robert meets three different British Jewish families who have been affected by the Holocaust: a man who wants to know what happened to his German grandparents and uncle; two sisters who investigate their grandmother’s role in the Dutch resistance and the fate of her sister; and a daughter who knows her mother was arrested as a child by the Nazis as she tried to flee France.

Robert also embarks on his own journeys of discovery. To find out what happened to his paternal family, he travels to Lithuania and hears a harrowing eye-witness account. Robert also travels with his mother Angela to Treblinka, to meet the last remaining survivor of the former Nazi death camp and to commemorate his great-grandfather and his family.

The Windermere Children (BBC Two) August, 1945. A coachload of children arrive at the Calgarth Estate by Lake Windermere, England. They are child survivors of the Nazi Holocaust that has devastated Europe’s Jewish population. Carrying only the clothes they wear and a few meagre possessions, they bear the emotional and physical scars of all they have suffered.

From Bafta-nominated screenwriter Simon Block and Bafta and Emmy-winning director Michael Samuels, The Windermere Children is the first dramatisation of a remarkable true story about hope in the aftermath of the Holocaust, based on the powerful first-person testimony of survivors who began their new lives in the UK.

The drama is led by a stellar cast including Thomas Kretschmann (The Pianist), Romola Garai (The Miniaturist), Tim McInnerny (Strangers) and Iain Glen (Game Of Thrones).

Charged with looking after the children is child psychologist Oscar Friedmann (Kretschmann). Along with his team of counsellors, including art therapist Marie Paneth (Garai), philanthropist Leonard Montefiore (McInnerny) and sports coach Jock Lawrence (Glen), they have four months to help the children reclaim their lives.

By the lake, the children learn English, play football, ride bikes, express their trauma through painting – and begin to heal. some locals taunt them, but they are embraced by others. Haunted by nightmares, they yearn for news of their loved ones. When the red cross arrives with letters about the fates of their families, none of them receive good news. But in the absence of relatives, the children find family in each other.

The Windermere Children is the stark, moving and ultimately redemptive story of the bonds the children make with one another, and of how the friendships forged at Windermere sustain them as they rebuild their lives in the UK.

Confronting Holocaust Denial with David Baddiel (BBC Two) The Holocaust is one of the most documented, witnessed and written about events in history, so why is Holocaust denial back on the political agenda? What has happened in the 75 years since the liberation of the camps to have so skewed the picture? And, if it matters, why does it matter?

In this timely and important film, Holocaust Denial: A History With David Baddiel (w/t), for BBC Two, David (pictured, top of page) investigates the history and modern face of Holocaust denial. He talks to academics and historians to trace how denial has evolved since the end of the Second World War and try to discover how and why people are still denying the Holocaust today.

Over the course of the film David encounters people who cause him to question deep-rooted opinions, others who lend extra weight to beliefs he’s grown up with from childhood - and some he really would rather not meet at all. He broaches taboos and finds himself in often uncomfortable situations. At the heart of the film are his attempts to answer some fundamental questions: why does a desire to deny the events of the Holocaust even exist? Why is it growing? What does it tell us about anti-Semitism? Is there a version of Holocaust Denial that is becoming respectable? And how can we best counter these ideas?

Finally he emerges with a new perspective on an issue that goes beyond the events of the Holocaust, and sheds light on a very 21st century malaise - the denial of historical fact. For many, even to explore the phenomenon of Holocaust Denial is to unlock a box marked 'do not open'. But this film suggests that exploring this archetype of lies, conspiracy theory and fake news could deepen our understanding of our post-truth world.

Belsen: Our Story (BBC Two) Belsen: Our Story is a one-hour documentary film telling the untold story of the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where over 50,000 people, mostly Jews, died primarily from starvation and disease in the last phase of World War II.

As the Allied troops advanced into Germany through the winter of 1944, thousands of Jewish prisoners were evacuated from camps near the Eastern front, mostly through brutal forced marches. Bergen-Belsen’s population increased eight-fold to nearly 60,000. But unlike the infamous extermination or death camps such as Auschwitz or Treblinka, Belsen wasn’t designed as a place of killing. It had no gas chambers. Instead, the prisoners were slaughtered by systematic neglect - many starved to death, others succumbed to typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid fever or dysentery, diseases which ravaged the camp, fostered by the lack of clean drinking water and minimal sanitation.

All that remains of Belsen today is a peaceful, grassy meadow, but it’s legacy lives on through the recollections of those who survived it. Belsen: Our Story is their story. Featuring powerful new interviews with some of the last remaining survivors of the Holocaust and dramatic reconstructions, it also includes archive of the British liberation. Those liberators recount the moment they stumbled into the horror of Belsen, the piles of unburied bodies, the epidemics of disease, such the British army felt they had no choice but to burn Bergen Belsen to the ground - inadvertently reducing much of the evidence of the Nazis crimes to ashes. The oral histories of Belsen: Our Story ensures that story is not forgotten.

The Windermere Children: In Their Own Words (BBC Four) The Windermere Children: In Their Own Wordstells the story of the pioneering project to rehabilitate child survivors of the Holocaust on the shores of Lake Windermere.

In the year that marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and the Holocaust, this powerful documentary reveals a little-known story of 300 young orphaned Jewish refugees who began new lives in England’s Lake District in the summer of 1945. The documentary accompanies the BBC Two drama, The Windermere Children.

With compelling first-hand testimony from some of the last living Holocaust survivors, this film explores an extraordinary success story that emerged from the darkest of times, all beginning with the arrival of ten Stirling bombers carrying the 300 children from Prague to Carlisle on 14 August 1945.

The survivor interviews include extraordinary first-hand accounts of both their wartime experiences, separation from families and the horrors they experienced, but also their wonder at arriving in Britain and their lives thereafter.

With powerful contemporary resonance, the film will reveal that many of the 300 who arrived as bewildered young refugees without a word of English or many possessions, and went on to forge successful lives in Britain, starting families of their own and giving back to the country that welcomed them in extraordinary ways.

Words and Music: Commemorating The Liberation Of Auschwitz Sunday 26 January, 5.30pm-6.45pm

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3’s weekly journey of discovery weaving together a range of music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

In this special edition of Words And Music, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, readers Henry Goodman and Maria Friedman read poetry and prose about life and death at the most notorious Nazi concentration camp and what the moment of liberation was like when the Russian soldiers arrived 75 years ago.

We'll hear from survivors like Primo Levi and Victor Frankl, who paint vivid pictures of life at Auschwitz and from Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who played the cello in the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra. She once played Schumann's Träumerei for Dr Josef Mengele, who came to be known as 'the angel of death'.

Music was a major part of concentration-camp life, we'll hear about the fate of Auschwitz's Roma Orchestra and the unexpected presence of Tango at Auschwitz. You'll hear an early recording of the first song to be written in a concentration camp, the Peat Bog Soldiers, and some of the Yiddish tangos popular at the time. There will also be songs by Ilse Weber, who wrote music for the children of the Theresienstadt camp, and sang to those walking to their deaths in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Poetry by survivors András Mezei and Annette Blialik Harchik reminds us that liberation was the end of a hellish journey, but living with the aftermath of the holocaust was a burden which would be carried long after the camps were destroyed.

SOURCE

BBC ONE

[chokedecho]

( KIM HYOJONG. CIS MALE. ) Rumor has it that ( HU “JAE” SUNJAE ) has been spotted skulking around  New York City streets recently. ( HE ) is a ( 58 ) year old ( VAMPIRE. ) They have a good reputation for being ( POETIC & GENTLE, ) but have also been known to be rather ( EERIE & RECLUSIVE. ) They’re known for being the ( OUTCAST. )

y’all know the drill by now. jae is a special baby to me and he’s kinda hard to explain so i’mma do my best….ヽ(◕﹏◕)ﾉ

E A R L Y  L I F E .

sunjae was born to two adoring parents in a very small town in south korea. surrounded by forest and heavily wooded areas, the town’s population was as small as the homes themselves and everyone knew everyone. a community and a family.

as a child, jae would spend many summer days beside a small creek less than half a mile from his home, and always with his mother’s supervision or the supervision of another neighbouring parent. the forest was not something to fear, but rather a large playground filled with adventure and never ending exploration. however, this feeling left the small boy a little too comfortable with his surroundings and failed to instil the appropriate levels of caution for how dangerous wandering off alone could be.

the sun was beginning to set on another lovely summer’s day when jae’s mother turned her back for only a second, and a second was all that it took. jae was sure he had seen something in the trees, perhaps an animal or another child, and childlike curiosity had him following small glimpses that could just as easily have been the breeze bristling the trees.

by the time jae’s attention span ended, the little boy found himself in a part of the forest he did not recognise, and as he attempted to retrace his steps back towards his mother, he wound up getting himself lost deeper and deeper into the densely wooded miles that surrounded and engulfed his home.

every member of the town spent days upon days searching for the lost little boy, parents frantic as onlookers pitied the sight of their own nightmares coming true. no one could bear the loss of such a loved little boy, nor would they give up looking for him no matter how hopeless it seemed.

jae spent a total of six days and seven nights alone in the woods, hungry, bruised, battered, exhausted and petrified. it is unlikely he would have survived a single day longer, already sick from the “foods” he had attempted to forage from the forest itself, as well as the water he had drank from the creek each time their paths crossed.

more than the physical, jae’s experience had taken such a mental toll on the small boy that for weeks after he was stuck in his own head, seeing nothing but nightmares and creatures of the dark surrounding him. home did not look like home. his parents did not look like his parents. he did not speak a word, and he barely recognised a single one spoken to him. scared to death was no longer just a saying, but rather a reality to him. he knew the true meaning of such fear, and it felt like there was no recovering from such a thing.

