#anyone who says otherwise is willingly blinding themselves to the situation so that they can continue to support Israel

[vensulove]

even if you supported Israel at first (which I can see because there was a lot of misinformation about this situation everywhere, especially in the republican states in the us) it is very obvious now that they are just trying to wipe out a whole group of people with as much force and brutality as they can. they aren’t protecting themselves, they don’t have a right to Palestinian land, and they don’t have a right to Palestinian lives.

[simplyotometrash]

Blind Dates

Gavin x MC

Warnings: None

Gavin and MC go on blind dates....just not with each other

All of my MCs are written with they/them pronouns unless otherwise asked!

Minor set him up on a blind date. Without him even consenting to it. Gavin hated the very thought of going on a date with someone who wasn’t them. It wasn’t as if they were dating, he hadn’t gotten his nerve up enough to ask. Getting shot at and stabbed and being in overall dangerous situations were way easier than asking the one person he had feelings for out on a date.

“You’re gonna like her! She’s super cool and fun and very athletic!” Minor had said when he dropped the news. 

But it wasn’t MC. He’d been head over heels for MC since high school. Since they saved him. After high school, he honestly didn’t think he would actually see MC again. Fate lead them back into his life. He intended to keep them there this time. He wasn’t going to sit back and watch them walk out of his life. He wanted to ask them out. He’d meant to the last few times they spent time together. Yet something always kept him from getting those words out. It was as if they would get trapped in his throat. They never came out. If he wanted to say something, it could never be the words he wanted to say. 

So why was Gavin going on this blind date exactly? Because Minor had already set it up with the girl and he didn’t want to be rude. Gavin would have to simply explain the misunderstanding and apologize to her for wasting her time. He just hoped she didn’t get to upset. He wasn’t good when people cried. Comforting people had never really been his strong suit.

Gavin sighed and adjusted the cuffs of his jacket.. A dinner date of all things. Why couldn’t it have been a simple lunch date? Dinner seemed so formal and fast. Lunch or maybe coffee would have been better. He was tempted to kill Minor for the blind date later on. Gavin didn’t want to be in that position. His heart belonged to MC and yet he was set up on a date with someone else entirely. It was not even fair to the poor girl he got set up with. She didn’t even have a chance.

“Gavin?” A voice, clear as a bell, interrupted him from his slightly brooding thoughts.

MC. They were waiting at the same restaurant he was. Oh. They looked stunning. Far more dressed up than he was. Their clothes accented their frame nicely, hugging their body in the right places. The bracelet he had given them dangled on the wrist and it caused his heart to skip a beat.

“Hey, MC. What’re you doing here?”

They laughed. Oh that laugh. It was so beautiful that even angels would stop to listen. “Kiki set me up on some blind date. I didn’t want to come but I couldn’t just turn it down, you know? I figured it couldn’t hurt to humor her and go on this date.”

That was a relief. They weren’t on a date willingly with someone. “Minor did the same thing to me.”

“What’re the odds! I hope you have fun tonight.” They smiled at him, tucking some hair back behind their ear. “Anyone on a date with you is lucky!”

I could say the same thing about you. He thought dismally. Even if they didn’t want to be on the date necessarily, he couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his heart. He wanted to be the one they were on a date with. Not some other guy. What if they took a liking to this other man and actually started dating him? Gavin would lose his chance before he ever got up his nerve.

“Mr. Bai? Sorry for the wait, your party is already at your table. Please, right this way.” A host led him away from you. And his heart felt like a stone in water.

He walked to his table to be greeted by a woman in a beautiful dress, her red hair chopped off short, freckles adorning her skin. 

“Hi, Gavin, right? Minor’s told me about you.” She smiled at him as he sat down. “I’m Eliza. It’s a pleasure.”

“Yeah, hello. I’m Gavin. Funny, Minor hasn’t said anything about you. He wouldn’t even tell me the name of who he set me up with.” The chuckle that left his throat sounded happy but was laced with malice. Oh he could kill Minor for this.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw MC and tall, dark haired man in a flashy suit walk to a table a little ways away.. Could you say tacky? It made him feel...angry. Just pure anger. The guy was peacocking, trying to make you like him by looking flashy. Hmph.

“So, uh, Eliza,” Gavin cleared his throat, “Minor said you play sports. What do you play?”

This was how the entire night went. Gavin and Eliza trying to make small talk, albeit awkwardly at first, while Gavin kept watch over you out of the corner of his eye. It looked like you hadn’t gotten a word in all night. You looked pained as you faked a smile. He could tell it wasn’t genuine. Your smile never once reached your eyes during your date with that guy. Gavin could relax knowing that the other guy was not doing too well. That was when things began going much better with Eliza.

“I can tell you weren’t really interested,” Eliza laughed as he escorted her out of the restaurant.

Gavin went so red that it reached the tips of his ears. “I’m so sorry. I tried to not be rude. Minor had-”

“It’s okay, man, I understand. I didn’t get much choice in saying no to him either. He thinks because I’m single that I must need help finding a guy.” She mussed up her red hair with a bit of an eye roll. “Truth is, this was never going to work out. I’m a lesbian.”

“Oh.” That was all he could think to say. It wasn’t a bad thing. Just not what he expected to hear at the end of a date. He must have sighed though because she laughed again. 

“Yeah “oh”. You’re cool, though, we should play basketball together some time.” She was waiting to hail a taxi. At least he knew should get home safe. Eliza was a nice woman. Gavin was ready to walk her home if she didn’t take a cab or have a ride. “By the way, I think you should go make your move. The girl you were eyeing all night. She’s the one whose got your heart in a knot, right? Go get her, tiger. Text me and let me know how it goes.”

Eliza got into her cab with a wink and a wave, having already handed him her number. Right. It was now or never. He needed to go to you and tell you how he felt. That whole date ordeal proved it to him. Gavin couldn’t do anything if he never confessed. He didn’t have a chance in high school, he couldn’t lose his chance this time. 

Once he’d made it down an alleyway, Gavin took off up into the sky. The less time wasted the better. Flying would get him to your place in record time. He only hoped that he had a chance. If not, maybe being told so would help him finally let go. Closure helped the heart heal after all. The wind whipped his hair and clothes as he soared, the air felt good on his skin. It had been stuffy in the restaurant. The fresh air is where he belonged. He and the wind were connected. 

Upon landing and making it up to your door, he tried to make himself look presentable. Though he didn’t think it was working. If only he knew how to calm down the racing of his heart. It was beating so hard that it felt as if it might break bones. Waiting for you to open the door felt like an eternity. He could hear your TV, he knew you weren’t asleep. Not to mention your lights were on as far as he could see.

“Gavin?” You blinked at the sight of him. “Come in, what are you doing here? It’s a bit late, you know!”

“I could ask you why you’re still awake,” he snorted, sliding his shoes off upon entering. 

“I just managed to finish a proposal for work! I’m going to have Anna review it tomorrow. It’s the first time in a while I’ve been doing before I have to present to Victor.” You pulled him to sit on your couch. 

“How did your blind date go?”

Your smile faltered and you failed to suppress a groan.

“That bad, huh?” He smiled apologetically and patted the top of your head.

“The guy wouldn’t let me speak! Every time I tried, he would cut me off to talk about himself some more. He kept flaunting his fake watch at me trying to get me to notice. I could tell it wasn’t expensive, it was some knock off store brand. He tried to order my food for me without even knowing what I wanted, saying he knew better!” You continued to vent about your awful blind date. 

Gavin felt awful that you’d had such a bad time, but he couldn’t contain his smile. You were so expressive. So cute. It was like you were in your own world while you ranted about everything the jerk had done throughout the night. It was shame he couldn’t rescue you from that. At least you were safe. He was thankful for that. 

“Enough about my god awful night. What about you? She was very beautiful.” Was that a hint of envy in your voice?

“Eliza was cool.” He gauged the look on your face. You were bad at hiding things. “But there isn’t going to be a second date. We’re going to play basketball sometime as friends, she just isn’t interested in dating.” It would be wrong for him to tell you that she was interested in women. It wasn’t exactly his place to say that to anyone after all. Not without permission from Eliza.

“I’m sorry. You two looked nice together.” 

“I wasn’t interested in her, either.” Gavin took in a breath, Now or never. “To be honest, I wished all night that I had been on a date with you instead. I...I’m in love with you. I have been for a while now and- wait! Why are you crying? Please, MC, please don’t cry.”

You wiped your eyes, laughing as more tears spilled. “I’m not upset, Gav! We both went on dates with people we didn’t want to when the person we wanted to be with was on the other side of the restaurant!”

His face went bright pink. That meant you...felt the same way? “You...you...”

“I’m in love with you, too, silly!” You smacked his arm with a throw pillow, making him fake wince with a grin on his face. “I wanted to tell you but you’re so handsome. You have beautiful girls throwing themselves at you. I didn’t think I stood a chance.”

“Come here,” he gently urged you to move into his side. He planted a kiss on the top of your head. “No more stupid blind dates. Next time, I’m taking you out.”

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[nefariouscryptid]

here's a fun one: dare you to do the entirety of that list with a character of your choice >:3c

Gotta do it with my boy Peter!

1. What is one word to shut them up?

Murray

2. What is the thing they feel the most guilty about?

He’s not torn up about it or anything but he feels bad about what happened to Mary, or what could of happened to her.

3. What is the worst pain they’ve ever experienced?

Getting your face and eye slashed open is pretty painful.

4. Describe their worst nightmare.

With his job being kidnapped and tortured is pretty plausible. He thinks about that one a lot.

5. List 3 fears; one “surface level” fear, one “repressed” fear, and one “deep dark” fear.

Surface: the ocean

Repressed: being taken advantage of without his knowing. Reminds him of his childhood.

Deep Dark: losing Jason in any form. He’s be a broken man left to his own devices, and his own safety would be completely compromised.

6. What is something that never fails to make them feel sick?

Gunshot wounds and deep cuts. He cringes at those.

7. What feature (physical or otherwise) do they hate most about themselves?

Physically he’s not a big fan of the scars he has or his general face structure but it’s not enough to keep him up at night. Mentally he doesn’t like how he gets when triggered and how easily it is to trigger him.

8. Do they have anything that triggers them?

Certain physical sensations but mainly what others do to him, such as rubbing their thumb on his hand, whispering behind him into his ear, stroking his hair while he’s standing, and certain phrases. If a woman talks seductively to him it’s easy for him to get triggered, but when men do it it’s a lot less frequent unless certain phrases are said. Country music is a big no go but he can listen to old country.

9. What is their greatest physical weakness?

He’s half blind and slowly going blind in the other eye

10. What is their greatest mental weakness?

How willing he is to throw everything away for someone (his Jason) and his apathy after the accident makes him blind to potential dangers.

11. Do they have any vices?

Smokes a lot of weed, used to be a heavy drinker but quit, did a lot of coke and before Durante starts he had just managed to escape a meth addiction.

12. Have they ever done something illegal? What was it?

His whole life is illegal. His worst crime would have to be aiding in terrorism

13. Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?

Greed and lust

14. Are they prone to outbursts (of violence, extreme emotion… exc… )?

Yes but he’s quick to calm himself down, and Jason can calm him near instantly.

15. Who do they hate the most?

Kind of hard to say, he hates a lot of people. He hates his parents but he’s since moved on as much as one could from them, he hates Anahii but he finds ways to tolerate her existence, and he hates Ivan for what he did to him but his breakdown made it impossible for him to really plan any retaliation other then killing his wife.

16. Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?

Not that I can think of

17. What sound always gives them a headache?

Women’s voices lol. Mainly naggy ones.

18. Is there a certain flavor that disgusts them?

Hates bitterness

19. Do they consider themselves ugly?

Honestly yes, sees himself as a butterface.

20. Do they consider themselves unloveable?

Yes but it’s manifested and internalized more subtly and masked.

21. What is something that causes them great anxiety?

Broken glass and lack of contact with people he needs to be with.

22. Do they have any mental illnesses?

I’m not going to diagnose him specifically with anything. But short answer yes a lot.

23. Have they ever been assaulted/abused/raped?

Raped multiple times by his mom as a child, beaten by his dad, and you could call his and Anahiis marriage abusive.

24. Do they fear the possibility of being assaulted/abused/raped?

He feels he can defend himself better and stay out of situations where that would happen but it’s in the back of his head.

25. Have they ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust?

His parents

26. Have they ever been seriously injured?

Other then his face he has been shot before in the chest.

27. How many times have they been in the hospital?

About 7 times not including doctor visits after an injury (checkups)

28. Is there a certain type of person that disgusts them?

There isn’t really any person that disgusts him on a moral aspect. There’s people that he thinks are absolutely retarded and blind, but no one really makes him recoil.

29. Does what they cannot see scare them?

No, he pretty much knows it all

30. Have they ever been bullied?

Yes a lot in his school years.

31. Do they have self-confidence or self-image issues?

Yes but it doesn’t stop him from putting on a facade. Like I said early, it manifests differently.

32. Do they have a bad relationship with their parents?

He wishes he killed them.

33. Have they ever been in a relationship that didn’t work out so well?

Anahii lol

34. Have they ever self harmed?

Yes

35. If they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

If he can’t change the whole lot he won’t change any.

36. Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?

He’s in control of his emotions for the most part.

37. Have they ever had their freedom taken away?

Sort of. He’s been in many holding cells and was in jail at one point.

38. Have they ever been imprisoned?

Yes

39. Have they ever been accused of something they didn’t do?

Many times but he’s been able to prove his innocence

40. Do they often blame themselves for other people’s problems?

Depends on the situation. He won’t blame himself he the problem can’t be directly linked to him.

41. Do they get sick often?

He gets eye infections sometimes but not much.

