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justatiredpotato · 4 years

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Set Me Free | Chapter 7 (Ending)

Chapter List

Pairing: hybrid!Yoongi x human!reader

Genre: Angst, fluff, coffee shop AU, hybrid AU

Word Count: Chapter: 4,000~ Total: 40,000~

Updates daily at 10pm MST

Warnings: mentions of physical abuse, injuries, blood, trauma, a lot of crying but there’s a happy ending I swear

Summary: Yoongi, a cat hybrid, has been hurt time and time again by a world that would have him believe he’s worthless. One day he finds himself in your protective care, and gets a new family to boot. But is it really that easy to escape the past and embrace a new beginning?

Author’s Note: In this fic the reader’s name is Yeoji

Another Author’s Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has read this fic! It took a long time for me to finish and edit, but I’m so glad I finally got the idea out of my head and into the world. I’ve been kicking around ideas for a little epilogue (something short and fluffy) if anyone would be interested in that. I also have plans for future fics with the other boys in this same AU. :)

As soon as you recognized the man in the video, you called the police. Kwon Hyunjoong’s name wasn’t unfamiliar to the city police. They’d had multiple run-ins with him investigating hybrid crimes. But he was always careful enough to worm his way out of the charges. The lax hybrid rights laws didn’t help the situation. Even with all the progress and new policies implemented in recent years there was often next to nothing that could be done to stop the atrocities. Fortunately, since Yoongi was registered as yours, the police could pursue it as a theft and potentially damage to personal property. Depending on the degree of harm, it could be brought to trial as an animal abuse case. You didn’t like it, but it was the only way they could help you.

The problem was that Hyunjoong had multiple establishments at different locations, so the police weren’t sure where to start looking. Luckily the head of the hybrid crimes division, Detective Moon Bora, was more than happy to take it as an opportunity for a police raid on several of his known locations. Hopefully that would give them a chance to gather evidence and shut at least part of his operation down. Still, you needed to find the place he’d taken Yoongi too. You remembered the business card the snake of a man had given you when he came into the cafe. You quickly dialed Jin, who was still at your apartment with the rest of the guys.

“Jin, can you look for something in my desk? It’s a business card, mostly purple with some kind of logo on it. Should say the name Kwon Hyunjoong on it,” you said, not bothering with a hello.

“On it,” Jin said. You heard his footsteps and then the shuffling as he rifled through your desk drawers. “Got it! The Eclipse Club. *** W. **th Street. Is that where he is?”

“Maybe,” you responded, then hung up. You quickly called the police back and told them what was on the card. They assured you’d they’d send units there immediately, but you couldn’t bring yourself to just wait. So you snagged Namjoon’s keys out of his pocket and ran back to the car. By the time he, Jimin, and Jungkook caught up you were already pulling out of the parking lot. Namjoon banged on the window and tugged at the door handle but the doors had locked automatically when you put it in drive and there was no way you were stopping the car. You didn’t even glance in the rearview as you drove away, not seeing your little brother run his hands through his hair in frustration, Jungkook frantically dialing for a cab, and Jimin watching with wide, frightened eyes.

You punched the address into your phone’s GPS at the next light. To say you were speeding would be an understatement of comical proportions, but none of the cops that zipped past you with their sirens blaring, seemed to care. It both comforted and terrified you to see the pure volume of police heading to the same destination as you. You pulled up in front of the club to find several police cars already stopped near the entrance. The officers were trying to set up a perimeter so no potential witnesses or perpetrators could slip away. They weren’t being nearly as cautious about letting people in, so you managed to shoulder your way through the writhing crowd of sweaty and inebriated club-goers.

Once inside you suddenly felt overwhelmed. You had no idea where to start looking. With no better ideas, you started elbowing people aside and moving through the building, screaming Yoongi’s name. A young girl—she couldn’t have been more than nineteen—with round black ears nestled in her curly white hair bumped into you. One of her eyes was blacked and a split ran through her pretty doll-like lip. She hurried to apologize, straightening her microscopic tulle skirt as she bowed. You quickly grabbed her arm drawing her eyes back up to meet yours.

“Yoongi!” you shouted at her. She frowned, understandably confused. “I’m looking for a guy called Yoongi,” you said again, leaning closer in hopes she could hear you better over the deafening sound of the crowd and the music still blaring through the speakers.

“Yoongi?” she said, clearly not recognizing the name. Your heart sank as you realized with horror that Kwon Hyunjoong might not have brought Yoongi here. “Yeah. Smallish guy, soft cheeks, honey-blond hair, little black cat hears and tail.” You described, hoping to jog her memory.

“Suga?” she said, coming to a realization. “They just brought him back. The master took him to the cage.” She nodded to a hallway in the back where several police officers were already shoving their way though the crowd. “He looked angry,” she added with a frown, ears twitching nervously.

“Thank you,” you said, giving her arm a squeeze as you started pushing through the crowd again. You reached the hallway relatively easily but your progress slowed when you came upon a crowd of officers gathered around a doorway, trying to usher two burly men in handcuffs through the throngs of inebriated people. You continued pushing your way through, managing to escape their notice for the most part even as you elbowed a few cops in the ribs. When you got close enough to the doorway you saw a set of metal stairs leading down, and heard a familiar voice echoing up the passage. Even in the form of pained wails and animal panic, you knew that voice.

“Yoongi!” you screeched, lurching past the last two people between you and the door. You practically fell down the stairs in your haste, the cops behind you shouting at you to stop. The officer at the door downstairs was shocked still for a moment by the appearance of your small, frantic frame. He came back to himself as you pushed past him, and he caught your arm to prevent you from entering. The wild swing of your arm caught you both off guard as you wrenched your arm free, stumbling forward onto your hands and knees and catching the officer in the jaw with a backhand in the process.

“Hey, stop right there!” the man shouted, but you were already moving toward the pale figure trying to make himself disappear into the corner. Yoongi hunkered there, pale and shaking in just a pair of boxers. Blood splattered the fabric where it dripped from lashes in his back and thighs. Two police officers, a man and a woman, stood a few feet away trying to get closer to help.

“What do we do?” the man asked.

“I don’t know. We might have to tranquilize him if he won’t let us get close.”

“S***, I hate to do it though. He’s already pretty messed up.” The male officer eyed the tranq gun in his hand unhappily.

“He needs medical attention thou-” the woman started. You’d heard more than enough.

“Yoongi!” you cried again, sprinting across the room to him, the officer from the door right on your heels.

“Miss, stop! It’s dangerous.”

You got within a few feet of Yoongi, but pulled up short when he hissed, actually hissed at you. He tried to shuffle further away. That was when you noticed one of his legs stretched out, held by a chain bolted to the center of the room. Everytime he tried to escape further the chain bit into his flesh, the skin already raw and bleeding there.

“Yoon? Sweetheart, it’s me. It’s Yeoji-noona. Yoongi, baby, please.”

His head lifted just the tiniest bit as he looked at you. “Noona?” he said weakly. His voice was raw and wobbly, barely audible, but that was all you needed to hear. You were at his side in a heartbeat. He finally moved forward a bit, no longer pulling against the chain and you heard him draw a breath through his teeth at the sting as the metal shifted against the wound on his ankle. He pressed himself to you, burying his face in your chest. You did your best to hold him without touching the raw skin of his back.

You pulled away for a moment and he sobbed, panicked, so you hurried to peel off your sweater and pull it over his body. He didn’t even put his arms through the sleeves, more concerned with getting as close to you as possible. Your scent enveloping him made him feel so safe despite the intense pain he was in, and that only made him sob harder. You knew the movement from crying so hard must hurt considering how bad his injuries were, so you patted his hair soothingly, wrapping an arm over his waist and hip—the least damaged section of skin you could find—to hold him closer. It took a moment to realize that it wasn’t just his cries filling the room, you were crying with him.

The cops gave up on pulling you away from him, so you sat like that for several minutes. The voices in the room seemed very far away, not that you could hear very well anyway over your own breathing and pounding heartbeat. Someone touched your shoulder, lightly trying to pull you away. You shook them off with a terrified cry that didn’t even seem human. It was a primal wail of heartbreak and terror at even the hint of separating you from Yoongi.

“Noona.” A warm voice broke through your emotional haze. “Noona, hyung, it’s Hoseok. It’s okay. We’ve got you.”

You lifted your face from where it was buried in Yoongi’s hair, and found Hoseok standing there, emergency response bag in hand.

“Hobi,” you said, voice barely holding. “Help him.” Despite your words, you didn’t let Yoongi go, only turning with him in your arms so Hoseok could get a look at his back. He packed some gauze onto the wounds and then waved over two men with a stretcher.

“We’ve gotta get him to a hospital. The staff at my hospital is fantastic, they’ll look after you.” You bristled as the two paramedics settled Yoongi on his stomach on the stretcher, never letting go of his hand.

“You aren’t coming with us?” you asked.

“Yoongi-hyung isn’t the only person here who needs medical attention. Some of them are going straight to the shelter. I need to stay and help out.”

“Take us to the shelter too,” you decided. “Someone else can go to the hospital. I only trust you and Jin’s staff.”

“Noona…”

“Hoseok,” Yoongi, mumbled into the cushion of the stretcher. He winced as he spoke, not continuing, but you both took it as him weighing in on the argument. Hoseok sighed and turned to the paramedics.

“Take them to Remedy shelter. Taehyung will be waiting for you at the emergency entrance.” Hoseok placed a comforting kiss on top of your head and hurried off to help elsewhere.

The ambulance ride was silent and tense as you hovered over the paramedics’ every move. You shot daggers at them when Yoongi so much as winced. You knew it wasn’t their fault, but your protective instincts were in overdrive, especially after having failed him so recently.

Taehyung was indeed waiting at the emergency entrance for you. Other ambulances were also unloading patients. Apparently Detective Moon had been serious about the extent of the raids taking place that night. Tae was frantically checking patients in and dealing with drivers and medical staff.