months passed and his parents came to the haunting realisation that jae needed more help than they could provide. they did not have the funds nor the means to give their little boy the type of care he needed, nor could they fully understand what was going on in his head. it was with heartbreak and anguish that they decided to have jae sent to the states to live with his more affluent relatives there. his aunt, to be exact. from there he could see a myriad of psychologists, psychiatrists, hypnotherapists and more, trying desperately to rescue him from the dark depths of his own mind.

a little under a year after his initial disappearance, jae’s mind and memory went blank.

dissociative amnesia is the name of the condition he later came to learn. an illness rooted in the trauma he experienced, and his mind’s attempts and protecting itself whenever he felt triggered or unsafe. for hours, days, sometimes weeks at a time, jae would forget who he was, where he was from, and any other detail of his life. he would wander much like he did in the forest, dazed and confused and in need of constant supervision to keep him safe from harm.

this condition followed him into adulthood, though the episodes thankfully became fewer and further between as his mind matured enough to not see danger in the smallest of things.

what also followed him into teenagehood and then adulthood, was the stigma attached to the reclusive young boy who hardly ever spoke, never interacted with other children, and came with a rather... creepy vibe. he was the child in the neighbourhood that no parent wanted their own to befriend, warning them off of the boy before he even had a chance to form a connection. people could not understand his illness or the way he acted, and ignorance led them to be fearful of it instead.

jae became the boy that whispers followed, but who could turn a room to silence simply by entering. if a local pet went missing, his aunt’s door would be near bashed in with people accusing jae of playing a part -- in hurting the small creature. his anxieties were mistaken for much darker, dangerous motivations, and it seemed everyone and their momma knew how to diagnose a sociopath 101. it was as if the entire town was waiting for his face to be plastered across the newspapers as america’s newest serial killer.

but none of that was true.

jae was, and is, a gentle soul. whilst he maintained his ‘creepy’ vibes, lurking in the shadows and scribbling into his notebooks rather than socialising or making an effort to seem (for lack of a better word) normal, he also maintained his soft, sweet and childlike innocence. trapped in his head as a lost little boy, he hid away not out of a distaste for people, but rather a fear too many noises, too many colours, too many bodies and people. he grew to accept his role as the outcast, not even blinking an eye when he was used as the butt of every high school joke, prank or dare.

S U P E R N A T U R A L .

at the age of twenty-five, jae’s aunt had become too old to keep a constant watch over her now-adult nephew. when he would disappear for days at a time, she had to accept that this would forever be a part of their lives and that all she could do now was sit back and pray for his safe return.

this time, however, his return never came.

jae initially had stumbled into a pack of lycans. he was still human at the time, and he was entirely lost and clueless as to where or how he had met this group of people. when asked his name, he was unable to answer, and somewhere along the way he had lost, been scammed or robbed of any identification he may of had on his person. the pack’s leecher took him in for a few nights, aware that he would be a prime victim for the local vampires’ snacking desires. it didn’t seem as though anyone was looking for him or would worry after his disappearance, and perhaps this leecher was a little softer on this human than she should have been.

when he finally came to, remembering his identity and to whom he belonged, the kind leecher was nowhere in sight. fully intent on coming back to her after he had found a payphone to alert his aunt to his well-being, jae never reached his destination nor found his way back.

he doesn’t remember much of what happened, just pain and the scent of blood filling his senses and leaving him queasy. he was sure he would die that day, and in some ways he did.

coming to as a vampire was eerily similar to coming to from an episode, left trying to fill in the blanks of his memory and put together the pieces of his life. things had changed, no longer able to return to his home and to his aunt, yet somehow they still felt the same. he was still cursed to stay in the shadows, the be nothing but a silent threat that left a chill down every human’s spine, but now he actually was the monster they had all pegged him to be.

for years he has lived a solitary life, feeding on animals whenever possible and pushing his body to the extremes of starvation before feeding on a human.

if he could have his way, he would never feed again, but he’s learned from experience that pushing too far and going too long without indulging brings his mind back to a place where he cannot bear to let it go, and he will wake after a blackout with blood staining his lips and no memory of who it belongs to or where he has been.

T L ; D R .

lost boy grows up to be creepy outcast boy.

spends his life scribbling in his notebook, writing poems & composing songs.

gentle giant!!!!!!!

big time loner who is as scared of himself as he is everyone else at this point.

needs a hug but wouldn’t know how to accept one.

pls love. ty.

[godseyegalaxy]

Candle and the Wax Flower - 4

Cere upholds her part of the bargain

can also be read on tapas!

Aprox 3400 words

 Cere covered her eyes in the hope of shielding herself from the burning sun, but, as her vision went white anyway, quickly regretted it. Violent clicks burst from her chest, only to become screams as she switched to something her captor might understand. But still, Icora continued to swing her like a heavy sac as if she didn’t just slam her head into the door post. The unfiltered afternoon sun burned her eyes anyway and she writhed and clicked in weak protest.  

“Get. Me. Back. Into. The. Water.” Cere’s voice growled.

She knew Icora’s crew was watching. They never seemed to sleep on this horrid ship, always something to do, something to whisper under their breathes’ and suddenly she had enough of it all. A high-pitched warning call silenced them all.

Pathetic, she thought. That she of all beings was being treated like an object and cowering behind her arms. Her tail flailed wildly, in hope of snagging Icora or, preferably, the wooden railing that would be her last obstacle.  

Last obstacle that would start a long road to a stupid journey.

All she wanted was her sister’s neckless back.

Now she’s looking for a lost land-city.

She hated Icora.

“Alright, you can stop that now, or I’m going to be in the water with you.” Cere could hear Icora smiling. Like a child! Icora was talking to her like she was a child and Icora herself a mother! Unbelievable.

“The thought of you in the sea makes me sick, you witch.”

“Oh come on, name calling isn’t nice.”

“You’re only happy because you’re getting what you want.”

“Hmm? Then I suppose you’ll be happy in a few more seconds. Or? Can you not feel happy?”

“Eat my-“

Her tail fin slammed onto the deck as Icora threw her onto the railing.

“Well then.” She said, loud enough for the deck to hear her clearly, “I know we’ll be seeing each other soon—But do you have anything else to say?”

Cere dragged her hands down her face and opened her eyes to slits. Blurry figures she’d grown to know as Icora’s fine crew faced her, watching like they always had. Predator and prey. Trust in their captain, and also trust that Cere was a native of the sea and lashed out like it too. The closest blob stood a couple of meters behind Icora.

She rolled her head to face the captain.  

There was once a time when they would go years without catching wind of each other. Where she could go back to living a normal life in her people’s towns and pick up trade and travel again. Cere, honestly, missed that time.

She snapped her head back to the crowd and said the first thing she thought of.

“Duces Fuckheads.” She flipped them off and, with well-trained ease, turned and threw herself off the side of the ship.  

The sting of the ocean waves soothed as the air left in her lungs solidified and the cool waters rushed around her. Cere stayed suspended for a long moment, bathing in the soft blue light. This wasn’t home, but damn if it wasn’t better than that Mother forsaken shithole of a ship.

Cere turned and, with a second of calibration, bolted for the isolated Island.

----

Brinkley let the last of the upper crew slide past him before stepping into the Captain’s office. The odorous wall of stale sea water hit him first, and he had to hold back his lunch. He wouldn’t be on a ship if he didn’t like the smell of fish, but that mermaid smelled much worse than any rotting pile of guts and scales. He never got used to it.

Icora’s old familiar chuckle rose above the ascending footsteps.

“And what do the buckets say, Brinkley?” The captain had her back to him, and studied something on her wall of trophies. Icora tended to forgo her coat and accessories while she was in her office, like nothing in the outside world would dare take advantage of her while schemed.  

“They’re all clean, Icora.”

“And did you make any progress with Martie?” She pulled away to look at him over her shoulder.

“No.”

She smiled but didn’t laugh. Brinkley shut the door behind him.

“You know, that’s one of the many reasons I like you.” Icora sighed and gestured him closer, to look at the pot-marked map that laid in front of her. “You’re reliable. Consistent. Predictable.”

“You only like that because you yourself are none of those things.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes.”

She laughed this time. Picking up discarded pins and tools she used to mark where they were going to go, she let Brinkley look over the dots and dashes that made up all of their wayward trips. Brinkley didn’t know of many isles that didn’t have their boot prints on them, didn’t know of any nation that hadn’t seen their flag fly into port or off shore, but still, there were always things to do. People to check up on, trading routes to make sure were still free of growing monopolies and countries to make sure stayed on their own lands. And if not practical, then they were off finding treasure or whatever suited Icora’s fancy that morning.  

The sea, Icora said once, changed at will; who knows what will drop into it next.

He traced the newest line from the point the ship was to where it would soon be. He checked the coordinates once, then twice, then tapped his fingers on the desk.

“Ask away.” Icora slumped into her seat, looking up at him expectantly.  

“What are you planning?”

She offered him a drink. He declined with a wave of his hand and, Icora drank for him.

“Predictable, see? Why do you think I’m planning something?”

“You’re always planning something and... these places you’ve marked...”  

“What about them?”

“You know what. I want to know why. I know it’s not just a treasure hunt or whatever you told the mermaid and I know it’s something much bigger than what we normally do.” There was something sharp in his voice, demanding and accusing, hardly detectable. Like a jellyfish’s stinger.

But it wasn’t like Icora was never stung before. It was determined a long time ago that Brinkley couldn’t scare her.

