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animeyanderelover · 2 years

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195 with chrollo❤🎨

I finally started with Fruits Basket!

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, paranoia, alcohol, emotionally broken s/o, blood, death

Prompt 195: “~Found you~”

Turning your head multiple times around to see if someone was following you. Feeling instant paranoia as soon as you saw someone walking for more than a minute behind you and increasing your speed. Locking every door and window up thoroughly, even buying extra locks. Owning only an outdated flip phone that could only be used to call people. Paying with only cash. Changing your name. Dyeing your hair and wearing contact lenses. Turning into an outsider who avoids making friends and keeps only to themselves. Refusing to contact your family and friends out of fear they were already long gone or would be used to lure you back. You'd rather prefer not knowing at all.

This had been your life for the past few months now. Ever since you had managed to do the unthinkable. Escaping the leader of the spiders. You were still in a state of shock that you had managed to run away at all considering who those people were. Instead of being relieved though, the only thing it had brought upon you was a gnawing anxiety. It was hard to believe that you were freely walking around and instead you feared that that man was only toying with you, letting you enjoy your freedom before snatching you back. What would he do to you then?

Everyday had just been torture, you couldn't enjoy anything and didn't trust anyone, paranoid that they might work for him. The life you had created out here was one that only brought you misery since you didn't allow yourself to feel even a tingle of security. You worked in a company in a position where you were stuck the whole day inside, just cleaning and running small errands so you didn't have to interact with anyone who could recognize you. You lived in a tiny apartment in a rather shady district together with a roommate who didn't get along with you most of the times yet you both were only able to afford that place by paying rent together.

Once upon a time you had led a good life but that was before he had come into your life and stole everything from you. You remembered his smooth velvet voice so clearly, how he had whispered his admiration and adoration in your ear and whenever you felt your earshell tingling from the memory, you jerked up frightened. You recalled the days where you had been placed inside his lap, one arm secured around your body whilst he had read a book out loud for you. Honey words and touches of affection, so gentle and sweet that you had fallen right into his trap. You had inhaled too much of his poison, unaware how sweet venom could be.

You still hadn't recovered from him either, much to your terror. In your worst and exhausted nights where you were all alone you fantasized his warmth around you and his breath tingling you, his scent you wanted to embrace tightly. Life with him had never been tiring, he had never sneered at you or thrown such mean glares at you. Chrollo had only provided you with his suffocating obsession and love, had given you earthly possessions you could never hope to afford. All you had ever been required to do was staying by his side and returning his love and in return he had showered you with his love. Deep down you missed that and that scared you. The thought of being so addicted to him to the point where your heart started fluttering whenever you thought of him. He was haunting you.

---

This evening wasn't any different from any other as you were walking late at night back home, glancing behind you every few seconds. You hated the darkness since you never knew who was waiting behind the next corner and the street lights only did that much to help you. You felt tired and like crap since you had been bossed around from one room to another today, your knees were sore from all the kneeling you had done to clean the ground and the skin on your hands was peeling off due to the water, soap and whatever other chemical stuff they had come into contact today way too much.

Even the bag of groceries pulled on your arm terribly much even if you hadn't bought that much. You had to be so careful with the money you spent since your pay wasn't the best. Only the cheapest of the cheap was enough for you and you feared that the milk you had bought would be sour again due to the low quality. The food often made you feel sick since the quality was either terrible or it had been expired since a while ago. Yet another toll your body and mentality had to take, you had lost weight due to not being able to stomach the food or going without a meal at all.

You had also bought a few cans of cheap alcohol in hopes of avoiding yet another argument with your roommate that would give you a headache. You had found out that they were happy as long as they had something alcoholic to drink and even if you knew that encouraging them to drown themselves in beer and wine wasn't good, you just wanted to go to bed peacefully and take a quick shower to rid yourself of the smell of chemicals.

You fumbled around with the key when you reached the door, feeling a faint sensation of nausea and dizziness after this shitty day before going through the process of opening every single lock on the outside. It took you a while every time yet it was what made you feel the faintest bit better, you didn't care if anyone else looked at you as if you were crazy. What did they know anyways? They didn't know what you had gone through, you had every right to be paranoid. You dropped the bag inside, the smell of cigarettes and mold greeting you as soon as you stepped inside. You could see the dust swirling around when you switched the weak light on and thought that you should clean the house again. Your companion wasn't a big help at all since they knew that you'd do it anyways but it was maybe better this way.

You feared that you'd end up having another bottle thrown your way if you would ask them to help a bit. Chrollo would have never treated you that way...

You abruptly stopped when that thought entered your head before you stroke off your hand and slapped yourself harshly in the face. The impact was audible and the burning sting in your cheek caused tears to bubble up a bit yet you hardly bothered with the pain. Your heart was beating painfully as distraught took over you which caused your vision to blur from the rush of water. Why couldn't you just get him out of your head? Why was he still there?

Your hands were shaking as you started to lock everything up inside again, holding back your cries in order to not get on their nerves. You didn't want to be ridiculed again for your tears nor were you keen to be pushed to the ground and enduring their annoyed hisses and insults about being a loser and crybaby again. When you heard the water-tap in the bathroom, you quickly wiped your tears in hopes that they wouldn't suspect anything before your grabbed the bag and hurried to the kitchen.

You weren't really hungry and there was nothing in the fridge that would have spiked your appetite anyways. There were leftovers from three days ago and a few random food items randomly sprawled around, all of them already half empty since your roommate had an appetite. You were just silently putting the cans of alcohol inside before closing the fridge again. The smell wasn't helping with your slight nausea at all. Just as you were about to head out of the room to wait until they got out of the bathroom so you could quickly shower, another smell penetrated your nostrils. You took a deep whisk only to feel your stomach flipping around.

Whatever it was, it was a rotten and disgusting scent. There was already mold in your house as it was and this environment made you sick enough already so you feared that you'd really get sick and would end up not being able to work and get paid. You were sure they'd throw you out of the apartment if you couldn't help to pay the rent. Next to the sick feeling you felt anxiety racking up your body slowly once again as that thought entered your head and you instantly went to the source of the smell. Hopefully it was something that you could get rid of. It came from the living room and you only noted absent-mindedly that the door separating the kitchen and the living room wasn't closed. Surely they had just not bothered to close it.

The smell was pungent when you passed through the door and you felt a gag reflex tensing up your stomach yet you ignored it. What in the world could produce such a smell?

