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jewelleria · 8 months ago

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I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be.

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate.

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified.

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map.

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle.

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more.

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop.

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments.

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on.

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not.

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways.

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine.

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war.

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this:

I am a Jew.

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love.

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners.

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee!

Then they sent me this:

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die.

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind.

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake.

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired.

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people?

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews.

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like.

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for.

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war.

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why.

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be.

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

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kanmom51 · 6 days ago

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Jikook came home

God, how I missed this.

How I miss them!!

Before getting into the whole JM post followed by the cute-flirty interaction that followed, I will take this opportunity in congratulating both JM and JK for their MAMA awards achievements.

JM winning Daesang fans choice of the year.🎉🎉

JK winning top 10 fans choice, best male artist and best dance performance (SNTY).🎉🎉

JM being the sweetheart that he is came to us with a lengthy post to thank Army for voting and receiving a Daesang.

There are a couple of nuanced differences in some of the translations, but all in all, they are pretty much on the same page.

The main difference I've seen is the translation of this part:

벙벙 벙벙 벙벙벙벙벙

Being it "dumbfounded" or "stunned" or "bemused".

I think this probably captures it best:

And then we had JK....

Who was most likely sitting there right by JM's side, the speed of their back and forth being one of the indications to that (we are talking within seconds here), not to mention patterns of past behaviour with those two.

Do we discuss for a second the Weverse translation of the discussion?

Like wtf? 🤣🤣

Ok, so the actual translation would be:

Insert the word of bemusement of your choice I guess, lol. But basically we have JM telling us he's stunned/dumbfounded and mainly happy and then that back and forth between those two right in front of our salads.

Oh, and can someone explain the @JK to me please? I mean, I get JM @JK -ing when posting his replies, but why the hell is JK @JK -ing when posting his replies to JM?🤣🤣

The way those two keep doing this shit (in such a good way, may I add) is just absolutely and utterly hilarious.

This whole exchange gives me these vibes:

And Idk why, but this interaction came straight to mind as well when I saw this back and forth between them...

Take those two and combine them and then picture that in mind with this back and forth going on:

Oh, and do I mention that obviously they had access to Internet, enough to have this back and forth between them, while both in the same place, and JK preferring to flirt in our faces with JM rather than post himself about his wins, which I can assure you he knew of. You know how it is when you don't want to take away from your boyfriend's thunder...

Maybe we'll hear from him later on maybe not, but this was about JM, his win, his moment, his post, his excitement.

And JK CANNOT miss out on a little teasing-flirtatious banter with his man, now can he?

Let's back track for one moment, because I do want to talk about JM inserting JK into his post. I do believe this is going to be a new standard/constant/reality. You know, the "me and JK"/ "JK and I" or "me and JM"/"JM and I". That very natural way of inserting one another in their interactions/conversations with us. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a new thing what so ever. They have been doing this since forever. But I do think that it's going to become more of a constant and less of a "OMG, he mentioned JK/JM" moment for us. They have shown us for years, but more so over the past year, just how important they are to each other, but even more so, just how intertwined their lives are with one another. They literally could not even part ways to do their military service!! Choosing to spend those 18 months together, even if it meant having to endure much harsher conditions and a much more difficult service as a whole. All to be able to be together. With each other. What I'm saying is that I do think we will be getting so much more of "US" from those two.

Openly and proudly.

US.

One last thing, and again this is either Jikook coincidence or kismet or maybe not too much of a coincidence and more of a conscious decision, but JM's post yesterday, 23 Nov 2024, was posted on the year mark of Jikook leaving for their oh so very special and emotionally charged Japan trip, 23 Nov 2023.

💜💜💜

Coincidence or not, we got Jikook back then, and after radio silence from those two for such a long time, we got Jikook yesterday again!!!

#Jikook #Kookmin #Minkook #JunJi #Jungkook #jimin #JK #JM

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m-ilkiee · 18 days ago

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Game Over: Tetta Kisaki + Hanma Shuji

Pairing: Tetta Kisaki x Fem reader × Hanma Shuji

summary: you can run forever, but no one escapes their past or the consequences after.

warning(s): NSFW, dark content, smut, set in a Toman future, fem reader, dubcon/ noncon, character death, childhood bullying, kidnapping, depiction of cybercrime, human and sex trafficking, violence, drugging, power imbalance, threesome (mfm), finger sucking, fingering (f. receiving), oral (m. receiving), unprotected sex, spit roasting, over-stimulation, dumbification if you squint dacryphilia, use of ‘slut, whore good girl’, blackmail, misogyny

word count: 7.1k words

r-18+ not suitable for 17 and below. mdni

layla's notes: ik this isn't a monsters update but I have to post something this month at least. thanks for 500+ followers btw. lets keep the fire burning.

[masterlist] [taglist] [main page]

TOMAN had brought an era of bloodshed, violence, and change to gangs and you saw it happen before your very eyes as they grew even more heartless, greedy and bloodthirsty with every passing victory.

It wasn't enough to just take down gangs at some point, they had to run down anyone that came in their way of continuous success or had any connections with them at all in the past.

Including your brother, that was six feet under.

As you stand in front of your late brother's grave, you can't help but think about everything that led him there. Since your parents died in an accident, your older brother became the breadwinner, doing illegal things just to send you to school and spoil you. You were helpful in creating gambling schemes at a young age and later during the age of the internet, creating even more ways to swindle people out of their money. Being the much more tech-savvy and intelligent sibling, you helped him out in arranging and mapping out easy targets to scam without getting caught, while he was the brawn of the team, street smart enough to get people to fall for it.

Sure, you weren't happy being a thief, but as long as it helped you both from starving, you would manage until the two of you could get a more honest way of living eventually.

He was your world, your everything until Tetta Kisaki came into your life and turned it upside down forever.

He would stay out so late at night and during the first few weeks of his new lifestyle, you would wait for him by doing all your homework until he'd come home, bruised knuckles, a bloody shirt, and the scent of smoke and metal assaulting your nostrils. Your brother's once happy expressions soon turned grim and he rarely paid attention to you when he was around, so you figured that it was just better you caught some sleep before you had school in the morning instead of wasting your time on bothering your elder brother.

Then strangers would troop into your house and ask about his whereabouts; they were menacing, imposing their presence on you as if to intimidate you into cowering away fearfully. You shocked them by giving them a curt answer followed by slamming the door in their faces. You owed them no respect and you feared nobody, not even the top shots in the gang world. Until tragedy struck and Kisaki showed you that he meant business when he sent your brother's mutilated body to your doorstep.

Now, you can't hear "Toman" on the news without your eyes widening a fraction and your body hair standing at attention. Your heart raced whenever there is another news of a gang crisis, especially those closer to Kyoto, thinking that Toman would decide you were the next to die.

You shake your head in dismal as you walk into the street, flagging down a taxi. You've laid so low all these years ever since, hoping that living quietly and working as a waitress in a small resturant would be enough to get them off your back. You had moved into a quiet rundown apartment and unless for work or to visit your brother's grave, you don't go anywhere else.

If someone had told you that you were going to live in so much fear all these years ago, you would have laughed at them to scorn. But look at you now, a shadow of yourself, all because your brother fucked around with the wrong people.