She still waited to responded, just long enough to make Brinkley think that she’d thought about her words carefully.

“I trust you. You know that.”

“Yes, and I you.” He said almost automatically.

She closed the gap between them, grasping his heavy coat with one hand. “Then trust me when I say if you tell anyone about this, I will leave you and whoever else on whatever island we land on and never look back.” She smiled and waited for his response.  

When none came, “A long time ago, I left something in a place I knew I would forget, on a land much larger than any of these islands, yet a few days ago it suddenly came back to me. I asked myself ‘why?’. Why should I remember after all this time. And trust me, it’s been a long time. But there’s really only one answer; it’s time for me to get it back.”

--

Cere felt the water die. Not all at once, but as if the creatures teaming around in the light knew there was a boundry they shouldn’t cross, so they kept well away from it. A gradient that, after she swam far enough, left her feeling light headed. She knew where she was and knew she still had further to go.  

But, there was a stop she could make first. Then, maybe she could bypass the island all together.

She dove further down the water column and braced for the current that would take her close to the island chain but... it didn’t come. Down further as the light faded into inky black and still there was no rush of water.

This place really is dead

Cere ignored the rotting pit in her stomach as she retraced her steps to the lighter, warmer waters. Naturally Icora would have her do this. Naturally. Beings like her didn’t care about the sea. No for the things living in it, anyway. They could never understand what it meant for water to be dead. They would only care when it was too late.

--

Cere slowed down as the ground started to slope upwards. Usually her people never got this close to the rocky isle shores, there was no reason for it. Sure, there were many creatures to be hunted in the tidal zone, but the coast was not her territory. Oh, how she wished she was in her territory.

Her arms and eyes burned as she lifted herself onto a rock close to the shore. The land in front of her was brown, grassy. This was not the place to be. Back into the water.

Cere followed the island’s shore until the beach receded into the land and tree roots grew in between the boulders. Here... Here would do.  

She watched as the juvenile creatures bolted out of her path while she slowly moved inward. The water tasted different, not dead but only brackish. Still gross. She lifted her head out of the water to find the green canopy shielding her eyes from the sun. A head of her, the tree roots grew too thick to go any close to land and, even if she could, the possibility of leaving quickly would slowly disappear. This would do.

So, Cere pulled herself towards the closest tree and gathered her hair neatly in front of her and started to sing.  

Her voice was nothing compared to sirens, or even the whale songs that made up the white noise of the sea but, as Icora had described once, she had a voice ‘surprisingly gracefully for such a hideous creature.’  At the time Cere immediately tried to stab her with a sharp rock, but she had appreciated the complement, only a little bit.

She sang in her native tongue, softly at first as she started to breathe in air and then louder, to fill in the spaces underneath the canopy. The sounds of the marine forest paused to listen to the mermaid, even the sea winds ceased to move the leaves above.  Straining to hear beyond her voice, Cere sand louder until the snapping of twigs called her to stop.

Wait... She must wait. Who knows what could set it off.  

The leaves moved again and, so did the water but nothing could cover the sound of something wading through the water.

“Creature of beyond the island, you have called?” a quiet voice met Cere’s ears, sending chills down her spine. Not that she was afraid, hardly, but the spindle-like voice grated against her skull.  

“I have, and I would like to ask a question. Please, are you iwi-atua?”

“Fairie? Yes I am.”

“May I look at you?”

“Yes.”

Cere turned her head and bowed at the person in front of her, standing in the water with their root-colored hair spilling like a cloud of ink in the water. Beyond that they were naked, bare and smooth skin, almost like they were a part of the forest itself. If they weren't thousands of kilometers away from the nearest human civilization, Cere might have thought them human. But that would be a grave mistake to say out loud.  

“What is your name, sea- creature.” the Fairie took a step closer, smiling with jaded eyes.

So, they were hungry on the isle. And here Cere thought she’d have a pleasant conversation.

“I am a Daughter of the Mother, please call me as such.”

Cere gave no indication that she saw their smile twitch. “Very well then, Daughter of the Mother. What is your question?”

“There is an Island north west of here, 30 knots if by sail, past were the water turns bleached and dead, does that island virgin to human or Fae influence?”

“A strange question for a creature such as yourself. 30 knots? Do you know of sails and wooden coffins? Why do you, Daughter of the Mother of the Seas, care?”

Cere tilted her head. An interesting game they were playing- another chance at her own life.

“I am trying to get back my sister’s necklace,” Cere answered honestly, “And visiting the island will help me obtain my goal. I came here because I know for sure that your people, and others, reside here and thus may know if your sisters and brothers are there. Are there Fae or Humans on the island?”

A tingling sensation rushed down Cere’s spine, a growl vibrating the back of her skull. She didn’t give a satisfactory answer, it seemed. But damn them, if it was a fight she was going to get into, then it was a fight she was going to win.

Cere thought all of this without indicating a single thing. To her surprised however, the fae creature answered.

“There has never been Humans or any land creature on the island. Fae, however, used to live there before the Witch killed everything, my people moved soon after and none has been there since.”

Cere watched the water ripple as the woman stepped close to her, hair dragging behind her like smoke.

“That place is not for the likes of you. Fae were killed there. That land is ours.”

“Then I guess its lucky for us that I won’t be needing to go there, is it?”

There were many phrases that Cere had learned while being with Icora and her crew. Many curse words but a lot of well-to-use idioms too. ‘Kicked the bucket’ was a fun one that she enjoyed hearing, mostly because she didn’t know what a bucket was at the time and kicking was something she’d never done before, so her finding out that ‘kicking the bucket was another way of saying ‘dying’ brought out a rare laugh within her. But there were more practical ones, like the saying ‘red sky in the morning, sailors warning’ because this was true to her knowledge, her own people used it with different phrasing and ‘The last straw’ when finally, someone stopped taking shit from others. She couldn’t count how many times Icora had pulled ‘the last straw’ with her.

Cere had picked the last straw with the iwi-atua.

It leaped at her with the speed that, if she were not a mermaid, would have disoriented her and would most likely lead to her death. But she was a mermaid. A daughter of the Mother, as she warned, and the fae did not disorient her.

--

The Galleon swayed gently as she waded in the water, perfectly at peace with the ocean and wind. Most of its crew were below deck, eating a lunch of rice and fish while the ones above deck did their routine checks.  

Martie sat against one of the walls, a good number of different sized papers spread across the table and sticky rice in her hands. It was a writing assignment, or, more correctly a report that Icora had already written, but had copied the papers she’d used and gave them to her to see how well she could write the same report. How much time did Icora have to just waste on giving her assignments? Grated, it was probably Brinkley that suggested it.

Fuck that dude.

In her increasing desperation to get the paper done with, she’d even asked the other crew members siting around her for help. But most of them ignored her or played dumb. Every time. Every time she had homework it was like they’d never met her. Martie didn’t know if it was because some of them wanted nothing to do with writing a report or because Icora had given them an order not to help.  

Sen-Woo, one of the gunners, a deckhand and the first person that she had gotten to know sat down at the opposite end of the table, making her papers slide.  

“Oh, sorry Martie, didn’t think you’d still be working on that stuff.”

“You know I always wait for your ever so insightful advice. Tell me. What should I do today.”

Before joining Icora’s crew, Sen-Woo was an entertainer of sorts. He was also a student of science. And a successful merchant. And a school teacher. Because of his background, he would give impromptu lectures on how the world worked that made even Brinkley stop and listen. But what excited Martie the most was the fact that he could talk about the newest of sciences and then immediately turn around and say the most profound and dumbest stuff she had ever heard.

He gave her and insidious look and snapped back. “Respect your superiors and do your homework in your own space.” But the frown didn’t last long, his broken tooth smile crept up like it always had when he tried to be angry. “Ah, I’m just teasing.”

“I had no idea.” Her face had stayed placid the entire time.

“I was going to offer you singing lessons, actually.”

The clump of rice she was aiming to eat fell back into her bowl.

“Singing lessons?”

“Yeah, it’s about time you learned the really important stuff like singing shanties with us.” he gestured to everyone on the room. While most of them wisely made no acknowledgement of the comment, many more were smirking over their meal.

He was serious. Martie knew Sen-Woo and he was serious.  

A thousand words and incomprehensible sounds flooded her mind but her mouth just opened and closed like a fish.

THUMP

The wall behind Martie shook, but before she, or any of the others, could do anything, shouting and footsteps sounded above them. Rushing to see what had hit our ship no doubt.  

Martie bounded up and squeezed past the other members of the crew as they sped towards the stair case, however, everyone paused as they heard the captain.

Laughing. She was laughing. Loud and jovial as if drunk on stolen wine.

Half the crew sighed and went to sit down and finish their meal.  

Tia, one of the few that never moved even shouted. “Never have I ever seen so much commotion for a single fish.” She laughed and caught a bowl that was tossed at her. Martie climbed the steps anyway.  

Darkening clouds covered the sun, promising rain at a later date, but the nausea Martie usually felt was absent from her mind and she walked over to Icora’s side by the railing.

“Cap’t.” She said as a way of greeting.

“Martie. Help Auali’i pull up the net. Cere has something with her.” Icora’s tone set her on edge, there was something wrong. Maybe not too wrong, Icora had a different tone she used for big problems. Just like she had different voice marking how good a mood she was in so Martie knew when to prod her with questions or turn in her work. On a scale of one to ten, ten being worst case, this was maybe a six or seven.

She silently obeyed her orders, got behind Auali’i, and started to pull on the ropes bringing Cere up to the deck. A moment later Brinkley was behind the captain doing the same, a wordless conversation happening between them.