“Yoongi-hyung!” he cried, abandoning the conversation he’d been having as soon as the ambulance doors opened. He appeared around the door, eyes puffy and red, obvious tear tracks staining his cheeks. His voice hiccuped as he spoke and it made more tears fall from your eyes. To be honest they had never really stopped. Yoongi didn’t answer, passed out from a combination of pain, pain-killers, and exhaustion. Tae looked at you anxiously, the question clear in his eyes.

“He’s- He’ll be okay. I think he’ll be okay,” was all you managed.

A doctor met you at the door. He was young, handsome, and remarkably calm. “Dr. Ko Shinwon,” he introduced himself as the paramedics wheeled Yoongi to a trauma bay and transferred him to a hospital bed. They briefed Dr. Ko on Yoongi’s condition before returning to the ambulance. A nurse stepped in to assist him as Dr. Ko started working.

“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside,” another nurse asked. She placed a gentle hand on your arm to guide you away.

“No! No, I can’t leave him.” You stepped closer to Yoongi’s side.

“Miss, I really have to insist.”

Yoongi groaned, making Dr. Ko and the nurses glance at him. He slipped his hand off the edge of the bed and felt for your fingers, threading them together and holding on tightly. “Noona, please,” he whimpered.

“It’s fine, Nurse Jung. Please just try to keep out of the way, miss.” He gave you a serious, appraising look before going about his tasks. You crouched next to Yoongi, gently petting his hair and whispering sweet nonsense, shushing and cooing every time he winced at pain that managed to cut through the numbing. The stitches were the worst part, and it was all you could do to avert your eyes and not pass out. Once the wounds were dressed Dr. Ko excused himself to see his next patient and the nurses checked monitors and IVs. They told you to call if anything changed, then slipped out and pulled the curtain shut.

A few moments later Yoongi shuddered and whimpered a little. “Cold,” he said.

You straightened and looked around, spotting a blanket folded in the cupboard next to the bed. You pulled it out with the hand Yoongi wasn’t clinging to and draped it over him. Then you paused, considering. Yoongi shivered again and you quickly made up your mind, slipping under the blanket next to him. Your body was only half way on the bed, wanting to leave more than enough room for him, but you didn’t care. He immediately shifted, wincing a little at the movement, and settled with his head on your chest, side pressed tightly to yours. You ran your hands through his hair.

You sat quietly for a while, listening as his breathing evened out and his muscles relaxed. The familiar warmth reminded you of the night before, and the thought brought tears to your eyes again. How could you have been so blind to Yoongi’s feelings? You hurt him so badly, and you almost lost him because of it. You held back from crying harder again, not wanting to disturb Yoongi, but your guilt over the whole situation ate at you.

“I’m so sorry,” you whispered, looking lovingly at the boy before you.

“‘m sorry, noona.”

You startled at the sound of his voice, surprised he was listening. “Don’t be sorry, baby. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Made you uncomfortable. Shouldn’t have done that. Made you worry. ‘s bad. Sorry.”

“No. You didn’t do anything wrong. You aren’t bad. My sweet honey boy, you are so perfect. I love you,” you said. Your voice was thick with emotion but you said the words clearly, with certainty.

Yoongi chuckled, flinching as he did so. You could feel the movement against your chest. “Not the same. ’s okay. Doesn’t have to be the same. Just let me love you ‘n I’m okay.”

You craned your neck to look at him. “What if it is the same? Yoongi, it is the same. I love you so much, I can’t believe you haven’t seen through me yet.” He tilted his head up to face you, uncertainty creasing his brow. You smiled softly and ran your thumb over his face to smooth out the wrinkle. “I love you, Yoongi.” You hesitated for a moment, then leaned down and pressed a firm but gentle kiss to his lips. You’d imagined doing this an embarrassing number of times, but somehow, they were even softer than you expected. The kiss only lasted a second before you pulled away, examining his face for a reaction. He didn’t disappoint, gracing you with the gummy smile that could single-handedly keep your heart beating. His eyelids were heavy, but he clearly had things to say.

“Love you,” he mumbled. His next words were more or less unintelligible.

“Shh,” you stopped him, running your fingers through his hair and scratching gently at his ears. “Talk tomorrow.”

He grumbled a protest, but didn’t try to say anything more. Instead he leaned his face up toward you expectantly. You chuckled and gave him three quick pecks, one on his forehead, one on his button nose, and one on his pouty lips. He smiled into that last kiss, then nuzzled into your neck where your scent was strongest. The combination of your perfume and your natural fragrance lulled him into unconsciousness within minutes, one of his hands finding the soft flesh of your hip to knead at. You smiled, wiped the tears from your cheeks with your free hand, and closed your eyes.

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Yoongi was in the hospital for two weeks. The beating had done some internal damage and the doctors were concerned about infection in the lacerations on his back. The boys helped out, taking care of things at the cafe so you could spend every possible moment by Yoongi’s bedside.

The relief you felt when they gave him the okay to go home was indescribable. It felt like you finally had permission to get back to normal. But of course, things weren’t entirely back to normal. Sometimes it felt like all the progress Yoongi made when he came to live with you had evaporated. He was jumpy and timid again, shying away from the boys when they came around. He even flinched away from you sometimes when you moved too fast.

You realized quickly that you couldn’t have him working with the public in the cafe again. Not yet. So Jimin and Jungkook picked up extra shifts whenever they could. You thanked them at least once every time you saw them, but they just brushed you off. You had to fight tooth and nail for them to take the pay for their extra hours. Every time you had to leave Yoongi and look after the business it broke your heart. He always watched you walk out the door as if you might not come back to him.

One particularly warm spring afternoon Jimin burst into the cafe, running late and still wearing his clothes from dance practice.

“Sorry I’m late, noona! Let me go get changed,” he panted as he slipped behind the counter.

“No worries. You can use my room to change in.” You nodded back toward the apartment and he ran off to get cleaned up for work. When he reemerged barely ten minutes later he managed to look more put together than you did after a half hour of effort. His bubble-gum pink hair nicely coiffed instead of the disheveled state it was in when he arrived.

“How do you always look so nice?” you marveled. You reached up and scratched his ear, careful not to disturb his neatly styled hair. He purred happily at the compliment. You hoped someday Yoongi might purr as freely as Jimin did.

“Thanks!” Jimin smiled, eyes turning to little crescent lines as he did. “I can take it from here. You should get back to Yoongi-hyung.” He paused for a moment, like he wanted to say something else. “Noona, aren’t you guys…?” He let the words hang in the air, but you knew what he was asking.

The truth was, after your confession that night in the hospital, you hadn’t really talked about your relationship. With everything that happened, it just never seemed like the right time. You spent much of the time since then wrapped in Yoongi’s arms, or him in yours, even placing the occasional peck on his cheek. But it was like both of you feared going any further. You saw the hesitation in his eyes everytime he stood just a little too close to you, or looked into your eyes a little too long. He couldn’t seem to find the courage to say or do anything, and you didn’t want to push him too far. He would make a move when he was ready, right?

You blinked, realizing Jimin had been waiting for you to speak while you stared into space. “I- I don’t know, Jimin. We were. At least I thought we were… something. I told him I loved him, in the hospital.” Jimin’s eyes widened, a hint of a smile on his lips. You leaned on the counter and let out a sigh before continuing. “He seemed happy. He even said it back. But we haven’t talked about it since then. He was so high on adrenaline and painkillers then, I’m not even sure he knew what he was saying.”

Jimin stopped you before you could make any more excuses. “He knew. Noona, he’s loved you for so much longer than you realize. But you know better than anyone else how scared he must be. If you rejected him, he might never recover, so he can’t do anything at all. I’m sure he feels like you’re too good for him. He needs you to assure him that you love him, and he deserves that.” You looked at Jimin, amazed at the wisdom he’d just dropped out of nowhere. He smiled, clearly pleased with the advice he’d given and your reaction. “I sounded pretty cool just now, huh?”

You grinned pulling him into a vicious bear hug. “Yes my sweet Chim Chim, you were super cool just now. Thank you.” You pulled back and he examined your face, clearly reading the nervousness there and in your scent. “I need to go talk to Yoongi.”

You took a steadying breath and he patted your shoulder. “Fighting!” he cheered as he waved you off.

Back in the apartment dinner was already finished. Yoongi was waiting at the table scrolling on his phone.

“I’m sorry I’m late Yoongs! Let me go change real quick.” You quickly peeled off your work clothes and put on shorts and a tank top, knowing the apartment was already warm, and it would be warmer when Yoongi inevitably wanted snuggles later. You returned to the table and took a chair across from him.

“Wow, this looks great!” You looked over the table, genuinely impressed. Yoongi had been cooking a lot lately. He found it was a relaxing way to pass his time, and he loved to see you enjoy what he prepared. You’d purchased several new kitchen tools and appliances for him, and he used them all. “Did you make this pasta yourself?” you asked, incredulous as he served you a generous slice of lasagna. Glancing at the kitchen counter you found the pasta press out, still dusted with flour. He nodded bashfully in response.

“This is my first attempt, so don’t expect too much. I’m just hoping it’s edible.” You both laughed and dug into the food. It was great. All of Yoongi’s first attempts seemed to end up delicious, unlike your kitchen misadventures.

After dinner you settled onto the couch together. He was sprawled half on top of you, laying between the back of the couch and your body, head on your shoulder. He was focused on the TV—he’d been watching obsessed with old Iron Chef episodes of late—but you were focused on him, hands gently stroking his hair and ears. A satisfied smile spread on your face when the now-familiar rumble started from his chest. You decided that now, when he was happy and relaxed, was as good a time as any to talk about everything.

“Yoon?” you called softly, brushing his hair off his forehead.

“Hm?” He looked up at you questioningly.

“Can we talk about something?” You tried to phrase it in a non-threatening way and keep your tone light, but his brow still furrowed as he grabbed the remote to pause his show.

“What do you want to talk about?” He propped himself up on one elbow and avoided your eyes.

