#gray zone between life and death

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jake Wallis Simons

The Gray Lady even contrasted the two incidents in a way that painted the American atrocity favourably while casting Israeli intentions in doubt. The Kabul attack, it said, ‘came after a suicide bombing killed at least 182 people, including 13 American troops, during the frantic American withdrawal from the country. Under acute pressure to avert another attack, the US military believed it was tracking a terrorist who might imminently detonate another bomb. Instead, it killed an Afghan aid worker and nine members of his family.’

The Gaza strike, however, ‘adds fuel to accusations that Israel has bombed indiscriminately’, the New York Times said, pre-empting the results of the independent investigation with breathless speculation and a healthy dose of ‘confirmation bias’ of its own. The assumption could not be clearer: whereas the Americans were acting out of panic and confusion, the Israelis were either acting out of disregard for human life or straightforward bloodlust.

Civilian deaths, including those of aid workers, are a tragic reality of modern warfare. Sixty-two humanitarian workers lost their lives in combat zones last year. Although they were mostly killed at the hands of autocratic regimes and militias, during wartime they are also the casualties of democracies, including Britain.

During the Libyan civil war in 2011, when David Cameron had his hands on the joystick, 13 people were killed by a NATO airstrike, including an ambulance driver, three nurses and some friendly troops. (He did not, surprisingly, subject his own government to the type of rhetoric that he has recently been levelling at the Israelis over the mistaken Gaza strike.) That same week, NATO wiped out a family near Ajdabiya in the north of the country. This year, even the Danish military was forced to admit that its aerial assault had claimed the lives of 14 Libyan civilians.

The difference between attitudes towards most Western armed forces and the Israelis could not be sharper. According to the UN, the average combatant-to-civilian death ratio in war around the world is one to nine. When Britain, America and our allies battled Islamic State in Mosul in 2016-17, we achieved a much more respectable rate of about one to 2.5. In Gaza, Israel has done better still, reaching about one to 1.5, and possibly even less.

[suzyandthefox]

Ladybug

I wrote this uninspired and it somehow became my longest vore fic ever

This was out of my comfort zone, I was inspired by @imafayliure 's post

Content warnings: Gore (not too much) ,animal death, Vore (duh), general angst and misunderstanding (they end on a good note), an insult in Spanish.

Soft,safe, quarter size(?) m/m vore, unwilling prey and not very sober pred.

Taglist: @pineappleparfaitie @opikarts (interact if you want to be added, Ask if you want to be removed)

Word count: 3,500

Lumen hated going outside, especially since he and his brother moved to this cabin, which was built next to a large pond.

It was humid, it was wet, it was full of pesky creatures that weren't edible -like mosquitoes-, and the constant noises of wildlife was driving him crazy.

Yes,there was fish to hunt, and other crustaceans, but he needed something that had blood in it.

Being a vampire borrower is a complicated state of life.

One night, he was dizzy with hunger, he had to find something to eat, something alive and pulsing and filled with blood…

His gray eyes fell on something small,round, and red. It hid in the tall grass that surrounded the pond, the bright red color would be a warning for predators to not come near.

Not for Lumen, it compelled him to get closer.

============

Bunyan curled around himself in fear as he tried to control his sobs, he shouldn't have come here at all,he shouldn't have!

Already being at the miniscule height of one inch tall was horrifying, even his wings and their bright red color didn't stop every creature out there from trying to eat him.

And there it was, another one of them, it was big and skinny and… human shaped? But also not a human?

Bunyan was filled with both curiosity and fear, he stood up in a defensive stance, flashing his red wings once again.

“Stay back! Or… or I will give you a bad time!!”

Instead, the being only got closer, its silhouette now illuminated under the moonlight.

It was slender,tall,draped in dark rags and wrapped it's face in old white cloths, and it reminded him of a… Raven.

It had caused him even more fear, this strange creature was a predator wearing the skin of a friend, it looked humanoid but it was far from that.

“Now now, little one, easy there, no need to be spicy.” Then it spoke, Bunyan shivered, its voice was rough and deep… 

And human? There was something nice about it, it sounded sincere even.

“F…Fine! But I remind you that I'm NOT edible!” Still in his defensive stance, Bunyan warned.

“Indeed you aren't, you're too spicy!” The being joked half heartedly, it sounded tired as well.

“Who are you? What are you?” Bunyan tilted his head as he lowered his guard, his wings stopped fluttering and returned to their place on his back.

“Lumen, you can call me Lumen…”

“And… Honestly I don't know, I used to be a borrower, but now I'm unsure.”

“But what about you? You're awfully way too small to be a borrower, what are you?”

Lumen walked closer to the tiny ladybug boy, almost wholly engulfing him in his shadow.

Even as they're both small beings in this big world, the sheer size difference between him and the boy was still shocking.

He could easily pick up the boy with both of his hands, just like how a human would pick up a cat, after all,the kid was the size of a newborn baby.

“I'm a borrower… at least I think I am, I never saw much outside my colony.”

“First time alone?” Lumen knelt on one knee to lessen the height difference between them.

“Yes actually, I'm supposed to look for a place to stay, so I can live on my own this winter.” The boy still maintained his distance between him and the larger, much more intimidating borrower.

“Live on your own_there’s no way you're an adult.” The vampire borrower murmured, a look of great concern drawn on his eyes, even as his face wasn't visible underneath the cloth.

Maybe it was just his fatherly instincts, but he was unable to perceive the ladybug kid as anything other than, well, a kid.

“I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Bunyan!” The boy gingerly extended his hand to handshake, now that he was partially sure that the man was a fellow borrower.

Bunyan, even his name is adorable.

Lumen was starting to believe he stumbled upon a character from a children's book and not a real person , let alone a full grown adult.

The beast crept up on him and kept whispering in his ears, he was getting hungrier by the moment and he was barely keeping himself in check.

He was starving,he was yearning for the taste of fresh,hot blood going down his throat, but the only living Infront of him was…

No,NO, he shook his head and tried to get rid of the idea, this is a friend,a friend.

“Are you okay?” Bunyan asked with confusion.

“I'm alright kid, just… Hungry.”

Bunyan instinctively took a step back, he still didn't like how the bigger borrower looked like a carnivorous animal.

Yes he hunts and eats aphids for a living, but it wasn't the same, the bigger borrower had sharp fangs, it was as if he eats people alive.

Before Bunyan could talk, a loud noise of something slimy and big hit the ground.

A dreaded noise echoed in the air around them.

Croak

A toad, it was a toad.

Instinctively, Lumen grabbed the tiny boy and picked him up, and bolted out of the scene to the tall grass again before the sudden attack of the tongue has touched them.

It was bigger and stouter than most toads both of them had seen.

For Lumen, he could fight that thing with his bare hands and win, the amphibian wouldn't be interested in him due to his big size after all.

But it was poor Bunyan who would be devoured as soon as that toad looks at him.

He whimpered at the thought of being eaten, shaking heavily, oh how glad he was that there was a bigger borrower right here that can protect him.

He found himself tugging at Lumen's shirt, his breaths bated and shallow, his small body wouldn't stop shaking.

Lumen noticed the thin sheen of a foul smelling liquid on the boy’s arms and legs, wetting his clothes.

His sense of smell wasn't working the way it should work due to him being unable to breathe, so it wasn't the smell that disturbed him.

Still he found it… weird, he preferred not to comment on the matter.

“It's a defense mechanism,I swear! O-our bodies secrete a liquid from our joints so that when a predator smells us, they will leave us alone.” The boy blushed and squirmed as he tried to explain.

Well , that makes it better, but the sensation wasn't the best

regardless.

He could still hear the croaks nearby, as if the toad was still determining where they are, and as he got more stressed, he wrapped his black coat around both himself and Bunyan, as if to hide the boy within him.

“You could do exactly that” his inner beast whispered to him, again he shook his head in refusal.

“Think about it, the boy is very small, and you, you're bigger, you're easily capable of hiding him… In you.”

“If anything has to eat the boy, it should be you.”

“Just for a while, just a few, harmless minutes, to satiate us both.”

But isn't he too… big? Lumen peeked once at the boy in his arms and his heart shattered into millions of pieces.

Big, frightful, wide eyes looked at him, practically begging him to protect the boy. He was so small, that the task was easier and harder at the same time.

Physically he can go with it, out of his comfort zone but he can go with it.

Emotionally however? He will never fully recover from it and neither will the boy.

He wanted to think about this again but the loud noise of the toad landing In front of them, and the beast coiling around his throat like a vile snake, he let go of all his humanity at that moment.

“I apologize so much for this, but it's for your own good,” was the last thing he said before he had let himself break loose.

Bunyan, at first, was very confused at Lumen's words.

But it was when the larger borrower opened his maw and a series of sharp, large fangs glinted underneath the moonlight that the boy’s heart dropped.

This isn't happening, this isn't happening, he surely hoped with every molecule of his body that what he thought was happening wasn't happening.

But it was when his head was stuck into the jaws, his antennas brushing with the back of the throat, that he knew that the nightmare was real.

For Lumen, perhaps it was the beast’s control, perhaps it was his hunger, or perhaps it was even an ability he knew nothing about,but he found the task of swallowing the smaller borrower whole frighteningly easy.

It was second nature even, his throat accommodated the size, then he found himself taking a hefty gulp, his body eagerly accepting of the large meal.

Still it was different, it was strange, it was something he hadn't done before, combined with the stressful atmosphere and the time they had, it was a quick but very messy process.

He was grateful that he wasn't breathing at that moment and that he didn't need to, he would’ve absolutely choked if he did.

It was strange how he was still able to gobble up the kid despite his current state not accepting anything besides blood, but then again, the boy did have blood in him, and something about that truly satiated the beast, it was still appealing to the vampire side of him.

A second swallow, and despite the squirms, the sobs, and the absolutely foul,bitter taste that filled his mouth he continued, pushing the tiny legs into his mouth with his hand.

Finally he got to a point where he no longer needed to shove the ladybug down, and he could let gravity do the rest of the work.

Bunyan's sobs and begs echoed through him and reached his ears, muffled by his undead flesh, but at that moment he couldn't hear them, the frenzy far too strong.

Rippling muscles and hungry organs hugged the boy and pulled him deeper into the belly of the beast, soon Bunyan, who already gave up all hope, would be welcomed by the stomach.

Lumen felt a distinct weight fill him and push against his clothes, he put his hand on the small lump that formed, and he pushed it into himself, as if trying to hide the boy deeper inside his guts.

And it was also a hug, a strange, awkward hug.

Something about this whole ordeal made the beast rumble in excitement, this was good, this was right, to have live, squirming prey inside his belly.

Even if he physically couldn't digest it, it was far better and far more satisfying than eating regular food, it was no different from having the greatest thanksgiving feast and eating until you can't eat anymore.

But unfortunately he couldn't enjoy this for too long, the human part in him was tearing itself apart from guilt, and there's another predator right there that looked completely pissed at the fact it's snack was stolen.

The weight in his stomach disoriented him, and while his frenzied state was an excellent hunter, he was still worried about harming the boy.

He stood up and stared into the toad's eyes, who squinted at him and narrowed its eyes as well.