You didn't know what you had expected to find but it certainly hadn't been said roommate. Or rather their corpse. Their hands and feet were bound together with some invisible threat and they were dangling upside down from the wall. A puddle of blood was glistening under them and you could even see a threat strung around their neck, cutting effortlessly through the flesh and muscles that for a moment you wondered why their feet hadn't been cut off yet considering the sharpness of it.

There was only that much you were able to take in before a shrill scream escaped your lips, horror washing over your body before you stormed back and slammed the kitchen door closed. The scent of rotten and bloody flesh had infiltrated your nose and brain and the image of sinews and a dangling human body was stuck before your inner eye as your muscles started stiffening with the incoming gag reflex. It hurt like hell since you didn't have anything inside your stomach and you barely managed to rip open the garbage bin, leaning over it as you felt the first tears streaming down your face. This was a nightmare! This couldn't be real! Who had done this?! Where they still inside the house?!

A sudden realization struck you deep within your core, one that managed to break you down completely. If they had been hanging inside the living room, who had been using the bathroom earlier? The conclusion was obvious and wrecked you up in despair and sorrow but beyond that all, a frustrated and exhausted tiredness. Would you be murdered here as well? In this rathole, this hell? Why did it always have to be you? Why did you have to suffer like this?

When you heard footsteps going down your stairs, your heart and breath stopped functioning before you choked on your next sob. You really were going to die right now. You didn't dare to look back even when you heard the creak of the door when it was opened nor when the footsteps echoed painfully inside your brain and heart until they stopped right behind you. Nothing happened after that, the person just waited behind you. For what, you didn't know. Just maybe, you suddenly thought, just maybe you could escape this misery of life you were leading right now. Maybe this was a chance to finally find peace again.

You took a few deep breaths, trying to stop your trembling and crying as good as you could before straightening up from the trash can.

"Whatever. Just do it quickly, please. I don't care anymore."

You didn't receive an answer and you hadn't expected one either when you spat out your answer laced with bitterness and resentment. Instead you just closed your eyes and waited for the end. Your life flashed before your eyes as you contemplated your decisions and you weren't really surprised when you felt sadness when thinking about Chrollo. It didn't matter anymore though, you would be dead soon anyways.

You didn't account for a pair of familiar arms to wrap around your torso as you were pulled against a well-built chest. Strands of hair were tickling your neck and face as you felt warm breath fawning over your skin.

“~Found you~”

You expected to tense up, to start shaking, to have your heart beating in terror and fear yet something entirely different flooded your body. It was a mixture of relief, excitement, mild nervousness and a sprinkle of happiness all together that caused your stiff body to relax instantly against his own. You twisted your head slowly back and it didn't take long before your own eyes met his grey ones. You'd never been particulary good in reading Chrollo, he was an enigma to you so you weren't able to pick up possible emotions inside of his orbs. All you could tell was that he was observing you right now closely, taking in your face and body that he hadn't had this close to him since months. A true wonder indeed.

There was this amused huff he let out when he saw the look in your big eyes. Surprise, shock, relief, amazement and under it all a longing gaze. When your legs gave in out of shock from the good scare you had just received, the adrenaline finally leaving your system, you supported yourself instantly against his own body and from the greedy way he held you closer, you knew he had no objection. His heartbeat was drumming calmly and composed against your head as if there wasn't a corpse hanging inside the living room, like a soothing rhythm that invited you to let your guard down completely.

"What are you doing here?" was the first thing you managed to say after a few moments of just taking in his scent and his warmth, your tone more surprised than scared or hostile.

"Why asking me when you already know the answer yourself? I'm here for you, little spider."

Were you surprised by this? No, not really considering that you had robbed yourself precious sleep whilst thinking about when he would come for you. Now that he actually was, you were less frightened than you would have expected. Maybe it was because you had expected some serial killer or criminal of sorts which was why you were glad that you knew this devil. Maybe, and just as true, it was also because you knew deep down in your heart you had missed him more than you would have wanted.

"I missed you, (y/n). I felt weirdly empty without you." he mumbled gently whilst his grip tightened even more against your body but you leaned only against him, enjoying it even.

"And I know that you longed for me just as much."

Your eyes snapped shortly up to his own as if to disagree but you wavered when the confidence, the certainty, he had spoken those words, sank into you. You didn't want to admit that he was right, you had spent nights fearing just as much as longing and your body reacted on it's own to his mere presence. There was a strong sense of safety now that he was here, your body more relaxed than it had been those past few months. Every sore muscle made itself known and the stress you had carried around ever since was magically just lifted. The biggest traitor was your hert though, beating wildly in excitement.

You kept quiet and instead snuggled closer to him, only confirming what he had just stated and a deep feeling of satisfaction blossomed in Chrollo's chest as a result. He had been mildy worried that you hadn't undergone any process whilst with him at all but turned out your resolve had been quickly extinguished when you had tried to live without him. You were broken and he could continue to break your resolve completely from there. He was glad that you had indeed been wishing for him to take you back inside your heart, your logical way of thinking was as of now just in the way.

"Come, let's get you back where you belong."

It wasn't a suggestion or even a demand, just a natural assumption that you'd follow willingly. One he was completely right to believe him. Honestly, what had you gained by living without him? You had been overly paranoid and instead of living and enjoying your freedom, you had only been there to work yourself tired and sick. You hadn't lived a life at all.

"Please get me out of this place. I hate it here. I hate everything." you pressed out, voice cracking as the whole disaster of the past few months flashed before your eyes. You had no energy left anymore to continue.

"I know. That's why I came to get you back. You don't have to worry, everything will be how it used to be. How it makes you happy. After your little punishment that is."

The mention of punishment should have unnerved you just a bit but instead there was only a fluttered heart beating inside your chest when the thought of living with him entered your mind. Maybe that was when you finally acknowledged that you were indeed truly and utterly insane.

#yandere hunter x hunter #yandere hxh #yandere chrollo #yandere chrollo lucilfer

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elliemarchetti · 8 months

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The Snake and the Wolf

Chapter 4 - Dancing

The ending is rushed, I did little to no proofreading but I have to go to work in like ten minutes so here's the last chapter of this story for @erisweek2023. See you tomorrow (which already is in Italy but shh) for the first chapter of my modern AU.