“It’s nothing bad. At least I really hope not,” you said with a nervous laugh that did little to ease Yoongi’s anxiety. “Do you remember that first night in the hospital?”

Yoongi’s eyes widened, then looked away again. Clearly he remembered something. “Some of it. It’s a little blurry in spots. What about it?”

“We… We talked about some things. Do you remember that?” You looked at him expectantly, but he stayed quiet. “I told you I love you,” you said quietly.

He looked at you sharply. “That was real?” he asked, almost more to himself than to you.

“What?”

“I thought I dreamed that. I was on so much pain medication that I figured I was hallucinating or something. You- You actually said that?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes. And I meant it. I still mean it. I’d like to be more than just your friend, if that’s something you want.” You put a hand on his cheek so he’d hold your gaze, stroking it gently with your thumb. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Yoongi said without hesitation. His eyes were glassy and he studied your face for a moment. Half of him expected this to be a cruel prank, but you didn’t laugh. You just smiled softly, admiring the soft features of his face. You reached down to clasp your other hand with his.

“Does that mean you’ll be my boyfriend?” you asked, still somehow nervous now that everything was out in the open.

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he kissed you. After a second he leaned back and looked at you to gage your reaction. You smiled and leaned up, bumping his nose with yours. He grinned and kissed you again. His lips moved against yours, gentle but you could feel the emotion in every move. You ran your fingers through his soft blond hair, tugging on it a little and he nipped teasingly at your lip. You let out a surprised gasp and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. You enthusiastically followed his lead, wrapping your leg over his hip to pull his body closer to yours. Your hand pulled free from his to rest on his waist. He shuddered as you trailed your fingers down his side. The hand not supporting his weight grabbed your hip. Your fingers found the edge of his t-shirt and slid under it, finding the warm skin of his back.

At the feeling of your fingers on his bare skin he tensed, breaking the kiss. You looked at him confused, but immediately stopped touching him, removing your leg and releasing your gentle grip on his hair. He sat up, his body shaking a little.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?” you asked, growing concerned at his obvious distress.

“Yeah. Yeah, I just.” He squeezed his eyes shut and slowed his breathing. You waited, resting your hand palm up on your lap so he could take it if he wanted to. He did. He twined your fingers together and took a longer, slower breath before he spoke. “I’ve never had someone I actually like, y’know, touch me, or kiss me. It felt nice, but when you touched my skin, my scars…” Your fingers tightened on his hand, heart aching as you realized what he was getting at. “I just started to remember all the bad times, the bad people, the things they did, the things they made me do.”

“We can go as slow as you need. Whatever you’re comfortable with, that’s enough for me.”

He huffed, frustrated tears welling in his eyes. “I just- I want this. I love you and I trust you. I hate that I’m letting them take this from me; letting them beat me.”

“Hey.” You wiped a tear from his cheek and kissed his forehead. “They are not beating you. You’re here, with me. You are safe and healthy. You’re still able to love someone, and you are loved. You have a family. Despite everything you’ve been through, you survived. Sure, you have scars, but you’re working hard to heal. I am so proud of you, Yoongi. You deserve a happy ending, and you’ll get one. We both will.”

“You think?”

“I know. I promise, we’ll get through this.”

He nodded and lay back down, resting his head on your chest so he could listen to your heartbeat. You resumed the forgotten episode of Iron Chef and went back to playing with his hair. You were just dozing off, his purr lulling you to sleep, when Yoongi spoke again.

“Noona?”

“Mhm?”

“I really love you.”

You smiled, already half in a dream. “I love you too, honey boy.” You kissed his head and fell asleep with your face tucked in his hair.

#yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #suga fanfic #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #hybrid!au #cafe!au #hybrid!yoongi #yoongi x reader #min yoongi #suga #bts #bts suga #bts yoongi

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severalspoons · 4 years

Text

“Wolfwood Mood” quotes

To be updated as I find more.

God may judge you, but His sins outnumber your own. -- @afabbaeddel

“Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.” ― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“That's one of the remarkable things about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.” ― Bill Watterson

“An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent.” ― Criss Jami, Killosophy

They're going to have to glue you back together, IN HELL! -- Demoman in Team Fortress 2

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” ― Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”- Epictetus

“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.” ― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me. --Fallout New Vegas NPC

“We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.” ― Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Man can get used to anything, the scoundrel. --Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“The soul is healed by being with children.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Killing myself was a matter of such indifference to me that I felt like waiting for a moment when it would make some difference.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream Of A Ridiculous Man

“Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano key.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

“One man doesn't believe in god at all, while the other believes in him so thoroughly that he prays as he murders men!” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.” ― George Carlin

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“You only live twice: Once when you are born And once when you look death in the face” ― Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

“There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.” ― Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

“Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.” ― Jean Paul Sartre

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre

“There is no reality except in action.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse.” ― Joseph Brodsky

“mankind is resilient: the atrocities that horrified us a week ago become acceptable tomorrow.” ― Joseph Heller

“Do you know what it means to be a survivor? It means that not only do you have to live through things, you have to live with them as well. The second part is much harder and sometimes it takes the rest of your life to learn how to do it. But at least you have the rest of your life…” ― Josephine Angelini, Firewalker

“Someone has to be stoic, for the sake of, in spite of, and in the face of all those who are, not. Someone, has to be serious. Someone has to choose to forgo choice, so that there is an option left for others to consider. Everyone can't be, someone.” ― Justin K. McFarlane Beau

“Loving someone always requires you to not love others.” ― Koushun Takami, Battle Royale

“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man's soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.” ― Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption

“We are not defined by the things we do in order to survive. We do not apologize for them,” she says quietly, eyes never leaving mine. “Maybe they have broken you, but you are a sharper weapon because of it. And it is time to strike.” ― Laura Sebastian, Ash Princess

“People are petty, spiteful creatures. What they can't use, hurt, steal, or control, they'll usually destroy.” ― Lorna Reid, Darkwalkers

“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.” ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.” ― Malcom X

“Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.” ― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiting. Is this a key? Keep busy with survival.” ― May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them." ― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

--Maya Angelou

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

--Maya Angelou

“Somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.” ― Melina Marchetta, Finnikin of the Rock

“Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.” ― Mike Royko

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.” ― Rabindranath Tagore, Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore

“Survival," I said softly. "It's selfish, and it's dark, and we've always been a species willing to do anything to satisfy our needs. ― Rachel Caine, Total Eclipse

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To have endured horrors, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that honorable and brave— that was magical.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't.” ― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.” – Seneca

I will fight you in Hell upon a mound of bones. -- @shitmygaywifesays

“As long as there’s two people left on the planet, someone is gonna want someone dead.” -- Sniper, Team Fortress 2

"If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!” -- Soldier, Team Fortress 2

babies cry because they are alive and that is the saddest thing to be. — spencer madsen (@spencermadsen) December 15, 2011

Do you think God stays in heaven because He, too, lives in fear of what He’s created? --Spykids 2nd movie

“No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't.” -- Stephen King, The Stand

“The only thing that matters in the end is your own survival. It's what humans and cockroaches are best at.” ― Susan Ee, World After

If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn’t as cynical as real life. --Terry Pratchett, Guards, Guards!

“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.” ― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." -- Theodore Roosevelt

I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. --Unknown

if you stay alive for no other reason at all, please do it for spite. -- Unknown

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. -- Unknown Tumblr post

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” ― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

...I WILL FACE GOD AND WALK BACKWARDS INTO HELL— wint ( @dril ) May 22, 2012

#Yes I will put Shakespeare side by side with Dril #fight me

#quotes #nicholas d. wolfwood #what it means to be badass #free will #making choices #choices #philosophy #terry pratchett #tolstoyevsky #princess bride #trigun #everything is trigun

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liloelsagranger · 5 years

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Viridian Love Story - Chapter 5: Shattered dreams

Hello my dear friends! Chapter 5 is online. Enjoy :)

@ndbern-rocketmonsters @ndbernarts @jessicarocket @estrelarabyss @prepareforetrouble @masterstarpikachu @tothestarsabove @teamrocketfanart @thelovelyjessie @webelieveinlovepower @chaosandhope @james-team-rocket @danadiversity @krazy-holly @keksrocket @harmonyrocketeeveon @pok3ship @yesjanii @thecomputergirl @elysiiandream @fugly-chan @batfamfan1 @ghostkitty @pikamofo @eclipsing-dreams @abatwc @emily1037 @texansman20 @inuyashaeienni @zayphantomslayer @cat-0301 @james-kojiro-team-rocket @stjarnflicka @diehardrocketshipper @eclipsing-dreams Chapter 5: Shattered dreams

