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kuromichad · 3 years

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different subject that’s heavy on my mind rn but since i’m already being harsh let’s get into it. i wish it wasn’t automatically presumed to be some kind of truscum attitude when someone tries to express that different parts of The Trans Community have like, different needs and different risk levels and different experiences and that we have the ability to talk over each other, harm each other, etc... like when i put it that way people generally are like ‘of course that’s true!’ but is it ever really understood in practice? a number of people (not a large enough number, but still) are able to loosely understand ‘you can be trans and transphobic’ when it’s applied to the matter of transmisogyny but when a trans person tries to express distrust of or frustration with afab nb people due to how common it is that that category of person will, despite being trans/nb, espouse bioessentialist, anti-medical-transition, radfem-adjacent if not outright cryptoterf rhetoric, suddenly ‘trans people can be transphobic’ gets applied to... the person with a complaint about transphobia.

because he’s clearly an evil truscum man! regardless of if the person making the complaint is a trans man or trans woman, oops, lol. he’s a bad person who is attacking and invalidating and totally hatecriming the heckin’ valid, equally at-risk transgender identity of “an afab woman who isn’t a woman except when she pointedly categorizes themself as a woman because being afab makes them a woman who is ‘politically aligned’ with women but she’s not an icky unwoke cis woman because they don’t like being forced into womanhood although Really When You Think About It 🤔 all women are dysphoric because obviously the pathologized medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in transgender people is something that equally applies to cis women just default existing under patriarchy 🤔, and no, equating these things totally does not imply anything reductive about or add a bizarre moral dimension to the idea of being transgender, whaaaaat, this woman who isn’t a woman doesn’t think there’s anything immoral or cowardly or misogynist or delusional about being transgender, they would never say that because THEY’RE transgender, except when she feels it’s important (constantly) to make clear that she’s Still A Woman Deep Down Inherently Despite Not Identifying As One, and none of this ever has any effect on how they treat the concept, socially and politically, of people who actually wholly identify with (and possibly medically transition to) a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, be it ‘the opposite gender’ or abstaining from binary gender altogether or ‘politically aligning’ with the ‘opposite’ gender from their asab. never ever!”

and like maybe that sounds like a completely absurd and hateful strawman to you! but in that case you’re either like, lucky, or optimistic, or ignorant. i’m literally not looking at random nb people and declaring that in My Truscum Opinion they’re ‘really a woman’ just because they’re not medically transitioning or meeting some arbitrary standard of mine. i am looking at self-identified afab nb people, who most often use she/they because, y’know, words mean things, especially pronouns, so people who are willingly ‘aligned with womanhood’ typically intentionally use she/her (sorry that i guess that’s another truscum take now!!! that pronouns mean things!!! the bigender transmasc who deliberately uses exclusively he/him wants it to invoke a perception he’s comfortable with!), who actively say the things listed above (in a non-sarcastic manner).

like, the line between a person who says “i don’t claim to really not be my asab because i know no one would ever perceive me as anything else” because theyve internalized a defeatist attitude due to societal transphobia, and a person who says that because they... genuinely believe it’s impossible/ridiculous/an imposition to truly be transgender (in the traditional trans sense, beyond a vague nb disidentification with gender) and are actively contributing to the former person’s self loathing... is hard to define from a distance! i think plenty of people who are, in a sense, ‘tentative’ or like ‘playing close to home’ so to speak in their identity are ‘genuinely trans’ (whatever that may mean) and just going through a process. they might arrive at a different identity or might just eventually stop saying/believing defeatist stuff, who knows. but there are enough people saying it for the latter reason, or at least not caring if they sound that way, that it’s like, dangerous. it is actively incredibly harmful to other trans people. and it’s fucking ridiculous that it’s so difficult to criticize because you’ll always get the defense of “umm but i’m literally trans” and/or “well i’m just talking about ME, this doesn’t apply to other trans people” when it’s an attitude that very clearly seeps into their politics and the way they discuss gender.

because it’s just incredibly common for afab nb people (most typically those that go by she/they! since i’m aware that uh, i am also afab nb, but we clearly are extremely different, so that’s the best categorization i’ve got) to discuss gender in moralized terms, with the excuse of patriarchy/misogyny existing, which of course adds another difficult dimension to trying to criticize this because it gets the response of “don’t act like misandry is real” (it’s not, but being a dick still is) and “boohoo, let women complain about their oppressors” (this goes beyond ‘complaining’). a deliberate revocation of empathy/sympathy/compassion from men and projection of inherently malicious/brutish/cruel intent onto men (not solely in the justified generalizations ‘men suck/are dangerous’, but in specific interactions too) underpin a whole fucking lot of popular posts/discussions online, whether they’re political or casual/social, and it absolutely influences how people conceptualize and feel about transness.

because ‘maleness is evil’ is still shitty politics even when you’ve slightly reframed it from the terf ‘trans women are evil because they’re Really Men and can never escape being horrific soulless brutes just as women can never escape being fragile morally superior flowers’ to the tumblr shethey “trans women who are out to me/unclockable are tolerable i guess because they’re women and women are good; anyone i personally presume to be a cis man, though, is still automatically evil, and saying trans men are Just As Bad is progressive of me, and it’s totally unrelated and apolitical that i think we should expand the concept of afab lesbianism so broadly that you can now be basically indistinguishable from trans men on literally every single level except for a declaration of ‘but i would never claim to be a man because i’m secure in the Innate Womanhood of the body i was born into, even as i medically alter that body because it causes me great gendered discomfort.’ none of this at all indicates that i feel there’s an immense moral/political gap between being an afab nb lesbian vs a straight trans man! it says nothing at all about my concept of ‘maleness’ and there’s no way this rhetoric bleeds into my perception of trans women and no way loudly talking about all this could keep trans people around me self-loathing and closeted, because i’m Literally Trans and Not A Terf!”

again, if that sounds like a hateful strawman, sorry but it’s not. i guess i’m supposed to be like ‘all of the many people ive seen saying these shitty things is an evil outlier who Doesn’t Count, and it’s not fair to the broad identity of afab shethey to not believe that every person who doesn’t outright say terfy enough things is a perfectly earnest valid accepting trans person who’s beyond criticism’ but like. this cannot be about broad validation. this can’t be about discarding all the bad apples as not really part of the group. we can’t be walking on eggshells to coddle what are essentially, in the end, Cis Feelings, because in the best cases this kind of rhetoric comes from naive people who are early and uncertain in their gender journey or whatever and are in the process of unraveling internalized transphobia, and in the easily observable worst cases these people are very literally redefining shit so that ‘actually all afab women are trans, spiritually, all afabs have dysphoria, we are all Equally oppressed by Males uh i mean cis men <3’ because, let’s be honest, they know that the moment they call themselves trans they get to say whatever they want about gender no matter how harmful it is to the rest of us. and those ideas spread like wildfire through the afab shethey “woman that’s not a woman” community that frankly greatly outnumbers other types of trans people online, because many of those people just do not have the experiences that lead you to really understand this shit and have to push back against concepts of gender that actively harm you as a trans person.

like that’s all i want to be able to say, is Things Are Different For Different Groups. and a willful ignorance of these differences leads to bad rhetoric controlling the overall discourse which gets people hurt. and even when concepts arise from it that seem positive and helpful and inclusive, in practice or in origin those ideas can still be upholding shit that gets other people hurt. like, i don’t doubt that many people are very straightforwardly happy and comfortable with an identity like ‘afab nb lesbian on testosterone’ and it would be ridiculous and hypocritical for me, ‘afab nb who wants to pass as a guy so he can comfortably wear skirts again,’ to act like that’s something that can’t or shouldn’t exist. it’s not about the identity itself, it’s about the politics that are popular within its community, and how the use of identities as moral labels with like, fucking pokemon type interactions for oppression effectiveness which directly informs the moral correctness of your every opinion and your very existence, is a shitty practice that gets people hurt and leads us to revoke empathy from each other.

like. sorry this is all over the place and long and probably still sounds evil because i haven’t thought through and disclaimered every single statement. but i’m like exhausted from living with this self-conscious guilt that maybe i’ve turned into a horrible evil truscum misogynist etc etc due to feeling upset by this seemingly inescapable approach to gender in lgbt/online circles that like, actively harms me, because when i vent with my friends all the stuff i’ve tried to explain here gets condensed down to referencing ‘she/theys’ as a category and that feels mean and generalizing and i genuinely dislike generalizations but the dread i feel about that category gets proven right way too often. it’s just like. this is not truscum this is not misgendering this is not misogyny. this is not about me decreeing that all transmascs have to be manly enough or dysphoric enough and all nbs have to be neatly agender and androgynous or something, i’m especially not saying that nb gender isn’t real lmao or even that it’s automatically wrong to partially identify with your asab; this is not me saying you can only medically transition for specific traditional reasons or that you don’t get a say on anything if you aren’t medically transitioning for whatever reason, now or ever. i just. want to be allowed to be frank about how... when there’s different experiences in a community we should like. acknowledge those differences and be willing to say that sometimes people don’t know what they’re talking about or that what they’re saying is harmful. without the primary concern being whether people will feel invalidated by being told so. because these are like, real issues, that are more important than politely including everyone, because that method is just getting vulnerable people drowned out constantly.

#source on much of this: existing as a transmasc on tumblr for years and years.#i stopped identifying as any sort of 'woman-aligned' pretty much right before the ridiculous 'all afabs are dysphoric' stuff #but it sure did still make me hate myself and feel like a silly cowardly ugly little girl for wanting to transition!#and back when i WAS a she/they i definitely was falling for 'men are bad maleness is bad always inherently :)' rhetoric #not in the modern form outlined above but in the like. brainlessly parroted from 'baeddel tumblr' form #which was still like 'you can escape being a Bad Person by either becoming or admitting you are a girl :)'#and the only acknowledgment of trans men in this ideology was like. 'well i guess they feel like they have to do that :\'#'too bad for them. im not saying they shouldnt transition but you know. men suck though <3'#it was bad for me it was bad for other people so im saying from experience. Fucking cut it out! the end

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im-the-punk-who · 3 years

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On Monday night, Mulaney opened up in ways no one had been expecting. He read aloud from a GQ interview he had no recollection of participating in, and he recapped how, after an initial stint in rehab in September, he relapsed after hosting SNL in late October, then began an unexpected stint as a writer-performer on Late Night With Seth Meyers the following month, to try to impose some structure on his life. In December, his friends staged an intervention that led to his second, publicized rehab stint, which lasted through late February. By the time of his first City Winery show, he told the audience, he was 141 days sober.[..]

A lot of Mulaney’s classic jokes hinge on taking not very serious things very seriously — he is a master of faux exasperation — but it is a challenge when the subject matter is, in fact, quite serious. How social anxiety has contributed to his drug use is not something one can easily be flippant about. Pettiness, which has always been in his act in small doses, came to the forefront. He spent a large portion of the set complaining about his intervention, organized by his college friends and his celebrity friends. How dare they trick him into thinking he was getting dinner? Why, in a room of the 12 funniest people he knows, was no one being funny?[..]

By the time this material is filmed, you’ll see less a new and improved John Mulaney, but an older, more mature one. You know how when a caterpillar is turning into a butterfly, their entire body decomposes before recomposing, so if you were to cut the chrysalis open in the middle, it would be just gross goo? Last night was like that goo. With most of the material, Mulaney didn’t come off particularly well; he knew that, and leaned into it. The most exhilarating moments were when he would make fun of the tone of overwhelming support he got when the news of his drug addiction first came out. He would reveal something shitty he did to his friends and quickly remind the audience, “It’s a disease.”[..]

When he said his relationship with audiences is the longest lasting, most intimate one of his life, many began to clap. He cringed and asked them to stop — he hadn’t meant it was a good thing. [..]

Mulaney is trying to create material that is both funny and says something about addiction, public perception, truth, fame, being a good guy, and how a person should be. He is working toward something great, but, for right now, he’s just working.

I’m reading this article and watching John Mulaney’s recovery while re-reading Brené Brown’s book Daring Greatly - particularly the chapter about numbing and addiction.

In the book Brown points out that addiction is usually born of an attempt to hide from disconnection, anxiety, and depression - something that John Mulaney also commented on in his recent show.

As I thought back to my own numbing history, understanding how shame magnifies anxiety and disconnection provided me with answers to questions that I’ve had for years. I didn’t start drinking to drown my sorrows: I just needed something to do with my hands.[..]

For me, vulnerability led to disconnection, which led to Bud Light. For many of us, the literal chemical anesthetizing of emotions is just a pleasant, albeit dangerous, side effect of behaviors that are more about fitting in, finding connection, and managing anxiety.

- Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

He began drinking at thirteen—initially, he says, to deal with the awkwardness of adolescence, and then to excess, because “alcohol is addictive,” he says, and he didn’t want to stop. “I drank for attention,” he tells me. “I was really outgoing, and then at twelve, I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to act. And then I was drinking, and I was hilarious again.” Drugs soon followed. “I never liked smoking pot. Then I tried cocaine, and I loved it. I wasn’t a good athlete, so maybe it was some young male thing of ‘This is the physical feat I can do. Three Vicodin and a tequila and I’m still standing. Who’s the athlete now?’”

-John Mulaney, Esquire interview

And then I’m thinking about how sobriety can only be so much of the answer, because addiction is only so much of the problem. We can’t fix the destructive effects of addiction if we cannot combat the societal reasons people turn to numbing - be it with drugs or food or work, or anything else. I’m so happy to see Mulaney continue talking frankly about not just his addiction, but why and how those struggles are connected to other things he struggles with. How he has struggled with accepting help - that he still wants to use.

When Mulaney revealed that he felt his relationship with the audience was his most intimate and long lasting one, I almost cried. Because I feel that. I have felt that. Connection - true, genuine connection, is the only thing I’ve ever found that helped with my own addictions, but that false sense of it that can come from being funny and popular can be so insidiously similar. But it is impossible to do this alone. As with so many disorders and problems born out of social isolation, social connection is the only answer.

IMO, it’s why harm-reduction programs work so well - because they do not require anything of a person before they offer help and support. There is no ‘tomorrow you will be’. It is always ‘who are you today and how can i support you.’

And I hope that is what people take away from Mulaney putting his struggles so clearly on display, and talking about them so openly in his new work. And I also hope that he is able to continue working on building himself a support network and strengthening the bonds of the people who helped him this time. I really, deeply look forward to seeing where he takes himself, and I’m honestly just so moved by the parts of his journey he is sharing. It is a vulnerability that takes so much courage, to let people see you fall down like this, and be open about how, and why, and how far you’ve fallen. And how hard it is to stand back up.

All the love and support to John, and to anyone else struggling the way he (and I, and so many people) do.

#comedy #stand-up #john mulaney #addiction #rehab #drug use cw #drug mention #long post #links #articles #LMAO sorry there are so many thoughts i just LITERALLY reread this chapter today -#then read this article and it hit me like a ton of bricks #numbing and addiction

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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Andrea Long Chu is the sad embodiment of the contemporary left

Andrea Long Chu’s Females was published about a year ago. It was heavily hyped but landed with mostly not-so-great reviews, and while I was going to try and pitch my own review I figured there was no need. Going through my notes from that period, however, I see how much Chu’s work—and its pre-release hype—presaged the sad state of the post-Bernie, post-hope, COVID-era left. I figured they’d be worth expanding upon here, even if I’m not getting paid to do so.

Chu isn’t even 30 years old, and Females is her debut book, and yet critics were already providing her with the sort of charitable soft-handedness typically reserved for literary masters or failed female political candidates. This is striking due to the purported intensity of the book: a love letter to would-be assassin Valerie Solanas, the thesis of which is that all humans are female, and that such is true because female-ness is a sort of terminal disease stemming not from biology but from one’s inevitable subjugation in larger social contexts. Everyone is a woman because everyone suffers. Big brain shit.

But, of course, not everyone is a female. Of course. Females are females only some of the time. But, also, everyone is a female. Femaleness is just a title, see. Which means it can be selectively applied whenever and however the author chooses to apply it. The concept of “female” lies outside the realm of verifiability. Suggesting to subject it to any form of logic or other means of adjudication means you’re missing the point. Femaleness simply exists, but only sometimes, and those sometimes just so happen to be identifiable only to someone possessed with as a large a brain as Ms. Chu. We are past the need for coherence, let alone truth or honesty. And if you don’t agree that’s a sign that you are broken—fragile, illiterate, hateful, humorless.

Chu’s writing—most famously, her breakthrough essay “On Liking Women”—establishes her prose style: long, schizophrenic paragraphs crammed with unsustainable metaphors meant to prove various fuzzy theses simultaneously. Her prose seems kinda sorta provocative but only when read on a sentence-by-sentence level, with the reader disregarding any usual expectations of cohesion or connection.