Martie willed herself to breathe normally as the net rose above the railing. Cere appeared a moment later, silver tail hanging over the net, shinning iridescent in the sun like it usually did, however, black and red oozed down the mermaid’s chest, most of it coming from a mass she held in her arms.  

The mermaid waited until the net lowered to the grown before turning to Icora. The side of her face and neck had deep claw marks gouged into them with some of the same ooze leaking out in small diluted streams. Cere didn’t seem to care, instead she lifted the mass she was clutching.

Martie watched as it unfurled and stared for a long minute. No... it didn’t really unfurl, it was hair, golden red hair, that fell down and mixed with Cere’s own ink black. Brinkley actually stumbled back in something akin to horror.

She was holding a covered head. But it wasn’t a creature that Martie had ever seen in her life.

“I come back bearing gifts.” Cere’s broken voice dripped with distain as she looked up at Icora.

“How thoughtful.” Was all Icora said.

[sanchezashton1992]

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[quarantinequbemagazine]

Parts of Me

By Lupita

We all have been through things in life, we all carry baggage, we all have things we need to heal from. Do we do it? No not exactly. We acknowledge our problems, we feel our emotions, but do we really take the time to change, to think about the reasons why we are the way we are?

At least for me, no.

I know I have so many things I need to change. I’ve been hurt, I’ve been shattered and it’s as if I’m trying to put myself together with tape or glue. Pieces end up hanging off or some pieces don’t fit because it’s missing a corner. It’s hard to put yourself together when you’re not used to being sad or are naturally a happy person. It’s as if my body rejects the sadness and it’s like, “nah girl, ew.” So, I just naturally push it down and smile on. 

When I’ve had enough, though, I get bad. Really bad. I ignore my body when it says to not let it in. I shut the door and I shut everyone out. A good cry and I’m good. But I don’t really focus on why I’m hurting or why I am like this.

🖤🖤🖤

A long time ago I met someone. We started talking, but I knew deep down I had baggage from my last relationship. This guy was so sweet, nice, and naive. He had the sweetest smile. He would always open the car door, any door. Any opportunity he had to prove to be a gentleman, he would. I liked talking to him. I never really got comfortable with him, though. He would tell me his darkest thoughts and always wanted to talk to me.

A girl could dream, right? Not me.

I wasn’t used to that much attention. I wasn’t used to someone wanting to get to know me. I would look at him while he was driving. Damn, he looked so good. His hair in the wind, his blue ocean eyes. He caught me looking, smiled and wrinkled his nose. Such a cute nose he had. But all I was thinking was, “Doesn’t he get tired of trying? of talking? of wanting me?”

Hell, I would.

He kissed me. I had my eyes opened. He had long lashes. I was jealous. Days passed and I felt myself going bad. Not wanting to talk to anyone bad.

He noticed.

I took it out on him and eventually broke things off. I told him from the beginning I would most likely break his heart. He didn’t care, I didn’t do it intentionally, but I also couldn’t help it.

He begged. So much.

I felt sorry for him. But I couldn’t continue talking to someone who cared so much and I so little. I needed to change and heal, I wanted to do that on my own terms, but not because of someone else.

He described me as a snow globe. They’re beautiful, but if you’re not careful they can fall and break. So, he put me back on the shelf and admired me from afar.

He called me “the one that got away” and wished it was him who changed me and got me to love again.

🖤🖤🖤

Eventually I grew up, married and had a kid. I was the most vulnerable I had ever been.

I opened up like never before. My new husband was the person I went to when I needed protection.

However, the marriage was hard and eventually I asked for a divorce.

Of course, he tried to change. I gave it a few months, saw no change and went ahead with it. We still shared nights, mornings, dinners and coffee together. We still sent cute messages and sent funny memes. We talked about the possibility of finding other people since we were divorced.

He said he wasn’t interested in anyone else. I believed him.

So maybe this is what we needed. We rushed into things and maybe, as silly as it sounds, we needed to retrace our steps and start again. Child and all. Fuck it.

Then he changed. He left in the middle of the night to his mom’s house. Messages unanswered, memes unseen, and I drank coffee alone now.

He had someone else.

I knew her. She tried talking to him when I was pregnant. How could she, how could he?!

I was hurt, I felt like someone punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I had the worst months of my life.

Thankfully I’m better. I’ve moved on, I no longer get butterflies. My palms no longer get sweaty at the thought of seeing him. I no longer care. I don’t hate him, I could never, but I also could never trust him or want anything to do with him. Unfortunately, he is father of my child. The love I once had is gone. It left. I felt it leave me, and I was left confused yet free.

I had moved on.

🖤🖤🖤

Now someone new is trying to love me, but I just can’t seem to trust them. With all this free time, I’m really focusing on healing. Getting to the roots as to why I think that every man will leave, why I can’t trust people when they say I’m the best thing that has happened to them or why I hate when they stare at me for too long.

They might see my imperfections, like how my left front tooth overlaps the other or my eyebags. Maybe they told someone else those exact words, or maybe they will find something better and leave.

But here is the thing, if you love yourself, none of those things matter.

What I have been through doesn’t really matter, it shouldn’t control me.

The past me can’t hurt me. Past me is in the past.

Present me is amazing and has accomplished a lot. Present me has overcome a lot. Present me has the sweetest gift any human could get. My child is my reason for being. It took many, but she was chosen to stay.

If I focus on what I have now, and start loving myself more maybe that’s how I will heal. I can’t change the past, or the people that have wronged me, but I can change me for the better. And maybe I’ll stitch myself back together and use pictures of the amazing things that have happened to me to fill in the gaps for the parts of me I can no longer get back.

[jtogo-brisby-blog]

Tautai First Friday Talks with Albert Wendt, Jasmine Togo-Brisby & perfomance by Sema

As part of my daughter’s social studies class – they are required to do a presentation entitled “origins of me”.  On Wednesday morning she says “Mumma...what’s the quickest and easiest way to describe what a south sea islander is?”

I paused for a bit…this hurt...this is the question I have been trying to find the answer to my whole life…

I said “unfortunately baby, there is no easy way, but this is what makes us so special ey?” 

She said “I guess…But I don’t want to tell them mum…not yet…Can I just say that we are from Australia and Vanuatu?”    

I said “ok, and when you feel strong again, maybe on your next project then you can tell them about us ok?” She agreed and went back to writing. 

She has never asked this before, you see my daughter knows who she is, she will proudly say she is a South Sea Islander the Australian born descendants of the pacific slave trade…but she also knows from her brief life experience that it doesn’t end there, that her identity will trigger an onslaught of questions that at the age of 13…at her new high school, she just doesn’t have the strength for… this week she doesn’t want to stand up in front of her peers and teachers and be the one to educate them on the pacific slave trade, to answer all their questions and have them probe in and out of our families history….and that’s ok cause sometimes at the age of 36 I don’t have the strength to do that either, it’s painful…it’s intrusive...it wears you down and sometimes you just can’t. 

I often get asked in interviews “when did you first discover that you were a south sea islander?”….and I can’t help but wonder…do other artists get asked such stupid questions?  Do Samoan artists get asked “when did you first discover that you were Samoan??  

I’ve tried to pinpoint a time… a distinct moment of enlightenment…but truth is I always knew I was South Sea.…I don’t ever remember not being south sea…some of my earliest memories are of my mum and my family calling us little south sea gals.  Perhaps I didn’t know exactly what it meant… but I knew it meant we were islanders…I knew it had something to do with the sugarcane plantations, and the pride that my uncles took in their cane knives. I knew that being south sea meant that we had great physical strength, whenever I would pick something up that apparently I shouldn’t have the be able to...my mum would sing out “ey look at this proppa south sea breed, too strong!! I knew that our hair was propa south sea, and that I had to have ‘hand me down shoes’ from my uncles it was cause my feet were ‘propa south sea’.   

We ALWAYS knew we were south sea…Me and my 3 big sisters were born in a tiny town of northern NSW, we lived in the bush and were pretty isolated from the world, no running water, self-sufficient, all that stuff.  So I was quite sheltered, I didn’t really know we were different until my first day of school.

I was following my big sisters footsteps in the puddles as we walked through the courtyard of the school grounds, the bell was sounding for us to go to class.  I noticed a group of girls perched under a building who appear to be looking at us, as we cross their path they began to call out ‘black kanakas! black kanakas!’….my sisters pace picked up and I had to run to keep up with her, we arrived at the toilets and she locked herself in a cubicle.  I was scared, I started crying, I didn’t say anything, I just waited.  The door unlocked, my sister appeared, tears streaming down her face.…“don’t you ever let them see you cry! Never!! Do you hear me??!!... I was 5, she was 7… 

Kanaka or kanak the word taken from the islands used by the traders, plantation owners and authorities, in such a derogative manner that it became a synonym for nigger, and both words were used liberally throughout newspapers and documents in Australia when discussing us…’the kanaka problem’, over time we have reclaimed kanaka as our word once again and proudly use it within our communities. 

I knew I was South Sea because people referred to me as such, but as a child I didn’t really grasp what this meant….not wholly not until I was about 8 years old.  We moved from the little racist town of NSW up to far nth QLD, we went to school with all our cuzzies, it was amazing, finally with our people, I’d estimate at least 75% of my school was indigenous population, it was deadly! 

