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slifarianhawk · 5 months

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Chapter 47: Exenuating Circumstances

A week had passed since Alex had abducted my precious lotus. Things around the facility were feeling heavy. Gale and Jill had been distant from others. Arjuna hadn't returned to Phoenix Corps.

"Albert, please, you must get some rest! You haven't taken a break at all since Tabitha was taken. Even a god can be run ragged." Excella said, injecting my stabilizer into my arm as I stared through piles upon piles of research.

"Enough! I shall rest when I deem it necessary!" I said, turning my head to glare daggers into my moron of an assistant.

"But Albert, I'm only trying to help get your mind off..." She said as I snarled, grabbing her by her twigish neck.

"Off what!?! Do you mean my kidnapped wife? who happens to be around midterm of pregnancy with three of my children? That the fact stands our only form of contact is in a coma in our medical bay. The worst part is that he was under Alex's control due to her installing a sleeper microchip clearly based on Sergeis technology. The only one we had was stolen three months prior." I growled, noticing her eyes echoing in fear.

"Wesker! He is awake!" Jill said as she walked into my office.

I dropped Excella and faced Jill. Her face was behind her crow mask. She sounded as emotionless as I had when confronting Excella.

"Show me!" I ordered storming out of mine and Tabitha's lab.

Me and Jill quickly arrived at the medical bay housing agent Nighthawk. Arjuna was in the corner of the room, his fingers interlocked and chin resting on them. Steve stood adjusting the medicine dripping into Nighthawk's veins.

Nighthawk's face was forlorn as he looked away from me. I noticed his eyes were no longer grey and had a spark of life. There was nothing but dread emanating from the agent.

"Tell me nighthawk, what connection do you have to my sister?" I spoke, folding my arms.

My eyes trained on to the sullen man as he finally spoke, "I'll start in the beginning. To start, my name is Alecto, as everyone in this room is aware I was an Umbrella Experiment under project A.C.R.O.H. The woman who raised and birthed me was the project lead. However, unbeknownst to me, she was but a surrogate at Spencer's orders."

"That sounds like something he would do, Continue." I said through gritted teeth.

With a heavy sigh, the agent continued, "I learned of this just after the Christmas party. There was an intruder in the forest surrounding the lodge. The security chief, Billy, went out to investigate. I took the north and west portions of the forests while he covered the remaining directions. I ended up on the outside of the airstrip. That was where I saw this freaky B.O.W. it was mutated weirdly and damn near invisible. If it weren't for my hawk like vision, I probably would have been killed. The thing had a glowing pustule that once I destroyed it, the creature died."

Arjuna just stood up and exited the room. It was clear he was deeply affected by this whole ordeal. I heard a light almost choked back sob, Nighthawk.

"I was snuck up upon by a woman in white. She stabbed my neck with a syringe, and the next thing I knew, I was in an unknown med bay that was different from Phoenix Corps. As soon as I realized I was captured, I tried to escape. The moment I broke free from my bindings, an alarm rang out. The room filled with gas, and I ended up on the ground. The woman in white stepped into the home holding a remote."

(Flash back Nighthawks pov)

"Now now, birdy. I wouldn't try and fly the nest so soon. After all the wounds from your surgery haven't fully healed." The woman said coldly.

I pushed myself up using my wings to enforce my balance, "Screw you! Just who the hell do you think you are?"

"My name is Alex, and your name is Alecto. As much as it is to have my blood working under that so-called Phoenix, you will be my greatest asset to achieving parts of my goal." She said, clicking a button on the remote sending shockwaves of pain through my spine.

I dropped once more curling up in a ball. Haze was creeping along the edges of my vision. I felt my rage shoving away the haze. Once again, I stood my mentors words echoing through my ears. Lady Tabitha's voice on my mind as well.

"It seems my caged canary has some fight in him. Is this the project A.C.R.O.H programming I designed or your meger training from that weak bitch you call boss." Alex said pressing the button my sight going even more hazy.

"My commander is a hundred times the woman you are. I'd lay my life down for her." I cough as pain surged through my eyes and down my nervous system.

"Then how about your boytoy? Archer is his code name, is it naught?" She laughed, walking over to me pressing her stelleto heel into my neck.

"You leave him out of this! He is hardly involved in anything!" I shouted my wings, opening quickly, shoving her away.

"My lady, are you alright?" An extremely pale individual with white hair barged in.

"Yes, my dear servant. I'm sure my spawn isn't able to harm me. At least not with his beloved boytoys elder sibling under my control. I'm glad I was able to test this new control device on you first." Alex laughed as I felt bile rise in my throat.

"So this is my brothers boyfriend? How tragic. I was hoping for him to find normalcy. However, it seems he has chosen to bind himself to an experiment." He said, staring deep into my eyes.

I bowed my head, trying to hide my gaze. His eyes were a sickening lifeless grey. He was being controlled by this woman. I couldn't stop the haze from taking over my vision anymore. I sighed as thoughts of Arjuna and my commander pulled me out of my silence.

"What are your demands!" I choked out my body growing increasingly numb.

"I'll put it in simple terms that even a bird brain like you could understand. I want your boss, in my possession. Once you have achieved this, I'll not only remove my control over you but your partners brother as well. You both will be free to do as you see fit." Alex said as the fog drowning my eyes slowly faded, "As an act of good faith, I've lessened the intensity of the sleeper chip."

"What do you intend to do to my commander?" I said, standing up defeat flushed across my face.

"That is not a matter concerning you, but rather between her and myself. You have only but to concern yourself with your task. Follow me. I shall brief you and get you sent off to Phoenix Corps." Alex said as she walked away from me, beckoning for me to follow.

(Current day Wesker P.O.V)

"That's the basis of the interaction when I became her pawn. I put the safety of my partners sibling and my own well-being ahead of my commanders. I managed a place a backdoor in Alex's plan however. Just before I was shot, I tried to hand a special calling card to commander Tabitha. Alex took it, saying she'll destroy it once she had landed." Alecto said, faced buried shamefully in his hands.

"A calling card! What is that supposed to do?" I growled at the idocity of this child.

"Is that any way to treat your beloved wifes subordinates?" A cold threatening voice spoke from behind me.

"Sorry Wesker, I had destroyed one of the calling cards Tabs gave me. We need help tracking her down. Cryo Wolf is the Phoenix Corps. equivalent of agent H.U.N.K." Gale said, walking into the medbay.

Beside him was a tall, well-built man who had dark salt and pepper streaks look to be caused by years of stress and trauma. I was reading in Tabitha's files the days leading up to her abduction.

There was one mention of a wolf. The details were vague, and it was a parodied version of some of Spencer's notes regarding my precious lotus. As I recalled the line, I stared at the man.

"The god and servant of my underworld deserve a three-headed wolf to protect their domain." I heard Spencer's voice play in my head.

"Tell me, are you the three-headed wolf Spencer created to guard my wife and i?" I spoke, lowering my glasses.

"Yes, in Spencer's notes, I am Cerebrus. Manufactured by Dr James Marcus and Oswell Spencer. The dogs were modeled after the training I had received. By nineteen ninety-eight, I was Spencer's private watch dog. Now I am Tabitha's ultimate fuck you card. I show up, and it's scorched earth that point forward. " The man said, walking past Gale and over to nighthawk.

"Hey, teach... I must look like a damn failure in your eyes right now." Nighthawk said, turning his head away from all of us.

"Eyes front and center Alecto. I know I didn't teach you to cower before your failures." Cerebrus barked out his voice radiating authority, "What did I teach you, soldier?"

Nighthawk ground his teeth then faced us, his irises a blaze. His hawk amber eyes filled with a renewed determination. Nighthawk lifted his body up and swiftly exited the bed.

He took a knee in front of both me and Cryo Wolf, "Sir! You taught me that no matter the actions I partake in, there will always be a consequence. Be it positive or negative is dependent on me. I have let my shortcomings over whelm me, and I have fallen to my lowest point. Please allow me this mission to save my lady and to rise up once again."

"Unfortunately Alecto, you know that's not my decision to make. I'm not a controlling member of Phoenix Corps. I believe it falls to our ladies' husband, Dr. Wesker." Cerebrus spoke, looking towards me.

I looked down upon Nighthawk's kneeling figure. Things stood out to me much more clearly than before. His hair was a damn near match to Alex's almost unnatural blonde, and his facial features were very similar to hers as well. Without a doubt, biologically, he was Alex's.

Bird's being bonded to a motherly figure should have had him loyal to Alex's lacky, that she knocked up for the sake of Umbrellas experiments. However, here my nephew sat bowed at me feet, pledging loyalty to my wife instead. Tabitha's conviction and pride shone through Nighthawk. His conditioning and programming were drilled into him by project A.C.R.O.H. seemed like a far distant blip in his timeline.

"You really care for your aunt, don't you, Alecto?" I asked, crossing my arms.

"Yes, sir! Phoenix Corps. is my home, and while I've only met her a few short months ago, I'm willing to lay down my life for her." Alecto said firmly, staring into my eyes.

I felt a dark chuckle escape my chest, Alex, dearest sister, how much of a fool you are. Trying to take the reigns of someone loyal to my wife has been the start of your downfall.

"Raise your head, nephew. I'm going to need the best that Phoenix Corps. has to offer to rescue my dear lotus. Now Alex said she left some way for you to contact her. Is this true?" I asked, unfolding my arms pushing up my sunglasses.

"Unfortunately, she had only contacted me through my Phoenix Corps. coms." Alecto said as he stood up, "and I believe it was destroyed when I fell after being shot."

"But that's not all, hawk." Arjuna said, walking into the room laying a box on the closest table, "This was hidden in your bag. I knew something was off because I packed our bags, and I didn't place this in them."

"Bug... I need to do this. I shall save your family and bring your brother home." Alecto said, walking over to Arjuna.

"I know hawk, but until then, sleep in the barracks... while I know you were being controlled. I need time to sort my emotions." Arjuna said, taking Alectos face into his hand.

"I understand Juna bug. I'll give you the space you need." Nighthawk said, opening the box revealing a black glass phone.

"That will be enough! Cerebrus, if you would please follow me." I said, taking the black phone from my nephew as I left the room. Taking the phone from Nighthawk.

Cerebrus followed me. The winding halls to mine and Tabitha's lab. He was quiet and stoic. His eyes were a freezing blueish grey, his gaze chilling the back of my neck.

Once we arrived at the lab, he spoke, " Once you speak to your sister, I have intel. I just couldn't speak of it with our subordinates."

I sat on my office chair and turned on the phone. I waited a few moments when it started to ring.

"Alex! Where is she?" I said into the receiver as I answered the phone.

"Now now dear brother, we both know that's not how negotiations work." Alex said, laughing slightly, "Especially under these circumstances, don't you agree."

I sigh the weight of the situation, adding a continuous flow of frustration to my sanity. Cerebrus stood on the edge of my desk, a scowl on his face. His jaw tightened when Alex's voice came through. Had he heard what she said?

"What do you want for her return?" I asked, opening my laptop.

"Why Albert is it not obvious? I want in on what you're planning. Uroboros, isn't that what you've been calling it?" She said an air of smugness drifts through the open phone line.

"You were working with Excella, weren't you?" I said through a layer of stoicism.

"Seems your wifes perception has rubbed off on you. But don't blame your poor assistant she has a terribly low resistance to liquor. I must admit Albert forcing natural selections hand is inspired. I simply just want to help you be a backup plan in case anything happens." She said, almost feigning concern.

"So if I send you a copy of my research and a set of vials of Uroboros in its various stages, you'll return her to me." I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Did I say that was all I wanted, dear brother?" Alex said, "That's my condition to allow you to speak with her every week. She already submitted to her conditions for that."

"DO NOT FUCK WITH ME ALEX!" I snarled loudly.

She merely laughed, "Albert, how Spencer would be rolling over in his cell in hell if he saw your display of emotion. I require six weeks with Tabitha. Once my needs are satisfied, I'll send her and your progeny back to you."

"Fine... however, if there is a single hair out of place, I'll find you and rip your heart from your chest." I sighed a raging migraine clouding my mind.

"You were always the more reasonable one of the siblings." Alex said, "I'll have my assistant contact you in regards to obtaining the virus samples, but I believe you have a more pressing concern on your mind. I'll hand her the phone." Alex said as a shuffling noise echoed through the speaker.

"Wesk..." My lotus's voice weakly spoke.

"My lotus, are you alright?" I asked, tensing at how she sounded.

"I'm alive, and so are the kids... in my mind, that's the best I can ask for in this situation." She said, her voice cracking.

"I'm going to find a way to get you back. Just be patient, my love. I won't let you be a prisoner like you were in Russia." I said only to have a breathy chuckle come through.

"She won't hurt me... she needs me... well, at least the Angelis and angelis antibodies I'm producing. Tell me, how's the guard dog?" She asked, her voice perking up slightly.

"How did?" I started to question.

"Like Gale or me would take this sitting down. Certain chain of events, if you know what I mean." She said as she started to cough.

"Why do you sound so sick, my lotus?" I asked at her sudden coughing bout.

"A progenitor virus destabilizing agent... I receive a dose about once every three days, so I can't access my mutations. It also forces my body to produce more antibodies." She said as she caught her breath.

"She's trying to make B.O.Ws with your Angelis virus and keep them stable with your antibodies then. How is she extracting?" I asked a flurry of questions racing through my mind.

"Breast milk... Alex overloaded my body with hormones and vitamins to induce lactation. She is making me breastfeed her chosen vessels for Angelis." She snarled quietly.

"That's enough for now. Now Albert, don't worry. I won't allow any harm to come to them. I'll let her talk to you in a few days once my assistant has confirmation of the transportation of Uroboros." Alex said, ending the phone call.

Red... that is all I saw as I heard Alex's voice, and it was deepened when the line had gone silent. I as gently as I could placed the phone on the desk. Standing up, I slammed my fist into the wood paneling of my office walls. Cracks formed, reaching the ceiling.

"I know where they are." Cerebrus said.

I stopped and turned to him. His ice like eyes pierced through the red I was seeing. He pulled out a USB stick and walked over to me. He extended his hand, burn scars scattered across his skin.

"Take this, and we can start planning her rescue. We are dealing with your sister after all. We need to be strategic about this." He said.

I took the silver USB drive and turned towards my computer. I'm won't fail this time. I will bring what's mine back. Alex should have known better.

Hold on, my precious lotus, I'll have you home soon.

Hey everyone Silfarianhawk here and I hope ya'll are doing amazing. I appreciate each of your reads and your patience between chapters. We are reaching the climax as I've said before and I can confirm there will be a part two to this series and I have plans to continue this series till post re 6. I'm going to take a break for a few days to work on my other project then I'll be back writing for arch angel. My 27th year is about to dawn and I want to celebrate with each of you. As always my name is Silfarianhawk and I'm not so far away.

#albert wesker #resident evil #wesker #wesker x reader #wesker x oc #albert wesker x reader #albert wesker x oc #re wesker #resident evil wesker

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gangrenados · 4 years

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Could you do good things and bad things about datiang the Bat boys and Bruce? I ask you for bad things because relationships aren't perfect. Please

This is my first time ever writing for Bruce sooo pls be kind it has been a rough day

•First of all of them are vigilantes which means that they might have some issues separating his hero life with the normal one no matter how hard thet might try.

•They have seen the worst part of humanity and after you have witnessed those kind of horrors there's not turning back. Every imperfection in buildings, locations that have a questionable reputation and people who seem mightily suspicious will trigger their vigilante senses.

•what I'm trying to say here? They can get protective without even notice. After being the one in the line for to long you're afraid those you love might get hurt so you'll try your fucking best to prevent it, right?

Bruce Wayne

•Bruce has a hard time accepting the love and care of others, even if you have a long term relationship Bruce might be cold and distant towards you.

•He usually doesn't care about his scars since they're consequences of trying his best to help others, but when the time to get naked in front of you comes he's slightly worried you might get disgusted because they're too many.

•Bruce gets silent when you show him pure kind love, a gentle caress on his cheek will make him snap out.

•He'll stare at you without knowing what's the right thing to do, the only thing clear onnhis mind is that he wants this to keep going.

•Sometimes you wish you could wake up or fall asleep with Bruce beside you more often. It makes you feel forgotten. Bruce has tried to stay there when you wake up, even if that means rushing home to take off the suit, slip in the cover and pretend he's sleeping.

•Bruce can be pretty romantic when he wants to. He will take you to fancy places and bought you the most prettiest things in the world, Bruce will be comfortable in those situations, talking smoothly and secure since he's trying to put a little bit of his playboy persona into this to not ruin it.

•But silly things like cooking your favorite dessert or buying a pretty thing he saw nd know it will useful to you, will get him slightly flustered. The man is afraid he might fuck up.

•If you're a mere civilian then Bruce would be petty fucking protective of you, at the point that sometimes make you wonder if he's being paranoid.

•He will install a security system in your house and car, maybe a tracker too because you never know what criminals might do to the partner of Bruce Wayne.

I•t's hard for Bruce to express his emotions and talk about them, he feels like it makes him seem weaker. But when he opens up he will pour his heart into his words, maybe he wouldn't say much, but everything that came out from his mout he meant it with his soul.

•Your fights are horrible, it leaves you both broken and wondering if this gonna be the end. Bruce is too stubborn to back down and you don't want to be the one who goes to apologize first, so you'll end up treating each other with the cold shoulder.

•It's not the type to say "I love you" constantly, he reserves those words for important moments like when he has to go to a risky mission, your anniversary or he will blurt them out when he see you doing something adorable.

•Bruce is a mysterious man and that aspect is not going to change once they start dating. You will feel that he is hiding things from you, which is true, but it will take a lot of persuasion and confidence for him to tell you what is happening or why he does not tell you things.

•Much of his reason is that he thinks that if he doesn't say anything to you you may be safe and happy in ignorance, however, he also does not want to link his romance to his work.

•Connecting in an emotional way with Jason is hard and even when you're there he tends to close and keep a lot of things to himself.

Jason Todd

•Jason hates how being in touch with his emotions makes him more vulnerable, once they see the light there's nothing that can stop the overwhelming wave of feelings that comes to drown him.

•Once Jason becomes truly comfortable around you he will get clingy. He needs you in order to him feel alright, it's like you bring up a nice part of him he wasn't even aware of it was there.

•You're the nicest thing Jason has ever had so far and he's down to do anything to make you stay. He can stop being Red Hood and live a normal live, change his personality for one you like better, whatever you want in a man Jason can try to copy it, but please don't leave him.

•He's a really attentive and supportive boyfriend, this trait is driven by his need to prove you his total love and attention because that shows he's worthy of your love. But putting that aside, Jason truly cares about you.

•Jason is not really used to receive romantic affection so he might shy away sometimes when he becomes aware of what's going on. It's like his mind can't process that other person wants to be romantic with him.

•Jason can get really protective of you and this worsen a little bit more if you're a civilian who knows little to nothing about self defense.

•Jason is a cuddle monster, having you between his arms is soothing and lovable. He loves this little domestic things, but it's better if he's the one on top of you or hugging because he can get out of the touch easier.

•It's better to not fight with Jason, he's not going to hit you or anything, in fact he prefers to cut his own arm with a fork before landing a hand on you.

•However, he can say some mean and hurtful thigs because he wants to win the argument regardless of how bad the consequences might be.

•It might not look like it, but Jason loves to do the silly cheesy things with you.

•He will engulf you into a tight hug and then give a breathless kiss anytime he comes back from a long mission, having you to cook with him regardless if you know what you're doing just because he thought it would be cute, cuddling with you in the sofa and read a book or just watch a movie (Jason will fall asleep snuggled up to you because he feels safe)

•Jason has night terrors and he can turn pretty paranoid whe he just wake up from a nightmare, so it's better if you stand back for a moment until he calms down and realizes that nothing bad is happening.

•He keeps a gun close to him in case something happens and has night light because he can truly stand to have the whole bedroom in complete darkness, also he tends to keep you close to him when you're sleeping togheter because, even when Jason is asleep, he needs to know you're there.

Dick Grayson

•Dick is a sweet boyfriend, he's caring and charming to the point that sometimes you wonder if you're dating a prince.