42. Are they comfortable with where they are in life?

Fuck no lol but least he’s well off financially

43. Do they wish that they could change their pasts?

Doesn’t do him good to do so, so no

44. What’s one thing they wish they could do more often, but can’t?

Take a break. He’s love to run away from his life with Jason but he knows they’re both too greedy to do so, even without being trapped.

45. What is the emotion they most commonly experience?

I would say apathy but it’s hard to explain. Other then that, yearning.

46. Have they ever contemplated suicide?

He’s attempted a few times in his life.

47. Have they ever gone so far as to attempt suicide?

Yes

48. Is there anyone that they would willingly kill?

His parents, Ivan if his job allowed it, Anahii if he’d have a chance, literally anyone Jason dates, whoever took Mary

49. If [name] was put into ______ situation, they’d rather die than live to see it through.

If Peter had to see Jason die, get tortured, have to kill him, or any other variation.

50. Create your own!

Would history repeat itself if he had children?

He’s observant and understands himself enough to see the patterns of his parents in him. Since he would love his children deeply he would be able to stop himself from being like his parents towards them, but he wouldn’t be perfect.

[dottiechan]

Spare bunk

Pairing: Captain Rex x reader

Word count: 2008

Warnings: TCW S7 spoilers below cut

Summary: After discovering a strange signal at the cyber station on Anaxes, Captain Rex calls an old ally for help.

Having just arrived back to Fort Anaxes from the Separatist cyber station, Rex feels drained. Drained might actually be a poor description of what he is going through – being overwhelmed by all his newfound feelings might be a better way to capture his inner sufferings. Sufferings he cannot share with anyone truly. No one who would understand, no one who would fully believe him.

Because he knows Echo is alive, damn all who think otherwise.

Tup, Dogma, Hardcase and Fives are all gone – no more than distant memories and smiling faces on holo images tucked away carefully in crates of 501st military gear and equipment. Cody is injured, moaning incoherently in his sleep while his face is scrunched up in pain despite all the kolto circulating in his bloodstream, with Jesse and Kix tending to him, watching over him.

There’s General Skywalker, of course, but one need not be Force sensitive to feel he’s reluctant, filled to the brim with disbelief and concerns to his own. And the Bad Batch may have proven themselves as allies and warriors, but none of them knew Echo. None of them would share his pain, feel his grief, and support his blind hope.

There is one another, his mind reminds Rex as he sits alone in his barracks, the white-blue shells of his armour lying discarded on the floor more carelessly than how he usually leaves them, knees hugged tightly to his chest. Another who’s survived the Citadel, another who was broken by the loss of Echo, so broken she walked straight out the Jedi Order, maybe even the Republic. Another who could potentially help, potentially understand. Also across the Galaxy, probably, but that is beside the point. Rex is aching to hear her voice, feel her compassion, feel like something, anything that isn’t just plain miserable. Anyone who says clones are engineered to not be afraid, to focus only on duty, can go straight to hell according to the Captain.

Rex moves slowly, not trusting his limbs as he unravels himself, plants his feet firmly on the ground as if he didn’t trust his own body. He pushes aside the pieces of his chestplate to fish out the utility belt underneath. There’s an encryption only he and her know, the one he constantly aches to use and yet never once dared to actually use to make a call. Now there is no hesitation in his fingers as he keys it into his holoprojector and waits for you to answer on the other end.

...

Sskoora growls, but you know him well enough to decipher the meaning behind the Trandoshan’s hisses – the one he emitted just now is the equivalent of a sigh, and you know you’ve won when the hunter brushes past you to enter the cockpit of your ship.

“Scorekeeper won’t accept droids as Jagannath points. A waste of time; a hunt not worthy of our time and our talents.”

But your old friend is already entering the coordinates of Fort Anaxes into the navicomputer and you can’t help but smile softly. He isn’t like most Trandoshans. He is a seasoned warrior, but he has honour, and the friendship you established over the last year after surviving the harsh sands of Tatooine together is one you will cherish until you die. Your attachment to Sskoora is yet another reminder why you kept failing as a Jedi. And another is waiting for you at the end of your destination.

“I owe you one, old friend.”

“You owe me a hunt,” he corrects you calmly, his red scaled face a mask of perfect tranquillity.

“Find the burliest rancor by the time we’ve rescued my friend, Sskoora.”

The Trandoshan wants to say he knows it’s about more than just Echo, more than just a friend lost and found again. He knows you want to be reunited with your mate, but he keeps his mouth shut. You’re still young in his eyes, and he will respect the rashness of youth just like the wisdom of old age.

“The burliest I will, little hunter.”

...

When a Trandoshan appears on the ramp of the ship that just landed in Fort Anaxes, all the perimeter guards are on alert, guns aimed and ready to fire. Until a Jedi appears behind, waving her arms to show their harmlessness. It takes General Skywalker to break the state of emergency, but the great hunter seems to be regarded with distrust even afterwards. Anakin is upset when he finds out why you’re here, but he cannot truly be mad. He stalks off in the night after showing you the direction in which Rex’s barracks are. You bring back too many painful memories – the Citadel, the way you got out of the Order to live your life, the same way Ahsoka did. You don’t blame him for not wanting to speak to you more. So you send Sskoora back to the ship and ask him to prepare for a fight, pacifying him enough to know his preparations for the hunt will quell any desire in him to cause trouble. And then you take a deep breath and go, trying not to reach out with the Force so eagerly to where you suspect Rex to be. The man you so innocently loved as a Jedi, and then agreed to let go for the sake of the Republic.

You’re not a Jedi anymore. And though you wish nothing more than to throw your arms around him like he used to allow you, what you truly wish is to make him happy, to console him, to trust him when no one else does. You tell your little heart beating so fast that the man asked for your help only to bring Echo back, not for any other reason, and the sour lie helps you restrain your emotions as you enter the dark building.

“I got your message. Rex?”

You can sense him – his anguish and thoughtfulness draws your focus immediately, but you cannot see him until he moves. He’s partly in his blacks, the circular emblem of the Republic visible on his chest. His kama and boots are on, however, and you’ve caught him in the act of fastening his belt around his hips.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come, if I’m honest.”

“Oh... I can wait outside, if you’d like.”

“With our shared history?” Rex snorts, shaking his head. “You’ve seen more while you were still a Jedi.”

“A fair point,” you admit, usurping a bed and perching on top of it cross-legged. “Why weren’t you sure I’d come?”

“That message encryption we cooked up was during... well, you know,” he sighs, sitting across from you as he fidgets with his bracers.

“Yeah. I know,” you breathe, voice quiet and strained.

It was during the prime of your love, before you both agreed to put an end to it for the greater good. Not long after, the mission to the Citadel came, and all your hopes of ever loving him again where shattered by the most painful decision you’ve ever had to make. Echo was a friend, a member of your weird little family, and you realised you were tired of losing them all one by one under your command, as you led them to countless battles knowing full well many of them would die. Echo’s death was the last straw, the awakening you needed to stop being a hypocrite by enslaving an army of clones and spouting wisdom about the wrongness of oppressing the weak.

You never lost hope and you never stopped helping wherever you could, wherever the Republic would still let you, but you mostly did it for the same reason you didn’t delete the encryption from your datapad all this time – Rex. It is well beyond your capabilities to say no to the man, to do anything that would harm him, anything that would go against his beliefs. Even if those beliefs in the GAR and the Senate had shaky underpinnings at best these days.

“I haven’t seen you since you left,” he says suddenly, eyes not rising to meet yours, but voice so full of suppressed yearning that it makes your head spin.

“I hope you understand why it had to happen this way, Rex...”

“You never told me. So no, I don’t really. But you’re not a Separatist, so I wouldn’t mind hearing you out.”

“I left because of you.”

“Me?” he asks, looking up with a face full of shock that makes the corners of your lips lift into a small smile that disappears quickly from your face. Rex’s eyes chase after it, wishing it lasted more than that split second.

“In a way, yes. I refused to be part of an Order that would willingly enslave you and your brothers, forcing you to fight in a war you have nothing to do with. And I don’t see a way winning would make your situation any better. You’re men, and yet you’re treated as property. So much for the Jedi values.”

“It’s the Senate, not the Jedi,” Rex argues back meekly, knowing your words to hold more truth than he’d like to admit.

“Well, now I’m not bound to either. Speaking of being bound, I have a spare bunk on the ship... Sskoora takes up two, but the top bunk is all free,” you joke, trying to lighten both your moods momentarily. It works for a little while as Rex snorts, shaking his head a little as he concentrates on slipping his gloves back on.

“Sharing sleeping quarters with a Trandoshan sounds fun, but I might just pass on that.”

“You could share mine. Captain’s quarters are quite spacious, you know. More comfortable, less... Trandoshan, I suppose.”

“Now that is a tempting offer. Think you could extend it to the end of the war?”

“Let’s just extend it until we find Echo now,” you sigh, both your moods souring considerably as you think of your friend. “You really think he’s out there?”

“It was his voice. I know it. It couldn’t have been anything else.”

You slowly stand and sit next to him, casually letting your elbows touch. When Rex doesn’t pull back, you let your shoulder lean against his, a small encouraging smile gracing your lips as you lean closer. “I believe you. We’ll find him tomorrow. I’ll help. Even if the Republic does not want me to. You just send me the coordinates, and I and Sskoora will be there on Skako Minor to back you up.”

Rex, struggling with his tears at the prospect of seeing Echo again, and moved by your devotion to him, stares at his fingers and nods. “Thank you. For believing in me.”

“I never stopped doing that, and I never will. Oh come here, you,” you sigh, drawing him in for a hug which he gratefully accepts. Despite all the heartache, the war, the constant terror the Galaxy lives in, you find peace in Rex’s arms, and he in yours. It’s both extraordinary and just so natural at the same time, your minds joined in a synchrony you’ve terribly missed. Even if he cannot feel it through the Force, there’s a bond that intertwines your fates so much that there is no escaping one another.

“There was a time I would have scolded you for even suggesting something like that, you know. About the spare bunk thing. But now all I’m saying – no, all I’m asking – is that you hold onto that question until we find Echo and win this war. And then I’ll say yes, if you still want me. Stars know I’m more than ready for that.”

You nod against his shoulder, letting your heart rejoice at the notion that the man you used to love, the man you still do, has grown so much in your absence. Maybe your separation was not for good, but only a temporary setback, a lesson for you to learn that there is no life without one another.

“I’ll be waiting patiently until then. Like I have been all this time.”

[edogawatranslations]

Danganronpa Kirigiri (3) - Chapter 3, Part 2

Table of Contents | Previous: Chapter 3, Part 1

“...E-Excuse me?”

“Miracles don’t occur without magic.”

“S-Stop joking around.”

“Come on, just a peck on the cheek is fine.”

“A-A peck on the cheek? That’s enough for you?”

Kyoko shot a look at me. “You’re willing to go along with that?”

“N-No way!”

“How disappointing,” Lico sighed. “Then I guess I’ll take my leave.”

“W-Wait!” I shouted as he began to stand up. “Fine, fine. Sit down.”

“Yui, are you sure about this?” Kyoko asked.

“What choice do I have? Besides, a kiss on the cheek is a normal greeting in some countries.”

“Then please, look more like you’re going to enjoy it,” Lico said, looking up at me.

“Can I say something first? A magic kiss, you know, is typically between a prince and a princess... What I’m about to do is just...”

“I know, I know. I wasn’t serious.” He raised up both of his hands in playful surrender. “I don’t need any magic. I was planning on being your ally from the very start.”

“You little...” I resisted the urge to punch the boy in the face. It wouldn’t be good to lose my cool.

“First, to respond to your question about whether or not I am aware of the contents of the Duel Noir, the answer is no. I know nothing about its contents, nor the solution. Think about it for a second. Would Ryuuzouji really divulge his secrets to me, someone he suspected of being Rei Mikagami?”

“You should’ve said so in the first place.”

“I might as well tell you, but I didn’t sneak into Ryuuzouji’s headquarters to pursue the world’s greatest mysteries. In fact, I’m investigating the Crime Victims’ Salvation Committee.”

“Why did you hide that from us?”

Frustration burned inside me.

“I was anticipating that you’d figure it out yourself. But that’s beside the point. Over the past year, I noticed a surge in the number of people approaching me. All of them were detectives sent by the Committee. I found out Mikado Shinsen has been trying to invite me to join his organization, and if I refused, I’d be met with death.”

Naturally, the Committee wished to obtain Rei Mikagami’s power; it made the most sense to scout high-ranking individuals when seeking additional strength.

“And so, I snuck into Ryuuzouji’s castle and have been tracking the Committee’s movements over these past few months. To tell you the truth, I fully intended on joining the Committee if they intrigued me enough.”

“Don’t you have any honor?”

“I don’t follow any guidelines as a detective,” he said with an impish smile.

Well, at least he admits it.

“But the Committee is devoted solely to creating mysteries. I love a good mystery myself, but designing exam questions isn’t exactly my cup of tea. That’s why my interest in the Committee faded. I would much prefer to be summoned to solve a Duel Noir challenge, but that’s hopeless with my rank...”

The greater the cost of a Duel Noir, the higher the rank of the summoned detective. An exorbitant cost would be necessary for a triple-zero class detective to be summoned, but from a psychological standpoint, I couldn’t imagine anyone having the mental toughness to willingly put themselves in such a situation.

“I’ll get to the point—I want to help you with the Duel Noir. I want to solve mysteries. Please, allow me to join you.”

“Geez, you could’ve saved us so much time if you told us all of this earlier!” I ruffled my hair in frustration. “I don’t know if this is just who you are or if something’s messed up with your brain...”

“Your way of thinking is quite simple.”

