#[ a major's confiscated belongings ]

[aanesthesiia]

queerposting

roth cameo real

[banesberry-anomoly]

I don't need the comfort of your lies.

Obligatory @univestigator cause were coowners of the au

[odinsblog]

Land and Housing

As a result of decades of land confiscations and discriminatory land policies, Israeli authorities have hemmed in Palestinian towns and villages, while nurturing the growth and expansion of Jewish communities, many of which in practice exclude Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians in Israel live in these communities, while some live in “mixed cities” like Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa.

Ninety-three percent of all land in Israel constitutes state land, directly controlled by the Israeli government. Israeli authorities confiscated much of this land, several million dunams, from Palestinians through several different legal instruments, as documented in a later chapter of this report. A government agency, the Israel Land Authority (ILA), manages and allocates state lands. Almost half the members of its governing body belong to the JNF, whose explicit mandate is to develop and lease land for Jews and not any other segment of the population. The fund owns 13 percent of Israel’s land, which the state is mandated to use “for the purpose of settling Jews.”

Israeli authorities have almost exclusively allocated state lands for the development and expansion of Jewish communities. Since 1948, the government has authorized the creation of more than 900 “Jewish localities” in Israel, but none for Palestinians except for a handful of government-planned townships and villages in the Negev and Galilee, created largely to concentrate previously displaced Bedouin communities. Less than 3 percent of all land in Israel falls under the jurisdiction of Palestinian municipalities, where the majority of Palestinian citizens live, according to a 2017 estimate by Israeli and Palestinian groups.

Even inside Palestinian towns and villages within Israel, Israeli authorities discriminatorily restrict the land available for residential growth. The authorities have zoned large sections of Palestinian towns and villages for “agricultural” use or as “green” areas, prohibited residential building in them, and built roads and other infrastructure projects that impede expansion. A 2003 Israeli government-commissioned report found that “many Arab towns and villages were surrounded by land designated for purposes such as security zones, Jewish regional councils, national parks and nature reserves or highways, which prevent or impede the possibility of their expansion in the future.”

While increasing focus in recent years on these issues has resulted in more state-approved residential development, they have done little to date to change the reality of hemmed-in Palestinian towns and villages. By contrast, in case studies documented by Human Rights Watch in each of Israel’s six districts, planning authorities provided sufficient land and zoning permissions to predominantly Jewish communities to facilitate their growth.

(continue reading)

[blurredcolour]

The Only Truth... | Part Two

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

John "Bucky" Egan x POW Flight Nurse!Female Reader

Once rested, Bucky proves to be a rather difficult patient, but it's nothing you can't handle. Once he's discharged, however, the man still finds a way to remain close, even when he's no longer the one in need of medical care.

Warnings: Language, Angst, Nightmares, Detailed Description of Death by Gunshot Wound, Blood, Gore, Reader Scars, Hospital Setting, POW Camp Setting, SS Officers, Mental Health Struggles, Inevitable Historical and Military Inaccuracies, Rating - 18+ ONLY.

Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction based off the portrayal by the actors in the Apple TV+ series. I hold nothing but respect for the real life individuals referenced within.

Word Count: 5001

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April 12, 1945

The light of dawn began to filter in through the murky windows of the hospital and with Bucky once again sleeping deeply, but now with all apprehension about his ability to wake again lifted, you began to carefully shuffle about the space and take care of some duties you had neglected for the last twenty hours. Emptying a few bed pans for those too weak to move, you scrubbed them clean in the meagre washroom before beginning to work on bandage changes, blinking futilely at the bleariness in your eyes. You had made it through two patients when the doors to the hospital were unlocked and Major Chalmers filtered in with Captain Menzies, another British medical officer, clearly just released from their combine.

It had taken several weeks for you to realize that the man introduced to you as ‘Mingies’ was the same as the man whose name was written as Menzies on the charts and not some other doctor who worked mysterious hours. Both men waited for you to finish treating the rather ghastly thigh wound inflicted by one of the ubiquitous German Shepherds – miraculously still not showing signs of infection – before you washed your hands and delivered your report on Major Egan.

“Very good, Nurse. Why don’t you go rest for the morning, we’ll see you around 1300 hours.” Chalmers replied.

Exhaling with a grateful nod, you excused yourself down the hall to your ‘accommodations.’ The former exam room had been stripped of all medical equipment to leave a cot, a small wooden cubby for your meagre collection of belongings, a tiny table for you to eat your solitary meals and write your correspondence, and a rickety washstand with a chipped enamel basin and mirror split with a spider’s web of fractures hammered directly into wall above it. With no interest in anything but sleep, you sat on the cot with a heavy sigh. You pulled the six remaining pins from your hair, having misplaced four throughout the last several months and still not having your confiscated effects returned to you, and kicked off your boots before laying down to sleep for a few hours.

------------

 The next time Bucky awoke, you were nowhere to be seen. He was plunged back into a world of dull, gritty, pungent masculinity and he was admittedly bereft. The pain in his back seemed all the more acute in your absence, and though there was again a serving of broth, it was tepid at best. Perhaps he could have withstood the continuation of a grim life all painted in the same grey palette, but to have that disrupted by your presence and then have that light and color taken away? It was even worse than not having had it to begin with.

It made him all the more sullen and combative when the British doctor Chalmers informed him that he would have to remain in hospital as a patient another night rather than being permitted to find the rest of the 100th and bunk with them.

“I’m perfectly fine Doc, all rested up, can walk, talk, and piss all on my own. I don’t need to be here a minute longer – the rest of these fellas are way sicker than me.”

The surgeon narrowed his eyes in response, clearly not appreciating his directions being questioned, but Bucky had had more than his fill of taking other people’s orders. He just wanted to get the hell out of here and back to people he knew.

“One night, Major Egan, that’s all I’m asking. The only bunks for new arrivals are in tents, if you’re lucky.  In here you’re warm, dry, and have a bed that’ll feel nicer on those ribs – which are going to take four to six weeks to heal, might I add.”

Bucky was about to open his mouth to reiterate his protests when his eyes caught sight of you appearing from down the hallway, coming to standing behind Chalmers with your arms crossed and a stern look on your face. It was so utterly reminiscent of one he had received from his mother on countless occasions that he was momentarily unable to speak before clearing his throat to concede to the doctor’s request.

“Good.” Was his diplomatic reply before he turned to see you there. “Ah, Nurse, welcome back. In some irony of the universe, we’ve actually received a Red Cross shipment of supplies. Would you kindly catalogue the contents the goons have left for us and add it to our stock?”

Bucky did not miss the exasperation in your expression – it certainly did seem like a cruel joke for supplies to arrive with the end of the war surely weeks away.

“Certainly, sir.” You replied before looking to the large and very much opened and rifled-through box up against the wall essentially opposite to his cot.

Settling onto his stomach, he draped his arms across his pillow, nestling his chin atop his forearms to watch you work. “Don’t get a lot of supplies around here, do ya, angelfish?”

As you glanced toward him, he noticed you had changed your clothes, into equally threadbare ones but fresh ones all the same, and had tidied your hair. He would have taken you to a dance in Times Square looking like that. In a heartbeat.

“No, we most certainly do not, Major.” You shook your head and made a soft noise of triumph as you managed to fish out the packing list – something to compare the remaining contents to, he supposed. “Might mean we got more rations too though, corned beef and liver pate to eat desperately before they go bad.” You gave him a wry smile which he returned.