“You wanted that snack, Aye?”

“Well he's mine now… Pinche Pendejo” He said as he put a possessive hand over his stomach.

As if the toad understood the insult, it launched its tongue at Lumen, determined to make the large borrower its snack.

But instead of hopping away,the vampire borrower took it as a chance, as soon as the slimy tongue pulled him close, he swiftly stuck his claws deep into the thick skin of the toad’s sides, and toppled it on its back, wrestling with it.

He pinned the creature to the ground, exposing it's soft underbelly, it was almost impossible to keep a good grip on the slimy creature, but all it took was one quick swipe from his claws to gore the toad and tear it's stomach open, finally killing it.

As soon as the deed was done, he felt the beast release him from his current state, satisfied with the violence it caused.

And the only thing left was the terrible, terrible guilt and regret, as he was able to hear the faint,weak sobs the poor boy made.

They were inaudible now, and Lumen was unsure if he was asleep or waiting for his death.

He was going to let him out of course, but he took a moment to… Understand what is exactly happening.

He was a cold,undead being, with no warmth of his own and no pulse.

But inside his stomach was a living person, with a fluttering pulse and warmth that radiated from him and seeped into Lumen's own bones and body.

He rubbed at his full stomach, feeling the dread that will come from having to explain his intentions to the poor thing.

He couldn't keep him for longer, even if he wanted to, and this whole thing has made him ask himself, was the act of swallowing Bunyan whole the right choice?

He thought, and realized that no, it wasn't.

It would have been easier if he just asked Bunyan to hide in the grass or behind a rock, and even if Bunyan got swallowed by the toad he could’ve gutted it just like he did now.

He realized that he was protecting Bunyan from himself, rather than the toad, the choice he made at that moment wasn't his own choice.

And so he decided to not let the torture go on any longer and let the ladybug boy out to the world again.

It was a tedious process, having to work his body in reverse,the muscles of his stomach kneading around his poor prisoner, and working him upwards, the small lump in his abdomen gradually shrunk as the weight inside it was lifted to his esophagus instead.

Then into his hands the boy was released, wet and covered in saliva and other fluids he had no idea what they were.

He didn't have a great understanding of anatomy, not even his own.

The look that the boy had on him was nothing short of seething hatred, and it was understandable, it was truly understandable.

“Are you alrig_”

“Why?” Bunyan's voice was quiet, tired, but it still burned.

The vampire stayed quiet, every single explanation and excuse he thought of… They were all selfish, none of them were actually in Bunyan's favor.

The wet ladybug boy looked next to him to see a mauled toad, its guts spilling on the ground.

“So it was true, you're really a monster pretending to be a borrower.” He quietly commented.

It was that moment where it finally sank in Lumen’s mind that Bunyan was an adult, a child wouldn't hate him that much, it would be afraid, but not vengeful.

He, again, tried to think of anything to say.

“I was trying to help,” was all he was able to get out.

“You're no better than that toad… But at least a toad is upfront about what it wants! Not attempting to be my friend, only to decide to eat me later!”

Bunyan had nothing but his words, he couldn't do anything, his weakness against the vampire that swallowed him whole with ease was a horrible thing, even right now, when the vampire has let him out, he wouldn't put him on the ground.

He tried to stay strong, but the nightmare that was being eaten alive broke his wavering courage, he didn't want to cry again.

“Bunyan… I'm sorry, I swear, I wasn't going to hurt you, you were going to be safe,” his name came out like a crude mockery of a friendship from the vampire’s mouth.

“Sure! Keeping me safe by eating me alive!”

“Please just… Stop, put me down.” The attempts at consolation were almost just as bad as the experience of being eaten.

And he was put down on the dewy grass, shivering slightly as the breeze hit him.

“I was going to tell the colony about you, they would've known how to deal with something like… you,” 

“But I don't want anyone I care about to go through what I went through, so consider yourself lucky.”

Lumen noticed the lack of usage of his name, it meant that whatever frail bond they created was severed forever.

Bunyan flapped his wings, and they didn't work, they were incapacitated by the saliva.

He sat down on the ground, barely holding back tears, and that's when something like a large blanket wrapped him, drying him up.

He looked upwards to find that the vampire, who had just eaten him alive, had wrapped him in his coat, but he was nowhere to be seen.

And so was the mauled toad.

=========

It's been a few minutes, Bunyan fell asleep and woke up several times.

A realization hit him, he missed being in that borrower’s stomach.

It was soft, so very soft, and it was gently hugging him through the whole fight. It wasn't the warmest, but that's good, he preferred the lukewarmness.

No! This isn't rational! He shouldn't be missing it! He was eaten alive!

But maybe the larger borrower was sincere about his intentions, and it's not like he was digested, he was just sleepy.

Hypothetically, if he knew it was safe, he would've asked to stay for the rest of the night, he was very tired,and scared.

He jolted as he felt a large hand on his shoulder.

“Better now?” It was the larger borrower’s voice.

“I thought you were gone?” He asked.

Lumen shook his head

“I thought you wanted some time by yourself, especially after… everything.”

“Thank you...I have come to terms with it.” It was very considerate on the other borrower’s part,he had to admit it, even if he very much still didn't come to terms with it.

“You never explained how it was safe for me to be there.”

“Right…”

There was a moment of silence, before Lumen began slowly and patiently explaining:

“Like I told you earlier, I was a borrower before.” He flinched as he remembered.

“But then I died.”

Died? 

“Some monster killed me, but it didn't just leave me to die, it fed me its foul blood and told me that I belong to it.”

“That… was two centuries ago.”

Centuries?! Bunyan was shocked, the longest anyone of his colony lived was three years, and he didn't even have his first birthday yet!

The concept was far too much to grasp for the boy, the fact that this borrower lived in the same time as his ancient ancestors was headache inducing.

“Anyway, since I am technically dead, that means I can “live” without breathing or eating, but I have to occasionally drink blood instead.”

“Like a mosquito?”

“Kinda, what I'm trying to get at is, my organs are vestigial, useless, you could take my brain away and I would still go on with my undeath.”

“By extension, my stomach is useless for its purpose, it can't digest anything, so I instead store the important things in it if I can.”

He put a hand on Bunyan's head and gently patted him.

“Today I learned that I can store the important people too.”

Bunyan's pale cheeks flushed a bright red, but he just tried to ignore it.

“I'm sorry for all the rude things I said earlier… You aren't a monster, you're just… different.”

“Don't be,I shouldn't have done it in the first place, you were rightfully angry at me, I know I would be pissed too if some big lug snatched me off the ground and gobbled me up without a good warning.”

They shared a dry laugh, and Bunyan tried to flap his wings again, they were drier now, thanks to the large coat he was huddling himself in.

“Look at you, swaddled in my coat like a baby, I almost want to eat you up again.” 

Bunyan didn't find it as funny, he furrowed his eyebrows.

He took a look at the undead borrower, without his coat, his skeletal frame was apparent,his shirt was hanging on his body rather than being on it, and for a moment he wondered how in the world did this skinny frame wholly contain him with ease.

“It was very scary, you know.”

“But it was also… nice, and now that I think about it, you did try to tell me it was alright.”

“So… Thank you again, for everything,” The boy smiled “I'm glad to meet you, Lumen.”

“I'm glad to meet you as well, I will be sure to visit during winter.”

With that, Bunyan handed the large , now wet coat to it's owner, and got up to stretch all four of his arms.

“Stay safe, Boy!” Lumen waved goodbye to Bunyan.

“You too!” The boy waved back.

Both went their separate ways, even as Lumen felt a desperate need to follow the kid until he was safe.

He had so much to tell his brother that night.

[lullabyes22-blog]

A la “Have Some Madeira, M’Dear”. Love love love the journalist’s exploration of Silco’s new Zaun. One of the chapters briefly outlines how sex and relationships are quite casual and seen as natural parts of life, but that rape and other sex crimes are given harsh penalties. I forget if FNF or HSMM’D, mentions anything on domestic violence, because even in supposed “developed” countries IRL, there is still a huuuuge issue with how DV is handled in many places, and a lot of it, to me, has to do with the philosophy of how DV is seen, i.e. the loathsome British euphemism “domestic” which seems to encompass everything from a simple argument (“row”) to chasing someone with a golf club around the house (God how I hate that slang word). How much does the law involve itself in DV and how much is left up to a “you got yourself in this situation, you can get yourself out of it. That’s Zaun, baby.” I’m not expecting perfect laws in this city, but am curious about where the libertarianism begins and ends when it comes to the privacy of the household in this quasi metropolitan London/LA/NYC Steam-Chemical-Tech-Magic-Punk city. Also does Zaun have the death penalty?

tw: domestic violence, abuse

Thank you so much<3 So happy you're enjoying B. Goode's descent into the depths!

Honestly, given Zaun's libertarian ethos, private matters tend to be left… well, private. There's a pretty strong push, given the city's historic scars re: government encroachment, against anything resembling surveillance, invasion or oversight by a perceived "outside" force, even one that's ostensibly benign.

There's very much a mindset of: "What goes on within the four walls of the home is not the problem of the community at large unless those inside those walls bring the problems beyond those walls."

There are, of course, exceptions. These include:

1) if a minor is involved 2) if the parties in question are disturbing the peace 3) if the parties in question have been explicitly warned previously that their behavior is unacceptable and they have failed to change their actions or, indeed, intensified them. 4) if a member of the community is harmed by said actions.

In this case, it won't be the Eye's blackguards who'll intervene; it'll be a local authority, such as the underboss responsible for the sector, and the night watch on his payroll, who will be tasked with investigating the complaints and taking whatever measures are necessary.

However, this is an extreme rarity; more often than not, citizens are expected to deal with issues themselves or to take them up with a mediator before matters escalate. If they do, it's more likely the case will be tried by civil court and not criminal, as the law does not have any particular interest in, nor duty to intervene in, affairs that are purely a matter between two or more private individuals.

It's not a perfect system, and there are plenty of pretty horrific cases that make their way into the newspapers or into the public psyche. But on the whole, the citizenry is encouraged to police itself.

Silco, Sevika and the crew, having grown up in environments where the state was an adversary rather than a help, are very much in support of the hands-off approach. The fact that they all hail from backgrounds where abuse was commonplace plays no small part in shaping their mindsets, either.

For instance, Silco is fully one of those, er, charming types who'd call a slap in the face a 'minor disagreement' and a black eye a 'stern reminder.'

And, yes, this includes both dishing it out and getting it dished.

So, uh. Yeah.

Zaunites are, at the day's end, fiercely protective of their home and the right to be left the fuck alone.

Re: the death penalty- the city occupies a very gray zone. While it's not legally codified, there's an informal consensus that a particularly heinous crime is, well, a heinous crime, and warrants a punishment in kind. The courts and prisons won't enforce sanctions. But those within and beyond the system- inmates at Dredge, vigilantes on the streets, the black market, etc - certainly will.

If a crime is especially repulsive, and the perpetrator's identity is known, a mob may very well descend upon them and exact retribution.

If it occurs, the government will turn a blind eye rather than admit they condone such behavior. But it's no secret that Silco and his ilk believe in an eye for an eye, and that their city is better off for it.

