#it's not a completely foreign concept but it's one that in kiri people have a lot more freedom over than in other places

[misttiddies]

id: second mizukage gengetsu sitting at his desk saying “hehe YES! FINALLY some IMPORTANT LEGISLATION! then a picture of the document on the desk, which says “bill of illegalize assigned gender at birth,” which he signs with a pen with a clam at the top. the third image is a photo of a chicken with overlayed text that says ‘by interacting with this post you agree every trans person deserves respect, human rights, and $500,000′ /end id

[sunsents]

Neteyam - Reacting to your death

Hey y'all, how y'all doing 😟? It's been a year since I published something but I am in my avatar era. I will post an announcement about where I've been, but enjoy(?) this heavy angsty.

Summary —> You're on your last breath, and Neteyam has a hard time accepting it.

Pairing: neteyamsully x !reader (no use of y/n)

Word count: 1024

Warnings: blood/angst/mentions of a g*n/sad neteyam

DON’T REPOST MY WORK

Sharp pain was all you could feel when you jumped down the ship. It was that short moment of pushing Neteyam before you to minimize exposure that the realization hit you; you followed after him without thinking twice about the consequences, yet again.

Your ears rang in the otherwise silent ocean, like the water completely separated itself from the unnatural, unnecessary and foreign violence happening in the surface. A sigh of relief, contentment, serenity, until you're resurfucing again - or rather, struggling to.

"Fuck," you sputter, feeling a strange loss.

Lo'ak shouts after you to hurry up, but you can't, and it frustrates you. You hate falling behind, no matter how dire the injury is. "You sxkawng," gasping and trying to hold onto something, crimson surrounds you. "I'm shot."

Everyone stills.

Neteyam's head whips around with nothing but pure, unadulterated horror. His eyes fall on your pained face, then the bullet wound on your chest. You can see dark shadows casting over his face, the tremor of his hands, the slowing of his breath - all working together to keep his gears turning you assume. He quickly swims forward. "Quick, the Ilu."

You feel yourself being held around your body - suddenly, warmth feels like an unfamiliar concept. When had you become so cold to the outside world? When had you closed yourself off that warmth was foreign?

Though in odd, you fashion, you're not panicking. You're just lying there, gazing at the sky and letting chaos erupt around you. Sounds are muffled, and you don't know what's happening but you can only assume they're taking you to land.

The sky looks uncharacteristically blue - against all odds you've found yourself in. Eywa is in mourning.

Maybe it's because you cannot fathom that you, your own life, cannot end. You feared losing loved ones, but never feared nor thought about dying. It's not like you were immortal of course, one day you were going to leave the physical world and join the all mother amongst your family.

You just didn't think it would happen this soon. And you still think against it - you think against it when Mr Sully lays you down on cold rock, when he turns you over to inspect something, and when he looks at you with a faraway look.

"Dad," Neteyam chokes out.

Everything hurts and you start struggling to breath. Light headed, that's when you stop thinking  all together.

"Am I-" you gasp for air, surprised that you, out of all people, is struggling to speak. You were quite chatty, at least that's what they told you. "Am I, dying?"

"No!" yells Neteyam, he's cupping your head with his palm, not letting your head touch the cold surface. "You're not dying, ____!"

He's sobbing, and you look around the faces of the people you consider loved ones. Lo'ak is wide  eyed, staring at your probably paled face. He looks in utter agony and...confusion? Mr. Sully is crying, this is the first time you have seen him cry - be so vulnerable. He was Toruk Makto, so he'd always dismiss you with a nod, sometimes crack a joke here and there but stay stern all the while. He was clutching your hand, his own shaking. Kiri was just now arriving at the little land formation, and the look of her horror on her face brings tears to your eyes. You were dying - no. You were dead, it was final.

You try to calm your breathing, an obscene contrast to the gushing blood on your chest. You couldn't speak, but you could feel. And you were feeling the love of the people around you - and with the intensity of it, you deemed it a worthy way to go.

Neteyam however, was cluthing on your hand, hard. "You are not leaving me ____....Dad!" he sobs, a wretched sound breaking through his chest as he doubles over your body and shudders. "Do something!"

He's yelling, screeching even. His dad looks in anguish at his son's state, or perhaps because he feels utterly helpless at saving you.

"It's okay, Neteyam." you say softly, in a very wispy voice; "You're going to be okay."

You smile, and he screams, trashing and hugging your body to his chest. You try to push him away, but to no avail. Your limbs have fallen weak, you have already accepted the pain. "No!" he screams again, chest reverbeting against your deflating form.

"No, no, no, no!"

Mr Sully grabs ahold of his son and softly pulls him back, seperating him from you, "Son, please," his voice sounds broken.