This emancipation from typical writerly expectations allows Chu to wallow proudly in self-contradiction and meaninglessness. As she notes herself, explicitly, meaning isn’t the point. Meaning doesn’t even exist. It’s just, like, a feeling:

I mean, I don’t like pissing people off per se. Yes, there is a pleasure to that sometimes, sure. I think that my biggest takeaway from graduate school is that people don’t say things or believe things—they say them because it makes them feel a particular way or believing them makes them feel a particular way. I’ve become hyper aware of that, and the sense in which I’m pissing people off is more about bringing that to consciousness for the reader. The reason you’re reacting against this is not because it contradicts what you think is true, it’s because it prevents you from having the feeling that the thing you think is the truth lets you feel.

And so she can get away with saying that of course she doesn’t actually believe that everyone is a female, the same as her idol Valerie Solanas didn’t actually want to kill all men. The writers, Chu and Valerie, are just sketching out a dumb idea as a fun little larf, to see how far they can push a manifestly absurd thought. If they just so happen to shoot a gay man at point blank range and/or make broader left movements so repulsive that decent people get driven away, so be it. And if any snowflakes complain about their tactics, well that’s just proof of how right they are. Provocation is justification—the ends and the means. The fact that this makes for disastrous and harmful politics is beside the point. All that matters is that Chu gets to say what she wants to say.

This blunt rhetorical move—which is difficult to describe without sounding like I’m exaggerating or making stuff up, since it’s so insane—papers over Chu’s revanchist and violent beliefs. Her work is soaked with approving portrayals of Solanas’ eliminationist rhetoric—of course, Chu doesn’t’ actually mean it, even though she does. Men are evil, even as they don’t really fully exist since everyone is a woman, ergo eliminating men improves the world. Chu goes so far as to suggest that being a trans woman makes her a bigger feminist than Solanas or any actual woman could ever be, because the act of her transitioning led to the world containing fewer men. Again: big brain shit.

I’ll leave it to a woman to comment on the imperiousness of a trans woman insisting that she is bestest and realest kind of woman, that biological women are somehow flawed imposters. I will stress, however, that such a claim comes as a means of justifying a politically disastrous assertion that more or less fully justifies the most reactionary gender critical arguments, which regard all trans women as simply mentally ill men (this line of reasoning is so incredibly stupid that even a dullard like Rod Drehar can rebut it with ease). Trans activists have spent years establishing an understanding of transsexualism as a matter of inherent identity—whether or not you agree with that assertion, you have to admit that it has political propriety and has gone a long way in normalizing transness. Chu rejects this out of hand, embracing instead the revanchist belief that transness is attributable to taking sexual joy in finding oneself embarrassed and/or feminized—an understanding of womanhood that is simultaneously essentialist and tokenizing. When asked about the materially negative potential in expressing such a belief, Chu reacts with a usual word salad of smug self-contradiction:

EN: You say in the book that sissy porn was formative of your coming to consciousness as a trans woman. If you hadn’t found sissy porn, do you think it’s possible that you might have just continued to suffer in the not-knowing?

ALC: That’s a really good question. It’s plausible to me that I never would have figured it out, that it would have taken longer.

EN: How does that make you feel? Is that idea scary?

ALC: It isn’t really. Maybe it should be a little bit more, but it isn’t really. One of the things about desire is that you can not want something for the first 30 years of your life and wake up one day and suddenly want it—want it as if you might as well have always wanted it. That’s the tricky thing about how desire works. When you want something, there’s a way in which you engage in a kind of revisionism, the inability to believe that you could have ever wanted anything else.

EN: People often talk about the ubiquity of online porn as a bad thing—I’ve heard from lots of girlfriends that men getting educated about sex by watching porn leads to bad sex—but there seems to me a way in which this ubiquity is helping people to understand themselves, their sexuality and their gender identity.

ALC: While I don’t have the research to back this up, I would certainly anecdotally say that sissy porn has done something in terms of modern trans identity, culture, and awareness. Of course, it’s in the long line of sexual practices like crossdressing in which cross-gender identification becomes a key factor. It’s not that all of the sudden, in 2013, there was this thing and now there are trans people. However, it is undoubted that the Internet has done something in terms of either the sudden existence of more trans people or the sudden revelation that there are more trans people than anyone knew there were. Whether it’s creation or revelation, I think everyone would agree that the internet has had an enormous impact there.

One of the things I find so fascinating about sissy porn is that it’s not just that I can hear about these trans people who live 20 states away from me and that their experiences sound like mine. There is a component of it that’s just sheer mass communication and its transformative effect, but another part of it is that the internet itself can exert a feminizing force. That is the implicit claim of sissy porn, the idea that sissy porn made me trans is also the idea that Tumblr made me trans. So, the question there is whether or not the erotic experience that became possible with the Internet actually could exert an historically unique feminizing force. I like, at least as a speculative claim, to think about how the Internet itself is feminizing.

Politics, like, don’t matter. So, like, okay, nothing I say matters? So it’s okay if I say dumb and harmful shit because, like, they’re just words, man.

Chu can’t fully embrace this sort of gradeschool nihilism, though, because if communication was truly as meaningless as she claims then any old critic could come along and tell her to shut the fuck up. Even as she claims to eschew all previously existing means of adjudicating morality and coherence, she nonetheless relies on the cheapest means of making sure she maintains a platform: validation via accreditation. This is all simple victimhood hierarchy. Anyone who does not defer all of their own perceptions to someone higher up the hierarchy is inherently incorrect, their trepidations serving to validate the beliefs of the oppressed:

I like to joke that, as someone who is always right, the last thing I want is to be agreed with. [Laughs] I think the true narcissist probably wants to be hated in order to know that she’s superior. I absolutely do court disagreement in that sense. But what I like even better are arguments that bring about a shift in terms along an axis that wasn’t previously evident. So it’s not just that other people are wrong; it’s that their wrongness exists within a system of evaluation which itself is irrelevant.

Chu has summoned the most cynical possible interpretation of Walter Ong’s suggestion that “Writing is an act of violence disguised as an act of charity.” Of course, any effective piece of communication requires some degree of persuasion, convincing a reader, listener, viewer, or user to subjugate their perceptions to those of the communicator. Chu creates—not just leans on or benefits from, but actively posits and demands fealty to—the suggestion that her voice is the only one deserving of attention by virtue of it being her own. That’s it. That’s what all her blathering and bluster amount to. Political outcomes do not matter. Honesty does not matter. What matters is her, because she is her.

This is the inevitable result of a discourse that prizes a communicator’s embodied identity markers more than anything those communicators are attempting to communicate, and in which a statement is rendered moral or true based only upon the presence or absence of certain identity markers. Lived experience trumps all else. A large, non-passing trans woman is therefore more correct than pretty much anyone else, no matter how harmful or absurd her statements may be. She is also better than them. And smarter. And gooder.

Designating lived experience and subjective feelings of safety as the only acceptable forms of adjudication has caused the left to prize individualism to a degree that would have made Ronald Reagan blush. And this may explain the lukewarm reception of Chu’s book.

While they heaped praise upon her before the books’ release, critics backed off once they realized that Females is an embarrassingly apt reflection of intersectional leftism—a muddling, incoherent mess, utterly disconnected from any attempt toward persuasion or consensus, the product of a movement that has come to regard neurosis as insight. The deranged mewlings of a grotesque halfwit are only digestable a few pages at a time. Any more than that, and we begin to see within them far too much of the things that define our awful movement and our terrifying moment.

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imma-lil-teapot · 4 years

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TMNT 2003/2K3 Headcanon: Crying - (Raphael)

Feel free to scroll past this first part if you’re not interested in my silly rambling and nonsense. I won’t mind. Promise. ;)

Alrighty then, lockdown has officially started here. :/ *Unenthusiastic streamers fly* Oh well, look what we have all the time in the world for: WRITING! *Enthusiastic streamers fly* Not too much extra to add in this regard since the last headcanon (thanks a bunch for the likes btw, guys :D ), so I guess we’ll just get right into it. :)

Please bear in mind that I’m SUPER rusty! Haven’t written in ages so there are bound to be typos and all matter of general errors scattered throughout the post. Don’t pet them! They bite!

Anyhoo~ Despite attempting to create and share with the goal in mind to uplift spirits, I decided to start on a rather upsetting subject (PLEASE DON’T LEAVE! They end on happy notes ;) ) because, Imma just come and say it, I enjoy seeing my favourite characters shed tears (not for just any old reason -their personality plays a huge role in this- and CERTAINLY not for sadistic reasons, land sakes no! But… well, you’ll see~ ;) ) It makes me all gooey and fuzzy inside to see them display such raw emotion and I just wanna leap into the TV screen to hug and console them. I dunno why. Maybe I’m nuts like that. (Remembers Raph crying at the farm when Leo was badly injured and wishes she could just hug them all and take away the pain) Oh well, if you enjoy visualizing the same, then *High Fives*. :)

So yeah, if you read the title, you’ll know this is based on the 2003/2k3 series (my favs). Hope you all enjoy~ :D Grab tissues cause sad turts ahead! :’(

Jibber jabber stops here~

TURTLES~

LEONARDO

RAPHAEL - You are here

DONATELLO - Coming soon

MICHELANGELO - Coming soon

WARNING(S): Because of the subject, Angst and Hurt/Comfort will be present.

RATING: G (General)

WORD COUNT: Uhhh... *Shrugs shoulders*

ANYTHING ELSE TO ADD:

Well, you’re just gonna have to scroll down to find him, Master Splinter. ;) I really didn’t know what to add so... *Shrugs* And look at da squishy Turtle Tots, dey so cuuuuute!!! <3

TO THE HEADCANONS~~~~

~RAPHAEL~

– With his infamous hotheadedness and quick capacity for battle, it’s of course natural at first for one to expect Big Bad Raphie-Boy to be completely opposed to the very thought of crying. He is the resident ‘tough guy’ after all.

– However, this notion couldn’t be farther from the truth: sure, he can be brash, quick to temper and lash out at those that give him enough incentive to, but underneath that rockhard exterior beats the heart of a real softie, and when something truly upsets that tender muscle, you can bet Mr. Hothead’s not going to try too hard to keep the tears at bay.

– He’s as passionate as he is headstrong, and reining in such powerful emotions proves to be difficult at most times for him, so out of the four of them, and given the right circumstances, Raph can be surprisingly easy to get the tears flowing.

-- He’s no crybaby by a long shot, mind you, but he also knows that holding back on the waterworks is pointless and makes one just feel worse in the long run. If you’re going to cry, just cry. Simple as that.

-- Like all of his brothers, Red can’t handle the thought of losing any of his family and close friends. It tears him apart inside and he’ll desperately attempt to protect and prevent anything terrible from happening to them, but when it does, he’s an emotional wreck and doesn’t always know how to handle his distress.

– His initial reaction is to be by their sides before becoming outraged, and depending on the different situations, it’s not uncommon for him to also nag and pass remarks at the injured brother(s). It’s the only real way of expressing his fear of losing them before dampness starts forming in his eyes.

– Despite his tough guy front, he’s not against crying in front of his family and friends at all. He knows his place and doubts a few tears will have them seeing him in a different light, particularly his father/master and brothers for they’ve seen the worst in him on many occasions.

– It’s only when a particularly harsh meltdown wishes to happen does Raph choose to spare them the sideshow; he knows it’s not a pretty sight, so before the sniffling begins, he leaves the Lair and heads topside for some much needed air.

– He chooses the nearby rooftops as his destination; the ideal location to let go of the ever building waves of raw emotion that continue to grip at his chest, and by the time he makes it up the fire escape ladder, he spares little time letting out a rough growl in frustration, kicking an air vent a couple of times for good measure.

-- With some rage and frustration now out of his system, he heads on over to the brick wall and turns his back to it, roughly sliding down into a sitting position and exhales a dismal sigh. As he subconsciously replays the earlier events through his mind, he finally allows the next phase of his sorrow to surface unbridled.

-- He dolefully holds his head in one hand and balances it on a single knee pad as the tears now begin to flow freely.

– They instantly soak into his mask, and he grits his teeth as he feels the surges of emotion wrack his entire body. He doesn’t characteristically whimper or sob when crying, but he coughs a lot, and his nostrils leak like a faucet, forcing him to frequently sniff and snort just in order to breathe. This is the very reason why he refuses to really break down in front of the the others; not because of his tenacity, but because he simply finds the whole affair gross. His family certainly didn’t need to hear him constantly hacking up a lung and sounding like an untuned trumpet every time he blew his nose.

– The episode doesn’t last too long, though, much to his delight, and after some more thorough nasal clearing, Raph then wipes at his still somewhat wet eyes and mask before drawing out another -now exhausted- sigh.

-- He’d begin gradually twirling a single sai around whilst he collected his thoughts. It felt more natural to keep his hands busy than have them being static when he was feeling this way. As his demeanor altered, so did the actions he performed with it.

– He wouldn’t return to his family just yet for there was still some brooding left to be done... At least that was what he’d convinced himself he was doing. He wanted a clear head when he returned so for now, he’d remain in place on the rooftop in the crisp air with the city bursting with life just below him.

-- He had to admit, it was certainly the best place for him to be with his thoughts. Comforting in fact. A true New Yorker at heart.

BONUS EXTRA~

– Aside from having everyone special to him perish, one of Raph’s greatest fears is his inability to fully control his own temper. On more than one occasion has it gotten out of hand and thus resulted in him injuring his own brothers, and it had shaken him to the core each time.

– He’s come to the realization that he is his own worst enemy when it comes to reigning in his own inner rage, and it uneases him immensely that it could happen again and he’s fully aware that the probability is higher than he cares to admit. The more he concerns himself with it, the more it upsets him and thus, the tears of frustration start.

– Fortunately, his bros are there for him and can tell when he’s feeling low about it. They know the best course of action is to have a light-hearted conversation about it with him and offer their reassurances... With Mikey of course adding his own two cents on the matter in his unique Mikey style, which usually involves poking fun at his brother in red and causing Raph to go from broody to enraged in record breaking time. Just how it should be.

– Not only is Raph A-okay with crying himself, but he’s often first on the emotional support committee to offer the shoulder of comfort to his friends, amazingly enough, and he’s actually pretty decent at it too. Though, not for absolutely everyone; he has his limitations when he knows someone’s really just blubbering for attention.

– He wasn’t always so accepting of shedding tears, though: as a very young Turtle Tot, he often thought of it as being too ‘babyish’ for him to do and thus despised it whenever something happened to cause him to tear up.

– It took Master Splinter a rather surprisingly lengthy amount of time to change his perception of crying. No amount of explanations on how it was a perfectly natural expression of emotion would sway his son.

– It got so out of hand that Raph would be in utter denial about crying right in front of his father, even while the latter would be staring at his tear-stained face directly in front of him. “M‘not cryin’,” the little Turtle would sniff. “Cryin’s fah sissies.”

-- Splinter could only sigh and shake his head as he knelt down to embrace his son. When could he feel that Raphael would not fight the closeness, he’d give him the same lecture again, and Raph would finally succumb to his emotions and sob into his father’s robe whilst Splinter comfortingly rubbed his shell.

-- He could only guess that his words finally got through to his son for ever since that day, Raph’s entire attitude had altered for the better on the subject.

BONUS EXTRA EXTRA FEMALE READER OR S/O EDITION~ (Can also use an OC/FC insert if you wish, up to you)

From the moment you entered the Lair, you could clearly see something was up; Mikey was nursing an obvious wrist injury with a bag of frozen peas and hovering around Donny’s work area, complaining about the swelling to the purple-banded Turtle, who appeared to be paying little attention towards his ‘younger’ sibling as his back was turned.

"Hi, (Y/N).”

You visibly jumped at the voice behind you and briskly turned, only to meet Leonardo’s placid form, and he swiftly apologized for the start.

After the formal greeting, you gestured with a thumb in confusion at the former scene with an added, “Do I want to know?”

The leader’s facial features altered to a more serious aspect. “The end result of testing Raph’s patience,” he offered, which instantly had you more than a little concerned. Sure, Mikey could come off as being annoying, but to go so far as to physically harm him?

“Are you sure it’s not worse than ‘just a sprain’?” You overheard the injured brother asking Donny, whose focus remained on a contraption of sorts you couldn’t quite make out on his desk.

“Yes, Mikey, you’ll live,” he responded with just a hint of weariness. “But no swinging your nunchucks around for a coupla days,” which was met with a typical whine in response from his patient.

“It’s really not as bad as he makes it out to be,” Leo then added, turning your attention back towards him. Though you didn’t express it, you were grateful to hear the good news.