Catharsis, as the wise man said, is good for the soul.

[the-healthy-human-mind]

Risen From The Ashes

Previous: To Hell and Back

Next: ‘Til Death do Us Part

CWs: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, aftermath of torture, blood, gore, physical fights, banter, mentions of burns, hinted human trafficking, hospitals, medically induced coma, PTSD, paronoia.

London summers were always brutal, humid and disgustingly warm. Somehow, there were still tourists crammed in every corner of pubs. John looks up from his phone when someone sits in the booth across from him, chuckling when he recognizes the blonde. 

“Kate.”

“John,”

Price leans on the table in front of him, glass of whiskey in his hand. “It’s been awhile, what brings you out of your hole?”

“A Navy SEAL has been taken, I need you and one of my agents to get her back.”

Kate hands him a folder, placing her tablet on the table between them. John opens the folder, flipping through the pages. 

“Wagner? Pulling out the big guns for this Kate?”

She pulls up a bodycam recording from one of the corpses found after the mission. “We’re dealing with an ally of Russians, John, and Elaine’s been taken, I need the best to bring her home.”

“How long?”

Kate sighs, rubbing at her temple, “almost 8 months. She went MIA in January, all intel gathered has fallen through since then.”

Price pulls a couple notes from his wallet, placing them down on the table before gathering his things. 

“When do we leave?”

“Now.”

“You Captain Price?”

Havoc looks down at the man as he steps into the helo. 

“That makes you Havoc.”

The taller man laughs, sitting across from the Captain, having to straighten his legs to fit. 

“Ever dealt with the Russians before sir?”

“More than enough to know what I’m doing.” 

“Eyes on the prize, boys. Don’t lose focus.”

Price adjusts the straps of his vest as the helo approaches the landing zone. Havoc lowers the ramp when they land, following after John and putting on his night vision goggles. 

“This is Echo 6-2, going dark.”

John wasn’t one to mix personal life with work, but seeing Elaine, the child he watched go from a headstrong teenager to the second ever female Navy SEAL, tied up and broken killed him. He checks for her pulse while Havoc goes to cut the rope securing her arms and legs. He sighs in relief when he feels the familiar pulse on her neck. 

“C’mon, Laney. Time to go home.”

When John goes to lift her up, her arm comes flying up, aiming for his jugular. The shard of glass in Elaine’s hand crashes onto the floor, shattering to pieces upon impact when he wrenches her arm away. 

“You bastard— you-” 

“It’s me, Laney, Kate sent us.”

Elaine stumbles, still glaring at him, but she doesn’t try to attack again. John is able to fully assess how bad her injuries are, from the cuts on her face to the burns on her leg. 

“It’s ’bout damn time, thought you guys were throwin’ a party.”

John sighs, hooking his arms under her armpits while Havoc gently grabs her legs.

“A true bloody blast.”

John was no stranger to hospitals, the smell of sanitizer and the white walls were all too familiar. But it seemed as though Rachel had never set foot in a hospital before with how hesitant she was. He couldn’t blame her, seeing her only child in this state must be terrifying. The medical staff had placed Elaine in a medically induced coma to allow her body to heal — if it even could.

“If anything changes, call me, John.”

He nods at Kate as she walks down the hall, Rachel following behind her after giving Elaine one last look. 

September 2017

“I can fucking do it John! Stop babying me!”

John sighs for the hundredth time that hour, leaning on the side of Elaine’s hospital bed.

“Laney, the doctor said-”

“Screw the doctor.”

“Stop trying to get yourself even more hurt, Laney.”

God, he was going to be gray and wrinkled by the time this was over. The pair look at the door when they hear the sound of sneakers against the floor, a student nurse standing in the doorway. 

“What?”

Elaine hisses at the poor girl, eyes full of rage.

The nurse stiffens, “uh- it’s time for your… burn treatment.”

“Well then,” John places his arm around Elaine’s shoulders, slowly lifting her up, “let’s get this over with.”

“Go fuck yourself,”

“Quit it Elaine, you’re doing this whether you like it or not. So shut the bloody hell up and act like the soldier you are.”

Elaine goes quiet for the first time in days, and when John glances at her, she’s staring at the wall ahead, lower lip twitching. He sighs, again.

“Laney-”

“Don’t. Get it over with.”

She can’t tell what was worse, being trapped in a basement, or being bed bound and relying on everything and everyone around her to survive. She can’t even take a piss by herself. And soon she’d be forced to move back in with her moms to recover. Nothing but a burden and a piss poor excuse of a soldier.

[smok3r7]

Is Leaving Even An Option?

Joel x F!reader

Explicit, 18+

Four: Relief

Series Masterlist & Main Masterlist - My Ao3

Summary: Your days have become one in the same, even with the terrifying reality of death right outside the walls of Jackson. You never thought you’d be in the situation you’ve been stuck in for seven years now, the daily abuse you endure has become an expectation. You take whatever your husband throws at you, literally and figuratively, because you’ve been trained to believe this is normal. But a new man, Joel, moves next door and happens to be friendly towards you, this causes your husband’s anger to worsen. Your mind starts a gruesome war with itself - can you leave him or do you stay until the inevitable happens?

Chapter Summary: The same night you meet Joel, Nate becomes aggressive and does something way out of the norm. This causes you to reach out for help to your new neighbor, Joel. How does asking for help change your life?

Word count: 4.5k

⚠️Warnings: fear of husband, running and hiding from him, mentions of rape (no description), mentions of beating, self-hatred

—

“Go away!” You scream as you sprint to the dark gray bedroom door and slam it behind you, locking it immediately. The jar of pickles you had is now shattered somewhere on the stairs from you dropping them when you heard Nate get up from his recliner to follow you.

“You bitch!” He slurs as he starts to pound the other side of the door with both hands. You back up to the bathroom connected to the room and slam the door shut, locking it too, then jump in the porcelain bathtub, lay on your side, and you start to cry, muffling it with the fabric of your sleeve. You can still hear him hitting the door and his now muffled voice, still yelling about something you can’t make out.

How did you end up here? How did you become so weak? Why don’t you stick up for yourself more?

The sound of the bedroom door breaking sends a terrifying chill through your cold body, and holy shit, you think to yourself, he’s gonna kill me. “C'mere you whore,” he hiccups now on the other side of the bathroom door and slowly knocks on it, then he drunkenly sings, “Ooh Mrs.Rossi, come out come out, wherever you are.”

Your mind is racing as he continues to slowly knock, taunting and playing with you, and you almost wish he would lay his hands on you instead of this mental torture he loved so goddamn much. You would rather take his hands over his words any day, because the wounds left on your skin can heal. His words, however, leave an imprint on your soul like a steaming hot brand on cattle - it’s there forever.

The knocking abruptly stops, you sit up with your knees in your chest as you wrap your arms around your bent legs, and you look towards the white door, seeing the shadow of his feet through the sliver between the floor and the door. “I said,” his tone changes to a serious one, “Come here, my dear Mrs.Rossi.” A beat goes by and you stay silent, even holding your breath, trying to make yourself disappear like a magician doing his rabbit in the hat trick.

A sense of desperation forms in your core and flows through your blood, you wish you could ask for help, but you’re inevitably fucked.

Still no noise has come from either of you, eyes zoned in for any kind of movement. You then watch how his shadow stumbles away from the door, and you finally let out that breath that’s been trapped in your lungs for what felt like hours. You don’t dare move out of the tub, because the smallest noise could bring him right back to torture you and, to be honest, you’re not sure if you’ll make it out of this beating.

Flipping your right wrist over to look at your watch - well, Rosa’s, one of her personal items you grabbed - and you put together that an hour has gone by with you in the bathroom, an hour since the last time you heard any sort of noise from Nate. He’s gotta be passed out by now, you think to yourself, trying to make yourself believe it, but you decide to wait another hour, just to be safe, because if he is sleeping, you can run over to Maria’s for the rest of the night and deal with Nate tomorrow when he’s sober.

While you wait and stare at the little black hands on your dainty silver watch to move to the nine and twelve, nine PM is all you need to anxiously wait for. You are in disbelief about how your life has come to this; you hiding in the bathtub in the bathroom you share with your husband, from your husband.

The overwhelming feeling of loneliness and self-hatred starts to slowly consume you from the inside out, because you used to be an expert about seeing through men and their evil twisted lies. However, for some irrational reason, you were and still kind of are, blind when it comes to Nate. Even though he hurts the hell out of you, in more ways than one, he knows exactly how to lasso you and pull you back into his warm arms.

It’s pretty infuriating and ironic how he is the reason for your pain and yet, he’s the one who helps to make you feel better, for the small time being. Shit, it’s honestly pathetic that you keep allowing it to happen, there’s absolutely no reason why you should still be married to him; you don’t have kids, you’re not dependent on him anymore, and lastly, Maria and Tommy told you that they would let you stay with them until there was a home available.

Tommy was actually the one who pulled you aside not too long after Maria put the pieces together last year and he had gotten extremely emotional when he said, “I put Nate on patrol with Daniel. I’m so sorry for all that you’ve been dealing with by yourself, I am disgusted with myself for not having noticed. I want you to know my loyalty stays with you, a million times over. Please don’t hesitate to come to me or Maria for help, okay, sweetheart?”

You couldn’t believe that Tommy, who had been Nate’s right hand man since the beginning of Jackson, had written Nate off entirely and favored you in this matter. It gave you some sense of hope for something good to happen, but in the end, you’re still here a year later, in the same situation, but now you hold your own a little better.

The sudden urge to pee hits you and brings you back down to earth. Fuck, you glance away from the silver faucet you were staring at, and as you flip your wrist again, your eyes widen as you notice the hand's location, ten fifty-three PM stares back at you like a hawk eyeing its prey.

Please please, you repeat in your head as you carefully put your hands on either side of the edge of the tub and push yourself on your feet, and both your knees pop, echoing through the silent, tiled bathroom. You curse to yourself as you step onto the white bath rug, praying that he doesn't hear you. All you have to do is unlock the door, open it quietly, and get downstairs then sprint out the front door. Should be easy, right?

You tiptoe to the door and unlock it, wrapping your shaky hand around the cold knob, taking a deep breather for a moment to spark a bit of confidence in yourself to sneak past him, wherever he is. Your heart is beating rapidly, enough where you think it might leap out of your chest, your stomach doing flips, making you jittery.

With your hand still on the knob, you slowly turn it with your free hand on the door itself to keep it quiet. The pleading in your head is still there as you silently and slowly push the white door open. Before you fully open the only thing keeping you alive, the first thing your eyes notice is the gray door that leads to the hallway from your bedroom, and the bottom half of it has been kicked in.

Seeing this makes you swallow heavily - this has never happened before so you really don’t know what’s in store for you. You quietly push the door just a little bit more and as you step out onto the navy plush carpet, you turn your head to the left and you’re greeted with Nate eyes wide open, his tall statue-like figure sitting on the edge of the king size mattress you share.

You’re frozen in your tracks. Both your hands drop to your side, your breathing starts to become erratic, your chest heaving up and down, and sweat beads start to form on your skin. No fucking way, you panic, how is he still up?

