#it is unthinkable what people will deem acceptable these days

[not-the-phantom-of-the-opera]

Should Erik ever reblog any mindless drivel sourced from AI, know this, dear reader: it was entirely unknowingly and Erik would very much appreciate being made aware of such an error, so he can rectify it at once.

There is no glory nor accomplishment in the abominations generated through stealing from artists of every medium, and Erik would sooner cut off a hand than to promote such asinine pursuits.

[fiercynn]

Stefanie Fox, executive director for Jewish Voices for Peace, writing for The Nation:

It is in our tradition to sit shiva for seven days—to pause to reflect and to mourn. But I cannot sit back while Jewish grief and trauma is weaponized by the Israeli government to destroy Gaza. As I write this, Israel just announced that the 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza—half of them children—will have 24 hours to flee, which the UN has already deemed impossible. The US government is beating the drums of war, rushing to send more weapons to the Israeli military to wreak utter devastation. We do not need to choose between grieving and acting. As our forebears taught us, we must mourn the dead by fighting like hell for the living. Make no mistake: The Israeli government is using genocidal rhetoric against Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu asserted: “What we will do to our enemies will reverberate for generations.” The Israeli minister of defense announced the complete and total closure of Gaza, saying, “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” The Israeli president is refusing to distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters. We as Jews know all too well how dangerous this rhetoric is, the way in which the unthinkable becomes acceptable when we deny people their humanity. [x]

[sotwk]

I would absolutely love to hear literally any random thought you have about Eomer or Boromir.

Hee! What a wonderful Ask! But oh my goodness, this is a little tricky because just thinking of either of those two kind of torches what few brain cells I have left because they're just so... you know. ;)

I do have timeline notes for these two wonderful Men because I'm finally starting my multi-chapter fics for them. However, I don't want to spoil anything, so lemme check what headcanon is spoiler free....

Quick Headcanon: EOMER

Eomer's military career can be summarized as follows:

Ages 12-15 - Served as squire to King Theoden

Age 16 - Accepted as Rider in the Eored of his cousin, Theodred

Age 20 - Given command of his own Eored

Age 26 - Becomes the Third Marshal of the Mark

Eomer is a prodigious soldier, often deemed the greatest Rohirrim since the days of Eorl himself. This is the result of natural (almost supernatural) talents and a fierce dedication to his country. He envisioned himself as serving as a soldier his whole life and never had any political aspirations.

Quick Headcanon: BOROMIR

Book canon states that Boromir had little interest in taking a wife because he was too preoccupied with learning the ways of warfare so he could protect his beloved City. This certainly was true when he was younger, because settling down wasn't a priority in his mind.

But I also headcanon that young Boromir was a "good soldier" a.k.a. good at taking orders. This was part of why Denethor loved him so much; he didn't deviate from "The Plan". Basically The Plan was to inherit the Stewardship and rule Gondor after his father. Oh, and he was going to marry and have kids and continue the prestigious bloodline.

Denethor assigns his sister-in-law, Ivriniel, to find a good match for his son for whenever the right time came.

Good Soldier Boromir says, mindlessly: "Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever, Auntie." He was ready to do as he was told and just let them pick his "perfect" wife for him.

But then he did the unthinkable and fell in love. With a commoner. A commoner with a far-less-than-ideal background.

That's not THE PLAN, Boromir! You're not supposed to have opinions!

And you can bet Lady Ivriniel is gonna make a damn good impression of Lady Catherine de Bourgh when she finds out and it's gonna make for some Austen-ian drama.

(All this coming in the Boromir fic I have in the works.)

Tagging just a few fans who might be interested: @scyllas-revenge @ass-deep-in-demons @hippodameia @hobbitwrangler @konartiste @emmanuellececchi @thetempleofthemasaigoddess @heilith @absentmindeduniverse and I'm sure I've missed people but like I said my brain cells are probably fried from thinking about these two. XD

Other useful links:

Introduction to SotWK

Fanfiction Masterlist

Fanfiction Request Guidelines

[scotianostra]

On October 1st 1763 the contract to build Edinburgh's North Bridge was signed.

Edinburgh in the 1700s was a very different city to the one we know today. The city boundary was restricted to the dramatic crag and tail feature which swept eastwards from the castle. Up to 35,000 people inhabited a space under a mile long making Scotland’s capital one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world at that time. The overcrowded population were crammed into crumbling tenements, many of them up to fourteen storeys high in order to make the most of the limited space. Make no mistake, Edinburgh at this point in it's history, was a skyscraper city, very few cities in the world had buildings the height of our capital!

Edinburgh’s nobility were often forced to accept the unthinkable and share dwellings with the lower classes. Change was not just desired, it was deemed an absolute necessity if the city was ever to move forward.

Plans to build a New Town to the north were discussed as early as the 1750s but without the means of connecting it with the rest of Edinburgh, it would be nothing more than a fanciful dream. Phase one required the draining of the ancient Nor’ Loch, a man-made stagnant body of water located in the area which we now term as Princes Street Gardens. Drainage began in 1759 and would continue up until the 1820s. Dry land at the east of the Nor’ Loch valley allowed for what was undoubtedly the most ambitious engineering project to have been built in the city at that point: An eleven-hundred foot long stone bridge. The North Bridge, as it would be named, enabled the New Town to become a reality. A brand new chapter in the city’s history was about to begin.

And so it was that the foundation stone of architect William Mylne’s North Bridge was laid on 1st October 1763 but it would be a further two years before any serious amount of progress was made. Nearing completion, the magnificent multi-arched bridge first opened to pedestrians in 1769 to much fanfare and excitement. However, the cheers would soon be emphatically silenced that summer due to a disaster of epic proportions.

On the evening of Thursday, 3rd August 1769 the side walls of the south abutment of the bridge suddenly gave way, causing a partial collapse of the structure and tragically claiming the lives of five people

Rescue efforts were recorded by newspaper the Caledonian Mercury which detailed the grim discoveries of bodies "buried in the rubbish, occasioned by the fall of the walls of the south abutment of the new bridge over the north loch".

Two of the bodies were identified as belonging to Mr Lawson, shoemaker, and Mr James Fergus, a local writer.

The Caledonian Mercury went on to mention that workers had been digging almost day and night since the collapse and that at least three to four others were feared to have shared the "same unhappy fate with the two already found".

A contemporary letter penned by a Darcy, Lady Maxwell recalls the evening of the collapse, which she had witnessed, writing

“The Lord, who is continually loading me with his benefits, has twice this day remarkable interfered on my behalf. In the evening he preserved me from broken bones to which I was exposed in a fall. A few hours after, when walking home from chapel, I witnessed a most melancholy scene occasioned by the falling in of the North Bridge. I… was within five minutes of passing over it… when almost in a moment, the greatest noise I ever heard (except on a similar occasion when I was remarkably preserved) filled the air."It seemed as if the pillars of nature were giving way. Instantly, the cry resounded “the bridge is fallen!”

A full inquiry followed and identified haste in construction and a poorly-calculated estimate regarding the depth of the foundations and sturdiness of the earth-filled abutments as the chief causes behind the disaster.

Rebuilding work demanded £18,000 (almost double the original £10,140 cost of the project) and the city would have to wait until 1772 before the grand reopening. The original North Bridge survived more than a century until the 1890s, when engineers devised an improved link that would allow for greater flow of traffic, this was at the time Waverley Train Station was being constructed.

Construction of the current steel bridge that we know today was completed in 1897 at a cost of £81,000., with the North British Railway Company contributing to a third of the cost.

A plaque recalling the founding and dismantling of the original North Bridge occupies a wall of the present bridge, which has now stood for roughly the same length of time as its predecessor.

The pictures show the evolution of the Nor Loch, I can’t find dates for them all, but you will see in the first one that the Loch is still not fully drained and very little signs of buildings on the North side, pic two shows buildings where the Balmoral Hotel now sits.

In the third pic there are signs of a Market where we now have Waverley Station, the street and buildings under the far side are now called Market Street. Pic four is dated around 1809, all the buildings you see on the left are now gone. On the top roght corner is what was The North British Train Station, the bottom of the picture you can see what is now known as “The Mound. Next pic is I guess from mid 19th century, still a long way from the construction of Waverley Station. Pic six shows the North Bridge being dismantling early 1896, and then "The Ceremony of Laying the Foundation Stone of the New North Bridge Edinburgh 25th May 1896, leading on to the commemorative plaque, which is from around the same time.

Finally is a pic of how the North Bridge looks in 2021, not much to see as it is in cladding while a multi-million restoration is taking place, the cost of refurbishing the bridge has soared from £22 million to £36m after the landmark structure was found to be in worse condition than expected. Last October the council issued a statement saying.

“Due to the nature of the construction of the bridge, full access behind the cast iron façade has not been available since it was constructed in 1897 and the last full refurbishment of this nature was in 1933. It has not been possible to properly inspect the hidden structural elements in almost 90 years.”

The briefing said testing had led to the discovery of “extensive issues” with the existing concrete bridge deck constructed in 1933.

I won't depress you with the latest details on when it will be finished, but at least it has opened to traffic now.

[itsfayehr]

18 Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.”

Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”

19 Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” 20 So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

21 The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”

24 At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses[b] and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it.[c] “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)

This part is packed with a lot of information which we will attempt to break down, and reflect on for this week.

why did God harden the Pharoah's heart?

This question plagues a lot of people, including myself. In fact, this is one of the favorite attacks against our faith. God, being the all-powerful God could have taken Israel without any fuss. But the story would not be the same.

In ancient times, the Pharoah was deemed to be a god. And thus, God was showing His supremacy in showing that He can control even the "god" of Egypt. But I also add another thought. God also did not want the Israelites to think that they achieved this all by themselves. God does allow us to suffer so that we rely on Him, and not on our own strength. Why? because our strength will fail. And here, God is taking the people from serving the earthly, wrong god, to the right and absolute God.

next question: does God command absolute obedience to His command or does He accept our intentions?

We see here in these verses a reluctant Moses going back to Egypt. But along the way, death seems to visit the family. Stuart argues that the object of the death threat was actually to Gershom because the story immediately follows God's threat that a firstborn son for His firstborn, that is, Israel. God was not about to make empty threats. Thus it makes sense to have Zipporah having to perform the circumcision because otherwise Gershom would have been cut off.

The other version of the story is what I grew up thinking that Moses was about to die for not circumcising his child. God could not allow Moses to enter into the promise without first obeying the covenant. If he was supposed to lead the nation, then he should be the first to obey the covenant.

There is something that caught my attention though. I wonder if Moses himself was circumcised? If he was, then Moses would have been crying as a child and would have brought attention to the house. But there is a suggestion made by Stuart that the Egyptians were engaged in partial circumcision. So it gives me the impression that Moses was circumcised. Also, he knew the importance of it and chose not to listen to the command.

In either case, we see Zipporah saves the day. Normally, the circumcision was to be performed by another male in the family or tribe. But here, Zipporah took a flint knife (traditionally correct instrument) and did it herself. And God's mercy is in full effect when He decides not to take Moses or Gershom. Either way we look at it, God took Zipporah's act as substantial compliance.

I see a mother's love and God's mercy. Initially, Zipporah was against the circumcision even though it was part of the culture at that time. Zipporah's desperation to save a life caused her to do the unthinkable. And it worked.

God, in His mercy listened.

I don't know about you, but this gives me comfort. Often times, as a Christian, I am tempted to believe that I need to comply with every command God gives and if I fail at one, I fail at all of them. And the spiral continues all the way down into eternal damnation. Pretty bleak, right? But here, God chooses to look at Zipporah's intention. The intent was to comply with the covenant. In other words, it's always heart posture, and not ceremonial compliance.

This is the same thing Jesus told us. It doesn't matter if we follow the law, but we fail to act in love towards those around us, then it means absolutely nothing.

so today, I ask myself if I am a sister of blood towards those around me, that is, am I acting in love?

[colorisbyshe]

Is it fatphobic not to date or be attracted to fat people? Is it like a valid preference or just as bad as having racial preferences? I was left thinking about it after encountering the typical "no fats no fems no ethnics" profile on grindr 🤢

I mean, yeah.

I don't know if I'd say "just as bad as racial preferences," but like... yeah, it's probably fatphobic.

Like I get that some sexual preferences are innate but it's hard to deny that alongside the "nature" bit of your preferences... there is a "nurture" bit.

The sexual desirability of fat changes with societal norms, showing that on some level the prejudice in society is shaping those sexual desires... or lack thereof.

This is true of a lot of things. Lots of straight (and bi, tbh) men these days are disgusted by body hair on women but before razors were sold by shaming women, the idea of fucking a hairless woman would be literally unthinkable to most men of human history.

Lots of people have been attracted to trans people and then "stop" being attracted to them once they find out they're trans. So, they think a trans woman is hot when she's perceived as a cis woman and then a fear/disgusted response (socialized into them by an anti-trans society) kicks in and suddenly the attraction is gone (or at least masked). That's a societal response overriding the more "innate" response.

Lots of people are with their partners when they're skinny young things and stay with them when they fatten up with age nad love them just the same... but would never have initially one for their partner if they were a FAT young thing. Fatness is fine at one point in the relationship but they won't give a fat person a chance right off the bat.

A "large" person is hot when their stomach is big with your child but not hot when it's just soft and giving fat. Why?

A lot of it is just socialization.

Of course, even when things are socialized as the "norm," there will be people unattracted to those fitting the norm, and vise versa, thus owing to the fact that some sexual desires (and the lack thereof) are just natural states of being. But like... again, almost all traits deemed attractive or unattractive by society are VERY arbitrary and dependent on the main culture, time period, etc..

That said, while I am pro "asking people to interrogate theri preferences and question WHY some people are a no go for them," I am not for the notion of saying all people must be attracted to fat people (or any group). Because... if you're prejudiced enough to put shit like that in your bio, you are not safe to be around those groups. I don't want you dating or fucking them.

Most fat people don't want freaks like that to begin with but those that do... are better off without.

I am not overly concerned with like... sexual desirability of fat people being a universal thing. I think once we normalize HUMANIZING and respecting fat people and not finding fat people's own sexual desires (or lack thereof) as repugnant or selfish or whatever... then we shake out who is "naturally" or "prejudice driven" in their genuine attraction, genuine lack of attraction, or fetishization.

Then, "I don't find fat people to be hot" is more of a neutral thing.

So, like, it's complicated. It isn't INHERENTLY fatphobic to not want to fuck or date fat people but it OFTEN is at least pARTIALLY fatphobic or in response to fatphobic socialization.

I will tell you I was not attracted to fat people when I was grappling with my own internalized fatphobia. A LOT of my sexual preferences have changed with like... unlearning prejudice. Not even like out and out bigotry but just like... subtle shit.

Some of it was just learning to actually accept a sexual attraction that was already there (like what i feel towards women was ALWAYS there looking back) but like... straight up, I was not attracted to fat people before I confronted my fatphobia.

I think with all attraction, you have to recognize that you cannot untangle the socialization from the more innate feelings, and that sometimes that socialization is a form of prejudice. That doesn't necessarily mean you MUST change or even that you CAN change. But it does add value to maybe questioning why you feel those ways. Sometimes, the answer is "I just do," even when you really dig deep, but then sometimes it's "I have never, ever seen society frame this group of people or this trait as desirable and so I never even thought ot explore if I find them attractive myself" or "People say X is gross, so I agreed in fear of being seen as gross by association, but when pressed... yeah, I don't think it's gross and is in fact quite hot."

It's a worthy process. Even if some people stay with the exact same preferences and desires.

Because the goal isn't universal attraction. Just unlearning some prejudice where it is to be found, IF it is to be found.

But, again, I am more concerned with fa tpeople being seen as like... people. Not just as fuckable. Also, this question is infinitely more complicated than a layperson on tumblr can really explain.