At six o'clock in the morning, Jessie awoke from one of the most beautiful dreams that had ever accompanied her through the night. She was walking along the beach of Alola, hand in hand with James. Newly in love, they played and joked, completely carefree and far from the past. James would wrap his arms around her waist, placing a row of kisses down her neck. She enjoyed his caresses and felt the need to never let go of him again. Eternal partners who didn't have to abide by laws and rules, but were finally allowed to deepen their relationship. A smile flitted over Jessie's face as she reviewed the nocturnal pictures again. Part of that dream had finally come true. James was lying next to her, slumbering with a blissful smile. He seemed so vulnerable and she felt de desire to protect him. Protect him from past atrocities, from her and from the grunts that use to question his abilites. The grunts! Her heart skipped a beat. Jessie reached for the nearest pillow and slapped it in James' face. «Ouch, what have I done to deserve this, Jess ? » He rubbed his nose. «We're late, James. The grunts are waiting for our instructions! Get up! Now!» She was about to jump out of bed, but James held her back. «Give me five minutes to brighten your day,» he grinned mischievously as he kissed Jessie's hand. Of course, she would rather spend times of treachery with James, but duty called, so she freed herself from his grip. «This has to wait! You should probably get dressed,» she looked at him from top to bottom, finding it difficult to suppress an embarrassed smile. He was an extraordinarily handsome man, and a gifted lover, but they couldn't afford another faux pas with Giovanni, even if the urge to press her lips on his almost overpowered her. Uniformed and ready to give instructions, the trio arrived at Team Rocket's headquarters. Jessie and James tried as hard as they could to avoid Meowth's gaze, who had been looking at them sceptically all the way to the phone booth. He smelled the rat, he knew what was going on, but the couple didn't bother to explain. They dialed the number and concentrated on the plan. It rang at least ten times before someone picked up the phone. That's how much the trio was valued. They were at the bottom of the food chain, expected to make nothing but missteps. «It was about time, losers,» Cassidy said, Jessie clenched her hands to fists. Each and every time she tried to score off the trio with her titlings. «Let's hear your master plan, we're all very excited about it», her call was more than sacrastic and Jessie could hear some grunts laughing in the background, but she gathered all her self-confidence and they reported on their plans. «Prom night takes place in the big hall. We found out that there are four emergency exits. They either lead outside or into a bunker. The bunker is of course out of question for our project, but cars equipped with nets and cages for the Pokémon will be waiting outside. We'll keep the crowd at bay, you just run away and deliver the root to Giovanni. It's simple. On our callsign you storm the hall. We use smoke bombs to put the students out of action while the smoke detectors are turned off. Easy as pie, isn't it ? » Jessie was totally convinced of the plan, James and Meowth nodded in agreement, but Cassidy snorted derisively. « Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, you no-goods ! » she replied. « Whatever Cass ! See you tonight ! » Jessie ended the call and yelled out loud. «Who does she think she is? She always has to badmouth our ideas. That conceited b…» James shushed her. «It's okay, sweetheart» he whispered. «It's going to be a blast», he made sure Meowth was out of earshot. «Can't wait to see you in that beautiful evening gown tonight. You'll be the most charming woman on the dance floor and I'll be your suave companion, okay ? » he lifted her chin, placing a quick kiss on her lips. Ash was nervous, but he couldn't really place his excitement. For almost two hours he had been waiting for Serena, who wanted to look pretty for the occasion and she did. Serena was wearing a pink dress and a mother-of-pearl bolero. She wore her hair in a complicated updo. Her red lipstick shined like ruby on her lips. «Ready, Ash?» they linked arms and entered the big hall. Students and Pokémon had already gathered on the dance floor. There was laughter, drinking and partying. The organizers had really worked hard. Nothing was lacking. Snacks, fruit punch and delicious and tasty desserts were served at the buffet. Ash spotted a long line of people waiting to take pictures in the photo booth and then he spotted her. Misty was dressed in a light blue evening gown. She wore her hair loose, discreet make-up and a stunning smile. «Hey Ash!» she and Brock cleaved their way through the crowd. «Hi Misty, Brock» Ash couldn't avert his gaze from her. She looked so mature, not like that frumpy little girl she used to be. He swallowed hard, internally struggling with some unknown feelings. Misty noticed his glances and blushed. 'He's your friend! Don't do anything you'd regret' she scolded herself. Trouble was brewing between the arragned couples. Serena could no longer control her jealousy. « You know what, Ash, enjoy your night with Misty ! I'm out. I thought we would spend a romantic evening together, but it seems that someone else caught your attention ! » She speeded toward the buffet and poured herself a large glass of fruit punch. Brock, once again feeling like the fifth wheel, left Ash and Misty alone, trying his luck with a little brunette lady. Misty didn't really know how to make this encounter less akward. They faced each other, but no one dared to take the first step. «Ehm, hi» what a meekly start. «Hi, Ash» Misty wasn't a whit better. «Would you like to dance? Or shall we have a snack ? » he asked her. She took his hand and led him to the dance floor. They found a tiny spot between the dancing couples. Misty didn't hesitate for a second, but wrapped her arms around Ash's neck. The young student felt slightly uncomfortable. He was plagued by a guilty conscience. He hadn't followed Serena and strangely enough, he felt no urge to win her back either. So he smiled at Misty and moved closer to her. Jessie and James had been watching the whole scenario. «The twerp's in love. Didn't we once advice him against putting himself in danger beacuse of the opposite sex?» James laughed out loud. « We did, but you know what ? This is the kind of trouble I really enjoy getting in to» he hold Jessie by her waist, pinning her closer while kissing her very hard. Her knees threatened to give way, James caresses drove her crazy. «Nevertheless, we need to put our plan into practice» he said and Team Rocket left the dance floor to get ready for their raid. «Hey Ash, do you want to take pictures like we used to do when we were kids?» Misty didn't even wait for his reply, but dragged her friend to the photo booth. The onslaught had somewhat subsided and the two of them entrechned themselves in this very small space, smiling into the camera. «Think of a cool pose» she asked him. Ash remembered the funny grimaces Haunter had taught him. « Great, now it's my turn» and before the camera could take a picture, Misty kissed Ash briefly on the lips. They were both perplexed. At that moment their friendship had reached another level. It didn't feel wrong, on the contrary, it was long overdue. « Sorry Ash » she blushed scarlet, « I didn't mean to overwhelm you, I just wanted to… » Ash placed a hand on her face, pulling her lips closer to his. She hesitated briefly, but then they decided to seal this moment with another kiss. Ash had never felt so free. Unknown feelings raged in him. He had always kept an eye on his friend, but as a young boy, the Pokémon-championships were his biggest goal, girls had absolutely no place in his life. He wanted more, he wanted to feel Misty's lips, but a deafening bang made him wake up from this dream. Ash pulled the curtain aside. The atmosphere had changed. Where students were celebrating and chatting before, there was chaos. Grunts entered from all sides, shot around with net canons, captured Pokémon and showed no leniency. The young people screamed, tried to protect their little companions, but they did not succeed. The first smoke bomb burst on the dance floor and a shrill laughter from the past caught up with Ash and Misty.« Prepare for trouble » Jessie, still dressed in a breathtaking burgundy gown, sicced Arbok on the students.«And make it double» James was surrounded by a dark purble cloud.« Team Rocket » Ash should have known. He and Pikachu go ready to fight.«To protect the world…» Jessie got shushed by the grunts. «Stop talking and help us!» they grouched. «Long time no see, twerps » with a clear goal in mind and the last hope in their hearts, the trio walked up to Ash and Misty, ready to take Pikachu into their custody. « We won't put up with that anymore, Team Rocket ! « Ash ordered Pikachu to strike the criminals with a giagantic thunder shock. He could hear various trainers asking their flying Pokémon to swirl away the smoke. The grunts couldn't compete with the mighty Pokémon. They continued to fight, but their strength waned. They were struck by water vortexes and lightning, got injured and torched. «Retreat! Retreat!» one of the evildoers shouted and little by little they left the hall to save their lives. «Hey! What do you think you're doing? Fight for Giovanni!» Jessie tried to change their minds, but the grunts had already left without prey. Now the trio was surrounded by angry students and their Pokémon. «What a mess, Team Rocket. I think you're going to blast off once again!» Ash laughed gloatingly, but Misty had discovered the pendant on Jessie's neck – a star. It seemed so familiar to her, but she couldn't place it properly.« Goodbye and don't come back ! » The group of students moved closer to Team Rocket. They threatened them with the strongest attacks of their Pokémon and once again the trio had to admit defeat. Now they sure were in need of explanation. The trio faced Giovanni's rebuke with shaking knees. «You had one job, Jessie, James and Meowth ! You failed ! What's the matter with you guys ? What about your brilliant plan ? It sucked, huh ? Who's responsible for this disaster ? » James was the first to find his voice again.£« It was Jessie's idea, Sir. We didn't know her plan would fail. We trusted her. Please, don't be to harsh on her,» Jessie flashed her eyes at James. Rage and bitter disappointment boiled in her. James had betrayed her to save his own butt. «Jessie, if you weren't Miyamoto's daughter, I'd have stashed the Zubats on you, but I want mercy. You and your partners are suspended for the next three months!» The call was interrupted. James smiled at Jessie. «We got off cheaply, right?» he wanted to high-five her, but she pierced him with the most hateful look she could give him. «Screw you, James!» With tears in her eyes, Jessie ran away. Something else happened that night. Although they had once again driven Team Rocket into flight, Misty could not find a restful sleep. Again and again she was haunted by curious dream pictures. Blurred figures, hearty laughter, warm embraces and the star pendant Jessie wore was dangling before her eyes. She rolled from one side of the bed to the other. Misty was restless. A familiar figure appeared, smiling at her. She was wearing the notorious necklace. «Good luck, my little girl. One day you'll be a famous water-Pokémon trainer» never had Misty felt so safe and secure in somebody's arms. Suddenly she realized who the star pendant belonged to. «MOM!» To be continued...

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susandsnell · 5 years

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#1, #20, & #21? (For the musical theater asks)

Musical theatre asks!

Eee, thanks, Alex! Just answered #1, so I’ll hop on to 20 and 21

20. Weirdest/niche musical you really like: Whoo, boy. I mean, despite its huge online cult following, Be More Chill was originally pretty niche, at least in its earlier days? Definitely an odd one. Other than that, The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Urinetown are pretty obscure, and I love ‘em both to death. Little Shop of Horrors, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Rocky Hoor and Bat Boy win for weirdness (although all save for the last are very well established so not quite niche!), so I guess that leaves over Hunchback of Notre Dame and Ghost Quartet for (relative?) niche-ness. And possibly Tanz Der Vampire, if you consider turn of the century vampires singing Total Eclipse of the Heart and a bunch of Meatloaf songs weird, which I kind of do?

Oh, heck. I just completely went and forgot the most shining example of an answer. Bat Out Of Hell the musical, the absolutely bonkers post-apocalyptic Meatloaf jukebox show that is a loose retelling of Peter Pan but also involves the absolutely irredeemable villain, who has tortured and murdered multiple protagonists and runs the capitalistic hellhole dystopia in ways that upset his wife (heh, sound familiar?) being redeemed and killed, then resurrected and baptized in a river through the power of rock n’ roll while they all sing “I”d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).” No, really. Here’s the synopsis. Treat yourself.