You push back your anger at the back of your head when the taxi halts in front of you. There is nothing you could have done differently in the first place to change your fate anyways, you were doomed to live like this till you either left the country or died trying.

You open the car and enter it half-hazard without thinking. The engine hums, moving away from the graveyard and onto the rather desolated pathway that led to it while you rummage through your purse for some cash. You hoped that it would be enough to get some food after you return from the bus stop and you can save the rest for your relocation.

Once you move to another country and start a new life there, you can finally have a semblance of normalcy after all you have gone through.

"Where to?"

"The railway station " You said absentmindedly, counting the cash in your hand. He hums in response, turning on the AC to cool down the hot interior, to which you are silently thankful to him, and you put the cash in your purse, sitting upright and leaning on the window.

A smile rests on your lips as you look out and see the lush green trees lining the street; you always did love nature a lot and times when your father would take your family to the forest for camping trips were one of your fondest memories. Your mother would yell at you for doing tree climbing competitions with your brother, saying something about being too reckless with your life.

It's been a while since you recalled that memory.

It suddenly popped into your head now as your eyelids feel heavy and your vision blurs out. You don't like the way the trees are muddling with one another until it becomes nothing more than a green and brown mixture. You want to remember what happened after your mother yelled at you but your eyelids feel so heavy.

Your hands slipped from the tree and you remember falling straight to the floor with a loud shriek, like how you're falling into the dark abyss no matter how hard you tried to fight it. The only difference is, before you could open your mouth this time, your head hits the plush backseat with a dull thud.

'It's so dark'

IT didn't take much to realize you are blindfolded once you felt the soft cloth resting on your face.

You attempt to move your hands bound behind you, only to be greeted with a searing pain on your wrists, earning a hiss of pain from you.

You stop all movements when there is a loud 'clunk' on the door, followed by a creaking. A shiver goes through your body as the cold air assaults your scantily clothed skin, hairs standing as multiple footsteps echoes through the room. You could hear men talking loudly

"These are the people for the next sales Shuji-san. They were drugged as you requested."

'People?'

'Sales?'

'Shuji?'

You struggle to stay still despite your heart hammering against your rib cage hard. Your mind ran in circles while you thought of who else could bear that name other than the Reaper, the one person that made your blood run cold just with his presence. You were always his punching bag as a kid until your early teens because no matter how hard he hit, you would never faint like the other kids and he thought that was interesting. Your brother would only brush it off and tell you to hit him back if you really wanted your bully to stop.

You can never forget the feeling of his hand “punishment” on your face when you tried to defend yourself.

Whatever god could hear you, you prayed that whomever that man is, it shouldn't be Shuji Hanma.

"Good, because if I heard another bitch whining about how they want to go home, I would have put a bullet in their head."

Your blood ran cold on hearing the deep baritone reverberating in your eardrums. A sudden weakness overshadows your muscles and before you can control yourself, you feel something hot running down your legs, pooling around your body.

'No, no, no, no.'

Horror slowly set in the moment the two men turned their head, eyes raking from your shaking figure, to the liquid pouring down your legs to the floor below you until it ceases completely. The silence that follows is deafening, your mind is racing with last prayers and pleas of mercy are spilling out of your lips before you could stop yourself. Your screaming and begging for him not to shoot only gets louder with the rustling of clothes and the cocking of a gun probably aimed at you.

Maybe it was better to die this way. A quick shot to the head before Hanma can recognize you and prolong your death was much better.

"I thought you said you drugged all of them. So…"

It was obvious Hanma is pissed, you've spent enough time around him to know that his voice deepens a few octaves when he's really furious to the point he is out for blood.

This time, he is really going to kill you.

You hear stomping, the light splashes of something wet between your thighs and the imposing presence of a bloodthirsty man squatting over you. You can feel your body go into overdrive with terror once the cool metal meets with your forehead in a gentle kiss, tears rolling down your cheeks while he spoke;

"...why is this one still talking?"

Dread fills you when he adjusts the gun on your head, and you register in your head that the next thing that comes out of your lips is going to be your last. You don't comprehend when the words tumble out of your trembling lips until they are out of your lips.

"You're also going to kill me too, Hanma Shuji?"

You wait for Hanma to pull the trigger, but the click doesn't come. Instead, the cool metal of the gun barrel leaves your forehead and is replaced with deft fingers tracing lines on your face before grasping your chin in a vice-like grip, forcing your faces to be inches from each other.

Your heart rate has skyrocketed to the point of no return as you feel his intense gaze burning holes into your exposed skin. Your body violently shakes as you imagine what kinds of ways he would want to murder you.

"That whiny voice, I'll be damned…"

You flinch when the blindfold is snatched over your head. Your eyes slowly adjust to the dimly lit room that you found yourself in, now looking directly at the man squatting in front of you. It's the same black hair with golden streaks, now falling on his forehead instead of standing straight up.

He's wearing a pinstripe suit, something you never imagined him wearing in your wildest dreams, the glasses perched on his nose and encased his eyes would have given you the wrong impression that age mellowed him out, if his purple irises weren't so blown out of proportion in glee as soon as he recognizes you.

His laughter is mocking and loud, ringing in your ears and echoing around the room. Hanma lets go of your chin, letting your head hang in shame and fear, still barking loudly at your humiliating position. Tears sting your eyes again and they stream down your face, which seemed to amuse him even more.

The gun makes a harsh contact with your temple and your head twists to the side while you bite your lip to stifle the cry of pain threatening to escape your mouth. Your vision blurs out for a bit, before coming back and blood rivulets dribble from your head, down on your shoulders.

'Is he going to beat me to death?'

"So that hard head of yours still is useful after all?" He laughed at your pathetic state, tapping your face lightly with the gun, before hitting you across the face again, hard. The force made you bite your inner cheek and blood pooled in your mouth this time around, spilling from your lips. "You've always been such a good punching bag. Well, my favorite punching bag. I missed you so much. How are you coping after I killed that waste of space you called a brother?" He smirks, now grasping your bloodied face in his hand marked “sin.”

Now you remember why you hated Hanma the most out of all your brother's friends.

When you don’t answer him, Hanma clicks his tongue and violently pushes your head back to hit the wooden pole behind you with a loud thud, before getting up and signaling the man who had been standing across the room to come forward.

"This one is coming with me."

He adjusts his suit and tie, placing his gun in his suit pocket. "Get her cleaned, and send her to my house." Hanma turns around and smiles at you one more time, sending shivers down your spine. "She's a tough one, give a stronger dose." His smile becomes even more sinister and evil when he finishes his sentence. "And a little something else."

Before you can comprehend what he said, a sharp pain pricked your arm and you soon drift into darkness once again.

"I'm sure Kisaki is going to love seeing you again."

‘Fuck’

YOU wake up to find yourself in the interior of a completely unfamiliar moving limousine, clothed in nothing but a sheer lingerie that clung to your skin, bringing out your breasts and hugging your curves, coupled with being gagged and a collar attached onto your neck

You remember briefly waking up halfway in the middle of a huge bathtub, your entire body scrubbed raw by multiple people who now, you assume was Hanma's staff. In your hazy state, you could recall seeing him watching everything with careful eyes, and with him someone that awfully looked like an older Kisaki Tetta, who was rather surprised seeing you after all these years. Words like "bidding", "sales" and "customers" echoed around your head, before you drifted back into a dreamless sleep.