“There she is.”

—

Hold on, hold on! You hear Ellie on the other side of the oak door. You’re back standing on the cream porch you had been on hours earlier, but instead of being here to show them the new home, you’re now there for any source of help.

The door swings open, “Who the he-“ Ellie starts but as soon as she sees you standing opposite to her, she stops. All you’re dressed in is a black tank top, plaid sleep shorts, and a pair of gray socks that are soaked from the snow when you walked over. You stay silent as you watch Ellie’s eyes gaze at your bruised and broken body, you don’t doubt that she knows what went down.

“Fuck, um- come on in, please, please,” she rapidly tells you and welcomes you inside the home that is almost identical to yours, without that distinct gloomy, unsettling aurora floating around. It’s actually an incredibly welcoming feeling that wraps around you as soon as you step foot inside.

“Here,” Ellie runs over to the closet across the room and grabs a smaller blanket out of it, “wrap this around you, go sit down, and I’ll go grab Joel.” Still not having said anything, you reach your arm out to take the blanket she has offered and you nod your head.

Your body is on autopilot as you drag your frozen wet feet across the hardwood floor to the open living room and plop your heavy feeling body on the tan colored couch, wrapping the blanket around your shoulders and bringing your knees to your chest, curling into your comfort position.

Joel. Joel. Joel. He’s all you desperately crave at this moment, and even though you don’t know a thing about this man, you still desire him and his comforting atmosphere. You’re so out of it that you don’t even hear Ellie run upstairs or the noise of Joel’s heavy footsteps sprinting down the steps to quickly aid you.

Suddenly the shape of Joel’s body is in front of you, then he shrinks down to sit on the wooden table, his gaze now meeting yours, and you watch as his beautiful eyes are full of concern, darting all over your meek body, making you tighten your arms more.

“You’re staying here for a little bit, sugar,” Joel states, trying to keep his anger from taking over from seeing you like this. Hearing him say that with such ease and honest concern causes you to finally let go of all the tears and anger you’ve been holding onto for all these years.

“Than- Yo- I-” you sob between words, trying to say anything but you simply can’t make anything out. Shh, Joel hops off the table and sits down on the cushion next to yours, softly grabs your trembling body and pulls you to sit in his lap as he cradles you like a newborn baby.

You’re violently weeping into his chest as he slowly rocks and shushes you. The way he holds you in his safe arms makes you feel more loved than ever before.

You’re not sure how much time has gone by but you have stopped sobbing, though tears continue to roll down your cheek, your face still. “You don’t have to tell me now,” Joel’s voice makes your body vibrate as he speaks, “But I wanna know what happened.”

The way his voice sounds, you can tell he is aggravated but upset by seeing you hurt. You’ve been staring at his chest, the way his dark blue T-shirt clings to his body, you’ve memorized the pattern of his breaths and yours matched with his. But now that he’s asked and with such clarity, you figure that you have to tell him. It’s the least you could possibly do right now with him and Ellie being nothing but helpful.

Slowly, you lift your face to look at him and you notice that he’s already gazing down at you with the same whiskey eyes that make you swoon just by looking. The shame you’ve been experiencing flies away in a second just by seeing how much he truly cares. It’s not like Nate’s face when you initially met him, no, this is different.

“Okay,” your voice hoarse from the yelling and crying, you sit up still in his lap, “um, so-” You’re trying to find the right words to really showcase what happened to you tonight. “I got home and he was waiting for me, he’d drunk the rest of the bottle and started to chase me upstairs. I locked myself in the bathroom for, like, three hours, and you’d think he’d be passed the fuck out right?”

You’re starting to become loud and hysterical, your hands are now animated as you talk with them because you have so much to try to get out, but you can’t really communicate it all. Joel is just listening and watching how worked up you’re getting, his arms still latched around your body but it’s not like a possessive hold, more of a let me take care of you kind of grasp.

“Well, apparently I was wrong, because as I walk out the bathroom, I am immediately met with Nate just staring at me sitting on the bed. And I just freeze, like a fucking deer in headlights. Dumbass. If I woulda ran I wouldn’t be bruised to hell, no black eye, no hair ripped out.” You wait for a beat before you finish your story, “And I wouldn’t have been raped either.” The last part comes out in a defeated sigh, but you never shy away from his eye contact.

He’s stunned into silence, his eyes glossy, a tear breaking away from his eye and rolling onto his cheek, one that slides down and gets lost in his messy beard. You bring your hand to his lined face and wipe away the stain from the tear, and the two of you stay like that for the rest of the early morning before anyone else is awake in Jackson.

—

It’s been about six months since you ran over to the safety of Joel’s house, and for all intents and purposes, you’ve been living there since. The only times you go back to your shell of a home is when Nate is out on patrol, but you don’t even stay there, you only grab a couple necessities like clothes and toiletries. Nate really believes that you’re staying with Maria and Tommy - he has no clue that you’re only a couple of yards away from him and you’re gonna keep it that way for a little while longer.

Ellie now has come to help you at the stables alongside the three sisters, who gracefully accepted Ellie into the group, and you couldn’t be more at peace about it. Joel has been by your side whenever he can, but not in the sense of trying to keep an eye on you. It’s more for your safety and the fact that you told him that you feel safe and loved when he’s around.

You’ve finally been able to live peacefully. You haven’t had to deal with any Nate drama, no new physical or emotional pain, and you haven’t had to walk on eggshells anymore. Truly, you feel more secure than ever in the last two decades, and it’s all because of Joel.

“I think Tommy and Maria are coming over for dinner tonight,” Ellie tells you as she continues to brush her horse, Shimmer. You smile over to her, “what do you think they’re gonna make?” She takes a second to really think about her answer, she suddenly stops brushing and excitedly goes, “I think Tommy is making his famous chili. Joel had brought up to me that it was his absolute favorite meal, well, whenever Tommy cooked.”

“That sounds delicious,” you laugh as you finish the last of the hay so Jinny can grab it and put it with the others. “Oh my god you have no idea!” Andrea yells from outside the barn, you turn your body and give her a confused face. “Wait, so you’ve had it but I never have?” You question playfully putting your hand on your hip and popping it out.

The girls chuckle at your stance and they start to talk about how they had to beg Maria for him to make it, since the ingredients can be hard to come by a lot of the time. Somehow the three sisters got him to make it a couple years ago and they say he hasn’t made it since then, so they also believe that he’s making it tonight.

“Alright ladies, I’ll believe you. However, if you’re all wrong,” you take a second to think about what playful punishment to give them, a little smirk grows, “you all have to switch jobs for a week.”

The four girls all groan in unison, fine, but Ellie is quick to say, “that won’t be happening.” She winks at you and you chuckle as you shake your head. These girls have your whole heart.

—

“Let’s go, old lady! I’m starving,” Ellie drags out the last sentence as you lock up the barn for the night, the rest of the day went smoothly. “Girl, if you don’t wait a fuckin second-” you banter back while laughing. You turn around finally and you see Ellie making a snowball that she fires at you, and hits you right in the thigh.

You slowly lift your head with a sharp grin, “Oh, you’re so in for it now!” She has the biggest smile, from ear to ear, as you bend down to grab a clump of dense snow you hear her yell, “You gotta catch me first!”

You laugh, oh, just wait, because little does she know that you’re actually quick on your feet. It’s how you survived so long alone before Jackson, when you had no choice but to be quick, especially considering you never stayed in one place for too long.

After making a ball out of the cold white snow, you pick your head up and scan for Ellie. You spot her running down Main Street just past the Tipsy Bison, and you knew you could catch up to her in a second but you have another idea. There’s a shortcut to your neighborhood behind the grocery store next to the stables, so you decide to take that path and you’ll meet her just after Maria and Tommy’s house.

You take off towards the snow covered concrete path with the singular snowball in one hand and your set of keys in the other. The cold breeze hits your face with a stinging sensation, but right now you really don’t care, you’re actually having fun and there will be no consequences to you simply enjoying yourself. So you ignore the aching of your feet, the coldness of your face, and the stiffness of your knees all because you can finally do what you please.

You’re just about to Spruce St. and you see Ellie walking past the secret pathway and you smirk, perfect. You stop your moving feet and wind your arm back as you whip the ball of snow at her figure, she’s too busy looking behind her to even notice you’re only about fifteen feet away from her. The snowball hits her directly on her shoulder and she quickly turns her head in your direction, “How the fuck?”

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” You wink as you walk up to her and put your arm around her shoulder, you both start to laugh as you make your way to the beautiful navy blue house for the night.

—

“Knock, knock!” You hear Maria come in, followed by Tommy and his greeting. You’re currently upstairs finishing up your hair, just something simple to keep it out of your face. “I’ll be right down!” You yell, putting in the small golden hoops that you still have from Rosa, and you smile as you look at yourself in the full length mirror on the backside of your bedroom door. Joel told you that there was a guest bedroom that you could stay in until everything worked itself out, and he didn’t care or mind how long that took.

You stare at your reflection with awe, the light blue jeans hug your curves perfectly, and the green flannel Joel gifted you hangs open so your black T-shirt fits your upper body comfortably with a little bit of cleavage. It’s nothing crazy, but you look like yourself again. The woman you were before Nate - shit, before the apocalypse even, even the weight you had lost because of him is now coming back, and damn, you look astonishing.

As you take one more full look at yourself, and it hits you that you’re not covered in bruises or blood, a small gloss covers your eyes but you quickly wave it away. No, not tonight, it’s a good night, you repeat. Because it truly is; you’re actually happy and not playing it up for visitors. This is real, your emotions are raw and real.

“Old lady, c’mon!” Ellie yells from the bottom of the steps, and you yell back to her as you take one last look at yourself. Hell yeah, you mumble with a nod to yourself, putting your fingers on the silver handle, shaking off whatever jitters you have, and pull the door open. The sound of people talking fills your ears as you enter the hallway, closing the door behind you, the stairs are lit by the lanterns hanging on the wall.

This feels like an actual home.

As you reach the hardwood floor at the bottom of the steps you're met by Joel’s figure, about five feet away from you, stopping your feet to gaze at him. He looks beautiful, his hair is wet from the shower but combed back, and you’re taken back when you notice his shirt - it’s the same green one that he gave you.

You raise your hand to point at his chest, making you now only inches away from touching him, your other hand now on your hip, “Miller, are you trying to copy my style?”

“Darlin’, I invented this style,” he chuckles at you with such admiration in his eyes, now stepping closer, letting your hand palm his chest. Yet again, it feels like you two are the only ones in the world, the only two souls left alone just dancing around each other like flames in a fire.

The sound of Tommy clearing his throat shakes the two of you out of the trance, your hand still on Joel’s chest as you turn your head towards the kitchen and you see Tommy with a smirk on his face as he says, “Dinner’s ready.”

“Be right there!” Both you and Joel chirp at the same time, causing both of you to flip your faces back to one another and you both just start to laugh, so much that the top of your head falls into his chest and his lips lay a gentle kiss on your head.