(Before anyone starts, this isn't NECESSARILY, applicable to all other identities/traits, but... it might be mroe applicable than you'd initially think. Look at comphet and the power of that. That is attraction or "attraction" based on societal shaping.)

[yuujism]

Sun and Night. (gojo satoru x reader)

Chapter 4: Love.

← chapter 3 | chapter 5 (soon) →

| PAIRINGS: gojo satoru x gn!reader ; mentions of getou suguru x reader x gojo satoru

| WARNINGS: angst, a lil bit of hurt/no comfort, suggestive language, toxic behaviour, toxic coping mechanism, just really toxic, more angst, grammar errors, mentions of unrequited love, straight up angst

| WORD COUNT: idk lol i’ll count later

| A/N: well! this story is about to end in the next chapter and i actually like writing it but the ending uh... idk maybe some of y’all won’t like the ending bc it will probably hurt a lot... or maybe not!! also this chapter mostly looks into both satoru and the reader’s feelings but who knows lol i like ambiguity!! i hope you like it and enjoy !!

summary;

You and Satoru were in love.

You were so deeply in love, just not with each other.

Where you and Satoru found comfort in each other after the accident happened.

There was nothing.

A blink of an eye.

A shattering moment.

And the sound of your name.

There was nothing but regret when Satoru did the unthinkable, anxiety filling his body as the only thing he deemed important to hide from you was suddenly out there for your ears to hear, surprise adorning your face as your chest rised up an down with heavy breathing.

A few seconds passed, seconds that felt like hours as your eyes, open wide and cold, connected with the eyes of the man who was on top of you, the dim moonlight hitting the side of his face glistening with sweat. Nothing could’ve prepared you for what just happened, not even the familiar sensation of Satoru still inside of you.

Everything was broken now.

“I-I just...”

“I should leave.” you interrupted whatever Satoru had to say because, honestly, you didn’t want to hear it. You couldn’t hear it.

There was a brief moment of a last form of inimacy when he slipped out of you, an involuntary moan leaving both of your mouths before you could even stop it. It was an intimacy that felt awkward, like something that was suddenly thrown right into your face after months of ignoring it, and you didn’t want anything but to escape this realisation.

Stupid. You were so stupid to even think this was a good idea for both you and Satoru.

As you gathered your clothes that were all over the floor, you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him behind you, but, God, the way his gaze was burning holes onto the back of your head made you feel light-headed with nervousness.

Words were left unspoken between the walls of the still steamy room as you walked out, a low ‘I’m sorry’ reaching Satoru’s ears in form of a whisper before the sound of a door closing left him all alone with his thoughts.

“I’m such an idiot!” Hands went to cover his face as his back landed on the mattress, ashamed of his own recklessness and careless behaviour. Why did you have to apologise? To him out of all people. He should be the one swallowing his pride and ask for forgiveness. He was the one who fucked up.

Satoru knew everything was ruined now. God, if only he could forget the look on your face when your name escaped his lips. It was obvious you were shocked, scared even. You both had unwritten rules that were not supposed to be broken nor discussed, one of them being that nothing was and never would be personal or emotional between the two parties.

This should’ve ended as soon as the memories of his best friend started being replaced with memories of you.

But it felt so good. It was wrong, but it felt so good.

He felt like the biggest scum of the earth as he found the same comfort Suguru made him feel between your arms, it almost felt like he was using you. But weren’t you doing the same? Wasn’t that the whole point of this? Those questions were easy to answer: yes. You were doing the same. This was nothing but pure selfishness from the two of you but, after all, one side was always more selfish.

You were smarter. You didn’t get blinded by your own heart like Satoru did, never losing the point of this sick arrangement as your mind kept being packed with images of a certain sorcerer with long, black hair. It almost seemed as if you never really saw Satoru as himself, and that made his heart ache with pain and anger.

Because, yes, Satoru hated you the same way he hated him: he didn’t.

Idiot.

You kept ignoring Satoru in the hallways, with the only difference that, this time, it wasn’t out of hatred or a sense of uninvolvement. No, nothing like that. You were completely avoiding him at all costs. Looking down at your feet as you walked past him, as if locking eyes with him would make you relive that night. Leaving in a hurry whenever he entered the same room as you, as if his mere presence burned you. Talking quickly about the student’s missions, as if wanting to spend as little time as possible close to his presence.

He was an idiot.

The encounters between you came to a stop since that slip up, and Satoru tried his best to not think about it. About you. Please, just don’t think at all. But he couldn’t. The pictures of your body, the melody of your voice calling out for more, the softness in your fingertips as you caressed his back. He needed you back to himself and he was willing to do anything. Anything. Even if that meant burying his feelings 6 feet under the surface.

Satoru felt sorry to the memory of his best friend, and disgusted with himself. He couldn’t believe the way he thought he was above you regarding the feelings towards Suguru, reaching the point to yell at you about how you didn’t love him. Oh, how wrong he was. How wrong he was for underestimating your feelings and your will to never budge with them.

You would budge for me, though, that’s what he thought.

That’s what he confidently hoped.

It wasn’t like the mere idea of developing feelings of Satoru didn’t cross your mind. It did. Countless of times, mostly during those nights where Satoru was away in a mission or when you just didn’t feel like seeing him. Those blue eyes invaded your mind from time to time. Too bright, too confident and too different.

You still remember vividly that quick flash of his gaze piercing through your soul as you both reached that sweet high the other night. At the same time. Together. And even if you wanted to ignore it, as you selfishly always did, you knew something shifted. Wether it was in you or Satoru, no power on earth would make you discuss the newfound sensations Satoru brought along with him.

Ignorance is bliss.

A sentence that stuck with you since the day Suguru’s fate was written, deciding to apply it at everything and anything that was related to the arrangement between you and Satoru. At the beginning, it was difficult.

Ignore his large, warm hands on your skin and the tingling sensation they left behind in a fiery trail and focus on him, his image. This wasn’t him, it would never be him. But it felt real. Ignore the way his breath hit the side of your neck the same way his did, throwing you back to almost forgotten memories of silly jokes and giggles. Ignore every single detail.

Ignore him.

Suddenly, you didn’t have to put much thought into it. It started feeling easy, automatic even. You no longer had to doubt yourself or your feelings, listening to your head rather than your heart. You were certain Satoru did the the same, he was selfish enough to not think about anyone but himself, walking forward without hesitation. He didn’t think of you: he was thinking of himself, Suguru and quick pleasure. Just like you.

You wished you could’ve noticed before it was too late.

Fate always conspired against you, you already knew it, and this moment was a clear example of that. That same warm hand that made you feel reach bliss during countless of night was now firmly wrapped around your wrists, stopping you in the middle of the hallway as you made your way to your next location. You knew it was him without having to turn around. His hot touch was already engraved into your mind before you could avoid it.

“Let’s talk” It certainly wasn’t a question, words slipping out of his mouth before you could even move your hand away or create an excuse to avoid this situation. “... Please...” Satoru almost choked at the plead, as if it was the hardest thing to say after ‘I’m sorry’. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do this if he couldn’t even ask properly.

Now, you had two options: run away or accept talking with him. You knew the simplest way was running away, never getting out of your comfort zone as you left Satoru behind with whatever he had to say. But somewhere deep within you told you to listen to him, to face your feelings and suck it up for once. Just this once.

A defeating sigh came out of you as you pulled your wrist away from his grip, turning around to face him. Blue fiery eyes were now tiredly yet hopefully looking at you, waiting for whichever answer you decided on. You gulped harshly, the forming knot on your throat becoming way too uncomfortable at the thought of someone walking into this scene.

“Alright. Let’s make this quick. Follow me.”

The walk to your office was silent and filled with an awkwardness that couldn’t be fixed. When the silence and cool breeze of the walls of your space hit the both of you, it was when everything became even more strange. Being alone with Satoru in a room wasn’t a new situation, however, there were some really raw feelings accompanying you this time as your eyes locked with each other, you leaning against your desk as he leaned against the wall.

You waited for him to speak first, scrutinising him under your gaze as he played with his dark glasses in one hand, as if he was bored. Your eye twitched in annoyance. Satoru must’ve sent your uneasiness, taking a deep breath before letting it out in a loud blow. He felt nervous for what he was about to say, even if he rehearsed it in his mind a million times, it seemed as if it just went flying through a window when he was under your observation.

More seconds passed with Satoru fidgeting around and you grew even more impatient.

Fuck it.

“Look, if you won’t say anything then—“

“I’m not sorry.”

What?

Your eyes opened wide with surprise and confusion, trying to find some type of amusement in Satoru’s expression just to choke a gasp when you didn’t find any. Out of everything you expected him to say, out of everything you expected him to do, you didn’t really expect him to basically be the usual cocky asshole with a god complex as those words slipped out of his mouth.

Unbelievable.

It was impossible to ignore the way your body was heating up with raw anger and annoyance. Not even after what happened that night was Satoru able to get out of his high horse.

“Are you serious right now?” Your question was empty, it didn’t need an actual answer because you already knew he was dead serious. The pain in the side of your head appeared and you inhaled deeply. Calm down. “Let me see if I understand: you brought me here—“

“Technically, I didn’t bring you here, you di—“

“Fuck, shut the hell up for once, please!” And he did. Satoru didn’t open his mouth to complain and you were grateful. Another deep breath. “That’s all you had to say to me? That you’re not sorry? Not sorry for what, Gojo?” You asked incredulously, looking for his eyes that were now showing shock at the use of his last name.

You waited for his answer. It seemed Satoru was an expert at letting the seconds slip away from both of your hands, but you were tired. You couldn’t be patient with Satoru anymore.

Letting out an annoyed snort at Satoru’s silence and lack of confrontation, you walked towards the door past his figure the seemed to be frozen on the spot. Your hand was inches away from

doorknob when the warm sensation of Satoru’s touch invaded your body again, heart quickly beating involuntarily and you cursed at yourself internally for that. And moments before you could even react, there was his voice again.

Your name.

Your head turned like a reflex, and you swore that, for a brief moment, you saw those sly dark eyes staring right at you instead of ice blue ones.

It wasn’t a sweet tone like you remembered him saying it, instead, your name coming past his lips sounded rougher, dangerous even, yet something was oddly familiar. His voice still held that adoration of that night, communicating a promise Satoru was going to keep.

And it scared you. Satoru’s possible adoration towards you scared you.

“I’m not sorry” Satoru repeated again, breathing getting stuck on his chest and you couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes filled with decisiveness. “I’m not sorry for actually looking at you that night.”

Your breath hitched. Stop.

“I’m not sorry for aching to be with you and feel you when you’re away from me.”

Please, stop. You were starting to feel dizzy. There was no way this was happening right now.

“I’m not sorry for thinking of you the same way I thought of him.”

What happened next was all a blur, emotions crawling up your body as adrenaline hearing what Satoru said after mentioning Suguru again. You just couldn’t bear it anymore.

You still remember the sound of your name being called behind you, desperation and fear filling his voice as your legs moved on their own towards nowhere in particular but far from that room. Far from him.

Escape. Don’t look back. Escape, escape, escape.

It wasn’t until you found yourself outside of your room that you became aware of time and your surroundings. You don’t know how much die you run for you to reach your own place, or how much did you just stand in the middle of a silent room with the ghosts of a rough voice and soft touches.

You crumbled down like you did the same day you saw Suguru for first time after his sentence.

The recent events kept coming to your mind in the form of sharp daggers, engraving the image of a fiery gaze that seemed firm on staying on your mind for as long as it wanted. You were exhausted, both physically and emotionally, and you wanted to escape once again.

That night, you fell asleep as the memory of a familiar scent drowned your mind along with the words that made your heart ache with an unknown feeling.

“I’m not sorry for loving you.”

[zealouswerewolfcollector]

Chronicles of Grief

2392 words, T

Warnings: Discussion of character death, grief/mourning

Minor Russingon, though you can easily read it as friendship only

On Ao3

Russandol,

I do not know why I am writing this if I am not going to send it. I will not risk a messenger for a personal letter. Perhaps I will send it with a bird. Perhaps I will keep it in the hope of handing it to you when I see you. In the hope that I will see you…

You must already know what happened. I should have known it the moment I was told he had ridden away. I must have known, but I did not believe it. It is still hard to believe. I am sitting on his throne, his crown on my head, and I cannot believe it.  

How long did it take you to accept that your father was… gone? You see? I cannot even bring myself to say the word. In the letters I have deemed safe to send I wrote lost, fallen, gone, but I cannot bear to write de

I apologize. I should not have mentioned your father. You did not even have time to mourn him. I have become inconsiderate in my grief. Perhaps I will not show you this letter even if I do see you.

---

We had a small ceremony. It felt empty without the body to bury. Afterwards, Lalwen and I sat with Father’s closest friends and told increasingly gruesome war stories to each other to distract ourselves from pain.

I wish I could go to sleep and wake up a decade later. I know it would not change much (if anything, it would make things worse), but I intensely wish for oblivion.

Forgive me for the grim words. I am trying to find something positive in this (I can see you shaking your head at me). I am trying to tell myself that Father will rest in the Halls, that he might return to Mother. I am trying to tell myself that we are strong enough to survive this, to come out stronger from this, but it does not help, Russandol. It does not help at all.

---

I am king now, it seems. How ludicrous. The blame lies with you, you know? Of course, you do. I am king now, and I cannot lock myself in my chamber and reread your letters over and over again as I long to do.

There are so many things I should take care of, so many new responsibilities. I have been the lord of my own keep, but this is entirely different. I wonder if I can do this. I am not my father. I cannot be my father.

Why did he go and left me alone with this? Why could he not wait? I am… I suppose I can tell you. I am so angry, Russandol. Angry with him for doing it, for not thinking about me. Angry with the Enemy, with the Valar, with your father. Angry with myself.

---

I am going to confess something. I feel relieved that I have not seen the body. I know that the Lord of the Eagles would have taken it to somewhere safe, maybe to my brother, and in my heart, I am grateful that it wasn’t me he chose. I would not want to see him like that, not my father. I want to remember him as I last saw him – strong and full of life. Do you think it makes me a coward? Oh, I know your answer. You are not trustworthy when it comes to my flaws.  

---

I keep waiting. Not for him to return, not for this to be a nightmare, but for an end. An end to what – I cannot say. I would welcome any.

All we have built is falling apart, but I cannot bring myself to care. The world could break this very moment, and I would only shrug. No, worse. I would embrace it. I find myself thinking about it, wanting it. No, not wanting. I am not sure I am capable of wanting anything anymore. I would not mind it if it happened, that is all.

Do you see now? Do you see how unfit I am to bear the crown? If not, I will tell you something more horrifying. I hear about all those deaths. So many Elves and Men. Our cousins, my friends, my close friends. Do you know how it feels? Comforting. I feel comforted that I am not the only one going through this pain. Now, at least, can you see? What kind of a king does that make me? What kind of a person does that make me?

I cannot do this, Russandol. I cannot be a good king. I do not even want to try to be one. You are the only one I can admit this to. Please, do not judge too harshly. No. Judge as harshly as I deserve.

---

It is like living in a house with one wall gone. Gone forever, not to be replaced. You are no longer shielded from the wind and rain. Your home is no longer home.  

---

Sometimes I revisit the memories of the moments before I received the news. They are not good memories, full of uncertainty, pain, blood, and my friends dying one by one in front of my eyes. And yet, they bring comfort because at least my father was still alive then, I still had hope, I still had him to rely on even after such heavy losses.

I would give so much to have him back. It frightens me how much I would give.

---

I should have known disaster was going to strike. I had been so happy lately. We had had peace for long years, the Edain had come to their own, and I was free to wander. And if my wanderings often led me to you, I was the happier for it. I should have known it could not last. I had dared to forget we were cursed.