"Where is he now?”

“Topside most likely.” Of course. It didn’t surprise you in the least that Raph had chosen to head there and you quickly set a course for the surface. “Need an escort?” The leader in blue offered, to which you politely declined. You knew he needed no further explanation.

As you pushed back the manhole cover and made your way towards the nearest fire escape ladder, you were unable to put aside the various speculations as to why your special Turtle would hurt his own brother... Well, you would be kidding yourself to say you didn’t have at least one very plausible theory in mind, but as you neared the top of the ladder, the guesswork was instantly dropped and replaced with trepidation for you knew how Raph felt about injuring family.

To put it simply, you were going to be dealing with a very dejected Turtle, and true to form, as you peered over the top of the building, the iconic emerald green hide and red mask tails met your sight.

This was Raph’s favorite spot to gather his thoughts after all, so it was a no-brainer decision to begin the search there, and it was clear as day that it was exactly what he was doing for he made no effort to acknowledge your presence as he remained seated against the wall in a slouching position and gaze locked out front.

As expected, he appeared to be moping. “Hey, Raphie,” you greeted, clambering over the wall.

You were unable to tell if he had been aware you were nearby for he made no prior indication but instead merely replied with a gloomy, “’Sup, Kiddo?” No movement whatsoever.

It amused you whenever he chose to refer to you by that nickname, especially since you were both the same age, but as you ambled on over towards him, you were left anything but amused as your former notion was set in stone when you caught the telltale signs of wet stains under his eyes. “You okay?”

“Peachy.”

It wasn’t the first time you had witnessed ‘ol Red crying, but it didn’t prevent your heart from breaking all the same. Something about seeing the bullheaded bad boy in tears left you in a real state of dismay, so without invitation, you seated yourself next him, affectionately leaning against his side, but before the consoling could begin, you had to gently ask, “You wanna tell me what happened?”

“Ugh, it was so stupid! Mikey wouldn’t quit goin’ on n’ on about beatin’ me in the Battle Nexus tournament and kept rubbin’ it in our faces about becomin’ the champ,” he exclaimed with shockingly little provocation, sniffing loudly. “I jus’ got so sick’ve it this time, an’ it’s not like we neva duked it out before or nothin’ but... I went too far this time, (Y/N), ya know?”

He still refused to look at you as he began to wipe away some fresh tears that were forming in his eyes.

Your assumption had been correct all along; you acknowledged full well how Mikey’s triumphant achievement grated on Raph’s last nerve and how the orange-banded Turtle would seek out every opportunity to gloat about it in a bid to purposely provoke his ‘older’ brother. “Well, you know Mikey, Raph,” you said, not quite sympathizing with the actions he took, but rather offering some support. “He tries to get under your shell on purpose.”

"Yeah, I know, but... Dat’s no reason ta clobber the guy. Not like that, anyway” You noted how his voice gradually lowered grievously and you couldn’t stop yourself from placing your head on his shoulder.

“No, it isn’t, but...” you knew you were grasping at straws by this point, but still offered, “They say it’s not as bad as he makes it out to be.”

He sighed dolefully. “I lost control again, (Y/N),” and you could feel the vibrations beginning to surge through him. “No matta what I do, I jus’... I jus’ can’t...” He trailed off, wracked with emotions as he covered his face with one hand and allowed the tears to fall, a cough slipping here and there.

You heart bled for this boy, and more than anything right then, you longed to relieve him of the pain, so you did the only thing you could think of: be right there by his side, comforting him through the breakdown. “Oh, Raph. It’ll be okay,” you calmly whispered, slinking an arm around his carapace and shoulders, bringing him closer and lightly squeezing his bicep with your free hand. “It’ll be okay.”

He leaned into the much needed support and continued to allow his misery to flow forth. You didn’t mind in the least for it was exactly what he required in order to heal, and you would be there for him every step of the way.

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

ALL THE FEELS!! I EMBARRASS!!

WOOT, that’s Turt number two completed! Sorry it took a little longer than expected; I still feel rusty with sentence structure and all and am not entirely pleased with the outcome, but I did feel an improved ‘flow’ from the first so maybe things are slowly coming back to me? Or maybe it was the scenario; it felt more natural o write than Leo’s... Maybe cause Bloo Boi’s my fav Turt and I felt added pressure with his?

Oh well, Donny Boy’s next~

Thank you all so much for the read and hope you enjoyed~ :D

~Drag0n Mistr3ss’ Random Fandoms*

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pilyarquitect · 4 years

Text

War for Genius - 27 - How deep can injuries be?

Hello everyone! Here I bring you the new chapter!! This one is an emotional one, but it had a special deliver on it that I hope you’ll like.

Also, in this chapter there’s a piece of art related with a scene it appears. This piece of art was done by whisperwillyou on Tumblr if you want to check it. Anyways, I hope I’ll like the chapter 😉

As always, I’d like to thank Empro-8 for helping me editing this story. Honestly, without her help this wouldn’t be as good as it is, so thank you very much Empro-8 you’re amazing!

Welp, I’ll stop talking and let you read the chapter, enjoy it! 😉

**************************************

They returned to Duckburg in record time. Launchpad had just finished repairing the plane when they staggered out of the building with an unconscious Huey in their arms. Mark Beaks and Falcon Graves were both securely tied back-to-back and put under Beakley's watchful eye. Seriously, that woman looked like a sergeant. Her gaze was so intense that not even Beaks dared to open his beak.

Fenton noted the state Graves was in. They told him it was Donald who left him in that state after he floated about torturing Huey. Seeing the hawk, a bird much larger than himself beaten so badly made the superhero wonder what would have happened to Beaks if Scrooge hadn't stopped his nephew. After all, the parrot was the one responsibility for all their heartache. He even threatened to kill Huey through a number of slow and painful ways if they didn't let him escape.

During the journey, Gizmoduck was asked to hold Huey, since his suit incorporated cooling functions that would help to lower the poor duckling body’s temperature. It could at least prevent his fever from rising further. Fenton could see how Donald didn’t look away from his nephew for a second, like he was afraid that he would disappear again forever. The Hispanic duck was heartbroken to see Donald like that, and hoped that his mother would never be in the same situation with him… too late for that. His mother had already been in Donald’s position not long too long ago when he was in the hospital.

"We are about to fly over the Duckburg Police Headquarters, we’ll be there in a matter of minutes."

"Oh really? That gives me an idea,” said Scrooge with a smile. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and wrote something.

Then approaching the back of the plane, he grabbed something and put it on both villains, it seemed… a parachute? He also put the written note so that it was clearly visible, but couldn’t fall. Next, he tied a rope around his waist and ordered the others to take a seat and buckle up. All except Donald, Scrooge convinced him to do the same he had done. He assured him that he would like what he was about to do.

The next thing the rich duck did was open the plane’s back door while holding his grand-nephew's kidnappers to keep them from flying away.

His last action was to call his nephew over and say:

“Donald? Would you like to do the honors?”

Donald Duck smiled and approached the villainous duo. Grabbing Beaks by the shirt collar, he said:

"This for what you’ve done to my nephew."

He then pulled the ring that opened the parachute and booted them from the plane with a hard kick. The uncles watched with satisfaction as Beaks screamed when he fell, before the parachute caught air and descended right in front of the station’s door. Several officers to immediately came out and grabbed them.

With a smile, Scrooge closed the door again and when he turned and saw the strange expressions, he explained:

“I didn't want them to come with us to the hospital, and I didn't want to stop to drop them off, so I applied the intermediate solution. And the note explains they’re detained on charges of kidnapping, torture and attempted murder and that for more details contact me.”

Fenton was amazed, but he didn't complain. That was the least those two deserved. Without further distractions, they then rushed the oldest triplet to the hospital. When they saw his condition, the doctors immediately took Huey to the intensive care unit to do a thorough examination of his condition and give him the care he needed.

The family was forced to wait outside. Obviously the doctors didn’t let anyone pass while they were taking care of the boy. The family had no choice but to wait anxiously for someone to give them some news regarding Huey.

As they waited, going from one side of the room to the other, Donald turned to the rest and said:

"I want to be by his side when Huey wakes up."

Scrooge shook his head and looking sadly at his nephew, said:

"Sorry lad, I don't think it's the most appropriate."

Before the sailor-clad duck could even open his mouth to reply, Dewey asked:

"Why not Uncle Scrooge? I think Uncle Donald has every right to be by Huey's side when he wakes up. Why shouldn't he be there?”

The other little duck dressed in green, seemed as obfuscated as his brother. It was as if they both wanted to jump on the older duck for saying something like that. If only they knew… Fenton was about to explain what the kids’ great-uncle had meant by those words, but Webby came before him saying:

"Boys, don't be mad at Uncle Scrooge. What he means is that probably the best thing is that none of us here will be by his side when he wakes up."

"What? Why?" the two brothers asked at the same time. Donald seemed to be wondering exactly the same thing.

Fenton sighed and it was he who responded this time explaining:

“While we were looking for Huey, we found a room full of costumes and masks of each one of the members of this family. All obviously worn, there was even a Gizmoduck suit, practically identical to mine. I think… I think they used all that to torture Huey. Making him believe that it was we who did it to him."

The eyes of those who were in the other rescue group widened at those words, and the reactions were not long in coming:

"What?"

"That's horrible!"

Mr. McDuck sighed and then said:

"We know. But not knowing what kind of torture the poor lad was subjected to, seeing any of us when he wakes up, could be… disastrous."

Donald looked at his uncle with a face full of fear and said:

"B-but then what do we do? The last thing I want is for my nephew to wake up among strangers.”

The older duck looked at his nephew with compassion and putting his hand on his shoulder, said:

"I know Donald, but I'm afraid there’s nothing more we can do."

"Or, maybe not..." Webby said suddenly. Everyone turned to look at her, and then Beakley asked:

"What do you mean dear?"

The girl with a bow in her hair turned to look at her grandmother and answered:

"Among all the costumes that were there... there was me, you, Granny, Uncle Scrooge, Donald, Gizmoduck... but none of Fenton. And I think Gyro’s intern is a good friend of Huey’s.”

Fenton opened his eyes in surprise, he hadn’t expected this young girl to know that. Although of course, she seemed to be really perceptive. It was logical to think she had realized something like that. Smiling with some emotion, he asked:

"Do you believe it?"

She turned to look at him and answered:

"I know Huey went to visit a friend at the hospital almost daily, and I think that friend was that duck."

Scrooge smiled then and said:

"That's right lass. I introduced them both myself."

"It's true…" Fenton said in a nostalgic voice. Then he realized everyone was looking at him, cleared his throat and quickly added:

"Er… I heard him comment to Dr. Gearloose."

Scrooge nodded and speaking to everyone present, but specifically to him, said:

"I think that lad could be very helpful to us. Gizmoduck, could you go to Gyro's lab and bring him please?"

Fenton smiled and quickly replied:

"On my way, Mr. McDuck. "

He then left the hospital and pretended to leave, waited a while, and re-entered the hospital in his civilian form, claiming he had been informed of the situation and was delighted to be able to assist in whatever was necessary.

**************************************

The constant noise from the machines was all that could be heard in the room, Huey had been connected to several of them to keep his constants under control and make sure everything was going well. When the doctors managed to stabilize the duckling, they informed the family and moved him to a room. Fenton immediately went with him and stayed there while Scrooge and Donald talked to the doctor, who informed them the full extent of the physical damage, there was a significant probability the boy would also suffer psychological damage.

Apparently, this worried the doctor a lot, especially when he learned the details of what had probably been done to the boy. The doctor immediately suggested that Huey would need several tests when he woke up, something to which Mr. McDuck and his nephew completely agreed with. He also encouraged them, if the boy desired, to be one of the first people he saw when he woke up. That part especially pleased Donald, since the poor duck feared how long he would have to wait to see his nephew again.

Fenton sighed, the poor boy was lying down, but half incorporated (just as he was when he was hospitalized) probably to facilitate his breathing. He had several electrodes spread across his chest to monitor his heart rate, some more electrodes on his head to monitor his encephalogram. He also wore an oxygen mask over his beak, thus ensuring the boy received all the oxygen necessary to breathe. A band on his arm monitored his blood pressure intermittently. And an intravenous line had been placed in his other arm to supply him with the liquid, food, and medication the boy might need.

Huey had already been in those conditions for three days. During that time, as is logical, the police, his mother among them, contacted Mr. McDuck to ask him for details about everything that happened. The rich duck told them everything he knew. Informed them of the place where they had kept the boy captive, the state he was in when they rescued him… well, everything.

In those three days as well, Huey's fever had subsided, and although his temperature was still perhaps higher than it should be, it was no longer in those same high temperatures when they found him.

The Hispanic duck looked at the boy sadly. Since they moved the boy from the ICU, he hadn't separated from Huey for a second. He knew that his family was outside, waiting for Huey to wake up, from time to time one of them, especially the children, poked their heads to see if there had been any change. But so far there had been no such luck, no, the poor boy-

Huey's breathing hitched suddenly, and almost instantly the boy began to jerk. The heart rate machine indicating that his pulse had quickened. It seemed… as if he was having a nightmare, which had happened several times during those days. It took just a moment for Fenton to stand beside him, trying to calm him down. Placing a hand on his cheek, he did something his mom had done to him when she wanted to calm him down. He began gently rubbing his thumb in circles while saying:

"Huey, calm, calm, it's not real."

Little by little the duckling relaxed, which for Fenton was a relief. The Hispanic duck was about to relax when he suddenly saw the boy's eyelids begin to tremble. That caused Fenton to withdraw his hand in surprise, could it be…? Could it be Huey was waking up at last?

Slowly, very slowly, the boy's eyes began to open. He quickly closed them again, probably due to excess light. But they reopened again. Huey looked confused, as if he didn't know where he was, and it was logical. The only thing the boy had seen in the past weeks was the interior of that identical building to Waddle. Or, he had probably only seen the inside of that room which they had kept him locked up in.

Suddenly, the boy's gaze went to him. The boy narrowed his eyes for a moment and then his eyes widened in surprise. Fenton couldn't say for sure, but he thought he saw a gleam of joy in his gaze. The boy tried to sit up a little more, which after a little effort he managed. All without taking his eyes off the adult duck.

"F-F-Fenton?" Asked the boy hoarsely. Probably as a mixture of the lack of use, the disease and the constant pumping of dry air in his airways.

The Hispanic duck rushed to his side and replied:

"Yes, yes Huey, it's me. I'm here. I'm with you."

Huey looked around. He seemed puzzled. Looking back at the Hispanic duck, he asked, or at least tried to ask:

"W-where…?"

Fenton assumed the boy wanted to know where he was, so he explained:

"You are in the Duckburg hospital. You had been unconscious for three days."

Huey widened his eyes. After swallowing, asked again:

"And where is… Mark?"

The brown plumage duck raised an eyebrow, he didn’t understand why the boy had called that parrot by his first name, but still, he replied explaining:

"He can't hurt you anymore, neither can Graves."

Again, Huey's eyes widened in surprise first, and then he lowered his head looking away when he asked with some disappointment in his voice:

"R-really?"

"Absolutely." Fenton replied. The truth, he was concerned that Huey seemed to regret he wouldn’t see Beaks again. It was as if the boy really wanted to see him. As if, as if… he… wanted to be… at his side… that must be because of brainwashing, surely.

Argggg, it was clear Huey would need some time to recover. But in order to do so, the first thing he needed was to see his family, so, looking at the boy again, he smiled softly and said:

"Listen Huey… your family is here."

Huey looked at him again, and this time, Fenton detected anxiety on his face. This wasn’t good. How deep was the damage done to the boy? The Hispanic duck saw Huey's beak shake before he managed to ask:

"My family?"

The machine beside him indicated that his heart rate had increased.

Oh, oh, that wasn’t a good sign, he had to calm him down! Putting both hands on his shoulders, the adult duck assured the older triplet:

"Easy, Huey, easy, it’s nobody in disguise. They’re your real family. They’ve missed you all this time, they are very worried about you and they’re also eager to see you. Do you want to see them?"

Fenton's words seemed to calm the altered duckling. The older triplet took several deep breaths and finally, in a voice… more or less normal, finally said:

"No, I mean… yes… I-I guess so. I-I really want to see them, it's just that…"

"Do you need a little time?" guessed the Hispanic duck. Huey looked down and slowly nodded, letting Fenton know he was right.

The older duck sighed and calmly said:

"Okay… I'll go warn them and I'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay…" Huey replied looking at him again. Then followed him with his eyes as Fenton headed for the door. When he got there, the Hispanic duck turned to look at him, and asked him:

"Shall I tell them to wait ten minutes?"