I punched him squarely in the face for his blunt remarks—in my imagination, at least. Somehow, I managed to muster the willpower necessary to restrain myself.

“But thanks, we’ll gladly accept your help. We’d be in a pickle otherwise,” I replied.

I offered my hand out for a handshake, but Lico just sat there smiling, not reciprocating.

“...What?” I asked.

“Are you satisfied with trusting me so easily?”

“You still got a problem?”

“Kyoko doesn’t appear to trust me the same way you do.”

Now it’s Kyoko, huh...

She was staring—glaring at Lico.

“Kyoko, what’s wrong?” I asked. “You don’t trust him?”

“Mikado Shinsen...” she muttered. “That man can disguise as anyone.”

Her comment took me aback. Mikado Shinsen—the Variationist, a master of illusion and disguise.

“I see, so you suspect me to be Mikado Shinsen?” Lico asked.

“That’s not possible,” I interjected swiftly. “Just look at him. He’s way smaller than Shinsen; he’s even smaller than you! The Shinsen we met at Norman’s Hotel was taller than me. No matter how talented a masquerader he is, he can’t physically shrink his body down to that size.”

“But he can make himself appear larger,” she remarked.

“Well, yeah... But Lico is smaller, so there’s no reason to suspect him.”

“But what if the boy before us is the actual Mikado Shinsen, and he disguised himself at the hotel? Shinsen was wearing some sort of disguise back then.”

“The possibility stands to reason,” Lico admitted.

“I-If that’s your logic, then even I could be Shinsen in disguise too.”

“No, I’m certain you’re Yui,” Kyoko responded.

“How can you be so sure?”

“...Y-Your body was soft,” Kyoko said, averting her gaze.

When she hugged me yesterday, she must have checked to see if I was the real deal...

“Lico, say something to counter her!”

"That’s quite difficult. Her claim can’t be disproven. No matter how much we discuss it, it’ll always come back to ‘Lico might be Shinsen, or he might not’ in the end.”

“Why do you always have to complicate things? All you need to say is that you’re not Mikado Shinsen!”

“I’m not Mikado Shinsen.”

But Kyoko’s piercing gaze showed no sign of relaxing.

“Can you really not trust him, Kyoko?”

“I’d say I trust him about 60%.”

“An oddly specific percentage,” Lico smirked, shrugging his shoulders. “How did you end up with that figure?”

“Your voice. You aren’t altering it. But Mikado Shinsen clearly had an adult male voice.”

“That’s right!” I exclaimed. “No matter how talented he is at disguises, he can’t replicate both a prepubescent voice and an adult voice.”

...But was something like that really impossible for Mikado Shinsen?

I forced myself to ignore the thought that crossed the back of my mind.

“So you’ve decided to trust me?” Lico asked.

“Like I said, I trust you 60%.”

“Both of you, shake hands and make up,” I urged. “At 60% strength is fine.”

Kyoko reluctantly stuck out her hand. Lico politely grabbed onto it and smiled.

“Alright, now we’re all friends. Lico, shake my hand too, since we didn’t earlier.”

I offered my hand out, and he went along. His hand was small like a girl’s. I couldn’t imagine Mikado Shinsen having such a tiny hand.

“Now we can finally get somewhere,” I said.

I started lining up the twelve challenge cards on the floor. The cards detailed cases that were either underway or imminent. And we had to solve all twelve of them.

I grabbed a retractable pointing stick from nearby and started leading the conversation like a commander, with Lico sitting politely on the floor and Kyoko on the edge of the bed.

“If we stick together as a group, there’s no way we can solve all the cases in time. We need to split up and conduct separate investigations. Any objections?”

The two of them shook their heads.

“Fortunately, twelve can evenly be divided by three, so we can each be responsible for four cases.”

As those words came out of my mouth, my head started spinning. Four cases? It took all my strength to solve just one case; how was I going to manage solving four at once by myself?

“First, let’s look up each of the locations where a Duel Noir will be held this time around, and divide them into sets of four based on geographic proximity.”

“Excuse me, Professor.”

“Yes, Lico?”

“If the murders have already occurred, we don’t need to go to each and every location individually. Since I can obtain any and all relevant police information, we might be more effective playing the role of armchair detectives.”

“But that means turning a blind eye and giving up on any crimes that haven’t been committed yet. We can’t knowingly do that!”

These challenge cards also warned of future crimes. Through intuition and reasoning, a detective could successfully prevent a murder from happening.

“But even so, I do think it’s impossible to solve them all,” Kyoko said, slowly shaking her head. “One wrong move and we may end up trapped in one place until the deadline passes, like back at Norman’s Hotel... Among these cases, there’s one set on a cruise liner; it might be stuck out at sea for the whole week once it sails off.”

“Y-Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Taking that into account, I believe it would be better to group the cases according to cost rather than location. We can divide them up between us by counting off from lowest to highest cost, and then we can tackle them in any order we want.”

“Then I’ll reorder these by cost...”

“Come on, hurry up,” Lico threw out his hands in boredom. “Just leave them all to me and I’ll be finished by the time limit.”

“Even for you, something like that is—”

“100% doable.” A cheerful expression formed on his face.

Such a task may have been well within his capabilities.

...In fact, this Duel Noir challenge may have originally been intended as a duel between the triple-zero class detectives, plus the Kirigiri family. Rei Mikagami joining the side of the detectives had to have been foreseen by Ryuuzouji, who probably considered the elusive figure, instead of me, as his true opponent. Or perhaps, that role was filled by Kyoko. Her low rank was only because she hadn’t been active as a detective for a long time, but Ryuuzouji and the Committee must have realized her rank didn’t reflect her true abilities.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it was that I had no business being part of this battle.

Maybe I should leave everything to him...

“I wonder which case will be the most puzzling.” Like an eager puppy wagging his tail after having received a new toy, Lico scanned the challenge cards with a spark in his eyes. “It’s not a real mystery unless at least two or three people die... A higher cost must mean a higher chance of a serial murder case. I can’t wait to see how these weapons are used. Haha....” He was getting worked up.

...No, what am I thinking?

While he was unfettered in his actions as a detective, he also lacked ethics and a sense of justice. His interests lay solely in the thrill of solving mysteries, and I bet he couldn’t care less about the outcome of a case.

I couldn’t entrust everything to him. But I didn’t have the skill to solve a case. If I even had a fraction of his genius, I’d go save people all across the world.

“...I’ve kinda lost all confidence.” I retracted the pointing stick and flopped down onto the ground.

“We haven’t even started our investigation,” Kyoko said.

“I know, but...”

My incompetence frustrated me. But if I kept staring at the ground and sulking, I’d truly end up hopeless. For now, I needed to face forward and stand tall.

“Kyoko, no matter what people say, it’s my duty to go out and save people. This is a battle over my pride as a detective.”

“Yui...” She stared at me with concern.

From her perspective, it must have been painful to watch me reaffirm my stubborn convictions like a straight-F student in high spirits right before a test.

But regardless, I resolved to move forward and trust in the hope that lay ahead.

“I have an idea.” Kyoko ran her hand down her braids. “I agree that splitting up is the best way to solve these cases, but how about instead of us investigating individually, you and I work as a team of two? Being together would feel more... reassuring.”

She had some difficulty finishing that last sentence.

I’d only weigh you down... I stopped myself from voicing those words out loud.

Suddenly, it hit me. In a Duel Noir, the criminal couldn’t lay a finger on the detective. As the summoned detective, I couldn’t be harmed.

That’s right—there was a role only I could fill.

I’ll be your shield.

“Let’s go with that plan. You focus on solving the mystery. Leave gathering evidence, beating up criminals, and everything else to me.”

“So I’m all by myself?” Lico interjected.

“We’ll divide the cases equally between us, so six each. You get two more mysteries to solve than if we split it three ways. Sound good?”

“Works for me,” he replied with a wide grin. His way of thinking was perhaps more simple than I imagined.

“Then let’s move on.” I picked up the twelve cards. “So as for dividing these up...”

“They all sound so intriguing, I can’t choose.”

“Don’t describe them like that. Lives are at stake.”

“Sorry,” Lico said with a petulant look. “But choosing one by one will waste time, so how about distributing them at random?”

“Hmm... That’s not a bad idea.”

Staring at the cards wouldn’t tell us anything more about what the cases would be like, so there wasn’t much of a point to pick based on personal preference.

“I’ll shuffle them.” Lico tightly grasped the twelve cards in his hand, before tossing them all up into the air.

And then...

“Hyah!”

Between his fingers were six darts, which he had pulled out of his suit on the floor. In one smooth motion, he flung all of them around.

One of them whizzed by my face, causing me to flinch backwards.

Thud, thud... Soft noises echoed out as the darts struck different parts of the walls and ceiling. Each one had pierced a challenge card. His abilities were truly superhuman. Looking carefully, I realized one of the darts had punctured my coat.

“What have you done?!” I shrieked.

“I’ll take the cases that were hit.” Pretending to not have heard me, Lico fluttered around the room and retrieved the darts.

I gathered the challenge cards that had fallen to the ground. I sat down next to Kyoko, and together, we looked through the six cases we were responsible for.

 Card 1:

Location: The Goodbye Bar — 20 million yen Weapon: Knife — 5 million yen Weapon: Charybdotoxin — 30 million yen Weapon: Rope — 3 million yen Trick: Locked Room — 20 million yen Total Cost: 78 million yen

Card 2:

Location: Museum of Medieval Torture — 30 million yen Weapon: Iron Maiden — 30 million yen Trick: Locked Room — 80 million yen Total Cost: 140 million yen

Card 3:

Location: Takeda Haunted Mansion — 30 million yen Weapon: Dotanuki Katana — 30 million yen Trick: Locked Room — 100 million yen Miscellaneous: Rubber Bands — 1 million yen Total Cost: 161 million yen

Card 4:

Location: Kareobana Academy — 30 million yen Weapon: Candles — 20 million yen Trick: Locked Room — 150 million yen Total Cost: 200 million yen

Card 5:

Location: Libra Girls’ Academy — 200 million yen Weapon: Iron Pipe — 3 million yen Trick: Locked Room — 150 million yen Total Cost: 353 million yen

Card 6:

Location: Twin Abilities Research Center — 50 million yen Weapon: Knife — 5 million yen Trick: Ultimate Locked Room — 500 million yen Miscellaneous: Chains — 3 million yen Miscellaneous: Padlock — 3 million yen Total Cost: 561 million yen

“Hey Lico, we’ve got a case I think you’d really love. Wanna trade?”

Of course, I was referring to the case with the highest cost. I wanted to avoid it, as the difficulty of a case increased with the cost.

Lico shook his head. “Please don’t show me something so intriguing...” he replied, writhing in ecstasy. “We’ll run out of time if we start discussing which one to trade for. It’s best if we call this final. Otherwise, I won’t be able to suppress my desires anymore.”

Showing him a picture of Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Giza would likely push him over the edge. I wanted to test that hypothesis, but now wasn’t the time to be fooling around.

“Only the costliest case has the trick listed as ‘Ultimate Locked Room.’” As always, Kyoko assessed the situation with a calm mind. “I wonder what kind of locked room is worth over 500 million yen.”

“Wait, is something like that really appropriate for my rank?”

A double-zero class detective was summoned for a 1.3 billion yen case. Was a 500 million yen case really within the range for someone without a single zero like me?

500 million yen seemed like enough to do just about anything. With that sort of money, the options for murder were vast. That would be true even if it were the criminal’s own money, but Duel Noirs felt more frightening because the funding came from the Crime Victims’ Salvation Committee.

“Now that we’ve divided up the cases, I should get going.” Lico stood up with the cards in his hand.

“You’re leaving already?”

“Yes, I can’t wait to open the doors to these locked rooms.”

“Wait, do you even have a place to return to?”

“I’ll be heading back to Ryuuzouji’s castle today.”

“Huh? But aren’t you two pretty much enemies right now? Will he even let you back in?”

“Ryuuzouji isn’t such a narrow-minded person. He won’t do anything cowardly like kill me in my sleep. Besides, I still have a duty that I need to fulfill.”

“A duty?”

“Obtain and transmit police information to the two of you. That was my original assignment, after all. If you need me, don’t hesitate to call at any time. I’ll provide you with any information you want.”

“You’re just like a spy. But I wonder if Ryuuzouji will really grant you access to the information under these circumstances.”

“Nothing to worry about there. He’s a fair person.”

Lico was right—I didn’t have any reason to doubt Ryuuzouji. If he wanted us out of the picture, he already had plenty of opportunities to get rid of us. Besides, he challenged me to a fair battle. His simple honesty may have been one reason that drove him to become a savior.

“Let’s do our best,” he said with a smile.

“Right. We’re counting on you, Lico.”

We walked out to the entryway of the dorm and bid farewell to each other.

Next: Chapter 4, Part 1

[i-growl-growl-growl]

My Strong Rebel

Genre: Prisoner of war au

Pairing: Yeosang x Seonghwa (other Ateez members make appearances throughout the story)

Word count: ~3.1k

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Warning: this fic contains: dubcon, noncon/r*pe, profuse cussing, abuse/torture, neglect, & mentions of war throughout the series. If you are sensitive to any of these topics DON’T READ THIS FIC.  (also, please keep in mind that this is a re-hash of an EXTREMELY old fanfic that I wrote and it was written using idol ships so, if you’re not into shipping idols with each other, like I no longer am, then there’s another reason not to read this)

(If there are any problems that you have with this fanfic upon reading it, please message me politely stating the problem and if it’s dire enough then I’ll take the fanfiction down. Please DO NOT bombard me with threats. I’m willing to work with people as long as they deal with the situation appropriately.)

~Savie

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“Who the fuck are you?”