So the Germans here liked to punch holes in the cans, too. Good to know. Bucky watched as you retrieved a pencil from the central desk and began to unearth boxes of gauze and ointments and all manner of things he was only vaguely familiar with. He drowsily studied your profile, lips tugging fondly at the way you stuck your tongue out slightly in concentration, trapping it between your teeth and grunting in dismay when something you obviously were hoping for was not there. Hovering on the border between sleeping and waking, he jumped slightly as you gently nudged his shoulder, holding out two pills and his mug filled with fresh water.

“Aspirin.” You whispered and he raised an eyebrow before plucking them from your soft palm, tossing the pills into his mouth and chasing them down with a slug of cold water.

“You’re a goddess, angelfish.” He murmured, laying down his heavy head as you moved to tuck him in again.

Your soft laugh in response made him smile drowsily. “No Bucky, just a nurse. Now stop fighting it and go to sleep.”

He was yanked back into consciousness by the sound of your voice some time later, tone flat and impatient.

“Just let me finish changing his bandage, please.”

“Nein, it is lights out and you are going back to your room now schwester.” The rude, clipped reply of the SS guard had Bucky forcing himself up off his cot, gritting his teeth against the screams of protest in his frighteningly unstable ribcage.

His eyes flashed around the room before they landed on the uniformed man grabbing your elbow to usher you from the bedside of a patient and down the hall. Bucky stumbled to his feet, peering around the corner after you to watch the man shove you into the room on the left before pulling the door shut and snapping a padlock into place. Bucky narrowed his eyes, moving over to the patient you had been forced to abandon, supplies still on top of his blanket.

“I’m no nurse but I can give it a shot?” He muttered to the fellow who gave him a small shrug in return. “I’ll be back when the coast is clear, then.”

Bucky slid back into his own cot, watching the guard stomp his way out of the building before slamming the last set of doors shut, the lock snicking into place behind him before the lights all went out. Blinking against the darkness to force his eyes to adjust more quickly, he made his way down the hall, feeling his way along the rough-hewn wood of the wall and over to your door before knocking softly.

“Angelfish? You alright in there?”

“Bucky?” Came your muffled answer shortly after the sound of your footsteps approached.

“Damn they lock you up like in here like some kind of fairytale princess.”

There was a soft snort and Bucky could not help the smirk that pulled from him. “Anything I should know before I try and finish that guy’s arm?”

There was a pause before you cleared your throat and responded with, “no it’s pretty straight forward but…but if it smells anything like cheese would you mind letting me know?”

“Cheese…” He replied slowly.

“The smell of infection, Bucky.” You sounded amused and he wished more than anything he could take in your facial expression then.

“Got it. I was born in Wisconsin, raised for this.”

“And then you’re going to immediately put yourself in your cot and rest, Bucky.” You said firmly.

“You got it angelfish. You, too.”

“Night, Bucky.”

Gathering his courage and putting on a mask of cool, level-headedness, he returned to his fellow patient’s bedside, removing the old bandage and bowing his head to take a deep whiff. Thankfully, for everyone’s sake, there was definitely nothing cheese-like about it. He then bumbled about in the dark of the room, applying perhaps the ugliest bandage known to man, but a bandage nonetheless, and returned to his cot as instructed.

It was not easy to drag the blanket up over his body from behind, especially with the newly aggravated soreness from his careless activities, but Bucky managed to settle down and fall into an uneasy sleep, exhaustion still dwelling deep in his bones and sucking him under. It did not take long, however, for his dreams to be haunted once more by images of deadly accurate shots burrowing their way between Buck’s shoulder blades on the other side of that wall. Of his friend’s blond head falling into the mud just shy of the treeline, just shy of freedom. Waking with a start, he glared around the dark, unfamiliar room and looked to the floor, frowning as you were not there for him to hold onto this time.

He had not fully woken the night before, but he had sensed enough of your calming presence to return to a deeper plane of sleep. To chase away the darker voices that threatened to fill his mind. Leveraging himself to a seated position, he grabbed his blanket and shuffled his way down the hall once again in search of your soothing influence, even if there was the interfering barrier of a door. Bucky’s descent to the ground was less than graceful, his ribs protesting fiercely and as he settled on the floorboards, he was filled with a sudden doubt in his ability to rise from this position. But then he heard your voice.

------------

When Bucky had not immediately bustled back down the hall with tales of an arm wound stinking of ripe cheese, you had relaxed somewhat into your nightly routine, stripping to your long underwear for a proper night’s sleep…that did not really present itself. It was honestly not that surprising given the way you had pushed the boundaries of night and day, your body really was not sure what to make of it. You were just on the cusp of finally falling asleep when there was a commotion outside your room, the door rattling in its frame, the padlock jostling slightly.

Hearing a slightly familiar grunt, you sat up. “Bucky?” You called you softly.

“M’fine, angelfish, just sleeping out here.”

Your eyes widened and you practically leapt from the bed, crossing the room in record time. “Are you really ok? Sleeping…. on the floor?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine, just needed company.” He muttered from below and you slid down to lay on the floor, peering through the gap at the bottom of the door with one eye.

It was surely flush with the floor when the building was initially built, but as the hospital settled into the ground, about an inch-and-a-half had opened up below the door, allowing you to glimpse his face not far from yours.

“You had plenty of company in your comfortable cot, Bucky.” You whispered and the eye you could see flashed open, face turning to meet yours through the gap.

“Not yours, angelfish.”

“I don’t suppose I’m going to be able to convince you to go back to bed? No idea how the hell you’re going to get off this floor anyway…” You sighed, cheek pressed tightly against the floorboards to see as much of him as possible.

“I’m down for the count, I’d say.” He huffed with a poor show of playfulness.

Frowning, you looked over the visible portion of his face slowly. “You have another bad dream?”

He grunted noncommittally and averted his gaze, essentially confirming your suspicion. Sliding from your spot on the floor, you fetched your blanket and pillow before laying them down to rejoin him. “I get ‘em too. Stuck on that crashing plane and I can’t get off. Or the chute won’t open. Or I can’t…” your throat clenched, and you swallowed to clear it. “Can’t get my flight jacket off and I just burn up.” Your voice refused to come out any louder than an exhale, but you still managed to speak the last few words.

His eye slowly met yours once more though the thin opening halfway through your confessions and his brow furrowed. “Flight nurse?”

“I was, yeah. Just a kriegie nurse now, I guess.” You laughed wryly, trying to find a comfortable position on the uneven floor, the nail heads poking up into your shoulder.

There was a long pause as he seemed to weigh the pros and cons of unburdening himself to you before exhaling slowly. “I sent my best friend to his death. Least that’s what my dreams tell me. He didn’t want to run, I convinced him and then…well they almost caught him until I distracted them…”

“And got the shit kicked out of you.” You sighed, slipping into your ways of foul language on the edge of sleep, in the dark of your room.

Thankfully, by the twitch of his lips, he did not seem terribly put out by it.

“Basically.” He heaved a great sigh and you nodded, sliding your fingers under the door, as far as your knuckles would allow.

“No matter what happened, Bucky, he’s not in a place like this anymore. And that is a mercy.”

“Hmmm.” He hummed, unconvinced and you swallowed.

“What kind of man is he?” You lined up for another approach.