The brown plumage duck waited while the boy considered it for a moment until he finally replied:

"Yes… I think… I think it will be enough."

Fenton nodded and left the room, as expected, was soon approached by family members. He relayed to them what had happened. How Huey had woken up. His reactions to mentioning Beaks and mentioning them and how he had also agreed to be seen.

Since the boy had asked for a ten-minute wait, Scrooge considered they could take advantage of that time to notify the doctor that his nephew was conscious and explain what had happened. Everyone agreed with that. So, after finishing speaking, Fenton entered the room again while the others went to notify the doctor.

Once inside the Hispanic duck took a seat in the chair next to the bed, it didn't take long to see that Huey seemed to be nervous. Something demonstrable by the slightly accelerated pulse, his breathing a little panting and the appreciable tremor in his closed hands. Poor Huey… truth be told, the adult duck didn't know what to do or say to calm him down. He chose to tell him everything was going to be okay, but when he opened his beak to speak, Huey did it before:

"Fenton…"

"Tell me Huey." said the Hispanic duck almost immediately.

The older triplet looked him in the eye, there was uncertainty and fear in them. Then speaking tremblingly, he asked:

"Could you… could you take my hand when they come in, please?"

Fenton was surprised at that request. Why was he asking him something like that? Was he so scared to see his family again? Well, at least… that he agreed to see them was already a big step for him, so the brown plumage duck nodded and replied:

"Of course."

The older triplet breathed a sigh of relief, closing his eyes momentarily, when he opened them again, he looked at Fenton again with pleading eyes and said:

"Whatever happens, please don't let me go."

Fenton put his hand on the trembling duck's forearm and said:

"I promise I won't."

Huey smiled gratefully at Fenton's promise. But the smile quickly faded when knocks sounded on the door.

The boy knew it.

The time had come.

**************************************

Okay… I know this chapter was… wow, I really liked write it from Fenton’s POV, what do you think about it? Did you like it? Also, what do you think about Scrooge’s special deliver? I thought it’d be funny to put something like this. And Webby? She really is a very perceptive person, and her idea probably helped them all with Huey’s situation. Welp, as always, I’d like to hear what do you think about this chapter.

Okay, after say that, I really hope you all enjoyed this chapter, I also would like to thank to all the people who’d read this story, the ones who commented, those who reblogged it and: @mysteriouswriter72 @elianemariane17 @araminakilla20 @hakuneki07 @i-cant-find-any-creative-name @gizmovi @some-dum-wizard-bitch @infamousquack @margaretnobbs @alphatheplant @sugerheart @squackcrowquack @nsbfenro @marshmeadow12 @ohgeeeznotagain @constellations1 @isabellanajera @you-big-palooka @deathcat003 @dragonsareawesome123 @via15 @wellshit333 @ninjawarrior100 @your-salty-dorito @rowan-npg @thesuperepicawesomefireninja @duckworth-is-love @worldsbesteagle @shaz231 @cherriesandpoison @softlemonboi @rosebu-uds @mulaneysnl @ihavenonamehalp @drummergirl231 @narnour-momo-007 @via15 @trash-queen-fahey @gamerfansims389 @lesbianz4glomgoldje @jessie-00 @maclove54north @northofanvi @maditheanimaniacuwu @gabrielpainterfest-blog @Variousfandompage @whiteeyesandtina @official-toebeans @r6sedust @gabrielpainterfest @obsessionhell @werdna213 @chydesa-star @a-stupid-girl

And if I’ve forgot someone, I’m sorry

I want to give a special thank to @whisperwillyou for the art that appears in this chapter, I’ve also leave you the link here

See you in the next chapter 😉

https://whisperwillyou.tumblr.com/post/189357684971/commission-for-pilyarquitect-a-scene-from-their

#ducktales 2017 #war for genius #GizmoDuck #Fenton Crackshell Cabrera #scrooge mcduck #donald duck #bentina beakley #launchpad mcquack #Dewey Duck #Louie Duck #Webby Vanderquack #mark beaks #falcon graves #Huey Duck unconcious

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dreadnought-dear-captain · 4 years

Text

Happy (Slightly Belated) Birthday, Baghdad Waltz!

*CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BAGHDAD WALTZ UP TO CHAPTER 37*

I know these are stressful times right now, but I wanted to post a little something for BW’s third birthday on 3/13/2020 (and I’m a little late because I had a lot to say). THREE!! I cannot believe it. Truly, I cannot, but here we are. I know there are still a few stragglers hanging around from when I first started posting this story (extra hearts to you all), so many people who have come and gone and sometimes return again, and so many new people joining this crazy journey all the time.

You are all so great, and you make it possible for me to keep writing this. I probably would have quit a long time ago without your support, because this shit has been quite hard to sustain sometimes. I know I am very bad at keeping up with comments and things, and I’m so sorry. I am terrible with social media, too. People IRL will say the same thing about me. I am super old school and still talk on the phone with my friends. I KNOW.

(Heyyyy Bayside High)

I’ve prepared a couple of things for BW’s birthday. First, a few statistics I thought I’d whip up. Then a few questions and answers about BW, both from myself and from my beloved beta, @pitchforkcentral86. And I’m still trucking away diligently at chapter 38! I just have a few scenes to go.

-- BW Statistics --

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

Words to date: 526,011

Chapters to date: 37

Shortest chapter: 3,821 words (Prologue)

Longest chapter: 31,395 words (Chapter 33)

Number of words per chapter: 12,530 (median), 14,257 (average) (note: the median is probably a better measure, since this is such an abnormal distribution - see below for the changes in chapter length over time)

Estimated total work to date: 2,890-3,120 hours (approx 18-20 hours/week). This includes writing, rewriting, editing, research, conversations with beta, outlining, and a small portion of the brainstorming. This is a conservative estimate and only includes a fraction of the ambient thinking I do about this story. And God, I do so much processing when I sleep! Perhaps I will be a BW “expert” -- estimated at around 10,000 hours I guess? -- by the time I am done with the story and all my revisions hahahahaaaaaa D:

Money spent to date (estimated): $600-700. This includes books on various subject matter and writing craft, video access to therapy education resources, and other educational materials. This does not include the incalculable sum in lost productivity from thinking about BW when I’m supposed to be doing other things!

Most of you probably don’t know this, but @pitchforkcentral86 is not just a beta reader. She is my partner in crime with BW. She knows my characters as well as I do, sometimes better. She helps me troubleshoot scenes, she tells me when my writing sucks, when my I’m not being true to my characters, when I’m not being real enough (sometimes when I’m being TOO real). She gives me porn inspiration and listens to me bitch and calls my bullshit and makes this story what it is. I really mean it - this story would not be nearly as good without her, and you can see how much better it gets once she starts to get involved around chapter 17.

So I decided I would answer some silly little questions about BW. Just my own personal opinions about stuff! And asked @pitchforkcentral86 to contribute as well. See below.

What are my favorite scenes in BW and why?

In no particular order:

The 9/11 memory (Chapter 26): When Steve is in therapy with Hope remembering when Bucky returns from Ground Zero. This was one of the first times I experimented with writing in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way (though certainly not the last!). I have done several tweaks to it since the original version, texturing it more. It’s so rich in detail, visceral detail, little details about their relationship, pieces of Bucky’s past, clues about his alcoholism, the way he handles stress, his difficulties letting Steve in, the love Steve has for him, Bucky’s need to be loved and cared for and his aversion for it, it’s so, so rich. Gah. I love it. (GUH and @buckydunpun’s ART - just murder me. Thanks.)

The Thor “breakup” scene (Chapter 28): This is the moment I think that many people realized Bucky is not a reliable narrator. Maybe they suspected it before, but this is when it’s very obviously apparent. His entire interpretation of his relationship with Thor is thrown into question. He built a rich fantasy about what they were, holding hands in the grass, all this bullshit, and he could actually say they were boyfriends, which makes complete sense because there were never any stakes. It was always surface. There was never any intimacy except as veteran/soldier friends who had sex, which is about as deep as Bucky can go anyway without getting utterly terrified.

This is in such stark contrast to Steve, where there is actual intimacy, ongoing demand for more intimacy, and this relationship feels VERY real to Bucky, and it’s very frightening to him. And that’s why he runs from the term “boyfriend” with Steve. It’s all so real. It’s easy to engage with a fake boyfriend. But still, he didn’t deliberately realize he was doing this, so it was devastating to find out the truth of his own self-deception. And to hear that he’s not the kind of guy you settle with, he’s the guy you fuck… wow. But how can you really hate Thor? (I’m sure some of you can but…) He’s a nice guy. Even Bucky knows it. So he’s run from something good and real (Steve) to something good but false (Thor) and then he gets rejected from both. It’s horrible and so self-defeating and so quintessentially Bucky. I love it.

A Close Second (Spent Brass fic): This whole side fic came together like a glorious dream. I love everything about it. It’s such a wonderful look into their relationship, into their dynamics, into their individual personalities, their idiosyncrasies, so much push-pull between them. Whispers of things that have happened to Bucky in the past, a lack of understanding from Steve, a desire to know, so much affection. Some good sex. I love this SB. But I love all the Spent Brass fics. They are so close to my heart.

Honorable mention: Bucky’s masturbation scene during his bender (Chapter 32). I had an absolute BLAST writing this. Thanks to @pitchforkcentral86 for proposing that Bucky’s core sexual/romantic desire is just to be kissed. Dayum. It all unfolded from there.

Who is the character I think about the most? Bucky. I think because he’s got the most complex history and the most complicated psychology. He’s actually fairly rule-bound in terms of how he operates, but he’s got a lot of back story that explains how he became the way he is, and I spend a lot of time considering what happened to him and how he developed his self-image, his coping strategies, and his ideas about others and the world. I think a lot about his relationship with his parents. I think a LOT about bby Jamie. It’s not because Steve is not important or any less complex. But Bucky’s childhood experiences have shaped him in very specific ways, and I want to make sure that I represent them very thoughtfully.

Who is my favorite character to write? Bucky. His voice and thought processes come to me more easily than Steve’s. Perhaps in part because of my personal penchant for the word “fuck.” I love writing his perspective, his preferences, his interpretations of situations. I love imagining the way he imagines the world.

Who is my favorite supporting character? Winnie. I know she’s a very polarizing character, but I have so much affection for her. I think she’s a badass. She joined the military as a female officer back in the 1970s, which is incredible and rough. She kept her maiden name. This is a Southern conservative woman, an Air Force brat, raised by very conservative Southern people in a very conservative Pentecostal church, but she has always had an irrepressible rebellious, feminist badass streak in her even before she knew what feminism was. She might not even define herself as a feminist now. She has always done the best she can under very difficult circumstances, and she loves her kids, even though she sometimes sucks quite badly at mothering them. I love her for her imperfections.

Favorite topic to research this year: I’ve been really enjoying researching emotionally focused couples therapy, which was developed by Sue Johnson, EdD. I’ve been watching therapy videos of couples going through this and having a wonderful time imaging Bucky and Steve going through something similar with Claire. I don’t think Claire is the strictest adherent to EFT, but I think she’s informed by it. It’s tough, because I’m very used to cognitive behavioral type therapies, so this one has been different to think about writing. I’ve also been really getting into reading about childhood sexual abuse and its effects on boys and men. It’s greatly helped my conceptualization of Bucky and Bucky and Steve’s relationship. I mean, it’s a grim topic, but there have been some fascinating threads in terms of understanding one’s self perception of sexual orientation, etc. and thinking about how Bucky would consider and contextualize his experiences.

Am I more of a Steve or a Bucky? Hmm. I don’t strongly relate to either, but I think if I had to choose, I’m a bit more of a Steve. I’m pretty expressive of my affection and positive emotions, and I’ll complain about daily life things enough. However, when it comes to major life events that really bother me, I tend to err on the side of not processing them and turning my feelings into headaches and other physical afflictions. In other words, I’m a suppressor of major emotions and events. It’s FINE. I’m FINE. Nothing to see here. But I am definitely not as tidy as Steve, nor as smart, and definitely not as buff or hot. So that’s where most of our similarities end lol. I do eat a lot of tofu though.

Who would I want to hang out with for a day? I initially thought Rikki, but like @pitchforkcentral86, think she’s actually too cool and smart for me, and I would probably just make an ass out of myself. I think probably Elektra. I know, this is a left field answer, but it’s one day! To do whatever with anyone! I want to choose someone who’s going to make it worth my while. So many of the characters are either too busy, too rigid, too anxious, too conventional, etc. I would want to run around NYC with Elektra for the day and have drinks with her and Matt afterwards at some weird-ass underground bar. My more infield answer would probably be Hank. I want him to tell me gay stories about gay things. I want to see his apartment. I want to drink coffee with him. I want him to tell me about what the AIDS crisis was like for him. I want to hear about his relationship with Howard. I want all the shit that Bucky takes for granted every day. He can be my fairy godmother any day.

Who would I want to be friends with? Probably Sharon. She’s one of the most reliable, loyal, and level-headed people in this world. She’s smart, she’s flexible, she rolls with things pretty well but also doesn’t take a ton of bullshit. She also has a good sense of humor about things. I feel like she’s someone I could call with my Zack Morris phone and talk with for hours about all sorts of things. We could also split a bottle of wine and talk some real shit.

Wait - Why not Bucky or Steve? I don’t think these two are entirely likable, to be honest. They’re good humans, they mean well, but I don’t think they’re very well equipped in the friendship department. I care about them very deeply (I hope that’s clear), but I don’t know if I’d want to be particularly close to either of them at this point in their lives. They’re both lacking in the skill and perspective to be good friends and partners, which is a major reason why they are in therapy.

Who would I want to be my therapist - Hope, Bruce, Scott, or Claire? Claire. Given how much I suck at talking about the things that are really deeply bothering me, I think I would need an emotionally focused therapist who is going to dig in there and really get me to focus on all the emotions I’m trying to shove away. I would probably try to over-intellectualize everything and deflect, and I don’t think she’d let me get away with that.

Okay, on to @pitchforkcentral86~~~~~

What are my favorite scenes in BW and why?

Oh boy. Well, this is a difficult question to answer since it feels like every chapter becomes a new favorite simply due to sheer amount of time spent planning and composing and revising and whining and complaining. And also my memory sucks. BUT, with that said, I think I would like to mention three scenes specifically:

1) Bucky on deployment, cleaning a Humvee (Chapter 7), Steve standing nearby. This scene conveyed the tension of deployment and between Steve and Bucky so well, and, perhaps more importantly, built my respect towards Bucky as a competent, caring NCO (to that effect, the small scene in which we see Bucky the NCO on film telling all the little grunts to eat so they can become big and strong is another favorite).

2) Beautiful Boy (Spent Brass), Steve’s memory from childhood with Sarah at the park, naming animals. I really don’t have a good reason other than that scene was so clear to me in my mind and was especially tender.

3) Steve sleeping with Sharon in DC (Chapter 33). Honestly, it was just a great scene, and we had a really good time planning it out.

I can include many more, and certainly the ones Dread mentioned are favorites too, but I have to stop or this will just be a squeee fest.

Who is my favorite supporting character?

Hank. His particular brand of honesty is extremely appealing to me, and I think Bucky secretly, or not so secretly, loves him too. And also Quill, just for shits and giggles because he is reliably there as an ice breaker, that lovable Mountain-Dew-drinking goof.

Favorite topic to research this year:

Well, I don’t do the research myself, but I spend many, many m-a-n-y hours listening to and conversing with Dread about all the things he’s delved into for this fic. So I guess maybe I’ll turn this question into favorite topic to discuss/conceptualize. In that respect, Bucky’s and Jack’s relationship has been by far the most intriguing, grueling, fascinating and difficult aspect of this fic to conceptualize – those were some of the best talks in the process. [Dreadnought edit: You will see much more of this in future chapters, folks!] And for a fun answer, planning out sex scenes is hilarious.

Am I more of a Steve or Bucky?

Bucky, no doubt. Sometimes it feels like Dread has climbed into my brain, found a horrible nugget of truth about me, and then put it into words coming out of Bucky’s mouth. Those moments are both wonderful and terrible in equal measure.

Who would I want to hang out with for a day?

For a whole day? Can it maybe be a coffee or, like, a quick lunch? I honestly don’t know… Neither Steve nor Bucky will be very good company, I think. Not in their current versions, anyways. Rikki is hella cool but she intimidates me, so, not her. Um.. Huh. Nope, don’t have an answer.

Who would I want to be friends with?

Probably Hank, again. He has a really good attitude. I’m starting to feel like not picking Steve/Bucky is selfish because it’s like “oh, they have too many issues and it won’t be fun”. But it’s also true! Friendship is reciprocal, and I really don’t think that’s where they’re at. (But I would have totally been dying to be friends with Steve in his bookshop days).