Everything feels different, Russandol. Everything is different. I do not think I will experience joy ever again. My joy will always lack something.

I keep talking about my own pain, but the truth is I do not care about it. Despite my anger, I do not care that he will not be here for me. I only care that he will not be here. Do you understand the difference?

Perhaps there is none, and I am only trying not to appear selfish. It is hard to tell sometimes.

---

I am still so angry. I have surges of violent thoughts. I want to rage against this unfairness, this injustice. I want to break the chairs, I want to sweep off the dishes from the table, I want to scratch the walls. It is so unfair! It should not have happened. He should not have done that.

I go and practice with the sword to let the anger out, but it does not help. I am powerless against the natural order of things, against the unchangeable and cruel finality of it.

---

I was passing by the kitchens the other day, and I heard the cooks sing. It was Snow upon the Taniquetil; my father loved that song. I joined in from afar, and halfway through the song, I noticed that I was trying to imitate my father’s voice. I stopped then. It was a poor imitation. It was not even close.

What am I supposed to do, Russandol? How am I supposed to replace him? His absence is felt so deeply, and not just by me. If only you could see Lalwen… You would not recognize her. The bold and merry aunt we know is gone. She is a shadow of her former self. I have never seen her like that. Not even after Grandfather died.

How can I help her, Russandol? How can I be what my father was for her? I cannot, I know I cannot, no matter how hard I try.

---

Everything reminds me of him. I had never thought about how many of my memories are connected to him. Even something as simple as brushing my hair or riding my horse makes me think of him.

It is only natural, of course; he was my father. And yet, I find myself astonished to discover just how much he has shaped me, how great a role he has played in making me what I am, how entrenched he is in every aspect of my life from my mannerisms to my habits and preferences.

I hear his voice sometimes, I hear his laughter. I go somewhere, say something, and I know for certain how he would respond. I hear it with perfect clarity, and I almost want to reach out and touch him, let myself lean against him as I used to do when I was younger.

I miss him. It is unbearable.

---

My father used to say sometimes that when this was over, he was going to leave the governing to us, youngsters, and go live on the seashore in a small house he would build for himself. I laughed, convinced that he was joking.

The other day I found drawings in his chamber. Drawings of a house. It was truly a small one, but in his nearly illegible handwriting, he had scribbled my name and the names of my siblings over the chambers. He had reserved one for each of us and another for Itarillë.

He never got to have that, Russandol. Isn’t that so terribly unfair? He was kind and strong, and he had tried to be the best father he could be for us. And he did not live to achieve his dream.

---

Time has lost all meaning. Sometimes I remember last summer’s feast my father held or that time just a month before the firefall we rode in Ard-galen with Aunt Lalwen and a small company (Angaráto and Aikanáro came to join us, and we spent a few nights under the stars), and it seems like it has just happened, it seems impossible that most of the people who were there are no more, that my father, larger than life, is gone, all his hopes and dreams are gone. He seems so alive, so present.

When I think back to the first days after his death, I am surprised I survived them. It still seems unthinkable to go on when you have lost someone so important. At times, it seems it happened so long ago that I cannot believe it has been only several months. And yet, I feel that a part of me is still there, locked within those terrible moments, reliving them over and over again. That part of me will always stay there.

---

Sometimes I wonder if I could have done something. If I could have stopped him. If I could have saved him. I wonder what I could have done differently to change the outcome. It is a futile exercise that does nothing but bring me more grief, but I cannot stop.

Sometimes I wish I could have gone back to the moment he rode out and stop him. I would stand before him and beg him to stay. I would scream at him that he was condemning himself to certain death. But he knew that already, didn’t he? He knew. Even if I could have stopped him, something else would go horribly wrong, I am sure of it. We are cursed, after all.

---

I still feel rage at times, but it is calmer, mellower, not the all-consuming fury it used to be. I sit at a council and feel the urge to throw the goblet I hold upon the wall, to see it break. I watch myself doing it, but distantly, as if it is a different person wearing my face, while I am calmly conversing with my court.  

Is this how it is going to be, Russandol? Will I slowly learn to accept it, to live with it? To live without him. It is not what I want. It feels like a betrayal.

I laugh sometimes, I make decisions, I keep on living, and it too seems a betrayal. I am wrong to feel this way, but I cannot help it. I look at his portrait – smiling, he wanted the artist to paint him smiling, so when one day Itarillë came to visit, she (a full-grown woman she already was at the moment the painting was made, mind you) would not be scared – I look at it, and I smile back, and I tear up, and I hear him scold me for these thoughts, and still I cannot help it.

---

Will you believe that I have not cried yet? I cannot do it. There are moments when I feel I will break down, when my eyes fill with tears, and my chest constricts with the wretched pain of loss, but they last seconds, and I get myself under control again.

I try to work myself into exhaustion, so I will fall into a deep sleep and not have to think, but I lie in my bed wide awake and think of him dying alone. It makes me want to scream, but I am afraid that if I start, I will never stop.

Perhaps I could weep if you were here. Perhaps I could break in the safety of your embrace. Perhaps I could afford to be fragile and vulnerable if only you were to see me. Oh, how I wish you could come. I am barely stopping myself from asking you. I know that if I sent this, you would be battling with the same desire, but of course, your good judgment would prevail.

---

I have to end this letter one day, but I have no idea how. I still hurt, I will always hurt, I still think of him every single day. There are days I still feel angry, there are days I still cannot believe it, there are days I feel exhausted and incapable of doing anything. But there are also days I am able to remember him without the accompanying piercing pain.

Maybe there will come a time when those days grow greater in number, and I will be able to smile when my thoughts inevitably turn to him. Until then, I will try to do my best and keep living and hoping to see you safe and sound.

Yours,

Findekáno

[miss-tc-nova]

A Way Into the Future - Luxu

Alright, we’ve got the green light kiddos! So, without further ado, here’s my piece for the Shattered Fates - Foretller Zine. Enjoy!

Music Inspiration: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead - Set It Off

~~~~~

              Footsteps echo off the stone walls of the underpass beneath the Outer Gardens. One set—much faster than the other—struggles, moving unsteadily and with a lot of panic. It’s no wonder considering the owner of said steps took quite a beating. He put up a decent fight, but poor Braig had no hope of prevailing against his tormentor: a legend, a man of time, a Master—Luxu.

              Ruthless yellow lights barely have the power to illuminate the tunnels, but the young man doesn’t need to see to know the man hunting him is not far behind.

              As the black coat stalks persistently closer, his prey stumbles down the path, unaware that he’s being driven straight into a trap—doing everything that the stalker had intended to a T. Luxu has spent many years refining a variety of skills, both combative and strategic; coercing his victims into his snare is child’s play. Decades of thought have gone into formulating the criteria for his perfect vessel and, unfortunately for the young man, he matches every point perfectly. 

              Unbeknownst to the Radiant Garden native, Luxu had scouted his playground days prior to this encounter and had collapsed the only escape that gave his victim any prospect. His hope is effectively crushed at the sight of the clogged tunnel. 

              Eyes wide with pure terror, he turns back to Luxu. The sharpshooter has a quick draw, even in fear, but it proves just as useless as it had before. Barely any thought is spent on the barrier that prevents the bullets from reaching their mark.

              “I already told you resisting me was useless,” Luxu drawls. “All this fear and pain could’ve been avoided if you had just done as I asked. But I guess it’s only fair to assume any self-respecting warrior worth his salt would struggle.”

              Backed against the debris, the kid quivers. To his merit, he maintains his aim, despite how utterly doomed he is. 

              “What do you want with me?!”

              Luxu pauses his approach. “Hmm, let’s see—that brand new job you just took at the castle is a good start.”

              “A job? You want my job? I-I can talk to my boss! Just let me talk to Ansem!”

              “I hate to tell you, kid, but I need more than your job. I need your entire existence. Or more specifically, I need your body.” The boy’s petrified face goes pale. “My scapegoat has finally arrived; things are about to get very interesting and your life perfectly fits all my needs. Now, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop struggling; I’d like to avoid injuring that body any more than necessary.” 

              As he closes the gap and the boy cowers beneath him, Luxu recalls how he came to be here, stealing the bodies of young men. 

~~~~~

              “Master, what is this?” the young man asks, looking over the paper and not entirely sure he’s read it correctly. 

              As he has many times before, Luxu stands in the Master’s study. The room is filled with books, vials, and plenty of objects of which Luxu couldn’t even guess the purpose of. The only thing he can be sure of is that none of it is as it seems, and that broad statement brings with it its own sense of security. It has always been filled with wonders and the Master seems to introduce him to a new one each time he visits. This time is no exception. 

              The eccentric man folds his arms. “What do you think it is?”

              His voice catches in his mouth. He’s read it over once, twice, but surely, he must be mistaken. “This sounds like a method for taking over someone’s body.”

              “Bingo! You are correct, sir!” the Master praises, waving his hands animatedly. 

              “WHAT?!” In his exclamation, young Luxu throws the paper in the air. 

              His master snatches the fluttering paper. “Don’t lose it! I only have one copy of that!”

              “Okay, one, why don’t you make another copy? And two, why do you know how to possess someone’s body?!”

              “Oh, I don’t know how; this is all just theory. I wrote it this morning.”

              His master never fails to perplex him. “And you think I need it why?”

              “Because you’re only human,” the Master of Masters replies. “That body of yours will become old and decrepit and weaken over time but your job will be far from done. So, you need some way to continue living and persist into the future.”

              The Master may be a strange man, but it’s no secret that he enjoys pulling emotions from his pupils—his favorite being shock. Luxu has made a point to accept his master’s eccentricity and all it entails, having come to see the unpredictability as predictable. It’s been a long time since the Master has been able to truly flabbergast the young man. 

              Luxu’s arms wave in disbelief. “And you think body snatching is the way to do that?!”

              Matching the animated gestures, the Master retorts, “Well do you have any other bright ideas?!”

              Luxu glances away. “Couldn’t you figure out immortality or something else?”

              The Master holds his arms up in an X. “Absolutely not. Immortality is far more complicated and we just don’t have time for that. So, this is your only hope of completing your task.” Again, the paper is pushed into Luxu’s hands. As the student stares at the page, the Master’s tone turns serious. “Remember, while the others have very important roles, everything hinges on the success of yours. If you don’t see this through, the Book of Prophecies won’t be written and things will fall in ruins.” His tone drops even more, almost as if he’s threatening his pupil. “And all those people you care about will die for nothing.” 

              Those words strike the young man. Aced, Ira, Invi, Gula, and Ava—they’re family. Even if they sometimes bicker and disagree, Luxu grew up with them. He already disliked the idea of them fighting, possibly to their destruction, but they’re all fighting for the light’s survival. If he doesn’t do his job, they’ll lose their guidance and their struggles will be meaningless—his family will die in vain. 

              But taking someone else’s body and losing his own: it’s unthinkably horrifying. He’d never considered that his body could be disposable; that something so undeniably “Luxu” could just be swapped out as easily as his coat. These thoughts become too much to deal with in this moment, so he decides not to. Still, he can’t simply throw away a key aspect of his master’s orders, so the paper is carefully folded and tucked into his jacket to address later. 

              “Thank you for your guidance, Master,” Luxu murmurs. 

              Back to his light-hearted self, the Master of Masters slings an arm around Luxu’s shoulders. “That’s more like it. Now, let me show you why you’re going to need that paper.”

~~~~~

              Spasms wrack every gasp he takes. They come not from his chase of the now-unconscious man at his feet, but from the seriousness of what he must do next. 

              Staring down at his very first victim, he feels a heavy guilt in his chest. Based on what’s written, he can only assume the original heart will be ejected and either become a Heartless or ascend to Kingdom Hearts. This man had no say in the matter; he was hunted down like a dog and endured only terror and pain in his final moments. He’s still young and could’ve had a full life ahead of him filled with happiness and adventure. He had potential but Luxu deemed him a lamb for slaughter. 

              Luxu shakes his head; he can’t have these sorts of distractions dragging him down. 

              The old parchment slips from his pocket, a perfect cross forever creased into its aged surface. Instructions written in black still read perfectly clear despite time’s efforts. He’s read and reread the page thousands of times, each time going through the shock of what exactly is being asked of him: ice shoots through his veins while his skin scorches, a suffocating grasp squeezes at his throat, and a violent churn nearly upheaves his stomach. The possibility of failure reels in his mind, threatening to evolve into a full-blown panic attack. He spent his whole life as himself—as Luxu—but now, for the sake of light itself, he must discard that. Just thinking about looking in a mirror and not recognizing the face looking back reminds him of his nightmares. Supposedly, his heart will retain his memories, but he still worries over exactly how much of himself he’ll get to keep; after all, sacrifices for such sins must be made. 

              The tremors in his chest have spread, shaking the page in his gasp. A deep breath does nothing to soothe his fears but allows him to regain focus. He reminds himself that this is for the existence of everything—for the people he loves. It doesn’t matter if he’s scared, it doesn’t matter if he loses himself, it doesn’t matter if the people who matter don’t recognize him, he has no choice.  

              Sighing, he lets the paper float to the ground, letting his eyes linger on the victim at his feet. He can’t let himself dwell on anything lest his mind trail back to his fear. He gets started.

              Clearing his head, he rests both hands against his chest. The suggested mental imagery serves him well while his heart begins to compress. He remembers the most important parts of himself—the things about himself he values—and imagines placing them in a box. His personality, skills, and knowledge are added inside. Memories follow suit; all the good, the bad, and the in-between are stowed away as important, for they have shaped the person he’s become. The young man takes great care in packing all of himself away. 

              As these things fade from his conscious mind—all bound to his heart for transfer—the darkness stalking at the edges of his mind begins encroaching on his thoughts like wolves prepared to devour him. Luxu’s natural instincts react in fear, causing the man to tremble and his physical heart to pound in his ears. Just like the darkness, a chill creeps along his quaking limbs, his control over them waning. With every bit of himself that he stows away for his next life, the little rationality that must stay behind cowers in terror. He would simply do away with all his senses, but he knows that some of his consciousness must stay to facilitate the move. He must suffer this fear and lose part of his mind to succeed. 

              The body to be left behind is nearly shut down. His throat closes, no longer able to draw air into his spasming lungs. He has no idea if he’s doing anything right or if he’s even ready, but the innate fear of death has him in a panic. He has to go now. 

              Eyes snap open, nothing but bright light consuming his vision. This is it; this is where he discards everything he is. This is the point of no return. With the dread as potent as ever, his consciousness fades as he sends the light on its way. 

              Instantly, Luxu becomes aware of the intense, stinging pain. Every nerve is like a needle, searing at his heart. He would absolutely be screaming if he could but, as it currently stands, he has no access to any vocal cords, let alone a mouth. 

              A firm pressure resists his heart, struggling against him. The way it reverberates is reminiscent of his own screams. This is his victim, desperately fighting to keep control. Their panic gives them strength, allowing them to push against Luxu to the point he feels his grip slipping. A desperate alarm shoots through him, fueling his struggle.

              As it turns out, Luxu’s fear is stronger than that of the man he’s possessing. 

              Resistance suddenly stops. Slowly, the presence of the other heart begins to fade, allowing Luxu’s heart to fill the hole left behind. The pain begins to ebb at an unbearably slow rate, but there is solace in the fact that it is fading. 

              His consciousness begins unfurling within his brain as he lies on the ground gasping. Comprehension begins weaving through the unpacking, bringing attention to what exactly just happened. He hadn’t been prepared for resistance; he didn’t know he could still lose after disarming his target. There was no warning for that. If Luxu’s heart had lost the struggle, he would’ve been expunged, become a heartless, and failed his task; he would have failed his loved ones. And this is only his first time. 

              It takes an eternity for the agony to fade enough and allow him to assess the body. It’s all still sensitive, like a limb falling asleep and waking back up, only far more intense. Nevertheless, he manages to open his eyes. Even they feel the stinging, giving him blurry vision. Nerves feel like fire as he struggles to raise a hand. The trembling extremities are different: the skin tone is a shade off, fingers are slightly longer, and there’s no sign of a mole he used to have on his wrist. It’s strange to feel and control the hand of a stranger. 

              It takes some time for all the nerves to properly connect. Small repetitions get the muscles moving as they should, and after a few hours, he is able to stand. Weak legs hold him up while he tries to regain his bearings. Palms press against his eyes, struggling to get rid of that remnant sting. 

              When his hands drop, he finds nothing. The expelled heart is gone and so is the body he left behind. There is no going back. 

              The old paper flutters, threatening to fly away. However, this is only the first of many stolen bodies and he will need those instructions to repeat the move in the future.

              Reaching down, he scoops up the paper. The action nearly topples him. Despite his careful decision for this particular individual, he couldn’t find someone exactly like himself. There are still differences that will take some getting used to, driving home one very important, horrendous fact. 

              He is no longer Luxu.

                             He is no longer Luxu.

                                            He is no longer himself. 

              The reality finally kicks him in the gut, bringing him back to the ground where a foreign scream tears from his mouth. 