“Smart, too damn smart of any of this – built a radio out of a list of random junk I collected for him. He’s got the sweetest girl back home who writes him like clockwork. They were gonna get married if he got back. Was gonna be his best man.”

Taking a deep breath to summon your façade of brave optimism once again, for his sake, you nodded firmly. “When he gets home, you will be his best man.”

He looked to you hopefully, slowly sliding his fingertips to brush against yours beneath the coarse wooden bottom of the door. “Yeah?” He breathed.

“Yeah, Bucky. Yeah.” You nodded again, offering a smile, hoping it somewhat reached your eyes. “Now. Let’s try and get you some sleep.”

“Didn’t hear anything ‘bout you in that statement, angelfish.” He murmured sleepily and you hummed with drowsy laughter.

“I’m just about there, but not until you give in first.”

After a few beats of silence, you cracked your eye to check on him, pressing your lips together to smother your laugh as you caught him quickly squeezing his eye shut. It was not long, however, until his breathing evened and deepened, his mind at last surrendering to the sleep his body desperately needed. Swallowing tightly, heart throbbing slightly at the way his face softened, and the way his fingertips remained pressed stubbornly against yours as tightly as the door would allow, you tucked the pillow under your head, sliding your eyes shut to try and get some rest as well.

Despite the wildly uncomfortable position, you somehow managed to remain asleep until the next morning when Bucky began to shuffle and shift, soft noises of discomfort escaping him as he tried to find his way back to his feet.

“Roll onto your good side.” You coached through your drowsy state, and he stilled a moment before appearing to obey. “Bend your knees, then push up to sitting.”

There were still some grunts, but fewer overall, and the whole endeavour sounded a lot less like a fish flopping against the door.

“Then use the handle to pull yourself up with your good hand.” Holding your breath you waited until you saw two sock feet, firmly planted and steady on the floor, before rising on your side of the door. “Well done.”

“Still have a bit more time to sleep, angelfish.” He rumbled and you bit your lip fondly at his sleep-roughened voice.

“You, too.” You replied, pressing your forehead against the rustic wood, listening to his footsteps retreat down the hall until only silence remained.

You managed a few more hours’ sleep before the morning guard unlocked the door, delivering your morning pitcher of frigid water for your facsimile of a bath with a sliver of soap and rough wash cloth. Enjoying a breakfast of crackers and margarine, you reported for duty just as Chalmers was discharging Bucky, finding it suddenly difficult to meet his eyes in the light of day – the entire encounter in the dark feeling too intimate to recall in such a crowded, public space.

“Take care, Major Egan.” You smiled friendlily and followed Menzies out to the tent to assist with the removal of a set of sutures.

“You got it, Nurse.” He replied, the marked absence of the quirky nickname born of his inability to speak the day of his arrival halting your steps as you involuntarily glanced back over your shoulder to make sure he was really all right.

A grin slowly unfurled across his face, lighting up his exhausted features before he shot you a playful wink. You swallowed roughly as the day suddenly felt altogether too warm for your oversized sweater.

“Made ya look, angelfish.” He teased and you pressed your lips together desperately trying to smother your responding grin, conceding the fact that he had indeed made you look with a nod, before hurrying after Menzies when he barked your name from further into the canvas extension of the hospital.

Bucky’s discharge, unlike every other patient before him, did not mean that he dissolved into the general population of the camp. Somehow, he still managed to find reasons to make an appearance, dropping off bits of scrap wood to burn that he and his friends had collected to make the time pass faster, or arranging a crew of his men to deliver the hospital’s broth allotment to alleviate that burden from Chalmers and Menzies. He always appeared to be obeying his discharge orders and not hauling anything himself, at least when he arrived with his deliveries. Whether he was behaving out of sight was another question entirely.

Not only was the assistance greatly appreciated, but you found yourself looking forward to his visits as a break from the monotony of grim tasks of which your work consisted. Somehow, despite his worn-down spirit, he still managed to leave you feeling notably lifted by the time he was inevitably shooed out for getting underfoot or distracting you a little too long. Chalmers and Menzies were patient – indulgent even – but even they had their limits.

Four relatively peaceful days passed under this new routine, with no new arrivals in camp but, sadly, a few of the weaker patients in the hospital giving up the fight, until the sound of shots rang out mid-morning on the 18th. A great clamor arose among the patients indoors and the general population beyond the canvas walls of the tent, before a group of prisoners were rushing inside, Bucky at the fore, with an injured prisoner strung across their collective shoulders.

“Lay him here.” You gestured quickly to the cot you had been stripping after the death of its occupant sometime in the night, having succumb to infection and lack of food.

You did not miss the wince that crossed Bucky’s face as he maneuvered the injured man – no more than a boy, really – to lay where you had instructed. At the sight of a deep red stain, rapidly growing in circumference on the boy’s side, your eyes shot wide, and you looked to Bucky sharply.

“Find me Chalmers and Menzies immediately.” You stressed the need for expediency before turning back to begin rapidly pulling at the boy’s clothes, trying to locate the source of all that blood.

The shocking white expanse of his belly finally exposed, you found the gaping wound left by a large calibre round near his belly button, casting about frantically for your basket of fresh bandages to press against it, desperately trying to staunch the flow. What you would not give for a packet or six of sulfa right then. The pressure you put on his tender abdomen drew a yowl of pain from the boy and you frowned up at him sympathetically.

“I know, son, I know. We’re going to get this all fixed up alright?”

“Can’t b, b, believe they shot me! I just…just wanted to see the flowers poking through the fence and they just…Fucking war’s almost over anyway…” He was beginning to shiver uncontrollably, a sure sign of shock and you glanced towards the hospital doors, relieved to see Chalmers and Menzies rushing out to help.

“I’ll bet those flowers were beautiful.” You gulped as the bandage in your hand was rapidly soaked through and grabbed a few more to wipe the area clean, trying to permit the surgeons to inspect the wound itself.

No sooner would you swipe away the rapidly welling crimson fluid, than the hollow below his ribs, carved out by months of hunger, would accumulate a fresh pool of blood. There were noises of dismay before the pair of surgeons rolled the boy to check for an exit wound. They shared a dark look as there was none to be found, shaking their heads at one another. Your patient erupted into a panic, thrashing about, kicking you squarely in the thigh and knocking you back into Bucky, who thankfully stopped your rapid descent toward the muddy floor.

“I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!”

“Nurse! Hold him!” Menzies barked and began to fish around in the boy’s wound to see if he could find the bullet.

Shrieking filled the tent as you lunged forward to press down on his shoulders, trying your best to soothe him even as his shirt grew damp with his own blood, transferring to the fabric from your fingers. He was stronger than he looked, the panic only amplifying what little strength he had left, and you sent a grateful nod to Bucky as his much broader palms took over pinning the boy’s shoulders while you collected his flailing hands between yours.

“Easy now, easy. Docs are going get you right as rain, just hold still now.”

“I’m gonna die and there’s not gonna be a heaven and there’s gonna be nothing!” The boy’s wild eyes wheeled on you, fairly punching you in the gut, and you shifted his wrists to grip in one hand against your chest while the other stroked at his hair tenderly with the other.

“Come now – you’re going to be alright. Besides, I’ve met the Pope. You think they’d keep that man in his fancy house and fancy clothes for nothing?”

His lips were growing a frightening shade of white from the blood loss, the rest of him the unsettling grey pallor of imminent death, but he seemed greatly calmed by your papal revelations. His hands shifted to grip at yours and his brow furrowed earnestly, the only movements of his body now were the echoes of the desperate attempts of the surgeons below.