“Ladies first,” he mumbles into your hair as he moves his hand to guide you towards the kitchen. You smile, lift your head back up to meet his gaze, and all you see is pure love. You want so badly to kiss him and feel that passion that you desperately miss, but you don’t because you still have this weird loyalty to Nate, all because you’re still married.

Some part of you won’t allow the happiness you know you’d receive and deserve from being with Joel, because even though your husband is an absolute monster, marriage still has meaning to you. Marriage isn’t just something you cheat on - your mom instilled this in you after Roy because she never wanted you to end up like her.

“Okay,” you say with a cheesy smile. You feel drunk off of him, off the smell of his sweat mixed with body wash, and his looks have you feeling butterflies erupt from your belly again. Your feet start to mindlessly walk away from him towards the sound of people having fun towards the kitchen, and he’s planted in the same spot as he eyes you up and down as you walk past Tommy, giving him a smile.

As you pass Tommy, you’re met with Maria at the stove stirring what you can only imagine is, indeed, Tommy’s famous chili. Ellie mutters it at the same time you think it, and you turn your head to see her sitting at the dining room table with a shit eating grin on her face.

“I told youuuu,” she sings to you as you walk over to sit next to her at the wooden table. You give a glance to her and she sticks her tongue out at you, which you reflect back to her with a laugh. Ellie starts to laugh with you as Maria brings the big pot to the table and sets it on top of a heat resistant mat, the strong smell of delicious chili fills your nose as Maria sets across from you.

By now, Tommy and Joel have walked in the dining room and sat down in the wooden chairs, Joel at the head of the table next to you, and Tommy sitting next to Maria across from Ellie. You couldn’t feel more at home than you do right now, this just feels like it’s meant to be, like all what you have been through is worth it since you’re here now.

“Dig in, sugar,” Joel softly says to you with a gentle smile, the warm feeling starting to grow in your belly again just from his words, and you grin as you grab the ladle and fill your bowl. “Thank you, Tommy,” you state as you take a spoonful of chili in your mouth. This has got to be the best meal you’ve had in god knows how many years.

He says a quick thank you as everyone else gets a bowl of the yummy chili, and you can’t help but feel insanely happy and relaxed at this new lifestyle you have. It truly is the most beautiful experience you’ve had in awhile, and you can’t believe that you have been actually happy.

The thought of Nate hasn’t popped in your head in weeks, and you couldn’t be anymore grateful about that.

Tags: @evyiione @southernbe @pedrosfanny @oscarissac2099

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Address by Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the Independence Day of Ukraine

Dear people!

Ukrainians always pay back their debts. And whoever wished misery upon our land shall find it in their own home. With interest. Whoever seeks to sow evil on our land will reap its fruits on their own territory.

This is not a prophecy, not gloating, not blind revenge; it is a pattern. It is justice. A boomerang for evil. And its launch began not far from the place where I am recording this address. The Sumy region. Mohrytsya. The river of Psel. A few kilometers from our border.

The border between Ukraine and oppression, between life and death. The border between an independent European state and the number one terrorist organization in the world.

913 days ago, Russia unleashed war against us, including through the Sumy region. It violated not only our sovereign borders, but also the limits of cruelty and common sense. It was endlessly striving for one thing: to destroy us. Instead, today we celebrate the 33rd Independence Day of Ukraine. And whatever the enemy was bringing to our land has now returned to their home. And the one who wanted to turn our land into a buffer zone should think about preventing his country from becoming a buffer federation. This is how independence responds. It retaliates for our civilians, who are targeted by guided aerial bombs and Kinzhals, for our parents who have turned gray, for our children who are forced to study underground. For all our people who would prefer never to know the names of these cursed places in their lives: “Savasleika”, “Olenya”, “Engels”. But unfortunately, Ukrainians know them. That is why, our enemy will also know what the Ukrainian-way retaliation is. Worthy, symmetrical, long-ranged. They will know that sooner or later a Ukrainian response will reach any point in the Russian Federation that is a source of danger to the life of our state and our people.

The faded eyes of their chief perceive the whole world as a gray zone. But we will not allow to turn into a gray zone our lands, where the blue and yellow flag rightly belongs. A sick old man from the Red Square, who constantly threatens everyone with the red button, will not dictate any of his red lines to us. Only Ukraine and Ukrainians will determine how to live, what path to take, and what choice to make. Because this is how independence works.

Ukraine astonishes once again. Russia reverts once again to its repertoire. This is how the world media generally portray the events in the Kursk region. They show how Russia treats its citizens, whom it calls “the population.” How Russia “does not abandon” their own. How their soldiers loot their local shops. This is what Putin's Russia looks like in the eyes of the world. And in the same way, the entire world sees how our warriors provide water, food, and medicine to the local people, who say: “It's good that you are here now, not the Kadyrovites.” This is what Ukraine's dignity looks like. Civility. The virtue of our independence.

33 years ago, Ukraine was reborn on the maps of the world, and today Ukraine wins the hearts of the entire world. It inspires with courage. It serves as an example of how not to be afraid of Putin. And it unites the world around its Ukrainian worldview: in the 21st century, terrorists should find their reckoning in The Hague, not comfort in Valday. And no one else in the world will say: “Where is Ukraine?” Because every continent now says: “Ukraine must win”. This fuels our independence. Our Ukraine. It has no lack of foreign regions. We need peace and tranquility on our lands. Along our entire 6,992-kilometer border. On land, at sea, in the air, inside the country – wherever we stand guard for our values.

Just like our warriors do. In all directions of the frontline and the state border, which is symbolized by the border pillars. And our will and struggle are symbolized by our people – our defenders, our pillars. Those on whose shoulders Ukraine stands strong. It stands strong in Kharkiv, in Kupyansk, in Zaporizhzhia region, it stands strong in Kherson region. In Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar. On the Lyman, Siversk, Kramatorsk, Kurakhove, Vremivka, Huliaipilske, and Orikhiv directions. This is how independence fights. And I want to say to all our warriors today: I wish you a strong one! And thank you, guys! When the need to defend Ukraine arose, you shortly said: plus. Since then, for 913 days in a row, you have been applying a "minus" to the occupiers. Only you know how much effort, sweat, blood and your extremely hard work is really hidden behind the dry statistics of enemy losses. Only you know what it really means to hold a position. What it means to be “pinned down by enemy artillery and aircraft all day long”. What it means to stand firm when “the orcs are pushing.” You have preserved and are preserving our independence.

I thank everyone who helps our warriors and our state, all those who live and work to keep our independence working and living. Our medical workers, our rescuers, our firefighters, power engineers, our volunteers and entrepreneurs, police officers and farmers, railroad workers, teachers and students. All of them. Ukrainians here, Ukrainians abroad, who help, find, send the necessary supplies, tell the world about Ukraine. And everyone who stays with Ukraine in the temporarily occupied territories. All Ukrainians whose strength has no borders, whose will is boundless. All those to whom I am immensely grateful. And today. And for each of the 913 days of this war. For the cause of each of you. For proving that independence is a cause for everyone. And it has many dimensions. Each of which must be gained to secure comprehensive independence. This is economic, this is energy independence. This is the spiritual independence of the Ukrainian people. And Ukrainian Orthodoxy today is taking a step toward liberation from the devils of Moscow. This is also the realization of justice for the awards of an independent Ukraine, which will never again be worn by those who betrayed it. This is the realization of justice for foreign heroes who defend Ukraine on the frontline and deserve Ukrainian honor – our citizenship. These are inevitable processes that have been launched by us today. This is how independence is strengthened.

And there should be a solid border between us and the enemy, and there will be no walls between Ukrainians. Because Ukraine is in each one of us. Independence is in each one of us. And united, we are able to win. It was proven by February 24. It was proven by 2022 and 2023. This year is proving it as well. We have withstood, restrained and repelled the enemy, and now we continue to do so in their swamps.

We know what independence is. How difficult it is to revive it. How difficult it is to defend it. But we know: everything depends on us.

We know what independence looks like. On the morning of February 24, it was in our eyes. Today, independence is in the trenches in all directions. It is in our cities and villages: in each episode when we find the best in ourselves, find Ukraine in ourselves, and fight for it. Independence today has tired eyes that have seen it all. Independence smiles when Ukrainians succeed. Independence is silence when we lose our people. Independence is the oath to never forget the fallen heroes. Independence tastes of smoke and dust on the battlefield and in civilian life. Independence descends into the shelter during an air raid alert to survive and to rise again to tell the enemy again: you will not succeed. You will fail. You will not prevail. And you will be held accountable for everything.

This is how we feel freedom. This is what Ukraine looks like. This is what independence looks like. And this is what it sounds like:

Happy Independence Day, Ukrainians!

Glory to Ukraine!

[sillybigrobin]

As much as I love birds and like cats the fact that cats are the natural predators of birds has me thinking recently.

One of this days that I've been gone, I started going to more of habituated zones of Detroit, not that many abandoned areas anymore. And that made me find a alley where there's a lot of Cats residing.

I managed to approach to one that had something in its mouth, and when it stopped it I realised it was a bird. A little white bird that had blue feathers in its chest and a gray spotted pattern in its neck. The cat bit the neck of the bird and it was bleeding when I took the bird in my hands.

It shouldn't be passed that much of the cat catching the bird, because besides of the bleeding the bird was still alive and moving, very slowly and occasionally their eyes were blinking. At some point they started to close at a very torturing pace, I was watching the bird's life fade away from its eyes.

How the shine in its eyes were disappearing and I was unable to do something since I already assumed it would die when I took it in my hands.

When it's head dropped to the side of my finger, letting me know it was finally dead. It felt bad. I've never experienced death before but it definitely didn't sit quite right with what I have registered between feels and experiences.

I am an old android, and eventually have to be deactivated, I know that but what mortified me is watching people I cherish to deactivate around me. I felt sad and couldn't stop thinking about that bird even if it was days ago, and I can't imagine the pain of mourning a loved one will bring.

It was weird

[grassyhorizon45]

Saw you looking for microfic requests… feel free to ignore, but what about a first-date style microfic in Hogsmeade or something? Thinking like year 6 or 7? Not sure if you’ve done one of those before and sorry if this is too broad. Any character(s) would be cool!

aaaa this took me a while to brain but I hope it's what you were looking for 👀

oh and my friend gave me three words to try and incorporate in this too 😅👍

the way he immediately switched to bomb and death :sob:

word count: 1113

ding~

The bell above the door chimed, announcing my entry. 

“Welcome to Honeydukes,” the owner, Mr. Flume greeted me. I responded with a subtle nod, not wanting to say anything but not wanting to be rude at the same time.

I scanned the nearby shelves; toffees, chocolates, some Fizzing Whizzbees……

There it was, carved neatly into the wooden sign board were the words ‘Special Effects’.

My gaze was followed by none other than the owner himself.

“Ah, the special effects section. Might I recommend you the–” I stopped him, smiling. 

“I've already made up my mind, thanks Mr. Flume.”

Not at all offended, the lovely Ambrosius Flume nodded and left me be.

I grabbed a blue box off the top shelf and brought it to the cashier.

“The finest sugar quills,” he said, taking one look at the box of sweets. “You my dear, must have an eye for confectionery, no?” 

I blushed, not taking compliments well. 