~~~~~

              “You’re crazy! Stay away from me!”

              The cry drags the man back from age-old memories. Braig is the latest of his numerous casualties. 

              Luxu could’ve stopped long ago, given up his master’s orders and spared so many ignorant hearts—innocent people didn’t have to die for this. However, sacrifices must be made for sins, and Luxu’s been paying his due. With every bit of himself left behind, the rest naturally tries to fill in that hole, but it’s not the same. The new pieces become influenced by the suffering and bitterness Luxu endures with each move, filling him with more and more darkness. That’s not to say darkness is a bad thing, but it fuels the apathy born from repeated trauma.

              Luxu’s views on humanity have deteriorated; each passerby could die at his feet and he would simply step over them. Those chosen as new vessels hold some interest, but he no longer has any qualms putting them down. Only the people he started this journey for mean anything to him now; they are the only light left in his unrecognizable life. They would likely look down on him with disappointment, scold and abhor him, but he would burn every world in existence for their fates. But the end is near. The scapegoat has finally shown himself and soon Luxu will be free of this burden—his family will return to him. No matter what wrath he may incur from them, the relief of the end is just too tempting to spare this last victim.

              Luxu shrugs. “You might be right about that; repeatedly losing part of your mind does that to a guy. Unfortunately for you, there’s nothing more dangerous than an insane person with a goal. You were simply the poor soul that caught my eye this time.”

              “N-No! Please!”

              Having done this so many times, Luxu doesn’t even need the instructions, so he burnt them long ago. His mind already begins to pack away the things he wishes to carry forward and the chill starts in his fingers. 

              “Sorry, but everything I’ve dedicated my life to hangs in the balance. Neither of us have a choice here. But don’t worry—this isn’t my first time and I’ll ensure it’s as painless as possible.”

              As he strides closer, the man scrambles closer to the wall. Fear shines brightly in his eyes, but it doesn’t faze a man who’s seen it so many times before—who’s endured it so many times before.  

              “Take a deep breath, Braig. It’ll all be over soon.”

[bisexualdaemon]

Cellophane (Plus Size!Reader)

a/n: so this is a plus size!reader blurb...I’ve never written one of these before...probably because it hits super close to home. but it’s inspired by “Cellophane” by FKA twigs. it’s also inspired by a conversation I had awhile ago with @bluerroses while I was reading Neighbors by @zankivich about what people would say if they saw Shawn with someone who did not meet societal expectations of what a man like him should deem “attractive.” anyways here it is. my heart in a blurb.

warnings: societal expectations of women’s bodies, fluff

They're waiting

They're watching

They're watching us

They're hating

They're waiting

And hoping

I'm not enough

He sits in the third hotel room in five days and stares at his phone screen. His name sits in the search bar, like it usually does, an innumerable number of 240-character messages to scroll through with his tag attached. Most of them feature pictures of him walking with you down the street a couple of days ago after brunch. It was the first time you’d been photographed together. He cringes.

 #ShawnMendes out to brunch with his body positive friend

#ShawnMendes : body positive ally? 

All of them assume he’s just your friend. They laud him for deigning to be friends with you. What would they say if they knew he’d made you come three times last night? That he deigned to kiss you till he turned breathless? That your soft curves, your full breasts and thighs make him feel whole? He scoffs at being some kind of hero when the truth was that you saved him. 

“Hey, baby,” you come out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, “whatcha lookin’ at?” The mattress dips when you crawl behind him and peer over his shoulder. 

“Oh, those are cuter than I thought they’d be,” you look at the pictures, your soft, rounded stomach filling out the maxi skirt you’d been wearing, your thigh peeking out of the high slit cut into the side of it, with just a little strip of skin showing beneath your favorite Virgin Records crop top. It was a fucking fierce outfit. 

Shawn makes an irritated noise, somewhere between a grunt and a scoff. 

“Excuse you! I think they’re adorable and look at that outfit! Fucker, look at that thigh!” You nudge him with the thigh in question and he reaches back and squeezes it. 

“It’s not that…” he exhales in a burst and you tense, ready for him to up and run. You both knew you were being photographed that day. Photographers in LA are hardly inconspicuous with their giant fucking zoom lenses and Midwestern dad attire, complete with cargo shorts and hiking boots. But you’d taken it in stride. Shawn had wanted to hide, not to make you a secret, but to keep you from the scrutiny. You’d assured him there was nothing to hide from. Scrutiny was your constant bedfellow in a world that didn’t accept bodies that looked like yours, especially with someone that looked like Shawn. 

“It’s just….I don’t understand why people assume we’re just friends,” he scrolls down a few tweets, to a picture where you’re clearly holding his hand, “even this one says, ‘Mendes Cute and Affectionate with Friend After Brunch’.” You lean your head on his shoulder and sigh, taking his hand and massaging his knuckles, tense from anger and frustration. 

“Shawn, we knew this wouldn’t be easy,” you press a kiss to his cheek and he leans into it, “we’re not supposed to be together. The idea that you could be attracted to me is unthinkable to them.” He tips his head against yours and leaves it there for a few tender moments. His breath steadies against your face, his pulse relaxing, slowing to his normal athlete’s rhythm. He pulls back and kisses your forehead on the spot he’d just been touching. 

“You’re fucking beautiful, you know,” he traces lines connecting the sun-kissed freckles on your shoulder with his fingers. 

“I do know,” you take his face between your hands and look him in the eye to make sure you’re serious, “I don’t need them to tell me that. I don’t need them to tell us what we are. Neither should you, because fuck them. They don’t know shit.” 

He takes another couple of deep breaths, letting your words sink in. Like lightning, a spark bursts in his eyes. He takes his phone and taps his camera app open. He smiles and points it at you. Your eyes widen and your hands rush to cover your face when the shutter noise clicks. 

“Shawn! What are you doing?!” After the first couple of pictures you loosen, laughing and falling back against the plush hotel sheets. Your towel rides up, turning these impromptu photos into a full boudoir shoot. He pauses and bends down, placing two gentle kisses to each of your thighs. Everywhere he touches feels like a live wire. Feather light on bits of uncovered skin, trailing upward across your soft stomach, kissing up the valley between your breasts. 

He buries his face in your neck, drawing a laugh from you and he follows, descending into giggles that send deep vibrations from his chest, ricocheting off your skin. It makes you warm, heat pooling just beneath your skin and coursing between your legs. Your eyes close and a moan escapes. He knows exactly what he’s doing. 

His lips find your temple and he stays there, lifting up his phone to snap one last photo. When you hear the shutter, your eyes open wide. 

“Shawn, what are you doing?” Your voice is low, just above a whisper. You have an idea of what he’s about to do and you need to hear it from him before you’ll believe it. He’s sitting up, playing with the lighting in the photo, making it black and white—all that artsy shit he’s picked up from Josiah and Connor. In it your eyes are closed and so are his and his lips are pressed perfectly against your temple. Your hair is all half-dried and sticking up at strange angles and you’re sporting a bit of a double chin but none of that matters because it’s so fucking clear that he loves you that how you look is the last thing anyone could ever notice about the photo. When he’s finished, he looks back at you like a kid on Christmas morning, all flushed with exhilaration. 

“I’m gonna post it.” The words spill out of him, like he’s been waiting to do this. Like he’s been waiting to publicly declare it for weeks. Like he wants to burst out of the shadows and flood his life with all your light. Tears well in your eyes. 

“Are you sure?” you whisper, not realizing how much you want him to say yes. 

“I’ve been sure for awhile now.” He’s smiling with all his teeth, setting up the post and typing a quick caption. He tags you and your breath catches, “are you sure?” 

“Baby, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” 

He pushes the post button and throws his phone on the couch across the room, leaving it to blow up with notifications and texts. He’s too busy kissing you to care about the reaction. Too busy worshiping your body and making sure you know that what he wrote in the caption of the photo of you together is his only truth: 

I fucking love my girlfriend ❤️

permanent taglist: @justanotherfangurl272  @siennarossi @trustfundshawn @alone-in-madness @rodneywaber @harryandmolly @thatindiannerdygirl @the-claire-bitch-project @mendesromano @fromthicctosticc @esoltis280  @softmendesss @sinplisticshawn @nedthegay @september-lace @itrocksmysocks @disaster-rose @mendesoft @luvluvxx @i-play-video-games @ihearthemcallingforyou @hi-my-name-is-sid @gentleshawn

[sparklyjojos]

THE SAIMON FAMILY CASE recaps [13/13]  — FINALE

In which we learn the beautiful boy’s even deeper secret, observe the Case to its end, and go back to the future.

--

After Ajiro and Kirigirisu left Nihon Tantei Club to work on their own, a hurricane of resignations went through the organization, until the only ones still left in the Club at the beginning of March are Shiranui, just a few of his detectives, and two office workers. Soon Shiranui gets invited to join the international detective organization DOLL, which would require him to stay in their headquarters in France for a long time.

Faced with this entire situation, Shiranui decides to do the only logical thing: he gets all his willing detectives to go to Ajiro and ask to be taken in as new employees.

It truly must be divine providence that sent him all of them, Ajiro thinks (even though he now has to figure out how to fit all those people in his house).

Shiranui shows Ajiro and Kirigirisu the resignation papers they signed… but what they haven’t noticed before is that the Club’s name on the papers is marginally different, “Hinoki Tantei Club”. Good old Shiranui predicted this exact turn of events and made it so that Ajiro and Kirigirisu never actually left the organization. 

“Nihon Tantei Club is still yours, Souji,” he says.

It may have been a pretty shady move on Shiranui's part, but at the same time, it feels like a gift from the heavens.

Soon afterwards, on March 10th, the first Club’s location suddenly explodes and goes up in flames, killing the few detectives who stayed there. Apparently one of detective assistants set up explosives targeting a random person he fell in financial conflict with.

Everyone can’t help but think that fate is truly a strange thing, and that life is a fragile good.

And also—nine days later—that the fire was an omen, a coincidental prediction of what was going to happen during the 19th incident of the Saimon Family Case.

--

At 9 PM on stormy March 19th, lightning hits the Fujita residence and sets it on fire so giant that even the firefighters are having a hard time. Running around the garden helping them, Ajiro and Kirigirisu make sure to check if everyone made it out safe.

No one can find Takayoshi.

Ajiro without hesitation grabs a bucket of water, dumps it over himself, and avoiding the firefighters trying to stop him runs into the burning house. Even Kirigirisu can’t hold him down; Ajiro’s determination to stop the last death from happening is pushing him forward. Not sure what else to do, Kirigirisu also dumps water on his head and runs into the house with a desperate shout.

Running through burning hallways, he finds Ajiro inside a tatami room along with Takayoshi, who’s sitting calmly on the ground like he's perfectly content with the situation. Neither man moves even when Kirigirisu yells at them to run. Takayoshi is holding a white Noh mask of an old man in his lap. Kirigirisu takes a step forward—

“No, Kirigirisu!” Ajiro yells. “He’s going to kill you if you come any closer! This man is Shiroyashi!”

Shiroyashi—a white version of Kuroyashi?

Takayoshi’s eyes are dark, his expression strangely vacant.

As Kirigirisu stands there frozen in shock, Ajiro jumps towards him and gets them both out of the way of falling debris. A wall of fire separates them from Takayoshi now, but they can still hear him say “I’m sorry… give my regards to Uyama…” before the ceiling caves in above him.

Ajiro and Kirigirisu try to escape the room, but fire surrounds them on all sides. They’re trapped.

“I’m sorry, Kirigirisu”—are Ajiro's last words before the burning inferno collapses on them.

--

When Kirigirisu regains consciousness, his entire body hurts, but he’s somehow still alive.

“You finally woke up,” comes Ajiro’s voice. He’s safe too, sitting on the ground nearby, but it’s not him who provides the much needed explanation for where they are.

“It’s Friday of March 20th, past two in the morning. It’s been about five hours since the fire. We’re inside Shouryouin.”

What a serene, evanescent sound bringing to mind the voice of God or angelic music… for a moment Kirigirisu thinks he might have died and gone to heaven, but then realizes the voice’s owner is Saimon Joukei, sitting innocently on the ground, holding his knees to his chest in a childish manner.

“Joukei! Why are you—”

“He saved us,” Ajiro says. “We owe him our lives.”

Kirigirisu has no idea how a child could save them from that completely hopeless situation in a raging fire.. but well, clearly they are still alive. Yet another thing he just has to accept.

“Is Takayoshi…?” he asks.

“He’s dead," Ajiro answers shortly. "They found the body.”

“So he was the murderer?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy. We do know that he was the assassin known as Shiroyashi. Do you remember what Uyama called him? Kira. That was a hint: killer.” It seems Ajiro has managed to get some more information about the Case while Kirigirisu was out cold.

“If not him, then who was the culprit behind the Saimon Family Case?”

“Mr. Kirigirisu,” Joukei unexpectedly says, “the Saimon Family Case doesn’t have a culprit.”

“What? Joukei, how can you know—”

“Kirigirisu, it looks like we’ve been both utterly deceived by this boy,” Ajiro interrupts. “He’s not actually Joukei, but Juku. Juku pretending to be Joukei pretending to be Juku.”

“What?!” Kirigrisu shouts. “Wh—! But—! Why would you pretend to—?!”

“Because I’m Umayato no Miko,” the boy answers. “I officially became the ninety-ninth one after my uncle’s death last month. I had attempted to block the transfer of the name Umayato no Miko by making it look like I, the person already appointed as the successor, had died instead of Joukei. That’s why I pretended to be Joukei pretending to be me. I managed to deceive my uncle, who fully believed I was Joukei pretending to be Juku. That’s why he let you speak to me.”

“But then… where did that strange beauty come from?”

“I don’t really know myself, but I think Mr. Ajiro’s reasoning wasn’t far from the truth. It was so no one would notice who I really was—Juku pretending to be Joukei pretending to be Juku.”

Kirigirisu glances at Ajiro, who’s quiet and lost deep in thought. It looks like he has already talked with the boy about all this. Kirigirisu will have to ask his own questions if he wants to learn more.

“But if you successfully avoided becoming Umayato no Miko in that way, why did you return to openly being yourself?”

“I decided I can take the risk. You promised you would protect me. I wouldn’t believe just a simple promise, but when I saw you run into the fire trying to save Mr. Takayoshi, I decided I could trust you. At first I had planned to give up on being Umayato no Miko and run away. But then I realized that with your help, maybe I don’t have to run—instead I can keep fighting even as Umayato no Miko.”

The boy speaks in a manner unthinkable for his age, with similar wisdom and genius that legends ascribe to Prince Shoutoku.

“Keep fighting—what do you mean by this?”