“I want my momma. Tell my momma that I…tell my momma…” He trailed off into a whisper, the light slowly dimming from his eyes until there was nothing, his hands going limp, and he was gone.

Swallowing brutally, you carefully shifted your fingers to his throat, checking for a pulse and turning to Chalmers and Menzies when you found none. A simple shake of your head was all it took to communicate that you had lost the boy. Chalmers let out deep, aggrieved sigh while Menzies threw down a blood-soaked bandage with a wet slap and stormed back into the hospital. Gently setting the boy’s lifeless hands across his chest, you straightened slowly, feeling Bucky eyeing you from the other side of the cot.

Something ugly was welling up inside you, desperately trying to claw its way out, and you took a step back.

“Angelfish?” Bucky’s voice was low and cautious.

Your only response was to shake your head violently before stepping clear of the end of the cot, then breaking into a run. Following in the footsteps of Menzies, the words of the Army Nurse Corps pledge rang through your mind, the words you had sworn to serve by as a Nurse.

‘I shall approach him cheerfully at all times, under any conditions I may find…I shall appear fearless in the presence of danger and quiet the fears of others to the best of my ability.’

Reaching the end of the hallway, you stared at the door to your quarters and nearly choked on the idea of facing that stuffy, windowless room. You needed air. Needed to breathe. Turning sharply to the left, you continued along past the utility room and out the backdoor into the small courtyard between the hospital and the barbed wire fence that separated the Russian side of the camp.

‘…I will remember that, upon my disposition and spirit, will in large measure depend the morale of my patients.’

The flight nurse’s creed came flooding back to you next as you sought refuge between the back of the hospital and the bowed lines of laundry, stained sheets and bandages hung in the weak April sun to dry. What a different person you had been when you had spoken those damn words at your graduation from Flight Nurse Training.

Taking short, sharp gulps of air, each inhale was used to forcefully shove down the scream that was bubbling perilously in your throat. You paced to-and-fro, bloody hands planted on your hips. Surely you looked nothing short of mad when Bucky rounded the corner of the building, using that aggravatingly soft voice again as he spoke your name, making your head snap towards him.

“You’re not supposed to be back here.” You choked out, turning from him, fixing to flee once more.

“Too bad.” He ground out as he continued coming closer, clearly intent on comforting you, but if he got too near, you were terrified you were going to shatter entirely.

“Patients aren’t supposed to see me like this.” You could barely speak, hiccoughing and shuddering breaths intersplicing your words awkwardly as your grip on your emotions began to slip through your bloody fingers.

“Not here as a patient.” He muttered and slid his arms around you, pulling you close and you buried your face into his chest to let out a wail of agony – for the man who died in front of your eyes, for the horrid situation you found yourself in.

Somehow, you managed to maintain the wherewithal not to grab at him with your filthy hands, arms sticking straight out behind him awkwardly as you squeezed his sides with your elbows, knees threatening to give out as you found yourself not having to be the strong one for the first time in quite a long time. Bucky’s grip only tightened on you, fingers curling into your shirt to hold you up patiently as you cried yourself hoarse against him. Eventually there were no more tears to cry, the self-pity and grief you had stored up over the past few months running dry. Pulling back slightly, you wiped at your face with your sleeves, accidentally exposing a portion of the angrily scarred flesh on your left forearm.

Not missing the way his eyes flicked to it immediately, you sharply pulled your cuffs down and straightened fully. “You should get out of here before some goon puts a hole in you…”

It was supposed to be a joke, but your voice wobbled threateningly in abhorrence at the thought of losing someone else today, and Bucky promptly pulled you close again.

“Easy angelfish, not gonna get myself shot now. Not after you went through all the trouble of bringing me back.”

Sniffling affectionately against him, you pulled back to meet his eyes. “Thank you, Bucky.” You patted his chest fondly. “But please don’t go around carrying any more people with those broken ribs.” You gave him a stern look, finding it difficult to deliver as he smirked with a soft laugh in return.

 With a soft sigh, you moved to return inside and assist with the clean up.

“Bucky?” You stopped and turned back to him suddenly.

“Yeah, angelfish?” He glanced over his shoulder, halfway to the other side of the building.

“What’s your first name?”

He raised an eyebrow. “John.”

Nodding slowly, you swallowed tightly. “Thank you, John.” You repeated firmly before pulling open the door and heading inside to the utility room to fill a bucket with some water to rinse out the bloody cot.

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Read Part Three

The Only Truth I Know Is You Masterlist

Tag list: @gretagerwigsmuse, @luminouslywriting, @softspeirs, @sunny747, @storysimp, @slowsweetlove, @httpsmoon, @buckysegan, @justheretoreadthxxs, @precious-little-scoundrel

[ask-emilz-de-philz]

TODAY IS APRIL 9 (ARAW NG KAGITINGAN) / DAY OF VALOR

......also known as Bataan Day or Bataan and Corregidor Day, is a national observance in the Philippines which commemorates the fall of Bataan during World War II.

At dawn on 9 April 1942, against the orders of Generals Douglas MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright, the commander of the Luzon Force, Bataan, Major General Edward P. King, Jr., surrendered more than 76,000 starving and disease-ridden soldiers (67,000 Filipinos, 1,000 Chinese Filipinos, and 11,796 Americans) to Japanese troops.

The majority of these prisoners of war had their belongings confiscated before being forced to endure the infamous 140-kilometre (87 mi) Bataan Death March to Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac. En route, thousands died from dehydration, heat prostration, untreated wounds, and wanton execution while walking in deep dust over vehicle-broken Macadam roads, and crammed into rail cars for transport to captivity.

The few who were lucky enough to travel by truck to San Fernando, Pampanga would still have to endure more than an additional 25 miles (40 km) of marching. Prisoners were beaten randomly and often denied promised food and water. Those who fell behind were usually executed or left to die, with the sides of the roads becoming littered with dead bodies and those moaning for help.

Only some 54,000 of the 76,000 prisoners reached their destination; the exact death toll is difficult to assess because thousands of captives were able to escape from their guards. Approximately 5,000-10,000 Filipino and 600-650 American prisoners-of-war died before they could reach Camp O'Donnell."