Yeosang glares up at the guy, but only sees a silhouette at the top of the filthy stairs. He’s been in the dark so long that his eyes won’t allow for his sight to adjust to the light shining through the open door where the figure currently stands. Light digs at the shards of glass but he sees enough to know that this guy isn’t one of the usuals. He holds himself differently than those assholes.

The guy doesn’t answer, he just slams the door shut again.

Yeosang sinks back down onto the floor. His leg is killing him, but he always manages to haul himself to his feet when the door starts to scrape open. He won’t give these assholes the satisfaction of seeing him on the ground. No, if they want him on the ground, they can fucking put him there themselves. Which they do, and have done since the day he was captured. Forcing him down into the dirt, kicking his legs apart, and fucking him till they get enough of their fill and he’s nearly passed out from exhaustion.

The first time…… Yeosang doesn’t allow himself to think of the first time. It was rough. He allows only that concession: it was rough.

But there’s that quote in his head he can’t quite remember. That one about other people needing your permission to make you feel humiliated. Was it humiliated? Or was it lesser? Maybe it was neither of those things. Doesn’t matter. Point is, Yeosang has not given these assholes the permission.

They can break him physically… and oh hasn’t that been a wondrous fucking joy for him to be put through… but they can’t fucking touch him mentally. Not a single, solitary, slim, god damn chance!

Yeosang draws his bad leg up and messages the kneecap. If it was broken, he wouldn’t be able to bend it right? Hurts like all hell though. The flesh around it is swollen with fluid and the skin is busted too plus, whatever it is that leaks out the lifting scabs stinks like death. It’s filthy, rancid, and Yeosang is pleased about that. He’s looking forward to dying of the infection.

And all without a single word passing his lips about the rebellion.

Which is another thing he doesn’t allow himself to think about. He buries that deeper in his mind than the memory of his first night as a captive, afraid that he can’t trust himself. Afraid that one day he’ll blurt it all out just because it hurts, and he’s not in the right mind, and he hasn’t had a conversation in fucking months not to mention that sometimes it even feels like the things they promise him: clean clothes rather than the tattered remains of cloth that still… somehow… manage to cling to his body, food… hot and fresh food, not the kind he is rarely fed now that stinks of rot and has mold growing from all that rests on the nearly empty plates they serve him… cigarettes, some nice, hot and strong coffee or fresh, cold water.. Whatever his thirst desires, medical attention….. Would be worth it.

Yeosang isn’t a traitor though, not even a martyr at that either but it turns out those are his only choices, and as much as he would like to be free from pain, even if only for a mere moment... for a slight little second of time… he can’t do it. Not because he’s a true believer in the cause but just because he can’t let these fuckers break him. Yeosang refuses to give them the smirking satisfaction of capitulating.

It gets harder for him to keep his stance up with every passing day, every passing hour, every passing second, but that’s okay.

♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦

“Who the fuck are you?”

It’s been a long time since a prisoner greeted him with a snarl like that. Seonghwa slams the door again. ‘I thought you said he’d been here for five months.”

“Yes, sir” the guard, Yunho, replies “well, 147 days to be right on the mark if you want to be technical about it.”

Seonghwa leads the way back outside, glad to get the stench of the cells away from him, “and how exactly does a man who’s been a prisoner for 147 days still have any fight in him?” he wonders aloud. “How is he even still alive at this point, most prisoners like him would, and have been, killed off by now” he thinks to himself.

Yunho swipes his tongue over his chapped lips. “No idea, sir. That one’s a fighter that’s all I’ve got to say, he just refuses to break. Nothing can get to him, it’s like he’s superman in disguise... or ironman.”

Seonghwa consults his paperwork although he knows the prisoner’s details well enough already: Kang Yeosang, nearly twenty years old… “hmmm” Seonghwa chuckles to himself yet another time as he looks at the paperwork, vehicle repair man for the fifth battalion. “Vehicle repair man? Well at least he isn’t a cook like all the others supposedly say they are” the officer huffs through a breath. Yeosang has no family, or at least none that he’s willing to tell anyone about or none that Seonghwa himself can find through documents of the specific prisoner, from paper documentation or whatever documentation there is left on the nearly nonexistent internet anymore. The only thing he has been able to find was an unmarried mother who died when Yeosang was nineteen. No siblings for all anyone knows, but possibly an extended family somewhere in the world from the father’s side of the prisoner’s family but it’s impossible to tell.

And yet, Seonghwa squints into the sunlight, the men who have families break easier, earlier: “Please just let me go home”, “I want to see my wife and kids”, “please spare me, I have a family, I want to live to see them again”… Maybe Kang Yeosang really is alone in this pathetic excuse of a world. Seonghwa knows that feeling, he knows it well enough that he can work with it.

♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦

“On your knees worthless, rat bitch!”

“Fuck you!”

Yeosang goes down, like always, when the guard hits him in the knees with his metal baseball bat but he goes down fighting.

They twist his arms behind his back and cuff his wrists, wrench his torn and tattered pants down and kick his feet apart and push his head down. Yeosang still struggles, only stopping when he feels the press of a boot on the back of his neck. He pants into the dirt, he can see the brightness of a flashlight shining at the edge of his vision, blinding him. He blinks his squinted eyes rapidly until he can see better past the brightness of the light and his sight manages to focus upon a pair of boots, these boots are different from the others though, they aren’t worn out or scuffed up like the rest that the other guards commonly wear, these ones are new… probably fresh out of the shoe making factory. Yeosang twists his head to see and realizes that the boots belong to the same man from earlier today, the one who stood on the stairs… well, the same broad silhouette at least.

“What’s your name?” the man asks.

Yeosang turns his face back into the dirt, clenching his jaw as he avoids the inquiry.

A guard kicks him in the ribs and he bucks away from the pain with a pained hiss, hitting his injured knee hard on the way back down and is almost swept away in the wave of pain that courses over him but, then the boot is back on his neck, pressing him into the dirt.

“I know what it is, even if you don’t tell me” the man says “it’s Yeosang, Kang Yeosang.”

No one has called him by his name in forever. Ever since he came here he’s been rat, bitch, slut, cunt, or timber… because of the way he’d go down as the guards knocked him to the floor. It almost made him gasp, hearing his true name spoken aloud like that so suddenly, spoken with such quiet intensity that his eyes sting.

“Why’d you fucking ask then fucking dumbass bitch?” he hisses and growls into the dirt as he feels hands on his hips and the weight of an overly large man kneeling between his thighs.

There is a hint of amusement in the man’s voice when he answers “I wondered how it would sound if you said it yourself, or as I should say, when you say it yourself.”

“Keep wondering asshole, you’ve got nothing from me” Yeosang thinks but keeps quiet otherwise.

He flinches as a fat finger digs into his ass, dry. They always go in dry. He grinds his jaw intensely to keep any sound from escaping him. An already wet cock drags up and down his crack until it finds its target and presses in with a thrust. The breath shudders out of him that he had been holding because everything fucking hurts, but he won’t let them know, not willingly anyways. At least it’s easier than the first night, every day since then his body bends and breaks a little more than before but his mind doesn’t, it stays as strong as ever because he won’t let it shatter.

He is pushed forward with every thrust, every grunt, until blood eases the path of the guard’s cock a slight bit. His injured knee scrapes against the filthy floor of the cell, sometimes a dull throb and other times a sharp, ragged, tearing pain that pulls him close to the edge of unconsciousness. Yeosang wouldn’t fight that if it were to happen but the pain is never quite enough to take him over that welcomed edge.

“Get your boot off his neck” the ‘new boots man’ commands with a sharp wisp of his voice. “Lift his head for me.”

Yeosang squinted into the more brightened light of the flashlight shining in his eyes now as his head is harshly lifted from the floor.

“Ah” the man says, nothing more, nothing less, for what seems to the prisoner like a lifetime.

It’s hard to breathe with his neck pulled back, with those fingers twisting in his hair and digging into his scalp because his hair isn’t relatively long.

Only four guards take him tonight and Yeosang takes the opportunity to breathe, to hold onto his anger when they change positions. He tells himself that there’s no need to feel ashamed because he’s fought them every chance he got, and he will continue to do so, what they are doing to him now and what they’ve done in the past hasn’t brought him down, and he’s proud.

With each induced pain Yeosang’s resolve only hardens. He hates these men. He didn’t understand what hate was before them but he sure as hell knows now. Hate has become the core of him, when he’s dead, they’ll find it written on his bones.

“There now” the silhouette man says in a soothing tone “that’s how we ride traitors, Kang Yeosang.”

The mentioned male is rocked back and forth as the fourth guard thrusts inside him. He blinks, trying to clear his vision, trying to clear his mind. He can’t really reconcile the man’s tone with his words, either Yeosang is a traitor they hate as much as he hates them or… no, no it’s a trick, of course it is, he can’t fall for this, it’s a new tactic to try and break him, and he won’t let that happen, he’s not a traitor, they’re lying to him. That moment of confusion amid all of this pain is nothing but a way to attempt to weaken his resistance. Yeosang might not understand it but he doesn’t have to, he knows its purpose although not recognizing the method.

He doesn’t care that they think of him as a traitor, they can call him every name in the book and he won’t give a shit, he still won’t open his mouth to defend himself, to engage is to have lost the battle. He learned that much in his battalion.

“Do you remember the Unjsa?”

Yeosang bites his lip, holding back a groan as he is fucked. He can feel blood and cum leaking down his thighs. Fucking Fuckers! He’ll kill them all one day, revisit every moment of torment he’s suffered but have it inflicted upon their bodies instead of his own, he’ll do it until they beg him to kill them, until they beg him for their very deaths.

“There is a row of statues of Buddhists praying after you get through the front gate of the temple. The temple has many statues of Buddhists and pagodas, A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple ledges, but there is one that many people call the “rice bowl pagoda” because instead of ledges, it has circles but the ledges are used for storing relics.”  The unidentified man with the new boots says as though he’s not even here, as though he’s not watching Yeosang being r*ped, as though none of this is even real. “They’re very beautiful… both the statues and pagodas.”

Suddenly he can see the statues and the pagodas and the mountains and hills that surrounds the area, he remembers the view of the place, and the temple itself.

Longing stabs through him, not for the temple that he was always so entranced with when he visited the sight back in Hwasun County of South Jeolla province, nor for his life before joining the rebellion when the new war began, which he is sure is the point that the man is trying to force, but something simpler… sunlight… he wants sunlight.

Panic flares within the prisoner. No, they will not exploit any weakness, they will not get me to give in! They will pry him open and tear him apart if that happens.

“Do you remember Unjusa?” the man asks quietly.

Yeosang wants to laugh but groans instead as his knee is jolted and he twists his face towards the light. “Unjusa. Is that all you got?”

♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦

At this point Seonghwa thinks it would be a simple kindness to put a bullet in the man’s head and he might have as well if the man hadn’t of shown his hand like that.

“Unjusa. Is that all you got?”

Yeah, right.

Kang Yeosang knows exactly what Seonghwa was looking for there. Common ground, a shared memory, the first step on the path to what the officer would call cooperation, and the prisoner would call treason. It’s somewhere in the middle, probably. Common sense, self-preservation. That part of a human being that however brutalized, still wants to live, even if it’s only for revenge.

That particular fantasy is written all over his face.

Seonghwa watches as the fourth soldier r*pes the other male, which is not a pretty sight especially right now. He’s filthy and in obvious pain, but the stubborn brat still takes it like a champ, not breaking as his face is twisted in hatred.

The taller man in power steps forward and puts his hand on the tortured man’s lower back, he can feel the muscles shifting as he is rocked back and forth by his r*pist, his skin is hot and damp from sweat and possibly a fever.

“Did it hurt Mr. Kang?” he asks suddenly “The first time, did it hurt?”

Yeosang doesn’t answer but Seonghwa didn’t expect him to. Tonight is for getting to know his subject and he doesn’t expect to accomplish much.

“I think it did” he trails his hand up Yeosang’s spine, feeling each shuddering knot. “I think you wonder how anyone could ever enjoy it. You probably never had a cock inside you before you were captured, did you?”

Yeosang twists his head away and earns a slap from the man who had been holding his hair.

The officer enjoys the feel of Yeosang’s skin sliding over the bones of his spine. “Did you cry? Did you cry when they r*ped you?” He leans closer to the man. “It’s okay to cry.”

He earns a growl from deep within the other’s throat and he smiles at that as he leans back. So this is a wrong track to take with this one, this one won’t be broken the same way other are broken, he’s not afraid of pain.

“Or did you take it?” he asks “Like the cock-hungry whore that you are?”

♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦

The words don’t sting, Yeosang is too strong for that and too used to hearing those words being said to him, what had been taken from him in this place has been taken from him by force alone, not by any sense of will, he knows that, he knows it to his core but still something inside him wavers.

It’s not the words that weaken him, it’s the touch. The touch from the other reminds him of…. No! he’s confused by the man’s touch, it’s not hurting him or an assailant but it’s also not remaining distant enough to be a voyeur either. If there’s a point the man is trying to impress upon him, he doesn’t know what it is. He can feel the warmth of the man’s palm against his skin. Not knowing the intention of the touch makes it almost unbearable, worse, somehow, than the fingers digging into his hips and the cock up his ass. At least he understands those things.

He stares into the flashlight, shutting down his mind, and waits for this to be over.

♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦⇔♦

Interesting.

No wonder the guards haven’t broken him yet.

Seonghwa sees a flash of pain on Yeosang’s face that is different from the rest of the prisoner’s facial expressions that he’s been blessed to see during his time working with him.

He smiles. “Ah, perhaps not a cock-hungry whore after all, and…�� he lowers his voice, making his tone conspiratorial “and maybe not a virgin either. You liked this, once.”