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Words: 1.802

He transmuted as soon as he held her in his arms, heading for the village he protected from his father’s wickedness and Amarantha’s cruelty for all these years. The cluster of houses greeted them with its lights and colours, welcoming in the way only secluded places can be. It was almost dinner time, and a riot of appetizing aromas came out of the open windows, but Eris wouldn’t have been able to ingest even a spoonful of soup, his stomach twisted with terror. The mere possibility that Nesta might not wake up gnawed relentlessly at his heart, so he lifted her legs up in one fluid motion, resolute in wanting to carry her quickly to the modest residence he purchased at nearly double its value after Jesminda’s death. At first, no one in the village trusted him, and on the rare occasions he left the domestic walls, he had been regarded with suspicion and a good dose of resentment. Not that he blamed them, after the misery his father reduced them to. Ironically, he started to make friends only thanks to his hounds, the first people who smiled at him a handful of children dressed in rags who wanted to pet them. They were all adults now, two of them dead because of Cassian and Azriel, their loyalty and gratitude towards him yet another condemnation to which all those he loved were subject.

“I’m sorry...” he murmured to Nesta as he laid her down on the bed, unsure as to why he was apologizing. Perhaps he felt guilty for leaving her in the Night Court for so long, despite being aware of the injustices she was facing, or perhaps he wanted to make amends for having kept the secret about their connection to himself, even though he was still convinced he was in the right. After all, Rhysand and his friends hadn’t given her enough time to adjust to her new condition, hadn’t supported her after the war, after she’d seen her father die, and these were the consequences, so he could hardly imagine what reaction she could’ve had if she’d discovered she had a Mate too. No, Eris wanted to go slow, allow her to heal and make her own decisions, even if he didn’t like them. A part of him would’ve died forever if he had to watch her go away, thank him for his generosity but still turn her back on him to return to the human lands, or leave for the Continent, but he would’ve accepted it, because there was no point in trying to control a spirit like hers. Of course he still wanted to be the reason why she rediscovered her passions and how beautiful life could be, even if the Autumn Court as it was at the moment could be a little dangerous to explore. If the other High Lords had trusted him more, perhaps he could’ve taken her on a visit elsewhere, where she could’ve danced in halls decorated for the holidays and ate exotic delicacies, but for now he could offer only boring simplicity, although he had every intention to gift her even the Moon, if she asked.

“Wet her lips,” a voice suggested from the doorframe, making him jump in surprise. It was rare to see a Fae old enough to have wrinkles and greying hair, but in that very village lived one of them, a somewhat nosy wise female who had taught him to cook and take care of himself when there were no servants around.

“Will she recover?” he asked, hating the fragility in his tone, the fear showing in his gaze and the agitation making his hands tremble.

“Only if you take care of her and allow us to do so as well,” she replied, with a solemnity that made him wonder if she weren’t a Seer, and hadn’t glimpsed something in the pages of a future he hoped would be long and prosperous. It took a couple of days before Nesta managed to sit up again without any help, and almost a month before she rudely chased him away.

“I’m not dying, and I only got up to get an apple,” she blurted out angrily when he found her in the kitchen and ordered back to bed. When she’d regained consciousness and realized what happened, she was perplexed by his intervention, and although he explained with his usual detachment that it was his dog who’d found her and he had merely exploited an opportunity that could play in his advantage, she hadn’t believed him, going damn close to discovering the truth.

“She says you’re not as bad as they describe you,” the old woman told him one day, but he knew she’d only did it to mess with him, not because she would’ve reported the content of their conversations. Almost all the villagers brought food, clothes, books and every sort of pastime they had, but the thing Nesta seemed to prefer were his hounds. In no time she’d memorized almost all the names and after about ten days she already distinguished one dog from another, although her favourite was Dysomnia, to which Eris had to gave up ownership rights when he saw her curled up at his guest’s side, with Nesta reading her a bedtime story.

“It took me decades to train them and you’re undoing it all in less than a month,” he’d told her, and Nesta did nothing but smirk, making his knees feel like jelly. In her presence, he was an insecure and inexperienced schoolboy, but nothing could’ve prepared him for what he witnessed on Samhain night. As usual, he’d celebrated the festivities at the Forest House, but before anyone could approach him, when his father and brothers’ attention were on the countless females waiting to be chosen, he’d transmuted to the village, suppressing all carnal desires and jealousy, but still determined to make sure no one tried to get close to his Mate. He’d expected to find her home, perhaps annoyed by the noise, instead he’d seen her silhouette stand out in front of the bonfire, her arms raised above her head as she moved sinuously with the only other young female present. Eris knew that dance: two steps forward and one step back, then three forward again until the couples were eye to eye. Loose and harmonious, the girls twirled in frenetic pirouettes, their voluminous skirts rising to their knees like bluebells shaken by the spring wind.

“Enjoying the show?” she asked once she’d reached him, leaving the General speechless in front of such disarming beauty. Some locks escaped her usual, rigorous hairstyle, falling to the sides of her angular face like a frame of burnished gold, and her usually icy eyes shone with ecstasy, her cheeks, rosy and sweaty, fuller since the day he’d saved her.

“Incredibly,” he confirmed, his mouth strangely dry.

“I thought it was customary for a gentleman to ask an unaccompanied lady to dance,” she teased him, when the musicians resumed their playing. The instruments were out of tune, and the players certainly lacked the technical skills to perform that specific song, but Eris would’ve danced even without music if it allowed him to held her in his arms again. He took her hand with a half smile, placing the other on her slim waist, and she lifted her chin, looking straight into his eyes just as the first drumbeat rang out, her breaths one with the music. He accompanied her, his body at once tense and relaxed as his Mate bent and took shape with the rhythm. It was as if the music burned inside Nesta, as if it filled her veins and flowed there instead of blood. There wasn’t enough space in the small square for the pirouettes she should’ve performed, but Eris took his hand off her back anyway, and she managed to follow the series of notes with ease, returning her gaze to him at the exact moment in which the music returned to the central melody. Smugness wasn’t enough to describe what he felt as she swirled like a nocturnal storm, wild and indomitable to the point of making him drunk with a single smile. He wasn’t sure he was able to hold back the wild desire he felt for her much longer.

“You never told me you loved dancing so much,” he murmured to her, on the last notes of the song.

“It’s been a long time since I last did it,” she admitted, letting herself be led away from the festivities, into a dark alley that reduced everything else beside them to a distant buzz.