21. Unsettling/dark musical you really like: Pre-tty much half of my favourites, honestly. With blood, guts, gore, and Victorian revenge tragedies and amoral characters out the wazoo, as well as easily the absolute best score in any musical ever written is Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which I’ve loved since I was nine, and had no business knowing about at that age. Still, it’s phenomenal. Les Mis is arguably quite dark, but I don’t think it qualifies in the sense the ask is suggesting, so for now, I’ll list more straight-up dark or horror musicals -- Phantom of the Opera, naturally, as well as Little Shop of Horrors (the stage version is much darker than the movie!), Rocky Horror (Picture) Show, REPO! The Genetic Opera (which surpasses Sweeney Todd in gore but by far shirks in terms of quality), Reefer Madness, Jekyll and Hyde, Beetlejuice (as well you know, although this one is more adorable than anything) Carrie (to an extent, but it does slap), Lizzie: The Musical (based on Lizzie Borden but with an awesome rock score), and even the eternally-disappointed Dracula musical.

Arguably, Be More Chill has some sci-fi horror elements, particularly as the spiritual successor to Little Shop, but it’s played up enough that I’m not sure it qualifies directly.

There are non-horror musicals that are deeply unsettling and dark as well (that I love!), and at the top of that list is Cabaret. Cannot recommend it enough (the stage version, the movie is an atrocity), but it takes a strong stomach for the realities of what Berlin was like in the 1930s. In exactly the way you’re thinking. And the music is phenomenal. Ending is an absolute punch in the gut. Follies is pretty creepy, too. I waaaant to say some productions of Jesus Christ Supestar can be creepy, but I always end up grooving too hard to the decidedly un-groovy happenings to really notice. The Pharisees have got pipes, what can I say?

Lastly, Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is as pitch-black as comedy can get, but I wouldn’t call it dark by a long-shot, so, it half-counts, I suppose?

Thanks for the ask!! <3

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elcorreodetorreon · 6 years

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Mexico's drugs war: in the city of death

It was just another massacre in a country plagued by violence. But this time it was carried out by prison inmates – who'd been let out specially

Rory Carroll

@rorycarroll72

Thu 16 Sep 2010 15.30 EDTFirst published on Thu 16 Sep 2010 15.30 EDT

It was past midnight and the hired band had launched into a raucous ballad, La Cabrona, to wind up the party. Guests joined in, belting out lyrics in a singsong under a Chihuahuan desert moon: "Dime si ya no me quieres cabrona . . ."

The Italia Inn, a walled compound for rent with a courtyard, kitchen and swimming pool, was a great spot for the fiesta. "Everything was going really well," says Hector, the band's 17-year-old trumpet player.

Nobody heard the vehicles pull up on the dirt track outside or saw the gunmen surround the compound. The first salvo, fired from outside, tore through the garage doors. The band members bore the brunt. Five collapsed in a tangled, bloodied heap. Moments later, the killers stormed into the yard, assault rifles blazing. People screamed and scrambled for cover. Bodies crumpled.

One gunman picked his way through the wounded and taunted them before finishing them off, recalls Hector, who does not want his full name published. "Cry!" the gunman ordered one of the musicians, putting a gun to his temple. "Cry!" The terrified man could only pray. The gunman prepared to fire when a command rang out. "Trabajo hecho, vámonos!"Job done, let's go. The killer lowered his rifle and grinned at the musician. "You're lucky."

Seventeen people died and dozens were injured in the 18 July attack, one of the worst massacres in Mexico's drug war. The crime scene is supposed to be guarded but on a recent morning it was possible to step over the yellow police tape, trodden into the dirt, and pick over the courtyard debris: a scuffed brown shoe, whisky bottles, plates with decomposing sludge. Beer cans bobbed in the stagnant pool and sunlight seeped through 24 raisin-sized holes in the kitchen door. Blood smeared the floor and fridge. Windows were smashed, walls pockmarked. Only the silence was unbroken.

A massacre in Mexico tends to have a short news life. Perpetrators vanish and the deed is eclipsed by the next atrocity, and the one after that. Horrors flow so fast that they lose definition and morph into a single, numbing narrative.

This one was different. When the killers sped away that night it was not the end of the story, but the beginning. The attack set in motion a saga of kidnapping, YouTube video clips, revenge and media blackmail, which exposed a harsh, revealing truth about Mexico in the run-up to this week's celebrations for the 200th anniversary of independence. It is a state colonised by organised crime.

Fly north from Mexico City and the landscape below browns into cauterised scrub. Roads and railway lines, black etchings in caramel plains, eventually converge on a glinting sea of tin-roofed sheds, houses and factories. This is Torreón –"the city that conquered the desert". The first thing you notice is the blinding glare of the sun. The second is a relentless, throbbing heat.

The main drag, Boulevard Independencia, could be Texas: pick-up trucks, gas stations, strip malls, Wal-Mart, Baskin-Robbins. You know the Rio Grande must be close because the coffee – watery americano and only watery americano – sucks. The radio, at least, boasts Latin flavour: upbeat, foot-tapping cumbia music. "For dancing with beautiful women!" smiles the taxi-driver. It is about the cheeriest statement I will hear in Torreón.

The local tabloid, Express, seems to have been written by Dante. Page after page of shootings, stranglings, stabbings, burnings, shallow graves, deep graves, mass graves. Advertisements for spiritual healing compete with those for funeral homes. "Miguel's: best quality coffins at affordable prices." One bright spot is an ad for 600 new jobs to armour-plate cars.

For a country in the throes of a war that has claimed 28,000 lives in four years it is perhaps little surprise that a transport hub such as Torreón, intersection for cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamines, is grim. Murders among the population of 550,000 average three per day. Two massacres in city bars preceded the attack on the Italia Inn party, a bloodbath made worse by the fact the victims had no connection to drug trafficking.

The atrocity's apparent motive was a display of strength by the Sinaloa cartel in its battle to oust a rival group, the Zetas, from Torreón. "It's a turf war, and they'll kill anyone," says Carlos Bibiano Villa, Torreón's police chief. The day after the attack, the Zetas, keen to show they still controlled the city, left four human heads with a note saying the massacre's perpetrators had been punished. Decapitation, once unheard of in Mexico, has become routine.

The scene of the 18 July massacre in Torreón. Photograph: STR/Associated Press

What came next, however, was new. The Zetas, after killing the four probably random and innocent unfortunates, really did investigate the massacre. The result was a harrowing video uploaded on YouTube. Rodolfo Nájera, bruised, swollen and stripped, gazed into the camera with a confession. The 35-year-old kidnapped policeman, flanked by masked gunmen, must have guessed how the video would end. Asked by an off-camera interrogator about the Italia Inn massacre, Nájera said the killers were Sinaloa members allowed out of prison for nocturnal hits. Guards lent them guns and vehicles. "Who let them out?" barked the voice. "The director," replied the doomed man. The video ends minutes later with a shot to the head.

A tortured confession would hardly be credible except that in this case it was true. The attorney general confirmed the story. Forensic results showed the massacre victims were shot with R-15 rifles – standard issue for prison guards. Federal authorities swooped on the prison and detained the guards. The director, a stout, formidable blonde named Margarita Rojas Rodriguez, who had recently been named "woman of the year 2010" by the state governor, was also arrested. "Disbelief. I just couldn't believe it. I had never heard of something like this," says Eduardo Olmos, Torreón's mayor.

The prison is in Gómez Palacio, a city in Durango state, whereas Torreón is in Coahuila state. But it takes just a few minutes to cross the bridge linking them. Along with the city of Lerdo, they really form one metropolis of just over one million people in a desert bowl that used to be a lagoon. Each state and city has its own police force and jail, a byzantine mess of overlapping institutions and rivalries. It has helped drug traffickers with ample "plomo y plata" – lead and silver, bullets and money – to worm through officialdom like a ripe mango.

From the outside, Gómez Palacio's jail, rising from a dusty plain, looks the part: high white walls, barriers, watch-towers. Officially, it is a "centre for social readaptation", an Orwellian touch. Mothers, wives and girlfriends, the latter in their best jeans and makeup, queue with groceries to get in. The Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's oldest and most powerful, in effect runs the place. A state surrender coyly termed "auto-gobierno", self-government. If you belong to a rival group, odds are you will be carried out in a bodybag. If you cannot pay "cuota", a levy, you sleep outdoors or in a sort of kennel.

Waiting gunmen recently killed three prisoners who had served their time and were leaving the jail on what turned out to be a short walk to freedom. Guards are routinely murdered inside and outside the jail. It is thought Rojas possibly acted more out of fear than greed in allegedly allowing hitmen to borrow guards' vehicles and weapons for nocturnal murder missions.

The next twist came when inmates rioted in protest at Rojas's removal and demanded her reinstatement. The media drove down the one, potholed road leading to the jail to cover the disturbances – and were duly kidnapped: two cameramen from the Televisa network and two reporters from the newspaper group Milenio. The Sinaloa cartel, jealous of the Zetas' YouTube success, demanded that local networks air three of their own videos in return for the hostages.

"This was totally unprecedented. It was brazen blackmail," says one media executive, who asked not to be named. "You couldn't believe these guys were doing this. Things kept reaching new levels of, of . . ." – he searches for the word – "incredibleness." The TV stations broadcast the videos, which turned out to be of frightened police officers accusing colleagues of working for the Zetas. The cameramen and reporters were freed and moved to safe houses in Mexico City. The fate of the police in the videos was unclear.

Javier Garza, sipping Starbucks coffee under a broiling sun, shakes his head. "This is not the place I grew up in." The director of El Siglo de Torreón, the main local newspaper, used to associate the city with progress. Torreón had a bloody role in Pancho Villa's campaign against federal forces in the Mexican revolution but later grew into an economic and industrial hub for ranching, textiles, metallurgy and engineering. It built universities, fountains, a music academy, a championship-winning football team. By the 1990s, when Garza left to study and work in Mexico City and the US, Torreón embodied a newly confident, democratic, thriving Mexico. A hilltop Christ the Redeemer statue, just marginally shorter than Rio's, opened its arms to embrace the city that conquered the desert.