Lo'ak is silent beside you, head held down, shuddering. Warm droplets are hitting your arm, and you can only guess it's tears. Kiri is on her knees, begging To Great Mother.

But you know it's final. And you don't feel too sad about it. You'd get to be with your parents, and Eywa, and all that. You'd be happy, you know you would be.

"____! No, I have to tell-" Neteyam gasps, trashing in his fathers hold. "I love you, I see you. Please,"

You're eyes have finally glazed over, you're gone.

You hadn't heard, and that only breaks Neteyam more. He screams in agony, clawing at your body, shaking you so, somehow, miraculously, you would open your eyes, tell him you love him and that you wan't to spend the rest of your life with him.

But there is no, "rest”. This was it for you, this was your life. When you had told him that you wanted to spend your life exploring Pandora, this was the extent. You would never have that, you will never be able to fulfill your dream because this day was the entirety of your future and present.

Neteyam is helpless. He had somehow escaped his fathers hold and was hugging your lifeless body close to his. Shrieks were ripping from his throat, desperately trying to transfer some sort of energy into your limbs. He could feel his mother's warmth surround him, a weak force pulling him back. "Please, don't. Let me hold her."

He sounded so broken, empty, purposeless that his mother and father break down as well.

[scarlettriot]

Late Night

I'm having KiriMina brain rot right now. I'm a sap for these two.

Warnings: Swearing, like, twice maybe

Contains: Hurt/Comfort & Fluffy Fluff

Word Count: 892

After getting out of the hospital, after everything with Overhaul and rescuing Eri, it was understandable that Eijiro had a hard time falling asleep once back in his dorm room.

With the lights off in the middle of the night, the pale moon allowing a sliver of light to pass through the gap he left in his curtains, shimmering on the metal of a dumbbell and he couldn't stop focusing on it.

He just wanted to sleep. He was back in his own bed, safe, with friends around, but he couldn't get his mind to settle down and his heart wouldn't slow.

Eijiro threw his pillow overtop his face to muffle the groan he let out and then just let his face stay buried for a while until the chime of his phone piqued his interest.

Who was texting him this late at night? He thought for sure everyone would be asleep by now.

Alien Queen: Hey Kiri. I know you said you gotta ways to go but I been thinkin about it and, I just want you to remember how far you've come. You're not that same timid kid from middle school. You're getting better everyday, okay? Don't forget that!

His thumbs tapped out a sincere thanks before asking her why she was awake at almost two in the morning.

Alien Queen: I know we weren't like, there with you guys but, I dunno. Just been thinkin about everything and I guess it's kept me up. You're also awake too, mister, so you can't give me a lecture!

Eijiro chuckled to himself. He wasn't going to lecture her, far from it.

In fact, he laid his phone on his chest and let himself consider what all of his classmates were feeling, how he would have felt being the one left out... he already knew what that was like from the training camp, helpless, everything out of his control. He hated it.

Another text alert.

Alien Queen: Hope you fell asleep... you've earned it.

You: Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna be able to sleep. Too much on my mind too.

He watched her little chat bubble light up and then disappear and then light up again.

Alien Queen: Wanna not sleep together?

You: Yours or mine?

Alien Queen: I'm already on my way :)

About a minute later, his door creaked open and Eijiro saw that familiar pink puff of hair tip toe into his room. He threw back his comforter as an invitation that Mina wasted no time accepting.

Cuddling wasn't a foreign concept to either of them. Both of them being very touchy people who adored physical affection. She slid in beside him after navigating her way around the various workout equipment he had laying about. "If I tripped on one of your weights, you'd never hear the end of it." She sassed while snuggling in closely.

"If I knew I was having company I woulda pick em up."

"No you wouldn't have." Mina chuckled, and damn, it was good to hear her laugh, so good that he found himself joining in.

"I would have at least moved them to the side."

She laid beside him smiling that little smirk that he'd grown so fond of. Practically nose to nose with him, legs tangled up with his while he toyed with a stray lock of her wavy pink hair.

Eijiro winced for just a moment when her arm fell over his side, still tender from the beaten he'd taken. Mina furrowed her brow and he insisted he was fine but she still pulled back the blanket to see his bruised torso in various stages of healing. "It's fine, really," he promised, "just with Sero and Kaminari hanging off me today it's a little more sore than usual."

Mina wiggled then, adjusting so her arms could slip over his shoulders and hug him that way, pulling his face under her chin and allowing him to wrap her up in his arms instead. "I wish we coulda been there to help you guys."

"I know. And I know I'd feel the same if you'd been there and I couldn't help but I'm kinda glad you weren't there, Ashi. It was... damn, it was bad."