“First, I should tell you more about Umayato no Miko.”

Juku starts long complicated explanations.

--

The first Umayato no Miko, the actual regent Prince Shoutoku, brought the art of killing illusion to Japan and established an organization that used said art to obliterate rebellion. Those who could harm the process of establishing the state were deemed “evil” and eliminated. Skilled magicians of murder under Shoutoku’s lead were called tenshi no dougu (“the emperor’s tools”), Tengu for short.

As time went by, some of those magicians of murder moved towards “evil” and started abusing their skills to kill people for monetary gain. This group was called Akki (“demons”, “evil spirits” etc.).

Tengu and Akki as expected fought hard against each other. Both groups wore Noh masks when killing, which led to many a weird legend being passed down through generations. It’s not unlikely that the two groups performing illusions such as flying was what caused the common people to believe in demons and creatures known as tengu. In fact, the groups' penchant for orchestrating stealthy “beauty of death” (shi-no-bi) was perhaps the origin of the word shinobi, ninja.

Also, the “death soldiers” (shihei, 死兵) doing “honorable murders” (osatsu, 御殺) are coincidentally hinting at banknotes (shihei, 紙幣 or osatsu, お札), and those—as we already know—point to Prince Shoutoku.

Both Kuroyashi (Kyuuzou) and Shiroyashi (Takayoshi) were high commanders of Tengu. While they killed with their own hands, they also made use of their forces when necessary—that’s why Soujin has never managed to get solid evidence of Kyuuzou's murders.

All those historical Umayato no Mikos ruled over and gave orders to Tengu instead of dirtying their own hands, some indirectly killing millions. Even if it was for the good of the country, it was still murder. Feeling the weight of that responsibility and wanting to atone for his actions, the actual Prince Shoutoku prepared a system: after a given Umayato no Miko died, their entire family would be killed by Tengu. This happened even to Prince Shoutoku’s own relatives, with known historical events such as the Isshi Incident actually being a cover-up story.

The only exception took place if the dead Umayato no Miko had appointed someone from their own family as the successor. In that case, the successor’s generation and those taking care of them could be allowed to have their deaths postponed—more details would have been discussed with the previous Umayato no Miko beforehand.

Knowing what would happen to her family in the future, the 97th Umayato no Miko, Saimon Tamako, worked together with her successor Gensui to create a secret plan. They wanted the Saimon Family Case to finally bring both Tengu and Akki out of the darkness of history and into the light of public knowledge. It would serve as the perfect occasion to finally destroy Akki. Perhaps a lot of Tengu would die in the fight, but then again, in our modern times—the times of punishment delivered not by assassins, but by courtrooms—maybe Tengu weren’t needed anymore.

Tamako’s plan started with her own death and continued through the deaths of her family members on each 19th day of the month. She knew that every single death would be ruled as an accident or a suicide and not investigated properly due to prejudice; Japanese police would look the other way when a family with Korean roots was being attacked.

Both the Saimon Family Case and the Shiroyasha Case were executed by a group of Tengu under Takayoshi’s lead. Apparently all victims of Shiroyasha (except for Yumeji) were either Akki or people who bought their services… and all Japanese, which made the police much more eager to treat it seriously and classify it as an L Crime. Even Yumeji’s murder didn’t make the police want to connect the two cases. Just as planned...

--

At this point, Kirigirisu interrupts to ask about something he can’t understand: if Tamako and Gensui created the plan which was then carried out by the Shiroyasha group, how can Juku claim that the Saimon Family Case has no culprit?

Juku explains. Since Tengu are ultimate assassins, they would make all their murders look like accidents or suicides—in fact, was it not for the suspicious regularity of the deaths, no one would even think there could be a case going on. However, not all of the deaths relating to the case had to be their doing—Raiouji and Mikuruma probably just happened to get into an accident on 19th, Tsushima and Arito just happened to both die of heart failure in a critical moment, Shima died not on 19th, and it’s likely that several more Saimons really died in accidents or killed themselves.

Juku chalks up those events to “accident tendency”, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Constant stress, grief and grim expectations can really make one more likely to die; old people often die shortly after their partner’s passing, and someone told by a fortune-teller they’re going to have an accident on a given day would overthink their every move, resulting in an actual accident.

Saimon Tamako predicted this “accident tendency” effect, and so Tengu would not act on a given 19th if someone already died that day. Because of this, it’s pretty much impossible to tell which deaths were murders, or if there even was a single murder—and no one can solve a case that doesn't exist. Even though Juku is the current Umayato no Miko, even he can’t solve it, as all the details were negotiated between the two previous title holders.

Speaking of the previous title holder—just like Ajiro suspected, the two Soga Tensui brothers really had switched places (which Juku had known about all along). The man that Ajiro and Kirigirisu always knew as “Soga Gensui” was actually Soga Tensui—Saimon Ryuusui, the 98th Umayato no Miko, Miku’s husband, Juku’s father. Tensui went missing after faking his death by switching places with his brother… or should we say, after the brothers finally returned to their proper places after one long masquerade.

Kirigirisu proposes that Juku contacts his father and asks about the details of the Case—they’re both Umayato no Miko, so they should have a way to communicate, right?—but Juku answers that even he won’t be able to meet his father before the case ends.

Kirigirisu is more than confused by this statement, so Ajiro explains in a voice full of bitterness.

“Kirigirisu, the murder case hasn’t ended yet. No… it’s not that it hasn’t ended. It hasn’t even started yet!”

“The events until now were just the Saimon Family Case,” Juku says. “And from now on, the Saimon Family Murder Case will begin.”

What they went through was, according to Juku, an unsolvable mystery with no culprit. What awaited them now was its second phase, a serial murder case—the final plan to defeat Akki—with the murderer being none other than the man our detectives thought to be Gensui.

The entire case as planned would consist of two phases, both starting on the 99th birthday of a Saimon Tamako (as we remember, Tsukumo Tamako was two years younger than Saimon Tamako, and her second husband was a Saimon, so upcoming April 19th would technically be yet another 99th birthday of a “Saimon Tamako”).

The first phase was the Saimon Family Case, lasting for nineteen months from September 19th 1977 to March 19th 1979 (yesterday).

The second phase—the Saimon Family Murder Case—would last another nineteen months, from April 19th 1979 to October 19th 1980.

Taken together, those two sets of nineteen incidents would make for 38 deaths in total, enough to kill the entire Saimon family. The family counted 39 members in all, but undoubtedly someone would die on another date due to that “accident tendency”. If by any chance too many Saimons died on unrelated days, other people connected to the Circus would be killed as replacement so the numbers checked out.

Now that the first phase of the case ended, exactly nineteen members of the family are still alive. From Saimons: Juku, his father Ryuusui (Soga Tensui), technically one of the surviving Tamakos, Taishi, Chinami, Chiaki. From Tsukumos: Gensui Senior, Karan, Seika, Emu & Nemu, Ranma. From Fujitas: Hyousen and Hyousai. From Tousens: the other surviving Tamako, Natsuko, Maki, Matoki and Yomiko.

If everything goes as planned, all nineteen will be dead by October 19th next year.

The second phase is also going to follow the symbolism of the magic show’s nineteen acts, effectively echoing the first phase. Soga Tensui will assume the identity of Shiroyasha and start killing people openly, with preliminary announcement, blatantly demonstrating the connection between the incidents and the Shiroyasha Case and forcing the police to investigate properly this time.

There is no doubt that with that connection in mind, the Saimon Family Murder Case will be immediately classified as an L Crime. The details of an L Crime can only be revealed to the public after maybe two decades… and this future reveal is the most important part of the plan.

Tengu and Akki can only act effectively as long as the public doesn’t know about them and their “perfect murders” that don't look like murders—but the public shall finally learn the truth when the details of the Case are revealed.

Every incident in this world has two sides like a coin: the obverse and the reverse, the surface common knowledge and the hidden truth behind it.

Those unable to notice the hidden truth will never be free, and only those skilled in reading between the lines can live their lives fully. Changing the common consciousness of the Japanese society, turning their understanding of the world towards spotting the hidden truths, is necessary to finally defeat Akki (and Tengu by collateral, but perhaps that is fine).

Just like the first Umayato no Miko worked towards establishing the state, Saimon Tamako wished for the creation of “a new Japan”.

Before the public will learn the truth about the case, it will no doubt have spread widely like a vague legend, all attention put towards the forbidden fruit of the second phase as if that’s the entire Case.

The second phase that is about to start very soon…

---

[The convention of 7 part with 7 chapters each breaks here. The next chapter is instead called:

SAIMON FAMILY MURDER CASE: CHANGE THE WORLD]

On April 19th 1979, Tsukumo (or Saimon) Tamako dies poisoned with arsenic during her and her sister’s 99th birthday celebration.

On May 19th 1979, Tousen Natsuko dies from a needle stabbed into her chest.

On June 19th 1979, Fujita Hyousai is found strangled at Tottori Dunes.

On July 19th 1979, Fujita Hyousen declares he’s going to challenge the murderer, but is later found dead after falling from Mount Hyouno. Fujita-gumi breaks apart and Tsuwano becomes a battling ground for two other yakuza groups.

On August 19th 1979, after Tousen Yomiko says she’d like to take a bath, a police officer walks into the bathroom first to check it, only to be caught and thrown violently by Magic Hands sent in through the window. The officer dies, but all the Saimon family members survive the day. The police increases investigation efforts now that one of them fell victim.

On September 19th 1979, Saimon Taishi is feeding the koi carps he got from the Ryuuguus when he’s suddenly dragged underwater and drowned.

On October 19th 1979, despite the Arm Guillotine having been disposed of and Saimon Chisato repeatedly claiming she’s not suicidal, she’s killed in such a way that it looks like she used the tool on herself.

On November 19th 1979, grieving Saimon Chinami dies of alcohol poisoning.

On December 19th 1979, Shiroyasha shows up in person in Sanasou and pierces Tsukumo Karan with his sword. No one is able to catch him.

On January 19th 1980, seeing as the next target will probably be Juku, he and Soujin come up with a risky plan. Soujin drives them towards the place where Joukei was killed, but when they’re going through a long tunnel, Juku gets out of the car and Kotensui's costume is put in his seat. After exiting the tunnel, Soujin sees Shiroyasha on the road and speeds up right into him, but what he took for the murderer was a figure made of concrete. Soujin dies in the crash. Ajiro doesn’t know if Soujin really got tricked by something so simple, or if the illusion looked more convincing at the time, or… At the end of the day, Juku survives at the price of Soujin’s life. When Kirigirisu (who at the time is resting at home recovering from flu) learns what happened, he bursts out crying and his condition worsens.

On February 19th 1980, the caretaker of the two hammer sharks in the Tottori Aquarium falls into the tank and is killed. While not a single family member dies, the connection with Tsukumo Souma's death is clear, and it’s obvious that Tensui’s utmost priority is to make the second phase closely imitate the first.

On March 19th 1980, the sound of a flying hornet can be heard all around the family's house, which must be Tensui’s vocal mimicry, but no one is successful at finding him. Young Tsukumo Emu dies after sustaining a wound that looks like a hornet stung her. This event causes everyone to move the remaining young kids of the family—Juku, Nemu, Matoki and Yomiko—to Ryuuguujou, where they will temporarily live for safety while the adults stay in Tsuwano.

On April 19th 1980, Tousen Maki suddenly falls dead in her own magic shop. While the cause of death was potassium cyanide coating one of her cigarettes, the incident looked similar to Tsushima and Arito falling dead on the spot.

On May 19th 1980, Tsukumo Gensui dies from carbon monoxide poisoning after the gas stove in his bedroom has its hose unplugged.

On June 19th 1980, Tousen Matoki disappears from heavily guarded Ryuuguujou. He’s later found dead in the nearby mountains, apparently having eaten (having been fed?) a poisonous mushroom.

On July 19th 1980, Tsukumo Seika is found dead in the family’s magic prop storage, having suffocated inside the Press Hammer. With this, the mystery of the show’s underwater escape is finally revealed: the Press Hammer can open at the bottom, allowing the performer to enter the secret hiding place inside it and stay there for a short while while his double shows up in the auditorium.

On August 19th 1980, since the next murder must be related to young Touji dying from a nurse’s mistake, everyone fears the one targeted may be Tsukumo Nemu, who’s been so stressed after Matoki’s death she doesn’t eat and has to stay under supervision of the Ryuuguu family’s trusted doctor. However, the actual victim this time ends up being Tousen Tamako, who is given the wrong injection after someone switched around her medicine.

On September 19th 1980, everyone is still worried about sick Nemu, since the next death has to echo Gensui’s death from illness. But once again someone else ends up dead instead: a young police officer patrolling Ryuuguujou completely breaks down under all the pressure and hits his head against the wall so hard he dies. Mental breakdown can also be classified as a disease.

--

On October 19th 1980, the last day of the Case, whatever will happen must reference Takayoshi’s death in the fire caused by a lightning strike.

It’s already raining heavily when Juku leads Ajiro and Kirigirisu through the darkness of an early morning to where they're going to finally meet Soga Tensui again—the meeting spot being the roof of Kami-Saimon in Tsuwano.

In dark pouring rain, Shiroyasha shows up on the rooftop to face them. The police instantly surrounds the house, cutting off all escape routes.

Suddenly, a lightning strikes—not just once, but two times, three, four, five, until the house is engulfed in flames. Juku reasons out that Tensui must have installed a tall metal rod on top of the house, which as the tallest thing around would work like a lightning rod.

Stepping lightly over the raging fire and under the pouring rain, Juku approaches Shiroyasha. The two Umayato no Miko, the father and the son finally face each other.

Shiroyasha slashes forward with the Sword of Seven Stars and Juku responds by using his Magic Hands in defense, eventually managing to grab and pull off the demonic mask. The man underneath is undoubtedly Soga Tensui. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Juku grabs the Sword of Seven Stars and wrenches it away from Tensui's grasp.

Tensui still smiles fearlessly.

“You have surpassed me, Juku,” he says. “As expected, you really are something else.”

In an instant, Tensui runs to the edge of the rooftop and into the air—no, he must be running on top of an invisible thread. Ajiro and Kirigirisu can’t follow him, but Juku doesn’t hesitate before chasing Tensui through the dark pouring rain, walking on a thread he can’t even see, with no safety net to catch him would he fall. The thread stretches all the way between the roof and the pond's island. Tensui gets there first and hides inside Shouryoin. Juku follows right behind him, but just before he can enter the shrine too—

—a lightning falls from the sky and sets Shouryoin ablaze.

Juku freezes in shock, looking up at the column of fire that seems to rise to the heavens.

Watching the scene unfold from afar, Ajiro mutters:

“It’s God, Kirigirisu. God [kami, but written with kanji for fire and water] is there.”

With Soga Tensui’s death in the fire, the Saimon Family Murder Case finally comes to an end, leaving four survivors: Tsukumo Ranma, Tsukumo Nemu, Tousen Yomiko and Saimon Juku.

--

[The next chapter is called:

SAIMON FAMILY MURDER CASE: OUT OF THIS WORLD]

The burned body found in Shouryoin lacks its left hand; it looks like Tensui really wore a prosthetic.

As the 99th Umayato no Miko, Juku uses a secret information network to finally declare the dissolution of Tengu after so many centuries. That doesn’t mean they will just go away and do nothing; they will probably still attempt to fight Akki… at least until the truth behind the case comes to light in a couple decades.

--

A few days after the last incident, Ajiro and Juku are in Kyoto, taking a walk towards the train station to head back to Ryuuguujou. (Kirigirisu and his wife Kano are right now on a hot springs trip funded by Ajiro, because God knows Kirigirisu more than earned it.) As they walk, they arrive at the place where the Kamo river and the Takano river join in a Y shape, a popular spot to hang out. The strange pair of a beautiful boy with sunglasses and a sexy young gentleman makes a lot of people turn their heads and sometimes faint. [Yes, the narration actually calls Ajiro a “sexy young gentleman”. Thanks, Seiryoin.] The two cross the river to the quiet “delta”, leaving the crowds behind.