•Dick's supportive of your interests and will cheer you up if he feels like you're lacking motivation. He will praise you and give you a compliment whenever he notices you did something good or when you go to tell him a good new.

•It's hard to have some alone time with him thanks to his busy schedule. Dick can't stay still, he needs to work and protect the city, because he cares about the others but also needs the action to live.

•Dick is a cheerful man, the occasions were he hits rock bottom are odd but they happen.

•And he tends to close himself to the world and drown in his own sorrows for a while. It's hard to see him like this and the worst part is that he doesn't want to ask for help until his mind is a little less darker.

•Dick is a really affective boyfriend, he will grab your head and pepper it with kisses as he says how much he loves it, also he has the habbit to put an arm around your shoulders or waist whenever you're walking together.

•Another thing he always do is pulling you back to the bed and put himself on top of you so you won't go.

•Dick would nuzzle his head in the crook of your neck and give it a kiss before going back to sleep.

•Dick is a man low-key scared of commitment, but will still idolize you.

•It's hard for him to settle down and decide for one thing, he will overthink everything and try to look at your current situation for every single angle possible, however, in his eyes you're a great person, sexy and just amazing.

•He might even twist everything and think you're already dating when nothing really has been confirmed.

•Okay so this one goes for his Titans version: I don't know why, but I feel that sometimes Dick can manipulate your needs and turn them into his own desires, to be more concrete emotional blackmail.

•He could do this unconsciously and without really wanting it, because once he realizes what he did he will feel very bad about himself, which would lead him to isolate himself from you for a while to think about everything he has done and then apologizing .

•It's hard for Dick to do so because being aware of what he has done to you, but he needs you to know he feels deeply fucking sorry and he understands if you want to broke up.

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cupidcreates · 4 years

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Love You Equally

Chapter Thirty: Missing Items

Part 3: Camera Setup

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS NS//FW MATERIAL, VEIWER DESCRETION IS ADVISED

“What do you mean the camera’s didn’t capture any footage??”

The disbelief in Tamaki’s voice when Katsuki showed up to deliver the news later that day was palpable. Your worst fear had been confirmed; the cameras surrounding each and every one of your dorms had either been hacked to skip large chunks of footage, been broken just before the incident by some off-screen assailant, or had their footage erased all together. Any evidence you’d had of an intruder in your dorms was gone.

The school, thankfully, was taking the matter seriously and was upping security campus-wide. People in security uniforms patrolled the halls and streets of UA now, as well as stationed themselves outside the campus walls; community watchmen had been hired to patrol around the off-campus dorms as well.

Rumors about the cause of the increased security spread around campus like wildfire, but thankfully the administration was keeping tight-lipped on the whole situation; releasing an official statement that the increased security was due to concerns about drug movements through UA’s campus and out into the town. Most people seemed to buy it, and the fact that a lot of well-known plugs had cut back on their dealings only corroborated the story. The only people to know the truth of the matter - you, your soulmates, and your friends - weren’t keen on correcting anyone’s assumptions.

Needless to say the relief you felt when Saturday morning rolled around and you were able to get Yaoyorozu’s cameras from Jiro was immense. She walked you through the setup process and you spent the morning making the rounds to your soulmates dorms and housing helping them install the extra security.

Tamaki had decided to stay in his dorm for a while, to check it over and see if anything had gone missing in his month-long absence. You doubted there would be, as you were betting your stalker knew he’d been staying with you for a while, but you didn’t voice this opinion; it never hurt to be safe when dealing with potentially dangerous people. You bid him farewell with a kiss on the cheek and made your way through the winding hallways to Hitoshi’s dorm.

The door swung open the moment you arrived without you even having knocked, giving you the impression that he had been watching for you through the peephole. You stepped into his dorm and immediately noticed the drastic change that had occurred since you last visited him. Hitoshi was normally a very clean person, but now everything in his dorm was not only spotless but had at least a foot of distance separating it from everything else. There weren’t even books stacked on the shelf anymore, instead they were separated from one another by thin pieces of cardboard, colors alternating in a seven color pattern. No thought to space conservation, now if anything in his dorm was to be moved or go missing its absence would be immediately noticed.

“I uh- rearranged a bit”, Hitoshi said sheepishly from the doorway, closing the door and fastening his many locks, “I just wanted to be one-hundred percent sure I’d notice if something was missing or in a spot it shouldn’t be.”

“That’s smart,” you said as he crossed over to you, rubbing the back of his neck, “It can never hurt to be safe in a situation like this.”

“Definitely,” he said as you both moved into the living room, “Have you noticed anything else missing from your dorm since Wednesday?”

“No,” you said, discarding the cameras on the barren coffee table, “I’ve been keeping a close eye on everything but so far nothing has been missing.”

You sat down on the couch and Hitoshi plopped himself down next to you, flinging his arms over the back of the couch and letting his head roll back. You shifted to move yourself underneath his arm and laid your head on his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to your forehead and brought his knuckles up to brush against your cheek.

“I just feel like they’re trying to lure us into a false sense of security,” Hitoshi said with a sigh “Like they’re planning something big for us and want us to have our guard down.”

You sit in silence for a moment, allowing yourself to be soothed by his caresses. You wrap one arm around Hitoshi and squeeze him in a facsimile of a hug.

“I really don’t like thinking about that, about what they could be planning next,” You sighed, “It really terrifies me. Is that what you think they want? To scare us?”

Hitoshi’s frown deepened and he signed, pulling away from you and standing up, “It probably is what they want,” he admitted, “especially if Monoma is behind all of this, which I’m now almost positive he is. This kind of thing is just his style.”

Hitoshi looked down at your worried face and his expression softened. “Listen kitten,” he said, bending down and titling your face up to look at him “Whatever he’s got planned next, whatever happens, I’ll be here for you okay? We’ll all stick together through this and make it out alright, alright? I promise you that.”

You smile as he comes in to capture your lips in a chaste kiss, “I believe you Toshi, thank you.”

Setting up Hitoshi’s cameras took longer than it did with your other four boyfriends, mostly because he needed to constantly be in some physical contact with you. Brushing his shoulder against yours, running his hands down your arms or your back, planting kisses on your face and neck, or even stopping you mid-action to pull you into a hug. You didn’t mind the attention, but you also couldn’t lie that this was abnormal for him. He wasn’t reserved with his affections like Katsuki was, but this was borderline Tamaki-levels of attachment.

You discarded your worries about his behavior as a result of multiple stresses; the stalker turned thief situation hit right before midterms were about to start up again, so undoubtedly Hitoshi would be a bit more clingy at this time.

You really didn’t think much of it at all, that was until you moved to the bedroom and were promptly thrown onto the bed, camera and setup pulled from your hands and swiftly discarded on a shelf by the door.

Hitoshi climbed atop you and flopped down, covering your entire body with his own and making your breath rush out of your lungs with a sharp whoosh. He buried his face in your neck and pushed his arms underneath your body, wrapping them around you and sighing.

“Doing okay, Toshi?” You asked, pushing your hands up his shirt and rubbing his back in small soothing circles. He lifted his head and peppered your face with kisses. Gripping you tighter and using his thumbs to stroke your sides.

“I’m sorry,” he said in between kisses, “I’m sorry for this whole situation. It’s my fault, I should have blocked Monoma the second he contacted me, now he’s trying to fuck around with everyone to get back at me and I just-”

You covered Hitoshi’s mouth with your hand and pressed your forehead to his. “Hey,” you said sternly, “Don’t you apologize for what he’s done. None of what he’s done is your fault. It’s not your fault you tried to allow him back into your life and he fucked it up. Nothing that’s happened can be blamed on you and I don’t want to hear otherwise, alright?”

You removed your hand and captured his lips in a heated kiss before he could answer, he moaned into your mouth and swiped his tongue across your bottom lip. He pulled away and kissed the tip of your nose.

“Okay,” he said pressing his face back into your neck and sighing contentedly, “Okay, I’m sorry. And thank you, kitten.”

“Anytime,” you stroked your hands down his back and gripped his hips. You noticed that Hitoshi felt much less soft than he had before, his sides were now toned and hard with muscle that would give Katsuki a run for his money. Apparently he had bulked up over the past few months, and you had to wonder what brought about this change.

“Have you been working out recently?” You asked while pushing your hands between your bodies and tracing his hip bones, no longer covered by a layer of softness but now sharp and jutting out.

“A bit,” he replied, gasping sharply as you bent your fingers (as much as you could with them being squished between the both of you) and ran your nails up his stomach. “Katsuki goes to the gym really early most mornings and I accompany him on the nights when I can’t sleep and accidentally stay up all- are you trying to start something Kitten?”

You grinned cheekily as your hands found their way back down to his hips and into his pants, stroking the insides of his thigh gently while being sure to get close, but not too close, to his crotch.

“Perhaps I am,” you retorted with an evil grin, “what are you going to do if I am? Going to finish it for me?”

A deep growl rumbled from Hitoshi’s chest as he grabbed both your wrists with one hand and pinned them up above your head, puncturing the movement with a harsh thrust that flattened your hands against his thighs and brushed his clothed cock right against your crotch.

“Oh I’ll finish it alright,” he purred in your ear sending shivers up your spine, “But only if you want me to, kitty-cat.”

“Oh yes,” you replied breathlessly, “I absolutely want you to finish it.”

He smirked, “That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said and caught your lips in a kiss, nipping your bottom lip hard and thrusting his tongue into your mouth as you gasped. Using the hand that wasn’t pinning your wrists above your head he unbuttoned your pants and pushed his hand downward into your underwear, quickly finding your clitoris and using two fingers to rub it in small circles.

You shuddered under his ministrations gasping and moaning into his mouth as he applied the perfect amount of pressure to your clit. You squirmed underneath him, feeling your cunt getting wetter with every passing moment he massaged you.

Just as you felt the pleasure start to build he pulled away, moving down your body and pulling both your pants and underwear with him. You had just a moment to gasp at the cool air hitting your skin before Hitoshi’s face was buried in your crotch; licking once over you entrance and letting his tongue slip inside your folds ever so slightly before suctioning his lips to your clit and massaging it.

You shuddered and cried out as he sucked and massaged your clit, his tongue swirling around it in a way that had you seeing stars. Every movement bringing you closer and closer to your orgasm and just as you felt yourself nearing your edge he pulled away once again. Moving off the bed and over to his nightstand and retrieving a condom from the top drawer.

You propped yourself up on your elbows as Hitsohi climbed back on top of you, undoing his pants and kissing you allowing you to taste yourself on his tongue. He leaned into you, pushing your back flat against the mattress again as he rolled the condom onto his cock and prodded your wet entrance with his head.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” He asked, pulling back to look you in the eyes, “I want to make sure you’re alright with this before I-”

“Listen here,” you snapped, grabbing his face with both of your hands, “you’re not going to eat me out like that and not fuck me after it, alright? So please.”

Hitoshi hummed and caught you in another kiss, “Only since you asked so nicely, Kitten” he said, “But you need to let me know how you’re doing okay? Say yellow if it’s too much and red if you need me to stop all together, alright?”

“Yellow?” You asked as he sucked a hickey into your neck, “A-And red?”

“Mhm,” Hitoshi hummed against your neck, moving one hand up to your breast and pinching your nipple lightly, “I need you to communicate when it’s too much; Green is good, Yellow is pull back, and Red is stop all together, you okay with that?”

“I-” you cut off with a gasp as he jerked his hips once and pushed the tip of his cock in and out of you swiftly, “I-I’m o-okay with t-that, y-yeah.”

“Are you sure Kitten?” He taunted, pushing the tip in again only to yank it right back out of you, “I don’t want to do anything you’re not ready for-”

“God Hitoshi,” you groaned throwing your head back against the pillows, “Just fuck me already, please.”

Hitoshi took a moment to suck another hickey into your neck, pulling away only when the mark was sufficiently purple.

“As you wish Kitten,” He whispered in your ear before slamming his entire length inside of you.

Your back arched off the bed and you nearly screamed at the sudden intrusion. Hitoshi gave you no reprieve as he immediately set a back breaking pace, gripping your hips hard enough to bruise and impaling you on his cock repeatedly. You gripped the headboard and braced yourself against the onslaught, every thrust sending the head of Hitoshi’s cock directly into your g-spot. You wrapped your legs around his back and used them to push him even closer to you, forcing him to stay close and deep inside of you. Hitoshi removed one of his hands from your hips to press his thumb back into your clit, circling and pushing it with a practiced skill.

Your eyes rolled back into your skill as you took the pounding of your life, your orgasm fast approaching under his ministrations. It wouldn’t be long before you reached your peak, you grabbed his hips to keep him as deep inside you as you could, causing his movements to become harder and faster as he couldn’t pull away.

“Color,” He gasped out, “color, baby, how are you doing?”

“Green,” you all but screamed, “Green, green, green, please don’t stop I-”

You cut off as a particularly hard thrust sent you careening over the edge, orgasm hitting you with such force that stars flashed behind your eyelids and your whole body tensed.

Hitoshi groaned as you clenched around him, moving his hand back to your hips and fucking himself into you at an erratic pace, all semblance of rhythm forgotten as he chased his orgasm inside of you. One final thrust and and he stilled, shuddering as he came just moments after you.

You both collapsed with a huff, panting as you both came down from your post-orgasm high. Hitoshi peppered your face with kisses and slowly pulled himself out of you, leaving you feeling empty and sore.

Eventually Hitoshi spoke again, “A-are you okay Kitten? What color?”

“G-Green,” you stammered, bringing your leadened arms up around his shoulders and pressing a kiss to his cheek, “I’m so so green.”

He smiled and pressed a soft kiss to your nose, “I’m glad to hear it,” he relid.

You both lay for several moments longer, enjoying each other's embrace before you suddenly remembered why you’d come over here in the first place.

“Didn’t we have a camera to set up here?” you asked.

“We did,” he replied with a chuckle, “But I wanted to be sure we didn’t catch that on tape. Be a bit awkward to explain if we had to go through the footage in front of the administration.”

Masterlist

Previous | Next

#mha smau #bnha smau #rough ns//fw #L.Y.E.#smau bnha #smau mha #tw: ns/fw

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mementomori-demimonde · 3 years

Text

Hidden Scars

I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI.1 / XI.2 XII - XIII - XIV

Chapter 15

You watch her training from the corner. Standing up for a change, tired of constantly sitting or lying down with nothing to do, you’ve just finished helping her out with her exercises - you know it has been just an excuse to make you move a little - and now you’re catching your breath.

To pass the time, you watch her, of course. Miranda is always interesting to watch - the subtle movements on her face, her small but incredibly toned body moving under her clothes, the glow in her eyes when the different light hits her face, the rare smiles she cracks in the more unexpected times - and there’s something peculiar in watching her training.

She’s doing push-ups now, standard practice, and there’s something in the way she moves that has you completely enthralled: she’s wearing one of the tanks tops Victor has kindly provided, claiming he doesn’t like to see those dirty or stained shirts, and you both winced at the implications that, perhaps, he has a camera set up in the cell. It wasn’t exactly surprising. What is, instead, is that Miranda seems totally convinced he hasn’t installed a microphone as well, which seems absurd.

Miranda told you that he only likes to watch. There’s something twisted in refusing to install microphones into the cells or in the apartments of his victims or targets, and it’s because he doesn’t want to know anything ahead of his interrogations. He likes secrets spilled fresh.

There’s some kind of logic behind it, even though you’re still skeptical. Sure thing, of course, this is her world. Her scary, mysterious, dangerous world.

“Water?” You ask, reaching out with your arm, the bottle dangling from your fingers. “Are we going to be allowed any kind of running water to wash, sooner or later?”

“Sure, m’eudail.” Miranda huffs, jumping to her feet and taking the bottle to take a generous gulp. “But beg that it doesn’t happen any time soon.”

“Why?” You frown, utterly confused.

“Victor doesn’t like to handle dirty nor smelly people.” She says, her breathing slightly labored. “When we’ll get access to the shower, it’s the sign things are about to get real. And nasty... at least for us.”

“Great.” You mumble ironically, dropping yourself on the bed, legs stretched, one ankle on top of the other. You wiggle against the wall to find a comfortable position for your back, and when you do, your eyes follow Miranda automatically.

She takes another sip and closes the bottle, securing the lid. With a huff, she settles on the floor, unceremoniously dropping her head over your legs.

You crack a timid smile when you notice that your ankles fill perfectly the hollow of her nape, like pieces of a puzzle.

She hums satisfied, lids falling close as she rests her joint hands on her lap.

You would pay real money - if you had any - to rearrange your positions and cuddle her, or just have arms long enough to stroke her hair. Yet, Miranda is too far away to do that and you don’t want to move, risking depriving yourself of that little human contact that has spontaneously granted you.

So you’re left to fidget with your own fingers, picking at some non-existing dirt from underneath your nails.

Sighing sharply, you rest your head against the wall.

“What’s the deal with you and Victor?” You query, voice casual. You’re staring straight ahead to the metal door of the cell, but you can easily see her cracking an eye open with your peripheral.

“Jealous, m’eudail?” She asks, her thin lips bent into a half-smirk.

“Curious.” You reply sincerely, shrugging your shoulders a little.

Probably sensing the truthness of your world, probably knowing that you’ve got nothing better to do than talk, probably aware that she owes you at least some crumbs of explanation, probably even simply out of boredom, Miranda takes a deep breath and closes her eyes again.

Perhaps that helps her gather some courage to speak about a past that clearly still affects her in some way. Were they friends? Colleagues? Or even more? The thought makes you shiver, and you brace for the worst.

“I used to work for him.” She says, toneless. “You’re not stupid, you must’ve made up your mind about my job by now: he asks me things and I do them, plain and simple. Take information, people... it doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t matter who.”

You nod absent-mindedly. You know you should recoil, be scared, or anxious about your future, but you’re just not. Then, suddenly, when replaying those words in your head, something has you frowning.

“Wait-” You mumble, hitching a breath, “you said ‘ used’ . What happened?”

Miranda’s lips part abruptly, but no sound escapes them for a moment. As if she’s taking in her own words for the first time, she scoffs loudly and stares at the ceiling, then, ever so slowly, she turns her face in your direction.

“You happened.” She whispers.

You’re not completely sure of course, but on her lips, there’s the phantom of a smile.

#miranda croft #miranda croft x reader #tfa #the flight attendant #ao3 #fanfiction #four lines #hidden scars

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robinofinashiro · 4 years

Text

- request from anonymous: “loving your writing style, especially the yandere alphabet. you’re doing great btw. i was wondering if you can do bokuto from haikyuu yandere alphabet with non-con. but you don’t have to add the non-con if you don’t want to. Lol. Thank you if you get the chance to do this!”

- request status: open

- pairing: yandere bokuto x fem! reader

A - Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Bokuto is INTENSE with his affection. he is all about physical, emotional, and verbal affection. you cannot get away from this man and the way he is with you. you are everything to him and he shows that in every single way he can.

B - Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

honestly, Bokuto doesn’t seem like the type to want to get messy and he’ll use it as a last resort but if he sees that someone is trying to get close to you, he will be on the lookout and will not hesitate to start killing someone.

C - Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

he’ll pamper you. treat you as though you have been in love with him since you first saw him. Bokuto is a very heavy delusional yandere. he thinks that he’s the only person in your world and that no one else matters.

D - Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

ummm, he wants kids. a lot of them. he wants to make an entire team basically. if he sees that you don’t want kids, adoption is always an option. but regardless, he will get kids whether you want to your not. also will unknowingly track your phone.

E - Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

oh, poor Bokuto. he thinks that you really care about him. he straight up thinks that you love him like he loves you and will tell you everything about his life. he doesn’t care. again, very delusional so he doesn’t really see the fact that you don’t care for him.

F - Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Emo mood like no other. he has to get Akaashi wrangled up in his relationship but honestly, he can’t bring himself to physically hurt you. i see a lot of people trying to make Bokuto some aggressive yandere but I personally can’t see it.

G - Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

no, this is nothing of a game to Bokuto. he needs you. he can’t live without you. he’d get so upset if he saw you trying to escape. there’s no joy for him on his end. i can imagine he’d probably spiral if he watched you leave.

H - Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

probably when he first kidnapped them. the kicking, crying, screaming, and all of that hurt him so bad. Bokuto didn’t know how to calm them down and you were screaming so loudly. thankfully he actually installed sound proof walls.

I - Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

he wants kidssss and so manyyyy. like dead ass. he wants an entire team and you will give it to him. he wants what some of his team members have and not only that, he wants to see you at his game with his jersey on and you screaming his name.

J - Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

very easily jealous. lowkey one reason why he doesn’t want you around his team. he knows he has some very attractive teammates ( AHEM HINATA, SAKUSA, AND ATSUMU ) and if he saw any of them even tempting to flirt with you, so sad that they’ll suddenly lose a teammate.

K - Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

he’ll be all up on you. he doesn’t care. he’s all about the PDA. if he wants to kiss you, he’ll do it. if Bokuto wants to hold your hand, he will. if Bokuto sees you’re looking extra cute, he’ll smother you. if he gets to a certain point, he’ll even skip a practice to be with you.

L - Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

he’d try to court you but he gets too anxious and will take you right after a few weeks. in this yandere universe, he’d probably have Akaashi as a voice of reason to wait but god damn it, he couldn’t. he probably took you out on like one date before taking you.

M - Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

everyone knows how expressive Bokuto is. they also know how he acts so a lot of that transfers over at home but turn the dial up to eleven. he’d def be more clingy to you and tbh, a part of Akaashi feels bad for you bc he knows the real Bokuto.

N - Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

when Bokuto punishes, he PUNISHES. no holds bar. you have to absolutely push him to the edge tho bc he’d try not too. again, he would rather have Akaashi punish you but if Akaashi can’t or he wants to be the one to do it, he’d break a leg. leave marks on you. the whole shebang.

O - Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

most of them. you don’t have car rights, phone rights, outside privileges, NOTHING. Bokuto is very paranoid you’d try to leave so he’d do everything in his power to strip you of your rights. and if you are online, he watches everything you do.

P - Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

very patient! he’d take everything you’d do and try and justify it. he knows he pushes the limit on the slip ups you do, however; once his patient does wear thin, he’ll def not hold back or even ask Akaashi not too. but overall consensus, very patient.

Q - Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Bokuto will k word himself. no doubt. you are his life. you are above volleyball. you are above his friends and family. if you die, he does as well. if you escape, LMFAOOO, you’re not. he keeps your home secured and that isn’t even a thought.

R - Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

nope! very delusional yandere so he doesn’t see his actions as wrong. he’s a ray of sunshine that sees nothing even mildly weird about kidnapping you. again, the chance of you leaving is a NO. you’re with him until you or him die.

S - Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

honestly, probably curiosity. he sees other yanderes and their darlings and instantly craves it. as far as we know, Bokuto has no depressing or sad backstory so it’s just his thoughts that bring him into kidnapping and keeping you.

T - Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

see letter H.

U -Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

again, the whole physical punishment thing is not really his favorite thing to do. he’d rather let someone else do it or have you punish yourself in the sense of self isolation. he wants to keep you alive so he won’t starve you or anything.

V - Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

honestly, probably his depressive episodes. that’s their best chance but that probably won’t work out. he knows what to tell you and what not too so you can’t exactly exploit something in specific. just the depressive episodes are your best bet.

W - Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

see letter H.

X - Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

all the fucking time. he worships you like a god. you are his god. he’d do anything and everything for you. he’d kill someone for you. he’d go to the ends of the earth for you and he’d do it right by your side. like his obsessive streak with you is not one for games.

Y - Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

he’d watch you 25/8. stalking is a big thing. he’d pick up anything that you threw away or accidentally dropped. probably has a shrine of your small trinkets.

Z - Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

probably psychologically. he won’t hesitate to fuck with your mind. he sees it as the only way he could hurt you without actually having to physically put his hands on you. once the stockholm syndrome settles, ITS GO TIME BABYYYY.

#haikyuu imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #anime x you #anime #anime imagines #sports anime #bokuto koutarou #bokuto koutarou x reader #bokuto koutarou x you #bokuto koutarou imagine #yandere haikyuu #yandere bokutou kotarou

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meloncubedradpops · 4 years

Text

Repo! The Corona Opera: Final Countdown

This is the third and final installment of Repo: The Corona Opera. In the first piece, I made the argument that the surreal events we are experiencing in 2020 remind me of the world in the movie Repo! the Genetic Opera. My second essay compared the characteristics of fascism with the same movie. Here we will tie together ideas in both works to highlight a dark path that America is on, based on what we know about Repo!, in the hopes that we can reject the evils of those who are sacrificing our health and safety for their own selfish reasons.

When I began thinking about this movie through the lenses of COVID-19, I saw uncanny patterns that just years ago seemed like an exaggerated storytelling. Millions of people dying from organ failure. Yeah, but how?

Then 2020 happened. Oh, that's how. Sure the disease doesn't affect everyone in the same way, but its wrath and potential to harm are tremendous. The death toll in the United States alone is, as of today, is 231,000. At least, that is the death toll we are know so far. It will take time when the dust settles and we can analyze the excess death data to truly know how many of our fellow Americans have died.

And while our world does not currently emulate those opening comic scenes in Repo, the impact from the sudden loss of life will be felt for a long time. There are a lot of really great themes in Repo: the concept of the family, drug addiction, the impact of corporate monopolies, and let's not forget it's a gothic coming-of-age story too. I am going to highlight three concepts that weave together our current reality with the world of Repo: the parallels of the Trump and Largo family, the Graverobber as the symbolic "other", and organ repossessions is genocide.

As mentioned in my previous entry, I highlighted the ways that Rotti Largo is a fascist. I went into detail supporting the argument that his company GeneCo holds tremendous and unyielding power in the city we see in the movie. And despite his efforts to save humanity from extinction, his assumed heirs and blood-related children are nothing short of entitled mediocrity. I will draw many parallels between President Donald Trump and Rotti Largo throughout the duration of this essay, but let's take a few minutes to talk about their children. Believe it or not, this meme was made by myself and my friend FOUR years ago, almost to the day!

But unlike 2016, I had no idea that I'd find multiple comparisons to draw upon. And frankly, if we all knew how bad this presidency would be, for both America and the rest of the world, we might have made less jokes from our complacency. I ask the the real question though, which Trump and Rotti offspring are most alike?

Now, I've wanted to do this thought exercise since the inception of my essays. The surface level combinations would look something like, Amber and Ivanka (since they're both women, obvs), Donald Trump JR as Luigi (oldest child), and Eric Trump as Pavi ("you're just his useless brother!").

However my boyfriend raised a great point that had me rethink this: Donald Trump Jr is ACTUALLY Amber Sweet. When I took out the gender aspect out of the equation, it made so much more sense. In my next point, I will go into drug addiction in a much more dignified manner. But let's just take a moment here to consider the following.

We know that Amber Sweet is addicted to two things in life: surgery and pain killing drugs to make surgery bearable. Amber Sweet's character provides an incredible insight to the daily life of the people in Repo. If you subtract the Zydrate Anatomy scene, you would hardly even know that zydrate is devastating lives of the people addicted to it. We hear about zydrate in the graveyard as a commercial and the media spends its first opportunity asking Rotti about zydrate's "use and abuses". After Sweet becomes a no-show in the presser, we quickly learn that she runs a support group for fellow addicts, or at least she is supposed to.

How does this relate to Trump Jr? Quite simply, many are speculating that Trump Jr abuses cocaine. The most compelling evidence is his speech during the Republican National Convention. Now, obviously we don't have solid evidence that he is indeed consuming and abusing cocaine, and quite frankly if he is, that would not be incredibly surprising or even a huge deal.

youtube

But the conversation doesn't end here. President Donald Trump did not hesitate to bring up former vice president Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden and his battle with addiction during the first Presidential Debate. It was a low jab, especially considering that the United States is going through a crippling opioid crisis, which he even admits is exacerbated by covid-19 and related lockdowns. Both Donald Trump and Rotti Largo exploit their own children in this manner. I mean, Donald Trump helped fucked up the Trump Foundation where his children were held prominent positions, which was caught stealing from a charity intended to help children with cancer! Every time we see Donald Trump Jr on our doom-screens, we get another glimpse into Jr's downward spiral. And with every additional crime that all of president Trump's children become implicated in, the more and more we can see that this family is rotten to the core.

If Trump Jr is Amber Sweet, then Ivanka is Luigi. In Repo, Luigi can be described as nothing short of a homicidal maniac. I am not saying that Ivanka commits murder, at least not directly, but she does hold a lot of power in the White House. Spend any time learning about the machinations of the White House, particularly in the early days, and you will learn Ivanka competed with Melania for a voice in the administration, and still works for the White House today. Even if you exclude all of the shady business ties, such as the dozens of Chinese patents (including for voting machines!!!) Ivanka has filed, clearly the boundaries of nepotism do not exist for this family. Luigi somehow kills multiple people in the movie and faces no consequences for it. How can this be? Obviously corruption, but that is too simple. If there were multiple checks and balances at one point that would have forced Luigi to face justice for his crimes, they have obviously failed to come to roost in the movie. The obvious common denominator between today and the world of Repo is that those who want power will do anything to obtain and maintain it. Does the public know about every murder committed by Luigi? Does the public know about every crime committed by Ivanka (and also by proxy her husband Jared Kushner, who by the way, failed to pass mandatory security clearances but still has access to the intelligence of our government)? Jared intentionally made it difficult for many of the states hit hardest by covid-19 in the early weeks to acquire the necessary medical supplies because the electorate did not vote for Trump in 2016. That. IS. MURDER. Just as Luigi calls the common citizens in Repo "filthy mice", “Jrvanka” (and the Right at greater) frames the nation as two groups: us and THEM. Luigi is much less calculated, but the comparisons are there. If given the chance, the Trump and Largo family will kill because of their sociopathy, greed, and egos.

Admittedly I don't have as compelling of a comparison for Eric Trump and Pavi. However I will say that both Pavi and Eric do the bidding for their father's empire, and I would also argue that both feel like they have to compete to get a modicum of attention and love from a paternal figure devoid of basic empathy. And at the end of the day, they do not reject their father's tyranny. And honestly that is enough of a comparison for me.

Last but not least, I can't ignore the fact that the official Republican Party platform for the 2020 election is loyalty to Trump in the absence of any other political or philosophical idea. A majority of the speakers at the Republican National Convention were members of his family. Their pitch to Americans is “Just Trust Us”. However, a quarter million Americans aren't here to agree or disagree with that statement. With each passing day, more and more Americans are getting sick, to the tune of tens of thousands of cases a day on average currently. The Largo family and GeneCo are not much different. Remember that scene in 21st Century Cure where Shilo and Graverobber are in a mass grave where we can see truck loads of humans being added to the pile of corpses?

The only real thing separating the corpses from the rest of the city is a poorly constructed brick wall and the years of propaganda that normalizes what I imagine would be a terrible pungent smell of death.

The entire Trump family came into the first presidential debate without masks. The president was literally sick with a virus that statistically speaking, could kill his opponent; and he was on stage shedding this incredibly contagious virus screaming and shouting, spreading his droplets everywhere. The Trump family failed to show up early enough to be tested for covid before the debate.

This was not an accident. Jared Kushner bragged to journalist Bob Woodward back in April that Trump was going to take the country "back from scientists". As of this past weekend, we learned that Trump is floating around the idea of firing our nation's leading disease expert Anthony Fauci in a time where our cases, deaths, and hospitalizations from covid-19 are surging. It is almost grotesquely poetic how similar this is to GeneCo. GeneCo is a company in the healthcare industry, but they exploit the worst parts of society, which I will go into very soon. And in its effort to achieve maximum quarterly profits, the ends always justify the means, even if that results in fascism and excess death/suffering. Rotti's body guards kill the doctor who gives him his grim diagnosis. Trump didn't kill the doctors treating him during his recovery with covid, but information we got from the White House doctors were straight up WEIRD. We witnessed a Gentern being killed by Luigi in the Mark It Up Scene for no other reason besides existing in the proximity of him. Trump has spread misinformation about how there's more money to be made when a doctor declares a death as a covid death. I am finding it hard to see the difference. I think I've made my point regarding the parallels of the Trump and Largo family quite clearly, but you may see additional points I bring up as the rest of my essay unfolds.

Society is complex with more nuance than we give it credit to. The different ways that various groups of people interact with are endlessly interesting, and one of the reasons I love Repo so much is because there's an incredible amount of unpacking that you can do, even in the absence of written dialogue about it.

If you don't know, Repo started out as a story originally penned as "The Necromerchant's Debt", which gave the Graverobber character a more active role in the world crafted by Darren Smith and Terrace Zdunich. When watching the movie Repo! The Genetic Opera, the Graverobber is certainly a character seen in multiple scenes, but in a lot of ways, his importance is left out. An entire scene was cut from the film, see Needle Through a Bug below if you're interested.

youtube

Regardless the parts that we do see are still greatly impactful. Graverobber is essentially the symbolized "other" living in a world that is greatly stratified by social class, and he's doing what he can to survive.

Now if you have been living on this planet we call Earth and have ever paid attention ever, you probably have noticed that there are a lot of power structures that influence the resources and opportunities that aid in our development and maintenance of our needs. The access to being able to elevate ourselves above basic survival are typically contingent upon a few things, one namely our ability to draw a paycheck. As I mentioned in my last essay, so many things went wrong to have what would equivalently be either a drug trafficking felony in today's terms or maybe theft, result in permissible extra-judicial murder. And I am not saying that Trump's bragging of the extra-judicial murder of an ANTIFA activist is at all related, but look at the way Trump compares his dissidents with the way GeneCo treats Graverobbers.

We are experiencing the early stages of economic collapse, millions of people are hungry, soon-to-be evicted, jobless. And yet, the Republicans in power just HAD to rush through a Supreme Court justice. When arguing against lockdowns that would have saved lives, the Right spent countless hours arguing about increase suicide, drug use, poverty, domestic abuse, blah blah blah, you know all the things that were there and as equally as important pre-pandemic? And they did NOTHING to help mitigate this disaster beyond the bill that was passed this spring. The house passed the HEROES Act back in May, and senate majority leader Mitch McConnel declined to take a vote on it.

Never mind the fact that landlords are still expected to pay the banks their mortgages on their investment properties. Never mind the fact that rent wasn't cancelled. Never mind that the Trump administration sought to prevent any oversight into the first bill passed previously to prosecute fraud. So you know, we can make sure the money went to small business owners, and not instead to the many, many crony ties to the administration who were approved for huge amounts of money. Honestly to think about this is kind of sickening, particularly when you relate it back to Repo and my essay I wrote on fascism.

I could probably talk all day about our failure with the "War on Drugs", but I feel like you can probably see based on the efficacy of its policies that drugs still exist and people are still abusing them. I bring this up because the Graverobber's occupation is essentially a drug dealer. However he sells a counterfeit of zydrate derived from the body of a bug who naturally borrow in a corpse's body, which is and also isn't stealing from the corpse / their estate, but is somehow still "bad" enough that you can legally be killed "on site" if a Gene Cop thinks you're harvesting the blue brain goo. I mean this entire concept makes my brain hurt.

The Graverobber, as a concept, is a perfect example of the enemy who is simultaneously the biggest and the least threat, and the only way to stop them is to kill them before they can appeal before the jury of their peers or go to prison to pay for their crimes. And I am sure the propaganda that justifies this is beautifully orchestrated. It literally mimics Russian propaganda, AKA the biggest foreign intelligence threat since, I don’t know, the Cold War? I can picture authoritarian stump speeches now:

"Here the Graverobber who comes in the night, tempting your children. They sell the promise of a good time, but did you know they are raping your daughters for this drug?? They can get your husband hooked on zydrate, and you won't know it's coming until he comes home unrecognizable. These thugs are stealing your grandmother's ring off her corpse, and you will find her half-rotted corpse thrown askew across her tombstone when you go to pay your respects."

And yet Graverobber defends himself:

"Industrialization has crippled the globe (Enjoy GeneCo's day and nighttime formula of Zydrate) Nature failed as technology spread (Ask a gentern if Zydrate is right for you) And from this wake a market erected (Buying Zydrate from an unlicensed source is illegal) An entire city built on top of the dead! And you can finance your bones And your kidneys For every market a submarket grows But best you be punctual With making your payments Lest it be you on the concrete below It's quick! It's clean! It's pure! It could change your life! Rest assured! It's the 21st century cure! And it's my job To steal and rob GRAVES!"

He then goes into detail about how this is just the cost of doing business with his modern world. How many of our current and future stories by those who will not make a single sentence in our history books will be casted as enemies of the state who were ultimately just trying to make end's meet? You can deport the illegal immigrant but neglect to prosecute the American company who hired them to work here? How is that much different? If the people in Repo need this drug to cope with the deaths of their loved ones and their livelihoods, then what does that say about the soul of their nation?

If you are still with me at this point, I want to thank you so much. I am going to conclude on a fairly heavy topic, but it is one worth having. Organ repossessions in Repo are genocide and in America, we are currently also committing genocide.

The whole premise of the film is the justification that those who fail to make payments on their surgeries deserve to have their organs repossessed, because what other reality is there with unrelenting end-stage capitalism? People are losing their whole lives as I type this, through no fault of their own. Most Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency expense pre-covid-19. Millions are unable to pay for basic life expenses, such as rent, healthcare or food. Our president specifically shoved a Supreme Court justice because he wants the American Healthcare Act to be deemed too unconstitutional for public policy. Never mind the 100+ million Americans with pre-existing conditions. Never mind the millions who acquire their healthcare through the ACA marketplace. Never mind the fact that we are in a once-in-a-century PANDEMIC. Never mind that we spend more per capital on healthcare than anywhere else in the world. Never mind that the Right does not have ANY sort of plan to replace something in its place. How could MILLIONS die in an organ failure crises in Repo anyways? We already know that the Trump administration already stopped caring about covid deaths when we learned it was hurting people of color disproportionality than the general population. 1 out of 1000 black Americans have died from covid. Reread that sentence. If you don't believe me, go out and seek those facts for yourself. When we think of genocide we think of Hitler killing thousands of people via gas chambers. But there are SO many other steps that lead to the normalization of that.

Undesirables, aka the "others", are easy to discard. Is it a surprise to anyone that ICE gynecologists are removing the uteruses of detainees? I almost made my whole essay about that one controversy alone. Genocide is insidious like that.

"Oh but if she didn't want that hysterectomy, she shouldn't have tried to come to America for a better life, even if that's what my ancestors did."

Of course not, she's the "other", and you're the law-abiding citizen. You were able to afford the extra $30 a month for the upgraded booby package that gave an otherwise unremarkable kidney transplant a fun twist by including breast implants. The orphan who works the streets because his parents died during the plague who needed a new pancreas because insulin became too expensive is threatening your suburbs. Bonus points if the orphan has a hint of melanin in his skin or if your daughter shows favor towards his antics, completely ignoring the fact that his mommy and daddy were killed by preventable disease. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but look at the makeup of people who get their organs repossessed in Repo and try not to tell me there's a trend. Yes it could have been the coincidence of casting, but nevertheless it is worth mentioning. We don't see many people of color in this movie, but of the few we see, they get murdered by GeneCo/Wallace. And I don't care how stupid coincidences are because that is exactly what is happening with covid-19. The so-called essential, working class citizens (who are disproportionally POC) are putting their whole life on the line to serve everyone else who works at home.

The ends justifies the means, kill enough elderly and the federal government won't have to pay out on social security. Force everyone to get back to work and fuck you if you think you deserve money for the hours you weren't allowed to work (oh and by the way we want to make it so you can't sue for covid-19 related liabilities). Oh you lost your job, "try something new", as told by Ivanka Trump earlier this summer.

My main point is if you let fascism get control, they will normalize genocide and put you in jail for even making the connections of corruption. "Millions of people dead from organ failure, what's adding a few more to the pile in the name of law and order?" "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat". Once again, I am failing to see the difference.

Okay I threw a lot at you just now, and the fact you made it to the end is a miracle. If you skip around because you have a squirrel brain like me, I thank you as well. The fact we get out of bed everyday and do anything right now is a miracle and I know attention can be finite.