What had happened to you while you were out of it? How did you get here? And why did your body feel so hot and bothered, to the point the new underwear you had on was soaked?

Kisaki, who is sitting opposite you, is the first to notice you have woken up, eyebrows raised at you while Hanma is on the phone talking about something you cannot understand. He merely turns his head to make eye contact with you and smirks before he continues what he was talking about.

"You're awake." Kisaki voices out, now reaching out to touch your cheek, bringing you back to reality. You wince when his fingers brush against the bruised part of your cheeks, hidden by makeup, before he grabs your chin to further inspect your face. Every touch made your body react in some kind of way that got you extremely confused, to the point you're rubbing your thighs against each other to try and relieve yourself.

Sure Kisaki had gotten attractive over the years despite being the shit stain that had orchestrated your brother's murder, but you do not still think of him in any way that is sexual.

Right?

This is wrong; now is not the time or place for you to be this extremely horny or needy for sex and especially not with someone as vile as Kisaki or Hanma, who is clearly enjoying your suffering as he watches you grind against the plush leather seat from the corner of his eyes with a smug grin.

Not when your life it at stake.

"You shouldn't have hit her too hard," Kisaki scolds Hanma, still observing your bothered and flustered features, even though he is only doing it for the fact that he hated having to explain anything to anyone, not that he cared about you. "I don't like my goods damaged at all, not when I'm about to sell for a good price."

'They're going to sell me?'

"Mmhmh '' you muffle, shaking your head in disagreement. Kisaki raises a brow at you again, before momentarily pulling off the gag to hear what you are trying to say. You pant heavily, spit dripping down your chin like a wild dog before looking Kisaki eye to eye while begging him. "Don't sell me please! Do what you want with me, but please don't sell- mmhmphf."

"Much better." Kisaki mutters after putting the ball gag back in your mouth. "I always hated hearing the sound of your voice. There's never a time you weren’t whining like a bitch to anyone that would care to listen."

You hang your head in shame, tears pricking the corner of your eyes. Your head feels woozy at the thought of getting sold off to some random man in a club who would do god knows what with you. Your body still feels hot and needy from one of the numerous drugs that was forced into your mouth while you were fading in and out of consciousness, and you can't focus on anything without rutting your hips against the plush car seat or squirming around.

This isn't a situation you can run from anymore. No, this time, you're trapped and no one is coming to save you

KISAKI can't help the feeling of power coursing through his veins as he paraded you around the VIP section of one of Toman's biggest clubs with Hanma by his side, a leash around your neck and lingerie that only seemed to accentuate your curves.

This is all he's ever wanted; Power to make any and everyone who had blocked his path or stepped on his toes in any way to pay for it. You had been one of them, thwarting his plans to make your brother the leader of one of his side gangs to move his plans forward, which seemed to be what mellowed your elder brother down whenever Kisaki thought he had the idiot underneath his thumb.

You were such a thorn to Kisaki's side for so many reasons, from your wagging tongue to your body and those atrocious clothes when you were younger that only seemed to hug your body or reveal a bit too much when you're prancing around the house. Those hateful eyes of yours glaring at both him and Hanma whenever they came around.

Kisaki hated to admit that he fantasized about you sometimes when he pleasured himself in moments of weakness.

You were something forbidden, an unreachable, non-negotiable thing that Kisaki couldn't afford to get his hands on because he needed your brother on his side. The power you held over him made him feel weak and irritated, that of all people, you would sink your filthy claws underneath his skin and rile him up.

To see the once proud and haughty (name) being treated like a pet - his pet that he could get rid of at any time for a huge amount of money, had his cock slightly twitch in his pants.

"You know, we can keep her."

Kisaki turns his head to face his right hand man standing beside him, Hanma's greedy eyes flitting from the flesh of your ass to Kisaki's face before he continued his suggestion. "I've got another one, a girl, on standby in case you change your mind." He shrugged. "You know that (name), as much as she's a bitch, she can be of some use to us."

"Hanma," Kisaki begins in a cold voice, clearly tired of Hanma's persistence in keeping you, his eyes narrowing. "If it's a whore you want, you can call one from your con-"

"Kisaki, you know that's not what I'm talking about."

For the umpteenth time tonight, Kisaki Tetta goes completely silent. In his head, Kisaki regrets ever telling Hanma that you had actually gone to University, the last update when he could still track you, a dream you achieved because your brother was selling information from Toman to the police. You were always very good at technology and things that had to do with the internet, an area Kisaki himself lacked in and hated you for being better.

All these years he wasted time with your useless brother, when you were the real goldmine.

Kisaki notices that you are slowly giving into the aphrodisiacs after fighting it for so long, and the greedy eyes of all the important wealthy men that happened to come to this shady club are fixated on you. Anger begins to bubble in his chest when you begin to bat your lashes at one of the men to help you relieve your urges and without giving it a second thought, he yanks your leash as a warning, tightening the collar around your neck. You muffle in pain and stumble, before turning your head to look at him with apologetic eyes.

Hanma doesn't miss the way Kisaki tucks his free hand in his suit pocket to hide his boner.

"We both know that Toman needs someone modern, especially someone that would be most loyal to you. With the police now putting more tracking devices and bugs in our system, we need her to combat it. She already escaped being found the first time by removing her own information out of all systems." He continues, eyes now resting on your trembling figure, struggling to walk straight towards Kisaki's private room. "Unlike that idiot of a brother, (name) is intelligent. She knows what is really at stake."

Hanma leans in and says something only to Kisaki's hearing. "Say the word and I'll make (name) follow accordingly, like old times."

Why Shuji Hanma will always be useful to Kisaki is that he knows him like the back of his calloused hand.

Kisaki glances at you once more, contemplating on Hanma's suggestion. Your market value working for Toman is worth more than whatever those old perverts could pay him, supposing you would be good and do as he says. Under his supervision, Kisaki can hold more power beneath his thumb with your help, that much he knows.

"Like old times."

YOUR knees hit the plush rug the moment Kisaki pushed you inside one of the executive club rooms. From the corner of your hazy vision, you can see the blonde haired man walking past you and sitting on the king sized bed right in front of you, his legs on either side of you in a manspread. The door behind you clicks shut and you hear heavy footsteps walking towards your direction before stopping behind you.

"Look at me." Kisaki commands.

You hesitate to follow his command, still trying to control your breathing after being tossed around and choked by that damn collar still on your neck. Hanma is quick to correct you by wrapping his hand on the leash and yanking it back, forcing your head upwards to face Kisaki. Your strangled cries of pain come out muffled to the amusement of Hanma, who doesn't let up with his grip on your throat until Kisaki signals him to ease up a little. Your head falls a little, but it is high enough for Kisaki to look you in the eye and drive home his point.

"You're still as stubborn as I remember," Kisaki scoffs, his hand placed on his chin, amber eyes gazing down at your tear stained face and trailing down to your lipstick smudged with spit from being gagged for so long. "you’re lucky you’re hot." He cradles your face contorted in discomfort with one of his large well-manicured hands and goes ahead to stroke your cheek with it.