After the Case finally came to an end, Yomiko was taken in by her very distant relatives from Tousens, while the only adult survivor of the Case, Tsukumo Ranma, declared that he would take care of both Juku and Nemu, his nephew and niece becoming his adoptive children. Juku’s last name would be changed accordingly.

“Tsukumo Juku… a new great detective is born,” Ajiro states, Juku smiling bashfully in response. “How about it? Would you like to work together as detectives one day? I can tell you have all the right qualities, which is rare. I’m utterly convinced that as a detective you will be indispensable for the country’s future.”

Juku shakes Ajiro’s hand and nods wordlessly, his eyes behind the sunglasses shining with determination and confidence.

—and in that moment, another person appears before them: an old man with white hair and beard, wearing a conical hat, holding a fishing rod, his eyes closed as if in thought.

“Hohoho… so we finally meet,” the man says. “You are the ones who solved the Saimon Family Murder Case?”

“Have we... met before?”

“This is the first time we meet. I am Hikami Sensai, just a feeble-minded old man who turned 986 this year. Perhaps there will come a time when I too will make use of your skills. I am looking forward to it. Hohoho…”

The old man laughs as if he’s really looking forward to it, then leaves, just like that.

The event feels unreal like a dream, and just like a dream it quickly disappears from Juku’s and Ajiro’s minds as they continue towards the train station. Everyone must be already waiting for them in Ryuuguujou: Mr. and Mrs. Ryuuguu with Otohime and Jounosuke, Ranma with Nemu, Yomiko, and even Ajiro’s wife Mizuki and son Souya, who arrived some time ago to hang out. This would be the first time the other kids meet Souya; a future precious memory for sure.

“Who knows, maybe my son will work for you in the future,” Ajiro jokes while they’re on the train. To be fair, little Souya doesn’t seem that inclined towards detective work, but one can dream.

Ajiro thinks of a world in which Juku and Souya grow up to be splendid detectives. Even though he’s not sure about where he himself is going to be in all those years, he can already imagine the wonderful future of all the children.

“I’m glad Nemu feels better now,” he says, to which Juku answers with a beautiful smile.

“To think Ms. Nemu is going to become my sister... it’s so strange and wonderful.”

Apparently Juku calls even his own sister “Miss”—well, we all have our quirks.

As Ajiro thinks of the children, he also quietly remembers the time spent with his grandfather.

--

The government may be able to deem something an L Crime and forbid the media to talk about it, but it may never fully seal people’s mouths. The legend of the Saimon Family Murder Case, a “new crime”, the “crime revolution” that started a new era, is circulated widely specifically because it shouldn’t be.

As the Case becomes a legend, so does Nihon Tantei Club, now overwhelmed with requests, employing more and more detectives and becoming the center of attention. Soon the government and the police take notice and propose cooperation. Around the time they get a shiny new building for their own in Kyoto, Ajiro changes the organization’s official name to something more fitting: JDC, short for the English name Japan Detectives Club.

Meanwhile, Uyama Hideo keeps working hard for Kodansha, helps talented authors create the new genre of mystery books and establishes the Mephisto prize. He still stays in touch with Ajiro and often sends him a copy of a particularly good new book.

Almost two decades after the case, when the 21st century is just around the corner, two authors are especially important to Uyama: Maya Yutaka and Maijo Otaro. Looks like he finally found those two writers he had talked about during the Case.

--

--

“Happy New Millenium!” exclaims the young blond magician, making the first person narrator of the framing device come to his senses in Las Vegas on December 31st 1999.

As we can remember, the young magician borrowed a bill from him, put it inside an envelope, set it on fire, produced a rose, and asked the narrator to check his wallet.

As he watched the illusion unfold, the narrator could easily guess all the methods the magician used (the flash paper envelope had another hole through which the bill could be pulled out as it was being inserted, the rose was a folding prop that could be hidden up one’s sleeve, a stooge hidden in the audience would take the bill and secretly put it back inside the spectator’s wallet…).

The narrator did his best to still react with properly surprised faces, of course.

But when he checks his wallet, the surprise is genuine. The bill he finds there is not at all the normal 10,000 yen with the portrait of Yukuzawa Yukichi. Instead, it’s the older version of the bill, the one portraying Prince Shoutoku.

As far as the narrator knows, the only Japanese people at the party are him and his wife… which must mean she was the one to sneak the bill into his wallet on the magician’s request.

Thinking about this, the narrator realizes something: he’s seen this young magician somewhere before.

After the show, the narrator, his wife, and the magician meet up in the hotel’s bar.

“So you’re still alive,” the narrator says.

The magician removes his wig and contact lenses; he now looks much more like a Japanese man.

“It’s been a while, Maji-san,” the narrator’s wife says.

Maji-san… Well, Tousen Matoki really is a bit too old now to be called Maji-chan. The question is: how did he survive the Case, and who was that dead boy thought to be him?

“My sister saved me. You get what I’m saying?”

That itself is explanation enough; Yomiko ended up affecting a lot of events and carried out an important role during a certain case. [And if you want to know what on earth this means, Carnival provides a few answers.] 

--

“I didn’t expect you to fool me like that,” the narrator says to his wife once they’re back in their hotel room.

“You kept secrets from me too, you know.” As expected, she’s still holding a grudge over that one matter.

Even after Tengu dispersed, they continued their fight against Akki. Concerned about the future, Saimon Juku (or rather Tsukumo Juku) appointed our narrator as the next Umayato no Miko. They cooperated as detectives for years, their outstanding insider knowledge of killing methods proving very useful in that job.

JDC has faced five giant cases. One of them was the Crime Olympics a few years ago (also known as the Carnival), and the others were called the Four Great Tragedies of Post-war Japan: the Saimon Family Murder Case, the Geneijo Murder Case, the Serial Locked Room Murder Case, and the one they are still in the middle of, the Serial Twin Disappearance Case. You could say the cases of Geneijo and Locked Rooms made a pair of sorts; if so, then the Saimon Case and the current case would also be connected in many ways—the Tengu already made an appearance, for one.

It’s obvious that Tengu have been observing them for a long time, waiting for the right time to finish their job. Tsukumo Ranma died in a very convincing accident. After Juku died too, there was no doubt that his sister Nemu would be the next target.

“I don’t regret anything I told you, Nemu,” the narrator says to his wife—to the person he appointed as the next Umayato no Miko to save her.

Being Umayato no Miko allowed them to become the first “S-Rank Detective Marriage” in history. The narrator wonders who Nemu will appoint as her successor… a few names from JDC pass through his head. He briefly thinks of their latest source of concern, the second Tsukumo Juku—Tsukumo Hatachi. [Hatachi being written with the kanji for number twenty. ...And then we never learned who this guy is, because Seiryoin still hasn’t written the last JDC book.]

“I think about that case every day,” the narrator says.

“Me too… but I was so small I can’t really remember it.”

“He really was a true magician. No matter when and where, Saimon Ryuusui still magically shows up next to me—because water is the basis of everything, the source of life, it’s always next to us, and every day we have contact with flowing water (ryuusui).”

Yet another coincidence.

The narrator remembers the posthumous Buddhist name given to the man: 清涼院流水大説居士 [Which can be read as Seiryoin Ryuusui Taisetsu Koji. Koji is a normal suffix for such a posthumous name. Ryuusui taisetsu is a term the JDC author often calls his works—“great novels flowing like water”, the word “great” referring to them not being limited by conventional genre boundaries.]

Nemu smiles hearing the narrator’s convoluted explanation.

“You haven’t changed at all, representative,” she calls him the title from long ago.

The narrator, Ajiro Souji, tosses a coin to Nemu.

“Do you know what they call the intricate design found on the reverse side of a coin?” he asks.

“I don’t know. What do they call it?”

The answer is saimon.

--

THE END

[scotianostra]

On October 1st 1763 the contract to build Edinburgh's North Bridge was signed.

Edinburgh in the 1700s was a very different city to the one we know today. The city boundary was restricted to the dramatic crag and tail feature which swept eastwards from the castle. Up to 35,000 people inhabited a space under a mile long making Scotland’s capital one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world at that time. The overcrowded population were crammed into crumbling tenements, many of them up to fourteen storeys high in order to make the most of the limited space. Make no mistake, Edinburgh at this point in it's history, was a skyscraper city, very few cities in the world had buildings the height of our capital!

Edinburgh’s nobility were often forced to accept the unthinkable and share dwellings with the lower classes. Change was not just desired, it was deemed an absolute necessity if the city was ever to move forward.

Plans to build a New Town to the north were discussed as early as the 1750s but without the means of connecting it with the rest of Edinburgh, it would be nothing more than a fanciful dream. Phase one required the draining of the ancient Nor’ Loch, a man-made stagnant body of water located in the area which we now term as Princes Street Gardens. Drainage began in 1759 and would continue up until the 1820s. Dry land at the east of the Nor’ Loch valley allowed for what was undoubtedly the most ambitious engineering project to have been built in the city at that point: An eleven-hundred foot long stone bridge. The North Bridge, as it would be named, enabled the New Town to become a reality. A brand new chapter in the city’s history was about to begin.

And so it was that the foundation stone of architect William Mylne’s North Bridge was laid on 1st October 1763 but it would be a further two years before any serious amount of progress was made. Nearing completion, the magnificent multi-arched bridge first opened to pedestrians in 1769 to much fanfare and excitement.   However, the cheers would soon be emphatically silenced that summer due to a disaster of epic proportions.

On the evening of Thursday, 3rd August 1769 the side walls of the south abutment of the bridge suddenly gave way, causing a partial collapse of the structure and tragically claiming the lives of five people.

Rescue efforts were recorded by newspaper the Caledonian Mercury which detailed the grim discoveries of bodies "buried in the rubbish, occasioned by the fall of the walls of the south abutment of the new bridge over the north loch".

Two of the bodies were identified as belonging to Mr Lawson, shoemaker, and Mr James Fergus, a local writer.

The Caledonian Mercury went on to mention that workers had been digging almost day and night since the collapse and that at least three to four others were feared to have shared the "same unhappy fate with the two already found".

A contemporary letter penned by a Darcy, Lady Maxwell recalls the evening of the collapse, which she had witnessed, writing 

“The Lord, who is continually loading me with his benefits, has twice this day remarkable interfered on my behalf. In the evening he preserved me from broken bones to which I was exposed in a fall. A few hours after, when walking home from chapel, I witnessed a most melancholy scene occasioned by the falling in of the North Bridge. I… was within five minutes of passing over it… when almost in a moment, the greatest noise I ever heard (except on a similar occasion when I was remarkably preserved) filled the air."It seemed as if the pillars of nature were giving way. Instantly, the cry resounded “the bridge is fallen!”

A full inquiry followed and identified haste in construction and a poorly-calculated estimate regarding the depth of the foundations and sturdiness of the earth-filled abutments as the chief causes behind the disaster.

Rebuilding work demanded £18,000 (almost double the original £10,140 cost of the project) and the city would have to wait until 1772 before the grand reopening.  The original North Bridge survived more than a century until the 1890s, when engineers devised an improved link that would allow for greater flow of traffic, this was at the time Waverley Train Station was being constructed. 

Construction of the current steel bridge that we know today was completed in 1897 at a cost of £81,000., with the North British Railway Company contributing to a third of the cost.

A plaque recalling the founding and dismantling of the original North Bridge occupies a wall of the present bridge, which has now stood for roughly the same length of time as its predecessor.

The pictures show the evolution of the Nor Loch, I can’t find dates for them all, but you will see  in the first one that the Loch is still not fully drained and very little signs of buildings on the North side, pic two shows buildings where the Balmoral Hotel now sits.

In the third pic there are signs of a Market where we now have Waverley Station, the street and buildings under the far side are now called Market Street. Pic four is dated around 1809, all the buildings you see on the left are now gone. On the top roght corner is what was The North British Train Station, the bottom of the picture you can see what is now known as “The Mound. Next pic is I guess from mid 19th century, still a long way from the construction of Waverley Station. Pic six shows the North Bridge being  dismantling early 1896,  and then   "The Ceremony of Laying the Foundation Stone of the New North Bridge Edinburgh 25th May 1896, leading on to the  commemorative plaque, which is from around the same time.

Finally is a pic of how the North Bridge looks in 2021, not much to see as it is in cladding while a multi-million restoration is taking place, the cost of refurbishing the bridge has soared from £22 million to £36m after the landmark structure was found to be in worse condition than expected. Last October the council issued a statement saying 

“Due to the nature of the construction of the bridge, full access behind the cast iron façade has not been available since it was constructed in 1897 and the last full refurbishment of this nature was in 1933. It has not been possible to properly inspect the hidden structural elements in almost 90 years.”

The briefing said testing had led to the discovery of “extensive issues” with the existing concrete bridge deck constructed in 1933.

[marklandsbaum-blog]

Is this Judgment?

By Mark Landsbaum 

 This does not bode well. There comes a point in the affairs of men popularly known as “the point of no return.” It’s when there is no going back. The reason may be that it’s too difficult to undo what has been done, meaning the course has been irrevocable set. Or maybe it’s because men no longer desire to go back. They sincerely accept the new direction, despite its clearly detrimental consequences.

 Christians might recognize this point from the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans.

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,” (Romans 1:24)

 The apostle described the point at which mankind’s depravity reaches such a point that God decides to let them have what they want, no matter how self-destructive the urge.

 Not so long ago even non-religious people, even worshippers of false gods, could agree there are two basic responsibilities of government: to suppress evil and punish evildoers. True some Christians, usually from the “progressive” side of the spectrum, imagine government has many tasks, such as providing health, education and welfare. This writer finds no biblical warrant for such an expanded role of government.

 But everyone – or at least it seemed like everyone – once agreed, government’s primary job is to protect its people from harm and bring to justice those who commit such offenses. In other words, to suppress evil and punish evildoers.

 Yours truly fears our nation has reached that Romans point of no return. Not only has government shamelessly expanded what it pretends is its authority to usurp the legitimate authority of family and church. But now government flatly refuses to suppress evil and punish evil-doers.

 For days Americans have watched video images of chaos and anarchy unfold on the streets. Innocent people have been beaten, even killed. Private businesses have been looted, burned to the ground. Even government’s own edifices, police stations, have not been immune to the rampaging evil of recent days.

 Far too often, the unthinkable results. Government’s enforcers, police, national guardsmen, elected officials have stood by and watched, refusing to stop the chaos. Refusing to suppress the evil or punish the evil-doers.

 The refusal to do their duty, which officers and their superiors have sworn to perform, is not a neutral act. To refuse to suppress evil when you have sworn to do so, particularly when it occurs right in front of your eyes, is not neutrality. It is another act of evil. There is no neutrality.

 Presumed neutrality flies in the face of this timeless concept: “You are either with me or against me.” Some may identify the notion with former President George W. Bush during the Middle East conflicts drawing a line demarking allies and foes. Those blessed with a deeper understanding will recognize it as the words of Jesus Christ from the gospel of Matthew.

 Even fallen, imperfect political figures have recognized the concept.

 “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," said Irish statesman Edmund Burke nearly three centuries ago.

 Yet today, too many of those who claim the mantle of statesman, effectively have done and said precisely the opposite. It is a contagious thing, this compromising of truth. One mayor after another, one governor after another, even one law enforcement officer after another seemingly find it expedient to abdicate their responsibility.

 If one is going to refuse to do what is right, one might at least step aside and allow someone else to perform the function. But no. Lacking the integrity to resign, they instead cling to their positions of authority but refuse to use it, doubling down on the error.