This was home, or at least it was the closest thing to it, yet I still had a very real sense that we did not belong. Most of my South Sea Island cousins are also of Aboriginal Australian heritage and they were able to tap into those roots to ground themselves and their sense of identity within Australia.  For me however, I didn’t have this grounding, and while, as kids, we never perceived or treated each other any different, there were constant reminders that me and my sisters were different. After school one day my cousin Izzy convinced me to an afterschool program with him.  As I entered the room the auntie running the program said “‘oh no, sorry bub, you can’t stay here, I know your mum, you’re south sea, you’re not murrie’, this is just for indigenous kids.”  I was so ashamed that I ran home and didn’t even say goodbye to my cousins. 

My mum and aunties would always go into battle for us against the teachers, but it still hurt to be rejected by the community that I felt most at home with. Not black enough to be black, but not white either. Something else, something other. Other to the Other even. An in-between. The non-Australian Australian. The alien Australian. That is how I felt as a South Sea child in Australia. 

That day when my mum returned from work, I asked her what exactly does it mean to be south sea…who are we? And why aren’t we indigenous?   You see, now that I am a mother, I understand the responsibility of dispensing this knowledge, that we have to guide and release the transferal of information with great care, our mummas know that our inheritance can be traumatic.  Postmemory’ is very real for our community it is connected to the past and not actually mediated by recall but by imaginative investment, projection, and creation…our identity was formed on these events it happened in the past, but their effects continue into the present and into the future. 

My mum told me everything…at least it was everything that she knew…. the story of her great grandparents, that granny was 8 years old collecting shells on the beach of Ambae when a schooner arrived and abducted her, that she was possibly taken to New Caledonia where she was sold, then taken to Sydney where she was sold again to a wealthy family, where she was raised and groomed to be their servant.  Our great grandfather didn’t know how old he was, but he was abducted that same year 1899 from Santo Island and sold to the same family as granny and that’s how they met and fell in love and that’s how our Togo family began.  She told me that our family is still searching for missing pieces of our story, and there is a lot that we don’t know.

”our people were slaves’ bub! They were stolen and forced to work here on the sugarcane and in rich people houses" 

I must have asked my mother a hundred questions that day, because the next day she arrived home from work and handed me this book…

”This is who we are!! …This is where we come from!!" She turned the book over and drew her finger along the map retracing her grandparents’ journey.   “You see we are not from this land…we were used for it” 

I always wanted to know what that felt like…to belong to a land …to be indigenous to Australia…indigenous to anywhere really…to an 8 year old me that seemed much easier.  I wanted to be real…I craved to know our culture… our island customs, I was ashamed, to not fit into an essentialist ideal of what an islander is.  Our language, our art forms, our culture - stolen from us. Over the years I riffled through the pages of this book…images foreign to me, this is not what our lives look like.  No pictures of plantations, no images that resinate with me and what I know to be south sea. Over the years I have learnt to embrace our fractured culture and express it through my practice.  In an effort to re-claim or restore what was taken, my family often go back to Vanuatu and sit in the villages where they will learn how to make the sand drawings, weavings and learn the native language Bislama.  

But our culture was created in in the holds of slave ships…that’s where it all started, down there...that’s our first place of transformation, many nations coming together in the belly of the ship, the initial space of rupture away from everything we had ever known.  We were born out of the ocean… and not in the poetic sense, not in the way that separates and connects in the way that the ocean was our prison, it held us there in those ships, there was no escape, the ocean was our graveyard.   

The plantations are the reason for our existence, the homes of the wealthy, to serve them, to clear and toil the lands for this sweet substance that they desire so much. This is where we were born…this is where we died.   Today mass unmarked graves remain scattered across plantations throughout Queensland and northern New South Wales. Often dug up by accident, each discovery reopens wounds from a past that most Australians would rather forget. Upon arrival in Australia SSI’s faced poor living conditions. Lack of immunity to Western illnesses and harsh corporeal punishments dealt out by plantation owners lead to high mortality rates. With strong racial segregation heavily enforced in Australia during that time, respectful burial within city cemeteries was out of the question so plantation owners opted to dig large burial pits on the outskirts of their sugarcane.

I remember reading an interview a few years ago which still haunts me today, and often keeps me up at night. An interview conducted in 1978, The son of a QLD sailor in was retelling his mother’s accounts of plantation life for South Sea Islanders…He said “The whites treated them something shocking – they died of dysentery, poor food and all sorts of things. They died of a broken heart a lot of them did. Truly they did. And when they died, they just buried them in the cane field – they were just fertiliser. That’s what they were- that’s how it was

”WE were just fertiliser to them”

My community back home work incredibly hard searching council documents for names and making headstone for unmarked graves, this is imperative to us, to resect and honour our ancestors in the smallest possible way we can, to salvage, to reconcile the past and to help our community heal. 

Our old people would never use the word sugar…because the substance was way more than just that, they wouldn’t say ‘pass the sugar’ – they would say - Passem hart work – ‘pass the hard work’…as though to use the word sugar would be to  dishonour our people.

A year ago I was invited to contribute to an episode of the television program ‘Heritage Rescue’, this particular episode was based on an old ship wreckage at Port Chalmers near Dunedin, the ‘Don Juan’ which was involved in the Pacific Slave Trade and described as a 'Spanish slaver and pirate’ Its voyages took it from Sweden to South America and across the Pacific, before it found its final resting place in Otago Harbour in 1900.  It has been lying in a few feet of water ever since, slowly disappearing into the mud.

They tv program wanted my perspective as a descendant of the Pacific Slave Trade, as The Don Juan was the very first pacific slave trade Ship to arrive in QLD in 1863… 73 of our people were on board, one had passed away on the journey, they were shackled then forced to walk from Brisbane port to Beaudesert over 100 kilometres away, where Captain Towns plot of land awaited their arrival.  Towns had planned to establish one of the first qld cotton plantations, the cotton industry failed.  But the labour of our people was successful and so began the Pacific Slave Trade to QLD.   The Don Juan was the beginning…never in my life did I ever think that this ship would still exist, nor that I would be able to go see it and share space with it…with the ship that started my people.

I arrived on set at the Port Chalmers Maritime museum and was introduced to some of the crew and the 3 curators of the museum.  The curators were 3 older migaloo/palangi men, they were very enthusiastic about the ship and their collection of objects retrieved from it.  Their energy was excited, I could see they had taken a liking to the attention they were receiving from the film crew and my arrival bought a set off fresh new ears to hear all their stories.  They told me their memories of the Don Juan, as young boys they would swim in the bay, they would climb up the ribs of the ship and dive into the ocean.   The wreck was a childhood playground to all in the region.

They told me about how there used to be hundreds of sets of shackles salvaged off the ship but keen collectors throughout the region had snapped them up as soon as they were discovered.  They had a wealth of knowledge on the ship, and its captains the pirates, whom they seemed to admire and almost romanticise their lives, they didn’t really ask me who I was and that was ok with me. Eventually I was ushered into the next room by the producer for my interview… curators and crew looking on… 

“So Jasmine you identify as a 4th generation ASSI can you tell us what that means what is a south sea islander?”

I give her the spiel… Between 1847 and 1904 more than 62,000 documented and many more undocumented predominantly Melanesian peoples were abducted and/or coerced from their homes locked in ships and sent to Australia and enslaved on sugarcane plantations and in wealthy aristocratic homes.   We are the Australian born descendants of the pacific slave trade, on the 25 August 1994, the Commonwealth Government officially recognised Australian South Sea Islanders as a unique cultural group with its own history and culture. The government acknowledged the injustices of the indentured labour system and the discrimination suffered by South Sea Islanders and their descendants.   

The interviewer blinks… 

Sometimes in an effort to help try and explain our complex identity– I’ve resorted to comparing Australian South Sea Islander culture to that of African Americans due to their vast visibility and understanding of their position as a slave Diasporas.… So you know how African Americans have their own unique culture & identity? Built from the foundation of slavery, segregation, displacement, oppression etc.…well Australian South Sea Islanders are similar, except the start of our slave trade was at the end of their slave trade... See worldwide supplies of sugar and cotton were impacted dramatically as the U.S civil war dragged on.  New areas of production entered these lucrative markets, particularly in the pacific and plantation agriculture grew substantially in areas such as Australia, Fiji and Hawaii. The trade was hidden under the guise of policy’s and terms like blackbirding and indenture labour. Also Australia had learnt a thing or 2 off the Americans, they didn’t want to be stuck with all these brown bodies in their new country, there was a lot of fear and outrage of the ‘darkening of the colony’.

So by 1901 the sugar industry was thriving, for more than 50 years the pacific was a highway to slave traders and it had served them well.  The new Commonwealth Government implemented the controversial ‘White Australia policy’ and established the Pacific Islander Labourers Act 1901 ordering the repatriation of South Sea Islanders to their home islands, but they didn’t always make it to their home land, and some not even to land, some met there fate by the way of mass executions out at sea.   This was the largest legislated mass deportation in Australian history, and also the most scandalous.   So basically what I’m saying is that racism that ended slavery in Australia.

The interviewer proceeded to ask questions, piercing in and out of my family history, questions about the family who owned my family, things I was not prepared to talk about, and certainly not on film, our stories are personal and painful, they are our inheritance, you can’t just take that from us.

The interview eventually concluded and we walked back out into the museum, they wanted some footage of me standing looking at the shackles…the shackles which held our people…They called them manacles - every time I called them shackles someone tried to correct me and called them manacles…I guess it’s a bit more palatable than slave shackles. 