When Garza returned in 2006 to take the reins at El Siglo, local news focused on water scarcity, schools, public works and the football club's battle against relegation. Drugs flowed discreetly north, and flash millionaires built fancy properties, but that was hardly new. Narco-trafficking co-existed with society. "It was peaceful. You could go out and have fun without any problem," says Garza.

That same year, however, things began to change. A drug pusher was shot dead, then a taxi driver, then there was an attack on a wealthy former mayor, the kidnap of a police commander. Homicide rates soared. The same pattern unfolded across much of Mexico. President Felipe Calderón had declared war on the cartels but not anticipated a bloodbath.

Torreón, patrolled by soldiers and police with masks, with shootouts and corpses daily, is enduring violence not seen since the revolution, says Garza. "Instead of being a city of the future, it's like we've closed a circle with the past," he says.

Eduardo Olmos, mayor of Torreón: 'What people tell me is that they want things to go back to the way they were.' Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian

Streets empty after dusk. Staff at the hospital stack corpses for want of space and cower when narcos with AK-47s storm through the wards, seeking rivals. Tens of thousands of Facebook users pledged to attend two protest rallies against the violence but, after rumours of planned attacks, just dozens showed up.

In his city hall office overlooking Plaza de Armas, the mayor, Eduardo Olmos, with a retinue of eight bodyguards, ponders the question of how it all happened. "The police," he sighs. "They came in through the police. They bribed, threatened and recruited them and were able to use their radios, vehicles, weapons, bulletproof vests, everything." By some estimates the cartels have a $100m budget for infiltrating police nationwide. It was a gradual process, says the mayor. "The police relaxed their ethics and discipline and just gave in. In the end they weren't working for them. They were them."

Poverty and unemployment, said Olmos, helped organised crime to recruit and work at street level. "Here the gangs don't hand out free meals like in other cities. They don't have popular support. But there is a lot of tolerance for them. If that turns into support, that will be very dangerous. The only answer is education and employment. And a new police force."

Few would argue with that, but what about legalising drugs? Or allowing one cartel to prevail and restore the era of peaceful co-existence with narco-trafficking? The mayor shifts in his seat. The first option, though backed by thinktanks and at least two Mexican ex-presidents, remains controversial. The second remains taboo, at least officially. "What people tell me is they want tranquility, for things to go back to the way they were," says Olmos, choosing his words carefully. "I may have my own views on the subject, but as an elected official I can't talk about benefitting one cartel or another."

It is alleged that across Mexico some authorities are indeed picking sides in the hope a "winning" cartel or coalition will emerge and end the mayhem. Torreón, at least for now, appears to be betting on a new police force. The city recently fired its entire 1,200-strong force and hired an ex-army general, Carlos Bibiano Villa, to build a new one from scratch. Other cities, notably Ciudad Juárez, have tried that and failed. Villa, however, does not lack confidence. A bear of a man with a moustache and .44 Magnum strapped to his thigh, he keeps a helmet, flak jacket, assault rifle and four walkie-talkies within reach of his desk.

"There were 1,200 police when I arrived and they were all corrupt, the enemy within. I couldn't trust any of them. Now I've got 526 new ones and we're recruiting more." Does he trust them? The general guffaws. "I don't trust my own shadow. That's how I survived 43 years in the army."

Villa, 61, has a PhD in satellite communications but comes across as a wannabe Rambo. With cartels and former police officers gunning for him he sleeps in a small room beside his office where there is another Magnum under the pillow. His family lives in an undisclosed state. He acknowledges geography and economics mean that drugs will always pass through Torreón, yet remains bullish. "We are going to win!" How? "With a hard hand."

Later that night, one of Villa's 12 personal bodyguards is kidnapped and beheaded.

The force's model officer is Raquel Quezada. The 40-year-old mother of two is the sole member of the previous force who passed the vetting and exams. Hollywood would probably dub her the Last Honest Cop. In fact, the former secretary was inspired to sign up by Demi Moore's character being "pushed to the limit" in the film G.I. Jane. On patrol, the soft-spoken Quezada is transformed by body armour, a rifle and skull-painted mask. To prepare for her new job, Quezada ran 10km every day and lost 6kg in gruelling training. "They taught me to control fear and manage risk. This work is dangerous but noble."

Authorities hope to keep the new force honest by promising a free house to every officer who completes 10 years without blemish. A significant carrot, but it is questionable if it can compete with narco threats and cash.

In a different part of the city, a family in a small, pink house makes its own calculations. A dead father and husband. A dead uncle and brother. Three wounded family members. A baby on the way. Funeral and medical bills. It adds up, says Carmen, 37, the eight-months pregnant head of the family and mother of Hector. "I just don't know what we'll do." Hector, who took two bullets, moves slowly and stiffly, a colostomy bag beneath his T-shirt.

Asked if he will play trumpet again Hector shakes his head. "Music, music is . . ." his voice trails off. His mother finishes the sentence. "Music is not really an option any more."

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coolyo294 · 6 years

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Music Tag

I was tagged by @deadgripss

Put your music on shuffle and post your favorite lyrics from the first 10 songs

Redesign your Logo - Lemon Demon

When the logo's finished, then we will unveil it Seven billion people instantly enlightened Everyone's rebranded, all the fighting's over Say goodbye to conflict, that design's rejected

No Escape - Death Toll 80k

kept alive for the wishes of others but out of sight out of mind forgotten

Sitting on Top of the World - Cream

Going down to the freight yard, Gonna catch me a freight train. Gonna leave this town, Work done got to hard. She's gone, but I don't worry, I'm sittin' on top of the world.

Beyond the Pale - Exodus

Suffering spreads like the plague Reasons why, still oh so vague The siren song of slaughter summons me To inner demons I succumb I know not that which I've become Exhibit A in man's atrocity

J'obtiens toujours ce que je veux - Lio

You can hug me kiss, pass me. A diamond on each finger is not enough. You can do all my whims, all my vices By admitting even that you can, I must say I must say, must I say.

Beautiful - Mystery Skulls

Now all I have to do is see See how you'll really truly be Will things ever be the same?

Here Comes Everybody - the Wake

The river runs into the sea The sun must shine today As my imagination is about to slip away Milk and honey waiting for me on the other side It's early in the morning And I thought I heard you I miss you I miss you

Birds - Crystal Castles

Each breath is but a sigh She never bat an eye It's not polite to stare Wool spun from her hair

Heartburn - the Wake

Again and again I say to myself Feels no bit different and the light of day Something will happen in the light of day Where do you stare?

Total Eclipse - Iron Maiden

Around the world the nations wait For some wise words from their leading light You know it's not only madmen who listen to fools Is this the end the millions cried Clutching their riches as they died Those who survive must weather the storm

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turtleislandwriter · 3 years

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Monsters tell us what we don’t want to know

Halloween time is when people acknowledge "monsters" exist, traditionally allowing their children to dress as people of other cultures to scare people. What is "terror"? Sometimes, it is truth; the fear that someone else may be right.

Tecumseh of the Shawnee was a young warrior when our story of Joshua was in his natural life. Tecumseh, Panther-in-the-sky, spoke at a meeting near modern-day Montgomery, Alabama in October, 1811. He was there to rally pre-American warriors to drive back the settlers. To show his leadership, he said that when he returned to Detroit (which took much longer then), there would be great earthquakes. At that time, no earthquakes were predictable by European-western science. Although halloween was not yet a recognized event, Tecumseh spoke shortly before "halloween." Approximately six weeks later earthquakes hit the (now) US midwest, causing the Mississippi river to change course at New Madrid, Missouri. The 1st Peoples said, "Tecumseh is in Detroit." More earthquakes happened over the next three months. How did he know?

His brother, Tenshwatwa, "the Prophet," had predicted the total solar eclipse of June, 1806. The 1st Peoples knew Turtle Island, they had knowledge the European colonizers never thought to ask or try to understand.

Western history makes events separate, unrelated. Yet, the many 1st People prophesies come true contributed to the later US army atrocities, such as the Wounded Knee massacre, 1890. If 1st Peoples could predict, cause(?), major earthquakes and solar eclipses, might their prayers, singing, dancing, drumming actually cause more destruction to the "settlements"? The soldiers at Wounded Knee had listened non-stop for days to the prayers, singing, dancing, drumming. When the soldiers fired into the unarmed dancers, did they think the spirits of Tecumseh and others were coming back?

As we shall learn from Joshua's story, prayers and dance are a powerful medium, especially within the cave networks of Turtle Island. Next: the cave networks.