It's the most gentle way Kisaki will treat you tonight.

At this point, you don't care what Kisaki would do, not when your body can't handle the pain of being so bothered and your mind is clouded by so much lust, you aren't thinking straight. It pains you to know you are susceptible to whatever he places on the table and you cannot control the narrative this time around.

You shiver when his hand unclasps the ball gag from behind your head, pulling it out of your mouth and throwing it aside. You do not break eye contact with him when he puts two fingers in your mouth and tells you to "suck"

A warning tug on your leash from Hanma is enough to make you obey Kisaki's order without hesitation. You swirl your tongue around his fingers, bobbing your head up and down the digits with blown out eyes as the tip of his expensive shoe nudges your clit lightly.

Electricity shoots through your veins from your lower region and you quickly place your cunt above his shoe, lowering your thighs to rest your clit above the shoe just to get that rush again. Kisaki's breath hitches on seeing your dangerous, lustful gaze.

The sight of you being needy to cum has his dick hardening by the minutes, pre leaking from the tip at such a dirty scene.

Hanma is no better, he's impossibly hard from watching your ass move and jiggle when you grind Kisaki's shoes and if he isn't careful, he might actually get off from this.

It's humiliating, the way he has you desperately humping his shoe to get off while sucking off his fingers and yet, you can't stop yourself.

Kisaki pulls his fingers out of your lips and trails them down between the valley of your chest where the lingerie is tied in the middle and with the flick of his wrist the front opens, exposing your bare chest to him. Hanma kneels beside you, not letting go of your leash and leans in to meet your trembling lips in a hot kiss, his tongue invading your mouth and playing with yours. Kisaki's hand finds your breasts and gives a light squeeze with his calloused thumb grazing against the nipple, earning a muffled moan from your lips to Hanma's.

"Aren't you obedient?" Hanma mocks the moment he pulls away and stands upright, loosening the collar on your neck. You bite back any insult that crosses your mind when he adjusts his suit and heads off to the door. "Kisaki, I'll handle the auction tonight, my phone is buzzing with those greedy old farts calling me," Hanma says to his friend, before turning to look at you condescendingly, his lips in a crooked smile when he opens the door and nods at you. "I'll be back as soon as possible."

You do not get to think much about what Hanma said the moment the door clicked shut because your back collides with the plush rug on the floor and Kisaki attacks you with harsh kisses from your jaw to your neckline. His teeth dig in between your neck and your jaw, earning a soft gasp from you that soon turns into moans of "more Kisaki" when his lips suckle on the bites. You take advantage of his thigh between your legs and you drag your wet cunt over it with nothing but the need to cum.

His hands are greedy and impatient when they find your breasts again, capturing them in his two large hands and letting his thumb roll around the hardened nipples as he fondles them. "Desperate whore. Humping my leg like the damn dog you are."

Every word leaving his lips to your ears is like fire on your skin, only riling you up while you grinded his thigh to get off. Your moans are music to his ears, begging him just to help you out with this burning sensation in between your legs, even if it's just a little.

"All the times you'd wear those -fuck," He presses a wet kiss onto your lips and the taste of the cherry lipgloss he picked for you had him weak in the knees. "-those revealing clothes like a trainee whore whenever we came over to see that bastard you called a brother," He huffs, pulling himself off your body before kneeling in front of your legs. He grips your ankles hard, nails digging into your flesh. "with that stupid attitude of yours, it always set me off."

You gasp when Kisaki pries your thighs open further without putting much effort. You've always thought that there was no ounce of strength in Kisaki's body, since he was nothing but a coward that made everybody do all his dirty work for him while he remained uninvolved and unscathed. Seeing Kisaki inspect your clothed soaked pussy while holding your legs apart by your ankles was clearly a rude awakening.

Kisaki really holds the power here and all you could do is moan like a bitch in heat if he as much as blows air on your cunt.

"Pathetic," your legs tremble at the sound of his scathing voice as he positions himself in between your legs. Your eyes widen a fraction on seeing his cock straining against his slacks, the size clearly shocking and scaring you a bit.

"A little pill got you this wet for me," He pushes your legs nearer to your chest, making you even more uncomfortable with the position he's trying to put you in. "I guess I was always right about you being a slut all along."

You move your mouth to protest when the door flies open and slams shut behind Hanma. "I got Akuun to handle it- woah," his eyes flicker to your folded figure, a sick smile creeping on his darkened pink lips. "didn't know you're that flexible, good grief." He commented, falling on his knees beside your head. Hanma grabs your calves to maintain your position and Kisaki releases your ankles before grabbing the crotch of the lingerie.

"I'm not!" You whimper softly, turning your head away from Kisaki's focused gaze to hide your embarrassed face. A loud "rip" of the material courtesy of Kisaki tearing it off, followed by Hanma pushing your legs to your chest, exposing your wet pussy for the two men to see only seemed to further your humiliation and your need to be fucked.

Now.

"You will be soon." Kisaki mutters to your hearing, his long fingers parting your folds a bit before sliding his ring and middle finger inside your sopping folds. You thrash around at the foreign intrusion, cries of "wait…wait…wait…" escaping your lips while Hamna holds you down by your calves. "Shh shh, you can take it." Hanma coos at your teary expression, now clamping down on your calves hard and folding you into two.

The initial pain of his intrusion slowly gives way to pleasure as he works your pussy open, fingers curling against your spot. Kisaki uses his thumb to play around with your clit, his fingers moving simultaneously with every thrust and rub. Your breathing becomes heavier, eyes rolling back to your head as Kisaki inches closer to your g-spot.

"Deeper." You moan, your back arching slightly. "Go deeper Kisaki, please." You beg and Kisaki complies, adding a third finger into your pussy and curling them into a specific spot that has your back arch perfectly. "Yes, yes, more, more." You cry out, body trembling with every thrust that touches your g-spot. Kisaki can't get enough of finger fucking you or rubbing your pulsing clit wuth his thumb; the sight of you writhing underneath him, begging him to keep going had him hooked.

"What a fucking whore." Hanma curses underneath his breath, his grip on your thighs tightening as he struggles to control himself and his aching cock. "You gonna cum on his fingers like a slut?" He taunts, spreading your legs wider for him.

"Yes, oh yes-" you sob out, tears are practically rolling down your cheeks once you reach your high. "I can't … I need to cum, need to…"

Your pitch is high and your pussy flutters around Kisaki's fingers when you finally cum. It feels hot and for a moment, you can only see white before your vision returns to normal when you come down. A "thank you" escapes your lips, accompanied with a sigh, your shoulders heaving as you catch your breath.

Kisaki's fingers are slick with your essence, entranced by the sticky substance that coats his fingers when he pulls out of your cunt and he taps your lips with them once again. "Taste yourself." He commands. You gratefully lick up his fingers and engulf them in your mouth, suckling with a satisfied "mmh" from your lips.

"Good girl." Shuji murmurs, watching Kisaki pull out his fingers from your mouth with a loud 'pop' sound. Was this all it took to make you pliant? Getting you on your back and finger fucking you? Making you cum?