I am writing this on the eve of the United States General election after having wanting to write this since June of this year. I am tired. We are ALL Shiloh right now. Our lives have been on pause. "I must be brave", "I'll capture it", "Run back inside". Yeah girl, same! I haven't talked about her much throughout any of my essays, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

Humans are a resilient creature. We have millions of years of experience on this Earth, and much of our survival has been based on pure dumb luck. But we have blown so many other species out of the water in one way alone, and that is our ability to communicate.

We don't have to let people who exploit our weaknesses control us. The sociopaths who try and run our society did not historically aid in our survival. They didn't care if we ate the mushroom that killed us or would have protected us when threatened by wildlife, it was our tribe. The Right has successfully hijacked that bond between the self and the tribe so that it can fit the needs of sociopathy and greed. It is not normal for a president to tell a nation that "it is what it is" when over 100k citizens die from a preventable disease. Do not let the sociopaths throw us in that tiny pine box in a mighty small drop in a mighty dark plot, hastening the trip to our epilogue. Because every inch you give, they will take a mile and charge you by the hour. Never forget that.

#repo! the genetic opera #repo #shilo wallace #nathan wallace #terrance zdunich #darren smith #gothic #coronavirus #COVID-19 #election #vote #Fascism #politics #donald trump #ivanka trump #eric trump #donald trump junior #republicans #genocide

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ninja-go-to-therapy · 5 years

Text

Blindfolded

Happy birthday to meee

This is pretty creepyyy

Cole baby I’m legitimately so sorryyy

Happy birthdayyy to meeee

@badthingshappenbingo

The 7th installment to the Damage series. The rest can be found on my masterlist, linked in bio.

Prompt: blindfolded

Fandom: Ninjago

Character: Cole

Trigger Warnings: pet whump, dehumanization, creepy!whumper, and just like… general uncomfy vibes associated with the aforementioned warnings. If that sounds like it would bother you, please don’t read!

“Today, we’re going to be doing a little exercise.” Cole’s master said, shutting the door behind him and locking it.

An exercise…? What kind? Whatever kind of exercise he was referring to, there was no way it could be good. It was never good. Not that he would have much of a choice.

He was let off his chain, and he took the opportunity to stretch. He was horribly sore.

His master took his hands, removing the cuffs to pull his arms behind his back and recuff them like that. It was new, and different, and kind of terrible.

He bit his tongue to hold back what he wanted to say. Talking made his master angry, and there was nothing he hated more than seeing his master angry. He shouldn’t have even been thinking about talking.

He looked deep into Cole’s eyes, as if he was searching for something. For what, he could not say.

His master stepped behind him. He held his breath, waiting for whatever it was to come. He didn’t have to wait long.

A black cloth covered his eyes, completely taking away his vision. He couldn’t see a thing. He shifted uncomfortably.

His hair was stroked affectionately, and it was almost… calming. It told him that his master was right there, watching him. What was once unnerving and horrible was now… not.

But then his master stepped away. And then there was no touch, and he was forced to once again focus on the vast and everlasting nothingness. He strained his ears for any hint of sound. For a moment, all was silent.

He swallowed thickly, holding his breath. Surely his master hadn’t just left. He wouldn’t just leave him here.

He was drawn out of his panic when cold hands gently began to caress his face. He startled, inhaling sharply, and the sound was almost deafening.

His master didn’t speak. He just touched him, showered him in silent affection, and it was comforting, in a way. He was dragging him out of the nothingness, and he alone could do that.

The touches stopped. The void came back full force, and he could only tell himself that his master was right there for so long. Please come back, please…

He was drowning under darkness and it was the very worst thing in the world.

He squirmed, wishing he could call out but knowing he’d regret it if he did.

“I’ll tell you what, pet,” his master said, and he jumped at the sound. “I’ll take off that pretty little blindfold if you ask nicely.”

Cole knew exactly what he meant, but… he couldn’t. His master had taken everything else away. He didn’t care what was done to him at this point, but this would be—he’d be done.

“No? Okay, more fun for me.”

Every touch sent a shiver down his skin and every shiver kept him uneasy. Fingers carded through his hair, pulling and tugging at it. There were gentle touches to the area where his collar began, stroking the skin around it.

“You look so pretty, pet,” his master muttered, and it should have been quiet, but it was the only sound in existence and it was the loudest thing he’d ever heard. “Such a pretty thing…”

Quiet praises were too loud in his ears and every touch left him breathing harsher.

There was gentle scratching at the nape of his neck and near his ears, and it was almost too much, but eventually his master would let him see again, surely. Because he wasn’t going to beg, and there was no way he would just keep him blind for that long.

The hands left for a brief moment, returning with something that was placed over his ears. No longer could he hear even the quiet ruffling of his master’s shirt, or the quiet breaths he took. Nothing. He could hear nothing other than the sound of his own panic, his own heartbeat.

Silence. Darkness. Nothing else.

He tried to count his breaths if only to drag himself out of the ever-growing void, but he kept losing count, and he couldn’t concentrate hard enough to continue.

His skin prickled against the cool air, despite being inside. He was inside, wasn’t he? He couldn’t quite remember. Nothing existed and time and space didn’t matter and his master was gone and he didn’t know why. What had he done? He wanted to fix it. He wanted the blindfold off and he wanted to be able to hear again and he wanted to be touched by his master.

But he wasn’t going to beg. He wouldn’t. It was the tiniest shred of dignity he had left, and if he gave it up…

Time passed on. He couldn’t tell how long. It could have been minutes or hours, but none of it mattered. He didn’t exist and his master had left him and he was going to die without really being here in the first place.

Something freezing pressed against his neck, just under his collar. His entire body jerked violently away from it.

It was something small, maybe, and it was cold as ice, and as it was being dragged along his skin, he shuddered and jolted enough to convince anyone watching that he was having a seizure. Was anyone watching? Was his master even there, or was he just… making this up?

The freezing was removed, leaving little droplets of water on his skin. He savored the feeling of existence, etching it into his brain.

It came back, dragging itself along every inch of exposed skin, sometimes leaving and returning again. He squirmed, wishing he could see, wishing he could hear, wishing he knew what was going on.

Every touch kept him out of the void, but at the same time, it was too much. It was everything in the world and he was drowning under it.

He whimpered, the sound obscured, but it was something. It was sound, proving he was alive and existent. Unless he wasn’t.

The cold went away and the nothing was back again and he was crying, his tears wetting the blindfold that had taken the world away from him.

Whatever was on his ears was removed.

“All you have to do to make it stop is beg, pet. Can you do that for me?”

The words in themselves were a blessing. His master was here, with him, for sure.

Nevertheless, he sniffled, shaking his head. He couldn’t.

He was scooped up off the floor. He yelped, panicking, but the second he got his bearings, he was nuzzling against his master’s chest, breathing in his scent.

He was being carried. To where, he did not know. All that mattered was that he existed and his master was here and if he was lucky he’d be allowed to see again soon. He couldn’t take much longer of this.

Finally, he was set down. His handcuffs were removed, followed by gentle rubbing over the area they had covered. He shivered. It was rare that they came off. Why had they been removed?

The minimal clothes he was allowed came off next. They were taken slowly, gently, complete with soft caresses over his body. His skin prickled under it.

Next went his collar.

The collar only came off when he was being punished for something. What had he done, what had he done?

He jerked away, curling in on himself on the floor. There was nowhere to go, but he didn’t want whatever was to come next, and if he was at least derailing it a little bit, he’d take it.

He was sorry, he was sorry!

His master huffed, pulling him back into his lap. As much as he wanted to struggle, he didn’t. He was too scared to even move a muscle.

He was scooped up again, but this time it was different. He was picked up and then being lowered, and then—

Water. Warm water that was such a contrast to the freezing from only minutes before that he could have torn himself apart.

He was in the bath. He had to be. That’s what it felt like, anyway. He couldn’t think of anything else that would feel like this.

The bottom of the tub was smooth and slippery.

“Close your mouth, pet,” he heard, and he barely had time to comply before he was pushed under.

The panic was immediate.

He thrashed, the weightlessness of the water only pulling him further into the nothingness.

He was pulled out. He took a moment to breath, to assure himself that he was fine, he was real, this was happening. It hadn’t even been malicious, it was just part of the routine. His master wouldn’t treat him like that if he didn’t deserve it.

The blindfold was still secure, though sopping wet. It sat heavily on his face, and it only darkened the void. It was the only thing he wore, and somehow, he felt more exposed than he usually did.

Still, his master bathed him, no different than he always did. His hair and face were not touched, this time.

He wanted the blindfold off. He wanted to take it off himself so terribly bad, but he knew the punishment for it would be tremendous.

Was he allowed to talk at any point to beg? Or did he have to wait for another specific opportunity? He didn’t know. He wanted it off now, but not if it meant he would be punished for it. He hated punishments, they were the absolute worst thing about it all.

He settled on making a small noise akin to a whimper to get his master’s attention.

He didn’t want to beg. It was all he had left.

But what else could he do?

“Yes, pet?”

“P—please take it off,” he said, his voice quiet and unsure.

No reply. Silence. Silence and his ears ringing from how quiet it was and he hadn’t done something wrong, had he? He’d done just what was asked, he had!

“Mm. I don’t think that’s good enough. You can try again later.”

What more was he supposed to do? He’d begged, he really had! He’d tried! He didn’t want to try again. He wanted the blindfold off. He wanted his master to let him see. He wanted to retain this last, tiny shred of himself that he had left.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, pet,” his master muttered, “I’ll take good care of you until you decide you want it off.”

He did want it off! He wanted it off so badly, but at what price? He didn’t know what he would do if he really, truly groveled, but…

The void was swallowing him whole and he needed to be able to see again.

He stayed silent for the next few minutes, his master calmly and quietly bathing him. It was weird, and scary to not be able to see it happening.

He had to get it off.

“Ple—”

His master cut him off, forcing him back against the wall by his throat. Cole whimpered, barely able to breathe from the pressure his master was applying. The tile making up the wall was freezing, a stark contrast to the warm water.

“No talking without permission.”

He’d been bad, he’d been so, so bad, he was sorry, he wouldn’t do it again, he hadn’t meant to! He’d been trying to do what his master wanted him to, but he’d done it wrong, so wrong, he was sorry!

He nodded as best he could, trying to convey how sorry he was through that action alone. He didn’t have to see his master to know just how angry he would look.

He was pushed underwater once again, his head hitting the bottom of the tub painfully. He did his best not to struggle. He was held under until his lungs burned and he couldn’t help but thrash. He needed air. He needed it, he couldn’t hold out for much longer…

He was pulled out by his hair. He choked and sputtered, barely registering it when his master began to speak.

“Clearly you need a lesson in following rules. I’m sure I’ll think of a suitable punishment. Maybe some time in your cage?”

Cole froze. Of any punishment he’d ever been given, the cage was the worst of them. It was small and cramped in there, and he wasn’t allowed any food, and time stretched on for an eternity.

Naturally, he had no way of knowing that his first “night” in the cage had actually been two full days. No windows and no food worked wonders for confusing the sense of time, and if he thought that had been only a singular night, just the threat of a night in the cage would be enough to scare him into submission.

Of course, it was talking that had brought about the idea of a punishment in the first place, so he had no way to plead. Not a look. Not a sound. He was blind, and mute, and so very, very scared.

The tub was drained and what must have been a towel was drying his hair. He was clean, but it didn’t feel like it. Every touch was too much and not enough and he just wanted to see.

His minimal clothes and his handcuffs were returned. His collar was not.

He was sorry, he was sorry, he didn’t want to be punished, even if he deserved it. He just wanted his collar back on and to be given the chance to apologize and for his master to forgive him.

Through it all, as it had been for who knew how long, the blindfold stayed. It was weighed down with water, heavy over his face.

Koshiro carried him back to his room, reattaching him to the chain on the wall.

How he wished he could stay. His pet looked so pretty like this, lost and confused and scared. But he needed to be punished, and he had to go anyway. This would suffice as a wonderful punishment, he was sure. And, if he found himself missing his pet enough, he could always watch the footage from one of the many cameras he had set up around the room. It wouldn’t be the same as the real thing, but he could get through a few hours away.

With his pet’s arms bound firmly behind him and his chain attached to his ankle, Koshiro was confident that he wouldn’t be able to get the blindfold off. He doubted it would even cross his mind, in his state.

He would love to stay and watch him squirm, but the best way to get him to do so was to leave, and his pet needed to be punished.

With that thought in his mind, he stood, snapping a quick photo on his phone, cursing himself for leaving his camera upstairs. Still, it was better than nothing.

He shut and locked the door behind him, just in case, though at this point it probably wasn’t necessary. Just to be safe.

He was positively certain that a day had never been longer. Connecting his security system to his phone may have been the best decision he’d ever made. Every glance at the footage left him more and more eager to get back.

Finally, finally, he returned home, practically shaking with anticipation. He immediately went to the basement, carefully opening the door. And there he was. His gorgeous pet, curled up and shaking on the floor, sobbing his pretty little eyes out.

He made no move to indicate that he’d even noticed Koshiro coming in.

“Oh, you poor thing,” he said, and his pet flinched violently at the sound.

He sat down beside him, pulling him closer and carding his fingers through his hair.

“All you need to do is ask,” he said, “Go on now.”

This time, his pet begged without hesitation.

“Please,” he choked out, still trembling, “Please master, please take it off, I want to see, I want to see you, please, master, please.”

And oh, yes, there was no better sound in the world.

“There you go, just like that,” he said, going to remove the blindfold.

He took it off slowly, careful not to catch any of his pet’s hair. When it was off, he set it to the side, turning back to face his gorgeous pet.

His pupils were blown wide, impacted greatly by the dark he’d been left in for so long. And that last little bit of rebellion… gone.

You could see in his eyes, if you looked, just how broken he was. How perfect.

“You’ve been so good, pet, so good for me, yes,” he cooed, petting his hair affectionately.

His pet whined, nuzzling his head into Koshiro’s palm.

And FSM, he really had to be the luckiest person alive.

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shizekarnstein · 5 years

Text

Zeke is determinated to save his brother from the shackles of Grisha's poisonous influence. If Eren is refusing to go along with their dream the only reason is more than obvious: their wretched father has brainwashed him and only Zeke himself is able to free him of that burden. Only once he manages to undo the damage will the two of them stand together as brothers and put an end, once and for all, to the cursed fate of the eldian people.

Xaver stoods in his mind as Zeke's personal saviour. From his pov he was his real father: a father who listened and played with him, an adult with whom he felt safe and comfortable. The person who finally opened his eyes to the monstruos nature of his birth parents characters, and encouraged him to turned them over to the marlean authorities instead of joining them in utopia.

Zeke has never questioned his mentor's motives or the type of person he was. He only saw one side of him: the loving man who had his best interest in mind. To this day he never pondered over the fact that this very man basically turned him into the executioner of his own parents and how terrible is to put that burden on a child. How cruel and manipulative is to tell a seven years old that his own parents never loved him.

Claiming that Grisha has brainwashed and mistreat Eren as he did with Zeke himself all those years ago, refusing to even consider the possibility that he could have been a better parent to Eren, and not even listening to Eren's thoughts on the matter, he goes ahead and brings their foreheads together. To show his brother the truth.

But forcing your ideals and pov into another person is no different from what both his parents and Xaver did to him. So I have to ask: by using the FT powers to force his own convictions onto Eren, at the end, is he really that different from those he claims to loathe? Who is really trying to brainwash Eren at this point?

The brothers enter Grisha's memories and witness how this man interacted and raised his younger son.

This quest objetive is to reveal the true face of Grisha and all his wrongdoings. But along the way I can't help but wonder if what Zeke was really looking for, on an unconciouss level, was seeing their father again. Zeke was conditionated and encouraged by Xaver to hate and despise his father, but little Zeke loved him more than anything. He tried to put up with all the things he and Dina asked of him. Even when he thought those things were wrong and put him in danger, he did soldier on. What really brought him to a breaking point was not only his parents neglect, but the possiblity of all of them together being shipped off to paradise. For someone who to this day is still craving affection as a starved animal, I have no doubts that even if he convinced himself of hating him, a part of him is still that little boy who adored him. In order to move forward he had to believe his father was a monster.

When confronted with the reality that Grisha really seemed to care for his new wife and son, his bitterness and denial are palpable. He's jelous bc some part of him still wished he could have had something like that. Eren himself is going along this painful trip down memory lane, having to endure witnessing all those dear and simpler days with a deep sense of longing.

But no matter how hard he searchs, nothing seems to match Zeke's expectations. He's desesperatly trying to find the instances when Grisha acted as a selfish man who puts his own ideals ahead of the safety of his family. The months pass and all he can find are wholesome family moments. They get to see how Eren was clearly loved and doted upon, how his father spent countless hours playing with him, taking him on walks, witnessing his very first steps. The tranquil family dinners where no talk of politics or revolution ever graced the table.

Even then Zeke keeps searching for the devious facet that he knows must exit. Grisha infiltrated the walls to locate the FT and restaure the Eldian Empire. His new family is an accessory, just like his previous one.

Eren himself is done with this futile quest. Unlike Zeke, he knows the two sides of the story. He knows his father's faults, even believed for a time the worst of him when Rod Reiss triggered the memories of the chapel massacre. He has come to terms with the fact his father was a flawed man who payed dearly for his dreams and came to repent and love his new family in all the ways he couldn't with his former one. Eren knows all about his guilt, about his sins and regrets. About how much he cherished him and his mother, and how he never forgot about Dina and Zeke.

But what good does it do to argue with someone who's utterly convinced of his own truth? Trying to force his biased version on Eren is nonsense and Eren is very aware of this fact. Of course father is a demon, isn't that what you want to hear? We can move on and euthanize our own people next now that I know your true Zeke. What an evil man! Forcing your vission onto others without giving a damn about their own side of the story or experiences is such a wonderful and foolproof plan. Can't you see how the brainwashing is coming undone thanks to you showing me all these things? It's useless to try to talk with someone who doesn't listen.

But then both Eren and Zeke learned that they didn't even knew all there was to know about Grisha and how far he had evolved from his younger self.

He gave up on his old dream. He learned from his faults. When faced with the choice between his mission and his loved ones, this time he made the right choice. He was able to cast away his old self and previous mistakes and return to his family, finally deciding what was really more precious to him and clinging to this choice.

Humans change and grow. But without taking the time to sit down and listen to other people we are unable to trully grasp who they really are as persons. We allow our own missconceptions and prejudices to blind us to the facts. What Zeke is experiencing now is a total subversion of what he was convinced was an absolute fact. But in order to allow himself to consider this possiblity, he had to witness it with his own eyes. Ignorance itself is a formidable enemy after all. That is the brothers motto, but the only one living by those words was Eren.

All the doubts Zeke still harboured and his last sanity rope was the utter conviction that his father never loved him. Mister Xaver told him so. It has to be true. Even if he changed in regards to his other son, Grisha never cared for Zeke. He was nothing more to him than a tool, a royal blood vessel that would help him to make his dream come true. Grisha found happiness with his new family, merrily forgetting all about his past one and the hell he put them through. Listening to Grisha utter "I'm sorry, Zeke" has began to utterly shatter this view.

While Zeke was blabbing, Eren noted how his father still gazed and kept close his only memento of Dina and Zeke. He never forgot about them. How could he?

Kruger himself said that anyone can become a god or a devil, all it takes is for someone to believe in it. For Zeke and Rod Reiss Grisha Jaeger was a monster who gladly crushed children and anything that stood on his way. Marley and Willy Tybur convinced the whole world that Eren Jaeger is a demon hellbent on destroying everything in his path. We as readers were convinced that the Beast Titan was a devil who utterly lacked even an ounce of human compassion. Xaver appears to Zeke as a wonderful person; we as readers know better than to believe such a thing of someone who installed the idea in a child that his parents hated him and forced him to tarnish his hands with their blood. Just going by the flashes we saw this chapter about Grisha, an uninformed party would conclude that he was a good man with not a single fault to his name. To trully grasp others we need to get rid of our bias and missconceptions and learn to actually listen and see for ourselves what's true and what isn't. That has always been a theme in SnK. Zeke's journey isn't different.