“It didn’t seem like it,” he replied, leaning his back against the damp wall. In another life, she would’ve been in his place, and he would’ve had a firm grip on her thighs.

“There are things that are hard to forget,” she went on, moving so close to him that Eris felt his heavy breathing on his exposed chest. He wanted to touch her like he’d never wanted anything in his life, wanted to feel her heartbeat, see what was inside, make sure she was aware of what she was doing.

“We should go home,” he finally suggested, making the animal inside him hiss with disappointment, although he was sure it was the right thing to do. A little over a month had passed, she could neither be ready for whatever she was looking for from him, nor she loved him as he already loved her. It was strange to say, even to himself, for Eris had never been in love. Infatuated, maybe, when he was still too young to understand he had to put a certain distance between himself and his lovers, but with Nesta it was different, regardless of the Mating bond. She saw beyond his mask, she knew his weaknesses and not for an instant she used them against him. Together they discussed politics, laughed and faced the ghosts of their past, without ever being intrusive, without ever feeling the need to distance themselves from each other.

“Or we could stay here,” she suggested, brushing his fingers with hers.

“Your every wish is an order,” he tried to joke, but when she put her other hand on his chest, sliding up to his neck, he couldn’t resist any longer. He stood trebling like a tree struck to breaking point, but now his lips were on hers, soft and full and hungry. In the back of his mind he realized he took her face in his hands and pushed her into the barn, their bodies pressed together, her nails leaving mark on the pale skin of his back. She moaned, cursed and murmured his name between kisses, a completely new music to which Eris would’ve danced all night long, if she asked him to.

#erisweek2023 #eris vanserra #nesta archeron #neris #i have nothing left to say people #just that i'm sorry this turned so neris centred #i wanted to post two chapters per day #and if i followed the schedule i originally planned i would've been able to do so #but work is a bitch and i had to condensate a seven chapter story in this #i'm sorry and i swear you're going to have something a little more gotesque in the future

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jojikawa · 2 years

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I would love love LOVE to read some more of your Aatrox x reader story! if you'd be so kind ofc <3

Sure! I enjoy writing the romance so much!

𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙒𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣

wc: 2.8k

tw: brief descriptions of violence, Tsundere Aatrox

Whenever Aatrox would retreat into his sword, by starving himself or by defeat, he had begun to dream.

It wasn’t too often when these dreams would occur but a small part of him would look forward to them. Anything was better than the claustrophobic prison of nothingness. In his slumber, he would dream. As a woman, he lived in a cottage, alone in the woods. There were no signs of fear, happiness, or anger. It was only him and a baby.

The dreams would always end with blood and screaming. The baby he held was replaced with a pile of flesh that coated his hands with blood. He would scream at the sight and he didn’t know why. Aatrox wasn’t scared of anything. These were nightmares to anyone else but he feared nothing.

A poor human traveler came by and saw the sword of the Ascendant, Aatrox. He was intrigued by its glow. What was it doing all by itself in the middle of the forest, the traveler thought. How much would it sell for? The combination of curiosity and greed was a plague against humanity. It would be its downfall. Aatrox would use this new human as his vessel to move around once again.

Aatrox looked around. He was in the world again. It was gloomy and moist from the rain. Everything looked so sad. There was no sign of you either. Why did that make him feel bad?

“WOMAN!?” He roared to the top of his lungs, expecting you to just “appear” and have his name roll off of your tongue like sweet honey. He didn’t know your name. Your true name. He wouldn’t call you Death or even Lady Death. HE WAS DEATH.

Aatrox, Aatrox, Aatrox.

Death called his name like a mother would her son who just wouldn’t listen to her. And just like a child, he looked for you. He felt drawn to you. He knew you had to be somewhere. Did you get bored of him already? He hoped not.

The Darkin wandered for days not being able to find you. Maybe he could summon you again? Yes. That would be such a great idea. Why didn’t he think of that first?

Aatrox ravaged villages and settlements. He left no survivors. Life was no good anyway. The only thing these mortals would miss out on was your beautiful face. Right before they succumb to their wounds.

It was no use. Despite all the carnage. You didn’t appear. You didn’t tease him. You didn’t trace his horns with your fingers. You didn’t climb onto his shoulder to whisper things in his ear that seemed to calm him.

That’s fine. He just needs more victims. What’s one more settlement? One more? Another? And another?

But—

No.

The only thing he was surrounded with were the dead bodies of men, women, and children. Where were you? Where did you go? Did you even…exist? Did he finally go mad?

Yeah. He had just gone mad. Meeting death? Spending time with her? Dreaming from the perspective of a woman? Everything was finally taking a toll on him.

Night fell and he wandered Runeterra some more. He needed to find more people to kill…or finally a warrior that could put him out of his misery.

He had come across a winter hamlet. It was lit here and there with torches and lights. The watchmen didn’t seem to see Aatrox yet. With his vision, he could see a far distance away. What caught his attention were people in an old wooden house. Two of them. A woman and an old man.

That woman…who was that woman?

She looked like you. There were no demonic features and dark attire, but he knew it was you. You looked so full of life.

He didn’t like it.

Anger filled him more than any feeding ever could. A foreign drive possessed him and all of his thoughts were murderous and violent.

Screaming of terror filled the night sky as mortals laid eyes upon their new god.

“You are not long for this world.” You grabbed the hand of the dying old man before you. He wore a smile as he drifted in and out of his painless death. “I know.” He replied. “But will I finally get to see my wife again? Did you stay with her until the end just like you did me?”

Your lips parted. You’ve done this for eons but it’s still hard to break the news. “Yes.” You curled your lips into a small smile. “She’s missed you and can not wait to-“

“DARKIN! IT'S A DARKIN!!”

The cries of mortals filled your ears. Your heart sank. You couldn’t hide the sadness that covered your face. “I’m so sorry.” You whispered to the old man. You took his life without another thought. You collected his soul and returned to your Darkin suitor.

In only minutes, this settlement was no more. Aatrox was huge. Much, much taller than what you’ve seen before. He’s killed so many.

“How could you?” You uttered, looking at all the destruction that was once bustling and crowded. You struggled to not step on any bodies that had been left by him. For once, you frowned at Aatrox. Your patient smile was no more.

When he saw you, he wanted to yell at you. How could he? No. How could you? You abandoned him. You didn’t come when he called you. He searched for days. He spent days by himself and he couldn’t understand why.