“It's for a friend,” I explained. To which he replied with a knowing, “I see.” 

I never did like giving people chocolates, they were too common. But sugar quills? They're my signature go-to when it comes to gifts, my own little flair you could say.

I left Honeydukes with the box of sweets neatly bagged, roaming the streets of Hogsmeade a while before finally settling down in the Three Broomsticks Inn, giving my watch a quick glance……

Ten more minutes.

~

“Someone's early.”

His silky voice took me by surprise. I looked up and smirking gray eyes met mine. I smirked back, rolling my eyes. 

“Sit down, Malfoy.”

Never in my life would I have expected this. Draco Malfoy, the very guy that tormented me for years, was now on a freaking date with me. 

Though it was true that Draco was the one who initiated the date, deep down I knew I too had developed feelings for the boy.

Draco was an absolute player, every soul in Hogwarts knew that; and as the silence between us dragged on, I started to wonder why the heck I was here in the first place. 

“Y/n– You okay?” His voice drew me back to reality. “Madam Rosmerta just asked if you'd like to order anything.”

“Oh, huh– I'll just have butterbeer, th-thanks.” Draco only continued staring at me intently, like I was a mystery yet to be solved. I avoided his gaze, mumbling a quick, “Sorry, I zoned out.”

It felt so out of place when he just grinned back. He wasn't making small talk, we weren't talking at all. Was it because of our history with each other? Was this whole thing just a joke to him?

“Hey,” Draco spoke in the most casual way possible, gaining eye contact with me.

“Hi?” Was the only thing I could think to blurt.

He smiled at this.

“First time, love?”

How did he know—

“And I bet you've been on tons,” I slipped, echoing the negative thoughts in my head.

Draco tilted his head. “And why would you say that?”

I looked away, “No reason.”

He grabbed my chin and forced me to face him. Draco's touch was gentle but unfamiliar, sending shivers down my spine.

“I know you think im some asshole that loves messing around,” his voice was stern, the very kind he used when he was actually being serious. “But I really want you to trust me on this. You and I, this isn't a little fling I'm playing at.”

The man in front of me knew me more than I knew myself. At times I saw it through his insults and bullying, but at times I saw it through the way he secretly cared for me…… Maybe that was the reason I'm here.

“Please?”

I nodded, “Okay.”

His stern face melted away and was replaced with an indifferent one. “So tell me about yourself,” he tried.

“Seriously? I've known you since year two…” I mumbled.

“Well, tell me something I don't know then, y/n.” There was a tinge of harshness to his voice but that somehow only turned me on even more. 

“I don't think I could live a day without you.”

Shocked, Draco was completely speachless. And I only realised the weight of my words after I'd blurted it. 

“I-It's true… I don't know what I'd do without your daily snarky remarks and insults… Th-They give me a sense of hope that somewhere under all that,” I gulped. “Y-You cared.”

It was a strange feeling, wanting his attention. It was even weirder that I was admitting all of this to him but that's just how I am, an absolute pushover.

Our drinks arrived just then and I dived into my mug of butterbeer without a thought, wanting to wave off the bomb of awkwardness I had just dropped.

“Look, y/n… I do care,” he stated. “I care about you way more than you know. It's just something I don't find easy to show, I've never felt this way for someone before.”

I smiled at him, he smiled back, and I felt blush creep all the way up to my ears.

“Oh! I almost forgot–” I pulled out the lapis blue box I had bought from earlier. “I got you something…”

“Hm?” Draco took the box from me, “You didn't have to...”

I caught him take a quick peek at the sugar quills inside.

“Just something small, I didn't want to show up empty handed.”

He chuckled, putting the gift aside. “Thanks.”

Secretly, I was relieved; I didn't want to see his reaction anyways.

Draco and I chatted as we slowly drank our butterbeers, touching topics like school and family, basically filling the empty silence we would otherwise have between us. 

But as our drinks neared their end so did our conversation burn out, leaving us to sit there silently in each other's presence. 

The silence this time round was oddly soothing, knowing there wouldn't be any judgment from either party. We were already close before this, taking this ‘date’ as a progression in our relationship from enemies to lovers.

Draco got up to pay short after, leaving me alone at the table. The box of sugar quills was open in front of his seat and it looked like he'd already gone through one over the course of our conversation. I smiled, I think this relationship is gonna work out just fine.

Two gentle hands found themselves on my shoulder from behind. I tilted my head upwards and was once again met with his loving gray eyes. 

“So, what do you say? You, me, we make this official.”

I smiled back at him. “Deal.”

He grinned. “Alright then……

Till death do us part.”

[gay-cryptidz]

The Comfort Between Your Scars

Chapter 11

TW: referenced past character death

Without the board games and the movie to distract him, Noah became increasingly aware of the disconnect between him and the brothers, or, more specifically, Tommy. Him and Joel were already chatting away and bickering and so very comfortable with each other again the moment the girls had left.

Talking to strangers who knew nothing about Noah was easy, at least that way he could pretend to be someone he wasn't, hide behind a facade, show them exactly what he wanted them to see. Talking to Mari and Alex was even easier, he didn't need to worry about how to present himself or what to say around them at all.

It was the gray area in between that scared him.

He'd excused himself to go check on Jamie, who was sleeping soundly in Joel's bed, after zoning out and losing track of the conversation. After pausing to take another deep breath and placing a kiss on his little brother's forehead, he made his way back to the living room.

Joel and Tommy were on the sofa, filling three wine glasses. Maybe he'd feel a little less out of place with some liquid courage.

"How come I always end up being the one to sponsor our drinks? Seems to be a bit of a pattern by now", he joked.

"It's 'cause you're such a gentleman!", Joel grinned.

"Yeah, yeah. You owe me"

He sat down next to Joel, grabbing a glass and taking a big sip.

"Damn, it's not even that good. Should have taken the cheaper one, what a waste of, like, ten bucks", he chuckled.

"I see how it is, I'm not even worth the extra ten bucks to you"

Joel laughed when Noah gave him a light shove. They all sat in silence for a moment, assessing the taste of the not-worth-the-extra-ten-bucks wine, before agreeing it really wasn't that good, but it would do.

"So, Noah", Tommy started, "Tell me about yourself"

"Tell you what?", Noah snorted.

"Well, anything. I've heard bits and pieces from Joel and Mari but I haven't really had the chance to actually talk to you"

"Y'know, at least Joel worked hard for this information! He didn't know shit about me until after he heroically burst through a door to save me from a drunk guy I'd already beaten the shit out of. I mean, there was nothing more for him to do, but 'A' for effort!"

"Well, if the opportunity arises, I'll gladly try to save you by doing nothing", Tommy laughed.

"In all seriousness though, you know just about as much as you need to. Dad's gone, mom's out of the picture, when it got really bad, I took Jamie and Mari and left." It was almost the same shrugged-off recap Noah had given Joel a few weeks earlier. It was far from the full truth, of course, but he didn't exactly feel like recapping every traumatic memory of his life.

"Oh god, right, your dad... actually, sorry, you probably don't wanna talk about it. Mari told me earlier that he- well, she told me what happened"

'It's your fault'

Noah just shrugged and repeated his sentiment of 'not much to talk about'. Thankfully, Joel didn't ask and Tommy didn't push the topic.

'Are you happy now?'

Noah took another sip of wine, attempting to push the resurfacing images and sounds away. Joel and Tommy were miles away now.

'Even if you didn't mean to, you're the reason this happened'

Just calm down. Breathe.

'You're the reason I'm even in this situation'

Just say something, anything.

"I mean, I hardly remember him, really. Certainly didn't waste a second missing that asshole"

Tap, tap, tap on cold, hard tiles.

"Noah, we don't need to-"

"Messed up my mom pretty good, though. Well, I guess she was messed up already. Hates my guts, always did"

'It's your fault. Look at it, look what you did!'

"Hated his guts too, actually. So did I, for a while. I mean, things weren't exactly perfect but if he didn't- just, y'know, I was fine until-"

Stop talking. Just shut up. Say something about the weather or ask about work or-

Tap, tap, tap, never stopping. Glass of blood in his hands. Tap, tap, tap. Blood on his hands.

Tap, tap, tap on his shoulder and he snapped out of it.

"Hey, you alright?", Joel asked softly.

"Sorry, I really didn't mean to upset you or anything. Won't bring it up again." Tommy looked very lost all of a sudden.

Noah downed about half of his wine at once before saying anything.

"It's fine, just... been a long day"

Their faces were wrong. They didn't seem real. Just that little bit off.

"I'm just gonna go get some fresh air"

He didn't leave them time to respond, already halfway out the door. He should just go to bed. Everything, every activity, every conversation, seemed to eventually turn bitter today. Instead, he sat down on the steps and lit a cigarette.

This was a mistake. This whole thing. He never should have befriended Joel, never should have invited him to hang out in the break room, never should have agreed to go to this god damn birthday party.

It didn't take long for Joel to quietly sit down next to him, of course.

"I'm fine, just needed some fresh air"

He stared at his cigarette burning down ever so slowly as the seconds ticked away in his head.

"Well, it's just that you practically ran out of the room right after coming back so i felt like I should probably check and make sure"

Tap, tap, tap.

The soft glow seemed ever so welcoming. Deep breath, everything's fine. He rubbed his face, sighing.

"Sorry, just... a lot going on today. My brain gets a little weird. I guess it's always weird but you know"

"Anything I can do?"

"No, I don't think so"

After a few moments of silence, Noah could feel Joel's hand softly grazing his own on the cold stone between them. The gesture was careful, almost shy. He hesitated for just a second before offering his hand to Joel, who gently took it in his, entwining their fingers. Noah internally cursed at himself for the tingle it sent down his spine.

Do not fall for him. You don't do relationships. Stop being an idiot.

"The stars are nice today."

"Yeah."

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[1goncharovfan]

It's a pity that Katya is stuck in that gray zone between death and life.

[writtenbyevie]

earl gray and hibiscus for the tea writing asks :D

rey ✨!! my darling, my love!! how are you!! thank you kindly for the ask!! I’m hugging you so very tight ✨💛

earl grey 🤍🫖:

what time of day do you like to write?

I tend to write throughout the day, though I'm not much of a late night writer. I'll jot down lines or ideas, but rarely am I up on my computer at like 3AM. I think my goldilocks zone tends to be around the early afternoon into the evening. By that point, my brain is stretched out and ready to win the stare down between me and my laptop screen.

The one exception to this is I tend to write music more at night!

hibiscus 💖🫖:

what inspired your current WIP?

So I have several (including my secret santa fic muahahaha) but I'll talk about star-stitched!

The biggest inspiration is my own history with OCD (Christ I could make a whole post about my OCD and writing). I wanted to create a story that involved OCD, though wasn’t necessarily just about OCD. star-stitched is the result of that, along with many images, lines, motifs, and scenes that built up in my mind over the course of several months. Some of which were inspired by elements of my own life. A few examples are:

astronomy, specifically quasars, comets, binary stars, stars

the adam project (the final scene w/ the dad)

far from home by sam tinnez

j's lullaby by delaney bailey

orchestral music in general?

my dad's cancer

death (both in my personal life and like conceptually?)

some of my own previous work?

my ambiguous relationship w/ [redacted]

rain

painting in my room

slow dancing in the kitchen with [redacted]

Eventually, the story just became this monster taking up space in the back of my brain, as I worked on earth and moon, until one day I decided to plan it out. It's changed some since then, but it's been rattling around the ole noggin for a while.