A hit. He sees the smaller male flinch, he falters, but holds himself up.

Seonghwa keeps his hand on the man, maintaining their contact while the fourth guard continues to pound into him from behind. He silently marvels at the man’s resilience, but he’s not as strong as he thinks he is, the officer has figured that out now. Nobody is ever as strong as they believe they are. He just needs to keep attacking the other with gentleness, seeking a way in, and the man will eventually speak to him.

All that anger, all that pain: he’ll be desperate to unload it to the only kind voice that he currently knows.

Well, not kind, but in a dark place filled with monsters, Seonghwa will become Yeosang’s only option.

[ryodan]

SasuNaru and the pinhole : part 2

This comes full circle in the Gara fight when Sasukes survivor guilt was shown on full display, with him stating he believes the only reason Itachi let him live was to be an avenger. Sakura comes in to take his attack and

1 thing I’d like to highlight, Sasuke throwing himself in front of them earlier was because he cared and it’s unlike his moral standard..and his last words would have been this

But to willingly and consciously give up his revenge because the pain of losing someone dear is a great deal of character development and refutes any argument that he did not care about Sakura. Not to say he would not have done the same for Naruto, but Kishimoto chose her for a reason.

Naruto sees this and remembers Kakashis and Hakus quote about fighting for the people you love making you stronger and giving you a stronger resolve and he charges up on chakra

‘Sakura-chan wa orega mamoru!’

‘I’ll protect Sakura!’

And he fights Gara, and teaches him about the pain of suffering on your own, shouldering pain with your friends and protecting them..the whole concept behind the series

Itachi happens and ofc you know sasuke is conflicted, his resolve is awakened

Now, sasukes inferiority complex dates back to his childhood, and that is why he compares Itachi to Naruto, both of whom are people who had a strength sasuke thought was unattainable to him

His petty side did show throughout a lot of the series

It was also shown on multiple occasions. Sasuke did not like Naruto catching up to him because it was another Itachi situation. Additionally Itachi dug salt into the wound by saying things like you are weak and I am not interested in you. The fact that he was interested in Naruto, who was getting stronger than him made his petty rise to like 5000 degrees, I don’t think anything that follows, or a lot of their ‘rivalry’ in part actually is justified. Their dynamic through this lens but not a single non sns fan ive met irl wasn’t annoyed by narutos constant bitching and sasukes constant petty side.

People also like to forget this happened

When he was practicing he was thinking that he was completely useless in a situation where somebody he cared about a lot was in grave danger,  which again correlates to his past. This is also him feeling inferior to Naruto but Kishimoto put the smile thing intentionally, in fact he put in there when he woke up again indicating it was a mix of a little of things making him feel inferior.

Since this is a post debunking most sns arguments ive ever been told to make ship this ship, I see people saying Sasuke cared more about Naruto than Itachi when he heard he was back. And while of course he did care a great deal, his best friend no matter how annoying their relationship is, is being targeted by the person who murdered his family in cold blood, of course he would not let shit like that happen again..but I feel like if anyone was viewing these scenes with an sns lens on it annoys me. The person who massacred a clan and made a child feel like he was not good enough to be slaughtered and that his own reason of living is to carry the moral burden of avenging his clan (no matter how great itachi is, that was the pov at the time for sasuke) was in town, sasuke was having flash backs all the way there and it was heavily sasuke x itachi related, in the worst of ways because of the torture. Naruto was like???? My friend??? Good, of course he’d be like that but the fact that some shippers see this arc as an sns arc pisses me off bc sasuke is not there to wank your fav as so many shippers in general see him..but this scene in particular makes me uncomfortable to think that people view the mental torture of this kid as a romantic arc bc he thought about his friends safety. Also, Naruto is a great friend I just wanted to say that tbh.  This scene is also interpreted wrong

This is the first time Naruto realizes he should get over Sakura, and again is a scene that refutes any ‘naruto was the only one who mattered in team 7’..because of all Team 7 mattered.’she hugged him shes selfish’ ah nah youre just reading the scene out of your ass if you say so imo

‘naruto went crazy when sasuke was hurt so it means he love sasuke’

Yes, ofc he does. He’s his best friend. It’s not romantic tho

To clarify : I don’t know id consider him to be in love with sakura? I always thougth it was a crush and he seemed to get over it so good on him, but the databook and certain chapters state otherwise? I don’t see at all imo but maybe it’s bc I am biased anti NS

Anywho, moving on to a scene that reprsents why I cant be fucked to pretend this relationship is healthy or that I can condone on it on a romantic level no matter how much I love the bond between them

‘he woke up from trauma so,,,,’ if he was acting dick-y I’d understand. He’s 12 so I will defend him because a childs brain can barely handle any of what hes been through (I mean gaara) but he straight up almost killed Naruto for inferiority complex reasons

Yeesh. What he actually says is めざわり, mezawari..the term the village described Naruto with all of his lonely childhood. Naruto jumps right back and says ‘you’re still weak’ after he witnessed the entire Itachi situation knowing full well that’s not something he should say right now. The went full out on each other knowing the other could die bc theyre petty? Sasuke goaded Naruto on so much the need to prove himself made him charge at him with full intensity to kill him. That’s a no from me. I mean that apple plate scene was crappy too, but in it’s intensity and relative to the situation I’m willing to let it :/ me

I understand the trauma aspect, but I don’t justify picking a death match with your friend bc they are getting better than you.

They explain my stance better than I can

Kakashi gets shit sometimes for this scene but I’d like to remind you that the Uchiha massacre was only a political problem in the series after the truth was revealed. Telling Sasuke to just let it go and share his pain instead was not the right way to go about it and Kakashi acknowledged that himself, it was not fair to the situation at hand but he did get through to him, so much so that sasuke went from shouting murderous statements to this, because Kakashi does understand the pain and guilt you feel when your loved ones are dead while you were helpless to help. Revenge is unhealthy…its even more unhealthy when it makes you take it out on people you love and end up hurting yourself more. I hear people say Kakashi and sakura are selfish for relating the situation to themselves, but so did Naruto and so would anyone. No one is that mother Theresa to not see situations as 2 sided.

To go even further into this, there is a thing I see that’s like Naruto was the only one who understood him? Naruto was the only one who didn’t. In fact, self admitted it himself. He was very naïve and did not see the situation through sasukes point of view for a long time

I give Sakura credit on this tbh

After the FOD  Sakura was imo, the most in tune with sasuke

Blah Blah blah confession happens, certain people call her selfish but she never made the revenge aspect about her

Or people who say she didn’t understand his resolve, or that she was doing it bc she just wants him to stay is dumb. Both naruto and sakura did it for both sasuke and bc they want him to stay. They forget she said ‘are you going to isolate yourself again’ meaning no, she understood a lot of his psychological reasoning than she is given credit for.

Idk how this is selfish, or kakashi saying I lost people and learned revenge isn’t healthy is, when everyone is doing it for his benefit.  I think it’s the mistranslation. Some people also think she has never attempted to understand where he is coming from better.

Or people who say its unhealthy bc ‘even if he cared, she didn’t know’ she did before and after

The first battle in the final valley only happened when Naruto jumped sasuke and punched him, Sasuke wouldn’t have gone as low as killing someone unprovoked..had it been Sakura he would have also obtained mangekyo.

He did power up using the pain he felt by the loss of their bonds, in fact the only time he ever thinks of them positively is them as a unit, he said it himself he thinks of them as family

That’s when sasuke almost killed Naruto to obtain mangekyo. Now, let me say another misconception. Sasuke doesn’t kill Naruto bc he is the person closest or dearest to him, that was and consistently remained to be his family. Itachi said kill your best friend the term he used was もっとも and tomo

Not 親友 shinyu 友達,友人 so many words that can indicate dearest person but that wasn’t chosen, instead that was.

 The curse of hatred activates when losing a person very dear, and experiencing self hatred because you couldn’t do anything, Like sasuke when he awakened sharingan in the night of the massacre. To further it to mangekyo the common trope among uchihas was to kill your best friend, to power it up you experience more emotional pain, to make it permanent you implant another uchihas eye to your own and that erases the risk of blindness. All of this ofc means more emotional pain, and no one wants to rebuke narutos status as sasukes best friend their bond is tight bc of the loneliness they know. But none of team 7 are sasukes dearest atm, its his family, his resolve to leave to avenge his family is strong only furthered by Itachis manipulation and his curse of hatred making him feel even more survivors guilt. The main source of his power ups aside from kagatsuchi have always been his family, the love he had for them caused him the most emotional suffering. I recommend these videos they explain it better than I do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbXG_USxX4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KhHE75GGoo&t=339s

There is ofc the emotional pain of killing a best friend , and its emotional pain of loss and regret that activates mangekyo anyways so when he gets a huge dose of it with Obito he awakens it and rapidly descends into the curse of hatred

Naruto wants to bring sasuke back bc he doesn’t want to see his friend hurt himself, and bc he wants his friend around coolio he even states sasuke is like a brother to him

Again confirming the #nohomo

This is where the fight gets problematic, ‘sasuke was killing naruto bc hes his dearest person’ is easily refutable but whats not refutable is that he wasnt thinking that for a big part of their fight, which is why kishimoto could never get away with any sort of romantic context on this ship. People talk a lot about heteronormativity when it comes to SNS but this is a gross representation of a gay ship, I’ve had that told to me by multiple gay male friends

Yeesh. And the smile is fucking over kill. Mind you, Naruto also has 0 explanation for this behavior so hes just getting beaten up by his friend who is saying ‘you being my best friend is all more the reason to kill you.’  

Thing Id like to add one that, and ill come to again..people say  naruto was the person who understood sasuke the most.. except that was towards the end..and he fully understood him by their final battle. If you remember me saying their bond is a concentration of the series themes, then this is not a surprise. You don’t need to know someones gut, nor experience what they experienced to share or understand their pain. As naruto learns more and more by every arc and experience, he understands sasuke more and by the end tries to communicate what he learned to him. The fact that it can only be Naruto was alluded to by Kakashi when he mentioned ‘the cycle that only ends by death’, then by pain mentioning the world being a cycle of hate, then by the prophecy and by the land of iron arc when Karin noticed sasuke and narutos double chakras and Naruto confirmed he is not fighting sasuke only in order to protect him when kiba accused him, hes the only one who can save sasuke and break the cycle. That’s why they communicate only through their fists, they are literally destined to it as they have indra and ashuras chakra within them.

This, does not mean Kakashi and Sakura did not understand sasuke. They got his motivations way more than Naruto did. 

After the fight sasuke refuses to kill Naruto because he refuses to be like Itachi, confirmed himself in the first reunion

Another sort of annoying thing the sns fandom does is devalue sakuras hard work, Naruto trained to get stronger, beat the akatsuki and bring sasuke back. Sakura trained to protect her  friends, better herself and bring sasuke back. Theres this stigma that because she ended up with a lot of peoples want to be fictional boyfriend that she must be selfish..naruto was willing to die with him!11!! K.

‘just because she had the resolve doesn’t mean anything bc she didn’t do it’ No, but she did what she could to the best of her abilities, however its established the only one who can fight him is Naruto over and over again. If it were her trying, itd be a one sided massacre on his side, and talk no jutsu doesn’t work on him…the only way to break the damn cycle is the child of prophecy, although she was still able to affect him with just words. That’s why shes the only one he ever outwardly thanked , he appreciates her effort way more than some fans give her credit for.

[chirpingtiger]

@one-piece-of-harry

(Ok. Sorry this took so long, This is basically a book. So, as usual, please excuse passion from the passionate fan.)

First, something I forgot about in last post. You mentioned that Tony only mentioned Charlie because the team was American, but that doesn’t really make sense. Natasha is Russian, Vision is…well Vision, and Wanda is FROM Sokovia. Steve might be American, but from his personality in other movies,  it seems mentioning the actual statistic would be better. It seems more that Tony uses Charlie because he’s the only American who Tony really hears about face to face.

=> Steve had TWO YEARS to tell Tony that his parents were killed by hydra. THAT is why he has to apologize.

Okay, so remember how I mentioned that Tony’s mental state wasn’t the greatest? And how he was struggling with daddy issues? Steve telling him “hey you know I saw something a while back that makes me think that HYDRA might have killed your parents” wouldn’t have just been as simple as informing him. We all know that Tony would focus all of his resources on looking into it.

Telling him that very well might have sparked a dangerous and blind hunt for revenge. I can understand why Steve was hesitant.

Now, should Steve have told Tony? Probably.

Would it have been good for Tony to know this particular fact? Probably not.

Was there probably a better time and place down the road a ways, once Tony had worked through some more of his issues and was more stable, that Cap could have told him without it sending him on a manhunt or making him crack? Most definitely.

Steve saw a risk and made a decision based on what he thought would be best for the safety and mental health of his teammate. Was this the right decision? In light of Civil War, probably not, but at the time he made the decision? It very well might have been.

Tony was going through some serious PTSD. He needed time to recover, not have another dead-end hint connected to a traumatic event in his life thrown back in his face with a HYDRA tag on it.

I’ll also bring up that Steve was not the only one who knew that fact and kept it quiet. Nobody who knew this thought it would be a good idea to tell Stark, not till they had more answers. The only thing Steve and Natasha saw in that bunker during Zola’s monologue about how HYDRA was alive and well - how “when history did not cooperate, history was changed” - was a picture of the newspaper clip detailing the car accident.

This blatantly implied that the Starks had been killed by HYDRA for not cooperating, but said nothing about what they weren’t cooperating with. As bad as Tony talks about his father, it’s entirely possible for Steve to have questioned if the Starks had ties - accidental or otherwise - to HYDRA. Now we, as the audience, know it was about the super soldier serum, but Cap was on the ice for all this. He doesn’t know that there was more serum made. It’s not until Bucky tells him about the other super soldiers that he starts to connect the dots on the Stark’s involvement. For all Steve knows at the time, Howard could have gotten caught up in HYDRA after the war and been assassinated when he tried to back out.