“Why are you here?” He growled, finishing the very last warrior that stood in his way. Black butterflies emerged from the trees and bushes. They landed on the people and claimed them. “I like to visit humans before they die.” You answered. “But you just had to intervene.”

You noticed that Aatrox seemed to dislike your butterflies. He cut at them and could crush them in his hands if he were quick enough.

“Leave them.” You commanded firmly. He did not listen.

You turned away. You couldn’t stand to look at him. Your chest was hurting from sadness. You hated that this was the natural order.

You shook it off. You always shook it off.

You looked down at your feet. “Everyone dies alone.” There was a child. A girl. She held a toy and had a petrified look. Your words finally grabbed his attention. “I’ve always been alone.” Your sentences seemed disconnected but Aatrox was still very much interested in what you had to say.

Before you could continue, you were lifted off of the ground by a large hand. It was Aatrox. He dropped you onto his shoulder, to which you clumsily hung onto. You smiled at his actions. He still wasn’t accepting you, but you didn’t believe he traveled to the Freljord for nothing.

Aatrox has many, many questions for you but his arrogance prevented him from asking them. He preferred to listen to you speak. Eventually, you would come out and maybe tell him yourself.

“You’re so big now. Why did you kill them?” You asked quietly. This made the Darkin scrunch his nose up in disgust. He refused to voice the reason why. He didn’t want it to sound like he missed you or that he was worried. “And why did you destroy this camp of refugees?”

You got a good look at him. His face was unchanging from the scowl that showed his sharp teeth. His face always seemed to be like this.

“Why did you come after me?”

You felt the sway of Aatrox’s walking come to a halt.

“Shut up, woman. You may be a god but you are a fool.” He grumbled, refusing to make any eye contact. When he hissed and said “hurtful” things, it made you wonder what his reactions would be if he were a man and not a monster. “And why are you so mean?” You added, leaning your head against his now much, much bigger one.

Aatrox didn’t answer you. He only resumed walking to a place. Wherever a place was. Your smile softened and faded a little. “Aatrox, do you dream?”

It was almost funny that you asked such a thing. He instantly thought about the nightmares he would get. (If you could even call those nightmares.)

A woman and a baby.

“I don’t sleep.” He replied, almost seemingly pretending to not pay any mind. You laughed. “I know you don’t right now but you do go dormant.”

Aatrox stayed silent.

You brought your hand up to his horn and stroked it softly. Smiling at him, patiently, you repeat yourself again. “Do you dream?”

“…Yes. I dream.” He confessed. He didn’t harbor any resentment for you in his voice, but it still rumbled and shook you to your core. “And what do you dream about?”

Aatrox explained to you that he doesn’t normally dream. He didn’t believe it was possible in his current state, but he did it. The Darkin nonchalantly recited what he remembered from his slumber.

The woods. The cottage. The baby.

Blood. Screaming. Fear.

As Aatrox went on, keywords began to stand out to you. Your once cheerful face contorted. Your eyebrows knitted together and your perma-smile erased itself from existence. Now replaced with a cold line.

You didn’t realize that you began talking over him when you finally spoke. “Why would you dream of this? How could you see such things?”

Aatrox noticed that your tone of voice changed. You didn’t sound like the version of yourself you always presented to him. You sounded…sad.

“What is it?” The Darkin barked at you impatiently. Your mouth remained shut. You refused to elaborate. It was too much pain to say and obvious if he just thought a little harder about it. You removed your hand from his horn, earning a grunt from him.

“There was a time long ago when I attempted to have a family.” You explained, your tone low and you talked slowly. You didn’t want to have to repeat yourself for him. “But Death can not create life. My domestic life didn’t last.”

Ah. Things finally made sense to him.

Aatrox was intelligent enough. He could understand the implications regardless of his situation. The only thing he couldn’t understand was why. Why could he see this? He knew he should have held his tongue but he couldn’t stop himself from finally asking something.

“Why was your child slaughtered?” His tone of voice sounded insensitive. If he were a man he would easily be slapped across his face by such disrespect. You were the only person in the world who could never be offended by Aatrox.

“I’d have to start from the beginning.” You choked out. “I didn’t have a mother or father. I was just…born like this. I was idle for thousands of years after I was created. I couldn’t move, see or think.” Your experiences almost sounded similar to Aatrox’s imprisonment. “Then this world was created. I could suddenly feel everything. The noise of creation was louder than anything I’ve ever heard.” You sighed, before looking up at the sky. It was a full grey as clouds formed, it would begin to storm soon. “And I fell in love with it.”

“You fell in love with such a worthless floating rock?”

His words didn’t wound you but they did displace your mood. You narrowed your eyes at him, pitying him for having such a mortal view of the world. Perhaps, this was his way of taking his anger out at you for disappearing. Either way, it was not justified.

“I did. Mortals find it hard to comprehend but I will be patient with you. I had a husband, who I loved very much.” You closed your eyes and tried to imagine that time so long ago. Aatrox’s eyes narrowed at the thought of you being married to someone else. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“I…I can’t remember what he looked like.” You smiled sadly. “It was many lifetimes ago. I told myself that I wouldn’t love anyone else.”

You hadn’t heard any feedback from Aatrox. He was truly a good listener but this time you felt like he wasn’t listening to you.

“What? Are you jealous?” You teased him, leaning over to try to get a look at his face. “Why are you speaking?” He growled at you in a low tone. You rolled your eyes. “Do you even know what I said?” You reached down and tried your best to show affection. He would always melt at affection. But he was too big. You sat on his shoulder like a nest as he carried you.

From that moment forward, you spent a great deal with Aatrox again. You hadn’t mentioned anything else about your attempt to live as a human. The mortal side of him couldn’t help but wonder more. Were you happy at all? What if your child lived? He even tried to imagine what your life was like. If he were still a man, would you have been interested in him? Would you be impressed by his Ascendant form, a time before he was a Darkin?

“Aatrox.”

He tried to imagine your voice as you would greet him after a long time of being away. The desperate thought of you waiting for him to return home like a wife would for her husband. Aatrox couldn’t imagine you without anyone else but him. His imagination filled in the blanks, replacing any instance of another partner with himself. If he could, he would give you another child.