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Day

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[mesetacadre]

In order to solve the second and most difficult part of the problem, the proletariat, after having defeated the bourgeoisie, must unswervingly conduct its policy towards the peasantry along the following fundamental lines. The proletariat must separate, demarcate the working peasant from the peasant owner, the peasant worker from the peasant huckster, the peasant who labours from the peasant who profiteers. In this demarcation lies the whole essence of socialism. And it is not surprising that the socialists who are socialists in word but petty-bourgeois democrats in deed (the Martovs, the Chernovs, the Kautskys and others) do not understand this essence of socialism. The demarcation we here refer to is an extremely difficult one, because in real life all the features of the “peasant”, however diverse they may be, however contradictory they may be, are fused into one whole. Nevertheless, demarcation is possible; and not only is it possible, it inevitably follows from the conditions of peasant farming and peasant life. The working peasant has for ages been oppressed by the landowners, the capitalists, the hucksters and profiteers and by their state, including even the most democratic bourgeois republics. Throughout the ages the working peasant has trained himself to hate and loathe these oppressors and exploiters, and this “training”, engendered by the conditions of life, compels the peasant to seek an alliance with the worker against the capitalist and against the profiteer and huckster. Yet at the same time, economic conditions, the conditions of commodity production, inevitably turn the peasant (not always, but in the vast majority of cases) into a huckster and profiteer. The statistics quoted above reveal a striking difference between the working peasant and the peasant profiteer. That peasant who during 1918-19 delivered to the hungry workers of the cities 40,000,000 poods of grain at fixed state prices, who delivered this grain to the state agencies despite all the shortcomings of the latter, shortcomings fully realised by the workers’ government, but which were unavoidable in the first period of the transition to socialism—that peasant is a working peasant, the comrade and equal of the socialist worker, his most faithful ally, his blood brother in the fight against the yoke of capital. Whereas that peasant who clandestinely sold 40,000,000 poods of grain at ten times the state price, taking advantage of the need and hunger of the city worker, deceiving the state, and everywhere increasing and creating deceit, robbery and fraud—that peasant is a profiteer, an ally of the capitalist, a class enemy of the worker, an exploiter. For whoever possesses surplus grain gathered from land belonging to the whole state with the help of implements in which in one way or another is embodied the labour not only of the peasant but also of the worker and so on— whoever possesses a surplus of grain and profiteers in that grain is an exploiter of the hungry worker. You are violators of freedom, equality, and democracy—they shout at us on all sides, pointing to the inequality of the worker and the peasant under our Constitution, to the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, to the forcible confiscation of surplus grain, and so forth. We reply—never in the world has there been a state which has done so much to remove the actual inequality, the actual lack of freedom from which the working peasant has been suffering for centuries. But we shall never recognise equality with the peasant profiteer, just as we do not recognise “equality” between the exploiter and the exploited, between the sated and the hungry, nor the “freedom” for the former to rob the latter. And those educated people who refuse to recognise this difference we shall treat as whiteguards, even though they may call themselves democrats, socialists, internationalists, Kautskys, Chernovs, or Martovs.

Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, V. I. Lenin, 1919

[cullenakingirog]

Araw ng Kagitingan | Day of Valour

image source: britannica.com

At dawn on April 9, 1942, against the orders of Generals Douglas MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright, the commander of the Luzon Force, Bataan, Major General Edward P. King, Jr., surrendered more than 76,000 starving and disease-ridden soldiers (64,000 Filipinos and 12,000 Americans) to Japanese troops.

The majority of these prisoners of war had their belongings confiscated before being forced to endure the infamous 140-kilometre (87 mi) Bataan Death March to Camp O'Donnell in Capas, Tarlac. En route, thousands died from dehydration, heat prostration, untreated wounds, and wanton execution while walking in deep dust over vehicle-broken Macadam roads, and crammed into rail cars for transport to captivity.

The few who were lucky enough to travel by truck to San Fernando, Pampanga would still have to endure more than 25 miles (40 km) of additional marching. Prisoners were beaten randomly and often denied promised food and water. Those who fell behind were usually executed or left to die, with the sides of the roads becoming littered with dead bodies and those moaning for help.

Source: Wikipedia

[roselynchin]

Men in Black (1997)

Men in Black details Agent J’s first mission for the eponymous government agency who regulates alien activities such as the immigration of said aliens to Earth and any threats they may pose. Agent J and his mentor, Agent K, remedy an alien diplomatic crisis and prevent the disintegration of Earth. 

In Men in Black, many aliens pass for humans and have adopted disguises to help them live among humans. However, many of them still have their alien features that set them apart from the human population ranging from double pupils with gills, regenerative limbs, animalistic features, or being miniscule. Once revealed to be alien, however, it is impossible to unsee them as aliens and there is an uneasy horrificness at these strange creatures.  

The main antagonist is a newly landed alien who is portrayed as quite volatile and hostile towards all humans. His species is literally referred to as “bugs.” He adopts a human skin that gruesomely decays throughout the movie and at the end, reveals his true appearance which is of a monstrous, huge cockroach like creature. This is the main alien that is consistently shown throughout the movie despite their depiction of other aliens as overall helpful, intellectual, and peaceful refugees. As a result, the audience focuses on the evilness and non belonging of aliens. This is similar to the typical reactions towards immigrants because current residents are not welcoming to new people especially people of color who are deemed not worthy of a place in the community as they are disgusting or contaminating (like the alien protagonist) and would ruin their current balance. 

Citizens are also scared of immigrants having the same privileges and opportunities as them or even succeeding more than them, thus endangering their own chances which also applies to the aliens in the film. Most of the film’s aliens pass for humans which would freak out Earth’s human citizens as they are being threatened by these new unexpected populations. The Men in Black agency actually already has limited these aliens' success as the agency profits off the technology they confiscate (steal) from the aliens like Velcro. This is representative of how it is the aliens “teachings rather than their continued presence that is vital” especially because Earth is doing them a favor by providing the aliens refuge (Addison-Smith 31). The emphasis of the aliens seeking refuge on Earth is also an example of how the aliens are homelessness and have to rely on New York and its multiculturalism to blend in and survive. However, they are not completely at home and secure. Like human immigrants in our society, they have to build new lives in their new world due to their escape from their legitimate homeland and have to assimilate to the new society and current residents. 

In addition to this migration and passing of aliens as humans (akin to racial passing), Men in Black explores alien invasion and how aliens can lead to the downfall of the very planet that protected them. Firstly, the whole crisis is caused by an unsanctioned alien who landed and started wreaking havoc the moment it got to Earth. This causes an alien species ship to come to destroy Earth, even though Earth was a refuge for one of their royalty. Throughout the film, there are also many aliens who have decided to flee Earth because of its impending doom and leave it to be destroyed even though it was a safe haven for them as refugees. This mirrors the uncertainty of the loyalty of immigrants to their new home or rather their self-preservation or old motherlands. However, it is understood because, like immigrants, aliens “are always overwhelmed numerically by humans” (Addison-Smith 32). As seen in the Men in Black agency, aliens are not in any leadership positions. The majority of the aliens who help the agency are treated very hostilely in return for their services and intel. Aliens are mistreated by the only human group that knows of their existence and could validate that existence. The aliens in Men in Black reflect the opinions of immigrants and refugees in regards to how their differences, their lack of belonging in their new land, and the lack of human empathy is emphasized.

@theuncannyprofessoro

[give-me-a-movie-camera]

I was watching I Love Lucy on Pluto TV last night and it completely slipped my mind that yesterday marked Desi Arnaz’s 106th birthday.

His was a classic Riches-to-Rags, Rags-to-Riches Cinderella tale. Desiderio Alberto ‘Desi’ Arnaz y de Acha III was born 2 March 1917 in Santiago de Cuba, Oriente Province, Cuba, the only son of wealthy landowner Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Alberni II (a prominent Cuban politician, who, to date, was the youngest mayor of Santiago de Cuba from 1923 to 1932) and his wife, Dolores ‘Lolita’ de Acha y de Socías (one of the most beautiful women in the Caribbean, the daughter of a businessman, one of three founders of Bacardi Rum Limited, the world's largest privately-owned spirits company). Desi was of the small but vastly privileged, upper-class y de Acha, the descendent of Cuban nobility of whose colonial ancestors originated from Santander, Provincia de Cantabria, Cantabria, Spain. (His grandfather, Dr Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y Alberni I, was assigned to the first United States volunteer cavalry in Cuba, the ‘Rough Riders’ under the leadership of ‘Hero of Cuba’ Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War on 1 July 1898. To legend, they sieged San Juan Hill on horseback, and though the forged conquest did not belong primarily to Roosevelt, for the conflict was an integrated effort between the white volunteer regiment and the 1,250 black Buffalo Soldiers, the famed battle gained Cuba her independence from Spain—a victory for the people, the Cuban people).