Who would I want to be my therapist - Hope, Bruce, Scott, or Claire?

Hope or Claire. Both are no-nonsense competent therapists. But I think maybe Hope will be too put-together for me. So, yeah, probably Claire.

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

Okay, everyone. Back to the grind. I’ll update as soon as I can! Remember to wash your hands with the fastidiousness of BW Steve Rogers. (And also remember to sing the “happy birthday fucking everyone” song, which should actually be sung TWICE or resentfully enough that it lasts 20 seconds.)

#baghdad waltz #happy birthday #fucking everyone #I love you

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onepiecefeatstuff · 4 years

Text

Home | Sanami week 2020

It was already noon when Nami got the news. The seagull was instructed to give the mail to her, so she was always the first one to check out the newspaper. Information was power, and she liked to have the upper hand. Plus, every letter went to her hand first. She knew who was writing who, and how often.

She opened the letter from her sister, and from the very first line, she knew something was wrong. It wasn’t a matter of what she wrote, rather a matter of punctuation and probably calligraphy. Nami wasn’t as perceptive as Robin on that subject, but she had grown to know her sister’s handwriting by heart. And there was something different this time.

Then came the warning: “don’t freak out”. Which, of course, made her freak out. The next line appeared blurry, or maybe it was the water that was starting to form in her eyes. “Genzo had an accident. It’s nothing serious, and he’s out of danger already. He won’t be in the hospital for long, so there’s no need to worry.” Nojiko emphasized the last part a couple times more in her letter, and yet Nami was so hesitant to believe it. She was also hesitant to speak about it, so she went to bed early and called it a day.

Next morning, however, the heaviness of her chest hadn’t disappeared. In fact, it seemed to have gotten stronger, bolder, heavier by night. It was a consuming thought, ever-present on her mind. She barely talked or ate anything. Her stomach was filled with doubt, and she couldn’t do anything but wait for another letter to confirm that everything was fine. Because, even though Nojiko said it was fine, it really wasn’t. It couldn’t be, as long as Genzo was not at his home.

Home. She had been thinking of home for a while now, questioning where was hers. Right now, it was Cocoyashi. It was her sister, Genzo, and her mother’s grave. And she couldn’t get there, not for anything. She wished she could extend her arm and be besides his hospital bed, but the memories of that place seemed to be dizzy. It seemed more like a cartoon than an actual place, the faces of everyone she knew being blurry, and the places she used to know so well not defined. She felt her heart pounding heavily, and had to clear her mind from everything. There was no time for a personal crisis.

From the windows of the library, she could see some of her crewmates enjoying the day outside. It was unusual for them to have a bit of calm, and she didn’t want to ruin it. Even if there was a powerful storm inside her, waiting for the right time to strike a lightning. She felt trapped: trapped inside the big ship, sailing in the ocean; and trapped inside her own flesh and bones. For a moment, she even felt jealous of Brook and his ability to make his soul sail away. She thought of hers flying freely to the East Blue, and landing on her hometown.

On her return to reality, she realized there was no possibility of her leaving, not even momentarily. Her role was of absolute necessity. Nami threw her hands to her face, and tried to keep herself in place. It was harder than she thought.

She couldn’t remember when she had fallen asleep on the sofa, but it didn’t take her eyes long to adjust. There was still sunlight coming out of the window, although not so much anymore. She figured it had to be close to sunset. When she got up, she nearly tripped, and looked down to find a teapot and an empty cup. There was a note attached that read: “Heat me up before serving. Doctor’s orders.”. Nami let out a sigh, but lifted the objects up and proceeded to the kitchen. On her way, she didn’t find anybody, although she could hear them nearby. It was a relief.

In the kitchen, she wasn’t so lucky, but then again, it wouldn’t have been the kitchen without Sanji inside. He lightened up that room like nobody else. She was expecting him to twirl around her, but all he did was ask her if she was okay.

“Yeah, I’m not sick or anything.” She replied. “But I don’t want to disobey the doctor’s orders, so…”

He cleared up the space so she could place the teapot. It was true, she didn’t appear to be sick. There were no signs of fever in her face, and her skin was glowing, so she had a good rest. Still, Sanji could feel that there was something off.

“Are you okay?” he repeated, looking her in the eye this time.

“Yes.” She said, flinching her eyes. There was a fleeting spark of doubt that didn’t go unnoticed by the cook. She felt it too. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

“You haven’t eaten yet.”

He was too serious for Nami’s liking. She was used to having him wrapped around her finger, and never showing defiance. It was refreshing, but scary. She felt like she was made out of see-through glass.

“I’m not really hungry.” She crossed her arms.

The teapot, already hot, started making its characteristic noise; and Sanji lifted it up and served Nami’s beverage in the cup she brought. Nami watched him doing so, like it was natural. Like it was the way his body responded all the time. Maybe it was.

“You know you can count on us, right?” he said, bringing the cup closer to her.

She took it before responding, and it was hotter than she thought. And yet, not hot enough to warm up her emotions.

“Like you counted us when you didn’t tell us you had a family of assassins?”

Sanji was taken aback by her attack, but he knew that it was the only way she knew of self-defense.

“Fair enough.” He sighed “But you know how all that ended up. Nobody wants to relive that.”

“No, I guess not.” She gave him an awkward smile as she felt her head escaping from reality. She could visualize, if she focused long enough, on Genzo’s pinwheel moving swiftly with the wind. She could see his scars and the way his eyebrows arched when he was frowning.

“You can talk to me, if you want.” Sanji’s voice grounded her once again. “I won’t say a word.”

Nami felt the lump in her throat starting to get out, before she could control it. There was so much that she needed to exteriorize that she didn’t have enough power to hold it back anymore.

“Have you ever… have you ever wanted to go home so bad that you feel sick?”

“I have.” He replied. “When I was in Whole Cake, all I wanted was to go back here with you.”

Nami felt her heart sinking, and a wave of guilt splashed her in the face.

“I didn’t mean…”

Sanji’s smile was a sad one. “I know you didn’t. I guess I could say the Baratie is my home too. But if you want to go home, you should. Nobody wants to hold you hostage. If you’re not feeling well…”

“No, it’s not that.” Nami rushed to say. “I wouldn’t dare of leaving you behind. I have a responsibility out here, and it wouldn’t be fair… And Nojiko would kill me if I came over before achieving my dream.”

“I’m sure your sister would…” Sanji stopped talking when he felt Nami’s embrace. She was holding him like someone holds on to dear life, like she was scared he would slip through her fingers. He was paralyzed for a second. “Are you okay?”

“No.” her honest answer finally came. They say the third try is the lucky one. “Genzo is in the hospital and I…”

Tears started to scroll down her face, and he rushed to tear them away. Her wet face was even softer than he had imagined. He held her close to his chest, and gave her all the warmth he could. She felt her blowing her nose on his white shirt, but he didn’t care. He only had one thing on his mind, and it was her well-being. Nami clawed her nails on him, scared that he was going to leave, a few times before having the strength to pull back.

He had been smoking, because he smelled like cigar. He smelled like home.

For almost a week, Nami crawled back to Sanji’s embrace a few times a day, and they would take a walk around and whisper about their lives. When the next letter came, a picture of a smiling Genzo was attached. Sanji was there with her as she read the good news, and took the picture away from her. Before she could complain, he had already hanged it on the kitchen wall.

Author’s note: After some rough days, things are starting to look up again. I wrote this almost entirely in one sitting, which is quite an achievement for my procrastinating ass. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one!

#sannami week 2020 #sanami week #sannami #sanami #sanji #nami #sanji x nami #op fanfic

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baywrites · 4 years

Text

Knowledge is power;

My own motivation in this life has been just that.

Knowledge is power;

My own inspiration in this life has been built by just that.

Knowledge is power;

I’ve learned that from each and every soul I’ve come across in this life and thankful for exactly that.

Knowledge is power;

Even when life gets sour, I try to live my best life because I’m just like you, those to come and those of earths distant past.

Knowledge is power;

We all have been gifted the chance to experience this life, we are lucky.

We are very lucky at that..

Knowledge is power;

Respect your neighbors, listen and learn from each other. This will allow human beings to succeed in maximizing our full potential out come. We can only do this together, funny that we fall short with something as simple as that..

Knowledge is power;

From all I’ve been through to where I am today, I confidently can say I would like it to be no other way I’d like it other than that.

Knowledge is power;

Who I am today is not who I was in the past, far from perfect still but I’d like to look at it much differently than that...

Knowledge is power;

Most strive for perfection only to be consumed with madness, eliminating whatever happiness could have at least ignited some inspiration...

What if I told you it’s easier than that..?

Knowledge is power;

Most haven’t realized or may never realize that you must always strive for progression, not perfection. Something easier to say than do, I’ll give you that...

Knowledge is power;

Most haven’t realized that if you have an honest conversation with that person you see in the mirror, you’ll see the person you’ve been forgetting to blame. It happened to me, I figured it was time to take a stand..

Knowledge is power;

Once you take an honest moral inventory, truly take the blame for the wrong you have done, people you have hurt and damage you’ve caused you will finally see exactly that...

Finally see that forgiving those that have dumped some heavy luggage on you to carry throughout life isn’t yours to carry.

Once you can see that the true cure to the weight of the world you carry on your shoulders can simply be cut to size when you take some responsibility.

Knowledge is power;

There will always be weight to carry in life but it is only up to us how much we choose to carry. Opening your eyes to others intellectual opinions may do you some good and make you realize that what you put out into the universe effects all of those surrounding your reality....now think about that..

Knowledge is power,

I can say this or I can say that.

All in all, take every experience you come across living in the present.

Your future will come and the past usually is irrelevant but important.

Knowledge is power;

Say what you feel, ask whatever it may be.

Express yourself and share whatever it may be, so that others may see what they’ve been missing has been exactly that..

Knowledge is power;

With age we shouldn’t grow grumpy and grouchy; With age we should grow becoming more funny and speak to other more wisely.

Become more open to others company and thought process, even if you may not like it. You never know who you just might meet;

a spouse, long lost sibling or best friend may just be right behind your back.

Knowledge is power;

Discovering true unity as the human race will lead us to a bright future. Openness to what is in this world and universe will teach you everything you need to learn, like the difference between opinion and fact.

Knowledge is power;

The keys to success is in you, it is in us.

Everyday we can learn something new, all we need to do is hush up, stop with all the fuss and listen up.

Imagine a world where everyone listened to each other...

Imagine a world where we took the time to see things in someone else’s perception on an issue...or even in a subject that isn’t so bad...

If only it was as simple as that...

Knowledge is power;

We can maximize the potential of our individual lives as well as others lives.

It all can start with a simple hello, gesture or aid to someone else. You may even learn everything you want to know if you simply just ask. Well imagine that...

Knowledge is power;

Each mind is different but all deteriorating every second, minute and hour.

Slowly reaching the guaranteed inevitability as each moment continues to pass..

Each mind is equipped with potential, leaving it to the individual to decide what path to take or cowardly hide away watching life just slowly pass..

Life is strange...

Would you agree with that?

Knowledge is power;

The future you dream of will come, you must accept all that you are going to be, who you are now and who you’ve been in the past.

The future looks bright at the end of the day, no matter what I’ve gone through or will go through there has been a way to over come it.

If it’s new territory, I get down and dirty paving the path forward through whatever to find a way passed whatever has come across my path..

Knowledge is power;

My first step forward was the most important.

My first step toward progression was to stop chasing perfection and realize there is solution to whatever may cause stresses.

My first step was realizing I need help and since then life never fails to impress me rather than depress me...I wanted change but I didn’t know it would be that..

Knowledge is power;

My first step forward on the route I blindly turned on landing me on a path filled with knowledge that keeps me yearning for more simply because of something I asked..

Knowledge is power;

I dreamed for change; I hungered first change.

Everything stayed the same as I continuously fell back into my old ways. Painting a picture of those I hate as I complain only to finally see that it’s my face I’ve been painting in fact.

Knowledge is power;

I hoped for change; I quenched for change.

Everything suddenly changed on the worst day of my life, seeing the evil within me as I painted it perfectly with all the blaming made me see that I know nothing about the man I have been. Sad, isn’t it?

Time to take a stand.

Knowledge is power;

I think you get it by now.

I hope this is something that leaves a few minds with stuff to pounder about.

I hope this helps even just one person take the time to figure themselves out and be the best they can be until the very end.

Signed,

Those Meaningful Words.

@signed-thosemeaningfulwords

#thosemeaningfulwords #submission

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greengargouille · 5 years

Text

Boy each time I see a ‘ship dynamics’ post it makes me want to talk at length about SugaMi

And there are things on the way I interpret/headcanon Mimura’s personality and elements of backstory that I don’t think I’ve shared on tumblr so here I go

I might have mentioned now and then how Sugaya’s art skills are incredible in a kinda unrealistic way, and he probably have spent lot of time practicing to get on that level. But, so did Mimura? Irina described him as someone who can get “obsessive with information”, and one can see that in Korotan D when he do share some intersting trivia, but also... his Roll Book profile says, on the subject of the Koro shaming film, that Mimura have “produced many film products” up until then... Even though he’s 14? And according to Korosensei the start was actually of great quality. There’s also the whole thing about Mimura perceiving the world with a wide field of vision+’having ideas of what can be made using various raw materials’ and one can link that to his plan in the God of Death’s arc; he clearly is spending a lot of time thinking about his passion to the point it shape up his perception of things. All of this makes me think Mimura invested a lot of time into his passion.

And yet... All of this is implied but doesn’t really come up in the main story. Sugaya’s clearly established early in the manga as the disguise guy during the manga-only Maehara story, and he get his own chapter by volume 5 (chapter 37, also manga only). Combine that to the way Mimura acts, between him playing the middle man between Sugaya and Okajima, him ‘treasuring the peace within class E’, him being classified in the students ‘actively working together for assassination’... He’s clearly more social and worry more about working within a group. To that, add how the’s easily embarrassed (he sure is blushing hard when the air guitar topic come up), and how his reactions to being thanked/praised is either sort of complaining or not knowing how to respond:

To me, Mimura is someone who have been shamed/made embarrassed of his passions in the past, and because he cares so much about how he’s seen by others, have been very careful not to show too much what he actually likes, until later in the year when it became clear Class E was a supportive environment (and even then... it’s hard to remove this kind of habit).

Think about it. Sugaya’s backstory is that he was clearly passionate about art, but have been critiqued for it, and then his drawings on his tests were ignored till someone finally told him “You fooled around so now we will send you to class E”. Can you see some parallel here?

So, I know it’s just extrapolation. But, the way I see it, both Sugaya and Mimura received criticism and negative reactions over their respective hobbies, but they reacted to it in opposite ways. Sugaya stubbornly continued what he liked even if there was a risk of being ostracised ; Mimura choose to blend in and present his passion rather as a mere hobby (he was still in the ‘Film Research Society’ as a school club, so it’s not totally a secret either that he’s interested in it). Note that this is interesting to compare to their family life: Sugaya have an artisan father and a craft shop manager mother, so he was certainly encouraged at first in his artistic activities, plus his sister being also eccentric. Mimura’s stay-at-home dad brags every day about his days as an unsuccessful celebrity, so I can’t help but think in some way, Mimura have been influenced in thinking he wouldn’t want to end like this, romanticising a career that never worked in the first place, it’s best to give up early even if it’s something you like.

So. They lived a similar thing, and ended in opposite directions. Of course that’s going to play into the way they interact with each other.

Have you never gotten that feeling? Being ashamed of something and hiding it, playing it off as not important, and ending up admiring those who went the other way and live honest to themselves?

I think that, even if Mimura knew it caused trouble for others, he was a bit envious of how carefree Sugaya was about his passion, and admired him for that. And, the thing is, the opposite is true too. At some point, as they got more friendly, as Mimura tried the waters to see if, maybe, he could openly geek out about his interest, it became clear he was just as passionate on his own domain. And Sugaya... is kind of amazed? This boy that have been going around with him on exhibits, that have a better social circle among their classmates, that is doing way better at studies... Also have invested so much time and energy in an interest? And somehow managed to keep it a secret, despite how draining it is to always be on one’s guard, how easy it would be to blurt out the truth? It’s clearly something he himself wouldn’t be able to do. So this become a kind of mutual admiration, except they each are baffled that the other seems to admire them; “you’re so great for always standing your ground on your passions, I would never be able to do that!” “What? I’m not great, I had no choice, you’re great for being able to endure this all for the group’s harmony!”