These feelings only strengthened when the effect of his killings wore off. He was small enough for you to be more affectionate, as you would put it. When you teased him, you would cup his cheeks. When he would snap at you and look away, you would remain happy with him. Still smiling and redirecting his gaze back at you. You would tell him stories of the warriors you’ve met. You would make your jokes about how their strength was nothing compared to his. Your beauty was ageless. Your personality was nothing that he had expected from a Goddess of an act as grim as death.

You had been admiring the wings of your Darkin suitor when something changed inside of him.

“I’ve never met a creature born on this planet with wings so beautiful.” They were outstretched and it was like you could see the stars. “It’s almost like-“

You reached out to touch them once again when the bigger creature had grabbed your wrist. It was firm but nothing like the violence you endured when you first crossed paths.

“What is your name?” He questioned. It wasn’t polite but he didn’t growl or bare his sharp teeth at you. You liked when he spoke like this. You could really enjoy his accent. “My name is Death-“

Aatrox yanked you forward by your arm, causing your bodies to meet. He held you close and wouldn’t let you go.

“Your name is not Death. I am Death. You are just a woman. Tell me your name.” He commanded, not at all realizing what he was doing. This wasn’t like him. Not one bit. You placed your hand on your face and shied away. He was so emotionally stunted by his situation. You pitied him sometimes.

“My name is (y/n).”

Aatrox didn’t expect you to actually answer when he asked. He believed you would say something cryptic or flirty.

“What will you do after I die, (y/n)?” He said your name with such venom. If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought he hated you. You placed your free hand on his face. It was stiff and hot like fire. He was angry.

“I will mourn you every year.”

Mourn him? He would never see you again!

“So you will take my soul and put it in your pocket like all the other trash you collect?” You felt him squeeze your wrist more with every word. “Aatrox…” You frowned at his bitterness. There was nothing you could say that would please him. “What do you want me to say?”

Aatrox didn’t reply. He gritted his teeth, unable to hide how monstrous he had become. You tried to pull your wrist away but he continued to hold onto it with you leaning against him for support. He hesitantly raised your wrist to his face, making you place your other hand on his cheek.

You were so used to him pushing you away and hating your gentle touch. “Aatrox?”

The Ascendant-turned-Darkin had been around for nearly 6000 years. He experienced the same careless cycle of inflicting death but never being able to be killed. You made things bearable. Even when trapped in a sword, he didn’t completely hate everything.

“Stop speaking.”

Next part will probably be a smut 🥹❤️ Stay tuned for that.

#aatrox x reader #aatrox #league of legends #aatrox league of legends #lol #aatrox lol #lol imagines #league of legends imagines #league of legends headcanons #aatrox headcanons #aatrox imagines #female reader #demon reader #aatrox fanfiction #Aatrox Can Not Accept Death #Death is a Woman #[💌] request

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scratchandplaster · 1 year

Text

Stack The Deck - PART 4

CW: threats, choking, anxiety, stress position, reference to non-con

PART 3 ⇽ [Masterlist] ⇾ PART 5

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Hours had passed, time which gave Elliot enough opportunity to prepare a list of people who had enough reason to hate him. Even though Morris, his trigger-happy captor with too much free time, claimed to not follow any personal vendetta, he couldn't shake off the inkling that this was his fault.

How much more personal could it get? His mind drifted through names and faces, some more detailed than others: James Randall, high school bully turned general contractor just a few towns over. They had some quick and rough encounters during their time together, but nothing more came about it. Or Eve Anderson, who used to sit just two cubicles down from him and was let go by their manager because of her, well, unorthodox bookkeeping.

The last thing he heard about her, whispered among his coworkers, was the rumor that she went into crypto. Mister Harris, loyal customer and enraged by the inflation of gas prices, continually harassing his workplace with angry calls. But none of that was reasonable...

Otherwise, I am going to slit your mother open from her chin down to her fucking-

Neither was this situation. He had to be smart about his actions, or the consequences would be graver than an improper lay-off from a white collar job.

No promise would guarantee his stay to be quick - less likely painless, but he had to at least know the reason for this madness. If he wanted to use this information to his advantage, if he wanted to get out here alive...

Elliot felt a new wave of misery creeping up his stomach, choking him tight from the inside. Registering the now warm fabric of the mattress below, he imagined how eternity would feel like. Just waiting...surrounded by dirt and dubious bodily fluids. Waiting to be gutted in an empty crack house nobody would ever care to search for.

The pressure behind his eyes increased to an excruciating degree, threatening to burst out of him as a fountain of grief. Tears made their way forward. Elliot was too scared to talk, to even move, but his body needed any kind of catharsis; so he cried.

It was silent at first, a sniffle or two making their way out of his throat, hopefully muffled enough not to irritate the man just a few feet away.

Morris had spent long hours playing cards with himself, solitaire, Elliot suspected. Now spread across the dirty wood like a mosaic, the cards connected to each other with a charming precision. Stopping only every few minutes, to look at his phone. His mood never seemed to brighten after that.

A pastime, so he doesn't have to endure me.

At this, he finally broke. All the fear, guilt and stress of the last hours culminated into an unstoppable force, pushing its way through Elliot's body until it ripped his lips apart. Trying his hardest to stop any treacherous sounds, he clenched his jaw tight and pressed himself back down in the filth of the mattress, face now deeply hidden. It didn't change anything. The anxious panting echoed through the living room, making their way to the source of all this terror.

As he slowly shifted in his seat, Morris couldn't hide the feeling of unease any longer. Turning the chair around, he fixated on the shaking figure in front of him.

"Are you done already?" This cold tone didn't do his captive any good, even boosted the uncontrolled motions of his limbs to an unhealthy degree. "Stop that, you look like a-"

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?" Elliot screamed with a sudden anger, so very blinded by fear that all thoughts of torture were pushed aside. A childish part of him screamed at this unfair treatment, and no nausea, cramps or headache could hold it in anymore.

--------

Morris stopped his line of threats in an instant. The quick shock of an icy feeling at the back of his neck, but after a few seconds he pulled himself together. He thanked himself for doing this alone, his partners would have already ripped Elliot apart for this mild tantrum; and also humiliated anyone who would let a hostage address them that way.

"Oh, stop your whining, I'm not even doing anything! You want the gag again?!"