Was it really that easy?

His aching cock brought him back to reality. Whether you're pliant or not wasn't what mattered now; he just needs to blow his load anywhere in or on you.

One minute, your legs are against your chest in a mating press and the next minute, you feel Kisaki and Hanma flipping you on your hands and knees, bare cunt facing Kisaki and your face buried into Hanma's slacks. Simultaneously, you can hear belts hitting the floor and zippers going down. Hanma's cock, pale, veiny and long with an angry purple tip hits your lips lightly, as if telling you what he's thinking. You can feel Kisaki's heavy cock leaking with pre resting your inner thigh, teasing your sensitive clit.

Was this really happening? Two of them at once?

"What's the matter (name)," Hanma asks with faux sympathy, stroking his cock with his large palm. He can see the panic in your eyes as the situation dawned on you. "you're a big girl, you can take it right?" His eyes narrowed at you while using his tip to slap your lips lightly. At the same time, you can feel Kisaki line his cock against your entrance with one hand and gripping the flesh of your ass with the other. "You can take us, right?"

You want to say no, but you know it won't matter to them.

"Doesn't matter," Kisaki's voice is cruel as he pushes the tip of his cockhead against your ring of muscles. You choke out a sob from being stretched out after a long while of not having sex, begging for Kisaki to stop while he sheaths himself inside your wet walls. "You will take us, even if I have to teach you how."

You gasp the moment Kisaki sheaths inside your cunt fully and Hanma takes this as an opportunity to slip his cock into your waiting mouth, hitting your gag reflex intentionally. You can barely breathe, or think or move with all the excruciating pain of being split open and taking such a huge cock in your throat. It's too much, even as the pain is giving way to pleasure, you are not sure if you can handle what will come next.

Kisaki is the first to move, drawing out his dick completely, before slamming back into your cunt, emanating muffled moans from you. Hanma is just as unforgiving, from shallow thrusts to pressing your head against his hairy pelvis whilst fucking your throat hard.

The noises from the room are nothing short of sinful. The slapping of skin against skin as Kisaki picks up his pace. He's horny and he wants to devour you over and over again as he pounds into your wet carevan, hands digging into your ass with every thrust and squelch. "You like that?" He mocks you, breathing getting louder as he hits it from the back. "You like how we fuck you like a slut?"

You want to shake your head no, but Shuji's pacing is beyond human. He's face fucking you with a certain precision, your breathy moans from Kisaki abusing your g-spot sending vibrations down his cock with every thrust. "She loves it… She loves being bullied by two cocks like the whore that she is." Hanma grunts, rocking himself back and forth in your mouth. "You're gagging way too much, relax that throat or you'll choke to death sweetheart. Breathe through your nose."

You follow his instruction, trying to relax a little and breathe through your nostrils. "That's it, good girl."

You need to at least survive this night.

Kisaki's left hand circles around your waist until his fingers are in contact with your clit again. You feel your legs quiver in anticipation the moment he brushes a thumb over it, before rubbing tight circles against it. You moan, eyes rolling back as your senses go into overdrive.

"Shit, all these vibrations are gonna make me-" Hanma is the first to cum; hips stuttering as he pumps himself into your mouth, head thrown back, cock twitching and a loud "fuck, fuck, fuck". The hot salty semen pours down your throat soon after as he fucks himself through his high until he is spent, dragging out his flaccid cock from your lips.

Post bliss Hanma leans back on the bed, patting your head somewhat affectionately while he gathers his senses and tucks his cock back. Your relief is short-lived when you feel Kisaki thrust deeper than before, knocking the air out of you. Hanma finds pleasure in seeing you fucked out, unable to form coherent sentences while Kisaki bottoms out into you. "You look so pretty like this babe, keep it up." Hanma coos at you, running his thumb over your lips.

You've never felt so much intense pleasure, your toes are curling with the angle Kisaki is fucking you, his fingers playing with the sensitive bundles. The way Hanma is staring at you, whispering all those dirty words to your hearing, everything is too much for you.

"I'm gonna- Kisaki pull ou-"

Your legs tremble yet again and Kisaki lets you ride your high on his cock. "That's it, let go, let it all go," his voice shakes and his hips stutter, chasing his own high. Your breathy moans and his heavy pants bounce through the room as you two cum together until you're both well spent.

Heavy breathing echoed through the room as both you and Kisaki tried to catch your breaths. The aphrodisiacs in your systems has worn off from you and you collapse on the floor weakly the moment Kisaki pulls out from your cunt. You feel him eyeing the cum leaking down your cunt to your thighs and staining the carpet while adjusting his pants and belt.

Post nut clarity hit you hard, you had just been fucked senseless by the two people you despised the most. You feel humiliated that Kisaki and Hanma of all people have reduced you into a cum dump.

The two people who killed your brother.

"Can you stand?" Hanma knows you can't, not with the way your body lays helpless on the floor, but it's just like him to ask after ruining you. When you don't give an answer, he kneels beside you and pulls you up by your arm, slinging you over his shoulders.

He looks at Kisaki, who is standing over the telephone and speaking to room service. "I'm going to get this one cleaned up and possibly back to her senses again." Hanma states and Kisaki nods in approval. "I'll talk to her, give me a minute to call Manjiro." He replies, putting down the landline.

The next thirty minutes blurs out. Hanma puts you on the toilet and tells you to urinate while he sets the bathtub and you numbly comply. When he is sure it's ready, he picks you up from the toilet seat into his arms and lowers you into the bathtub gently. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone." Hanma advises, his purple eyes flickering to your spaced out eyes. "Not that you can do shit in this state."

The door shuts and you are left alone for the first time throughout today. You overhear voices talking in hushed tones about you in the other room and you decide to tune out whatever they had to say.

Not even death could be worse than what had just happened to you now.

Hot tears pour down your cheeks unconsciously and you don't bother to wipe them off, even when the door opens again. Kisaki and Hanma walk into the bathroom again and you sink into the bath water further to hide your shame, hanging your head low.

Kisaki stands beside the bathtub and makes eye contact with you, an odd glint in his eyes. It's satisfying to see you broken and lonely, with no one else to depend on but him alone. "I hear you're good with technology. So good, you wiped your name out of every record, like you never existed. It was hard to look for you, you know." He is nonchalant and it irks you, but you say nothing. "You should know where I'm going with this. Not like you can run away from me ever again."

Your tone is bitter, but controlled and soft. "You want me to work for you. After what you just did to me."

"Manjiro wanted you dead but I put in a good word for you. Be grateful."

You scoff at him, hugging your knees to your chest in the bathtub. "Maybe you should listen to your leader."

Kisaki narrows his eyes at you and before you could apologize, Hanma's palm connected with your face. Your head snaps to the side and you cry out, grimacing in pain as your hand flies to your hurt face. Kisaki leans in again, now eye to eye with your teary, fearful eyes. His voice is cold and leaves no room to even argue with him anymore.

"I can kill you, or I can let you go and post that video of you whoring yourself out to me with only your face showing." Your face drops in horror when you realize he recorded you. smirking. "No one will ever give you a job. Not here, not outside Japan. Nowhere. No one wants a whore in their IT department. So you're going to be useful and buy my silence by throwing off the police from Toman's trail."