And it’s kinda... uplifting? Knowing someone who went through the same trouble, but the opposite way, acknowledge that the way you reacted was fine, that there wasn’t a wrong and right answer on how to act. Someone you admire and who can understand how much effort it take to have skills on this level, also admire you and support you.

Of course, it’s very important that both Korosensei and the class also support them, but it’s a bit different when it’s from a fellow creator, isn’t it?

And the beauty of this is, you don’t even have to look into it in a romantic light. The whole admiration and respect can be platonic. No matter your shipping opinions, they clearly work well as good friends. Which is how I seems to appreciate my ship best, apparently.

#assassination classroom #assclass #ansatsu kyoushitsu #mimura kouki #sugaya sousuke #sugami #the thing with liking background characters for so long is that you developed so much around them #that it's hard to remember it's all extrapolation #fun fact at first I was planning to write a whole masterpost of why I ship this #but then I remembered that if I don't write a post in one go then there's a 89% chance it will stay in my drafts for 6 months #you've been spared the worst of my rambling

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athyrabunlord · 6 years

Text

LLSHP AU (S) - Yule Ball

Main Story: [LLSHP AU - Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel]

[Brief note about School Term] [other LLSHP AU stuff] [YohaMaRuby concept arts] [ChikaYouRiko concept arts] [KanaDiaMari concept arts] [Hogwarts Staff]

[FFN link] [Pixiv Link] [Translated to Chinese by plin2290]

Sequel blips: TriWizard Tournament series- [First Task] [Yule Ball]

A/N: Look I’m so very creative with my titles lol. Like the previous blip, this one is just a segment of the whole TriWizard Tournament saga. Hopefully I’ve succeeded in portraying the overall tone of this Ruby-centric sequel series. A lot of elements are related to the Main Story so it’s definitely recommended that you read the Main Story before the sequel. Anyway, enjoy! XD

“This is a flash grenade.”

Ruby gulps nervously, not because she understands what that Muggle terminology means but because of You and Chika’s serious expressions. Chika is seated in one of the couches with her arms folded and her characteristic ahoge drooped, while You is carefully inspecting the object before placing it back into the wooden box.

“Even in the Muggle world, this isn’t something accessible to civilians,” You says thoughtfully, her gaze trained on the item as if she could unravel the mystery. “Chika-chan and I have seen enough movies to recognize it. Even if it’s not a flash grenade, it’s… still a grenade, a bomb.”

“Why would they give me something like this though?” Somewhat frustrated, Ruby begins to pace around the her Prefect dorm, a habit she’s picked up from Kanan since her First Year. “I wonder what Osaka-san and Kazuno-san have in their boxes?”

After the end of the First Task, it was announced that the Second Task would be held after New Year’s. The official only stated that the item in the wooden box is vital to the nature of the Second Task, and that the champion should get to know their respective item before then. Each champion is also allowed to bring one more item with them in this Task, and the only hint was that the two items should balance each other.

Furthermore, there is one special condition that will be announced on the day of the Second Task, and Ruby had an iffy feeling about it so she’d like to prepare for the worst.

But, what is she supposed to do?

“Hmm, no other hint at all huh?” Chika slowly chews on her mikan pastry, her eyes not shimmering as usual whenever she enjoys her snacks, but rather filled with concern for her friend.

“No. I heard the Durmstrang principal was rather upset about the secrecy but that’s it.”

“I guess this is fair. Unnerving, but fair.” You pats Ruby’s head, prompting the latter to smile. “We’ll research more on the grenades, you can count on us! How about the other item?”

“Onee-chan suggested I bring the Kurosawa sabre. Since there’s so much we don’t know about the Second Task, the sabre can at least protect me.”

Truthfully, Ruby isn’t as keen on the idea. She would much rather bring a bottle of Dittany in case she gets injured but in the end, she agrees with her sister that prevention is much better than treatment.

“That’s a great idea, as expected of Dia-san! I bet she’ll be surprised when she sees you in action~” Chika also bounces up from her chair and wraps her arm around Ruby’s shoulder. “Hehe, she doesn’t know what you’ve been working on, right?”

At this, Ruby grins playfully and does a Rubesty pose. No matter how much she practices, she acknowledges that she will never be skillful in swordsmanship. Therefore, at her request, Chika had been more than happy to teach her the complex Charm that makes her Beater bats hover around her like sentient guards. Except, in this case, Ruby has utilized it on the Kurosawa sabre. The last time they dueled in the Room of Requirement, the sword was quite the force to be reckoned with.

“That’s our girl! Uuuaaaah, You-chan, I can’t believe our Ruby-chan’s all so grown up now.” Dramatically, the Head Girl flops against her girlfriend and pretends to wipe away her tears with the latter’s scarf.

“A true champion of Hogwarts! We’ve raised her well~” You picks up Chika and spins her around while pretending to sniffle.

Ruby chuckles at the duo’s familiar antics. The couple never excludes her from their theatrics and she always enjoys watching them interact anyway. Being around them makes her feel happy and at ease, all the troubles churning in her mind evaporating away. You and Chika truly are magical in their own special way.

Not to mention, they’re both very perceptive.

“Something’s bothering you, right? And it’s nothing to do with the Tournament.”

Ruby doesn’t see a point in hiding it. “I’m worried about Yoshiko-chan and Hanamaru-chan.”

The duo exchanges a knowing look. “Right, we’ve been trying to grab hold of them too but they’ve gotten pretty good at evading.” You chuckles quietly at the last bit. Years of running away from the You Watanabe Fanclub must have trained Yoshiko well.

“I’ve talked with Hanamaru-chan, but it wasn’t enough - that’s the bad thing about having my own Prefect dorm, I miss being roommates with her. Outside of my Prefect duties, I try to look for her but she must’ve learned from Kanan-san where the best hiding spots are around the school. There just aren’t any… right opportunities.” Exasperated, Ruby resumes pacing around the room. “The most I’d gotten out of her is that, she kept saying it’s her fault but Yoshiko-chan won’t accept her apology and insisted she’s the one at fault instead.”

This isn’t a fight where she could just make the two talk and compromise. There’s no side to coax into admitting fault and apologize, not when both parties believe they’re the guilty ones. Both are very reluctant to talk about the subject further. Hanamaru had requested her to drop the subject and she couldn’t bring herself to push it. After all, Hanamaru had never asked her for anything, so how could she refuse?

“You just focus on the Second Task. Leave Hanamaru-chan to You-chan and I!” Chika pumps up her fist. “No one can evade our MVP Seeker for long! And I’m sure Riko-chan can grab hold of Yoshiko-chan and talk some sense into her.”

Ruby trusts the duo and her future sister-in-law, she really does, but it’s gnawing away at her conscience that she hasn’t been helpful towards her best friends. This useless feeling, it’s all too familiar, like how things were years ago back in the Estate.

“Aww, don’t make that face, Ruby-chan! You have a lot on your plate and you’ve already tried your best, cheer up!” Chika’s smiles then shifts to a mischievous one. “Don’t you have something else urgent that’s coming up very soon?”

You catches the drift and snickers. “Oh yes, the fun stuff~ I heard you have gained quite a bit of following after your awesome performance at the First Task~”

Ruby twitches uncomfortably. A tradition that’s existed for centuries, one that each champion must participate. A mandatory ‘task’ that she really doesn’t want to be under the spotlight for.

“So, who’re you taking to the Yule Ball?”

A strangled whimper is all she could reply to that.

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

“There! How’s Yohane-sama’s amazing skills!?”

“Thanks for styling my hair! You really are good, Yoshiko-chan!”

“It’s Yoha-... whatever, hmnff, as long as you recognize my awesomeness, little demon no.4!”

Even though Yoshiko quickly hides it, Ruby notices that fleeting hesitation and that confirms her doubts. Still, she decides to put that on hold for now so they can finish dressing up. She glances around at all the makeup and accessories as well as the various clothes they no longer need, and acknowledges that this is the messiest that her Dorm has become in a while.

She couldn’t help but smile as Yoshiko poses in front of the mirror, relieved at this arrangement. It definitely is more relaxing to be in her best friend’s company instead of a fan’s. She thought You was joking but there had been several ambushes in the preceding weeks, including the time she almost drank a glass of juice that has Love Potion in it! It was downright scary!

Is it really such a big deal, to be featured on the front page of the Daily Prophet as a champion’s partner?

After much consideration, Ruby had originally asked Riko to accompany her for many reasons. Even though You and Chika had volunteered, Ruby did not want to split the couple especially since this is their last year at Hogwarts. Riko was in charge of performing with the piano so Ruby would only have to open the dance floor as Hogwarts’ champion and she is done. It would also be nice to spend time with her future sister-in-law, showing their closeness under public scrutiny. Neither Dia nor Riko has expressed concerns for the public’s opinion of their engagement but Ruby still wants to show her support whenever there’s an opportunity.

But then, Yoshiko had demanded to accompany Ruby. In spite of her best friends’ situation, Ruby had hoped that Hanamaru and Yoshiko would go to the Ball together. What surprised her more though, is the fact that Leah asked Hanamaru and the latter agreed. It didn’t seem like Leah got along with any of her schoolmates, at least the ones within Durmstrang’s entourage, but she did not expect Leah to ask Hanamaru of all the people.

Sighing, Ruby half-heartedly fixes her cloak and tries to ignore the weird feeling in her chest. Ever since this strange turn of events, she’s been feeling restless and confused. She doesn’t get annoyed often, which is why she has no idea how to deal with this tension in her body. True to their words, You and Chika had hunted down Hanamaru, and Riko had a long chat with Yoshiko as well, but Ruby has yet to see any improvement in their situation. Why else would Yoshiko go with her and Hanamaru still going with Leah? And Yoshiko hadn’t complained that her girlfriend was going with someone else. Just what’s going on? This doesn’t make any sense!

“Why the serious expression, Ruby? The fallen angel-”

“Yoshiko-chan. Tell me what’s going on between you and Hanamaru-chan. Please.”

It’s now or never. Ruby feels awful for ruining the merry atmosphere but she can’t bear it any longer. As expected, Yoshiko’s grin drops but she continues to stare at her reflection in the mirror. Ruby patiently remains silent as her friend fiddles with the ribbons and puts on her earrings. The raven-haired girl then reaches up for the quill affixed in her bun but stops at the last moment and leaves it be.

“... I guess it’s been long enough. Lily’s urged me to talk to you about it but…”

Ruby panics at the sight of shimmering tears in her friend’s eyes but Yoshiko irritably wipes them away with her gloved hand.

“Goddamit. It’s just hard to talk about, especially… to you.”

“Me?” Ruby hasn’t expected that, and is more than startled when Yoshiko whirls around and enters her personal space in one swift stride.

“Who am I, Ruby Kurosawa?”

The husky tone and the proximity cause her to cringe and instinctively clutch at her chest. Her heart quickens in fear in spite of her mind inwardly screaming otherwise.

“... I’m sorry. I just wanted to see your reaction.” Yoshiko murmurs sadly and backs away, returning to her spot in front of the mirror.

“Y-Yoshiko-chan, that’s not… I didn’t mean-” Ashamed, Ruby tries to ignore the prickling ache from the scars of sectumsempra and boldly places a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. Yoshiko smiles slightly at that, but the sight just makes her feel worse.

“It’s okay. I thought I’ve gotten over it. I thought we’ve all gotten over it, but it’s not that easy is it?” Yoshiko gingerly touches the mirror’s surface, her fingers trailing the shape of the quill before clenching into a fist. “I am Yoshiko. But I am also Yohane. I’ve accepted that. Or I thought I did.”

“Yoshiko-chan-”

“Things were going so well, y’know, between Hanamaru and I. Both of us, we thought we’ve moved on. But then, this one time, when we were kissing and things were getting heated between us, she… started crying. She was horrified and kept apologizing for thinking of...”

Ruby feels cold. No wonder this has been so difficult for her two friends to talk about. Back in their Second Year, Hanamaru had confided in her that she would involuntarily recall the first kiss she shared with the Yoshiko she fell in love with, and how guilty and conflicted she felt about being so intimate with the Yoshiko now. Ruby had tried her best to reassure her friend and always made sure to give the two privacy to sort things out, so things had never escalated to this point.

It was already painful to put herself in Hanamaru’s shoes, let alone Yoshiko’s.

“I told her it’s not her fault but, well, I’m just… I don’t know what to do anymore,” Yoshiko chuckles dryly and turns away from the mirror at last. “I love her, Ruby, but maybe she loves the Yoshiko I used to be more.” Yoshiko closes her eyes and shakes her head. “No, I shouldn’t doubt, I shouldn’t… I-I’m sorry to just dump this on you-”

Not knowing what else to do, Ruby hugs her friend tightly. “I’m the one who made you talk, Yoshiko-chan. I’m sorry I’m not helpful at all. It’ll be very hard, I understand that, but things cannot go on like this. I’ll be there if you two need an extra voice, anything, but please promise me you’ll talk to her. I w-will too. You’re both too important to me, I refuse to let the past get in the way of my best friends becoming h-happy.”

“Hey now, why’re you the one crying? You’re messing up my masterpiece!” Yoshiko laughs, sniffling hastily and hands over a handkerchief to Ruby. “Thank you though. I… I really appreciate it. I needed that. I really, really am grateful.”

Ruby smiles weakly, forcing away that horrible memory of Yohane almost killing her to the back of her mind. She needs to be strong, especially now.

“Heh, I remember you used to be a lot shorter than me.” Grinning, Yoshiko mischievously pats her head before tugging on her side ponytail. “Not anymore though. You’ve grown into your princely outfit for sure.”

“I’d r-rather wear a dress like you do. I look weird! Even the outfit I wore to the Banquet in our First Year is better than this…”

“What, you’re doubting Yohane-sama’s fashion sense? Trust me, you look great. Those two Gryffs will be all over you, not to mention your little fanclub-”

“Yoshiko-chan!”

“Fine fine. Why don’t you escort the great fallen angel to this Yule Ball and show the rest of the mortals what dancing truly is?”

Ruby stands straighter and chivalrously takes her partner’s hand, finding herself relaxing now that Yoshiko is smiling again. The expression still looks a bit stiff and her eyes are clouded with doubts, but overall she appears more relaxed at least.

The Christmas Banquet in their First Year was when her two best friends finally faced their feelings and confessed. Ruby fervently hopes that the magic of such dance would bring them back together once more.

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

“They seem to be having fun.”

Ruby couldn’t help but mumble as she and Yoshiko sway along the waltz. It probably looks comical for any onlookers, that their attention is not on each other but on another pair. Indeed, after the first dance that each champion is obligated to start off the night, Leah and Hanamaru have remained on the dance floor and are seemingly absorbed in each other.

At first, the Durmstrang champion looks just as placid as she always does. She seems to despise the spotlight being on her just as much as she dislikes dancing for the formality of the Tournament. However, she is now chuckling at something Hanamaru said. That’s a positive expression, one that Ruby has never seen before. When did they get so close?

“That’s just the way Zuramaru is. She’s good at making us loners open up.”

Ruby frowns at Yoshiko, tugging so that the latter is close enough to hear her whispered words. “Even with the situation between you two, I don’t see Hanamaru-chan just agreeing to being Kazuno-san’s partner. It’s not like her.”

“Well, I agree this isn’t like her, but maybe she just wants to get her mind off of things. Maybe that Durmstrang champion has something I don’t?”

Ruby deliberately steps on Yoshiko’s foot, earning an angry yelp. “None of that, Yoshiko-chan. I was going to wait until after they finish dancing to get you two to talk, but I think enough time has passed.”

“W-Wait, now? But, what should I say?”

Yoshiko’s uncertain expression softens Ruby’s heart, but she recalls their earlier conversation and steels her resolve. “What you said to me. Knowing Hanamaru-chan, she would understand. If she continues to apologize, you just need to hug her and express your feelings until she can’t possibly think of anything else.”

“... where did you-? I’m gonna tell Dia-san that Kanan and Mari have been teaching you unnecessary things. Or was it those dunderheads?”

Ruby blinks. “What’s wrong with hugging? You-san and Chika-san hug all the time, they would cheer each other up that way.”

Yoshiko still looks dubious for some reason but sighs and nods. “Alright. Let’s go for it.”

After giving her friend’s hand one last encouraging squeeze, Ruby leads her around the crowd and towards the dancing pair. Leah’s expression darkens as soon as she notices her, which inexplicably irks her.

“What do you want?”

The Durmstrang champion is clad in a formal outfit fancier than her school uniform. The furred cloak is styled over one shoulder, with the school’s double-headed eagle embroidered proudly over the velvet scarlet. Her shoulder length hair is pulled to a sleek low ponytail, giving her a refreshing and regal demeanor in contrast to her usual slightly unruly appearance. If it weren’t for her vicious scowl and biting tone, she would have passed as a foreign royalty.