He really shouldn't worry about this sudden blast of desperate resistance. He was perfectly safe, everything was under control. She would answer... They just needed to wait a bit longer-

"No!" the man below finally answered through clenched teeth, "I just want to understand-"

With a hard slam, the chair flew back onto the floor, accompanied by playing cards slipping from their previously neat placing. Everything happened so quickly, none of the men grasped how they ended up like this. Without warning, Morris was on top of him again, both hands enclosing his neck, but not quite squeezing yet.

It was visible how Elliot cursed his loud mouth, the cloud of anger now nearly evaporated and replaced with a somber nothingness. The blank expression, empty eyes staring into Morris´, hid behind smeared red on pale skin.

He thought of who came before, but couldn't find a good reference of character to plan his next step. The younger man didn't belong to his usual clientele. Which meant that the rules weren't established yet, a shortcoming Morris had to account for, if he wasn't busy strangling his captive right now.

He reacted so negatively to threats. Sure, who doesn't, but the greatest part of compliance he got through talking him down in a poised manner. They could scream at each other for the whole day, but empty phrases didn't seem to cut it this time. In any case, he wasn't the usual kind of man trapped in Morris claws, he had to approach this from another perspective.

Ketamine, maybe. If Elliot refused to give him another option, the next snapshot would be of him having a drug induced breakdown on the carpet. He wouldn't overdose him, of course, he wasn't that kind of idiot. Nobody would benefit from that.

With one thumb pressed onto Elliot's larynx, pushing it down against the hard front of his spine, Morris collected himself to correct his rookie mistake:

"I'm going to repeat myself only once, alright? This is not about you. No personal agenda here, so don't make it one."

Small nods shook the drained head up and down; intentionally or not, Elliot continued to hold his breath underneath the weight of his captor, signaling him to continue.

"In a few hours, this will just have been an ugly nightmare for you, but nothing more." Another set of nods underlined the promises of freedom, realistic or not, didn't matter anymore.

"I'm not an animal, so don't treat me like one. If this phone rings," he pointed at the small device on the desk, endlessly looked at in the past hours, "I'll have everything I want. This is all I expect from today."

His fingers let go to rest next to Elliot's head, caging him but not touching any more than he needed to. Raising an eyebrow, Morris waited for another sign of acceptance.

--------

Liar. Liar. Liar.

He was sure these words meant nothing, only trying to lull him into submission. This Morris didn't want him to make noise, to call for help till he got finished off. Elliot would be murdered and not even granted the reason for it. So he just gave in, once again lying flat on the thin piece of foam, not moving besides a light shiver.

"I will be reasonable, if you let me be."

With this final warning, Morris stood up again. Looking down at the drained picture of distress, he grabbed his phone to take a picture. Evidence of the consequence one awaits when screwing him over.

He probably gets off to this, Elliot realized, now regretting his defiance even more. He shunned the thoughts dropping into his mind, that there was the possibility of death only being the second-worst thing that could happen to him here.

His hopeless expression only made Morris shrug worthlessly, pocketing the phone again. Despite his obvious violent tendencies, Elliot couldn't push aside the feeling that the brute searched for a conversation with him. Like he wanted to let it all out, to prove to himself he was being reasonable...

"I'm sending her another one, maybe she thinks the one in the trunk was just a joke, I don't know... This has to be done." He spoke more to himself, breaking the forced eye contact.

So it is just about money, in the end. Draining the last sorry penny out of my parent's bank account.

Wondering how Morris would ever think that his mother takes these threats lightly, he rolled himself into a more comfortable position. His still bound hands continued to tingle with sharp stabs all throughout, adjusting to the new normal.

Even though he finally gave up on fighting, past and future threats practically forcing him into compliance, his captor continued to eye him from time to time.

"You want a deal?" the question floated to him after a few minutes of silence. Elliot refused to imagine what favor Morris would ask of him, he tried to ignore the unsavory thoughts, fostering his anxiety ever so drastic.

"You can play a round of cards with me...you know, to pass the time."

Elliot started to listen again, hoping for some kind of break. Please don't let that be a euphemism. Untroubled, Morris continued:

"I'll untie you for that, and you will stay calm indefinitely. That's the deal, nothing more."

It was irrelevant, if there was a hidden catch to this offer, Elliot failed to gather the effort to care anymore.

"Okay," he whispered, "Please."

"Now that's more like it!" he exclaimed, almost sounding enthusiastic about a card game, as he once again knelt down on the mattress to pull out his knife. Before the blade could separate the cursed binds of tape, he stopped for a second.

"You won't try to pull any stunts, right? I'll stuff you back in the trunk, if I have to."

Or break my bones. Or gag me again. Or gut my mom. Elliot didn't want him to get even more creative, just shaking his head a little.

"I won't do anything, I swear."

With a simple slash, the overbearing pressure in his joints released, first in his shoulders and then further down his arms, as Morris worked his way through the loops of tape at every other point. His long numb hands were last.

Both shoulders finally snapped forward, immediately letting him catch himself in a tight embrace. Somewhere deep down, he could feel the burning soreness of the muscles and ligaments shifting back into position, like returning from the longest stretch in existence.

Feet still tied, he was dragged by the hem of his sweater again; gliding across the carpet floor. This time laying limp as a rag doll.

Make him like you, make him like you.

"Crazy Eights should be a good start for you, to warm up a bit," Morris determined, as he dragged Elliot onto a second chair, just as decrepit as his own.

Being upright again after so many hours spend in the horizontal, he had to fight against the black dots dancing around his field of view. His whole body seemed to come back to reality, piece by piece, hands now gaining new feeling and strength.

Elliot could do this, maybe physical force wasn't the kind of strategy he should have gone for at the start. Struggling to start his line of thought again, his glimpse was stuck on the phone in the thick leather pockets of his now opponent.

Well, he could start with that. His mind started to reel with wild plans to somehow get into possession of Morris' phone, but again, another beating would probably be the price for that kind of audacity.

My phone, he realized through his new-found clarity, I'm missing from today's practice. If I hold out long enough, maybe they can track us down. I just have to buy some time.

Perhaps being obligated to remain level-headed wasn't to his detriment after all.

Morris shuffled the cards quickly, collected and cleaned prior, and started to divide them into two stacks for each player, respectively. He didn't bother to explain the rules again, and Elliot not even dared to ask, too scared of starting another argument.

With the first card turned, Morris laid one in his hand down.

Make him like you, maybe he's fond of pets.

"I have a rabbit at home and-"

"I know, and I don't give a fuck. Your turn."