Now both brothers experienced radically differnet sides of Grisha. Just bc he came to regret his previous actions and worked to better himself as a man, spouse and father doesn't mean all is forgiven. Zeke has the right to still resent him and the way he treated him. But he can only make that choice freely once he knows for certain all there is to his father's story. And the journey has only started.

I find intriguing how at the beginning it was Zeke who command the pace of their journey and kept selecting to continue. Now that his convictions have been shaken, and not Eren's, is Eren himself who seems to be in charge of the itinerary.

If inside paths realm the stronger mental will is the one who prevails, then the outcome of this little journey is very much on Eren's favour.

What's Zeke going to do? It's there a way to make him give up on his dream too? Or is he still fully convinced of the true of Xaver words? Memories of the previous shifter have a degree of influence on the current one. If Zeke can say with security that Eren was being controlled by their father, then how deep is the real hold of Xaver in all of this? Is this really only Zeke's dream? Xaver shared this dream with him when he still lived, and the two of them agreed to make it a reality. Even now he remains a dear person and highly respectable in Zeke's mind and heart. At the end I don't think it trully matters if his hold on Zeke is being reinforced by his memories living in him. The only one who can decide what to do is Zeke. Time may be infinite inside paths realm, but even so the clock is still ticking.

This chapter was monumental and has so many things to comment upon. I plan to do another post pondering over something I've been wondering for a long time: can shifters actually sense when someone down the line is witnessing/reviving some of their memories? Going by Frieda and Grisha this chapter, my tentative answer is yes. Hint: Grisha sees Zeke in front of him, but there was someone else behind Grisha who had the same view as him, and that someone would later be the vessel that holds all of Grisha's memories.

#snk #snk spoilers #snk 120 #snk meta #part three i guess #eren jaeger #zeke jaeger #grisha jaeger #snk analysis

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akiwisfics · 4 years

Text

In the Middle Chapter 7

Notes: Not technically cross-posted anymore, but two chapters already written. If people get annoyed by this, please savior “kiwi crossposts” to save your eyes.

Description: The war's over, but the mess is still left behind. Kasumi finds herself among the wreckage with unexpected companions and questions that seem almost impossible to answer for. Life keeps moving forward, however, and the surprises it leaves behind aren't always pleasant ones.

Pairings: KasumixSha’ira

“Ms. Maeda, come out please.”

The major was using her alias. That was a good sign. She kept her eyes closed as she listened carefully, noting that most of the steps outside the tent at the moment were whisper-quiet. Trained and unlike the cacophony that Kasumi had grown accustomed to at their camp. The STG had taken over completely at this point, then, but where were the others exactly?

Kasumi had seen no reason to report the initial incident to the STG exactly for this reason. She didn’t want them crawling over the place, rifling through things better left private. They’d done enough already, enough so that she was half-tempted to play up her injuries, appeal to their humanity as a wounded gazelle.

It was probably Sha’ira. She couldn’t blame her for her due diligence. While no doubt she knew there were more secrets to uncover, one of their group members had been killed. She was going to do her own investigation this morning, though mostly to make sure there weren’t any other trip mines in the area they needed to worry about. From there, she could likely figure out some information based on the mine alone. They were a common enough accessory in both various militaries and the terminus systems, but rarely were the models of the same caliber. Most mercenaries had to make do with whatever and whoever would be willing to deal outside of the Citadel, so they were usually handmade or modded in some fashion. Military, naturally, were usually more manufactured, less prone to misfires.

However, a really well paid mercenary could get what they want, especially if they’d been working for a long time. Not many survived in their line of work without knowing how to make their own shit.

Her alibi checked out if there was trouble, at least. Despite what verbal spat (? if it could be called that) her and the consort had the evening before, there was little denying the fact that she had been laid up from her injury, and as far as they were aware, unarmed. Rolling over just confirmed what she knew already. Sha’ira had left early that morning. Her hands still felt warm from when they touched. She admired how freely the consort gave her affection, a small gift with every passing brush and squeeze. While Kasumi affirmed what she could with what ways she could afford, she hadn’t remembered anything beyond a smile or a pat on the shoulder recently. Hugs were even foreign after Shepard’s passing.

Their conversation wasn’t really done, was it? She could admire Sha’ira’s stubborn passion if she wasn’t on the receiving end of it. Maybe it was just a common feature for people like them. It was the only reason she could think of as to why she still hadn’t stirred from her cot.

The tent flap zipped open, and Kasumi met the Major’s exasperated gaze with a placidly affable smile. “You should know better than to spoil me with all this attention,” she greeted, and decided the joke could last a little longer. “I have nothing to do with what’s going on.”

He sighed and pitched his voice lower, just in case there were any prying ears. Based on what little she heard beyond more salarians, he didn’t need to worry. “I’m well aware. Can we discuss this outside?”

“In my condition, Major?”

“The mine didn’t kill you, and it clearly didn’t leave you deaf. Outside.”

He seemed more hurried than last time. If it’d just been the turian’s death, they would’ve swung by sooner. Maybe they had. Though the recovery was quick, Kasumi had been left to her own devices for the most part yesterday. She had her visitors, but beyond a few awkward conversations, the last 24 hours had been a hazy doze-- likely thanks to whatever medigel and drugs Sal had tossed together.

Maybe she could get a change of clothes first. The t-shirt and sweatpants was even more bare compared to their last meeting. Despite a little soreness in her knees, a little bit of heaviness in her chest, it was still easy to stand. What work Sal had done did its job.

A small contingent awaited her as she finally emerged. Major Kirrahe waited just a few feet away, flanked by two members that she vaguely recognized from her run-in. The camp was deserted beyond the rest of the unit, soldiers listlessly flitting from tent to tent, though never staying for longer than a minute or so. They weren’t searching through belongings. Not yet anyway. Clearing the area then? The others were probably secured in a smaller perimeter then, maybe the building where their tower had been installed. It wasn’t the most comfortable, but the interior was gutted enough to house all of them.

Something had happened. She doubted Sha’ira would be considered among the suspects, but Kasumi realized to the STG-- she was the only one accounted for yesterday.

“Nothing in your tent was touched,” Kirrahe offered as he approached. His brow was furrowed and he looked tired, more than anything. Though salarians rarely needed to sleep for long, the major looked overdue for at least an hour or so.

“Not that we’re on the best of terms right now but--”

“One of our men went missing yesterday.”

Ah, another victim then. That narrowed the scope considerably. An average mercenary or soldier wouldn’t easily get the best of an STG member, not without some considerable knowledge of the area. However, that didn’t make much sense. Their group had been there a week, tops, and as far as she was aware, only herself and Sha’ira knew about the other camp in the old university section. “You think one of us did it?”

“... Not necessarily…” he scratched at one of his scales, a nervous habit. She would have to remember that. “We’re simply narrowing down our suspects, Ms. G-- Maeda. Your camp is the only other known party in the area.”

Not the only, but a tabloid reporter didn’t strike her as a murdering type.

“We found him dead earlier this morning. How did the turian die?”

“I never actually saw the body, so.”

Kirrahe hummed in response. “Justicar Samara has offered her expertise with interrogations, but considering you’re the least suspicious person here…”

Oh. This was a nice position. The plan right now had been just to sneak in at some point and take her mods back, but this was a much better and less risky solution to that problem. The major didn’t need her, and Kasumi wasn’t thrilled over the prospect of interrogating people that barely knew her-- people that likely had their own ideas as to why she hadn’t really socialized with anyone else. However, it beat trying to aggravate what good grace that had been left from their first encounter. “How about a deal then?”

“Absolutely not.”

“If there’s a murderer around, I’d like my pistol at least.”

His saucer eyes narrowed. “I’m sure you have another elsewhere, Ms. Maeda. The mods are staying in our possession.”

Sore loser. “You’re making it very hard to do my job, Major. I don’t mind the challenge, but can you really afford it?” She had copies back home, at worst blueprints in case she had to make any necessary repairs or replacements. However, “home” was currently Illium, and wasn’t really easy to access at the moment. She could have Urch or Tianna dig through her workroom, but that wasn’t really time that they could afford. Not with dear Kiera breathing down their necks and Urch’s own research on Khalisah.

“Based on your little save the other day, your observational skills are fine without them.” He sighed and seemed just a little bit less like a military man and more salarian. More like they hadn’t just gotten out of war, hadn’t just pulled himself out of the front lines. “I’m not asking for your help for free. Consort Sha’ira had made very specific… requests on your behalf.”

“She isn’t a suspect then?”

“While technically not cleared, she doesn’t really have means or motive. Her and Sura will likely be released shortly.”

That was nice to hear. “I guess I’ll ask her when I see her.” Clothes came first though. She wasn’t exactly intimidating in her pajamas. The soldiers by Kirrahe stiffened at first as she moved to leave, hands just a tad too secure to their guns for comfort. Right. Just because she had been cleared of one crime didn’t mean they weren’t aware of plenty others. Hopefully they had the sense not to panic the rest of her camp even further with the behavior. They weren’t really known for their panic, but there didn’t always need to be a lot of change for people to start noticing. Sometimes all they needed to see was them with a bit more unease around her than usual.

Still, Kasumi smiled in return and was relieved to see them leave her alone as she began retreating back to her actual tent.

“Ms. Maeda?”

Though she guessed they weren’t done yet. She showed nothing as she turned back, waiting for Kirrahe to continue.

“Do you have any suspects?”

Katul was a thought. He went missing first, but no one had actually mentioned if he was still alive or not. If he had returned after the one person he seemed to have tension with had died, that didn’t look good. However, nothing could shake the ghastly visage he carried and how much it resonated inside of her. She doubted little could shake him from his deep, pervasive grief. It took her months to even want her life again, much less act out against those that took Keiji. Whatever problems the two turians had, it wasn’t like revenge. They would’ve seen something happen far before this. She would’ve acted much faster than this.

Dharshan was also… strange, though she doubted her suspicions on him were anything more of shades from her own past. Though she tried desperately to not let that inhibit her work, she could count what few positive interactions she had with other batarians on one hand. The man was a source of ire recently, but that wasn’t out of any murderous intent on his part. He just couldn’t take the hint that she wanted nothing to do with him.

“If I’m honest? I don’t think it’s anyone from here,” she answered after a moment. “No one really strikes me as the serial murderer and poke the bear type.”

“Poke the bear?”

“... You know. Big, scary, and a bit silly to go after?” Maybe the bear thing was the problem? She wasn’t sure if the major was familiar with Earth biology. “Lot of the people have military experience, but none of them would be dumb enough to go after the STG is all I’m saying.”

“True. I have to ask--”

“Sha’ira and I haven’t mentioned you all were here, no. They either had to have stowed away in the shuttle without us noticing somehow, or had access to the channel like I did.”

“Right. … Thank you anyway.”

She hadn’t blamed the Major for the thought. It would be easier for it to be someone from the group. Someone that they could get today, and not be left digging in the ruins for some phantom. A phantom that was laying traps for everyone. Kasumi knew she had plenty enough to ask still, but unfortunately for them both, a phantom seemed far more likely than anything else at this point.

About all they could hope for was someone close by, and that it was just that. One.

However, Kasumi knew better, and Kirrahe did too.

Her tent was well kept, despite the knowledge that Sha’ira had been in at some point. She knew to grab the QEC, knew to bring it to her when she needed it. It hadn’t surprised her. It was the same reason that Sha’ira was one of the last to leave her tent in the mornings, but one of the first to have movement inside its confines. She didn’t know what all went into being a half-retired consort, but any job worth its credit had its fair network of associates to make it all work.

Maybe that was why it was easy for her to pick Kasumi at her seams. She learned as much as the consort gave away, and yet she couldn’t help thinking that she was just at the surface of what was there. It wasn’t an alluring darkness that drew her in, that much Kasumi was certain. She knew enough to recognize the shades of someone with blood on their hands, how they looked onto the world and regarded the value of life around them.

Like Kirrahe. She didn’t doubt that an unexpected loss of someone from his command affected him, but he made sure not to show it as he talked, as he observed the world around him. He knew enough. Knew that letting that side show meant it was a vulnerability for someone to pick at later, and maybe then another man would die under his watch.

But Sha’ira was different. Her hands had trembled when she spoke of Nelyna, even as she knew enough to try to obscure the incident from Kasumi’s questions at first. She still worried and fussed over Kasumi after her injury, even though someone as close as Shepard would’ve stayed, but she wouldn’t have--

What would she do here? The Major had known her from the war, so perhaps he would’ve approached the situation entirely different either way. She couldn’t recall meeting the man on the Crucible project, but that didn’t really mean much.

The grey-box was still safely tucked in her duffle bag. She ran her fingers against the cool metal and allowed a brief rush of comfort before she finished getting dressed. She could peer into the contents later, maybe to glean some advice from his past experiences-- ones that she hadn’t been afforded on her own.

She spotted a shadow looming over her tent from the corner of her eye and tucked the keepsake back in the confines of her clothes. It was only a second of hesitation before she took the locust instead. Kirrahe already mentioned her having another weapon on her. It shouldn’t spook him too much, and now that there was someone actually making moves against them, she sure as hell wasn’t going to go unarmed.

“Just a second!” she called out as she holstered the gun on her hip. In one fluid motion, she unzipped her tent and emerged-- and froze, half smile at the flash of red and gold in front of her. Well. Maybe should’ve gone without the gun then.

Samara regarded her with a tad more warmth than before, though it really wasn’t much. Her eyes didn’t have the glean of murderous biotics, which was comforting. She found the pistol at her side immediately. “... I see the Major was correct.” Was that relief in her voice…? “I had brought an extra pistol in case you were left without.”

“It’s an old habit.” She stepped beside her as Samara turned back to the main road and halo of buildings. Their target was in the middle, close enough to camp for anyone to pick up the signal of the comm tower from the comfort of their cot. Unless Sal spilled on her work on the Crucible project, this would probably lead to some questions. She just hoped any lies that came up before were believable enough, or so outrageous that they were easily disproven if needed.

Kasumi glanced to her companion, noting idly how quiet her steps were beside her. Her skills were as sharp as ever. “... Can I ask you something?” she chanced.

Samara regarded her with cold eyes, but still she nodded.

“What are you doing here?”

“... I could ask the same, Ms. Goto.”

That was fair. Sha’ira mentioned some grand plan that fell into place with everything, that their intentions and choices would always have meaning. If she thought more, she would know. If she was truly, deeply honest with herself. She wanted to see that red hair in the wreckage and a beating heart. She wanted to find herself again, for once building instead of taking. It wasn’t that simple. It never was. Here she stood, walking with a justicar to solve a murder. Sure, a different sort of thing, but it wasn’t the sort of closure that Sha’ira had been talking about before.

Still, the fact that Samara was talking to her was a good sign. A good chance that Samara would try to murder her by the end of it, but… Shepard still connected them all somehow.

It wouldn’t hurt to give. Just a little. “The crucible plans are gone, if it helps.”

“We had suspected, but it is good to hear confirmation from you directly.”

“Did you know it was me?”

Samara hesitated, stopping just shy of earshot from the salarians guarding the building entrance. It surprised her to see some sort of softness in the way she regarded her, nurturing and motherly. “... I had believed it, though you left no proof,” she said, voice startling serious for how she regarded Kasumi. “... My code may dictate your fate; however, I am allowed… discretion in regards to your heart. It’s rarely necessary, nor is it a train of thought a justicar should explore often. Yet…”

She hadn’t needed to say it, but it still felt nice.

“Commander Shepard trusted you. Whatever reasons you have to be who you are, there is some righteousness in how you regard the world. I am simply grateful that assessment had been correct the first time.”

It was the closest she would get to a compliment. A strange feeling settled inside her at receiving it, undeserved… or maybe just as weird for the justicar to give. Kasumi gave a taut smile in return. “That’s sweet… I think.”

“Do what you will with it. It saved your life this time. It may later.”

Ah. That feeling was gone now. What a surprise.

“We have more important matters to attend to. I would focus on that for now.”

“Right. How do you want to go about this?”

Samara hesitated. “... You are aware I’m afforded little gentleness in my work.”

And neither was Kasumi. However, she didn’t have the same weight dictating her every move. “Right. I’ll lead then… uh, if that’s fine?”

She nodded in agreement, giving away nothing as to how she actually felt about the matter. Probably for the best. They had enough of a heart to heart to last a lifetime. Samara was rarely afforded an unique voice on matters, one that wasn’t dictated by law or code. It was nice to see underneath that she seemed… almost normal. Kasumi was aware she had one daughter still, back in Thessia last she heard. It was strange that they weren’t together, but no doubt she was safe from any remaining trouble left in the galaxy. She still had something pushing her forward to each new day.

Kasumi felt a pang of jealousy at the thought, one quickly buried for later. There was little to envy from Samara. She hadn’t needed to murder Keiji. She hadn’t needed to murder any family for being monsters. There was nothing to envy of that pain no doubt buried inside. And if she was healing, allowed herself the thought? … It was good for Samara. Something that she probably never let happen before. She deserved that chance.

Then Sha’ira’s eye met hers. They must have finished their interrogation with her, just stepping out of the gutted building with a new weight of exhaustion sagging her shoulders. She remembered, albeit vaguely, that she seemed to struggle sleeping the night before. Either not adjusted to the uneven ground, or their conversation still hanging over her head. She wished there had been a better way.

Still, the smile was warm, even tinged by the lack of sleep clear in her heavy gaze. “How are you feeling?” she asked as she bounded the broken steps to where her and Samara stood.

“Better, thanks to you and Sal,” Kasumi said, just as the consort’s finger tips found her again, grazing over the bandage against her temple. She ducked her eyes out of courtesy to the attention and tried to ignore the curious eyes boring into her back.

Sha’ira remained undeterred as she pulled the bandage back, studying the healed over gash. Whatever she saw was to her satisfaction it seemed, as she peeled the bandage completely off this time and folded it neatly between her fingers. “I would have preferred you in bed longer, but I understand these are extenuating circumstances. I trust you two will clear up matters quickly.”

“What’s the next step for yourself, Consort?”

She smiled just a bit wider. “Not wise for any of us to have idle hands right now, Ms. Maeda. Come by my tent later?”

“You bet.”

Satisfied with the response, Sha’ira slipped between them, hand briefly brushing one of her shoulders as she left.

Kasumi sighed in relief, happy to know that she could put off that awkward conversation just a bit longer. Then felt those curious eyes on her again. She looked to the justicar, and noted the bemusement sent her way. “What?”

“... How long have you two known each other, exactly?”

“Does it matter?” She kept the defensive edge out of her voice. It wasn’t like Samara to be curious, and while not welcomed, it wasn’t for malicious purposes. God, she hoped not anyway.

“Simply…” Then Samara caught herself and shook her head. “No, that’s true. Let us continue then.”

“I didn’t think you were much for gossip either way.”

If she didn’t know better, she would almost say there was a blush on the justicar’s cheeks. Honestly, she appreciated signs of something beyond the stern warrior bravado she put up. Even if that figure was so morose underneath.

She let Samara lead the way into the gutted structure, following about a half step behind and naturally falling into what habits she knew and felt comfortable in. Interrogations weren’t new to her, though rarely did they involve people that already knew her in some capacity. She usually didn’t have her face out in the open either. And there wasn’t an obligation to keep those people alive afterward-- usually. Sometimes she had if the person was freaked out enough, but that was as rare as innocence in the Terminus Systems.

Ten of them total? Nine, if they disregarded the victim’s widow. No one looked surprised to see her as she crossed the threshold. There were four more salarian guards positioned around the large ruined lobby, ones that didn’t directly look at either her or Samara as they came in. The ramp leading to the roof was installed in the back, and through its make-shift stairway, she noticed another soldier casually squatted on one of the remaining pieces of stone, idly checking the sniper rifle secured in his hands. They had a skeleton crew back at their own camp then. Made sense.

Katul and Sura sat furthest from the entrance, talking quietly amongst themselves. Though the turian looked haggard, he didn’t appear injured, which made his disappearance odder in her eyes. What had he been doing to be gone so long? Sura seemed… better than yesterday. Maybe her words meant something after all, even if it barely covered everything.