Hanamaru, dressed in a pretty but simple dress of white and dark crimson, drops her gaze nervously at their approach. If it weren’t for Leah’s tight grip on her wrist, she might have bolted from the dance floor. Ruby wistfully reminisces how she used to be the one fleeing from confrontations and Hanamaru being the one to give her courage.

Taking a deep breath, she firmly steps forward and reaches for Hanamaru’s hand.

“Kurosawa, what’re you-”

“Couples should spend the rest of the night together.”

“Ruby-chan, I-”

Ruby simply gives her dear friend a soft smile before nudging her towards Yoshiko, who’s been standing awkwardly to the side. Just as Leah is about to reclaim her partner, Ruby loops one arm around hers and drags her away. Soon, other dancing pairs obscure her view of her best friends but she trusts them to at least try to make it through one song together.

If glares could murder, Ruby is certain Leah has killed her a dozen times already. “You’ll pay for this!”

“I do apologize for interrupting your night with Hanamaru-chan, but-”

“Ha! I don’t really care, Kurosawa, but your friend’s stories are entertaining at least. Between a dreadful night with an eyesore, like you, she’s the better alternative.”

Frowning, Ruby tries to ignore the insult. “Stories?”

“Yup. She won’t stop talking about you and that girl… her girlfriend, I assume?” Leah rolls her eyes. “Like I said, rather than useless chatters, I do find her stories interesting.”

“I see… that’s why you asked her to the dance?”

“That’s right. She did Disarm me that time in the hallway. More impressive than you anyway.” Leah trails off, glancing between their connected hands and the fact that they’re swaying to the ballad. “... are we dancing?”

“Oh. I suppose we are-?” Truthfully, Ruby hasn’t realized that she’s taken the lead position with one arm loosely wrapped around Leah’s waist. She was too focused on getting the Durmstrang champion as far away from Yoshiko and Hanamaru as she could that the Pureblood etiquette ingrained in her soul must have automatically kicked in.

“This is ridiculous! Two champions dancing together?” Leah tries to back away but Ruby tightens her hold, worried that the former might storm back to her friends. “Hey, let me go! Do you have any idea how stupid we must look?!”

“I-I think we look okay, Kazuno-san. Um, in fact, I think you look quite nice.”

“What-? That’s not the point! We’re both donning the formal capes! No other pairs are like us!”

“That’s not true. Osaka-san is dancing with her senpai from Beauxbaton, and they’re both wearing dresses. Oh, Yoshiko-chan and Hanamaru-chan are in dresses too-”

“Have you even seen suits from Beauxbaton? And your friends are weird so they don’t count! Look at the rest of the room, everyone else is in suit-dress pair! Why is my logic not getting through your dumb brain?!”

Ruby dares to sneak a peek around, all the while making sure Leah doesn’t break free. Kanan and Mari had gone to Australia shortly after the First Task but managed to return here in time to attend the Ball. The married couple is putting on quite the performance at one corner of the Great Hall, along with a couple of alumni that Ruby recognized to have participated in the past dance competitions. Unlike two years ago though, Kanan is wearing a satin tux that shimmers in dark violet, while Mari is wearing a lovely turquoise cocktail dress.

Among the onlookers are Chika and You, who look ready to join the impromptu show judging by their excited grins. The Head Girl’s glossy suit must be handmade by her girlfriend, whose complementary mermaid dress gives her a mystic quality. Another quick glance to the unoccupied piano tells Ruby that Dia must have escorted Riko somewhere quiet, perhaps at the various food benches, but she isn’t given the chance to search further.

“Tch, you’re stronger than you looked-!”

The abrupt tug almost causes them to lose balance, but Ruby manages to use the momentum to twirl and dip Leah before returning to their previous position. Quiet applause indicates that there are people watching them and, judging by Leah’s frown, she definitely did not like that.

“I’m very close to giving the proverbial middle finger to the Yule Ball’s decorum and just leave this accursed dance floor.”

Ruby has no doubt Leah would go through with her threat, and a part of her is tired of having to put up with the hostile Durmstrang champion. However, the atmosphere around her is just so nostalgic that she doesn’t want anything to ruin this pleasant moment. Many things have changed since the Christmas Banquet two years ago, but Ruby is confident to say that they’re all mostly for the better.

Her friends are all here and, at the end of the day, they’re happy with their lives. Even Yoshiko and Hanamaru, Ruby believes with all her heart that they can sort through their issue together.

How about herself? She doesn’t know. She’s certainly come very far since the friendless scaredy-critter living a lonely life in the Kurosawa Estate. She’s content with the way things are already. There’s no need for more, just a bit of peace is more than enough for her.

“Let’s just have fun dancing, Kazuno-san. It’s the holidays, so we’re meant to relax. How about a truce, please?”

Maybe her calm tone is finally getting through to Leah, since she only sighs instead of struggling again. “... why do you have to stick to me anyway? Don’t you have a horde of merry friends to dance with?”

“They’re with their respective partners, and I really want Hanamaru-chan and Yoshiko-chan to make up. Things haven’t been going well with them-” Ruby stops herself, wondering if she’s revealing too much to someone who, technically, isn’t even her friend.

“Really? With the way Kunikida kept talking about her, I never would’ve imagined they had any problem at all,” Leah huffs, scrunching her nose in disgust. “And make up? More like make out.”

Ruby looks over her shoulder to see that her friends are indeed kissing. Although, unlike Leah’s exaggeration, Yoshiko and Hanamaru are simply sharing a chaste kiss. The exchange appears hesitant, but at least they’re both smiling at each other and that’s all that matters.

A warm sensation fills Ruby’s heart at that wonderful sight. Her steps become lighter and she really feels immersed in the calming movements of the music now. She has to blink rapidly to keep the tears at bay though, and she isn’t surprised to find Leah deadpanning at her.

“Seriously, are you crying? Hnff, you’re so weird.”

Perhaps the joy has emboldened her, for she blurts out an ongoing question before she could stop herself. “Why do you dislike me so much, Kazuno-san?”

Leah raises an eyebrow, as if not expecting her to be so direct. “I have my reasons, Kurosawa,” she says coolly, “Are we done yet? I’ve already put up with you long enough, not to mention I was unknowingly involved in your little circle’s drama.”

This is probably the longest and sort of civil interaction she’s ever had with the Durmstrang champion, so she doesn’t want to waste this chance. “The music is getting good! Besides, I’m enjoying dancing with you. You’re a good dancer.”

“Duh? Much better than you are. While we’re on this, why are you leading anyway? I’ll show you how it’s done.”

True to her words, Leah switches their position and smoothly demonstrates the movements, each and every step precise yet graceful. Their cloaks flutter slightly at each turn, adding to their dance as if they’re part of the routine.

“See that? Come on, match my steps, don’t be so clumsy.”

Sure, Leah is chuckling at her expense but it doesn’t feel as mocking as it was before. As the melody continues to play in the background, their discussion becomes more light-hearted the more they focus on various aspects of dancing and eventually about wandworks.

At one point, Leah even laughs at a joke she made.

Ruby decides that the Yule Ball and, by extension, the Tournament, aren’t so bad after all.

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fairycosmos · 5 years

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What do you do when you recover and all your family does is comment on your weight? I ate 1200 calories yesterday and my mom made comments on how "all I do is eat" and sees no problem when I bring up now hurtful it is. I'm just "whining and complaining" to her. I'm at the end of my rope, I don't know what to do. None of this feels worth it and I just want to stop caring about existing.

dude your mum is a fucking asshole what the fuck :(( i’m so sorry you have to put up with that :(( you genuinely deserve so much better. 1200 calories is actually no where near enough to sustain a healthy body, and to gain the energy that you need to live happily, so i dont even know what she was talking about. of course it’s a great effort, and eating anything at all is something to be extremely proud of, but your mum has literally no right to shame you for it. at all. nourishment is never ever a bad thing, i promise. maybe you could find some solace in the fact that she clearly knows nothing? she’s completely uneducated on the subject, what she thinks doesn’t count. obviously her opinion is always going to matter to you to some extent - she’s your mother, it’s inevitable. it’s okay to want appreciation and love and validation. and i don’t blame you at all for being hurt. you’re allowed to feel whatever you need to feel. emotions are temporary, after all. but when you have crappy parents, there comes a point where you just kind of realize that they’re completely ignorant as people, and they shouldn’t have so much control over how you view yourself. you dont need to hurt yourself just for some false sense of approval. stop engaging with her, do your own thing. limit your time around her so you can focus on feeling better. i dont know how old you are, though i’m assuming you’re pretty young, so i can totally see why it must be difficult to try to rely on yourself, but it’s very possible. you can’t control how she thinks/reacts, right? and it’s not your responsibility to be who ever she wants you to be, or to blindly believe everything she says. all you can control is how you cope, and how you look after yourself.

the fact that you’re in recovery at all is the most important thing about your whole situation. it always comes back to that, because it’s incredible. i mean it. every single day that you’re trying, you’re quite literally saving your own life. and i cant put into words how brave you are for it. caring about existing is NOT a negative trait, not at all. it’s just more proof that you’re so capable of getting through this rough patch. you’re so much stronger than your family is leading you to believe. it sounds like bullshit, but it’s honestly not. you can learn about proper nutrition, you can implement self love and appreciation into your daily thinking patterns, you can actively fight this. you can. and maybe some days it’ll feel hopeless, or you’ll mess up, but that’s alright. that’s how you learn. let it be a process, let it take time. you’re not a lost cause, and it’s not pointless just because your mum doesn’t understand shit. this is your life, not hers. and there are many many other avenues of support that don’t involve her. i really think you should consider talking to a teacher or a counselor or your doctor about this if you haven’t done so already. i know it’s a scary thought. but it’s not as scary as staying silent and letting this get worse again. i swear you’re not going to regret opening up to someone. you don’t have to hurt yourself physically to show that you’re hurting emotionally, you know? you can communicate, you can let them in, you can figure out the root causes of why you feel the way you do. it all starts with that initial step of just saying “i need help” or “i dont know what to do.” think of someone that you trust, or an adult/ older person in your life. tell them what you told me, even if you have to force the words out. i get that it’s a big thing. i’m just asking you to consider it, angel. your brain will try to convince you that self isolating is the best thing to do, but it’s the same part of your brain that is causing all of this in the first place :( your mum’s manipulative behavior will always be a reflection of her, and not of you, okay? when she says that shit, it’s showing who she is more than anything else. her words aren’t true or credible or even worth hearing, man. and i promise that there will eventually come a day, where you get to choose who you let into your life, and you have complete control over your eating habits/your perception of food. you’ll be able to cultivate a warm and healthy environment for yourself, sooner than you think. but until then, trying your best and making the effort to take care of your body, is more than good enough. you’re a better person than your mum will ever be, seriously. seek guidance wherever it’s available, and it take it one day at a time. even one hour at a time if that feels like too much. i also hope u know that there are hotlines that you can call that will tell you in greater detail what your options are - you just have to google it to get the one for your area. there may also be some mental health resources in any sort of community center or organization that is near you, maybe you could look into that ? i know it feels kind of weird to just reach out like that, but there’s nothing wrong with making an effort. i hope the pain eases soon for you. i’m sure it will. you’re doing so well, and i’m proud of you. also sending a lot of love your way ! i’ll leave some links cause i feel like i didn’t answer this well, but i’m rooting for you and i’m always here if you need a friend or if you want to talk. (side note: the links provided are merely guidelines on how to pull yourself out of episodes, they’re not cures or personalized advice).

https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/recovery/self-help-tools-skills-tips/self-soothing-advice

https://www.eatingdisorderfoundation.org/learn-more/about-eating-disorders/coping/

https://www.waldeneatingdisorders.com/5-tips-for-eating-disorder-recovery/

#tw eating disorder #tw anorexia #tw ed #bokuyoshino

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thesongoflucius · 5 years

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I’m spending a week in Hangzhou, and I think it was not the best choice. It’s not as cold here as in Lanzhou, but it’s close, and somehow everything holds on to the cold longer, like it wants to be frigid. Or maybe that is just because I still think it should be warm here. I have noticed that effect more as I get older, that what I believe changes everything about an experience.

Jumping in a cold pond is refreshing, but a cold shower is just painful. The dentist still hurt until I learned to take my mind away from the tools, focusing on forms or stories, anything to distract myself from my expectations. Sometimes it works. Being here is similar, not painful, but uncomfortable.

In Wanzhou 万州 I expected more distance. I only stayed a few days because I didn’t know how it would be. I thought it would be awkward, or uncomfortable. Maybe cold and boring. It was calm, but wonderful. The food was amazing, the fight to communicate more difficult, the time around the fire, perfect.

They decided for some reason I didn’t catch that I needed a real Chinese name. Until now I have been using Zhanmusi 詹姆斯, a rough phonetic translation of James. It comes up in the dictionary tied to LeBron James, or James Bond, but it is definitely not Chinese. Zhan詹 can be a Chinese family name, but mu 姆 has a female character in it, which matters in China. Names have meaning here, people believe that your name can dictate your life. I have had friends who changed their children’s name in order to give them a better future. I never really cared about them myself.

I have had a dozen names in my life, been given nicknames, translated names, or ones I chose, but this is the first time someone actually gave me a name, Tangdalong 唐大龙. Tang family Great Dragon. The first is my friend’s family name, so I am now part of the family. They were going to give me Xiaolong 小龙, the same name as Bruce Lee, but apparently while I am younger than my new sisters, I don’t qualify as small. So it is Big Dragon, Older Dragon, Great Dragon. It is not what I would have chosen, but somehow it suits me.

We were sitting around the fire when the subject came up. It is fairly easy for me to tell when people are talking about me here. I can get enough of the Chinese that I know the subject, even if I don’t really know the details. I did learn a new word though, Zhongguotong 中国通. The closest translation I can get is something I’ve been called before, a Sinophile, someone who loves Chinese culture.

I still don’t think that really fits who I am. I love culture and what it says about who we are as people. The interaction between how we define culture and how it defines us. The perception of time, gender roles, creativity, logic, even how we express compassion and love are all limited and expanded by changes in our culture. And the best way to understand my culture is to leave it and find one that can hold up a mirror to what I carry with me.

The culture here can be beautiful, the country is relatively safe, and progress continues, but I am an American, and I don’t think I will ever feel completely comfortable here. We complain about government oversight as it is, but here the government decides how many children you can have, gets notified by every hotel you stay in, and makes sure everyone is safe for the greater good. I really don’t like anyone I don’t know to have that much involvement in my life. Safety over personal freedom. Most people I have met here accept it because that is the way their world has always been. Personally, I know how my government acts when it gets involved in other countries and it worries me what they would to us if it was ever allowed.

It was always hard for me to understand these things when I still lived in the States. I could never really find a place to start asking questions simply because I didn’t know what questions to ask. Philosophy helps, but most of those questions have no real answers, and it is hard to find personal answers until you have real experiences. Like the college philosopher, knowing everything before they have ever stepped out beyond their campus. They know the words, but true meaning comes with truly being alive.

That is what I am looking for out here, the experience of being alive. To experiment with all these weird theories of life that I have, to find out how wrong I am, and hopefully to become something more than I imagined.

dig

dav

dig

burst

sdr

burst

dav

Tang DaLong 唐大龙 I’m spending a week in Hangzhou, and I think it was not the best choice. It’s not as cold here as in Lanzhou, but it’s close, and somehow everything holds on to the cold longer, like it wants to be frigid.

#american #China #culture #family #nature #Peace Corps #people #photography

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urfavmurtad · 6 years

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Hi! in one of your posts u said: "infanticide, either female or otherwise, was not a common practice in pre-Islamic Arabia." can you please link me to some sources for that? i'd be forever grateful xxx

Anon I just finished one of my final papers and now I’m in a ranting mood and what a GREAT topic for ranting you have brought up. It’s a perfect example of how pre-Islamic Arabia has gotten shat upon for the better part of 1400 years because people, mostly their own descendants, have decided that they were all evil savages. Ask anyone who was raised Muslim, even if they’re no longer practicing, for a fact about “Jahiliyya” and you’ll be told “they buried their daughters”. I think pretty much everyone with even a month of Islamic education, myself included, has been taught that this was a routine and widespread occurrence that Islam stopped. Even non-Muslim people have probably heard of this.