He didn't want to admit it but it was. It was a mess, so many hurt, people dead.

Her fingers made their way through his hair slowly, sending a shiver down his body. "I'm sorry, Kiri. You're not alone though. Even if you don't wanna talk about it or anything."

"I really don't wanna talk about it, not right now." He coiled his arms and legs around her tighter, pulling her close to him even if it stung his wounds. "I just kinda wanna hold you."

Even he was surprised by how small his voice sounded but Mina just pressed a kiss to the crown of his head and kept running her fingers through his hair. "I'm not goin' anywhere, Eiji."

They didn't talk much after that. But Eijiro found peace in the steady drumming of Mina's heart and her honey-scented body wash.

He let it consume him, closed his eyes, let his body melt against hers, and just let her surround him completely. Before he knew it, he'd drifted off to one of the best nights of sleep he'd had in weeks with Mina followed close behind.

[arcticdementor]

Beyond the technical differences in the role of a doctor in active voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, differences in the wording of the Gallup Poll questions and their implied meaning seem important to public acceptance. As much as there are persistent cultural taboos against suicide in the U.S., the use of that term in the second question might be troubling to some. Just so, pro-euthanasia organizations have shifted away from the terms suicide and even euthanasia (despite its literal meaning “happy death”) in favor of the newer catchphrases “death with dignity” and “right to die.” Increasing public acceptance of euthanasia, therefore, seems to require that its meaning is transformed into something apart from run-of-the-mill suicide. Nonetheless, it remains a subject of intense disagreement.

…

Indeed, public acceptance of euthanasia ultimately boils down to a question of morality, where moral values are loosely defined as what is considered to be right or wrong in terms of human behavior. But while morals are often held by individuals as if they’re absolutes, there are in reality subject to considerable cultural relativism—what is acceptable in one culture or subculture is often unacceptable in another. While at first glance suicide might seem to be a nearly universal taboo, the issue of euthanasia in the U.S. illustrates how suicide under certain conditions may take on a different meaning and gain widespread acceptance.

Looking beyond the case of euthanasia in the U.S. further highlights the cultural relativism of suicide. This is something that I’ve recently explored in a paper called “Culturally Sanctioned Suicide: Euthanasia, Seppuku, and Terrorist Martyrdom,”1 where I review the increasing acceptance of euthanasia in developed Western countries along with other examples of culturally sanctioned suicide that many of us in the West find completely foreign.

For example, there’s probably no more iconic form of culturally accepted suicide in history than the Japanese tradition of ritual disembowelment called seppuku or hara-kiri. Yet despite its romanticization in literature and movies, there has never been an equivalent in the West. Likewise, ever since 9/11, considerable effort has been devoted to understanding the kind of suicide terrorism (e.g. suicide bombing) that is sanctioned by some cultural minorities and political groups in the modern world. Within our own culture built on the promise of attaining the American Dream, we struggle to fathom the appeal of suicide terrorism. Yet in Palestine, it’s said that some young people excluded from such opportunity instead aspire to become the kind of “martyrs” that are culturally celebrated in songs, posters, and trading cards. While those of us in the West view seppuku and martyrdom as incomprehensible acts of suicide or murder-suicide, they are regarded as something altogether different in the cultures that sanction them. If that seems morally bankrupt, consider how we think of murder here in the U.S. While most would be quick to categorize murder as morally unacceptable, many view abortion, capital punishment, and killing in the context of war as perfectly justified.

…

In a recent episode of the podcast Radiolab, Cuban-exile Vladimir Ceballos was asked about why a member of the 1980’s counter-culture movement Los Frikis deliberately injected himself with HIV-laden blood. Ceballos explained it this way: “Death is a door. When you don’t have any more doors to open, death is a door.” Preventing suicide is therefore about finding other doors when it seems like there are none. When patients with depression conclude that suicide is the only way out of an intolerable existence, it’s up to mental health professionals to help them find a light at the end of melancholia’s dark tunnel. Palliative care clinicians can offer other options like hospice care, pain management, and palliative sedation to those at the end of life contemplating euthanasia. In a similar fashion, pragmatic solutions to the problem of suicide terrorism depend on the development of viable alternatives.

Lately, the term “rational suicide” has gained traction as a way of removing automatic associations between suicide, psychiatric disorder, and irrational thinking in favor of a view that suicide in certain contexts might be understandable or even reasonable. But the concept of rational suicide is inherently flawed, because even when mental illness is present, there’s almost always an internal logic to suicide, if not widespread agreement that it’s the best or only option for a given situation. Finding alternatives to suicide first requires an understanding of the rationale and moral meaning of taking one’s life, which must then be transformed within an individual or within a sanctioning culture in order to find a new path.