Darshan was, predictably, praying by the ramp, robes trailing on the dirt and dust as he paced. She smelled a hint of rosemary in the air. Though it wasn’t typical for the few rituals that Kasumi knew of, perhaps he was making do with what resources were still around. Sal sat on his knees against the left wall, another cigarette planted between his odd litt lips. He waved as soon as he saw her, but for once didn’t seem to be in the mood to follow that up with any remarks or questions. Mostly normal then.

Elcor and Krogan on the other side. Neither of them were up for talking, it looked like, but she wasn’t sure if that was how they actually felt or a natural disposition of the species. Meeran… Maron? The pilot was absent once again. Either speaking with their benefactor or had already been cleared to leave. The volus was sat on a broken piece of concrete, short suited legs dangling over the ledge as he observed the space around them passively. Maybe Nora helped him up it. The drell appeared to be asleep next to the broken piece, using the cool concrete as a backrest as she slept.

No panic. They had been stuck inside here for a while then, but not quite long enough for anyone to start complaining. Likely the structure and how very armed their guards were kept any aggression to a minimum.

Frankly, Kasumi didn’t know enough to really exonerate them, but nothing from the dossiers she read stood out either. Military backgrounds, but so did everyone in some capacity or another at that point. They just got out of war. Near extinction. She was surprised anyone had the energy right now to go on a killing spree.

“I will let you lead,” Samara reiterated as she observed the crowd herself, just as passively. If she had any suspicions, she kept it to herself.

The only thing they could do was just… start. With any luck, Kasumi would get more answers along the way. She scanned the field of faces in front of her and chose the first name that came to mind. “Sura?”

The asari stopped her conversation short and turned her head to them, obvious relief shown in soft eyes. Kasumi only hoped that relief wouldn’t be misinformed.

There were a few theories.

The happiest would be that the murders were coincidental. Sure, that would mean that there were two separate murderers out there that Kasumi no doubt would be involved in, but separately? They wouldn’t be so competent as to make two people from two separate camps to disappear and then murder them. It would just be one-- one which may have been some crime of passion or whatever, and another competent enough to take out an STG member. Two people not working together, weren’t collaborating together and now were more likely to make sloppy mistakes.

Or they weren’t coincidental. Then… why a group anyway? It just seemed natural. A hunch, it would be called on any popular media. Really it was just recognizing the signs from personal experience. Sure, one person could’ve killed the turian Thyra then placed mines all over the place, but that was a pretty short time window from them starting to search for Katul, to finding and killing Thyra, and then placing the traps. Guy would have some pretty decent cardio.

Then the next day killing someone from the STG? Something that would give Kasumi trouble even on home turf? Just having another body somewhere facilitated every single step.

Exactly who and why were harder questions. If it was just STG targeted, she could maybe suspect another government organization, like the Alliance or one of the few surviving spectres in the galaxy. Maybe to protect what few secrets could be found in the remnants of the Crucible. However, it wasn’t just one of their members dead, and whatever secrets could be found weren’t very much and would require a shit load of resources to make. Those few organizations left also, almost certainly, had better things to do with their time than just blanket killing other groups in the area. If there were other ones here, no doubt STG had or were investigating them as well.

The other option was either mercenaries or just a couple of crazies, though they weren’t mutually exclusive categories. People like them tended to be shorter-sighted, and usually, they didn’t need a lot of resources to sell information to the highest bidder. If Liara was still alive, she might have even expressed interest in something like that. It was a thought, briefly in the haze and chaos of everything happening, to keep the plans for herself, sell them when things calmed down, and go about her merry little way. Maybe Shepard had improved her a little.

So mercenaries were her strongest theory, but it hadn’t exactly explained Thyra’s death. Their camp was stationed near derelict reaper carcasses, something that would pique Kasumi’s interest if it hadn’t reminded her of nightmares-- screaming, melting colonists, the screams of banshees ringing in her ears, the metallic taste in her mouth turning everything to ash--. Perhaps others were able to stomach looking into the jungle of wires of old gods. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

(They also weren’t close enough to the old university to be a bother, but maybe, just maybe, there was a scrap here or there near their position to grab someone’s attention. Either way, they’d need everything to know how it worked. Kasumi made sure of that.)

So it really wasn’t interrogation perse. Just… asking questions. Knocking herself out had left her without crucial information. She would go out in the night later, find the graffiti wall and the spot where Thyra died. She wouldn’t leave without more information though, and preferably not without her mods. She did have a spare cloaking unit, tucked between the pages of one of her books. If she was really that desperate--

“Um.”

Ah. Sura first, she guessed. There weren’t many spots left that would be considered private in the vicinity of the camp. Sura’s steps were expectantly careful on the plywood, practiced like a commando should be. They weren’t quiet-- commanding the building to heed to every step. In another time and place, Kasumi would imagine her head hanging just a bit higher, not lost on grieving her lover.

“I’m sorry. I was just getting my thoughts together.” Kasumi provided a bit lamely as they all stood somewhat listlessly in the open expanse of the roof. The sky was clear today, sun a bit harsh on the high point of the roof. Neither Sura or Samara seemed bothered by the heat, even though she couldn’t recall Thessia being particularly tropical-- especially when compared to the likes of the Salarian homeworld. Her stops at both planets were brief affairs.

“I know this is…” Sura half-started, then seemed to think better on her approach. “What did you do again?”

“Consulting.”

The asari looked awkwardly between them, but knew better than to question the answer given.

Kasumi scratched at the healing scar and sighed. “... I don’t think you did it for the record. You both seemed, well, happy with each other. And we talked before.”

Sura sagged at the very thought, and Kasumi was reminded how little she wanted to do this. She hadn’t even wanted the conversation yesterday, and now? Now she was expected to pick apart a story she didn’t have. What a dumb string of events.

And despite it, she mustered what voice she had and continued. “I assume you went with Thyra that day? Did you two get separated later on?”

Sura nodded. “We were just trying to cover more ground. She-- Thyra was never much for trekking. Small for a turian, you know?” She knew that look. Sura was already on that stage of ‘what if’. The very thing she warned her against. “... She promised she’d stay on the main roads. I… I guess she heard something.”

“I’m sorry,” and Kasumi truly meant it. “No one could’ve known this would happen. Just… don’t think on it too much. It just makes it worse.” Like how she could’ve stayed with him. She could’ve called off the plan. All sort of things. It didn’t, wouldn’t bring him back. “... How did she die? I was uh, out of commision before the body was actually found.”

And why did Sura look surprised by that. She didn’t say, but it was enough to get Kasumi’s mind to wander. “... She was shot. Sal suggested a sniper, I think? I’m sorry, I- I don’t really have much more than that. The shot looked clean? I’m not really--”

“It’s fine,” she wasn’t expecting her to memorize every detail. Not everyone had a morbid recollection like that. “Tell the guards you’re free to go.”

“... Thank you.”

Samara hummed behind her, just as she had bid Sura on her way. “... I am surprised,” she noted, though her tone indicated nothing on that actual feeling. “I would expect you to be much harder on your associates.”

“If I thought she had more to say, I would’ve asked. You said it yourself. I’m not heartless.”

“What brought you on the Normandy to start with, if I may ask?”

That was… fair. Kasumi knew her story, even if Samara didn’t know that she knew. Maybe she had. While she wasn’t part of that initial trip into Illium, she had listened in on everything that happened on the Normandy. It kept her safe, and it kept her from being too bored when she was relegated to support. That became less so once Shepard and her had developed their odd sort of friendship, but well, it still didn’t hurt to listen.

Would it benefit Samara at all to know more than she did? … Probably not, but that didn’t mean it was worth sharing the sordid details. If anything, she was glad to hear that Shepard respected her privacy. “Cerberus offered a good deal at the time. I didn’t have a reason to stay once that was done.” Not technically a lie, but Samara could guess that there was more to the story if she really wanted.

“You don’t work for credits.”

“Presumptuous, but you’re right. Again--- does it really matter?”

“If you have personal matters that might affect your reasoning--”

“Noted, Samara. The concern is touching though.”

The small hiss of breath on her end was interesting, but Samara didn’t press further.

---

Sal came up next, though that wasn’t who she asked for. He was smart enough to put out the cigarette in the lobby and left his smile there too. If anything, he just seemed annoyed about the whole situation. Kasumi could understand it on some level; he likely knew some of the people currently holding him there. It probably didn’t feel great to be under their scrutiny for once.

His steps were quick up the roof, not subtle at all and lacking the grace she would expect from someone in his rank. Maybe he had been forced into the Crucible project early, and hadn’t been on the front lines in some time. Either way, he bursted through the door to the roof and was immediately on her, grabbing her arms and lifting her jacket up.

“Hey!” Kasumi called out and tried to push her jacket down through his grabbiness. Sal was undeterred as he snatched one of her wrists, twisting it out of the way.

“I can’t believe you just walked out of that tent without clearance first! You’re my patient first of all and--”

The warp immediately knocked him off his feet. He crashed onto the hard concrete and screeched several feet away, nearly off the roof completely. He looked kind of sad crumpled like that. The only indication that he was alive after the assault was a meek and pained cough.

Samara breezed past Kasumi, the aura of biotics surrounding her frightening and sudden.

“Hold on!” she called after the justicar. The cry was ignored.

Latching onto Sal’s collar, Samara dragged the poor salarian back to the center of the roof. He was only given a moment of reprieve before being dropped back onto the ground once he was at a position that seemed satisfactory to her. “Explain. Now!” she snarled.

Sal groaned, pathetic as he curled into himself.

“... He’s a medic,” Kasumi supplied for him.

And she was fine, for the record. Sal? A quick once over from Kirrahe after, and he was sent on his way. It was little consolation at that point.

Nora came up next. The drell was a strange sticking point for everyone at that point, she assumed. Between the birds, how she often wandered alone-- and as far as she could tell, she had been just as reclusive as Kasumi herself. All things considered, she was the most suspicious person among them, but it was all the more reason she hadn’t considered her at all.

Frankly, it was too obvious an answer. What she remembered from the dossier was that she was like most drell-- she served the hanar until the war, and then went from company to company, doing what she could for the war effort. Her specialization as a sniper was a point against her, but beyond maybe a bit of post-indoctrination crazy (or something), she was about as normal as what she expected from anyone that spent most of their life fighting. Especially for folks like the hanar.

As an aside, she hadn’t heard much from the hanar since the war finished. She wasn’t sure if the insular nature of its society kept it that way, or if perhaps, enkindler proselytizing at the moment would be in… poor taste.

Nora didn’t stand out much as a drell. Her blue skin and spots were something Kasumi had seen in plenty of others, though the way her eyes constantly observed her surroundings, using the drell’s photographic memory to its full advantage, spoke of someone with experience. Compared to the previous two, she stood very nonchalantly and seemed unconcerned by the turn of events.

“It must be nice to have friends in high places,” Nora said, observing the concrete and brokenness below them.

“It’s not as cozy as it looks,” Kasumi responded in kind and sat at the edge of the building, letting her legs dangle over the asphalt. Nora plopped down beside her and it was like any other morning.

“They must like you. No chaperones… well, one chaperone, I guess.” And she blinked and twisted her body around to peer at the justicar, head tilted at an odd angle. “You must have a lot of work to do, Justicar. Lots of bad people left in the galaxy, I would imagine. Though you folks stay in asari space, don’t you? And lots of you died when...”

Whatever look Samara gave Nora shut her up pretty fast. She turned back around, huffing.

“You don’t keep good company.”

Kasumi snorted.

“Am I a suspect?”

She shrugged. “Who did you go with?”

“The batarian. He’s the only one that likes me enough. Except for you, maybe.” She tapped on the concrete space between them, and seemed to wince at the temperature underneath. “Are you familiar with drell physiolo-- no. Of course you are.” Kasumi wasn’t sure why she would think that, but plenty of time with Thane taught her enough. “It’s cold here. And wet. If I did more than I’d need to, I’d kiss my sorry ass goodbye. I’m already going to have to for coming here at all.”

That was an interesting point, actually. “Why are you here?”

“Simple. I don’t want to go back to Kahje. At this point? I’m gonna die somewhere. Might as well be at a place I like. Picking fights with STG and people just trying to live aren’t on my to do list in the meantime.”

“Do you have your rifle with you?” Samara remarked from behind them.

“Nope! Feel free to check. Make it this girl that does it though? She gets me.”

Kasumi paused. “Do you even know my name?”

Nora threw her arms up. “It’s probably fake. Mine is. Who gives that shit for free these days?”

“Izumi Maeda.” Samara practiced the words with careful fluidity, as if testing the strength when spoken out loud. Admittedly, it sounded strange coming from someone that had long known better. Like it was too thick in the justicar’s mouth, too careless and too big. It would spill over any second.

“Did Sha’ira tell you all?”

“Among other requests,” she replied, a bit more thoughtful than before. Maybe she felt bad after nearly cleaving Sal in half. “... She is… unexpectedly shrewd.”

“Surprised me too.”

“Are you close with her?”

Kasumi wasn’t sure what she meant. That they talked? That they were friends? Had she slept with her? That was always the problem with being too tactful. Sometimes that ambiguity hung in the air, and she was left wondering if one answer or another would give away too much. Deflection it was then. “You met her before?”

Samara sighed through her nose, glancing only once or twice to the door. Perhaps to make sure they would stay alone for the moment. She hadn’t heard any footsteps. Krogans especially were loud, no matter how hard they tried to be sneaky. “... Our paths have crossed a few times. It seems it always ends the same.”

“Yeah?”

“It is the nature of politics to fall into a realm of grey, Ms. Goto. I’m sure you’ve seen that enough.”

That she did, but where was she going with it, exactly?

“A word of advice as friends,” and her voice was grave, graver than usual. “I would be careful with her. A knowledge like the consort’s... at so young an age? It is rarely gained through clean hands.”

…

Why couldn’t she just have nice things?

The krogan, it turned out, was named Belak, and was one of many that joined Urdnot after Grunt’s infamous joining. She was surprised to hear it-- considering the age that clearly showed on his scaly skin and the worn scars that gnarled deep into his plate. He looked happy to see her alive, and a little gentle prodding kept him from trying to headbutt her in greeting. She didn’t need a more severe concussion as congratulations on her speedy recovery.

Still, they talked for a while. He had gone with the volus, figuring that he needed someone big to keep the scrawny thing from rupturing his suit somewhere. They had been on the other side of the perimeter when the call came in, not nearly enough time to set up something so elaborate and then book it.

“Wasn’t long after we found Katul, actually. Guy was banged up from a nasty fall,” and he laughed, a deep bravado and gruffness that was so, so krogan. “They’re just all bones and so, so tiny. Surprised he didn’t break his back.”

“It was the other turian that died, remember?” Kasumi remarked, but couldn’t help feeling a bit nostalgic honestly. She wondered how Grunt was doing with all this mess. No doubt he was back at Urdnot helping to clean up. Though she didn’t really know what a normal Tuchanka was supposed to look like.

“Yeah, I guess that’s sad, or whatever. At least you got hit doing something nice.” He perked up then, as if remembering something. “Hey, is Sal going to be alright? Squishy bastard owes me a few hundred credits.”

A lack of empathy didn’t mean a guilty conscience, so after checking in with the volus, both were let go to continue their business.

“Should we get the elcor next?” Samara asked as the volus left, bumbling down the stairs with a heavy sigh.

Kasumi looked at the width of the planks and shook her head. “He won’t make it up. We’ll talk to him once everyone else is done.”

“That leaves… the batarian and the turian, correct?”

Neither of which Kasumi really wanted to talk to. However, no one would let her procrastinate further. She would keep her words as neutral as possible and hoped the threat she left the priest with yesterday was enough to keep his mouth shut. The last thing she wanted was Samara to know.

To push off that particular issue a bit longer, she chose Katul first. It would be good to start with something simple maybe. A cursory check of his injuries? Maybe a lighthearted joke about him being her errand boy? Neither of them seemed appropriate. Perhaps a simple ‘how’s he feeling’ would do to ease an already skittish man into talking.

His steps were heavier and slower than usual. A surprise with how haunted he was ordinarily.

He came to the roof, and Kasumi’s voice died in her throat.

Something was wrong. She hadn’t noticed in the crowd before, but now that it was just three of them, she had much fewer distractions. The shiftlessness, the way his eyes seemed to drag as he flitted his gaze from her, to Samara, to the expanse beyond them, to the sky above. He… he was ghastly. And the pain inside was so open for the world to see, so much more raw and visceral than before.

She saw a man a moment away from wailing, and she felt that brewing inside her, always ready to claw itself to the surface. It just needed the right trigger-- a smell, a tugging thought, sometimes just a certain shadow that would creep in at night, tricking her just long enough to think it was Keiji in her sleep-addled mind.

She stared and dug right into Katul’s soul, and found something even worse inside.

Samara’s touch on her arm startled her, and at once she was back in reality. She wasn’t alone, and too quickly she would have to put herself back together. Kasumi brushed the touch away with as kind a hand as she could muster and found her voice again. “... What happened?”

“Sura hadn’t told you?” his voice was even, but he stayed rooted just past the door that he came from. “Thyra is-- was my daughter.”

No.

No, she wasn’t doing this.

It didn’t matter that he was gone for too long. That his movement and time was the most unaccounted for. It didn’t matter. The STG could work that out for all she cared.

“Leave,” couldn’t come out quick enough.

“Ms. Goto?”

She didn’t know she was staring.

“Would a break help you?”

How come it didn’t bother Samara? Maybe she wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Maybe it shouldn’t take a new piece of her every time, leaving her with holes and broken parts that no amount of wiring and tinkering could fix. She wanted to stop remembering, but it-- it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t fair to her. The emotions, the passion, the love and inspiration that carried her forward.

Samara had lost more. Lost worse. It was one thing to lose a lover. It was another to lose a child. To lose children. Her daughters. And she did it by her hand. Her hand with the same biotics and skill that terrified her. Who was Morinth? How could she put so much inside herself that she was okay again? Kasumi wanted it. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t--

She felt cool fingers curled against her temples, and suddenly she found two passive eyes looking back, except they were warm, motherly. She saw a gentleness there, of a person buried underneath. Someone that saw her daughters before her, trembling and vulnerable.

Sympathy. Understanding. “... I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Kasumi closed her eyes and breathed.

She didn’t ask for Darshan, but he found them just the same. Kasumi had slumped against the wall next to the door at that point, already more exhausted than she had ever been. Samara was messing with her omni-tool not far, back to the cool demeanor she was used to. The silence had been comfortable, but it didn’t take much to pick up Darshan’s heavy gait, weighed down by the robes he had on him.

“Company,” she called out to Samara, who quickly shut the omni-tool down and turned to greet their visitor. By the time Kasumi stood, the door had creaked open.

There he stood, and already she felt herself stiffen.

“You weren’t requested,” Samara greeted coolly. “I understand this is a process, but you must exercise patience, priest.”

She rubbed her temples. “It’s fine. We’ll get this done quick.”

Samara looked ready to disagree, but the priest interjected quickly, sweeping into the roof. “I appreciate your accommodation, Ms. Maeda. I… I must confess something.”

Not this again. Kasumi rolled her eyes and crept closer to the man, ready to throw him off the building if even a single word came out about her time in slavery. She was not going to be this man’s redemption arc, no matter how badly he wanted it. “If this is about what we--”

“There is another group here.”

What?

Samara seemed less than impressed. “We’re aware of several actually.” What?! “But please elaborate, priest.”

“... I had tried telling you yesterday,” he was not going to blame her for this. Fuck that. “It’s a band of batarians. I’m not sure where they are exactly, but one of their members reached out when we first landed.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” She tried to keep the irritation down. Certainly, certainly he had his reasons. They could be refugees. Could be another dead end. It’s not like slavers had the resources or the market to start culling again.

“I…” Darshan glanced to Samara, and thought better on his initial response. Fortunately. “... I am aware of our reputation right now. I assumed they were just trying to survive. It didn’t make sense to incite panic at the time.”

“But if they have been here for some time…” Samara found her mark.