It’s repeated so frequently that few people ever bother to look up where the accusation comes from and what evidence supports it, outside of Islamic texts. Let’s see. There wasn’t a ton of writing before the 7th century, but are there any surviving fragments that mention it? Hm… nope. Maybe it was mentioned in the works of some travelers or foreign writers? Not there, either. How about references to it from neighboring literate peoples, like the Byzantines and Persians, who saw the Arabs south of the Ghassanid/Lakhmid lands as backwards anyway and surely wouldn’t have minded reporting on such a practice? Or even the Christian Arabs to the immediate north? Nope. Well, the gender ratio must’ve been screwed up, isn’t there at least evidence of that? No? Fine, but surely there is at least some archaeological evidence of this? There must be lots of bones of female infants that people have uncovered, right? Uh… no.

I mean… okay, but there must be something, somewhere in the peninsula, from some time before Islam that mentions this, right?! Well, in fact there is one piece of pre-Islamic historical evidence that may concern this subject in the Arabian Peninsula. From between the fifth and the second century BC. In Yemen. It was not written in Arabic, as at the time Yemenis still spoke their own South Arabian language (called Sabaean). Nonetheless, let’s look at what the devious people of Jahiliyya were up to. It was codified that:

It is unlawful for anyone of the people of Matarat to kill his daughter.

…that, uh, it was illegal for people kill their daughters. Over 700 years before Mohammed was born. The linked article points out that the word can also be used to mean female relatives of any age, not only infant daughters, so it seems to have been a general prohibition against killing any female members of one’s family. There are fatwas throughout Islamic history that say the same thing, so we can’t even be generous and say “maybe the fact that this exists means it was socially acceptable beforehand?”.

So the only pre-Islamic evidence we have relating to any form of female-targeted killings comes from hundreds of years before Mohammed’s time, in a different part of Arabia, and it explicitly outlaws the practice. Now look, I’m not saying that infanticide didn’t happen at all, as it certainly did both in pre- and post-Islamic Arabia, in times of great hardship. But for such a supposedly widespread practice afflicting the entire race before Islam miraculously invented feminism and stopped it overnight, is it not a tad strange that no one of any civilization over the span of a thousand years bothered to mention it before Mohammed? And isn’t it kind of weird how there isn’t any record of even a single named person engaging in this practice outside of Islamic texts written in the 800s AD onwards, long after polytheism was no longer practiced? (And as I’ll show later, barely anyone is named even in those texts…)

At any rate, given that every single accusation about Arabs practicing widespread and specifically female infanticide comes from Islamic sources, I suppose we should look at what they actually say on this matter, even though Mohammed’s views of his contemporary polytheists were not exactly, shall we say, neutral and unbiased. I’ll explain why I find them unconvincing in terms of evidence that this was a common practice. This is going to be long! I’m putting this under a cut bc I think probably… five people in total on this entire site care??

Let’s deal with the Quran first. Infanticide is mentioned in four places: 81:8-9, 6:151, 17:31, and 16:58-59. 6:151 (it’s also mentioned a bit before that in surah 6 too but that one just says that it’s Allah’s will, so :|) and 17:31 do not mention daughters specifically and simply tell people not to kill their children because they are poor and starving and don’t have enough food to go around (which was the context of most cases of infanticide throughout world history).

So let’s take a look at the two that are actually about girls. The context of 16:58-59 is Mohammed complaining that the polytheists say that Allah has daughters (the trio of sister-goddesses popular in the Hijaz at the time). 16:58 has Mohammed saying that when one of the polytheists themselves finds out his newborn is a girl, he gets angry, and in 16:59 he has the imaginary polytheist wondering if he should bury the newborn “in the dust”. This is meant to convey that the polytheists disgrace Allah by giving him daughters when they don’t even want them themselves. It’s similar to 43:16-19, which does not mention infanticide but does complain that the polytheists claim that angels are female while being displeased with their own daughters.

(I feel like I’ve repeated this a thousand times, but Islamic sources themselves describe literate women, highly-revered female medics, successful female business owners, women in monogamous marriages, female clan leaders, women who inherited and distributed property, women who chose their own husbands, widows and single mothers working in respected professions, women who were on battlefields, and women leading thousands of troops in this era. The idea that non-Muslim Arabs in Mohammed’s time uniformly loathed women and routinely buried their own daughters is completely nonsensical even judging by solely Islamic sources and it’s absolutely bizarre that this perception still stands. Y’all they were a polygamous society and women seemed to outnumber men, not the other way around. I know some people think “if the Quran says it, it must be true!” but lookit, Alexander the Great did not have horns on his head and pre-Islamic Arabs were not all baby-killing savages, them’s the facts.)

In any case, the ayah actually just says the evildoing polytheists think of doing it because they want sons… not that they do it. Nor does it say that Mohammed has ever seen it happen. It seems highly unlikely that he ever personally witnessed such a thing in Mecca, as even the guys the Quran calls evil by name like Crazy Uncle Abu Lahab had daughters. I’ll also add that some noted Quranic commentators say the phrase “bury [her] in the dust” could be a metaphor meaning “to hide [her] out of sight”, because the first word can also mean “conceal”. But let me talk about the other verses now.

Hold on because the next one’s got a plot twist. Surah 81, At-Takwir, is one of those poetic ones about the end of the world, about the stars falling and seas being set on fire etc. 81:8-9 is part of this poem and says “And when the girl [who was] buried alive is asked/For what sin she was killed”.

The phrase translated as “the girl [who was] buried alive” is all one word, l-mawuda, stemming from a root used only in this ayah. It is evidently meant to refer to one killed via “wad”, meaning (in this case apparently) infanticide. So the word would mean, as literally as possible, “infant (girl) who was killed”. However!!

This verse is mentioned in one sahih hadith, which is… not actually about infanticide at all, but is instead about the practice of “azl”, which is the pull-out method, inexplicably called a form of infanticide (wad al-khafi–hidden infanticide, or “secret (way of) burying alive” as this translation puts it).

Then they asked him about ‘azl, whereupon he said “That is the secret (way of) burying alive”, and Ubaidullah has made this addition in the hadith transmitted by al-Muqri and that is: “When the one buried alive is asked[…] (81:8)”

Where might Mohammed have gotten such an idea? Why, I do believe this other sahih hadith has the answer. Someone informs Mohammed that Jews say that Every Sperm is Sacred (they call it mawudat al-sughra, minor infanticide. While the translation of mawuda as “girl buried alive” is standard now, it is clearly meant more in a general infanticide sense here… it’s not implying the dudes are literally burying their semen in the ground). Mohammed, who does not like Ze Jews, declares them liars. Despite the fact that they are saying literally exactly what he said in that other hadith.

The Jews say that withdrawing the penis (azl) is burying the living girls on a small scale. He (the Prophet) said: The Jews told a lie.

This blatant contradiction in two sahih ahadith has puzzled scholars throughout history and has largely been completely brushed over despite the former (from Sahih Muslim) coming from the most conservative of all the ahadith collections and being repeated by other collectors.Many scholars throughout history have just said “yeah, well, that can’t be right because that’d mean that the prophet contradicted himself!”. Which… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here’s what I think happened. As with many things in his Mecca days, Mohammed based his understanding on azl on what the Jews said (see: the qiblah switch). Then he got to Medina and realized, oh, the Jews are actually garbage and we should stop imitating them. So when Muslims ask him whether he agrees with the Jews on the subject of azl, he forcefully declares that he does not, despite the fact that… he did. This is, in fact, an accepted explanation for the contradiction: the one where he calls azl infanticide is early, based on what the Jews believed, and was abrogated later once Allah “revealed” that it wasn’t true. And surah 81 is a Meccan surah, meaning it was from the period before he started loathing Jews, and his own followers connected his view on azl with the verse in question!

Anyway… that’s it for the Quran on this subject. I think I’ve explained why I find it pretty much impossible to believe that Arabs commonly murdered their infant daughters based solely on those verses. But of course, we have other sources that mention infanticide. So let’s do some other ahadith learnin’. For the sake of brevity (lol…) I am going to mainly focus on the sahih collections and will not go into any ahadith with da’if/weak narrators or traditions that appear out of nowhere in like the 10th century+ bc what’s even the point.

I think many Muslims would be surprised by how rarely this subject is mentioned in the sahih collections. There is only one hadith within them alleging any infanticide in Mecca itself, and it is this one narrated by Abu Bakr’s daughter Asma (through her son Urwa and his son Hisham).

I saw Zaid bin Amr bin Nufail standing with his back against the Ka'ba and saying, “O people of Quraish! By Allah, none amongst you is on the religion of Abraham except me.” He used to preserve the lives of little girls: If somebody wanted to kill his daughter he would say to him, “Do not kill her for I will feed her on your behalf.” So he would take her, and when she grew up nicely, he would say to her father, “Now if you want her, I will give her to you, and if you wish, I will feed her on your behalf.”

I’ll be straight with you: I do not believe this. Not in the sense that I don’t believe Asma said it, but in the sense that I don’t believe her actual words.

Zayd ibn Amr, for those of you who don’t know, was a man of Mecca (he was Umar’s cousin on one side and Umar’s uncle on the other–don’t practice incest, kids!) who died a bit before Mohammed became a “prophet”. Because he eschewed polytheism, Christianity, and Judaism in favor of some vague Abrahamic tradition, he was sort of retroactively declared a Muslim and all sorts of legends about his life were made up to portray him as a pious and righteous proto-Muslim. Mohammed claimed that he met him by chance at some point and discovered that Zayd happened to follow the same dietary rules that “Allah” would later instruct Mohammed to follow. I guess he is vaguely comparable to John the Baptist in the Christian tradition? Like a predecessor pious guy (who is killed… not because of persecution, though, robbers just shanked him).

Anyway, Asma was like… 10 years old at most when Zayd died, and he had been away on trading business at the time of his death, so it’s a bit unclear what the timeline is here, if it did happen. She would have been 5-8, I guess. And so here is my question: where, exactly, are these girls that he “saved”? She says that he raised multiple young girls, keeping some with him and later returning others to their families. These girls would have been between Asma and Aisha in age and, presumably, some would have been older than Asma.

So what happened to them? Where are they? Why are they never mentioned again?

Not a single one of these girls he supposedly cared for is ever named or referenced. This happened in Mecca, in a well-known family. Zayd’s own children, Saeed and Atiqa, were Muslims quoted in various ahadith. (Saeed was married to Umar’s sister, incidentally, and was part of Umar’s whole anime-ass backstory. Atiqa was a wife of Umar himself and had a rather scandalous personal history, but that’s irrelevant. Point is, neither had anything to say about their father rescuing or raising any kids of either gender.)

Given how young Asma was and how no one, not even Zayd’s own kids, corroborates her account, I tend to look at her words here with some skepticism. If they existed, the women who were “saved” by Zayd as infants would have become Muslims by or before the conquest of Mecca, and at least one of them would have been quoted or just mentioned in some hadith, somewhere. But they weren’t, and imo it’s because this is not something that really happened and is instead just a demonstration of early Islamic myth-making. The same trope is repeated in later and weaker sources, like some poetry attributed to al-Farazdaq claims that his grandfather raised 66 (!!!) girls he “saved”, who would presumably have been the same age as his parents, but does he name a single damn one of them or name the individuals who he “saved” them from? Nope. Just like Zayd’s mysterious disappearing foster daughters, the girls disappear from the story right after they stop being needed to prove a point. Hm.

There are no other recorded instances of specific people in Mecca either practicing or stopping infanticide. In the interest of fairness, despite my loathing for the guy, I must note that a semi-popular story about Umar burying his daughters is fabricated. Umar obviously had many daughters, his eldest being one of Mohammed’s own wives, who was not only not killed but even received an education and was literate.

The only other sahih hadith on this subject is this one, which just lists various bad things and is similar to 6:151. Again, no specific incidents are mentioned. The term used here is “wad al-banat”, meaning presumably the infanticide (wad) of daughters (banat).

Verity Allah, the Glorious and Majestic, has forbidden for you: disobedience to mothers, and burying alive daughters … (etc)

Nothing further is said of this supposedly common practice in any other sahih hadith. Zero people are accused of partaking in this practice, zero people confess to having done it, no one mentions having a murdered sister or aunt or daughter. And judging by the marriage practices of early Islam, there sure doesn’t seem to have been a gender ratio issue.

With this total dearth of evidence in mind, some Islamic scholars over the centuries have relented on the polytheists somewhat, proposing that female infanticide was a rarer practice than some claim in settled areas, but was still practiced somewhere by some tribe. (This is not just a modern practice: they were in the minority, but there were some 9th century scholars like al-Mubarrad who were explicitly skeptical of the baby-killing days of Jahiliyya.) Usually the Bedouin living outside the Hijaz are blamed because, you know, lol silly desert nomads. Even this requires relying on weaker traditions, though. So hey since this is turning into a goddamn dissertation, let’s dive into them!!

First, let me get this one out of the way: Qays ibn Asim, evidently a leader of the Banu Tamim tribe. If you’ve heard any specific person identified with the practice of female infanticide, it’s probably him. There are all sorts of versions of his story, though most of them go like this.

That story says that his tribe was raided by a Lakhmid (Iraqi) king, who took the women as slaves. Eventually the women were returned once peace was negotiated between the parties, but one of them, the daughter of Qays, refused to come home because she wanted to stay with her Lakhmid husband. After that, Qays buried all girls born to his wife, to avoid such a dishonorable thing happening again in the future. Sometimes it’s said there were 8 girls, other times it’s said there were 12. After he converted to Islam, he confessed and repented by sacrificing some of his camels. (Often this is presented as the first case of female infanticide among Arabs, which does… not… make much sense, timeline-wise?)

I suppose it goes without saying that while the Banu Tamim are mentioned (sometimes in a derogatory way, other times in a nice or neutral way) in the six main ahadith collections, this story is not found in any of them… in fact, Qays himself narrates some sahih ahadith and never bothers to mention that he’s apparently killed a dozen babies. Hmmm. Where does the story come from, then?

As far as I can tell, the bare bones of it come from al-Tabarani (he was of the generation of ahadith collectors after Bukhari et al; this book in particular has tens of thousands of ahadith of varying levels of authenticity, many of which are clearly weak), apparently quoting from Nouman ibn Bashir, who says he heard it from Umar (thus the confusion over Umar supposedly killing one of his children).

All that hadith says is that he buried 8 daughters; the other details about his tribe being attacked etc come from weaker/fabricated sources. There’s a variant of the story in which Qays’ wife saves one girl and (somehow??) brings her up on her own and Qays is devastated and shamed of his deeds when he sees her, which appears to be pulled from a fabricated account about some other guy named Awf ibn Muhallam. Neither account is considered sahih or even credible. The same is true of a ridiculous story from Sunan al-Darimi (Google Translate is shit at Arabic but I can’t find an English version, you can at least get the general idea, the unnamed guy says he kicked his daughter down a well as she screamed out for him!) that some people may have heard which is, again, never stated to be authentic and not found in any other collections; the details in that last one are quite clearly meant to demonize polytheists as shockingly as possible.

I searched and searched for the most credible possible account mentioning a specific incident of infanticide, and I think this one here comes closest. It is a hasan hadith from one of Bukhari’s commentaries. This is not Sahih Bukhari–this commentary has ahadith ranging from daif to sahih (weak to strong, hasan is pretty much “okay”). The guy evidently says he killed a daughter (“wadt mawudatan”, translate that as you will) in pre-Islamic times and asks Abu Dhar if he can repent. Abu Dhar says it’s fine because Allah forgives what has been done before Islam… then starts arguing with his wife about food and this hadith is classified under the chapter about giving guests food… the apparent infanticide being totally forgotten for the remainder of the hadith. Weird.

There’s a variant of this story with different wording in one of Imam Ahmed’s collections (#20376), with a different narration chain. The word mawudatan is not present–“wadt” وأدت is in fact without an object there. It’s possible it’s not talking about infanticide at all but rather using the word with a different definition to indicate being a leading participant in polytheistic practices. But… uh. That’s the best I can do here. One guy, and not from a source that’s considered super authentic.

There are no other even sort-of-reputable sources mentioning female infanticide. That’s it. In the entire history of pre-Islamic Arabia, that is the extent of the evidence for “Arabs always used to bury their daughters alive!!”. As you can see, the evidence that this was a common practice is… not convincing in the least, and the conflation between infanticide and splooging outside a vagina is confusing and not helping matters. In summary, please leave our ancestors alone!! They went through enough shit without ppl painting them as baby-killing monsters based on zero non-Islamic sources and barely any Islamic sources either. I’m just asking y’all to evaluate claims of them being evil with the same skepticism you’d grant claims of pagan Europeans being called evil by Christian sources. The fact that we’ve all been taught this “fact” is unfortunate but I hope I’ve convinced you that the practice at least wasn’t as common as it’s presented in the modern era.

I guess we may follow the prophet’s example and blame the Jews for this confusion. And Allah knows best.

#ask #anon #arabs #long post #islam #rant

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