I’d been consciously dodging the vitrine holding the shackles all morning, I wasn’t ready…I don’t think I would ever be ready.  I looked down into the glass cabinet, I just stared in…I had no idea what I was feeling…I kept reading the museum label. “Shackles recovered from the hulk of Don Juan when she was broken up in 1902.  She was built in gavle, Sweden, in 1857, as the DANIEL EELFSTRAND PEHRSSON” I read this label over and over again, I don’t know why, I think I was trying to make sense of it, I think I was looking for us, some acknowledgement of why these shackles were on that ship in the first place.  But we weren’t there… I thought of the arms which had been held by them, how many lives had been restrained by this rusty chain…what happened to them? Did they make it home? I needed to get out of the museum! 

The crew finally called it a wrap and they invited me go to lunch with them, as I was accepting their offer, one of the curators of the museum yelled out from across the room…across the shackles vitrine….“DON’T FEED THE SLAVE! Ha! With a smug, proud look on his face, the room went quiet, people put their heads down…no one said anything. 

In my mind I could hear my big sister “DO NOT CRY!! DON’T EVER LET THEM SEE YOU CRY!!! Yet my stomach had a familiar calm feeling…I had felt this before, but not in this way, this was my granny…she only appears when she really needs to, and today she stepped in so I wouldn’t have to face them on my own.  She travelled from my stomach up oesophagus and from my mouth she spoke her words... “I forgive you! ….I realise your behaviour is generational and all that I can hope is that this shit dies out with you all!!” I gathered my things and I walked out. 

That afternoon I went to the ocean in search of the Don Juan...well what was left of it.  I stared at it’s lifeless  remnants lying in the mud.  It kind of felt like the way you might feel  if you had been holding a grudge on someone your whole life and now they are on their deathbed, powerless and you have the revelation that your resentment to that person was to to your own detriment….at least I think that’s how I felt. I dunno. A year later and I’m still trying to process this, ALL of this… 

Next month I will start my 3 month residency in Dunedin, I’ll be able to spend time and space with both the museums collection and the ship and hopefully come to terms with it.  In the lead up to the media release of the residency I have been asked what my intentions are, I catch myself saying that “I’ll be researching the Don Juan, retracing its steps, responding to the site etc” Which is so detached, so far removed from what it is that I’ll actually be doing. I’m NOT going to Dunedin to research and respond! I’m going down there to scream!…and to cry, to mourn for our people, to search for any trace of our existence, to use my voice for those who couldn’t use theirs…and then I will make something, I will create from our loss, something that they can’t take away or deny…to give us a place to exist in, if even just for this moment. 

This year will mark 25years of assi recognition from the commonwealth government, on the 25th August every year we celebrate our resilience, we honour and commemorate our ancestors.  I’d like to ask you all to note the 25th of August in your calendars, and include Australian South Sea Islanders within the broader Pasifika dialogue. 

[shamankingasakuraworld]

Broken blood, bound bone

They will never admit it,but they would be nothing without him. All Asakuras have comes from him. Hao will never admit it, but once he was weak. He was nobody. And he made himself strong.

Author note: This is fic and character analysis of Hao and his relationship with his family ( hint-it’s not great. At all. He is also 99% doing his best to pack in as much insults as he can for original members). Read, hopefully enjoy, and please review.

It is good to see that his family hasn’t changed much. Still same, ungrateful bunch of brats, blinded by their own weaknesses and short-sighted goals. They even repeat same personality each few generations ( or he has not-really-lived-and-not-quite-died too long).

Of course, there are changes. Current family is much, much dumber, and has been so for generations, for centuries. Hao suffered no fools in his first life,habit that hasn’t changed even after thousand years ( they had to be good in order to kill him, after all, even if it took all of them). All of people he employed/adopted/saved were competent, for all they were envious and two-faced. And his children...well, they were obnoxious back-stabbing brats, and each one’s puberty made him consider suicide, but they were skilled, clever, creative and smart.

He would have to check just what things they allowed to marry in. This lack of brain cells didn’t come from his side. Who knew just what sort of idiots and fools had become members of Asakura family through centuries.

If it turned out that his children married some of those useless nobles and pathetic excuses for shamans... His children were smart enough to recognize fools and scoundrels, but there were many older members who could influence, or even bring about decision in their name... If that happened, he would summon them all from deepest depths of Great Spirits and feed them all to Spirit of Fire.

Asakura is mighty clan, one of the greatest to ever walk the Earth. Some would even claim that they are the greatest clan, at least in Japan. Didn’t they lead onmyodo ministry for centuries? Don’t their warehouses contain untold, ancient treasures? Aren’t all secrets of Japanese shamanism known to them? Don’t they know secret, special spells known only to few? Don’t they watch over Mount Osore, there where lost souls collect and entrance to hell is located, from where ghosts can travel on Sanzu River?

They are proud of these facts, of course. How could they not be? But they don’t dare speak how they gained such prestige, will never utter a word how they achieved such influence. At best, he will get  ‘’Our ancestor ‘’ not founder, they don’t dare speak that word, won’t admit they would be nothing without him ‘’ was skilled shaman, and it could be said that we prospered because of his abilities.’’

They never speak how they gained control over ministry. Never say how he became grand onmyoji at age of twelve, how he saved capitol. How he faced title’s previous owner, fought his master’s predecessor without even knowing what oversoul was. How he tore apart demon of blood and betrayal and brimstone even when he was on verge of death, how he held Daitaro’s broken, bloodied, smiling corpse.

They don’t say that he was but a child, thrown to pack of wolves. Twelve, and he had to take care of petty Imperial Court, to defend himself against envious onmyoji who hungered after his place. There were other families, other clans, who sought to tear him apart, and they either fell from favor or were torn apart-in those days assassinations were all too common, and shikigami and curses were just another type of weapons. But he was too powerful, too cunning, too stubborn to be killed.

They don’t say that they once ruled spiritual life of his homeland. For centuries they held control of damned ministry until it finally crumbled, governing onmyoji and shamans, controlling spirits, and meddling in petty politics that served nobody but rich and comforted ( this is another thing they skip over, their greed, their arrogance). And all of that was possible because of him, for he gained respect by blood and sweat and tears, and mark he left was  deep and burning that they remained in power centuries after his death, that spirits feared them still.

They never talk about how those treasures were gained. How he crafted them from ordinary rock and rough stone, crafted and polished in sacred relics and perfect mediums, infused them with his furyoku and techniques. How he gained gifts and treasures from feared god-class spirits, by respect and fear, by bargain and fight, by wisdom and unthinkable magics.

They don’t talk how he mastered all those techniques and taught them to his descendants. How, even when everybody told him that it was impossible, he learnt and learnt. Divination,  warding,exorcism,spellcraft,rituals.Shinto,Buddhism,Shugendo,Taoism,Onmyodo teachings. It didn’t matter- he refused to specialize, insisted on learning all. And he did.

They don’t speak about creation of Cho-Senjiryaketsu. Of nights, weeks he spent without food and sleep, working, experimentin, trying. Crafting new spells, developing new ways, called arrogant and foolish by his rivals. But he showed them all. He developed way to use plant spirits (not kodamas or yashas or dryads, leaves and roots and trunks themselves). He wrote whole book, sixteen chapters, containing most important techniques he created.

They don’t speak about day he braved Osore, crossing it’s rocks and blizzards without fear. How he passed hordes of dead and demons without fear. How he stood at supposed entrance-really, place where living and spirit world ( they all looked same to him, he belonged to both but neither was home) and gazed ahead, beyond thin borders, gazed at cursed dead and hungry demons and Hell and it’s Lords, something not even dead can endure, and he claimed Osore.

They don’t speak, and it matters not. His power is justly earned, and even if it is forgotten it will exist. Only consequence will be that many more fools will die in vain, trying to defeat him.

Still, credit should go where credit is due, no?

They are his descendants. Even if they spurn his name, even if they spit on his goal, even if all branches of clan stand against him .Some were of his seed and some were adopted, but he never cared. he equally raised them all and was equally betrayed.

They are mighty, for his legacy lives in them, for they are descendants of legend. Nobles among shamans. so to speak.

And in way, their blood is purer and higher then his. They have centuries of legacy and wealth and status and power. He has nothing.

He is son of common woman, without father ( so many people insist on that. As if that mattered. His mother was more than enough, more precious than thousand fathers and mothers). Peasant at best, child of whore at worst, so they ( nobles, warriors, people walking in street beside trash he slept on) told him.

His mother...she wasn’t weak, of course, there is no way she of all people could have ever been weak. Even if she knew no grand technique and her furyoku was low, she wasn’t weak. She simply.... didn’t have to chance to grow, yes.

He won’t tell them this, hasn’t told that even to Matamune, but he was born without power, without talent, without high furyoku. Just a simple child unaware of what even shamans were (sometimes, he has nightmares, of losing it all, losing power and knowledge, being weak and helpless as Asaha, of losing connection to nature, of growing fangs, claws,ears,tails, becoming fox pup and being hunted by humans and hounds).

He was never human. Never weak. To imply otherwise is to burn.

Only when facing death, can true potential be revealed. After his mother was murdered, after he fled to the darkest part of forest, after he starved and froze, did everything begin. Death snuck to him, but he wasn't scared, didn't care, and it's hold was weakened, and without realizing,was too stubborn and proud and angry and tightly tied himself to his first body. He starved and suffered, but survived and grew.

He is blessed. By fire that consumed his home. By woods that hid him. By dirty streets he slept on. By broken steel blade he used to avenge mother’s murder. By rain and snow and blood he endured for years. By death that covered Japan in form of hunger and plague and greedy nobles. By winds that whipped him. By thunder from which he hid.