“Please. They might have their reasons. We didn’t all just die when the reapers came, and if there are some life left--”

“It’s okay,” she found herself saying, even if she wasn’t sure she really meant it. It would do better than to panic the priest further anyway. “Did they say where they were when you talked with them? How did they make contact before I had the tower up?”

“I ran into a scout while we were setting up camp. He… he didn’t mention where the rest were.”

That was a lie, but that was fine. If his story checked out, they were likely between the two camps. Still a lot of ground to cover, but if they had a settlement, there would be signs before she saw it. Pathways, landmarks for strays. She had a lot of work to do this evening. After all of this, she wasn’t sure how much sleep she would be getting anyway. Though they had a sizable unit at the camp, Kasumi knew enough about STG habits to sneak out. A quick chat with Sha’ira, a stop by her tent, and she would be out as soon as the sun set.

But what to do with him? It would be easier to let STG do what they liked, took out a potential liability before he had the chance to spill further information and awkward conversations. He didn’t really deserve it though. Despite hiding this for as long as he did, he had… reasons. Understandable reasons. He didn’t know she recognized her own biases. As far as he knew, she was just an angry woman that wanted nothing to do with him.

But even beyond that, she doubted the STG would let him roam freely around the camp. She looked to Samara, who remained carefully stoic. “... I’m sure the major will have his own ideas, but don’t kill him?”

She nodded. “They will be upset if you leave.”

Kasumi offered a smile in apology. “I’ll bring good news back. Promise~.”

---

The elcor was still waiting patiently by the time she bounded down the last few steps. Oh. She forgot about him.

He craned his neck and looked at her. Sometimes, if she looked hard enough, Kasumi would say that the elcor were a species that was constantly smiling. Still, he had clearly behaved, and she had enough information to go about her business. It’s not like an elcor could hold a sniper rifle. … Or could they?

“You’re free to go,” she still offered.

“With relief: I am happy to hear that this matter will be resolved shortly. Exasperated: I have much to do, then. Please, excuse me…” and off he went, lumbering and squeezing through the entrance of the gutted building with some effort.

She would have to brush up on her elcor biology later.

---

The QEC felt good in her hands. It was modded of course, like most any piece of tech Kasumi carried around with her. Multiple encryption channels, decryption keys for whenever she was ever curious, voice modulator and screen distortion if she ever felt like being super spooky. Amazing how many people still fell for simple tricks like that.

“I’m glad I could keep it safe for you.” Sha’ira’s eyes wrinkled when she smiled. The one just wide enough to show perfect teeth. It was nice to see such warmth easily given after spending all day with a justicar.

“I hope you didn’t just guard it all day. You certainly had better things to do.”

“Something more difficult, I’m afraid.” Sha’ira brushed her shoulders, dusting off what soot and dust that may have collected clamoring up and down the building all day. “Did we find anything?”

She grinned. “A crumb trail. Don’t wait up for me.”

Sha’ira’s smile waned, eyes deadly serious. “... Alone?”

What other choice was there? Samara was good at what she did, but what she did wasn’t subtle. Major Kirrahe would be doing his own investigation, and following up with whatever parties were out there. If she asked, sure, she could probably get a guard or two to keep her company, but that was if he let her out of the confines of the camp in the first place. “Sneaking around is kind of what I do. I’ll be fine.”

“What about you friend?” Her brow furrowed. “... Do the others know about them?”

Khalisah? The idea of seeing her in a catsuit was hilarious honestly, but she had a better use for that camera this evening. Maybe a bit of bargaining and she could be a security camera. Make sure no one was looking for her back at camp. Though she wouldn’t really expect someone so… normal to make a habit of staying up all night. “I’m sure she’d like to keep the others from finding out. Do you mind?”

“If you trust her, then I shall as well. Hopefully she’s able to defend herself.”

Oh, most definitely not. The reporter seemed smart enough to have a security system in place at her campsite though. She wouldn’t be taken out easily.

Still, Sha’ira didn’t look pleased. Her eyes flickered to the rest of the campsite, careful-- always careful of who was watching or listening. “... If I can’t dissuade you, at least stay long enough for me to apologize.”

There they were again. How often they danced like this? Sha’ira was an adept one, Kasumi admitted. She tangled herself in her words and slipped through where each opening laid. She didn’t think the consort meant an actual apology, but more an olive branch, ensuring the conversation continued in a way that Kasumi wouldn’t shrink away again. It was being offered with an open hand again.

To Sha’ira, was she a ghoul looking back? An empty face, staring unblinking into her well of grief, just as Katul had before her?

“... You don’t need to,” Kasumi chanced, awkwardly given between half-starts and half-finished thoughts she didn’t want to voice. “... I… I would like to continue that talk, actually. Maybe when I get back?”

The relief that washed over Sha’ira made the concession alone worth it. “I believe it would be good for us both.” She found her left hand, threading it between her own and squeezing gently. “... It won’t be without its rewards, Kasumi. I promise you that.”

She still wasn’t sure. But maybe she would find something in it, or make something new out of the little bits of herself she had left. If she could be better, was it wrong to reach for it? Samara had. Katul would, in time. She saw the earnestness in the way Sha’ira looked on her, so open. The only thing she could think to do was tuck herself further away. “... I like chamomile?”

“Done. Oh!” The smile was back as she stepped away, back toward the entrance of her tent. “... I left a surprise for you at your tent. Though you feel it unnecessary, I think you’ll find it apology enough for the trouble.”

As if talking about her problems was a burden to anyone but the listener. “All day for me? You spoil me, Consort.”

And there was pride in the way she smirked. A look that wasn’t so unfamiliar on herself. “I do my best.”

Please don’t ask for anything else.

- Kirrahe

She stared at the assortment of mods, having been packaged neatly in its own dark bag-- secured safely inside her tent and out of sight. She began sorting through the collection, knowing the order with automatic, fluid grace and motion. Though she rarely disassembled her omni-tool completely, it never hurt to know how each one connected to one another.

Her hand brushed against another datapad, buried deep within the bag.

Be safe.

- Sha’ira

…

Of course. Of course she knew Kasumi would. Maybe the woman was dangerous.

It made the whole game more exciting that way.

#kiwi crossposts #mass effect #fanfiction #multichapter fics #kasumi goto

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lvnarearchives · 4 years

Text

under the cut, you’ll find my best attempt at some character development headcanons. my brain hates the fact that i did this one before the set of questions with basic biographical info, but it be like that and now i have to live with it.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟏. › asher nathanael larsen.

► medical issues ➔ a progressively bad rotator cuff injury before they came into their powers and healed from it. still has phantom pain sometimes. also, withdrawal symptoms every few months when they try to go straight and narrow. ► knows far too much about ➔ naloxone. what it does, how to administer it in either form, how long it lasts, where to steal it from in a pinch. he knows he’s making terrible decisions; might as well learn how to save someone else’s life. can clock a fake id in under a minute. ► fears death via ➔ drowning. he waves it off as having fallen into a river once, but it’s more along the lines of ‘held underwater as part of a forced exorcism’... ► chances of being “evil” ➔ if you ask their parents and oldest brother, they already are (or at least, possessed by something that is). realistically though, they’re too soft. the only thing ash has ever harmed in absence of self-defense is themself.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟐. › chloe doran.

► medical issues ➔ none. she’s scarily healthy, not a blemish on her. she’s gotten one cold in the time rj’s known her; doctors have floated between ‘impressed’ and ‘concerned’. ► knows far too much about ➔ supernatural creatures. it goes like this: if there’s something she doesn’t know about, she immediately researches it (whether or not that information is reliable, well...that’s what cross-referencing is for). in present company, it’s currently the history of witches and extensive folklore on fairies. ► fears death via ➔ has not had enough life experience to realize the lasting impact of death, or to have had it affect her personally. ( plus, she does live with a necromancer. ) it’s mostly something that happens and upsets the people around her, which then makes her sad. she does have a lot of projected worry about being hunted down by someone rj’s wronged in the past, but isn’t constantly thinking about it. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ ...yikes. chloe, on her own, could not even conceive of why someone would hurt anyone else —— however, she is extremely gullible, rejects the concept of deception, and can very easily be persuaded to do anything that isn’t outright suicidal. so chances of her being manipulated into being evil? disconcertingly high. and there’s the whole ‘harboring the soul of a witch hellbent on human sacrifice’ thing.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟑. › emilia [surname pending].

► medical issues ➔ a traumatic brain injury, and before erica bit her, epilepsy. she’ll suffer from wolfsbane poisoning every full moon, but that’s neither here nor there. ► knows far too much about ➔ fish! most small pets, really. her grandma has a koi pond, but seeing as she can’t exactly install a pond everywhere she goes and especially not on a college campus, emi’s taken to more common freshwater fish. she has a small tank of four fancy goldfish. admittedly, her commitment to a single interest leaves a lot to be desired, so erica’s probably right in denying her the bunny...and the gecko...and the turtle. ► fears death via ➔ doesn’t, really? she’s an eternal optimist, and honestly, her concern is usually on the wrong part of the punchline whenever something bad happens. her reaction to the bite was more of a ‘crossing genetics could lead to bad things and that’s uncharted territory’ than ‘i might die’. going along with the optimism, despite all evidence to the contrary, emi...did very much think she would end up with a kitsune’s lifespan. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ hahahahaha. none. absolutely none.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟒. › laura diana hale.

► medical issues ➔ none. ► knows far too much about ➔ kind of the opposite? she’s been dead for eight years. everything’s changed. ► fears death via ➔ betrayal by someone she trusts, even moreso by anyone she loves. she’d never considered it as an option before, but, well. also, fire. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ relatively slim to none, but boy does she have a vengeful streak. as the (now) essential matriarch of the hales, she’d do nearly anything to protect what’s left of them and only somewhat suffer from the weight of her actions.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟓. › megan mi-young choi.

► medical issues ➔ low bone density as a consequence of anorexia. deprivation amblyopia, a stutter that grows more pronounced when stressed, and lactose intolerance. yeah...she’s kind of a mess. ► knows far too much about ➔ greek and latin history, in accordance with her major. along with that, landmarks and artifacts of either of the two cultures. also, she’s ridiculously good at identifying sounds——plus the general build and direction of the thing that made them. ► fears death via ➔ nothing. and that’s not ‘nothing’ as in ‘she has no fear of death’, it means that dissociation and lost time are so commonplace for her that she’s terrified of going about her business and one day a simple conversation will just be...the last thing she ever remembers. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ enough that this qualifies as a valid question, and that’s the frightening part. she doesn’t know what happens when she goes into fugue, but there’s been one too many instances of blood in her sink or tub for her to sleep soundly.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟔. › nicolas gabriel vicente hernandez.

► medical issues ➔ astigmatism. ► knows far too much about ➔ murder cases. between his thing for true crime and his abuelita’s reluctance to change a channel more than once, he’s seen many episodes of many i.d. (the tv channel) shows multiple times. ► fears death via ➔ nico is very much an ‘if i die, i die’ type of person and doesn’t even regret it much, outside of inevitably upsetting his family. ( secretly... death by cop. not even remotely by the sheriff or the bcpd, but he tends to politely turn down opportunities to cover larger protests or events in more metropolitan cities because of this. ) ► chances of being “evil” ➔ none. he’s a menace to society, and a little bit of a fuckboy, but honestly? he was raised better than to do anything that could even be classified as mean. it’s always justified violence, and even then the worst he’s ever done is like...break a window or throw a punch.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟕. › reagan avery rj sinclair.

► medical issues ➔ none. ► knows far too much about ➔ every one of her clients’ business, courtesy of blood magic. but all that aside, knows more about family law than she ever wanted to. ► fears death via ➔ why fear death when you wield death? i’d say the thought that most disturbs her is dying due to her own stupidity. not being cautious enough, or anonymous enough, or placing a sliver of trust in the wrong person. once upon a time she worried about starving to death, or being homeless and succumbing to the elements, but now she has a borderline obnoxious amount of money, which is truly the root of all security. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ some might say she already is. it’s entirely possible that she’s killed or cursed people whose only crimes were making the wrong enemies, but those enemies bankrolled her, so. with survival and self-interest as a priority, very likely.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟖. › sydney nayel asmara.

► medical issues ➔ aside from the ocd and hypochondria, syd had vitamin d and iron deficiencies before she got put on supplements. ► knows far too much about ➔ anything, if she tries hard enough— parasites / uncommon diseases. she has a whole lot of time to kill and end up watching a lot of monsters inside me and mystery diagnosis, to her own horror. but also, point her to a lock and she can probably pick it. ► fears death via ➔ everything, particularly since she’s had the misfortune of seeing her own (possible) death a few times. the one where she breaks multiple bones and slowly dies from the pain / internal bleeding is probably her least favorite. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ even split, as it’s a matter of perspective. she sees what serves as a threat to her or the people she knows, but it’s never specified what side she has to be on. she was in fact (technically) an agent of the harvest, so.

𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟗. › tessa monroe hewitt hale.

► medical issues ➔ partial paralysis of her left leg due to third-degree burns. it’s been sixteen years, so the scars are as healed as they’re going to get. she doesn’t feel pain; in fact, it’s the opposite, and the crutch helps her manage the dead weight. ► knows far too much about ➔ music history. she has a handful of favorite classical composers that make up the majority of her daily playlist. ► fears death via ➔ fire. self-explanatory. ► chances of being “evil” ➔ with her extreme and ongoing guilt complex, impossible. even if certain people are comfortable with her thinking she is.

————end.

#i. type. › musings.#iv. musings. › a. larsen.#iv. musings. › c. doran.#iv. musings. › l. hale.#iv. musings. › m. choi.#iv. musings. › n. hernandez.#iv. musings. › r. sinclair.#iv. musings. › s. asmara.#iv. musings. › t. hewitt.

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marginalgloss · 5 years

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the penknife through the boards

‘...days, even weeks later, he was sitting on the grey pebbles of an island, one of the innumerable cold grey Chonos islands, sullenly training his glass not on any wildly exotic migrant but the commonplace resident blackish (but white-footed) oyster-catcher wading about in search of its living. Farther along there was another, a lacklustre female; and neither betrayed the slightest interest in the other: clearly this was not their breeding season, whatever the snipe might think...He fixed it with his telescope, and there indeed was Jacob looking at him through another and making signs – untimely mirth? Whatever the signs were they were very soon lost as the brig rounded yet another great sea-worn cliff in the direction of Surprise, and Stephen’s attention was at once seized by a very noble sight – two black-necked swans flying steadily south, quite low over the water, so low that he could hear the rhythmic beating of their wings. ‘I cannot just sit here, watching pale-footed oyster-catchers,’ said Maturin aloud. ‘But what other course is open to me?’’

Blue at the Mizzen is the last book that Patrick O’Brian finished before he died in 2000, aged 85. There would be another unfinished novel published posthumously but, having worked my way slowly through this series, I don’t feel I need to read it. By all accounts it ends mid-sentence; I doubt it would contribute much in the way of what is fashionably called closure. As it stands this final book ends on a pleasingly optimistic chord. But there is nothing final about it, no sense of an ending close at hand. The writer Jo Walton has written an excellent series of short blogs on this series, and in her assessment of this one she mentions how it seems like O’Brian would have gone on writing this series as long as he drew breath. It’s hard to disagree.

With Napoleon out of the picture, the plot here is effectively a fictionalised re-telling of another episode from the life of Lord Cochrane, namely his role in the fight for independence of Peru, and the creation of the Peruvian navy. Earlier novels have mentioned this for some time, and the politics of it are quite complicated, but for the reader it is largely an excuse for an epic transatlantic sea voyage from Britain all the way to the Pacific. By this stage O’Brian’s descriptive writing is not what it was, nor is his pacing, but it’s solid, compelling stuff. The gentle wash of his long sentences, with their curious pedantry, nested sub-clauses and old-fashioned elegance, is never less than charming.

Even at this late stage, the author is setting up characters to play a greater role in future instalments (though of course there would be none). Christine Wood returns to Maturin’s attention and affection, and there is Horatio Hanson, the son of a Duke who is reluctantly accepted by Aubrey as a midshipman. Hanson redeems himself on a number of occasions, almost to the degree of being set up by the author as a sort of apprentice to Aubrey. There’s even some nice scenes back in England with Sarah and Emily where it seems inevitable that we must return to them at some stage to witness another stage in their lives. Here, more so than in the preceding novels, O’Brian really seems to be taking an interest in the younger members of his cast of characters.

It ends with something of a bang. There’s a big battle, and Aubrey is quite badly wounded in the melee. In fact he comes out of it far worse than in any recent confrontation. But once word of his exploits reaches home, his dream is granted, or at least he achieves that measure of security which he has long craved: he is made a proper admiral. Thus, I imagine, he sails home a hero. (That is assuming Jack survives his wounds. In another version of this story that happens only in my mind, he dies on the long journey home. But I can’t imagine O’Brian ever countenancing such a thing.)

Maturin has done all right, too; Christine Wood might have refused his initial proposal of marriage, but she does so in such a way that seems to leave it an open question. I imagine a future in which they live together in a sort of celibate, platonic ideal of more-than-friendship, residing perhaps in a quiet wing of the greater Aubrey household. There is a very striking sequence in which Maturin believes he sees a vision of Christine, while riding alone in South America:

‘On the next stretch they passed through an invisible barrier into a thinner, cooler air, and there were his – not illusions: perceptions might be the better word – of Christine again, clearer and sharper now, particularly as she moved across a dark wall of rock. A tall, straight, lithe figure, walking easily and well: he remembered with the utmost clarity how, when she was reading or playing music or training her glass on a bird, or merely reflecting, she would be entirely apart, remote, self-contained; and then how she would be wholly with him when he moved or spoke. Two strikingly different beings; and the delight in her company, as he delighted even in the memory of it, seemed to him essential happiness, fulfilment. Of course he was a man, quite markedly so, and he would have liked to know her physically: but that was secondary, a very remote stirring compared with gazing at this phantasm – this now remarkably clear and sharply-defined phantasm against the rock-face.’

This passage also serves as a fine summary of the relationship between Jack and Stephen. Two strikingly different beings delighting in one another’s company – each entirely apart, alone, yet coming together in movement and speech. This is about as intimate as people can ever get in O’Brian’s world.

***

I’ve now written something about all of these novels. (Unfortunately tumblr does not provide me with a convenient way to list them, but you can find all the pieces by clicking on this tag.) Summarising them turns out to be easy, in a way, because they are so continuous that after a while one blends into the next. They are so very much part of a greater whole that in a very real sense they might as well be part of a single endless manuscript. The final part of it might have been lost but that detracts little from what remains.

These novels are timeless in the sense that when you read them you forget the order in which they were written. There are machinations of plot, but these are mostly incidental. Nothing is allowed to disturb the beautiful essential routine of naval life in the early nineteenth century. Bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast, and coffee. The practice of gunnery in the afternoons, at captain’s expense. Port after dinner and toasted cheese in a silver dish, followed by a duet between cello and violin. There is something comforting about all this. The books are formed around a conservative vision of life which seems alien to life in the twenty-first century. It might even have seemed alien to most people in the nineteenth century. You could say with confidence that these books belong to no time at all.

It is the opposite to when we call something ‘dated’. When we say something is dated, we mean we notice the cultural residue of the time it was made in the details of its production. Almost all films and popular music are dated because they are reliant on era-specific technology as a means of reproduction. Most novels are also dated, for different reasons. O’Brian’s books are not dated. The first book was published in 1969, and the last book was published in 1999, and you would never know this from reading them. There’s no crack in the text against which we can press ourselves to glimpse the twentieth century drifting by.

Perhaps there’s a pedantic argument that says this cannot be the case. Perhaps we can find literary techniques at work in these books that would have been totally alien to a reader in the Napoleonic era. This may well be true. But what I mean to say is that these books do better than most in allowing the author to entirely disappear within them. Better to say, in fact, that the books themselves — all twenty-odd of them — speak with a singular voice best ascribed to the books, and not the author. It is as though they wrote themselves until one day they stopped.