 That’s perhaps the most discouraging aspect of this retreat from the rule of law. It’s apparently not rooted in a principled decision. It seems to be full capitulation. They act wrongly or improperly refuse to act yet still insist they are doing the right thing as consequent chaos ratchets up and death and destruction have their way.

 One need not be a theologian or a statesman to understand the concept flouted amid the riots and mayhem. Moreover, it is sophistry to claim that a wrongful, evil act, such as the unjust killing of a man by police, somehow justifies others committing evil acts of their own. As mothers have advised their children forever, two wrongs do not make a right.

 It wasn’t the barbarians at the gates who were the downfall of Rome. It was the indifferent leaders and their subjects within the walls. When men choose to do nothing, evil prevails.

 When God’s ordained civil ministers of justice – police, the military and their superiors – refuse to suppress evil and punish evildoers, civilization nears its end. There are dark days ahead for our republic.

 On a cheerier note (sort of), consider this: nothing occurs outside the sovereign will of Almighty God. What we are witnessing, the beatings, burnings, looting and refusal of authorities to confront and suppress it all may be precisely what justice looks like.

Does our nation deserve better? In a culture where the murder of babies in the womb has been deemed an “essential” service, where what God declares to be an abomination is now considered instead a constitutional right, where the demand on your neighbor’s purse supersedes the prohibition “thou shall not steal,” what do you think?

 In his letter to the saints in Rome, the apostle described what God does when men reach that point of no return, where their persistent evil and preference for it rather than what is good and true indicates He has given them over to their perverse lusts. “You want this rather than Me?” God says in effect. “Then you shall have it.”

 In short, we may be witnessing not merely the destruction of our way of life by the twin evils of chaos and anarchy. We may be witnessing God’s judgment. Who could argue that He is not giving people precisely what they have so long expressed to be their preference?

 If this isn’t God’s judgment on our fallen culture, what would judgment look like?

 If you’re a praying person, now may be a good opportunity. Pray that God have mercy, move our people to repent and save our land. It appears many of those civil magistrates with earthly jurisdiction, are far from willing, and far from repentance.

[dunebat]

Vader

Presenting a brief fanfic penned today for May the Fourth. Happy Star Wars Day, everyone!

The sun burned furiously in the evening skies over PT-187, heat waves shimmering over the bright beachfront as frothy, wind-tossed waves crashed against the sand… but he could feel no sun warming him and no gentle sea wind caressing his pale flesh. The sea salted the air around him, but the artificial olfactory receptors built into his helmet filtered out most of the ocean air, and his nostrils registered only the merest hint of the sensation.

Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and commander of the military might of the Galactic Empire, would never feel the sun or the wind again. He would never smell anything again, not the way most people detected scent, nor would he hear or see the way others heard and saw.

The armored life support suit he wore saw to that.

Instead, Vader felt only bunchy, padded fabric cushioning and sealing off his still-highly sensitive epidermis from the worlds around him, the suit's climate control functions keeping him forever cool. Never cold like the blessed chilly nights of arid, dune-washed Tatooine after both the planet's suns had set, never warm like the lakeside shores of placid, picturesque Naboo at summertime, merely cool enough for some meager measure of comfort amidst all the other lesser torments the suit inflicted upon him. He sometimes had to remind himself that these minor chivvies were a small sacrifice, as this suit saved his life.

He never heard the sounds of the worlds he visited — never heard the trill of the native birds, the rustling of dead leaves, the crackling of ice beneath his feet, or the bustle of each planet's sentient inhabitants as they rushed about their business — with the full breadth and scope that each sound carried as they vibrated through the air on their way to his ear. Instead, tiny microphones captured each and every sound with the same stale mechanical efficiency that they picked up any other sound and transmitted these sounds to his scabbed and scarred eardrums via tinny, scratchy speakers based on technology now a decade old. Each sound trilled in his ears at either too high or too low a register, causing his ears no end of pain no matter how often he adjusted the pitch, bass, treble, or volume. He gave up trying to find a comfortable, almost-natural volume years ago; he simply set his helmet's speakers to a volume that caused his ears the least pain and left the settings there. His technicians assured him that upgrades would be coming as soon as the technology was ready and he had enough downtime for his technicians to install the new audio sensors.

Vader would not hold his breath waiting. The galaxy roiled and trembled in chaos, and he had been tasked with ordering it by force.

Not that he could hold his breath if he wanted to. If his hellish existence had any constant, it was the deep, rumbling sound of his own mechanically aided respiration. An administrative underling had told him once, long ago, that the sound produced by his suit's built-in respirators was terrifying, and though Vader would never admit it to anyone, he understood exactly what that underling meant.

When Vader first heard his own mechanical breathing — a thunderous, ever-constant sound in his own beleaguered ears — he was frightened by it. After being sealed up in his black life-support armor for the first time ten years ago, Vader remembered how the sound had chilled him to his core, not solely by the sound of it, but by its consistency. Most sentients take the way their speech or their physical activity distorts their breathing for granted. Vader could speak, he could whisper, he could scream, and his breathing remained at its constant, computer-controlled rate throughout. He could run five kilometers aided solely by his prosthetic legs or leap incredible lengths with the Force granting him wings, he could spar with his combat training droids for days on end or physically exert himself in the most exhausting ways imaginable, and his mechanical breathing would remain as constant as the motions of the stars.

It was maddening. He couldn't sleep for almost a full week after he was first sealed in the suit. Over time, however, his mechanical respiration went from terrifying to irritating to infuriating, until it finally became just another part of his day-to-day existence. The breathing used to drown out all other sounds at times; now, it served as a constant reminder that he was alive — he still alive no matter who or what had tried to kill him over the years, that he had lived through Hell itself and had come out the other side of the most transformative trials any Sith would ever face. He had conquered every foe set before him. Though he had sacrificed so much of who he once was, at each day's end, his breathing reminded him that he had been molded into a new creature, an engine of fierce and terrible order to be imposed upon the wild and unruly Galaxy, and that breathing — once an irritant, now an almost meditative sound at times — and the life that it gave him was part of his reward, as was the power to impose the stability of order and the rule of law to everything he set his eyes upon…

…And all that he saw now was red. If he missed any of his senses, the sense he missed the most was his sight. Not that Vader was blind, of course. His eyesight had been almost fully restored years ago after his painful rebirth at fiery Mustafar years ago, and Vader could see with crystal clarity, though he could only use his natural eyes in specially-designed hyperbaric living chambers that allowed him to remove his life-support mask. Vader was forced to wear his life-support helmet whenever he left his habitations, and the helmet's computerized lenses rendered the worlds he visited in harsh shades of crimson.

Vader had been informed by his technicians that this was a practical choice: red lenses were excellent for computer-enhanced vision in both day and night, and seeing via red light at night preserved his eyes' night vision. Though he missed seeing the beauteous colors of life at times, Vader agreed with his technicians. As beautiful and splendid as the hues and shades of life could be, color and beauty were distractions. They bound the viewer to the forces of life around them, fooling them into accepting the meaningless nonsense of life as it was instead of seeing what life could be. Red lenses, Vader had discovered, were the purest way to view life.

All the passion inherent in existence, the roiling ambitions of the Imperial officers serving alongside him and the blood-bought devotion of stormtroopers serving under him in the 501st Legion, all the petty cruelties and impersonal horrors life had to offer, were revealed in their stark, cataclysmic glory by the color red. When Vader gazed upon the worlds he would visit, he saw through his mask's crimson lenses the blood that united all lifeforms in the sanguine tableau of existence in all its shades, from bright and screaming pink to electric carmine and rusty, slaughterous crimson. He saw no inequity between individuals and the differences between sentient beings expressed in their skin tones no longer held any meaning for him. Everyone, everything, was all the same: the color of lust, rage, life, and death, all things deemed "precious" to the Sith.

When Vader scanned the breathtaking vista before him, he saw neither the glimmering turquoise sea, nor the setting sun's red-orange final furies as it spread its dying light across the sky, nor the golden sands that inspired poets and artisans throughout PT-187's storied history. All Vader saw was the blood-red madness that seeped from the darkest shadows of this world's turbulent heart… and the apocalypse that he would visit upon this planet when his forces razed its capital city to the sands beneath it.

PT-187 — that was the designated assigned to the planet by Imperial administrators — was a virgin world boasting beautiful beaches and plentiful natural resources that had only been discovered two years ago by Corporate Sector scouts traversing yet another new trade route through hyperspace. Its native society was highly industrialized and had only recently colonized their planet's two moons, but they had yet to develop technology more advanced than the basic chemical rocket or metal projectile weapons. Though PT-187 possessed its own planet-wide computer network, the planet's inhabitants were largely ignorant busybodies toiling away at meaningless tasks to support their dreary lives. None of them had any knowledge of the Force, or of the wider Galaxy beyond their world's atmosphere. No centralized government existed yet; a handful of larger political polities bullied smaller states into submission, and wars were frequent. Ambassadors from the nearest Imperial sector had made their overtures to the pitiful beings that the planet's inhabitants deemed their "leaders" only to be rebuffed, then felled, by the unruly inhabitants.

No matter; there would always be uncivilized natives, rioting protestors, greedy backstabbing nobles, overzealous political dissidents, or thugs and gangsters whose criminal ambitions outgrew their social standings, Vader mused. This was simply the ebb and flow of life in the Galaxy. The unruly, undisciplined, and uncivilized refused all vestiges of order when it was presented to them, and they would always, always respond to that halcyon order with brutal, unthinking violence, no matter how much that order could benefit them. That was simply the reality of life in the Empire, just as it was in the days of the corrupt and inept Republic that preceded it. When they did, that was when Imperial naval forces would be dispatched to impose order, whether the barbarous fools wanted it or not.

The Imperial Navy had successfully blockaded PT-187 for six months, but the threat of starvation had only emboldened the more zealous of the planet's savage inhabitants. Vader and the 501st Legion had been dispatched to bring an end to the pointless conflict three days ago, and his troopers had already made tremendous headway, especially after their major military command centers had been obliterated from orbit by his flagship's laser cannons.

Vader and his troops landed during the cannonade and assaulted the planet's major centers of government, and blood was all he had seen since. He and his forces waded through it as his lightsaber — a blade as bright as the life essence it spilled onto PT-187's sands — and his trooper's blasters carved swaths of carefully-constructed order through the disarray of rebellion, bringing the glorious stability of victory forth from the chaos of armed conflict. Within hours, several of PT-187's political entities had surrendered, and the rest had fallen into silence as their warriors fell on the battlefields.

Finally, step by bloody step, Vader stood on the beaches surrounding the capital city of one of the planet's three strongest nation-states. The first of the other strongest nation-states was cowed into submission after Vader had personally strangled their head of state as her citizens watched in horror, and the second had surrendered hours later. This final nation-state, a haven of misguided idealists, zealous militants, greedy corporate moguls, and corrupt politicians, was the only bastion of what passed for organized resistance remaining on this world. It reminded Vader so much of the outdated Republic that he would have vomited in disgust, had his suit's onboard medical computer would have allowed his stomach to do so.

Vader scanned the idyllic beaches through his helmet's blood-red lenses, visualizing the crimson carnage he would wreak upon world after world to birth the Emperor's New Order as his heavily-armored mechanical feet crunched their way across the sands. Even through the cacophonous din of the orbital cannonade ravaging the city's pitiful defenses and the sizzles of blaster-fire that erupted from his troops' weapons, Vader could hear the ever-constant sound of his own breathing — once a reminder of his imprisonment in his imposing black battle armor, now a symbol of every victory he had wrested from the cruel Force since Mustafar.

As the planet's screaming inhabitants fled all around him, he focused on his breath and stretched out with the Force. He drew upon the fear and rage of the fools native to PT-187 as he drew upon their lusts, their ambitions, their hatreds, and all the other passions of this world's inhabitants, and added it to his own as he carved a path further into the battlefield.

"Lord Vader," his troop's commander squawked over Vader's communicator from further ahead, "we've mopped up resistance at the capitol building and are prepared to make our final assault into their senate chambers."

"Wait for my signal," Vader's booming artificial voice barked, and he smiled as he cut down a few more of PT-187's rebels. Soon, this world would be washed in the blood of renewal that Vader had been baptized with a decade ago, and when he and the 501st were finished, the Imperial administers would christen the world with a new name, as Vader had been so christened that fateful, fiery evening on Mustafar.

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Many thanks to George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, and to the Walt Disney Company, and may the Force be with you all.

[dweemeister]

Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963)

Over the last hundred years, the Presidency of the United States has grown in scope and responsibilities. For a newborn nation founded (and yes, I know I’m radically simplifying things) due to the legislative and taxation imposed by a tyrannical sovereign, America’s Founders crafted an executive with limited power. That power, independent from and counterbalanced by the federal government’s legislative and judicial branches, remained limited for most of the nineteenth century. Turn the page to the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries, and the office has become gargantuan. Starting from Herbert Hoover’s single term, fifteen men have presided over the Oval Office, representing the longest uninterrupted run of the Presidency accruing power – despite campaign slogans from mostly conservative presidents promising to rein in an expanding office. Over those fifteen presidential administrations, the American people, once suspicious of being ruled by monarchical fiat, have, through mass media, developed increasing expectations for their head of state and government.

These expectations are oftentimes not explicitly outlined by the U.S. Constitution, and are the constructions of politics or the public. They include, and are not limited to: reinvigorating the national economy by execution of monetary policy, introducing a blueprint for and compromising with Congress over the federal budget, managing the vast bureaucracy existing within the White House, and comforting those who have lost their loved ones after a disaster. Presidential scholars sometimes deem the burgeoning power of the office as the “Imperial Presidency” – a term that may have been first used during John F. Kennedy’s administration. That administration is at the heart of Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, directed by Robert Drew for ABC News, and released a month before Kennedy’s assassination.

In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States, in their decision for Brown v. Board of Education, ruled that the “separate, but equal” justification for racially segregating black and white children in public schools was unconstitutional. Opposition in the American South meant that enforcement and adherence to the Court’s decision proved elusive. The University of Alabama began accepting applications from black students after Brown v. Board, denying admittance from all except for one exception (the university’s administration found, after some effort and rioting, an excuse to expel the student). But in 1963, three students – Vivian Malone and James Hood for the flagship campus in Tuscaloosa; Dave McGlathery for UA Huntsville – applied for and, by federal court order, were admitted to the University of Alabama system.

Crisis follows the efforts of the Kennedy administration – mostly through Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (JFK’s brother) – over two days, to ensure that Vivian Malone and James Hood could register for classes. Fears of rioting and violence, though unrealized, hung over the Kennedy administration. The stiffest resistance came from Alabama Governor George Wallace – who advocated for “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” – who vowed to physically block the doorway of the university’s Foster Auditorium to prevent Malone and Hood from registering. The President, Attorney General, and Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach (who is sent to Alabama) work, with their staffers, to formulate a plan on how to allow Malone and Hood to register for classes as painlessly as possible.

The film, co-produced by Drew’s production company Drew Associates, is shot with minimal voiceover narration by James Lipscomb (a producer for various documentaries for National Geographic); Drew’s team also included Drew Associates regulars like D.A. Pennebaker (1967’s Don’t Look Back, 1993’s The War Room) and Richard Leacock (1966’s Monterey Pop and four episodes of Omnibus). All these filmmakers have been noted for their innovation of cinéma verité – which Crisis is an excellent example of. Cinéma verité, in its most basic form, is documentary filmmaking where the filmmakers allow the audience to observe what is happening. In cinéma verité, insights about people, places, and events are revealed through the images alone – not through interventions by the filmmakers like narration (which in Crisis only serves to identify the key individuals; note the passage of time; and explain the context of a scene after a cut), superimposed text, or talking head interviews. Narration and superimposed text can exist within a cinéma verité documentary, but they can only be factual in nature.