Hatred burned in your guts. Hatred for yourself, cowering in fear that Hanma would hit you again if you don't comply. Hatred for Hanma Shuji who tormented your life and brought you to Kisaki. Hatred for Kisaki Tetta who is the reason for your brother's death and who used your body as a cum dump.

Hatred at your own weakness and fear of death, that you could never win against Kisaki no matter how smart or how much effort you put in telling your brother the truth. Hatred at your own carelessness for not checking the taxi you entered this morning.

Hatred for your dead brother that put you in such a bad place.

"You work for Kisaki, bitch. Understand?"

With fresh tears, you give a quiet nod of approval.

"That's a good girl."

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headspace-hotel · 2 years ago

Text

so many of us haven't seen it

we don't encounter it, we can't imagine it, we can't get out of the tomb of apathy because we haven't seen the wonders just beyond their line of sight

I talk about this all the time, but it's because I think about it all the time

There are likely thousands of plants native to the area you live in, and chances are you have never even seen most of them, in your entire life.

Not even rare orchids that only bloom at midnight on a blood moon or some shit—regular flowers. Weeds. They have been systematically eliminated from every single place you ever set foot in, and you have to have a special hobby or line of work to ever even rest your eyes upon the flowers that used to bloom for no one on every hill, or in every valley, or beside every stream

There are a few hundred birds that live where I live. I have never seen most of them before. I have never seen a Kentucky Warbler, and I have lived in Kentucky for what...twenty years?

I have never seen a rosy maple moth. When I saw one on the internet, I didn't even think it was real.

I've become a deeply weird person over the past couple years. Tasting even a little bit of the Wonders changes you. I wouldn't have thought blue bees were real, or the fantastically rainbow-colored dogbane beetles.

I have seen the world beyond the wasteland, and that glimpse makes you crazy.

You or I may have never seen a truly mature tree. A fraction of a percent of the old growth forest of the Eastern USA remains. Once there were tulip poplars over 6 feet in diameter and sycamores well over 10 feet in diameter. Only a few remain, in secret locations. Imagine walking through a forest where the tree trunks are over 3-4 feet wide.

The forest where I work is 100 years old. That's a baby forest.

Knowing that, being aware of that, it's maddening.

Central Kentucky has disproportionately few endemic plants. Almost none. Central Kentucky was the first area west of the Appalachians settled by European colonizers. The Bluegrass was once described as having the most peculiar plant life anywhere in the East, but now, there are no species known that are unique to that area.

Colonization destroyed the canebrakes. (Did you know that we had vast forests of bamboo full of carnivorous plants?) The bamboo is barely hanging on. It destroyed the sycamores so enormous you could use the hollow center of one as a stable for animals. It introduced invasive grasses to feed cattle and horses. It destroyed the rich lush topsoil. Most of the ancient oaks were cut down or died when housing developments were built on top of their roots.

What happened to the endemic species, never recorded in books of herbs, never sketched by a European naturalist.

Either gone forever...or hiding in a sinkhole on a backroad somewhere, not even yet discovered.

So much has been lost for eternity. So much still could be lost.

Some days it's hard not to wail and scream. There are herbicides in your drinking water. When you spread honey on toast, you likely also spread neonicotinoid pesticides, which testing has confirmed to be present in something like 45% of honey. In many areas, insects are immersed in the presence of chemicals designed to kill them in every drop of water, every leaf, every square inch of soil.

When games, animations, and illustrations envision the outdoors, they cover the ground with a short, uniform carpet of green, because that is what we see, no matter where we go: turfgrass cut by a lawn mower. Where I live, there are no natural environments that resemble this, remotely. The closest thing we have to turf-forming grass is our wealth of native sedges, most of which are rare or endangered.

I talked to a man who had devoted his life to studying the American bamboo, Arundinaria gigantea, and he had never seen a canebrake larger than 200x500 feet. Canebrakes once covered ten million acres, and now the bamboo exists in short, straggly clumps instead of dense bamboo forests up to 40 feet tall.

I want to cry and scream. The grief will tear me to pieces. I live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, surrounded by people who can't even grieve, because they have been so completely severed from everything that was lost that they don't even know it was real.

It hurts. It hurts, and we have to live with it. It hurts, and the grief is all-consuming.

There is the agony, and there are the Wonders. Both are true at the same time. It is because nothing around us is standing still; everything in nature is always moving, iterating, becoming. Something is pulling and nudging at our species, urging us to move, to iterate, to become.

So much has been lost. Even more is not lost.

The trees, the bamboo, the sedges, the Kentucky warblers and rosy maple moths.

They are not lost. We are lost.

This is the hard part. The grief is hard, but this is somehow harder for us. We are lost, and it is time to come home.

Not to a physical place, but to a way of living: interconnected, mutualistic, interdependent. Symbiosis. In the forest, no one is separate from anyone else, everyone is linked and dependent on the community. Trees help each other, they support each other, they protect and shelter and feed one another and all living things, and together they are a forest. I don't really consider myself religious, but I have to reserve something in my head for how it felt to realize what Forest was.

When I noticed the little plants popping up in the sidewalk cracks and gravel paths, the tough weeds holding on in the lawns and pavement, something in my brain began to change dramatically and permanently.

They're still here. The trees. Even in the pavement and lawns. The dandelions have come, adapting rapidly, helping the bees hold on. The wildflower seeds are still sprouting in this depleted ground. Waiting for us to recognize them. Life is everywhere. The Forest is everywhere. It felt like they were waiting. We're here. We have not abandoned you. We are resilience, persistence, survival, adaptation. This is not death. This is Chaos. Come home. Come home. Come home.

I saved little plants from the roadside and tended them in plastic cups. I didn't think it would work. I don't know why I tried. I was acting as something bigger than only myself, responding to a call that moves throughout all of nature. But they survived, and growing and tending to my little plants and trees, I—understood.

I don't know if I believe in God, but I believe in Something, whatever it was that seemed to whisper like a secret: Welcome home, Caretaker.

And honestly, truth shone through then from relics of religion I hadn't touched in ages; God put Adam in a garden, not a suburb, a mall, or a Walmart. This is who you are. Not a Consumer, but a Caretaker.

And when the threat of the Flood loomed, God told Noah to start building a fucking boat.

In ecology, the plants we know as "weeds" are pioneer species: the first species to return to an area after a natural disaster or mass extinction. They survive in the harshest conditions, and prepare the land for regeneration. This is who you must become.

Look to the Dandelion—in just a few hundred years on this continent, Dandelion has risen to the highest calling of a Weed: first survive where the others can't, and then help the others survive. If the human species is to survive, you must be a weed species. You must adapt relentlessly, resist eradication, and protect and nurture other life forms by your very nature. You must be tough as nails, and make the world a gentler place through your survival.

Have you heard the saying that grief is love with no place to go?

That's the hard part.

We must grieve, but it is not yet time to grieve. It is time to love.

#plants #native plant gardening #weeds #we are a weed species #gardening #wonders of the world #nature

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amirasainz · 7 months ago

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hey! do you think you could write something where charles starts dating baby sainz after alex, and for a change she really doesn’t like baby sainz, or even a random oc ex gf of charlie and he gets annoyed whenever anyone says anything bad about baby sainz, and just wants her to himself? Thank you! ❤️

Ok so first things first. This is just a fic and not supposed to be hate towards Alexandra.