Steve understandably doesn’t want to spring something like this on Tony until he has proof, and until he’s sure Tony can handle it. It was with the best intentions that he kept that information to himself, but as we’ve seen with things like Ultron, even the best intentions can lead to disaster.

As far as Steve taking his complaints with the document to the UN, yes, that would have been ideal. Only, he wasn’t presented an ideal situation. He was told “sign or retire, those are your only options.”

Steve tried to say that he thought the Accords were wrong, but he was shot down by his own teammates halfway through the discussion. What would make him think that the UN – the people who wrote the bloody thing - would listen to him if his own teammates thought he was being irrational and unreasonable by questioning them?

He has no reason to think that anyone other than Sam (the only one besides Nat who helped him when HYDRA took over the WSC and SHIELD and a bunch of other government stuff) would listen to him. And like Rhody said: it’s 117 nations. Who are they to question? Why would they listen to Steve at all? He’s nobody to them, and his intentions are already in question.

Perhaps if he’d been given more time to look it over, to talk it through. If he’d been given the option to speak with the UN at all – things might have gone differently. As it was, they had three days. Three days to go through that damn phonebook of a contract and decide if it was worth signing, then show up in Vienna and submit themselves as enhanced to be collared.

While you see Tony being proactive, and trying to do something to stop the problem, I see him jumping at the first suggestion and not stopping to think if it’s really the best idea.

And this three day time frame was interrupted by Peggy Carter’s death.

Now everyone always talks about Tony’s PTSD and trauma and issues, but let’s not forget that everyone on the roster comes with baggage.

Steve is the man out of time. He’s from a different era. He woke up after however many years on the ice to find his whole world was gone. Everything and everyone he knew – gone. Most of the people he grew up not only knowing, but seeing on TV and hearing about on the news, they’re all long dead. The city he grew up in? It no longer exists. Oh, it may be there on the map, but the city he knew will never be the one that’s there now. Everything he knew no longer survives as anything other than pictures in a museum.

There were only two things, two people from his world that were left in any capacity: Peggy Carter, and Bucky Barnes. Peggy, who had long since moved on from him and was in her nineties and on her deathbed, and Bucky, who was a brainwashed HYDRA robot.

After losing one of the only two people he had left from his world, can you really blame him for throwing the Accords to the wind and going after Bucky when he was framed for a crime? (And the fact that said crime took place at the Accords signing only makes the whole mess with that document seem more suspicious tbh.)

I’d like to think that Tony would have done the same for Rhody if his best friend was the only thing he had left, and it took going outside the law to save him.

Steve isn’t going to turn his back on the best friend who saved his life more times than he could count.

Something to keep in mind is that this wasn’t the Avengers as a whole. Steve wasn’t asking the rest of the Avengers to throw aside the Accords and go outside the law like him, he was simply trying to save the only thing he had left of his world and his family. Sam – who’s had Steve’s back since Winter Soldier and has been helping Steve search for Bucky the whole time – willingly followed him. At this point, the focus stopped being the Accords and started being “who framed Bucky and why.”

The rest of Team Cap comes in about here. At this point Wanda still hadn’t made up her mind about whether to sign or not. Clint was retired, and probably didn’t even get a copy of the document. Scott and Bucky certainly didn’t get a copy of it. The only ones on Team Cap who were actually presented with the document were Wanda, Sam and Steve. Wanda is also the only one on the fence still, and Steve never talks with her about whether or not she’s going to sign. He doesn’t try to encourage her one way or another. He lets her pick for herself, and more by default than anything, she picks retirement.

At this point, the only ones up for arrest are Steve and Sam for helping Bucky escape and potentially for some damage caused by the chase scene, and Bucky for a crime he didn’t commit.

(I re-watched the scene from Civil War to find where they “collapsed an overpass” and the closest thing I found was Bucky tacking a little explosive onto an overhead walkway to rain debris down on Sam and T’Challa. The walkway was intact after he drove past, and still intact as Steve came up to it a moment later, with minimal damage done to anything other than the bottom foot or two of concrete, and there was no one in the tunnel behind Steve to even be inconvenienced by the rubble. So I really don’t understand where you’re getting the collapsed overpass and killed people from?)

Bucky is triggered into Winter Soldier mode by Zemo, and escapes the facility, despite just about everyone (including Steve) trying to stop him.

At this point any casualties are honestly on Zemo’s head, but seeing as no one believes Steve about the therapist being fishy, that gets ignored and pinned on Bucky instead.

This is the point where the other super soldiers are revealed, and Cap decides to call in backup.

This is all supposed to be taking place under the radar. This is him collecting a strike team to go deal with the super soldiers and get out again, before going back to life problems like what his team’s decisions on the Accords are and what’s going to become of Bucky and how/when to tell Tony about his parents.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Accords or who signed. In fact, it only becomes about the Accords again when Tony shows up and demands that Steve come quietly because he didn’t sign. Because he went outside the Accords and saved Bucky.

At this point, please consider: Steve didn’t sign. Steve is technically retired. If the Accords were truly just an oversight committee for the Avengers, Steve should have been off the hook for anything more than property damage, disturbing the peace, and potentially assisting in Bucky’s escape (which I don’t know how that would play out in a court if Bucky wasn’t guilty).

No one else in Steve’s group is doing anything illegal.

Unless, of course, we’re going by the Accords’ new rules that state that enhanced people can’t cross foreign borders and participate in personal battles.

And if that’s the case then Tony’s in trouble for breaking them too, because last I checked he wasn’t having Peter sign the Accords, which means he brought an unregistered enhanced person across national borders to participate in a fight, all without UN permission to do so.

At the very least this is pure hypocrisy.

As for Peter, yes, he was already doing his own thing. Yes, he would have still been doing his own thing. Yes, Tony giving him gear probably helped to protect him and make him fight more safely. But let me ask you this…if Tony cared so much about Peter potentially getting hurt, why wait until he needed to recruit him to go offer him tech? Why monitor him for months without doing anything, and then show up only when he needed another heavy hitter for an international battle so he could out-number Steve, Sam, and Bucky?

And yes, I’m sure he told Aunt May that he was taking Peter on some museum trip or Stark Company tour or something, but whatever he told her was a complete and utter lie. The closest he could have possibly come was getting her permission to bring Peter to a “convention” in Germany, but the odds of Tony actually thinking to ask her that are so astronomically low that they don’t even beg to be considered. After all, he didn’t have a great relationship with his own parents, and he has no concept of childhood. Why would he think that he was doing anything wrong by not telling her?

And joking as his “I’ll tell Aunt May” might have been, this is still a threat from a much older and very powerful man to a young boy. Even if Tony didn’t mean for it to come across that way, that’s what Peter took away from it. Because it’s only after Tony threatens to tell that Peter agrees to come along.

And yes, it was a fight against teammates that Tony knew wouldn’t be deliberately trying to hit Peter, but as was demonstrated multiple times throughout the movie, accidents happen. Also, Bucky was there. If Tony thought the Winter Soldier was as dangerous and unstable as he did, why risk Peter at all? Why not simply bring Vision in and be done with it? He doesn’t have any particular reason to think that Clint and Wanda went to meet up with Steve after Clint broke her out. He certainly doesn’t know about Scott. He has himself, Natasha, T’Challa, Rhody, and Vision against what he thinks is going to be Steve, Sam, and Bucky. A trio that was already successfully captured by T’Challa and Rhody alone.

And if he was really that worried about it, why not simply bring in the Iron Legion?

He had no reason at all to bring Peter to that fight. It was dangerous and irresponsible and incredibly selfish of him. And again, I bring his mental state into question. Tony obviously thought that this was okay. He honestly thought that bringing a minor to an international superhero fight was something that was fine. Because it gave him one more person “on his side” of the argument.

Tony is very clearly not thinking straight at this point in the movie.

Peter, of course, is very grateful to have been brought along. He’s fighting with his favorite superheros, against his other favorite superheros, and he’s got all this shiny new gear (read: bribery) courtesy of Tony Stark and he’s been told that Tony has a big job for him and that Tony wants Peter to do him proud, and he’s all set and ready to impress Mr. Stark because like literally any teenage boy he wants to do something to prove that he’s all grown up.

But let’s not forget:

Steve: “Kid, there’s a lot going on here you don’t understand.”

Peter: “Mr. Stark said you’d say that.”

Steve: “Did Stark tell you anything else?”

Peter: “That you’re wrong. And you think you’re right. And that makes you dangerous.”

Note that Tony told him nothing. Tony didn’t tell Peter a damn thing about what was going on other than “Steve’s wrong so he needs to be arrested” and “don’t listen when Steve tells you that there’s more than what I told you was going on” and “just stay back and web them all up.”

Tony told him preemptively that everything the opposing side said was wrong, and trying to trick him. He made sure that there wasn’t even a chance that Peter would listen to Steve. Tony didn’t want anyone else picking Steve’s side over his.

Peter is a child who is doing something cause his idol told him to. He has no investment in this conflict and in fact, has no idea what’s really even going on. He was brought in on a very, very bad judgment call from Stark for some reason that I cannot even fathom outside of “look Steve I know super-people too.”

Tony’s mental state has been in question for a while, but at this point in the film, Tony’s already gone off the rails. And it’s all just downhill from here.

And Wanda.

Oh, Wanda…where do I even start…?

Like I mentioned before, everyone on the roster comes with baggage. Wanda is no exception.

In Age of Ultron, Wanda and Pietro’s main target was Tony Stark. They grew up believing that he was responsible for their parent’s death because his name was on the bomb they were trapped staring at for two days as rescue people tried to save them. It was traumatic. It scarred the both of them for life.

Fast forward a few years, and they’re teenagers in Sokovia as their country is being attacked and pillaged by forces that claim they’re American. Forces using Stark weapons.

And in comes Dr. Wolfgang von Strucker.

He takes these two desperate teens - who until then had been fighting back by joining riots and throwing rocks – and tells them that he has an experiment, and he needs volunteers. He has a way to give them enhancements, so they can fight back and defend their homeland against what seems like an unstoppable force. He pitches this wonderful little spiel to these kids and convinces Pietro to sign on, who in turn convinces Wanda to do the same.

Now, we as the audience know that the “American” attacks on the city are HYDRA-orchestrated, and that Strucker is lying through his damn teeth, but for Wanda and Pietro, two orphaned teens with hot blood and adolescent-level reasoning skills, he’s a miracle that’s been sent with the answer to their prayers. So they, as well as a number of adults from their city, all go for experimentation so they can fight back.

And all of them die.

All of them…except for the twins.

At this point, the twins have no idea what HYDRA is. All they know is that Dr. Strucker is trying to protect their city with his experiments, and they’re going to help him to do that. They already see the Avengers as an evil force, so when the base is attacked, it makes sense for them to fight back. They don’t even question if they’re on the bad side, because for all of their lives, and reaffirmed by everybody they’ve ever known and everything they’ve seen and experienced, they’ve been told that America and the Avengers are the attackers, the murderers, the terrorists blowing up their homes and killing them in the streets. Of course they are going to fight back against Tony and the Avengers. They’ve only ever known them as the enemy.

Claiming that Wanda and Pietro willingly joined HYDRA is a gross misinterpretation of all data given in the film. They joined Dr. Strucker as teenagers to protect their city. Nothing more. Their involvement with HYDRA ended as soon as the Avengers cleared out Strucker’s base.

The next bad soul these two fell in with was Ultron, who tracked them down through Tony’s computer system and gave them the same spiel that Strucker had: come with me, and I’ll help you get revenge on the man that orphaned you, and the people that have been attacking your homeland. He promises to help them destroy the Avengers, and tells them exactly how to do it.

Now here’s a major point to look at: Strucker kept the twins out of the fighting. Every time one of the other HYDRA people tried to send the twins up against the Avengers, he said that they weren’t ready yet and tried to keep them back. He wasn’t planning on letting the two of them face the Avengers until they were ready to (even if Pietro kinda jumped the gun.)

Ultron, on the other hand, “knows more about us [the Avengers] than we do about ourselves.” When the twins ask how to get revenge, he tells them exactly what to do. He lays it out, step by step.

Wanda and Pietro have had no contact with the Avengers before. The most they know about them is what they’ve heard in the news (still pictures and stories at best), seen on television (not the most common thing in a third-world country, and certainly not for two poor orphans), and heard about from HYDRA (which is essentially nothing because Strucker was trying to keep them out of the fighting until they were more ready). Pietro and Wanda only had limited contact with any of them when the base was overrun, and that was mainly Pietro catching Clint’s arrows and Wanda tossing Steve down a flight of stairs. (Dude, if I had a dollar for every flight of stairs that guy falls down…)

They had no real exposure to the Avengers, or what their powers were, or what they fought like. The first time this happens is in the salvage yard, off the African coast.

This is why Pietro tries to grab Thor’s hammer. This is why Wanda doesn’t expect Clint to fight back and stun her with an arrow. This is why the two of them have to retreat even though Wanda’s got most of them reeling with nightmares of their worst fear. It’s why they go after “the big one.”

They’ve heard of Hulk before, of course. He’s enormous, he’s indestructible, he’s a heavy hitter, and he gets dragged around by the Avengers to smash things for them. They’ve never encountered him, so they don’t know that he’s essentially uncontrollable. They don’t know that he gets more powerful and more uncontrollable the more angry that he gets.

But before I get too much into that, let’s stop and consider something.

Wanda was ten when she lost her parents.