At the height of the Cuban Revolution of 1933, Desi and his family were forced to flee their Motherland, leaving their riches behind. Following a brief election, the government collapsed with the removal of President Gerardo Machado y Morales from office in August of 1933. The opposing anarchists seized all political leaders and stripped them of their power. Among them, Desi’s father, imprisoned by the regime, before his brother-in-law, Alberto de Acha, intervened on his behalf, thus making his escape to Miami, where he was to remain in exile. Having lost their holdings to the rebels who confiscated their property (their palatial home, a cattle ranch, two dairy farms, and a vacation villa on a private island in Santiago Bay), his father sent for Desi and his mother, who took refuge in Key West, Monroe, Florida in 1934. When Desi washed upon the shores of the Americas, his father had established an import-export company, where the family of three took up frugal lodgings in the company warehouse and dined on cans of cold beans. Desi came to live in New York City and Los Angeles for about one year, where he tightened his belt for survival and scrambled for employment as a struggling musician. Following an engagement as a guitar player for a Latin-American band at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, and a cursory stint with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra in 1937, he made his Broadway debut in the Rodgers and Hart musical Too Many Girls, where he reprised the role for RKO's major motion picture of the same name in 1940. During the course of filming, he fell head-over-heels for the Apricot Queen, Lucille Désirée Ball. The couple eloped on 30 November 1940 in Greenwich, Fairfield, Connecticut. By 1949, at the age of thirty-two, Desi established himself a renowned nightclub entertainer as conga-playing band leader for the travelling self-titled Cuban orchestra.

Most Hollywood buffs would do well to remember the Power Couple formed by Desilu Productions—a celluloid empire built on the backs of Lucy and Desi’s American Dreams, despite the public scandals and tumultuous marital woes. But at the crowning glory of their golden existence, there are those who neglect Desi's legacy and his reluctant resignation to his fate as the Man Behind the Curtain, to remain in Lucy’s shadow so long as he lived. Lucy, of whose celebrity distinction was of higher standing than her husband’s. Desi, though undoubtedly talented, who was not exempt from the unjust ostracization and societal prejudice that plagued him as a Cuban Spaniard immigrant in racially-charged Hollywood. For those who clutched their pearls at the prospect of Middle American households who might've dismissed acceptance of the world’s first interracial couple on television, Lucy and Desi defied those expectations and dissolved racial barriers in an era dominated by cultural strife. Audiences of all races, colour, and creed came together to shower the Ricardos with adoration and praise, because they came to understand the Ricardos epitomized the human experience, no matter that they didn't reflect the typical post-war domestic demographic. Against all odds, the world fell in love with the All-American Ricardos… white, Hispanic, or otherwise. Lucy and Desi, to be envied by all... America's Sweethearts.

On his 106th birthday, we remember Desi for the pioneer he was, as the Mastermind behind the nation’s most Beloved Redhead.

Behind every great woman lies a greater man.

Perhaps Desi speaks for us all when he declared his everlasting love, in his own words... ‘I Love Lucy was never just a title.’

💓 Happy Heavenly Birthday, Desi.  💓

       𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・

[aanesthesiia]

it's you!

...despite everything, it's still... you ?

[houseofpurplestars]

🚨 The Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission reported this Thursday morning that 320 prisoners are living in a deadly hell in Gilboa Prison, due to the "israeli" policies and general changes that occurred after last 7th of October, which turned "israeli" prisons and detention centers into real slaughterhouses.

Torture and beatings in their most horrific forms are practiced, resulting in dozens of execution cases among detainees from Gaza, the West Bank, and the occupied interior.

A prisoner from Tulkarem sentenced to life imprisonment, told the legal unit of the Commission: "On the 8th of October, the prison was stormed provocatively, we were handcuffed behind our backs and all of us were subjected to brutal beatings with sticks, helmets, and feet, on all parts of the body. All our personal and public belongings were confiscated. They did not consider the sick among us or the elderly, transformed department rooms into cells, forbade us from going outside and smoking, and isolated us from the outside world. We lack clothes and blankets, we struggle with the deprivation of shaving machines, nail clippers, and cleaning supplies, and penalties and fines are imposed on us. Organizational representation was canceled, and rarely are we allowed to go out to the prison clinic to get medication, and the reality is harsher than all mentioned above."

The Commission warned of the continuation of this fascist hatred by the "israeli" occupation state against our male and female prisoners, affirming that it is inconceivable that this silence continues in the face of these organized crimes. What is happening in Gilboa Prison is happening in all prisons and detention centers, and this institutional international absence in protecting Palestinian detainees is a sign of betrayal and dependency that the international system has reached. This behavior exposes "israel's" bizarre conduct and fascist extremism, revealing the international community's structure built on political-economic alliances that we, the Palestinians, pay the price for.

The Gilboa Prison includes three major sections and is experiencing overcrowding. It is also one of the prisons where oppression and abuse have been practiced even before the 7th of October, as this prison is a witness to the heroic Gilboa tunnel operation, in which six hero prisoners managed to bypass its security system and roamed the land of Palestine for several days before being re-arrested.

[wonder-worker]

"[Jeanne de Penthièvre] presented a new point which d’Argentré deemed ‘tresnotable’: that the nature of Brittany did not allow it to be confiscated, since it had never been part of France in the first place. This was based on the nature of previous homages from the duke to the king, and maintained a fiction (which the later Montfortists were also to embrace) that no fealty was actually entailed. The conclusion drawn from this version of the Franco-Breton relationship was that the king could take no such action unilaterally, but needed the consent of the Breton lords and people. This claim was closely tied to an argument that had been advanced for the Penthièvre succession in 1341, whereby French control over Brittany was limited simply because of how the duchy had become a French fief: the duke had submitted his duchy to the king, not received it as a gift. The emphasis on the royal status of the duchy, however, was new, and aligned more closely with the Montfortist position of 1341.

... We do not know what response, if any, the king’s lawyers made to this argument, though it took more than a week of deliberation, until 18 December, for the pronouncement of the sentence of condemnation. Both Jeanne and Jean found themselves deprived of their rights, though it was not until April that the change was put into effect. But Charles V inadvertently found himself suddenly deprived of allies as the elites of Brittany put up a strong resistance to the king-as-duke’s attempted takeover of the duchy. On 25 April 1379 they created a league to ‘help one another for the guarding and defence of the ducal rights of Brittany, against all those who might want to take ownership and possession of the said duchy, except for the one to which it must belong in the true line’, a statement of intent which nicely left undefined who that might be. Among most of the major barons, Jeanne’s name was not listed, though she gave them her support and would be included first among the backers of Jean IV for negotiations in October 1379. Her participation in the events to come speaks to her continued clout among the Breton elite, but also to the complicated political tightrope which she had to walk: with her son-in-law as the royal representative in Brittany (and presumably still no love lost for Jean IV) it was prudent for her to keep her options open, and more importantly to formally avoid any compromising situations which might prejudice her in future.