Ash and dirt, blood and pain, hunger and darkness and death. That is all he had, could find nothing more. So he looked at other side- if it was all, then it was everything. If he could find nothing more, than he had everything he needed. He had enough ( it had to be enough, must always be enough). So he took it all and forged them in weapons ( water comes from metal and blood is water and iron, and if you bleed enough, you will have enough iron to craft a blade) and made himself in Asakura Hao.

People became onmyoji  many reasons. Family traditions. Money. Position. Laziness, believing it to be easy job. Innocent wish to help everybody.

Hao isn’t sure why he became onmyoji. Power? Survival? Because he didn’t care enough to refuse and fight when Tadatomo gave him no choice ( just as he gave no choice to Daitaro, when he made senior apprentice in demon, when he took Hao to his room and grasped him with arms and shikigami). To get even?

For knowledge, he supposes sometimes. He always hungered for it ( he was born hungry and starved, for food and and power, for love and safety, for silence, for justice and souls, hunger woven alongside pride in his very bones). Always sought to learn, to grow and thrive and prosper, for if he was going to do something, he was going to be good at it.

He wanted to learn it all. He was told that it was impossible, that he would have to either specialize or take bits from all things but master none. But he didn’t believe.

He stayed up for days, studying ancient writings. His eyes teared and eyelids almost dropped, his stomach growled and fingers bled from retracing words but he learnt and seared knowledge in his brain.

He came to best of teachers and knocked on their doors, politely but clearly demanding to be taught. And when they refused, he waited in their backyards till they gave up and let him partake of their knowledge.

He watched fights and ceremonies and divination consultations, figured it all out and analyzed and connected dots and guessed.

He tried and tried, to get results he wanted even if he had no idea how to accomplish that, and made his own way.

He traded with shamans and demons and gods, gained secrets by giving out his own or defeating them or accepting to give them favor or gift.

Human minds, and shaman as well aren’t made to hold much knowledge. You could find ghost thirty thousand years old, but he couldn’t recall a century. After some time, souls in afterlife lost note of passage of time, and didn’t notice that what seemed to be day was actually hundreds of years.

But Hao remembers. He remembers and learns and grows. That is one of reasons why Hell is so much more pleasurable than Earth. So many things you can find only there. So many unique experiences. So many techniques you can learn only there. So many varied souls you can meet. So many beings with their strange wisdoms. In between fights and training he learns, from medicine over sewing to engineering.

Fighting and learning, resisting and adapting and growing. He was made for that.

(So easy it is to learn, when you have nobody to distract you. When only alternative is to sit and do nothing).

His descendants know nothing of his early life. Few records that have been left of his existence as Mappa Douji are now nothing but dust. History and legend alike record him only as Asakura Hao. No mention of his origin, his childhood.

They assume sometimes that he had been noble. Word feels like accusation, like denial of all he had been through, and it is wonder that his teeth don’t grit, that his fists don’t curl, that those who utter damned word don’t burn.

Noble, he! As if he was ever that useless, lavishing in court and caring more about appearance than his duty! As if he ever lowered himself so much to plan downfall of those he called allies! As if he ever betrayed somebody! As if he was ever deaf to cries ( voiced and not) of servants and peasants and commoners! As if he ever got what he wanted only by tales of his ancestor’s might.

As if he wasn’t talked about with contempt, told in face and behind back and thought about how position of grand onmyoji should go to somebody more dignified, no matter fact that he saved them all. As if he had some allies, willing to accept common born child ( best he got were lies, manipulations, betrayals quickly discovered). As if he wasn’t laughed at, called low-born and whore’s child by arrogant nobles ( he showed nothing but they quickly learnt better), for he knew nothing of court’s intricacies at beginning. As if he hadn’t starved and crossed half of Japan with bare feet, hiding in trash and woods, oni stalking his steps. As if his poor mother didn’t work herself to bone to provide him with food ( for who would work alongside demon on field? She might curse your crops).

He doesn’t like to be reminded of those days, of dirty streets and deep woods. But he won’t ever accept to be called nobleman. Asakuras must have allowed that, to make themselves seem more grand, to forget that all they have he made from ash and dirt, blood and pain, hunger and darkness and death.

The cursed legend remains, of course. That his mother was fox ( some say nine tailed one, and it pleases him somehow, to imagine her grand and powerful and divine).  That she brought war and famine and plague and death wherever she went. That she seduced men and killed them. That he isn’t truly human. That he is a demon.

Asakuras remember that. But don’t speak, for if he was half-demon, doesn’t that mean that they too carry infernal blood in their veins.

In sense, they are right. He is a demon child. Lie and truth blur and if you treat something like other thing, and if everybody does that, it becomes something else, and even learned shaman thought him half-human at best. he was raised for short time by Ohachiyo, and since he was lost, oni followed him, listened to him, stole for him, clothed and fed and protected him. He has powers shamans can’t dream of, and if he wanted, he could become archdemon, devil strong enough to match Lords of Hell ( but too small, too useless for his goal) and most important of all-what is demon but fear, spacegoat for troubles of mankind, embodiment of all things they hate and abandon, shadow revealing their true intentions, mirror reflecting their sins.

In that sense, he is demon child. Always was and always will be, as it is with all blessed and cursed to not fit in ‘’normal.’’

He is a god. Not a God, mind you, but god nonetheless.

It is rare, but shaman souls can ascend to status of god-class spirit of death. Bodhisattvas and buddhas, saints and sages, heroes and honored ancestors. Once enough time passes, once spirit travels through afterlife, when it is remembered as legend, nightmare or sacred figure, when it fights things great and powerful beyond mortal comprehension, once it finds purpose in death and life, it becomes deity.

It can learn and grow and remember, and time belongs to it.

It’s perspective changes and expands, and it can comprehend truths of world.

It’s sense of self and form is strengthened, and it can change shape of it’s soul and resist what normal ghosts cannot bear and crush weaker souls and burns with purpose, goal that becomes it’s nature.

It’s influence spreads as it’s fame grows, and humans are charmed in worship while demons obey it’s will.

It becomes more than simple soul infused with high reiryoku, but attuned to spirits and ideas and nature in ways mortals cannot imagine, and it becomes capable of miracles.

So of course he is one. Shape he bears is whatever his body looks right now, though sometimes he reverts to his original one. Not important- who cares about shape when essence is same. He can bear tides of centuries, and knows that he wil experience eternity and feel every moment and remember all, so he cherishes opportunity to learn and grow ( and who cares about all nightmares, about never-ending loneliness. nobody, it doesn’t matter). He is wiser and more mature then eldest elders, though he can behave as child, and there is nothing he doesn’t know, and he can look upon and hear things and feel what would drive others into madness.

He is resistant to strongest attacks and he can consume souls ( he doesn’t, he remembers Daitaro, remembers taste of his resentment and stench of his spirit, and he leaves that to Spirit of Fire-not as if his soul isn’t already strong). He inspires utmost loyalty in demons by his mere passing, and even strongest eventually bow to him. He can manipulate essence of world and bestow gifts and resurrect dead with his simple will.

But he feels Earth’s pain, hears and feels and sees nature’s wishes, knows what it means to be river and wind and stone and fire and lighting and wood and coin and death, pain that drove him to fight and save Earth, that which is his goal, to protect and preserve balance of nature.  he cannot rest.

So he goes and performs Taizan Fukun no Sai, Furyoku is always lower than reiryoku ( for spirit’s experience and knowledge become power too) but he gains body and right to participate in Shaman Fight and become God of gods.

He is Asakura Hao, god of pentagram, will of Earth, representative of nature, beloved of elements, spirit of balance and justice. His mother’s murder planted soil on which his divinity would prosper, his revenge against Densen Hoshi made it fertile. His absorption of Ohachiyo created seed and  his defeat of Daitaro planted it. His mastery of elements and disgust and awe it brought was both water his divinity needed and first product of it. Matamune’s betrayal and his family’s treason were it’s sunlight and roots.

And when he died for first time, it grew. When he found himself in hell, he became a god.

Sometimes he wonders where he went wrong with his children.

He gave them home, even though half were illegitimate and others were orphans from streets.

He treated them all same. Blood or not, they were his children.

He gave them education, discipline, fun, love, all things children needed.

He worked himself to bone to give them better life.

He listened to them, didn’t try to force them to be somebody they weren’t.

They thought he was...creepy. Strange. That he hid things from them. That he lied with composed face. That he didn’t fir with rest of society. He never gave them reason, but they were afraid of his powers and ashamed of his behavior. 

True, he didn’t tell them some things. but they didn’t need to worry about problems reishi was causing to him, couldn’t understand pain of whole country felt at same time ( and would throw him away, call him mad and demon, they would hate him too) but he cared for them and they loved him.

Not enough to stay loyal.

His son in second life was too young, but Hao could see he would follow in footsteps of his long dead siblings.

At least he now had Opacho.

Sometimes, he wonders about seeing them, about calling them from beyond death’s doors  or meeting them when he becomes Shaman King.

Stupid thought. It would be weakness, and they would just attack him.

Sometimes, it bothers him, how he and his family look.

None of them have blonde hair or golden eyes. In generations trait hasn’t resurfaced. None of them look like his mother. To see but her shadow-that would be gift over gifts.

He has her rage in his veins, rage that burns inside like volcano but enters world like blizzard. He has her pride in her bones, sort that is unshakable as mountain and stands like royal creature. he has her cold eyes that reveal no weakness. He has her cruel heart( she was kind, but woe betide those who’d dare attack her. Burning house wasn’t only physical assault, just greatest, just one that harmed her. there were others, but she fought and broke quite few bones and egos) and her ruthless pragmatism.