Now, that may not seem like an overly significant fact, but this shapes a lot of what takes place in future events, namely when it comes to her education.

Because honestly, do you think a pair of ten year olds who have just been orphaned in a war-torn country are going to think to themselves at any point “I should be attending school?” I don’t think so.

With that in mind, I ask, how likely was she to know the location of countries and cities outside of Sokovia on a map? My guess is not very. She probably knows what continent she’s on, what town she grew up in, a few nearby cities or countries, and a few big ones mentioned all the time in the news.

She’s not likely to know much about Africa.

Ultron brings her into some random country she’s never heard of before, and takes her to a salvage yard off the coast. She has no idea where she is. She has no idea what’s nearby. All she knows is that they’re here for vibranium for Ultron, and she’s been given her orders to brainwash whoever she needs to in order to get it for them.

Also, look how FAR that city actually is.

And then the Avengers show up.

As I mentioned, this is her first real encounter with them, so she does what Ultron tells her: “It’s time for some mind games.” She goes down the list and gives every one of them the nightmare treatment, just like Ultron’s been having her do to the people in the places they’ve robbed for resources.

She doesn’t stop to consider what’s going to happen when she does this to Banner. Based off everything she’s seen, doing that leaves her victims near-comatose. Why would she expect him to go on a rampage? She didn’t set Hulk off with the intention of having him attack Johannesburg. Hell, she probably doesn’t even know there’s a city nearby, she’s off the coast and doesn’t truly know where she is. She didn’t even consider that Hulk might have gone on a rampage or gone after the city, especially not when the Avengers were all right there as targets. After all, everyone else kind of sat in one place feeling traumatized when she was done with them, and she has no reason to believe that Banner will react any differently. Not for one second did she intend for him to go attack that city. Wanda would never slaughter civilians like that, not when she grew up as a civilian victim to those kinds of things. It’s not in her nature.

What’s more Bruce states that after Johannesburg, people see the ‘real Hulk’, so there’s really no reason to think that Wanda really understands just what she’s unleashed.

She’s young and impulsive, she can’t pick people to trust worth a damn and she may not think things through all the way, but she’s not cruel.

In fact, the minute she figured out what Ultron’s end game was, she actually teamed up with the people she’d spent her life being raised to hate in order to stop him, so innocent people wouldn’t get hurt.

Wanda has a lot less to apologize for than everyone tries to pin on her, and most of what she is guilty of wasn’t malicious – it was ill-informed or heavily swayed by outside influence.

As for the Lagos incident:

Steve has no idea what her powers can do. Wanda has no idea what her powers can do. Yes, she’s clearly been practicing shields and tossing her teammates around and moving objects, but it may not have occurred to any of them that she could work her shielding abilities in reverse, as a containment bubble. (Which is why, I suspect, she didn’t merely put Team Stark in a bubble at the airport battle and hold them there while the others escaped.)

Hell, it might have been something she can’t replicate. Her powers are weird, and highly linked to her emotions. (We see her eyes glow whenever she gets angry or upset or frightened.) She might be able to do something in anger and desperation that she can’t do at an everyday practice because of the emotional tie-in. She’s been training with them for a year. For all we know, Steve could have gotten a hold of a stick of dynamite (or five) and had her try to contain it, only to have her fail time and time again because her heart wasn’t really in it. But when it came down to a situation where it was “do this now or Steve dies” she was able to summon the strength to hold it, at least for a little while.

I’m hoping they expand a little on her powers in upcoming movies (set clips of her with Dr. Strange – YES PLEASE) because otherwise we’re left just as much in the dark about how her powers operate as she is. It doesn’t make for a very solid basis to argue facts on.

My comment about the prisoners being abused was based off of another person’s theory that I’d read, where they noted the enormous bruise that Sam gets some point between when we last see him at the airport and when we next see him at the Raft, as well as the fact that his immediate response to Tony’s question about Steve is “you would have to go Mark Fuhrman on my ass to get information out of me.”

=> Can you please look up the UN. Can you please look up their stances on torture and detainment and god anything and everything.

(Oh sweetheart. Do I have some research for you.)

Actually, funny you should bring that up. According to the Geneva Conventions for prisoner treatment:

“Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex and shall in all cases benefit by treatment as favourable as that granted to men. Prisoners of war shall retain the full civil capacity which they enjoyed at the time of their capture.”

So what part of putting Wanda in a straitjacket and locking her in a shock collar was giving her equally favorable conditions as the men she’d been brought in with? Where was the “respect for their persons and their honor” when they collared her like a dog?

Another clause from the Geneva Conventions:

“Taking into consideration the provisions of the present Convention relating to rank and sex, and subject to any privileged treatment which may be accorded to them by reason of their state of health, age or professional qualifications, all prisoners of war shall be treated alike by the Detaining Power, without any adverse distinction based on race, nationality, religious belief or political opinions, or any other distinction founded on similar criteria.”

Essentially the same deal. They can’t treat Wanda worse than the others or imprison her under more strict conditions than the guys she was brought in with.

Some more:

“Prisoners of war may be interned only in premises located on land and affording every guarantee of hygiene and healthfulness. Except in particular cases which are justified by the interest of the prisoners themselves, they shall not be interned in penitentiaries.”

So the Raft would be a violation of both of these, being a penitentiary as well as being located in the middle of the ocean.

“Women prisoners of war undergoing disciplinary punishment shall be confined in separate quarters from male prisoners of war and shall be under the immediate supervision of women.”

This could have simply been oversight, but I don’t recall seeing any female guards at the Raft. Meaning Wanda is the only girl in a facility run by, and meant for detaining, men.

“The use of weapons against prisoners of war, especially against those who are escaping or attempting to escape, shall constitute an extreme measure, which shall always be preceded by warnings appropriate to the circumstances.”

I’m not sure if the shock collar would fall under this regulation or not. It would seem like a sort of taser, which is technically a weapon, and it’s certainly being used to guarantee against her escape.

“Collective punishment for individual acts, corporal punishments, imprisonment in premises without daylight and, in general, any form of torture or cruelty, are forbidden.”

Shock collar definitely doesn’t pass this regulation. Also the cells in the Raft have no exposure to daylight. They are sub-level and underwater full time.

(Additionally, the way the top of the Raft is built doesn’t exactly make it conducive for surface visits, but for argument’s sake let’s say there’s some staircase or something that can let people out on top of it when it surfaces.)

Now, again, they might bring the prisoners up top to get fresh air on occasion, but if they’re going to this extent to restrain Wanda I kind of doubt they’re going to be comfortable letting her out of her cell to wander up top.

“In no case may a woman prisoner of war be awarded or sentenced to a punishment more severe, or treated whilst undergoing punishment more severely, than a male member of the armed forces of the Detaining Power dealt with for a similar offence.”

Once again, they all technically committed the same offense. And yet Wanda is the one with the shock collar and straitjacket.

“The disciplinary punishments applicable to prisoners of war are the following:

1. A fine which shall not exceed 50 per cent of the advances of pay and working pay which the prisoner of war would otherwise receive under the provisions of Articles 60 and 62 during a period of not more than thirty days.

2. Discontinuance of privileges granted over and above the treatment provided for by the present Convention.

3. Fatigue duties not exceeding two hours daily.

4. Confinement.

The punishment referred to under (3) shall not be applied to officers.

In no case shall disciplinary punishments be inhuman, brutal or dangerous to the health of prisoners of war.”

And back to the shock collar. Technically they are all being disciplined via confinement, but the fact that Wanda has the collar to keep her from acting out is a bit overkill, and potentially dangerous to her health. The electrical shock from a taser can cause irregular heart rhythms in perfectly healthy people and can even put the victim at risk for going into cardiac arrest. In fact…

“The United Nations Committee against Torture reports that the use of Tasers can be a form of torture, due to the acute pain they cause, and warns against the possibility of death in some cases. The use of stun belts has been condemned by Amnesty International as torture, not only for the physical pain the devices cause, but also for their heightened abuse potential.”

(And I will point out here that stun belts are essentially shock collars, but are fastened around the waist, leg, or arm. Not the fucking throat.)

“Taser International has stated in a training bulletin that repeated blasts of a taser can "impair breathing and respiration". Also, on Taser's website it is stated that, for a subject in a state described as "excited delirium", repeated or prolonged stuns with the Taser can contribute to "significant and potentially fatal health risks."

“Studies indicated that the threshold of energy needed to induce deadly ventricular fibrillation decreased dramatically with each successive burst of pulses [from the taser]. The threshold for women may be less.”

So yeah. Shock collar blatantly breaks yet another rule off the Geneva Conventions list.

On to a few more highlights from the document:

”The duration of any single punishment shall in no case exceed thirty days.”

So even if their current confinement is simply “punishment” there is supposed to be a very clear time limit on it.

“Prisoners of war shall not in any case be transferred to penitentiary establishments (prisons, penitentiaries, convict prisons, etc.) to undergo disciplinary punishment therein.”

Except according to this one, the group of them should not have been transferred to a penitentiary establishment like the Raft for their punishment.

“A prisoner of war undergoing confinement as a disciplinary punishment, shall continue to enjoy the benefits of the provisions of this Convention except in so far as these are necessarily rendered inapplicable by the mere fact that he is confined. Prisoners of war awarded disciplinary punishment shall be allowed to exercise and to stay in the open air at least two hours daily.”

Which implies that the lot of them would have to be let outside for at least two hours a day. Which, again, isn’t exactly easy to do in a mid-oceanic prison, and I really don’t see the guards there being willing to parade Wanda around out of her cell at all.

“No prisoner of war may be convicted without having had an opportunity to present his defence and the assistance of a qualified advocate or counsel.”

Now as you mentioned, we haven’t seen whether or not the imprisoned Avengers were given right to a trial, however I would point out that the period of time between their capture and when Tony came to visit them wasn’t very long. And in that time they’ve already been processed, changed into prison garb, (fully restrained, in Wanda’s case), and locked in their cells. Legitimate court processions are fairly drawn out procedures, and if one did take place before they were locked away, I have to question the validity of it simply based on how quickly it was conducted and concluded for four individuals.

“The advocate or counsel conducting the defense on behalf of the prisoner of war shall have at his disposal a period of two weeks at least before the opening of the trial, as well as the necessary facilities to prepare the defense of the accused.”

One more reason I think that a trial couldn’t have taken place before their imprisonment. Now, perhaps they are being imprisoned and awaiting their trial? That’s the only logical way I can see this not breaking the conventions or falling onto the Accords’ listed clause about skipping trials entirely when regarding dangerous individuals.

(To be completely honest all these rules and regulations kind of make me want to write a fanfic about Team Cap at the Raft when it’s operating properly under these conventions…)

The document I used here is in reference to prisoners of war, as it’s the general UN go-to for prisoner treatment, and at this point the Avengers are in international waters. However there are also the Nelson Mandela rules, which detail the “United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” and also have some pretty important points that I’d like to bring up:

“No prisoner shall be subjected to, and all prisoners shall be protected from,  torture  and other  cruel,  inhuman or  degrading  treatment or punishment,  for  which no  circumstances  whatsoever may  be  invoked as  a justification.”

I’d think a shock collar would probably fall under “inhuman” or “degrading,” wouldn’t you? Perhaps even a straitjacket as well. Note: “no circumstances  whatsoever may  be  invoked as  a justification.” Not even bullshit magic powers.

“The prison regime should seek to minimize any differences between prison life and life at liberty that tend to lessen the responsibility of the prisoners or the respect due to their dignity as human beings.”

Being locked in tiny glass cells in the middle of the ocean isn’t exactly fulfilling this one. Especially as the previous clause talks about providing “education, vocational  training  and work,  as  well as other  forms of  assistance that  are appropriate  and  available, including  those  of a  remedial,  moral, spiritual, social  and  health- and  sports-based  nature” which is certainly not something that’s going on here at the Raft.

“No person shall be received in a prison without a valid commitment order.”

Again implying that the Avengers were rushed through some kind of trial, or imprisoned there in breach of this document.

“The  different  categories of  prisoners  shall be  kept  in separate  institutions  or parts of  institutions,  taking account  of  their sex,  age,  criminal record,  the  legal reason for their detention and the necessities of their treatment; thus:

(a)   Men  and women  shall  so far  as  possible be  detained  in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women, the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate;

(b)   Untried prisoners shall be kept separate from convicted prisoners;

(c)   Persons imprisoned for debt and other civil prisoners shall be kept separate from persons imprisoned by reason of a criminal offence;

(d)   Young prisoners shall be kept separate from adults.”

So depending which one of these Wanda was separated from the others for, really changes what’s going on with the situation. It could be as simple as keeping the only female on a separate floor. Or could be as dark as keeping convicted prisoners (dangerous enhanced can be “detained without trial for indefinite amount of time” remember?) separate from ones awaiting trial.

Especially because a little bit lower down it’s mentioned that: “An unconvicted prisoner shall be allowed to wear his or her own clothing if it is clean and suitable. If he or she wears prison dress, it shall be different from that supplied to convicted prisoners.”

And Wanda’s prison outfit is definitely different than the guys’ outfits…

“In all places where prisoners are required to live or work the windows shall be large enough to enable the prisoners to read or work by natural light and shall be so constructed that they can allow the entrance of fresh air whether or not there is artificial ventilation”

Once again, no windows at the Raft. It’s artificial light and artificial ventilation all the way, with little likelihood of them being allowed outside.

There’s a whole section in here on personal hygiene, and I’m not going to quote it cause it’s very long and not overly specific, but allow me to pose a question: How exactly is Wanda supposed to do anything in that straitjacket?