However, drastic steps had already been taken … The league of barons had already sent envoys to England to seek out the exiled duke… As the situation intensified, it became increasingly urgent to change Jeanne’s mind. But better an heirless duke with whom she had a treaty, than a king who had rejected her right to be called duchess. Jean IV did not actually return to reclaim his duchy until August 1379, at which point Jeanne was apparently amenable to her cousin’s presence. The Chronicon Briocense had her at his reception at Dinan, where she set an example for the rest of the lords and, with Jean, received their praise. Whatever conviviality there may or may not have been, this committed Jeanne fully to relying on the eventual applicability of the ‘escape clause’ in the Treaty of Guérande. The duke’s return prompted a further bout of combat and tense negotiations, but Charles V died from illness in September 1380, and a few months into the reign of his successor (Charles VI, a minor under the tutelage of his uncles, including Louis d’Anjou) Jean IV signed the second Treaty of Guérande, which essentially renewed the terms of the first. Jeanne and her son Henri swore to uphold this agreement on 2 May 1381.

Unlike the first treaty, the second did not drive Jeanne to another self-imposed exile from Brittany. In fact, she took up residence in La Roche-Derrien and, as far as our records show, mostly stayed there for the next three years. Presumably during this time she was mostly concerned with the administration of her northern lands. This endeavour was sometimes undertaken in concert with the reinstated Jean IV: when he conceded certain rights to Charles de Dinan on 12 July 1381, Jeanne reissued the grant as her own reward for Charles’ services. Very few acta survive from before her death on 10 September 1384, however,which is an unfortunate loss for the sake of comparison to the period 1365–75. She was buried, as planned, next to Charles at the Franciscan church of Guingamp, as was fitting for ‘the most illustrious lady Jeanne, most outstanding mother and daughter of the order of the Friars Minor, duchess of Brittany, wife of Charles de Blois (of good memory)’"

-Erika Graham-Goering, Princely Power in Late Medieval France: Jeanne de Penthièvre and the War for Brittany

[scotianostra]

24th August 1198 saw the birth of King Alexander II in Haddington, East Lothian.

Alexander II made Scotland stronger than ever before. First he attended to parts of his country that were always causing trouble; in particular, he was determined to subdue the disturbances in the remote lands of Argyll. In 1221 he collected a strong army from Galloway and the Lothians and prepared a fleet to sail up the Clyde. Unfortunately, he had failed to take the stormy September weather and tides into account, and was forced to return to Glasgow. The following year he took his army across country to Argyll and re-established order, making sure the peace would last by transferring the titles of disloyal nobles' lands to more reliable subjects.

Later that same year, he faced a different kind of rebellion. Unwisely Bishop Adam of Caithness had been charging the people in his diocese double the sum that was normally due for the support of his church, in spite of their repeated complaints. In the end, 300 angry people stormed their way towards his palace, prompting his servants to run to the Earl of Caithness home nearby to ask for help. Possibly not realising the imminent danger, the Earl told the servants, 'If the bishop is afraid let him come to me at my castle', the people took their complaints to the Earl who legend has it, famously told them..." The devil take the bishop and his butter; you may roast him if you please!

So they took him at his word an angry crowd later seized the helpless bishop, stripped and beat him, and then carried him to his kitchen fire and roasted him alive!!!

Alexander was just setting out to attack England when the news reached him. He came at full speed to Caithness and exacted a terrible penalty, hanging the majority of the those responsible, while mutilating the remainder. Alexander's actions were applauded by Pope Honorius III, and a quarter of a century later, he was continuing to receive commendation, as in a bull of Celestine IV.– no one would ever think of roasting a bishop again. He also confiscated half the lands belonging to the Earl of Caithness in punishment for his lack of assistance for Bishop Adam.

Alexander, like David I, was keen to grant land for the construction of cathedrals and abbeys. In 1223 he awarded the Bishop of Moray the seat at the magnificent Elgin Cathedral, and, in 1230, gave permission for the building of three abbeys: Pluscarden Abbey, south-west of Elgin; Beauly Abbey in Ross-shire; and Ardchattan Abbey in Argyll. These communities were peopled by an order of Benedictine monks called the Valliscaulians who operated under a very strict code and initially had a very close relationship with France.

In 1249 Alexander made an attempt to regain the Western Isles from King Haakon IV of Norway. Unfortunately, before he could reach them, he fell ill and died on the island of Kerrera, off Oban, on 8 July that year.

[tieflingkisser]

Israel demolishes Gaza cemeteries, confiscates dead bodies of Palestinians

The Israeli army has repeatedly targeted several cemeteries in the Gaza Strip, leaving widespread destruction, vandalising some graves, and stealing dead bodies, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said on Thursday. According to Euro-Med Monitor field documentation, Israel’s army has targeted the majority of cemeteries in the Gaza Strip, including Al-Falujah cemetery in the northern Gaza Strip, Ali bin Marwan, Sheikh Radwan, Al-Shuhada, and Sheikh Shaaban cemeteries, in addition to St. Porphyrius Church cemetery in Gaza City and Al-Shuhada cemetery in the northern town of Beit Lahia, destroying dozens of graves in utter disregard for the sanctity of the dead. Large holes have been created inside these cemeteries as a result of frequent Israeli attacks, engulfing dozens of graves. The remains of some dead bodies have been scattered or disappeared, while dozens of graves remain seriously damaged. Euro-Med Monitor received reports confirming that the Israeli army dug up several graves in Al-Faluga cemeteryand stole dead bodies—believed to belong to Palestinian activists—amid fears that their organs might be stolen.

[roetrolls]

(Content Warning: Major themes of dehumanization + abusive parenting, but nothing described in detail)

Spotlight

She was no more than a grub when they offered her to him, fresh from the caverns and pitifully small, fervently attempting to burrow into her caretaker’s arm in an effort to escape the glow of his desk lamp.

He swept his gaze across her iridescent carapace and hummed thoughtfully. Finally, after some consideration, he asked to hold her. The cavern worker, of course, obliged, growing more and more hopeful that this deal would go through.

Though he took her gently, she cried as she was pulled away, squirming and squealing at his unfamiliar touch. His hands were too warm, the lights too bright, and her waxy fins curled inward to spell her displeasure.

He was taken with her instantly.

“How much?”

The jadeblood left with arms empty and pockets full.

He called the child Levlyn. A pleasant name, and one he claimed carried great meaning. He spoke of it whenever he first showed her off, petting the infant as she shivered in his lap.

A word from another world, he would say, the most dazzling of all the planets he encountered during his time in the fleet. A charming people with a colorful language, both now lost forever to the unrelenting tides of time and war.

He painted such a picture, leaving his colleagues to bemoan this loss as if it ever would have meant something to them before. How tragic that they would never see it, they said, of a place that had never existed.

And he would agree, a tragedy, yes, before drawing the conversation back to the grub, his latest acquisition.

He never was forced to decide exactly what her name would have meant. It was difficult to translate, he would explain. It required knowledge of the culture.

She fussed whenever they came, a hulking, many-eyed beast, with rattling laughter and clamoring voices that boxed her in on all sides. With no other place to flee, she would press her face against him as if trying to phase into his abdomen, spinning around to hide each time he turned her back to face the crowd.

And the sycophants would croon, “Just look how affectionate!”

Levlyn grew up rowdy and cheerful, far less pliant than his first, who had always been quiet and polite. That was no matter, of course– a child was a simple thing to train. He was the Autocrat, after all, and titles were not awarded for nothing.