If miracle happened, and he died for third time, he thought of reincarnating in India. Always loved that country. Still, maybe this time he will go for some family with blonde hair. All his three reincarnations looked same, and he doubted that he could reincarnate again in Asakura family ( itako’s genes would be dominant ones, due to her sheer willpower, he knew that. Yoh stood no chance).

Little change of appearance can’t hurt, right?

You can see it all if you look at symbols of family.

Wu Xing pentagram and tree of renewal.

Star and tree.

All elements versus one.

Whole against broken, rearranged piece.

Universe against one small, small piece of land.

They are mighty, but it all comes from him, broken  and changed and weakened, and because of that, in the end he shall win.

[rathertoofondofbooks]

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews, which is all about sharing the books that you’ve acquired in the past week!

  I bought these books:

Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach

I bought this ebook on a total whim when the cover caught my eye on Amazon and then the synopsis sounds really intriguing. I think this will be a quick read so I’m hoping to squeeze this in between review books soon.

Synopsis:

Ava doesn’t believe it when the email arrives to say that her twin sister is dead. It’s not grief or denial that causes her scepticism – it just feels too perfect to be anything other than Zelda’s usual manipulative scheming. And Ava knows her twin.

Two years after she left, vowing never to speak to Zelda again after the ultimate betrayal, Ava must return home to retrace her errant sister’s last steps. She soon finds notes that lead her on a twisted scavenger-hunt of her twin’s making.

Letter by letter, Ava unearths clues to her sister’s disappearance: and unveils harrowing truths of her own. A is for Ava, and Z is for Zelda, but deciphering the letters in-between is not so simple…

A Thousand Paper Birds by Tor Udall

I’ve seen this book on some of my favourite blogs recently and have been keen to read it. I spotted the ebook for a good price this week so snapped it up. This is one of those books that I want to read soon but that I also know I need to be in the right mood for but hopefully it won’t be too long before I read this one.

Synopsis:

After the sudden death of his wife, Audrey, Jonah sits on a bench in Kew Gardens, trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of his life.

Chloe, shaven-headed and abrasive, finds solace in the origami she meticulously folds. But when she meets Jonah, her carefully constructed defences threaten to fall.

Milly, a child quick to laugh, freely roams Kew, finding beauty everywhere she goes. But where is her mother and where does she go when the gardens are closed?

Harry’s purpose is to save plants from extinction. Quiet and enigmatic, he longs for something – or someone – who will root him more firmly to the earth.

Audrey links these strangers together. As the mystery of her death unravels, the characters journey through the seasons to learn that stories, like paper, can be refolded and reformed. Haunted by songs and origami birds, this novel is a love letter to a garden and a hymn to lost things.

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

This is a book that I owned and part-read many years ago and I’ve been wanting to sit and read it all the way through for some time now. I found a copy for a good price this week so now it’s on my shelves waiting for me when my brain is in gear enough to read it.

Synopsis:

Written during the 1940s and early 1950s, when Baldwin was only in his twenties, the essays collected in Notes of a Native Son capture a view of black life and black thought at the dawn of the civil rights movement and as the movement slowly gained strength through the words of one of the most captivating essayists and foremost intellectuals of that era. Writing as an artist, activist, and social critic, Baldwin probes the complex condition of being black in America. With a keen eye, he examines everything from the significance of the protest novel to the motives and circumstances of the many black expatriates of the time, from his home in “The Harlem Ghetto” to a sobering “Journey to Atlanta.”

Notes of a Native Son inaugurated Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes erupting in the United States in the twentieth century, and many of his observations have proven almost prophetic. His criticism on topics such as the paternalism of white progressives or on his own friend Richard Wright’s work is pointed and unabashed. He was also one of the few writing on race at the time who addressed the issue with a powerful mixture of outrage at the gross physical and political violence against black citizens and measured understanding of their oppressors, which helped awaken a white audience to the injustices under their noses. Naturally, this combination of brazen criticism and unconventional empathy for white readers won Baldwin as much condemnation as praise.

Under the Sun by Lottie Moggach

This was another book I bought on a total whim when I spotted it for 99p on Kindle this week. I’ve read Lottie Moggach’s previous novel and enjoyed it so I’m hoping this one will live up to it.

Synopsis:

Anna’s friends and family think she is living the dream in her beautiful finca under the Spanish sun. But the reality is far from perfect. The handsome, complicated man she was building a life with has left with little more than a note to say goodbye and the future she imagined has crashed around her ears. Anna has secretly embarked on an ill-advised affair and lives above the dingy bar she runs in the sleepy beach town of Marea, surrounded by British expats as homesick and stuck as she is.

When Simon, a local businessman, offers to rent the finca, Anna hopes it will pave the way for her escape. But there is more to him than meets the eye, and when a body washes up on the beach in mysterious circumstances, Anna realizes she may be the only one with the power to unravel the truth. But how can she prove that Simon is connected, and how can she reclaim her house? Anna is prepared to risk everything to get home even though she’s no longer sure where home really is.

I received these review books:

The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter

I’ve not read any Karin Slaughter before despite feeling sure that I will love her writing so I decided to grab this one on NetGalley this week and I really want to read it very soon. I’m intrigued by the synopsis so I don’t think this will be on my TBR for very long at all!

Synopsis:

Two girls are forced into the woods at gunpoint. One runs for her life. One is left behind…

Twenty-eight years ago, Charlotte and Samantha Quinn’s happy smalltown family life was torn apart by a terrifying attack on their family home. It left their mother dead. It left their father – Pikeville’s notorious defence attorney – devastated. And it left the family fractured beyond repair, consumed by secrets from that terrible night.

Twenty-eight years later, and Charlie has followed in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer herself – the archetypal good daughter. But when violence comes to Pikeville again – and a shocking tragedy leaves the whole town traumatised – Charlie is plunged into a nightmare. Not only is she the first witness on the scene, but it’s a case which can’t help triggering the terrible memories she’s spent so long trying to suppress. Because the shocking truth about the crime which destroyed her family nearly thirty years ago won’t stay buried for ever…

Lily Alone by Vivien Brown

I saw this on NetGalley when I got the above book and downloaded it as it sounds interesting. 

Synopsis:

What sort of mother would leave her all alone… a gripping and heart-wrenching domestic drama that won’t let you go.

Lily, who is almost three years old, wakes up alone at home with only her cuddly toy for company. She is afraid of the dark, can’t use the phone, and has been told never to open the door to strangers.

But why is Lily alone and why isn’t there anyone who can help her? What about the lonely old woman in the flat upstairs who wonders at the cries from the floor below? Or the grandmother who no longer sees Lily since her parents split up?

All the while a young woman lies in a coma in hospital – no one knows her name or who she is, but in her silent dreams, a little girl is crying for her mummy… and for Lily, time is running out.

Last Seen Alive by Claire Douglas

I loved Claire Douglas’ first novel The Sisters and have been eagerly anticipating this one so I was thrilled when I got approved for it on NetGalley yesterday. I’m really tempted to start reading this right away but I feel like I should read some of my other review books first.

Synopsis:

She can run Libby Hall needs to hide, to escape from everything for a while. Which is why the house swap is a godsend. The chance for Libby and her husband Jamie to exchange their tiny Bath flat for a beautiful haven on the wild Cornish coast.

But she can’t hide But before they can begin to heal their fragile marriage, Libby makes some disturbing discoveries about the house. And soon the peace and isolation begin to feel threatening. How alone are they? Why does she feel watched?

Because someone knows her secret What is Jamie hiding? Is Libby being paranoid? And why does the house bring back such terrible memories? Memories Libby’s worked hard to bury. Memories of the night she last saw her best friend alive . . . and what he did.

The Way Back to Us by Kay Langdale

I was super excited when I opened this book post yesterday as I love Kay Langdale’s writing. This sounds like a really emotional read but I’m so looking forward to reading it. Also, doesn’t this novel have such a gorgeous cover?!

Synopsis:

Since their youngest son, Teddy, was diagnosed with a life-defining illness, Anna has been fighting: against the friends who don’t know how to help; against the team assigned to Teddy’s care who constantly watch over Anna’s parenting; and against the impulse to put Teddy above all else – including his older brother, the watchful, sensitive Isaac.

And now Anna can’t seem to stop fighting against her husband, the one person who should be able to understand, but who somehow manages to carry on when Anna feels like she is suffocating under the weight of all the things that Teddy will never be able to do.

As Anna helplessly pushes Tom away, he can’t help but feel the absence of the simple familiarity that should come so easily, and must face the question: is it worse to stay in an unhappy marriage, or leave?

Giveaway win!

I also won a giveaway on Instagram for a copy of Sweet Little Lies by Cat Frear, which I was very excited to receive! It was even more brilliant when the book arrived and it was a signed copy.

Synopsis:

WHAT I THOUGHT I KNEW

In 1998, Maryanne Doyle disappeared and Dad knew something about it? Maryanne Doyle was never seen again.

WHAT I ACTUALLY KNOW

In 1998, Dad lied about knowing Maryanne Doyle. Alice Lapaine has been found strangled near Dad’s pub. Dad was in the local area for both Maryanne Doyle’s disappearance and Alice Lapaine’s murder – FACT Connection?

Trust cuts both ways . . . what do you do when it’s gone?

    So, that’s all of my new books from the past week. Have you bought any new books recently? Tell me all in the comments below, or if you have a stacking the shelves post on your blog feel free to post the link below too.

My weekly wrap up post will be on my blog tomorrow so please look out for that.

  See this week’s #bookhaul in my Stacking the Shelve post (15 Jul) Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews, which is all about sharing the books that you’ve acquired in the past week!