#oneworldplantation turtleislandvampire turtleislandcaves

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philthevaliant-stuff · 6 years

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Steven Universe So Far: One Sentence Summaries For Each Episode! [The Way I Saw It At Least] (Post-April and Pre-May Episodes Edition)

Thankfully, my Crohn’s flare-up hasn’t truly stopped me from updating the one-sentence summary episode guide to Steven Universe before next week! But it’s gotten so long that I’ve had to put a ‘Read More’ link to save your dashboard from overloading! :P

Gem Glow: His first episode. Laser Light Cannon: Amethyst loves being used as ammo. Cheeseburger Backpack: Now available to buy online! Together Breakfast: His first Memetic Mutation. Frybo: Steven defies Broadcast Standards and Practices. Cat Fingers: WOMP WOMP. Bubble Buddies: A ship sails. Serious Steven: Strawberry Fields Forever. Tiger Millionaire: Better than John Cena, that’s for sure. Steven’s Lion: A companionship is formed. Arcade Mania: Meat Beat Mania too much for the UK, apparently. Giant Woman: His first encounter with a fusion. So Many Birthdays: In which Rebecca Sugar reveals her diabolical plan to make everyone watching cry their eyes out for the first time. Lars and the Cool Kids: Whatever you do, DON’T insult Steven’s mum! Onion Trade: In which everyone begins making theories about Onion being the actual Big Bad of the franchise. Steven the Sword Fighter: “Where there’s life, there’s…..” Lion 2: The Movie: Lion is a well-behaved movie patron. Beach Party: Garnet fails at telling lies. Rose’s Room: Nightmare fuel comes as standard. Coach Steven: The song will never get out of your head. Joking Victim: His first work experience session. Steven and the Stevens: Steven makes the Time Lords cry. Monster Buddies: Sponsored by CHAAAAPS potato crisps. An Indirect Kiss: The ship travels at a fine lick. Mirror Gem: Where the franchise changes course and becomes a drama. Ocean Gem: His first close encounter with other Gems. House Guest: Healing spit, we hardly knew ye. Space Race: Ground control to Major Tom, your circuits’ dead, there’s something wrong. Secret Team: Sssh, Secret Team! Island Adventure: Makes the Steven/Connie ship look like a raft. Keep Beach City Weird: At least we got to talk with Ronaldo afterwards, even though he wasn’t prepared for it in hindsight. Fusion Cuisine: Steven gets into the biggest amount of trouble yet. Garnet’s Universe: Estelle works that microphone for ten minutes. Watermelon Steven: His first business deal. Lion 3: Straight to Video: Pass the tissues. Warp Tour: The Dorito debuts. Alone Together: The ship reaches maximum speed. The Test: Time to cry your eyes out again, fans! Future Vision: Wild Beedrill appeared! On the Run: Amethyst makes the Crystal Gems guilty and the fanbase cry. Horror Club: Or ‘Do You Want Fries With That Doughnut?’ Winter Forecast: The ship gains an icebreaker. Maximum Capacity: Amethyst unintentionally causes controversy. Marble Madness: The Dorito debates with Steven. Rose’s Scabbard: You can fit any piece of music with the final scene. Open Book: Cartoon Network buggers up continuity and Rose’s Room makes the situation worse. Shirt Club: Steven gets away with referencing the Kennedy assassination. Story for Steven: His origin story. The Message: Steven inspires a Youtube musician. Political Power: MAY-OR DEW-EY! Say Uncle: Uncle Grandpa tries to inject one last bout of comedy into the show before it all goes down, only to divide the fanbase in his attempt. The Return: “It’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for…” Jail Break: His final stand.

Full Disclosure: The ship steers through jagged rocks. Joy Ride: The Dorito’s driving vehicle is discovered. Love Letters: A mailman wishes to become Garnet’s American Boy. Reformed: “Physician, heal thyself.” Sworn to the Sword: The ship gets equipped. Rising Tides, Crashing Skies: Or ‘Keep Beach City Weird: The Animated Series’. Keeping it Together: The Dorito disturbs Garnet. We Need to Talk: Pearl’s salty 90s period. Chille Tid: So disturbing a Hiatus had to be reinstated. We Are the Crystal Gems [1/6]: The National Anthem of Steven Universe Lovers. What Are Gems? [2/6]: In which Steven becomes even more cuter in chibi form. How Are Gems Made? [3/6]: Amethyst debunks dozens of fan theories in one lecture. Fusion [4/6]: "The Answer" in ballet form. Unboxing [5/6]: His first TubeTube video. Lion Loves to Fit in a Box [6/6]: Beach City gets hit by the cat video bug. Cry for Help: The Dorito distributes dissension in the ranks….or does she? Keystone Motel: A handy guide to understanding an autistic person’s mindset, so I discovered. Onion Friend: In which everyone begins making MORE theories about Onion being the actual Big Bad of the franchise. Historical Friction: Jamie provides the fanbase with ideas on how to make an “Ember Island Players” version of the show. Friend Ship: The Dorito dislikes dusty old Gem tech. Nightmare Hospital: The ship’s secrets are brought to light. Sadie’s Song: Steven becomes increasingly popular on Tumblr for a week, and makes Cartoon Network history at the same time. Catch and Release: The Dorito comes out of her chip-based shell. When it Rains: Peridot panics over precarious precipitation. Back to the Barn: Peridot and Pearl pettifog, pummel, and pacify. Too Far: Peridot practically plows predicaments into a Hiatus. The Answer: Ruby, Sapphire, and Garnet's origin stories. Steven's Birthday: The ship departs after refueling [OR: The reason Steven had his own week-long event]. It Could've Been Great: The Turning Point of Steven Quartz Universe. Message Received: Steven rocks the hoodie look. Log Date 7 15 2: Peridot's player gets pawned and perused.

Super Watermelon Island: In which Cartoon Network UK cocks up big time and completely spoils the episode for everyone else. Gem Drill: Our cinnamon roll journeys to the center of the Earth. Same Old World: Steven can show you the world...! Barn Mates: I always wear a leak on St. David's Day! Hit the Diamond: Romance in the Outfield. Steven Floats: It does exactly what it says on the tin. Drop Beat Dad: Such an important event, even the Crewniverse had to check it out! Mr. Greg: His first musical [OR: Pearl's salty-tearful reconciliation]. Too Short to Ride: If you know where to look, you can actually Cheep Peridot right now! The New Lars: Matthew Moy makes up for lost time. Beach City Drift: The ship gains the ability to run on land [OR: Ronaldo auditions for Top Gear]. Restaurant Wars: Ronaldo is finally accepted by (a vast majority of) the fanbase. Kiki's Pizza Delivery Service: Steven uses up his pun quota for the season. Monster Reunion: Leaked from the servers, still sponsored by CHAAAAPS potato crisps. Alone at Sea: No fish were harmed during the making of this episode. Greg the Babysitter: "Meh." Gem Hunt: The ship survives the wilderness. Crack the Whip: "Stop, you're making me giddy...!" Steven vs. Amethyst: Pearl makes good use of traditional seaside shops. Bismuth, Part 1: Rainbow is the new Gem. [OR: His 100th episode!] Bismuth, Part 2: Vengeance is an old vice. Beta: Bow ties are cool! Earthlings: Two heads are better than one, but all bets are off when you and your co-worker's jobs are to protect episodes from being leaked. Back to the Moon: On the moon, no one can hear a thousand Tumblr moms scream. Bubbled: In space, no one can hear a thousand Tumblr moms cry.

Kindergarten Kid: Corruptius Geminius vs. Doritus Clodius Know Your Fusion: Smoky Quartz and Sardonyx take over the Network from the Titans for 11 minutes. Buddy's Book: Jamie's fledgling theatrical career begins to pay off. Mindful Education: Two months' worth of summer adventures finally take their toll on the ship. Future Boy Zoltron: Featuring Neil Gaiman in a role you won't see coming! Last One Out of Beach City: Pearl attempts to roleplay a popular AU version of herself. [OR: Pearl's salty night out] Onion Gang: We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the wine and the song, like the seasons, have all gone. Cooking With Lion [1/5]: "But, Your Honor, he stole my act!" - Francis Gem Karaoke [2/5]: All singing, no crying. Steven Reacts [3/5]: Even Steven can't stand Hiatuses! Video Chat [4/5]: Skype Chats Between Gems. Steven Song Time [5/5]: Or "Summer of Steven: Epilogue" Gem Harvest, Part 1: Steven ditches his Knife for a common or garden Trowel. Gem Harvest, Part 2: Steven and Lapis take to the air and some Steventhusiasts take to petitioning Mr. Enter for an Animated Atrocity entry. Three Gems & a Baby: Peace and goodwill to all Steventhusiasts, and love for the cinnamon roll... Steven's Dream: Three days into 2017 and the entire Stevenbomb gets leaked - that's gotta be a record! Adventures in Light Distortion: The Shorty Squad gets two new members. Gem Heist: Steven is obviously a Mysterious Cities of Gold fan. The Zoo: Ronaldo's not so stupid now, is he, Steventhusiasts!? That Will Be All: Blue and Yellow make Green melodies. The New Crystal Gems: Connie helps to promote the second wave of Funko Pop vinyl figures. Storm in the Room: "Why don't you ask her yourself?" Rocknaldo: In which it's beddy-bye-bo's time for (a vast majority of) Ronaldo's fanbase. Tiger Philanthropist: Tiger Millionaire raises his fists, Purple Puma raises the roof, and Lars raises up a stink! Room for Ruby: Lapis and Peridot regret not watching "The Wrong Trousers" the night before. Lion 4: Alternate Ending: This episode not being leaked in the first place is the actual alternate ending! Doug Out: In which the thoughts of a Super Mario/Steven Universe crossover game that never will be make this blogger cry to sleep. The Good Lars: Jenny plays a mean melodia. Are You My Dad?: We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all we love each other! I Am My Mom: There's nothing I could do, a total eclipse of the heart.

Stuck Together: Forever's gonna start tonight. The Trial: TEAR DOWN THE WALL!!! Off Colors: Every now and then Lars gets a little bit tired of listening to the sound of his tears. Lars' Head: Every now and then we get a little bit terrified of Hiatuses, and then we see the look in the show's eyes! Dewey Wins: As the ship sinks, Steven learns the definition of the word 'Repercussion'. [OR: Not actually a repeat of 'Off Colors' this time!] Raising the Barn: Onion sets his stakes high by cornering the agricultural market. Gemcation: Steven projects his angst, Pearl projects her hatred of reptiles, and Ronaldo projects his voice. Back to the Kindergarten: The Shorty Squad get their Ground Force on! Sadie Killer: Steven is a bad, bad boy, apparently. Kevin Party: Rebecca Sugar finds some inspiration for her next story meeting, but can the ship be salvaged in time? [OR: I don't care what you say, Steven doesn't look anything like that boy from Aberdale!] Steven's Secret Rap Career: His first official/unofficial fan video. [OR: The franchise transcends cultdom, thanks to MKatwood.] Lars of the Stars: In which the next Gem to debut has a little Chaos in her. [OR: As 2018 gets under way, the fans petition for a Captain Lars miniseries.] Jungle Moon: Stevonnie gets caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom. Your Mother and Mine: Garnet wipes out the canonicity of every Steventhusiast's theories and fan media in a matter of minutes. The Big Show: Pearl misses an opportunity to visit Empire City with Steven. Pool Hopping: Square Mom spends some quality time with her favourite cinnamon roll. Letters to Lars: It may be all change, but the next batch of episodes will still be released the good ol' fashioned Stevenbomb way!