Side note: I like to joke I'm the fusion child of Sakuatsu, since I'm a blonde, brown eyed, tall, hypermobile, perfectionist with OCD and several facial moles (and scattered moles all over really) born on March 20th. Bonus, my sisters are twins.

anywho thank you so much for the ask rey!! sprinkling love and kisses on your forehead like stardust 💫💖!!

p.s. the second chapter of star-stitched is coming soon!!

[shamelesslymkp]

REC: StellarCoachman - Moribund

URL: https://ift.tt/mub4Kps A boy wakes up, trapped in his own casket six feet underground. Getting out is only the first step on the journey to discovering how to survive in the gray zone between life and death. (Words: 25,901) !!!fandom, !!fic, |site:ao3, +fandom:danny.phantom, ::rating:teen.and.up.audiences, ~author:stellarcoachman, character:danny.fenton, character:sam.manson, character:tucker.foley, character:maddie.fenton, character:jack.fenton.(danny.phantom), character:jazz.fenton, character:lunch.lady.(danny.phantom), character:skulker.(danny.phantom), character:box.ghost.(danny.phantom), relationship:danny.fenton.&.tucker.foley.&.sam.manson, relationship:danny.fenton.&.jack.fenton.&.maddie.fenton, relationship:danny.fenton.&.jazz.fenton, ::category:gen, \graphic.depictions.of.violence, \major.character.death, ~ao3:major.character.death.is.danny, ~ao3:danny.isn't.completely.dead, ~ao3:but.he's.more.so.than.in.canon, ~ao3:angst.and.hurt/comfort, ~ao3:this.strays.from.canon.in.a.lot.of.ways.but.doesn't.in.a.lot.of.others, ~ao3:death, ~ao3:injury, ~ao3:blood, ~ao3:violence, ~ao3:electrocution, ~ao3:burns, ~ao3:panic.attacks, ~ao3:dissociation, ~ao3:claustrophobia, ~ao3:hospitals, ~ao3:grief/mourning, ~ao3:good.friends.tucker.foley.and.sam.manson, ~ao3:jack.and.madd

[twistingtreeancestry]

The Tragedies of Levi Oscar Smith and His Wives

TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING This work discusses severe injury, burns, different types of death, manners of death, symptoms of death, causes of death, and possibly other unpleasant topics that may be triggering or upsetting. Please carefully consider whether you're in a good space and/or mature enough to read further. TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING

Who is Levi O. Smith?

Levi is one of my spouse's great-grandfathers. He was born in Indian Territory (McAlester, Pittsburg County), Oklahoma, USA in 1898. At 20 years old, he married his first wife, Opal Alsus Jackson, 17 years old, on 1 Jun 1918 in Holtville, Imperial County, California, USA. They had their first child, a son named Eugene Ellis Smith, in October of 1919. Eugene was followed by the birth of Louis M. Smith in 1921, then Raymond Leroy Smith in February of 1924. Sometime around the beginning of 1925, Opal became pregnant with Vivian Louise Smith.

Opal Alsus Jackson

Opal was born in 1901 in Oklahoma, USA. In 1910, she and her birth family were listed on two census records—one under General Population and one under Indian Population. On the General Population record, she, her mother, and her siblings were listed as white while her father was listed as Indian. On the Indian Population record, her father was listed as Indian, her mother was listed as white, and she and her siblings were listed as half-Indian, half-white.

According to events detailed by The Bulletin (Pomona, Los Angeles County, California, USA) and Riverside Daily Press (Riverside, Riverside County, California, USA) newspapers, respectively, indicate that the tragedy of Opal Alsus Jackson began on 17 Oct 1925.

While starting a fire at her mother's home in Corona, Riverside County, California, USA, Opal sent her 3 or 4-year-old son Louis to fetch her kerosene. Instead, Louis mistakenly brought back a jar of gasoline. This resulted in an explosion that set the house, and her clothes, aflame.

Despite her condition, the pregnant and burning Opal managed to get all three of her children out of the house before she "fell into the flames". Eugene and Raymond's conditions were never noted and Levi wasn't mentioned at all, but devastatingly, Louis succumbed to his injuries a few hours later. "At almost the hour of his death", Opal gave birth to Vivian, who seemed healthy and suffered no ill effects from the traumatic situation that resulted in her birth. Louis was laid to rest four days later.

Opal was admitted to Cothe Rona Hospital (which I cannot locate) where her chances of recovery were described optimistically due to her having "such remarkable recuperative power". It was stated that 80% (or, alternatively, 4/5ths) of the surface of her body was severely burned. She stayed in the gray zone between life and death for just over a month before "unfavorable symptoms developed". She succumbed to her injuries on the morning of 21 Nov 1925 at just 24 years old. She was laid to rest with Louis the next day, and they now share a gravemarker.

Her baby daughter, Vivian, lived to be 89 years old with a husband, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. According to her obituary, she served as a civilian staff car driver at an Ontario, CA military base during WWII, and she worked for 40+ years "for General Electric, both the Iron Plant downtown Ontario and the Aircraft at the Ontario Airport". It appears she lived a full, healthy, and happy life. She was preceded in death by Eugene, Raymond, and her half-brother, Jay, as well as her husband and her son.

Raymonde Victorine Louise Aubry

Raymonde was born in 1912 in France, Europe. She immigrated in late 1986 from Paris, Île-de-France, France, Europe at 13 years old aboard the S.S. Niagara with her parents and little sister. Their destination was Ontario, CA, but they made port in Galveston, Galveston County, Texas, USA on 4 Oct 1926, and must have navigated northwest to California afterward.

Next, she appears as "Ramon" in a 1930 census in Ontario, CA as the 17-year-old new bride of 31-year-old Levi Smith, with Eugene, Raymond, and Vivian in their household and listed their children. It was recorded that she could read and write, spoke English, and also spoke French at home before she immigrated. Over the following years, she and Levi birthed their children: a daughter, Lela Faye Smith, and two sons, Jay Loren and Jimmy Dale Smith.

I've gathered from articles in The Los Angeles Times, The Pomona Progress Bulletin, and The San Bernardino County Sun that Raymonde's tragedy started when Levi picked her up from Sunday church on the evening of 30 Jul 1939.

He told Deputy Coroner W. J. Weller that shortly after the service, Raymonde allegedly began to accuse Levi of adultery while she was attending church. He insisted that after he dropped her off at 7:15 p.m. he visited a beer parlor until it was time to retrieve her at 9:15 p.m.

Later that night, Raymonde joined Levi in the bedroom and he heard her whisper "goodbye" to her 3-year-old son (and youngest child), Jimmy. He then asked her where she was going, to which she replied, "I've done it. I've taken poison."

Levi immediately took her to the hospital where she was declared dead on arrival at just 26 years old. It was later reported by Coroner R. E. Williams that she'd ingested strychnine—the poison, which Deputy Coroner Weller alleged she'd taken in three previous death attempts, was referred to by one article as a "fatal potion". Levi claimed the poison was used to exterminate gophers and that Raymonde knew where it was kept. He also admitted that she'd threatened to ingest the poison when they were arguing, but he hadn't believed her until she told Jimmy goodbye.

Williams stated an inquest into her death would likely be unnecessary, and her death was ruled as death by suicide via poisoning. She was laid to rest five days later.

What happened to Levi?

After being a farmer since 1918, Levi became an irrigator at a tree nursery by 1940 before becoming a truck driver of farm produce by 1941.

On 21 Feb 1941, 42-year-old Levi was fatally injured in an accident while falling from a truck. His death certificate states he died of shock due to a brain aneurysm created by a brain hemorrhage three miles east of Perryville, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA. A newspaper article named Buckeye, Maricopa County, Arizona, USA as his place of death, which is approximately 3 miles east of Perryville.

Levi was buried in the same cemetery as his second wife, Raymonde. While they didn't end up in the same section, their sections butt up against each other.

34 years later, his 40-year-old son Jay, a truck driver for Midwest Growers Association, would die in a trucking accident "25 miles east of Lordsburg" in Grant County, New Mexico, USA. I believe he died on I-70 in Wilna, Grant County, New Mexico, USA.

That's all, for now!

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me and learning about some of my spouse's departed family. Make sure to follow me so you don't miss my future posts about genealogy and family history, or random historical finds I think are interesting!

[dankusner]

“The Zone of Interest” Is an Extreme Form of Holokitsch

Jonathan Glazer’s drama, set among the Nazis who ran Auschwitz, turns the horrors of the Holocaust into scenes from a marriage.

A scene from Jonathan Glazer’s film “The Zone of Interest.”Photograph courtesy A24

With movies that are based on books, there’s no inherent merit in either fidelity or infidelity. What matters is the sense of freedom, of using a book to one’s own purposes. That’s the best thing about “The Zone of Interest,” the writer and director Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same title. Glazer transforms it drastically and makes it feel almost entirely like his own creation.  The novel is narrated by way of the characters’ monologues, and they’re mostly shtick-laden, performative voices—Amis’s novel plays largely like a variation on “Portnoy’s Complaint” with its prime complainants being fictionalized Nazis who run Auschwitz. I’m not a fan of the book, which strikes me as a near-parody of the Holocaust, with torrentially erotic eruptions of lust, jealousy, and absurdity applied to the sordid private lives of fictitious Nazi officials and mass murderers. (It also prominently features one Jewish character, Szmul, the leader of the Sonderkommando—Jewish inmates under orders to do much of the physical labor involved in mass murder, such as shaving hair, guiding captives to gas chambers, and shovelling out the ashes. Szmul’s voice, though written briefly and thinly, is lent a moving earnestness, but his destiny is the stuff of pulp fiction.)

Glazer’s film distills and transforms the novel’s premise into an altogether different story and tone. It’s a sort of narrowly bordered bio-pic, centered on the real-life Höss family: Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), a longtime Nazi and S.S. member who was one of the commandants of Auschwitz; his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), nicknamed Hedy; and their three daughters and two sons, ranging from an adolescent to an infant. They live in a gracefully appointed house just outside the walls of the death camp; the property abuts the walls, which, with their curved barbed-wire stanchions, are instantly recognizable. They live a largely ordinary family life: they picnic by the river, Hedy tends her garden, the children go to school; there are birthday celebrations and social gatherings. But some details stand out. Hedy does her “shopping” for clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry from among items confiscated from deportees.

(One friend found a diamond in a confiscated tube of toothpaste, declaring, “They are very clever.”)

On a river swim, Rudolf finds something in the water that makes him rush his children home and scrub them and himself thoroughly.

The ambient soundtrack of daily life is the barking of dogs, the shouts of officers, the screams of captive victims, gunshots, and the roar and smoke of crematoria.

(As Rudolf and one of his sons ride on horseback through nearby fields, amid yelling as prisoners are driven through the area, the son calls attention to the sound: “Do you hear that? . . . A bittern. A heron. A Eurasian gray heron.”)