She quickly learned that obedience would be rewarded, and there seemed no limit to the toys, sweets, and clothing that he offered her, each accompanied by a gentle pat on the head.

She learned just as quickly that these rewards could be revoked.

Be it honest mistakes or deliberate disobedience, he did not hesitate to show her his ire. On the occasions his anger could not be expressed so quietly, a slap on the wrist and a night in her room would often suffice.

His other charge never seemed to find herself on the receiving end of these punishments, and Levlyn grew resentful of her sister. 

What made Bellys so perfect?

She wanted to hate her, and many times she almost did. But when he wanted to know who broke the dining ware, who scratched the hardwood, who left a coat where it didn’t belong, Bellys would bow her head and lie. It was me.

When Levlyn lay in bed shivering, her blankets confiscated for the crime of running in the halls, Bellys shared her linens.

When Levlyn fell and scraped her knee, it was not the Autocrat who kissed it.

Still, she was his favorite, and for that, Levlyn almost truly hated her.

When he threw his parties, they were made to perform. Bellys, long-limbed and graceful, had found her talent in dance. Levlyn, meanwhile, was his songbird. She was always eager to entertain, thrilled when it came her turn to take the stage.

She would wait with bated breath, peering around corners into the ballroom full of trolls. Mostly seadwellers, save for the scattered purple socialites and indigo bodyguards that floated through the room. 

They were always dressed beautifully, covered horn to toe in glittering jewels, precious metals, and the finest of Meretian fabrics. When he called her out, she reveled in the attention, fins fluttering as they marveled at the sight of her.

They would call her beautiful and pet her head, and some would even slip her treats from the table she was not allowed to touch. She relished every second she was paraded before them, proud to be a wonder.

She thought nothing of the way they spoke as if she were not there, the way each compliment was directed not at herself, but at him, standing just behind her with a hand upon her shoulder or head. She knew no different.

When she first felt something was amiss, it was their touch that set her off.

“May I?” they would ask, reaching for her fins. “May I?” some would plead, hands drifting towards her tail. “May I?” they always said, looking directly at him.

One early morning, she shied away when they reached for her, taking her guardian’s hand and looking up at him with large, pleading eyes. “I don’t want them to,” she whispered, just before the rage began to pool within him. 

The following night, her bedroom was stripped of most belongings. She would not attend the next party, he told her. Bellys would take her place. Perhaps this would teach her not to take their admiration for granted, he said, locking the door as he left.

She might have learned her lesson, were it not for that last little phrase.

Was she not being taken for granted? Why did Bellys get everything? It wasn’t fair, and she was angry.

So she fled.

Her bedroom window contained no mechanism by which to open, but with enough force, her table lamp was enough to shatter it. She would come back, she told herself as she clambered outside, into air so fresh it made her lungs ache. She would come back in a night or two, when he realized how much he missed her.

She did not return.

[inawordaverage]

disclaimer: OPINION, FAMILY ISSUES, RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION. I don't intend to put forth any hate speech towards any belief in this post. It is simply an expression of how I perceive my past experiences.

This one's gonna be VERY long.. and there's a good chance it's not going to be seen by many.. but this is an okay spot to get it off my chest, I suppose. Thank you for listening.

To put it simply, I feel like I will be behind in life until the day I die. And no, it's not because I've decided not to go to college. It's because I have missed many of the world's major turning points.

A small example: you can ask me if I've seen a movie, regardless of its popularity, and nine times out of ten the answer will be no. A larger example: you can ask me what happened during Obama's presidency (the entirety of which I was alive for, of course), and I can tell you nothing except that his name was spoken with venom throughout our church.

The history of the world, and of internet itself - a concept that has been familiar to most of my peers for most of my life - is still something that I will never fully grasp, because I was not allowed to participate in it at all.

My life, until I was sixteen years old, mainly consisted of three things: school, church, and home. Anything outside of those three things - or anyone who had access to the rest of the world - was disallowed from my carefully curated bubble.

I was brought up to be obedient and quiet. Don't speak until you are spoken to. Don't question authority, ever. Do, however, make sure you ask permission before doing anything, to make sure you are supervised. And, most importantly, worship God above all else. Or else.

My priorities were as follows:

- Honor God

- Honor others

- Honor myself

As I grew older, I allowed myself to be trampled, abused, mocked, degraded, and assaulted - all in the name of honoring God and others above myself, disregarding my own safety. And nothing was done to stop that impression from being made, as long as my behavior was favorable enough.

To make matters worse, I hardly knew what privacy was. My personal space and private belongings were regularly invaded, and I let it happen because I didn't know any better.

A mantra that was repeated throughout our house was, "If you have to hide anything, it must be something wrong." Nothing was sacred. Personal journals were opened, excessive time alone was scrutinized and brought into question, earbuds were confiscated.

My eyes hungrily latched onto any screen I could find, just to get a glimpse of the world, just to satisfy my curiosity. Each time it happened, I was caught and reprimanded. I felt guilty for trying to see past the bubble, because I was only supposed to know that the bubble was safe, and the rest of the world was evil.

I feared the world. Fear was instilled into my heart from a young age. The fear of strangers, sin, death, and even God himself. Eternal punishment, separate from our almighty creator, was the worst possible pain imaginable, and we were to thank him for sparing us from that punishment.

We were taught that Jesus endured the pain of hell so that we could be saved from having to go through it. We were taught to be contrite, desperate, lost, and confused souls that needed to be washed clean and purified of anything imperfect.

From inside the bubble, I was convinced that being saved from eternal torment was the greatest gift of all, the purest expression of love. But with my first step outside of the bubble, I learned that salvation was not my motivator for following God. It was fear.

Now that I am no longer practicing religion, I experience two feelings at once when thinking of death. These two feelings are very familiar, but that does not make them any less traumatic.

The first feeling is terror. Yes, because of what I have been taught my whole life, I am afraid of death. Will I be punished forever for breaking free of the bubble I was raised in? Will I suffer eternal agony for choosing to abandon God and the church?

The second feeling is intrigue. I must know what happens after death. I'm morbidly curious. Literally. I have had visions of the emptiness of nonexistence, and I have experienced the blind, white-hot pain of what can only be described as hell... but I NEED to know what really happens.

As I am of the firm belief that perfection will always be impossible, I am only left with two options that I constantly mull over. My thoughts are stuck going back and forth between either constant agony, or nothingness. No one has come back from the dead to tell us which it is. So the only way to find out, is to experience it..

I'm not willing to leave this life behind. I've only just begun my journey. Although I have missed out on so much, I am now free to learn, and I will never stop learning. I am learning to love myself for who I truly am, discovering and accepting my own identity while welcoming others in with open arms.

To me, it is such a refreshing change. The worst isn't over yet, but I have had many tumultuous seasons so far, and if I were to never learn from them, I would not be where I am today.

I'll leave with a quote from a message I sent to one of my friends, who had asked me why I live my life the way I do now.

"...I will not let my fear of eternal torment lead me into blindly accepting whatever salvation is thrown at me. Not anymore. I'm living my life, surrounded by good, supportive people, and I don't want to change that. ... The end of the world is near. Before I know it, I'll blink, and everything I know and love will be gone. I'll die, and not have faith in where I'm going to end up. But I feel like that is the truth in the Bible that comes closest to impacting my view of this harsh reality."