Now please enjoy reading and don't hesitate to send requests.

-XoXo

The better Girlfriend

The breakup between Charles Leclerc and Alexandra Saint Mleux was far from friendly. Their relationship had been plagued by cheating rumors, and the truth eventually came to light. Alexandra, a 21-year-old art history student, had kissed another guy during a girls’ night out. When this news reached Charles, their relationship came to an end

But Alexandra’s behavior during their relationship had already caused friction. She openly expressed disdain for Charles’s job in Formula 1, even going so far as to claim it wasn’t a real sport on live TV. Her rudeness toward fans and unreasonable demands put her in an unfavorable light. Charles endured his worst F1 season while they were together, and the media and fans didn’t hesitate to express their disapproval of her.

When Charles finally broke up with Alexandra, he received overwhelming support from the F1 paddock. His fellow drivers rallied around him during this difficult time:

Lando played games with him to keep his spirits up.

Pierre offered a sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

Max made sure Charles ate proper meals.

Carlos helped him navigate the PR drama.

And his “Grid Dads”—Sebastian, Lewis and Fernando offered invaluable advice.

In the midst of the drama, Charles found solace in the camaraderie of his fellow racers, proving that the racing world extends beyond the track and into the bonds of friendship and support

But there was one person, that helped him the most. Amira Sainz, the unsung hero in Charles’s life. While others lent their support, it was Amira who stood by him, often without uttering a single word. During Charles’s tumultuous relationship with Alexandra, Amira remained an enigma—a girl he wasn’t allowed to befriend due to Alexandra��s jealousy. But now, free from those constraints, their paths converged.

From strangers to friends, and then lovers—their connection felt destined. The media dubbed them the “it-couple,” and fans followed their story with respectful fascination. Initially, Carlos wasn’t thrilled, but time softened his heart. With Amira, Charles discovered a happiness he’d never known before—a beautiful girl who became his world.

And Charles reciprocated her love in every possible way. Each morning, breakfast in bed; after races, flowers to brighten her day. He listened to her fears and troubles, making her feel cherished and protected. But Amira wasn’t just a passive recipient; she left post-it notes in his luggage, their apartment, and even his car. She comforted him after bad races, helping him navigate his emotions. Together, they shared a dog—a symbol of their bond.

Their love wasn’t hidden; they proudly displayed it online. Fans embraced them as the “it-couple,” and Charles and Amira reveled in their shared journey. In a world of engines and speed, their love story unfolded.

Alexandra, Charles Leclerc’s ex girlfriend, stumbled upon one of their date posts. What she saw ignited a fire within her—a seething rage that drove her to spend the next five hours stalking the couple and dissecting their relationship. But Alexandra’s fury didn’t stop there; oh no, she took it a step further. In a desperate attempt to reclaim her own narrative, she created not one, not two, but seventeen fake “Alexandra and Charles forever” accounts on Instagram.

The internet, however, is a merciless place. Within minutes, eagle-eyed users ridiculed her fabricated accounts, exposing the charade for what it was. Alexandra’s attempt to rewrite history crumbled under the weight of public scrutiny. Perhaps it was a desperate cry for attention or a futile bid to regain control, but either way, the digital world had spoken: “Fake news!”

And so, as the engines cooled down and the F1 tracks took a breather during the summer break, Alexandra found herself caught in a whirlwind of her own making. Meanwhile, Charles and his new love interest, Amira Sainz, continued their blissful journey, oblivious to the storm brewing behind the screens

The pitlane buzzed with anticipation as Alexandra, fueled by anger and resentment, strode toward the Ferrari garage. Her eyes blazed with determination, and the photographers snapped away, capturing her every move. Lando and Max exchanged shocked glances—what was she doing here?

The Ferrari team, despite Carlos impending departure, held a special place in their hearts for the Sainz siblings. Their camaraderie and dedication had left an indelible mark. But now, Alexandra—the wicked witch, as some whispered—had infiltrated their sanctuary.

As she stepped into the garage, the once-happy atmosphere vanished. The air crackled with tension. Alexandra’s gaze swept over the familiar red cars, the tools, the mechanics—all part of the world that had embraced Charles and Amira. She clenched her fists, vowing to tear apart the relationship that had blossomed in this very space.

If it was the last thing she ever did.

And so, the pitlane witnessed a battle of emotions—a collision of love and hate, fueled by jealousy and wounded pride. The engines roared, but the real drama unfolded in the hearts of those who watched.

She looked around at the quiet garage and immediately spottet Charles and his plaything. The tensions were high as she strutted towards them. "Charles" she tried to say in a seductive voice. When she went to hug him and kiss his cheek, he stepped away. "Alexandra, what are you doing here?" he questioned sternly. "What? Can't I see my favorite athlete" she harshly asked. "Does the stupid bitch not allow you to talk to other women?" She turned to Amira. "No wonder she doesn't, I mean look at her. I truly don't see what you see in her. She dresses like a slut. I'm sure she also sucks your dick like one and-"

“Enough!” Charles’s voice boomed, cutting through the tension. “Don’t you DARE disrespect my girlfriend. You destroyed our relationship. You used me.”He stepped closer to her, eyes blazing with anger. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll never step a foot in the paddock.” With that, he turned away, leaving Alexandra standing humiliated in the middle of the room.

The air crackled with the aftermath of his words—a collision of emotions, hurt, and the finality of a chapter closing.

#formula 1 #baby!sainz!sister #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x alexandra saint mleux x reader #carlos sainz x sister!reader #formula 1 x reader #no hate

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

Text

You were promised a jetpack by liars

TONIGHT (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

As a science fiction writer, I find it weird that some sf tropes – like space colonization – have become culture-war touchstones. You know, that whole "we were promised jetpacks" thing.

I confess, I never looked too hard at the practicalities of jetpacks, because they are so obviously either used as a visual shorthand (as in the Jetsons) or as a metaphor. Even a brief moment's serious consideration should make it clear why we wouldn't want the distracted, stoned, drunk, suicidal, homicidal maniacs who pilot their two-ton killbots through our residential streets at 75mph to be flying over our heads with a reservoir of high explosives strapped to their backs.

Jetpacks can make for interesting sf eyeball kicks or literary symbols, but I don't actually want to live in a world of jetpacks. I just want to read about them, and, of course, write about them:

https://reactormag.com/chicken-little/

I had blithely assumed that this was the principle reason we never got the jetpacks we were "promised." I mean, there kind of was a promise, right? I grew up seeing videos of rocketeers flying their jetpacks high above the heads of amazed crowds, at World's Fairs and Disneyland and big public spectacles. There was that scene in Thunderball where James Bond (the canonical Connery Bond, no less) makes an escape by jetpack. There was even a Gilligan's Island episode where the castaways find a jetpack and scheme to fly it all the way back to Hawai'i:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0588084/

Clearly, jetpacks were possible, but they didn't make any sense, so we decided not to use them, right?