But of course they didn’t really write themselves. In the last few years of his life certain facts about O’Brian came to light that were, at best, embarrassing; at worst, a minor scandal. We learned that he left (or abandoned) his first wife and child while the latter suffered from a disorder of the spine. He may have lied about being an intelligence agent and he may have lied about his sailing experience, or at least his did nothing to correct those misapprehensions amongst his fans. His name was not even O’Brian; his Irish ancestry was, apparently, a convenient fiction. Little of this is awful enough to be placed beyond the category of ordinary human failings, though much of it seems strange, or even cruel. But once known it is difficult to forget about. And if Master and Commander was published tomorrow it seems inconceivable that the same author could escape similar scrutiny for so long.

Today we expect artists to be good people. We need them to be exemplars of quality. We need to admire them. Our expectations for them are higher than they are for politicians or other public figures. It used to be the other way around: the politician would be crucified in the press for cheating on his wife, while artists could sleep with whomever and ingest whatever in the name of expanding the boundaries of the possible. Now, we already expect the worst of politicians. We expect them to lie, to cheat, and even to misbehave in their personal lives, perhaps because we have grown accustomed to accepting the line between personal and professional conduct. But the artist must be always at work. And we want them to be everything we can’t be: happy, secure, modest, successful. With moments of excitement, perhaps, but for the most part we want them to be dependable, capable, calm. We want them to be honest.

All of this is what is so appealing in O’Brian’s novels. Theirs is a vision of a world at work which is also, somehow, a work at rest. It is a very old English vision: the peasant in his field, the craftsman in his shop, the soldier at the gates, and the lord in his tower. All capable, calm, and happy in their understanding of what the world requires of them and how they must relate to it. The ideal mood is of things ticking over under the oversight of a supremely competent leader. An authoritarian? Well, perhaps. Democracy is certainly out of it; revolutionaries and radicals of all kinds are never to be trusted in these books. How much better to be ruled by a benevolent king of some sort. Rule by consent, of course, but it must be a rigid, unspoken sort of consent.

There is something wonderfully comforting about all of this. To give yourself over to someone else — to put all your trust in your own well-being in the judgement of that person — this is what these characters do for one another. The ship is only the symbol of all that: the thing which endures through ingenuity, in spite of everything, even though it is so desperately fragile. There’s a line somewhere in those books where Maturin remarks that he feels safe within the thick timbers of the HMS Surprise, and a seaman laughs, and says that there are parts of the Surprise so thin you could push a penknife through the boards and find the ocean. It is a haunting image, but a resonant one. The boards are always so thin.

#books #patrick o'brian #blue at the mizzen

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kazlifeadventures · 5 years

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Chernobyl!!

23 May

Those of us who signed up for the full day trip to inside Chernobyl’s exclusion zone were up early in our long pants,sleeves,with enclosed shoes with our passports ready for the security checks to go into the zone. We signed our lives away on a safety waiver, and check in sheets that go to the highly controlled checkpoints located at the different zone crossings. Visits to the area are highly controlled with only a few tour companies given permission to enter, they are required to wear a tracker at all times so they are monitored to ensure they are not going into areas where they are not permitted. We were all required to wear dosimeters so that our radiation exposure could be checked at the end of the day. Our guide, Alexi, gave us some amazing insights he has learned from years of research, insights into not only the events that lead up to what occurred in the early hours of 26th April 1986, but also the time line of sorts of what was done afterwards. A lot of the ‘truths’ surrounding the reactor explosion were lost when witnesses died, or were buried by the propaganda and coverups of the Soviets at the time. Don’t forget it took for America to call them out with the incontrovertible satellite photos of the blast for the Soviets to admit anything had happened, let alone take steps to contain the ongoing radiation leakage and further risks of explosions. When it comes to information surrounding Chernobyl it’s difficult to find a complete story, let alone be able to fact check anything. Alexi gave us the name of a you tube documentary that he advised shows the true side of what happened in reactor 4 on 26 April 1986. The " Battle of Chernobyl" if you want to look it up!

First up was a stop in Zalesye, an abandoned village within the exclusion zone. It was surreal, to step off the bus, knowing that we were walking down a main street, but seeing nothing but vegetation. Then through avenues in the trees we came across the remains of the houses, we then entered into the old town hall building with its rotting floors, and decaying walls. There were still old signs on the walls. I managed to get myself what I like to call a ‘shin - obyl’ bruise on my way in, as only I can - stacked it climbing up onto the entry. Luckily one of my bus mates helped me up as we were told not to touch walls, or ground...or anything really ... so that would be why we had to wear long pants (for when idiots like me fall over!)

The next stop was the reason the power stations were built, the Duga radar. Holy huge metal antenna array... when you know that the huge, costly, power hungry radar actually wasn’t that good at its job makes the events of the reactor explosion seem even more of an avoidable incident. Incredibly, you would have no idea that it was there until you walk into the forest of vegetation, then it’s an ‘oh my’ moment at it’s sheer size and the wonder of the precision of the components. It is slowly rusting, and someone died climbing it a few years ago, so we were not allowed to climb it.

We then headed to Chernobyl and the Reactor canteen for lunch. Yes, complete canteen lunch on a tray... Soup, mains, desert, replete with unsmiling Ukrainian canteen ladies serving it to us. With the extra bread we’d grabbed at lunch we then fed fish from the railway bridge near the reactors. Then it was up close to reactor 4 and the monument for it. I couldn’t believe we were able to get to within about 200m of it. Although there are strict rules on photos in this area - can only shoot in one direction, and there are guards and cameras everywhere.

Chernobyl town was the administrative centre for the district and until its evacuation on the 30th April 1986, housed about 14000 people It was not as close to the site as our next stop.

Alexi gave us an interesting parallel: apparently ‘Chernobyl’ means wormwood in Russian. In Chernobyl town, 164 died as part of the first responders to the explosion, and there is a memorial that has been erected in the central square depicting an Angel blowing a trumpet. The 8th book of revelations talks of a cataclysmic event : “And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.” Revelation 8:10-11. Draw from that whatever conclusions you will, interesting nonetheless...

Pripyat was designed to be new age city of sorts, with its amusement park, cafes, art installations, hotels, apartments it was coming into itself with 50000 residents, housing workers at the power plant. It was finally evacuated in the afternoon of the 27th April 1986, with residents being told they would be gone for a couple of days and to just grab a few things and leave their pets. They were never allowed to return. We climbed through the maternity hospital, where the abortions were performed, with some of its records and equipment still intact. We were warned not to touch anything that still remained as it would still be highly radioactive. Trekking through the vegetation we came across what once was a beautiful cafe on the banks of the river that was due to open on the day the city was evacuated. The stained glass art that had adorned its window depicting the four seasons, some still intact, the rest of it lying shattered on the ground. From there we headed to the sports stadium, through what we later realised was the soccer field (no sign that it was there!) To me it was incredible to see sparks of beauty still there, the glass work in the cafe, the tile art adorning the external sides of two of the buildings we saw. We ventured into the pool area of the sports complex, it’s dive platform still intact, tiles, ladders, everything still there, just decaying, old, or vandalised by some who have snuck into the area over the years. It was then time for the iconic amusement park. Again something that was only just opening when the incident occurred. It stands as a rusting memory of time gone by, bumper cars, Ferris wheel, all the fun of the fair, with that eerie overtone of nothingness or is it hopelessness, I’m not sure.

We then took off to see the last Lenin statue in Ukraine, all others have been removed. It is still located outside of the Communist party building where the ‘fake’ trial took place of a power plant director and 2 engineers, where they were found guilty of negligence and the the blame placed on them for the incident. Nothing of course said about the safety measures that were supposed to have been installed in the reactor, or the fact that they failed, or they fact that the staff were following orders as required under Soviet rule. The Chernobyl town is home to what are known as the ‘self settlers’. Previous residents who have returned of their own volition to continue living in their property.

Our last stop was in the Red forest area, northern part of the exclusion zone. It apparently received the worst of the radiation. We entered the kindergarten where to my dismay we learned that kids continued to be sent to for at least a week after the reactor explosion. Testing after the incident proved that everything including the toys they had played with were riddled with extremely high levels of radioactivity. It was poignant and incredibly sad to see the remains of the toys, the cribs/beds knowing that these children had been exposed to such toxic levels of radiation due to the inaction of the Soviet authorities.

On our way out of the zone we stopped briefly at ‘The men who saved the world’. An un-offical memorial to the first attendees, doctors, firefighters etc, who all died in hospital number six in Russia and were then buried in lead coffins somewhere in Russia. Their families were not allowed to even see them or be at the burial.

On our way out of two checkpoints we had to submit to a full body radiation scan at each in order to check for any contamination. Luckily none of us had to be decontaminated (ie hosed down!). We were then given strict instruction to shower thoroughly and ensure our clothes were either washed or kept in an area safely before we washed them... On a side note the radiation we experienced for the day was somewhere around a 5 or 6 hour transatlantic flight so I pretty much got more radiation flying over to Europe than I did wandering around all day - good to know though!

It was an amazing day. A long one, we're all tired. But wow. How lucky am I that I got to do this. Mother nature has given the human race and it's nuclear power a big fuck you. And I love it! It's surreal to walk down what was once a street realising that on both sides of you hidden by nature's growth stands the time capsule of the crumbling remnants of the buildings of whole towns. Nature has rebounded here in spades, the birds chirping constantly, the land brimming with growth, the fish teeming - and no, none of them have 2 heads or mutations anymore. Apparently nature very quickly removes such mutations when they serve no purpose. The amusement park, a ghost town of rusting steel and decaying wood. The beautiful art works of tile and glass slowly deteriorating. It's eerie, and incredibly fascinating. My emotions are everywhere. Our guide is so passionate about what happened here and what the Soviets did to cover up their mistakes and the impact this had on the people who are still affected to this day, with no accurate records of how many have died from exposure in the years since the explosion. I was astounded how close we were able to get to reactor four. Incredibly saddened at how little care was taken of the people here. This Chernobyl adventure will stay with me forever, and has left an indelible mark on my psyche. If you don’t know much about this story, read more, find as much of the truth as you can, and most important of all - never forget.

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krixwell-liveblogs · 6 years

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Check out this post. Wildbow talks about his life on reddit. This explains so much about Taylor’s school experience. No Worm spoilers

This sounds interesting. I’ve frequently wondered about how Wildbow’s life shaped this story.

Let’s take a look.

Redditors who have opted out of a standard approach to life (study then full time work, mortgage etc), please share your stories. What are the best and worst things about your lifestyle, and do you have any regrets?

Well, the title is already intriguing.

Hermit writer here.

Born hard of hearing, went to a regular school. Struggled in middle school. Struggled in high school. Kids who were in my class in kindergarten were in my classes all the way through to grade ten, with the elementary/middle school and high school being a stone's throw from one another.

I kind of knew about the hard of hearing bit already. I can’t find the ask that told me about it, though (it was probably before I stopped using screenshots for asks).

So far this sounds relatively normal, except for that part. But I’m guessing he’s going to elaborate a bit on the struggles surrounding his school life and hearing problems?

In grade 10, after years of bullying and a peer group that had established who was 'in' and who was 'out' when I was knee-high, tired of struggling, I was walking down the halls and I found myself wondering when the last time I'd even opened my mouth in school was.

Oh wow.

I stopped dead in my tracks, just paralyzed by loneliness. I asked myself what the point was, couldn't come up with an answer, resumed walking, went out the side door of the school and went home.

This clearly parallels a few of the last times we saw Taylor at Winslow High.

The start of me just not going to school for that entire year. Nobody noticed.

Damn. He really did write all that from experience. It took a while for Taylor’s absence to get noted, too.

Taylor’s absence getting noted at all actually seems like a fantasy compared to this.

I got caught at the end of the year, did the same thing the next year, got caught only at the end.

What the hell sort of attendance routines did this school have? Clearly not good ones.

Ended up going to an Alternative school (Self study), proved to myself that I had it in me when I got 3 years of studying done in 8 months, won two awards... and then had to go back to my old school for what was essentially grade 13, where I struggled.

Huh. Well done.

People learn in very different ways. Some people can do this much more effectively than learning in a group. Some people are like me and can’t make themselves keep up the effort required to self study, or learn better from lectures than reading.

Some people learn by observing their surroundings while flying.

I worked retail and found it fine. But family wanted me to go to University and figure myself out.

I’m currently working retail, taking a break from the educational system and buying time to figure out what to study.

I went to University and I struggled.

Guys, I’m sensing a theme here.

I spent a long, long time trying to figure out why I struggled, why I was tired all the time, and it took a kind of confluence of events before I realized what should've been obvious. I found the social stuff hard and I was exhausted after a day of listening because I'm severely to profoundly deaf.

Oh yeah, that makes a ton of sense. It’s like how focusing is exhausting when you have trouble doing that, how reading without glasses you need tires out your eyes and brain, etc.

Honestly, it’s a little surprising that I haven’t (explicitly) met a hard of hearing character in Worm yet. Maybe later? Oh wait, there was that deaf waitress at the villain pub in Hive.

Beyond that, the 'path' just isn't for me. The systems and institutions just grind me down. The idea of a 9 to 5 is death to me. These things are built and streamlined for the average person, and between disability and a fairly extreme degree of introversion, I'm far from that average.

That is very fair. There’s definitely a brand of ableism in that system.

In the end, I stepped off the path. I'd been writing a thing online as a side project and the reception was good, so I decided to leave school earlier than planned, use the savings I had, stretch things as far as I could, and work when I could (with a family friend when he needed the help and had the cash to spare, doing some landscaping, drywall installation, house painting, all prepping houses for sale in a boom market) to stretch things further.

This would be too early for that thing online to be Worm, right?

It just occurred to me that I have no idea how old Wildbow is.

And I wrote as seriously as I could while people close to me told me that I didn't deserve to 'get lucky' and have the writing work out because I hadn't seen University all the way through, or openly expressed doubts and disappointments.

Yikes.

Fuck that noise. Writing is tons of effort!

But you know, it worked out in the end. I wrote the equivalent of 20 books in 2.4 years, wrote another 10 for my next series in the ensuing 1.2 years, and I've kept up a similar pace over the last 7 years and two months.

Especially when you’re this coddamn productive!

That’s 8.33 books a year!

I started writing mid- 2011, left school at the start of 2012, went full-time-paying-the-bills in 2014 with an income around minimum wage. I moved to a small town (no car, nothing fancy) that same year. I'm now closer to the average Canadian wage. It's been two chapters a week (2.5 if crowdfunding money is enough) since the beginning.

Oh, I suppose that means it would be Worm after all.

When was this written... huh, yesterday? Well, that explains why this hasn’t been sent to me before.

Writing being Wildbow’s only/main income makes me feel even more right about my decision to set things up so that some of the money from my Patreon goes to Wildbow. It’s not that big a portion of his income (apparently average Canadian wage is 986 CAD or 755 USD per week, and I chip in with about 3.26 CAD or 2.50 USD per week), but it’s something.

My reality: I can go a week or two without really talking to anyone that isn't a cashier.

Sounds a bit lonely in the long run, but as a fellow introvert (or maybe I’m an ambivert, in the systems where that’s actually a thing), I get it - it also does sound pretty good. Especially if you’ve got internet people to casually interact with at your own leisure.

Every two months or so I go to a relative's to dogsit while they're on vacation or to see someone for their birthday, and that gives me most of my fill of socialization and companionship.

Nice!

I don't have a car, so it's usually walking or taking the train to another city, and using public transpo there. I subsisted on a rice and beans diet for a good stretch, one $15 video game bought in a year, and my level of expenses hasn't really risen that much from that point. I eat better and buy a couple more things, but nothing major.

So I guess this would be somewhere between average and reserved?

I don’t know. Being Norwegian spoils me on these things.

60%+ of what I earn goes to savings, which gives me security when my income could fluctuate or disappear at any time.

Oh, that’s smart. I suppose writing would be a bit of a risky business, what with writer’s block, audience fluctuations, sudden drops in popularity because something you wrote didn’t go over as well as you thought it would, etc.

My schedule is entirely my own, which usually amounts to 2.5 15+ hour workdays a week and another 5-10 hours a week spent managing community, finances, and exchanging emails with tv/movie studios, publishers or startups.

I was going to talk about the long but few workdays, but tv/movie studios excuse me what

Is a TV series version of something Wildbow wrote (Worm or otherwise) a serious possibility right now?? :o

Best things - I love what I do. I love creating, I love my reader's tears, I love my readers being horrified.

This is really important. You gotta enjoy what you do.

I get to make monsters and be surprised by what my characters do. Many of my fans are just the absolute coolest people - people I'm now insanely glad to have met and include in my life. There's amazing fanart of my work out there, music, people have gotten tattoos. Tattoos. That's insane.

People have permanently, painfully painted their appreciation of your work into their bodies, Wildbow!

The bad- I'm an online content creator, and it's impossible to convey just how toxic the toxic elements of a fandom can get and how negative the negative aspects can get, and how much it can affect you.

That is true. There will always be a toxic side, and I can imagine works like Worm would attract a lot of the edgy sort.

I've seen 20 online content creators either break down or remark on the effect it has, and it's wholly accurate- and my audience isn't even ~that~ large.

Yeah, it doesn’t take that many people to start brewing fandom sides like this.

This is multiplied by the fact that writing is lonely as a profession (I know too many writers who can't even talk to their life partners about their work) and it can be hard to find perspective or balance as you take it all in, when you don't have people to communicate with.

Robert Jordan used his wife as a beta reader or editor of sorts. She was there to tell him when something he wrote didn’t quite come across, to make up for the fact that he couldn’t tell. After all, he knew what he meant by that one line.

On a similar note, some casual dating would be nice, and living in a small town for economical reasons doesn't leave me with a large dating pool, and at this point I'm not even sure if I could or should inflict myself on someone.

Oof.

There are way too many people who think like that. I hope you find happiness with someone who sees you for the good bean you are, Wildbow.

I'm healthy, groomed, I can hold a conversation, I'm just pretty set in my introverted ways.

...relatable, though.

But still, I’m pretty sure there are people out there for us, who not only tolerate but appreciate the introvert lifestyle.

Hell, both of my crushes have been very introverted, even compared to myself, so I know those people exist because I’m among them.

On another, less social note, there is the fact that as an online content creator, you can't really take breaks. Or you can, but it costs. Consistency and frequency of updates are god, and a hiatus is a death knell.

No wonder he criticized me on this that one time. In his situation, it matters a lot.

I don't even know what an effective vacation would entail, because I feel like finding my stride again would cost more than I gained from having the break. So it's been seven years and two months without a vacation, writing a short book every month.

Damn.

You deserve so many props, Wildbow.

...at some point here I started talking to Wildbow, just like I do to Taylor and other Worm characters. Well, at least this time there’s actually a chance he’s going to read this sometime, if he hasn’t dropped my blog.

I just hope he doesn’t think it’s weird that I’m liveblogging his life story.

It makes for a very strange sort of burnout, when I love it so much, I can still regularly put out some great work to acclaim and praise, but am nonetheless worn down around the edges.

That does not sound healthy.

No regrets. This is me. This is what I'm built for.

As long as you feel it’s right for you, this is good. :)

I could do with less negativity from some fans and getting regular good nights of sleep (the deafness comes with insomnia by way of terminal tinnitus), but both of those just come with the territory.

Ouch.

I feel you on the sleep front (ADD has its ways of messing with your ability to fall asleep too), but tinnitus sounds like a particularly annoying way to be inflicted with it.

I've been telling family for the last year that I'll move to a city with more going on than (as my elderly neighbor phrased it) drinking and meth, where there's classes to take, a possible dating pool, and/or activities that could break me out of my hermit shell... but my current apartment is amazing and cheap, with the nicest landlords ever. It's just in a do-nothing town. I haven't found anything remotely competitive, even taking 'cheap' off the table.

I’ve lived in small-ish towns all my life. It’s pretty nice, especially as an introvert.

So that's where I'm at.

Thank you, Wildbow. This was an interesting read. I feel like I know you a bit better now. :)

(Again, if you’re reading this, I hope it wasn’t too weird to see me liveblogging this.)

#Worm #krixwell liveblogs #Arc 14 #chapter 14.11 #14.11 bet #asks #wildbow's life #mlp:fim #i tried to keep references and jokes out of this

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adeleymccormick1990-blog · 4 years

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