#steven universe #all in good jest i assure you #look how far we've come

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margiehasson · 5 years

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Diary of a Teenager – Reflections on Rohingya & Genocide in a Modern World

Editor's Note: At the beginning of the month in my editor's column, I wrote about my 16-year-old daughter Amal returning from a trip to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, where she accompanied her father and others on a medical mission. She shares stories from her trip here to spread awareness of the genocide Rohingyas are still enduring.

By Amal Ali

In the music world, most remember August of 2017 to be the month that Havana (by Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug) was released. If you’re like me, you remember it as the month where Taylor Swift erased everything from her social media accounts mysteriously before announcing the release date of her highly anticipated sixth studio album, reputation.

Many of us in the U.S. remember what happened in Charlottesville, VA, where violence erupted at a "Unite the Right" rally during the hot summer days of August 11th and 12th, eliciting a highly criticized response from President Donald Trump. Also that month, North America experienced a total solar eclipse, receiving widespread media coverage; and Hurricane Harvey hit Texas causing considerable destruction.

But far away from the world of pop music sensations, turmoil in American politics and natural phenomenons, one of the world’s worst cases of ethnic cleansing was happening in the little state of Rakhine in Myanmar to the Rohingya Muslims.

This past December I had the privilege of traveling to and volunteering at the refugee camps with the Deccan Alumni Association of North America (DAANA), my father’s medical college alumni group. It was his second time lending his skills as a pulmonologist in the refugee camps and local hospital and my first time going with him.

The author with her father, Dr. M. Taruj Ali and behind them Dr. Yasmin Ansari and her son Yusuf alongside refugees at a Rohingya camp in Bangladesh. Image source: Amal Ali

Throughout our time in the camps and at the clinic, we heard several heartbreaking stories about the lives the Rohingyas lived before the massacre and how quickly and brutally everything was taken away. As many of us have been reflecting on the 75th remembrance of the Holocaust, I can't get the stories told to me and what I witnessed in the Rohingya refugee camps of Bangladesh out of my head.

One such story was Hasina's, a refugee I had the honor of interviewing; she had lived in a relatively comfortable family on a farm before the genocide took her everything away from her. “My house was burned down by the military,” Hasina said.* “We had to flee overnight through forests and hills and then cross the river to Bangladesh on a boat.” Several atrocities were committed by Myanmar’s army during her flight, but the details of these occurrences are much too painful for Hasina, and many refugees like her, to revisit.

“I miss my home,” Hasina told me when I asked what she missed the most about her life before. I asked what she wished would change in the camps. She said, “The military is very oppressive to women. I am happy here with what I have, but I am vulnerable.”

Why Are Rohingya Muslims Targets?

The displacement and genocide of Rohingya Muslims represent the culmination of a long history of racial discrimination and persecution based on culture and religion in Myanmar; a timeline that started in the 1940's when Myanmar (known as Burma at the time) gained its independence and denied citizenship and legal status to the Rohingyas.

Myanmar has always had a dominant Buddhist population, making the Rohingyas an ethnic, religious and linguistic minority group in the country, as they are Sunni Muslims. However, the minority group traces back its origins in the country all the way to settlement in the Arakan kingdom in the 15th century, making them a thoroughly well-established population in Myanmar.

In the late 1980's when Burma was officially renamed Myanmar, Rohingyas were again denied their citizenship and were not recognized as an ethnic minority. In 2014 they were completely excluded from Myanmar’s national census, signifying the increasing efforts of the country’s government to “erase” the population.

In August of 2017, a militant wing named the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked some military and police outposts, resulting in the death of 70 people. This began a brutal crackdown on the Rohingyas by the Myanmar army; 7,000 were massacred in that month alone, after which 700,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. Thousands more escaped to Indonesia, India and Malaysia.

Since then the population of the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh has increased to more than a million people. The United Nations and several charities, including DAANA, have devoted lots of time and money to the well being of these refugees.

Those Who Suffer the Most

Immediately after and during the massacre, Myanmar’s army committed crimes too horrifying to describe against Rohingya women. Such crimes are incredibly sensitive subjects for many refugees, but some yearn for their stories to be heard. On our last day in Bangladesh, my father and I spoke to Ayaz Mahamud, who is a social worker with Terre Des Hommes and is dedicated to assisting rape and sexual assault victims in the camps. He told us the stories of two women in the camps, whose stories represented the thousands of women assaulted by the military.

“A lot of these women suffer from mental illnesses because of what they’ve been through, like post traumatic stress disorder and eating disorders,” Ayaz said. “Many of them cannot sleep at night either because they hear the sounds of bullets whenever they close their eyes.”

After the massacre, many children had been so traumatized that they seemed to develop undiagnosed mental disabilities very similar to autism. Ayaz told us that when he went to the schools and asked some of the Rohingya children to draw for them, they would draw horrifying scenes from the massacre depicting weapons, death and destruction. It was the only world that they knew.

A Rohingya refugee child's drawing of the genocide. Image source: Amal Ali

Many children also drew their family relatives, who passed away in the genocide.

Earlier before we met Ayaz, we had traveled into the camps, which was where we met Hasina. While in her home, I tried to speak with the large group of children who had huddled behind the window to listen. Through their broken English, there was one phrase in particular that we could decipher, and it was thoroughly chilling to hear, “I will kill you.” Many children said it with a laugh.

I realized that perhaps this was a phrase they heard from the military when they were fleeing, and it was some of the only English they could remember. It was obvious that the children did not know the meaning of what they were saying, and it truly broke my heart once I connected it to what they had been through.

Ayaz told us about another incredible woman, Mumtaz, whose story of her flight from Myanmar reveals the true nature of the massacre. “She heard gunshots in the night and immediately started to run with her children and husband,” Ayaz recalls. “She tried to cross the river, but it was too difficult to do with four children. Where she was stopped is now the site of a mass grave that the military started digging that night.”

We even went to a section of this river one day during our time in the refugee camps and tried to imagine what had happened on this body of water three years ago. It was simply chilling.

The more I hear the stories, the more livid I become that Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi still continues to deny that a genocide even occurred in the first place at the International Court of Justice. Her Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to her in 1991, needs to be revoked.

The details Ayaz shared with us about what happened afterwards are nearly too horrendous to share. Babies snatched from mothers and thrown into rivers, one of them being Mumtaz’s son. Homes being set on fire and military officials throwing people into the fires. Men being lined up on their knees and shot dead, one by one. And, women stripped of their valuables and then assaulted and raped while their family members were forced to watch.

When we visited a hospital established by the HOPE Foundation in Cox Bazar, we met Syed Fakhrul Huda (Fakhar), who told us about the awful things refugees experienced after those who survived crossing the river first arrived in Bangladesh. “Since they were technically encroaching on the natural habitat of the elephants, several were trampled and died,” Fakhar said. Imagine surviving a massacre only to be killed by the elephants when you finally found somewhere you thought you could be safe.

Rohingyas crossing the Naf river between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Image source: Twitter

“It was a very, very long time before the camps reached a point where they are today. Initially people were just sleeping on the ground, and several got sick and died very quickly,” Fakhar added. “The camps you see today, with field hospitals and food distribution and wells, looked nothing like this even a few months ago.”

Even though the camps I visited were much more organized with huts and even a small shopping market, our homes in America are complete palaces compared to the living quarters in the camps. The huts barely cover half the space of the smallest New York City apartments, and they have no semblance of kitchens, bathrooms or bedrooms. There is no sense of sanitation or hygiene requirements. There is no heating or air conditioning. We live like kings and queens compared to the families we met.

It is something we must remember when we ponder when we will get the next iPhone or what outfit we want to buy next.

A Dire Need to Spread More Awareness

There is one thing in common with all of the interviews we conducted in Bangladesh – every single person said they wanted more awareness spread throughout the world about what was happening to Rohingyas. “We simply want more people to at least acknowledge the horrors that have occurred here,” Ayaz said. “There was news coverage in 2017 when the genocide first occurred, but barely anyone knows the magnitude of the camps here and just how much poverty there is. We need more awareness.”

Another detail I noticed in relistening to the interviews we conducted was the haunting similarities between the events of the Rohingya massacre and the events of the Holocaust, or even what slaves had to endure on their the long passage to America in the late 1500's and early 1600's. We spend a lot of time asserting that we can never let history repeat itself. We say #NeverForget all over social media, and yet here we are.

If religious discrimination was no longer a threat in this world, then there would not be more than a million refugees in this camps, and there would not be concentration camps in China, and the Indian government would not be able to selectively deny citizenship to Muslim refugees.

Yet, here we are.

I write about Rohingya refugees with a deep, deep hope that Insha’Allah I can do just what they yearn for – spread as much awareness as possible. I also hope that raising awareness about the issue can show the world just how much work we have ahead of us in this new decade. For in the stories of those in the Kutupalong camps, there is a somber reflection on what awful problems our planet still struggles with.

Let me say it again: We have a lot of work ahead of us in this new decade.

Let us begin by laying in bed tonight and thinking about all our blessings – our warm beds, closets full of clothes, dinner on the table, financial security, clean water – all of it. Let us wake up tomorrow morning with the resolve to treat those who are deemed “the undesirables” of our world with a little more love. For at the core of every soul is a yearning to be loved.

*Quotes were translated as they were originally spoken in a Rohingyan dialect, so they are as accurate of an approximation we could get.

Amal Ali is in 11th grade at a high school in Virginia.

Diary of a Teenager – Reflections on Rohingya & Genocide in a Modern World published first on https://lenacharms.tumblr.com/

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