Well, I was wrong. In a terrific new 99 Percent Invisible episode, Chris Berube tracks the history of all those jetpacks we saw on TV for decades, and reveals that they were all the same jetpack, flown by just one guy, who risked his life every time he went up in it:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rocket-man/

The jetpack in question – technically a "rocket belt" – was built in the 1960s by Wendell Moore at the Bell Aircraft Corporation, with funding from the DoD. The Bell rocket belt used concentrated hydrogen peroxide as fuel, which burned at temperatures in excess of 1,000'. The rocket belt had a maximum flight time of just 21 seconds.

It was these limitations that disqualified the rocket belt from being used by anyone except stunt pilots with extremely high tolerances for danger. Any tactical advantage conferred on infantrymen by the power to soar over a battlefield for a whopping 21 seconds was totally obliterated by the fact that this infantryman would be encumbered by an extremely heavy, unwieldy and extremely explosive backpack, to say nothing of the high likelihood that rocketeers would plummet out of the sky after failing to track the split-second capacity of a jetpack.

And of course, the rocket belt wasn't going to be a civilian commuting option. If your commute can be accomplished in just 21 seconds of flight time, you should probably just walk, rather than strapping an inferno to your back and risking a lethal fall if you exceed a margin of error measured in just seconds.

Once you know about the jetpack's technical limitations, it's obvious why we never got jetpacks. So why did we expect them? Because we were promised them, and the promise was a lie.

Moore was a consummate showman, which is to say, a bullshitter. He was forever telling the press that his jetpacks would be on everyone's back in one to two years, and he got an impressionable young man, Bill Suitor, to stage showy public demonstrations of the rocket belt. If you ever saw a video of a brave rocketeer piloting a jetpack, it was almost certainly Suitor. Suitor was Connery's stunt-double in Thunderball, and it was he who flew the rocket belt around Sleeping Beauty castle.

Suitor's interview with Berube for the podcast is delightful. Suitor is a hilarious, profane old airman who led an extraordinary life and tells stories with expert timing, busting out great phrases like "a surprise is a fart with a lump in it."

But what's most striking about the tale of the Bell rocket belt is the shape of the deception that Moore and Bell pulled off. By conspicuously failing to mention the rocket belt's limitations, and by callously risking Suitor's life over and over again, they were able to create the impression that jetpacks were everywhere, and that they were trembling on the verge of widespread, popular adoption.

What's more, they played a double game: all the public enthusiasm they manufactured with their carefully stage-managed, canned demos was designed to help them win more defense contracts to keep their dream alive. Ultimately, Uncle Sucker declined to continue funding their boondoggle, and the demos petered out, and the "promise" of a jetpack was broken.

As I listened to the 99 Percent Invisible episode, I was struck by the familiarity of this shuck: this is exactly what the self-driving car bros did over the past decade to convince us all that the human driver was already obsolete. The playbook was nearly identical, right down to the shameless huckster insisting that "full self-driving is one to two years away" every year for a decade:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/23/23837598/tesla-elon-musk-self-driving-false-promises-land-of-the-giants

The Potemkin rocket belt was a calculated misdirection, as are the "full self-driving" demos that turn out to be routine, pre-programmed runs on carefully manicured closed tracks:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-autopilot-staged-engineer-says-company-faked-full-autopilot/

Practical rocketeering wasn't ever "just around the corner," because a flying, 21 second blast-furnace couldn't be refined into a practical transport. Making the tank bigger would not make this thing safer or easier to transport.

The jetpack showman hoped to cash out by tricking Uncle Sucker into handing him a fat military contract. Robo-car scammers used their conjurer's tricks to cash out to the public markets, taking Uber public on the promise of robo-taxis, even as Uber's self-driving program burned through $2.5b and produced a car with a half-mile mean time between fatal collisions, which the company had to pay someone else $400m to take the business off their hands:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

It's not just self-driving cars. Time and again, the incredibly impressive AI demos that the press credulously promotes turn out to be scams. The dancing robot on stage at the splashy event is literally a guy in a robot-suit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-ai-day-tesla-bot-is-just-a-guy-in-a-bodysuit-2021-8

The Hollywood-killing, AI-produced video prompting system is so cumbersome to use, and so severely limited, that it's arguably worse than useless:

https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/

The centuries' worth of progress the AI made in discovering new materials actually "discovered" a bunch of trivial variations on existing materials, as well as a huge swathe of materials that only exist at absolute zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

The AI grocery store where you just pick things up and put them in your shopping basket without using the checkout turns out to be a call-center full of low-waged Indian workers desperately squinting at videos of you, trying to figure out what you put in your bag:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

The discovery of these frauds somehow never precipitates disillusionment. Rather than getting angry with marketers for tricking them, reporters are ventriloquized into repeating the marketing claim that these aren't lies, they're premature truths. Sure, today these are faked, but once the product is refined, the fakery will no longer be required.

This must be the kinds of Magic Underpants Gnomery the credulous press engaged in during the jetpack days: "Sure, a 21-second rocket belt is totally useless for anything except wowing county fair yokels – but once they figure out how to fit an order of magnitude more high-explosive onto that guy's back, this thing will really take off!"

The AI version of this is that if we just keep throwing orders of magnitude more training data and compute at the stochastic parrot, it will eventually come to life and become our superintelligent, omnipotent techno-genie. In other words, if we just keep breeding these horses to run faster and faster, eventually one of our prize mares will give birth to a locomotive:

https://locusmag.com/2020/07/cory-doctorow-full-employment/

As a society, we have vested an alarming amount of power in the hands of tech billionaires who profess to be embittered science fiction fans who merely want to realize the "promises" of our Golden Age stfnal dreams. These bros insist that they can overcome both the technical hurdles and the absolutely insurmountable privation involved in space colonization:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

They have somehow mistaken Neal Stephenson's dystopian satirical "metaverse" for a roadmap:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/18/metaverse-means-pivot-to-video/

As Charlie Stross writes, it's not just that these weirdos can't tell the difference between imaginative parables about the future and predictions about the future – it's also that they keep mistaking dystopias for business plans:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tech-billionaires-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-the-science-fiction-they-grew-up-on-real/

Cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion. Please, I beg you, stop building the fucking torment nexus:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus

These techno-billionaires profess to be fulfilling a broken promise, but surely they know that the promises were made by liars – showmen using parlor tricks to sell the impossible. You were "promised a jetpack" in the same sense that table-rapping "spiritualists" promised you a conduit to talk with the dead, or that carny barkers promised you a girl that could turn into a gorilla:

https://milwaukeerecord.com/film/ape-girl-shes-alive-documentary-november-11-sugar-maple/

That's quite a supervillain origin story: "I was promised a jetpack, but then I grew up discovered that it was just a special effect. In revenge, I am promising you superintelligent AIs and self-driving cars, and these, too, are SFX."

In other words: "Die a disillusioned jetpack fan or live long enough to become the fraudster who cooked up the jetpack lie you despise."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/17/fake-it-until-you-dont-make-it/#twenty-one-seconds

#pluralistic #99pi #99 percent invisible #rocketeers #jetpacks #ai #full self-driving #fsd #absent indians #hoaxes #fake it until you dont make it #Bell Aircraft Corporation #Wendell Moore #podcasts

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