Drew Associates’ access to the White House, Department of Justice, and RFK’s residence was thanks to the company’s work in filming Primary (1960), which followed Kennedy and his Democratic Primary opponent Hubert Humphrey as the contested the Wisconsin Democratic Primary. How they received access to Governor Wallace’s residence and the Alabama Capitol is not clear. Before President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1960, he agreed with Drew that presidential decision making in a crisis would be a fascinating documentary topic: “What if I could see what went on in the White House during the twenty-four hours before FDR declared war on Japan,” JFK mused. Agreeing to give Drew access when such a crisis (not of top-secret military importance) came, President Kennedy believed that the film would hopefully serve for future presidents as an example of how critical presidential decisions are made. To reach the Resolute desk, the issue must be laden with controversy. Indeed, the crisis of Governor Wallace’s refusal to allow black students to register for classes with the University of Alabama generated a lot of discussion in Washington and across the South. Filmed on June 10 and 11, 1963, Crisis captures the mechanics of the tough decisions that President Kennedy and his brother, the Attorney General, make: how to use the National Guard if at all, the optics of escorting the students onto campus, anticipating worst-case scenarios, discussing electoral consequences of enraging the Southern segregationist vote, telephone calls, meeting after meeting.

For Wallace, the narration does not refer to his pro-segregation views, nor his betrayal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) after garnering their endorsement for his first failed run for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1958 (his opponent then was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan). If one knew nothing about Wallace prior to Crisis, the opening minutes of the film might make you think he is a dedicated family man and a diligent worker. But his rhetoric during the film makes transparent his racism. Snippets of Wallace walking among the public exemplifies his popularity among Alabaman whites, who extol him for his pro-segregationist broadsides against an overreaching federal government. When cinéma verité is applied with as little authorial editorialization as possible (there will always be some degree of such editorializing, but the aim in cinéma verité is to minimize it), what is murky in days past, over time, rises above the fray, revealing truth. Wallace’s actions are indefensible, and the fact that so many supported his actions reveals the stain of racism that continues to infect American politics for the foreseeable future. And yet, this is as fair a treatment as George Wallace could have hoped for in a documentary film.

One of the unsung individuals in Crisis is Deputy Attorney General Katzenbach, who is the one who briefs the National Guard on what is to be done the day they escort Malone and Hood on campus. His discussions with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in person and over telephone calls encapsulate their professionalism and mutual respect for the other. Katzenbach, the first person to confront Governor Wallace in the doorway – with both men reading prepared statements to the other, with Wallace clearly not listening as he interrupts the Deputy Attorney General – outmaneuvers the Governor, a tribute to his strategizing in the lead-up to this confrontation.

An executive order from President Kennedy federalizing the Alabama National Guard is what makes Wallace stand down. Since Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency (1901-1909), the executive order has become a tool for a president to help federal agencies and officers manage operations of the federal government. Though executive orders are not legislation nor specifically mentioned in the Constitution, they do not require Congressional approval (though Congress can pass legislation that makes the executive order difficult to perform). The regulations created through executive orders can have a sweeping effect on life in the United States – most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt’s authorization to force German-Americans, Italian-Americans, and especially Japanese-Americans into concentration camps and Donald Trump’s suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and suspension on entries from several Muslim-majority nations in January 2017. Executive orders have played a growing role in the lifespans of American presidential administrations. Most recently, the uptick of executive orders under Barack Obama’s last years in office served as inspiration to his successor in how to handle the tools of the presidency.

The basis of Kennedy’s invocation of executive order is clear-cut, even though Crisis barely mentions it: Brown v. Board of Education. Kennedy’s actions, however, might have been unthinkable earlier in history even with a corresponding Supreme Court decision. The growth of the Imperial Presidency and the public’s desire for stronger central government – in contrast to how Americans perceived their constitutional republic in roughly the first century of its existence – create all the drama in Crisis. The film, curiously, does not seem terribly interested in questioning how the process of this decision – using the Attorney General and federalizing a possibly sympathetic portion of the National Guard – might play to Alabamans after it has happened. Given the changes in how the U.S. Constitution is interpreted, this same dynamic made possible FDR’s New Deal and the internment camps that detained thousands of American citizens and nationals, Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and Donald Trump’s efforts to decrease immigration and refugee arrivals as much as possible. In addition to providing insight to what is a credible use of executive order, Crisis – if contextualized by noting how the American presidency has and now operates – can illuminate how expansive the American presidency has become.

Debuting on ABC stations nationwide on October 21, 1963*, Crisis prompted viewers to flood ABC and its affiliates with furious calls venting about the fact cameras were given permission to roll in the Oval Office. Americans and, by extension, anyone who interested in what is happening in America, now take for granted how much access they have to their executive, legislative, and judicial branches – even if this comes at the expense of metastasizing confirmation bias in the nation’s politics. Many considered this a debasement of the office, a distraction from the agonizing work they expected their president and his officials to be performing (even though President Kennedy and those officials act as if they barely noticed the cameras). This outrage, however, would not last, due to Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas several weeks later.

Crisis was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2011, noting that the film, “has proven to be a uniquely revealing complement to written histories of the period, providing viewers the rare opportunity to witness historical event from an insider’s perspective.” It remains a singular document in which presidential crisis management and deliberation are central. Running under an hour, it is a compelling work of early cinéma verité (which has receded in the new century) that will prove intriguing even outside history and civics classes. More than enough time has passed, with the film’s truths seen in full.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

*Despite debuting on television, Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment is almost always treated as a cinematic film. It has been considered as such here.

[ultimavolatusrpg]

ACCEPTED // AURORA DAWN GARCIA

21 years old, Adopted Little Sister of Serenity Garcia, FC: Sydney Park

Gentle, Compassionate, Witty, Imaginative, Enduring

tw:  death, mentions of starvation

To look at Aurora, to know a being like herself is to know a rare individual unlike many people to have existed in this day and age. To know there is still some sweetness and love in a world so fraught with death and dying - with children made into killers. Strange in a world like this and under the circumstances she’s endured that anyone like her could ever exist let alone become even more gentle and kind. Death has touched her world, reared its ugly head in the course of her existence and threatened to take it all away but the girl was never intended to die before her time or in the district that saw her take her first breath. It would see her loved by the most unlikely of people to feel pity for the girl and Aurora adopt a new name and family to have her entire circumstances change. Near disaster is no stranger either to her, testing her  on several occasions to see what she might do or if when presented with the near loss of a sibling - if love was in her heart there they would find a way. Even still Aurora has survived those things and owned the strength in her sweetness; in being soft. Life would see her happy even in a place haunted by death, dangerous beings and the things one was willing to do to keep the gilded cage still gleaming. It would show here there was just as much strength in a tender touch as there was a clenched fist. It would see Aurora Dawn Garcia become a testament to the human spirit; a wondrous human being the world hadn’t fully corrupted yet.

To really know Aurora - however - we’d need to fall through time back to the beginning. Not the moment she arrived into the care of her family now but before the Garcia’s adopted the innocent little being. We’d need to delve back an age to the rich, dark earth of District 11 to darker days and much more dire situations. While the world had aged a considerable amount from its own start these were the days Aurora was fresh and brand new. She wasn’t carved from the rock in District 2, Aurora wasn’t hewn from graceful alabaster stone as one could imagine. Instead she was born from the salt of the earth, meant to know a hard day’s labor before anything else  - to know near starvation for nearly half of her life. Aurora was a strange little duck whose lullabies were sung by beasts of burden and strong individuals of the land who raised massive amounts of crops and rustled fruit from trees. There was no hope of a better life in a district such as this one. One could imagine the little thing barely eating never knowing even as a small child what it was to feel full. Certainly, Aurora could’ve grown there and become another brick in the wall and upon her bones they’d build more and continue on as they had always been doing so. It was not an easy life and it assuredly wasn’t a place you’d imagine a bright eyed creature growing up in. She was loved and loved in return as much as anyone was allowed in such a state of existence where they barely existed at all but to serve the Capitol. Her dolls were made from the husks of corn and what wool was discarded - taught to make yarn and craft something out of what Panem rejected and deemed unworthy. Even then to pretend there were moments to be a child and have childlike dreams would be a grand lie. As soon as she could walk and pick things off of prickly bushes a small child knew work beside her family in the fields. A sad existence that would surely see her live and die a slave to the state of either starvation or an infraction that anywhere else wouldn’t call for an execution ( like trying to feed others ). No one would have imagined the fateful day when everything changed.

Her birth parents, two individuals she can barely remember, were as much skin and bones as the little girl. The family wasn’t meant long for this world let alone another winter could they all hope to possibly survive through. If just one of them was meant to live it’d be their little one. Aurora was too precious to see her fall like so many other individuals succumbed and while the workhouse wasn’t a fate to wish on anyone it’d be better than starving to death. So they did the unthinkable - they stole food to feed their sweet little love. As fate would have it or by some wild chance as parents lives were cut short deliverance came in their arms of a peacekeeper.  Aurora’s first memory of her true mother was Lucianna crouching beside her in the bowels of the justice building to wipe a tear from her eye and ask her name. She was afraid with no better understanding of peacekeepers then a nine year old from an intolerant district would have. Aurora wasn’t expecting her to be kind or even remotely gentle even as far as to ask if she was okay. Frightened she nodded before barely whispering that she was hungry not wanting to ask after her parents just died trying to feed her. Lucianna wiped another tear from the little thing’s eyes, picked her up and boarded the train telling her she was taking her home now. Of course it wasn’t as immediate as all that but it all happened very quickly and thus Aurora Dawn became Aurora Dawn Garcia with a mother who loved her enough to save her from certain death taking her away to a place she’d be loved and not forgotten. Upon arriving home, to a new home now, Aurora met Censa first. Her other mother bubbled over with a love Aurora never knew before. She was bathed, clothed and fed and could barely let go of either woman unsure if this was real or not or if these new people would let her stay. Despite being constantly assured this was her home now the little duckling was still cautious. Then she met Serenity… as she poked her head out from behind Censa’s skirts a bright, big beautiful smile bloomed on little lips as the nine year old ran to embrace the other. Home became real in that moment not just a word or something she’d just lost with the death of those who brought her into this world. She had hope and love and a big sister who’d be ready for any adventure and always ready to protect her. Aurora was allowed to live neigh she was allowed an opportunity to thrive there in District 2. In the years following her adoption they would truly discover was a delicate wonderful human being they’d given life to.

Aurora was thirteen when she realized in the years this had been her family and there was no one else she cared about as much as the incredible women she was surrounded by that she’d never said she loved them. That she’d never told Serenity how much she cared about her. After going through two reapings herself she knew the order of things. The Academy really chose who was to be tribute that year both boys and girls and in a way she would always be safe. They’d never let her be chosen, the most ungifted and nonviolent person who was often an oddity there for her overall demeanor being too kind, too gentle, entirely too compassionate and caring for them to ever desire her to be a representative for Two. Aurora could never hurt a fly much less harm another person without saying she was sorry and checking their well being afterwards. For Panem’s sake her Christmas gift the year before was knitting needles and an entire box of colorful yarns made of different materials which she made into gifts for other people. Yet while she understood this was how the world worked when the female tribute was called she ignored what was being said knowing the Academy’s choice would soon raise their voice. That was the moment her world was shaken awake by the voice of her sister. Aurora never knew that her sister would be the one they’d chose that year. She could barely let go of Serenity, holding her in an embrace like she had held their mother Lucianna years ago. Tears in her eyes the last thing she said to Serenity before she was loaded onto the train was ‘I love you..” not knowing if it would be the last thing she’d ever tell someone so entirely beloved by her.

It was nerve wracking watching her games, watching her brush with death as many times as she did. Aurora woke every morning, every hour, every evening with Serenity’s name on her lips praying to whatever god existed or power that was please don’t let her Serenity die. Please don’t let the people I love die. Censa and Lucianna had never seen her cry so much as they had in the time Serenity’s games lasted even to the point she wouldn’t eat only living in that moment to watch the screen wondering if there was a way she could jump through them to protect her protector. Aurora would’ve if she could’ve stepped into the game to fight with her not knowing what good she’d do but they were sisters bound forevermore and losing her would’ve killed the precious one. When she won after all that had transpired Aurora no matter the amount of death was determined to never let a day pass her where she didn’t put love out into the world or tell the incredible warrior women of her family how much they meant. They’d finally all be together in one spot, whole and alive to live the rest of their days in a place she was honestly very grateful for.

Years have passed now once again and a girl who many wouldn’t believe could’ve survived into her tenth birthday was twenty-one. A beautiful, wondrous, imaginative, tender twenty-one. If you see Aurora Garcia you know wonder. You know gentility, kindness and laughter. She’s settled here to know every day was a blessing beside her powerful sister and magnificent mothers. Flowers decorate her hair, she sings to the flowers and vegetables in her garden and tells stories to little children. Spending so much time with Serenity now and even before this they’ve settled into a teasing pleasant rapport with one another knowing each playful battle with words was laced with the strongest bond of love. For some this gated community spelled out hell for them but it was just nearly a paradise for the girl who knew what it was like to be hungry - to be lonely and how grateful she was to those who loved her. Serenity still tries to teach her how to protect herself, how to fight but try as Aurora might she has no talent for war having long ago been born to press for peace. Make no mistake however in thinking she’s all rainbows and puppy dogs. Just because she’s one of the most considerate and compassionate people around seemingly untainted by the death and dying soaked into every aspect of their lives here that she’s completely foolish and naive. Don’t assume because she’s soft she’s delicate and sheltered.. There are nights yes where she’ll watch the stars from the rooftop wrapped in one of her gorgeous and completely handmade masterpieces contemplating that state of things that she’s just merely looking at pretty lights. Don’t assume because the radiant being dances barefoot bathed in moonlight that she’s light in the head because she dances alone humming songs she remembers from infancy to feel the earth beneath her feet to remind that all of this is real. Never guess that she bakes and gardens and is the most pleasant person you’ll ever encounter she’s afraid of blood or sensitive topics. In a pinch with her level of needle work and moderate knowledge of medicinal plants and home remedies she’d be a decent replacement for a Capitol doctor. Her mother’s didn’t raise her to be weak or fainthearted. They raised someone to loving - to be the best version of herself and to live fully each day.

Still, Aurora is more protected than she realizes. She draws a bath and puts out fresh blankets for her sister when she returns from the Capitol looking rough with sundry bruises tired beyond belief. Worried about her she does the best for a woman who is certainly over exerting herself with too many of those unforgiving fitness classes of hers but doesn’t push further knowing if it were something she needed to worry over Serenity would tell her. There are no lies between them - no secrets - not even when she started to have feelings for Ares ( which yes as a younger sibling she teased her relentlessly about ). Aurora’s allowed her guard to drop as well, even in this place feeling of all the places she could let it fall a little willing to be too trusting to people who are not as large heated as she is or kind. She in this relative peace they have forgets people will use a gentle creature and they would have no qualms hurting her to get to her sister. However - with whispers of rebellion and lengths rebels who she can understand to a degree are willing to go to - it makes her worried. Worried if rebellion comes what it will mean for their family. If Lucianna is faced with war she will go because she is duty bound and loyal and Serenity would go with her. Aurora knows if they go a girl would disguise herself, sharpen her knitting needles and carry a medicine bag to the front lines to be there  where they were until the end. No matter how gentle and unskilled in any sort of combat Aurora would be just about determined enough to survive out there or do as much as she could to pay back the love those incredible women gave to her. She prays that will never happen, that people will come to their senses and realize its not worth losing your life or loved ones. We only pray that if that occurs that and when the time comes, she’ll never lose the love she has for her fellow man. Aurora is far too precious for this world, only getting kinder and more lovely the more horrible a thing it throws are her but up until now it hasn’t even started to truly test what she’s made of.

PENNED BY: EDEN