The movie’s prime drama is the conflict between professional life and family happiness. Höss, considered a good manager, is promoted to a higher position and sent to the German town of Oranienburg (the site of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp). But Hedwig, who is happy in the Auschwitz house and in its surrounding rural landscape, pressures Rudolf to beg his superiors to let her and the children continue to live there in his absence. The unhappy Höss bids farewell to his horse (yes, to his horse: “I love you; I love you, my beauty”) and to Hedwig. He heads to Germany, alone, where he’s part of the beau monde but takes no pleasure in it, reporting to Hedy by phone that he hardly noticed all the aristocrats and notables at a fancy-dress ball because he was too busy imagining the trouble he’d have gassing everyone in the high-ceilinged room.

If this sounds borderline hilarious, it should, because the movie is an extreme form of Holokitsch; it’s this year’s “Jojo Rabbit.” Glazer’s movie is a presentation of nearly unfathomable horrors by way of bathos, alluding to enormities in the form of minor daily inconveniences. There’s conceptual audacity in the effort, yet Glazer doesn’t display the courage or the intellectual rigor to pull it off successfully; if he did, he’d have centered the movie strictly on Hedy’s and the children’s experiences and points of view, noting the hints and traces of the death camp in and near the house and amid the landscape. The movie would have shown Rudolf and his activities solely through their eyes, thus making their surmises and their doubts, or their willful indifferences, all the more conspicuous—the movie wouldn’t have noted any more details of the horrors than they did.

Instead, much of the movie follows Rudolf, not just in his family life but also in his daily business—but only so far. Rudolf sees and knows everything that goes on in Auschwitz and in the death camps over all, but Glazer shows him only involved in bureaucratic activities. He reviews plans for a circular crematorium that can operate continuously. He attends a meeting of concentration-camp directors who are exhorted to furnish workers for German factories, while also being prepared to receive—and, for the most part, exterminate—the many Hungarian Jews who are about to be deported from their homeland (as actually happened, in 1944). Rudolf is an eyewitness to the atrocities relentlessly perpetrated under his command within the walls of Auschwitz, but Glazer dispenses with the problem of dramatizing or representing—or even describing—them. In the process, he shrinks from portraying the horrors of the real-life Höss’s character, too, and, as a result, he trivializes them.

Glazer’s diminution of the perpetrators themselves is a cinematic reinforcement of Hannah Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil: of deportation and extermination as the product of the numbingly mindless routine of the bureaucratic mind. But just as Adolf Eichmann is now understood to have been no mere paper-pusher but a rabid antisemite who took to his death-dealing duties with enthusiasm, Höss wasn’t just a skillful technocrat—he was a longtime Nazi true believer, going back to the nineteen-twenties with decades of blood on his hands. (Amis at least gets that straight, albeit cloaking it in antic language.) There’s no room for rabidness in the movie, however, no ideological talk or overt hatred. There’s also no room for the victims: prisoners, serving as forced laborers, appear around the house throughout the film, but silently. They’re given neither any voice nor any point of view.

Still, Glazer wants to stress that the banalities in question are no mere banalities; they’re grim and grave. Unlike pretty much any other movie that opens with a family picnic in a charming riverside landscape, the movie begins with more than two minutes of a black screen, accompanied by music (by Mica Levi) so bleak that it makes Mahler’s Ninth sound like Carl Stalling. In other words, before the first dramatic image, Glazer has essentially proclaimed the movie’s deep seriousness, and his own. Lest any viewer get too lost in the bright-green weeds of the Höss family’s daily routines, Glazer punctuates the movie with hallucinatory sequences, with eerily expressionistic black-and-white, night-vision thermal images, featuring music like sepulchral belches from the Earth’s depths. In these scenes, a girl goes on solitary and secretive routines of gathering (seemingly where bodies are buried) and of depositing (of apples beside shovels where inmates likely do forced labor). At one point, an image of smoke whites out the screen; at another, closeups of flowers, accompanied on the soundtrack by horrible yelling and screaming, fade to an all-blood-red screen.

By gussying up such sequences as cinematic emergencies rather than as regular rounds like those of the rest of the film, Glazer again and again emphasizes that the film’s apparent ordinariness is faux—that these daily lives are indeed extraordinary and horrific, elements of a historic tragedy. Yet his blatant exertion to get that point across suggests a lack of confidence that viewers will get the point from the drama alone—and a fear that his dramatic choices indeed risk diminishing those horrors. The filmmaker appears to want it both ways—to make subtle allusions that are given meaning by vehement jolts, to avoid specifics while pounding out generalized emotions.

There are moments that suggest an earnest and substantial inspiration that, however, remains largely undeveloped. A girl appears to have found a folded-up sheet of lyrics, titled “Sunbeams,” by the real-life Auschwitz inmate and survivor Joseph Wulf; she plays the piano, as if inwardly setting it to her music, as its words appear onscreen in subtitles.

(Did she scavenge the poem in her black-and-white, night-vision wanderings? The physical practicality behind such a moment is exactly the sort of exalted ordinariness that virtually cries out for a straightforward, dramatically direct and detailed approach.) There’s a character who casually opens an abyss of a backstory: Hedwig’s mother, Linna Hensel (Imogen Kogge), while walking with Hedwig in the family garden beside the death camp’s wall, wonders out loud, “Maybe Esther Silberman is over there . . . the one I used to clean for.” (But then Glazer lays it on thick, with Linna’s complaint that she was “outbid” for Esther’s curtains.)

Glazer’s purely external depiction of Auschwitz—its outer walls only—is of a piece with his reconstruction of life in its vicinity: he keeps his hands clean.

He models his vision of the Höss family circle, and of the Holocaust, on his own formidable artistic dignity.  The movie ends, pardon my spoiler, at the current-day museum that is Auschwitz. Glazer films employees cleaning inside a former gas chamber and in the halls and corridors where piles of shoes, crutches and other medical devices, and uniforms of inmates are on display. He seems to suggest that there’s such a thing as the banality of good, too, yet it remains similarly muted and abstract. He doesn’t deign to hear what the workers have to say.

An earlier version of this article misidentified a female character in two scenes of the film.

[wolviecat]

Blink and you will miss it - Wolviecat - Stranger Things (TV 2016) [Archive of Our Own]

Day 16 of the Febuwhump, prompt: Semi-conscious

In the end, dying didn't hurt that much. Well, it did hurt, more than anything in his life - both having his insides ripped open by the demobats, and having to listen to Dustin's desperate sobbing as he begged him to stay - but still, he somehow expected more. Maybe he was just a bigger masochist than he knew.

And then there was the fact that he survived, as far as he could tell. For a second, he hoped that the party had somehow dragged him back into the Right Side Up and into the hospital, but the world around was a little too cold and grimy even for whatever low-budget shithole his uninsured ass would land. But it was also a little too tangible for any after-life he could end up in, and missing the Valkyries and meadhalls of the one he was secretly hoping for. 

No, he was still in the same Upside Down, wearing the same ripped, bloodstained t-shirt over his ripped, bloodstained stomach. He tried to sit up and everything still inside him shifted and there was that pain he was waiting for. Back on the ground, biting his tongue because screaming didn't feel like the wisest course of action, he managed to peel off his shirt, tear it into strips and bandage himself as well as he could. It wasn't good at slightest, but at least it made him feel better. At least he didn't have to look at his guts.

He dragged himself back to his trailer, but the gate was already closed, their improvised rope lying tangled up on the ground. For a second, something hot and bitter flooded his mind They left you here, they cried and then they turned and forgot about you before he could stamp it down. They didn't, they couldn't know he's still alive, hell, even he had still troubless believing it. 

Too tired to continue, he curled up on the dusty mattress on the ground and closed his eyes.

His mouth tasted like iron and dust. He spat, and the half-chewed something that hit the floor was stripped gray and green, rotten. He gagged, but nothing came up. His body was somehow holding on whatever food he managed to find, no matter how rancid it was. He rubbed his temples. There was a hazy hole between the moment he went to sleep - passed out - in the trailer and when he found himself in this decaying copy of the Hawkins store. He has no way of telling how much time has passed. The Upside Down looked the same, day or night. The blood on his improvised bandage looked dry, brown and black, but the wound underneath felt the same when he touched it carefully. Not that he knew how long it would take for something as big to heal.

It wasn't the first time something like that had happened to him. Every single of his high school teachers had caught him staring into space, physically awake and present, but mentally somewhere far away. Maybe if he managed through an hour of education without zoning out, he thought, none of this would ever happen. He would already be away from Hawkins, someone else would have taken over the Hellfire club…

Someone else would have been facing the demobats, or maybe it would be just Dustin.

He shuddered. Apparently trying to escape his fate always meant throwing someone else under the bus.

He blinked.

Another moment skipped past without him noticing, and the can he was eating from was empty. He should be scared, but any adrenaline he had was already burned, leaving behind only a dull buzzing nothing. 

Maybe dying from food poisoning is still better than starving to death.

Walking was monotonous and tiring and he was almost glad to skip the most of it, waking only for the random encounters in the fucked up game session his life has become. Demodogs and demobats and brand new monsters he'd never seen before, all clearly hellbend to hunt him down. He learned which ones he's strong enough to beat - it got easier as he found the right places to hit, and stopped getting sick at the sight of their brains spilling out, black blood splattering his face - and which ones to avoid.    

The demogorgon still scared him. 

He was hiding behind a car, palms pressed over his mouth to stay silent while that spindly creature stalked around. He remembered the kids telling him that El - their never seen, superpowered friend - was able to kill it with just her mind. But he was just a guy armed with a rusted piece of iron. It was safer to stay hidden, to curl up so small it would miss him. It was a coward's way out, but he'd already had enough heroism to last him for the rest of his life.

It worked once. Twice. Time and time again, leaving him shaken and sweaty and gasping for breath. Until it didn't. Until the Demogorgon was snarling into his face, and there was nothing else to do but to close his eyes

That thing was dead. Blood was running down his face, and the monster was lying broken in front of him. Its below you, the little voice in his head said, it deserved to die for challenging the great K

He fell down to his side, unable to stay upright, and cried, because there is something stronger than the Demogorgon, and he couldn't remember it.

He stopped waiting for his wounds to heal. 

He stopped asking why his hair got lanky and greasy, but never grew, why his beard stayed a stubble.

He stopped looking at himself in the mirrors, unsure what he would see.

There were lines along his back itching so much that he'd actually scraped his skin away.

The gaps in his memories became longer. Even the moments he was aware felt like going through the motions without any conscious thought behind it. It felt like someone else was pulling the strings.

He stopped eating. He never got sick from the old cans, but he didn't feel like trying anymore.

The voice in his head grew lounder, shouting over his thoughts they have forget you they have betrayed you they will not come back.

Someone was with him in the Upside down. He could feel them - not the blank, simple minds of the creatures born here, but something different. Human, mostly. He went to greet them.

It took them a minute to recognise him, another one to believe. But their childish faith was louder than any reason, and they wanted him back so much.

Kas smiled.

In the back of his mind, Eddie was just a little voice screaming.