She has no use of her hands. How is she supposed to eat? To brush her hair? To shower, or use the bathroom? Is there a guard assigned to help her, and if so did they bother getting a female guard? Or is she expected to strip and bathe in the presence of a male guard? I realize that hygine isn’t something that a lot of movies take into consideration in situations like this, but when you have someone restrained beyond the point of normal movement and function, you have to wonder how exactly they’re getting by.

“Every prisoner who is not allowed to wear his or her own clothing shall be provided with an outfit of clothing suitable for the climate and adequate to keep him or her in good health. Such clothing shall in no manner be degrading or humiliating.”

And back to the straitjacket.

If you look closely at it, it rather looks like that’s all she’s got on as a top. If this is the case, and she’s been given a straitjacket as clothing – meaning that the only time she’s free to move is when she’s half nude – I think that would very well fall under “degrading or humiliating.”

“Drinking water shall be available to every prisoner whenever he or she needs it”

Now I’m fairly sure I saw some kind of restroom facilities in the back corner of the boys’ cells, however once again, the issue of the straitjacket comes up. If Wanda’s thirsty, do they have to send in a guard with water to help her drink? Is there any kind of guard nearby for her to call out to? Is she even allowed to speak? We don’t ever hear her talk at the Raft, and while that may have been simply due to how the plot was arranged, we only ever see her sitting still and quiet, curled in a corner of her cell. It’s a little suspicious.

“Every prisoner who is not employed in outdoor work shall have at least one hour of suitable exercise in the open air daily if the weather permits.”

Once again, how likely is it that any of them are getting any kind of surface time at the Raft? Given their “highly dangerous” status, I find it unlikely that they’re going to be spending much time out of their cells at all.

“The relationship between the physician or other health-care professionals and the prisoners shall be governed by the same ethical and professional standards as those applicable to patients in the community, in particular: An  absolute prohibition  on  engaging, actively  or passively,  in acts  that may constitute torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including  medical or  scientific  experimentation  that may  be  detrimental to  a prisoner’s health such as the removal of a prisoner’s cells, body tissues or organs.”

Which means that all of those DNA samples and power analyses that the Accords calls for technically should not be carried out on any prisoner.

“Discipline and order shall be maintained with no more restriction than is necessary to ensure safe custody, the secure operation of the prison and a well ordered community life.”

One word: straitjacket.

And now for the big one…

“General living conditions addressed in these rules, including those related to light, ventilation, temperature, sanitation, nutrition, drinking water, access to open air and physical exercise, personal hygiene, health care and adequate personal space, shall apply to all prisoners without exception.

In no circumstances may restrictions or disciplinary sanctions amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The following practices, in particular, shall be prohibited:

(a)   Indefinite solitary confinement;

(b)   Prolonged solitary confinement;

(c)   Placement of a prisoner in a dark or constantly lit cell;

(d)   Corporal punishment or the reduction of a prisoner’s diet or drinking water;

(e)   Collective punishment.

Instruments of restraint shall never be applied as a sanction for disciplinary offences.

Disciplinary sanctions or restrictive measures shall not include the prohibition of family contact. The means of family contact may only be restricted for a limited time period and as strictly required for the maintenance of security and order.”

Once again, glaringly in question, are the facts that Wanda’s on her own in that corner of the prison, and locked up in a straitjacket and shock collar. As mentioned before, the solitary could be due to a number of other reasons, however the fact remains that she’s all alone.

“Solitary confinement shall be used only in exceptional cases as a last resort, for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority. It shall not be imposed by virtue of a prisoner’s sentence.

The imposition of solitary confinement should be prohibited in the case of prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures. The prohibition of the use of solitary confinement and similar measures in cases involving women and children, as referred to in other United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice, continues to apply.”

This specifically forbids Wanda from being subjected to solitary confinement.

Even if she was not specifically sentenced to solitary confinement, the document’s definition of it is “confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact” so unless the guards are in there visiting with her (which I don’t see happening) or letting her go visit with the boys (which I really don’t see happening) she’s technically considered to be in solitary.

“The use of chains, irons or other instruments of restraint which are inherently degrading or painful shall be prohibited. Other instruments of restraint shall only be used when authorized by law and in the following circumstances: (a)   As a  precaution  against escape  during  a transfer, provided  that they  are removed when the prisoner appears before a judicial or administrative authority; (b)   By order of the prison director, if other methods of control fail, in order to prevent  a  prisoner from  injuring  himself or  herself  or others  or  from damaging property; in such instances, the director shall immediately alert the physician or other qualified health-care professionals and report to the higher administrative authority.

When  the  imposition of  instruments  of restraint is  authorized  in accordance with paragraph 2 of rule 47, the following principles shall apply: (a)   Instruments  of restraint  are  to be  imposed  only when  no  lesser form  of control would be effective to address the risks posed by unrestricted movement; (b)   The method  of  restraint shall  be  the least  intrusive  method that  is necessary and reasonably available to control the prisoner’s movement, based on the level and nature of the risks posed; (c)   Instruments  of restraint  shall  be imposed  only  for the  time  period required,  and they  are  to  be  removed as  soon  as possible  after  the risks  posed  by unrestricted movement are no longer present”

And here’s where the straitjacket and shock collar are a major no-no according to the UN. As far as we’ve seen, Wanda has those both on permanently. Those aren’t something that the guards put her in to prevent escape if they bother to take her topside for fresh air and then remove again once she’s back in her cell. Those are on her constantly. And this is in addition to being behind bars in her cell. Constant restraint of prisoners is very much not allowed, not even in the cases of high-risk. It all has to be temporary, and used only circumstantially as absolutely necessary.

“In a prison for both men and women, the part of the prison set aside for women shall be under the authority of a responsible woman staff member who shall have the custody of the keys of all that part of the prison. No male staff member shall enter the part of the prison set aside for women unless accompanied by a woman staff member. Women prisoners shall be attended and supervised only by women staff members.”

Once again, possibly just film oversight, but I didn’t see any female staff anywhere on the Raft. This one seems like it’s being blatantly ignored.

“The education of illiterate prisoners and of young prisoners shall be compulsory and special attention shall be paid to it by the prison administration.”

LOL technically they have to provide Wanda a high school/college education. XD

While on the topic, according to the UN, a “juvenile” or “young person” is anyone between the age of 15 and 24, and while Wanda’s age has always been rather iffy, we can peg her down pretty solidly within that range. So technically, according to the UN, she should also be protected by the juvenile prisoners documents. However, this post is long enough, so I’ll leave those to your perusal.

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/45/a45r113.htm

Now one of the things that I find most interesting is that none of these procedures that I have presented in either document are followed for bringing in Bucky Barnes OR for detaining Zemo at the end of the movie. Specifically Zemo.

Everett Ross: “Raise your voice? Zap. Touch the glass? Zap.”

Zemo’s locked in a little box, shackled in place so he can’t move. He’s under threat of the same electrocution that Wanda is for what amounts to “doing anything the guards don’t like.” He is being denied half of the rights that I mentioned above as well. No daylight. No fresh air. No bed. No access to water. Solitary confinement for extended periods. And even harassment from prison guards, as we see from Everett. However, because he is a “bad guy” and “deserved it” this treatment tends to get overlooked. For the sake of fairness, I will bring up that technically Zemo is suffering prisoner abuse and breach of Geneva Conventions as well.

And where is the UN to step in and say “no don’t do that”…?

Oh, right, they’re busy with their own politics.

And let’s be honest, they’re not overly concerned with the rights of people like the Avengers or any super-villains that may be detained in various supermax holding facilities.

Now, with all of that, I have to ask…if the UN is already ignoring this many breaches in the code for prisoner treatment when it comes to the Raft, can we really believe that they’d do anything other than turn a blind eye if the guards got a bit violent when questioning Team Cap about Steve’s whereabouts?

I honestly don’t think they would intervene.

Oh, they’d give everyone involved a slap on the wrist if it ever hit the news, yes, but they aren’t going to show up at the prison and say “hey, shock collars are technically torture, find some more humane way to contain Maximoff.”

They don’t care.

So yeah. This group here. The UN that decided to waive the Geneva Conventions and the Nelson Mandela Rules for their own prisoners. They are the ones pitching the Accords and wanting to call all the shots on if/how/when the Avengers can help people.

It’s no damn wonder that Steve doesn’t trust them.

I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. (And let me tell you, it’s not that far.)

[ultramediocre-blog1]

Running Is Stupid, So Why Do I Do It?

Running is stupid. That’s probably the last thing you’d expect me to say. But let’s be real for a minute – it really is. So, what makes running stupid? There are almost too many reasons to list!

Running hurts. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or not trying hard enough. When you start running your whole body hurts. If you are doing a hill workout, your legs hurt as you progress through it. Running in the heat? It’ll feel like you’re pulling a corpse behind you (and if it’s hot enough, people will actually tell you that you smell like a corpse!). Speaking of smelling like a corpse – I can’t even begin to describe the laundry situation.

There are several days per week when my fiancée and I are both doing two workouts a day. That’s four sets of workout clothes each day festering in the bottom of the laundry basket. Sometimes, doing laundry, I’ll pull out a tank top that’s still wet, six days later. The smell is indescribable. It’s like getting hit in the face with a shovel. A damp, stinky shovel. How about running in the cold? Your lungs will burn and you’ll get to feel the magic sensation of peeling dried/frozen snot, sweat, and drool from your face.

The physical pain is just the beginning. The mental pain of running is much worse. At maximum effort, your brain will constantly send you messages that you are overexerting yourself and that death is imminent. These signals manifest themselves in many different ways, but the ultimate goal of the brain is to trick you into slowing down. When most runners receive these signals, they obey them and slow down. Sure enough, after slowing down, the brain says, “Oops! I guess we weren’t about to die. Go ahead and run again!” Except by that point, you’ve slowed enough that your goal time is blown, which brings a different type of mental pain: regret. “I missed my goal time by 45 seconds!

Why couldn’t I ignore millions of years of evolution of my brain!?” We’ve all been there, and trust me it hurts far worse to slow down than it does to press through those initial pain signals. Or how about training for a race for months…being meticulous doing everything right. You are in the perfect position to win or set a PR. On race morning, it’s 84 degrees with 91% humidity at 7 a.m. That’s a punch in the gut that hurts?

“Running is a great hobby! All you need is a pair of running shoes and you’re ready to go!” That’s another dirty lie runners use to trick people into thinking running is great. First of all, a pair of running shoes isn’t enough. Most running shoes have a life of 300-400 miles. For people running 80 mile weeks, that’s a new pair every 5 weeks (at most). I’d make a bet that anyone running 80 mile weeks isn’t running in $12 shoes from Target. $100 is the absolute low end of good running shoes unless you find some miracle sale. That’s $1000 on shoes annually, minimum.

In our closet, there are currently 18 pairs of shoes. You need your road shoes, trail shoes, other trail shoes for when the trail is muddy, road shoes that have 400 miles on them so you can’t run in them anymore but they still look brand new because they are only five weeks old so you wear them to the grocery store shoes, and other road shoes that you wear when it’s rainy. Oh, and maybe treadmill shoes. But shoes are just the beginning. Would you like to race and get a sweet medal? That’ll cost you. Race fees can be more than $200, not to mention costs of traveling, other gear you need, etc.

Perhaps the biggest shock to me though was the grocery bill. Runners, on the whole, eat nonstop. I consume 3500-4000 calories/day. That’s a lot of groceries. So when someone tells you that running is cheap, laugh in their face and call them a dirty liar!

I could go on for pages talking about all of the things that make running stupid. How many baseball players do you know that hit the field with toilet paper in their pockets, “just in case”? How many tennis players have fallen asleep standing up while playing? I have a friend who, on two separate occasions, dealt with varying levels of blindness during a race. A combination of distance and altitude led to ocular malfunction.My only 50-mile race, Monument Valley 50, further illustrates the stupidity of running. After climbing above the valley and starting single track back down, I turned a corner at about mile 45, and in front of me was a 1,000-foot-tall sand dune, with flags running right up the center. I loudly said the F word, and began trudging up the dune. I reached the pinnacle, and again said the F word (that word is so cathartic, especially when you realize you’ve narrowly escaped turning into a cartoon-style skeleton on the desert floor). I ran a few minutes and needed to empty my shoes. I saw a rock off the side of the trail. As I sat back on the rock, I placed my hand down to stabilize myself (remember, this about mile 45) directly into a cactus – a tiny little cactus with approximately 24-million needles, all of which ended up stuck in my hand.

Here I am: 14 pounds of sand in each shoe, tired, dirty, and ready for this to be over. Now I’ve got a hand full of cactus needles. As I begin removing them, two people pass me. Well, no one is going to beat me for 29th place at this 50-miler! To hell with the needles, I’ll solve that problem later! At one point, I thought it made sense to spit on my hand as some sort of lubricant to help the needles out of my palm (spoiler alert: it didn’t help). But this is how a runner’s brain functions. This is totally normal, sane behavior. If I was in the hunt for a podium, it makes sense. But I wasn’t. I’m a mid-packer who had every reason in the world to take the extra five minutes and ensure I was ok. Four months later, there is still a needle buried in my palm. I’ve named him Spike, and he reminds me how much fun that day was!

So why do I do it? Why am I out there six days a week, usually before 4 a.m., making myself uncomfortable? Why do I and millions of other people willingly subject ourselves to it? I can say that for all the pain, sadness and frustration I feel, there is nothing that makes me feel better. I look at where I was three years ago, overweight and not able to run a mile, and now I’ve done races of all distances! It allows me to clear my head. It’s a time to think, or to go blank. Listen to your breath, nature or music. Running has taken me many places – down the Las Vegas Strip, to Europe, to running up a mountain in Japan, and everywhere in between. It’s who I am. It hurts like hell, but it’s a pain that I wouldn’t trade for anything on this Earth.