He forgot to feed Ginkgo, he remembered, digging deep in his mind for information about the previous evening. Fuck, what am I even doing-

"You want the gag?" Annoyed, he looked down at the piece of knotted fabric still hanging around Elliot's neck.

"No!" a quick gasp told him.

"Your turn, then."

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Thanks for reading 🤍 [Febuwhump 2023 Masterlist]

@febuwhump

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vampsquerade · 2 years

Note

Idk if it sent the first time so I’m trying again lol

Can we get a Bandit/Reader fic where the reader comforts him after one of his nightmares about his time undercover? I think he deserves someone to love and care for him <:3

thank the stars you tried a second time bc there was nothing for bandit in my inbox until you sent this in. thank you for requesting tho! i love bandit’s backstory a lot, so getting to write something like this has always been on my to-do list ^-^

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bandit x Reader: Night Terrors

Trigger Warnings: angst with a happy ending, night terrors, self-hatred, comfort/hurt, mentions of a notorious biker gang, death

Night terrors were no new thing to Dominic, as he felt he had some sick deal with the Devil after he gave up a part of his soul to stay safe while undercover. The amount of things he did and had to do were the worst you could imagine, and he absolutely hated it. He wished he could make the flooding of those awful memories he sometimes got randomly in the night stop, but he knew he would never get that chance. And once he started dating you, it felt like they only ever got worse and worse. Dominic would always refuse to cuddle you or fall asleep next to you, as his terri’s never really stopped. It was awful, and he didn’t want you to see him like that. You were just a civilian, oblivious to the threats around them, and you never needed to learn of his past double life.

But you insisted, even crying over it because you just wanted to hold him like you had always seen other people hold their partners. And after all that, Dominic caved and decided to let you be with him in his bed for once. The German, who reinforced a wall that was already so impenetrable, let a single butterfly through. You were nuzzled up against him, gently stroking his hair and kissing his neck. Dominic sighed softly, closing his eyes a bit as he began to feel a bit drowsy. “Hey, Dominic?” you ask softly. Regaining his attention, he opened his eyes to look at you, “What is it?” he asked sharply. “Um…I love you…” you say softly. That was the first time either of you ever said those three words to one another at all, and it warmed Dominic’s uneasy heart. He just gave you a slow nod, before then falling asleep.

Dominic, at first, wasn’t restless. His dream, or possible night terror, wasn’t so bad just yet. He saw himself walking down the streets where the Hannover Chapter of the Hells Angels usually met, and he looked down at himself. Dominic was fully dressed in the same attire he usually wore when he was with them, and now he was convinced he was just reliving a memory in his dreamscape. As he walked further and further down the street, he turned to walk into an alleyway and met up with them. It was once he turned the corner where Dominic realized the memory he was currently living.

Dominic was about to kill a man that tried to stop an operation they were doing in the city.

The man in front of him was covered in his own blood, wheezing softly as they held him up. “Finally you’re here! Took you fucking long enough, now hurry up and put this man out of his misery.” one of the men holding him up said. Dominic nodded and walked over to a table nearby, grabbing a gun and loading it. The bloodied man began wheezing more, panicking as he was about to have his life abruptly taken from him by a man who was only doing it to take down this whole operation. Dominic then stood right in front of the man and aimed the pistol right at his face. “P-Please…” the man whimpered, staring up at him with his one good eye.

Dominic sighed and just shook his head, staring down at the man. Though his face was stone cold, his eyes held a pitiful warmth that he’d hoped would guide the man to wherever he would end up. He then clicked off the safety, causing the man to struggle more, then pulled the trigger. Upon the sound of the gunshot ringing out, Dominic woke up and sat up quickly. He put a hand to his chest, panting heavily as he needed to feel like he was himself in his current state. He turned to his side and then saw you staring at him with a worried expression on your face. “Dominic…” you say softly. “I-I’m sorry…I told you this was a bad idea…” Dominic said.

He got himself out of bed and walked towards the kitchen, with you following right behind him. “Dominic, you need to tell me what’s wrong…what did you see in your dreams..?” you ask, grabbing his wrist tightly enough to get him to stop walking, but gently enough to where it was more reassuring. “I…before I joined Rainbow, I was undercover in 2010. I did terrible things in my time, and sure, it got me where I am now, but I wish I never did those things.” Dominic said. “What kind of things..?” you ask softly. “ Anything terrible you could think of, I did most of it.”

Your eyes went wide, but not out of fear, out of pure shock. Dominic was in an organization where that was something he had ti do against enemy forces. But against innocent civilians? You couldn’t even begin to imagine the horrors that plagues his mind. You always had a feeling that the slight goofiness he put up was just a front, and you seemingly found yourself being the one thing that broke through. “You can break up with me if you want, it’s fine…” Dominic suddenly said, breaking the silence between you two. “Dom,” you say, now gently bringing him in for a hug, “I’m not breaking up with you over keeping that a secret. You were doing it to protect me, and I can understand that. But you can’t just bottle your emotions away. We’re partners, we should always be able to tell each other how we’re feeling. I’m not leaving you.”

Dominic sighed, holding onto you tightly. He was shaking like a leaf, terrified of opening up to you about the amount of things he did. “You don’t need to tell me now, but you can tell me when you’re ready. I love you, Dominic.” you reassure, gently rubbing circles into his back. “I love you too, Y/N…I’m so sorry…” he apologized. “Don’t be sorry, you don’t have any reason to be. I would have wished you told me sooner, but things take their time. If anyone should be sorry, it’s me.” you say. Dominic pulled away from your embrace, giving you a confused look, “But why?” he asked. “I was the one who insisted on sleeping next to you.” you say bluntly.

Dominic’s expression softened, bringing a hand up to gently caress your face, “Liebling, don’t worry about all that…you just wanted to spend more time with me a bit more intimately. I should have at least tried a bit more, rather than push you away.” he said. “I just…feel bad about it. Maybe I should’ve been a bit gentler…” you say sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck. “Well…let me just drink some water before we go back to bed.” Dominic said, now walking away from you so he could get a glass of water. “If you wake up again, please be sure to wake me up as well. I want to help calm you down and comfort you when you have another night terror.” you say.

Dominic gave you a smile after drinking some water, cleaning his cup before then going and giving you a kiss on the forehead. You smiled, and the two of you went back to his room to sleep. Going under the sheets together, you had Dominic actually be the little spoon for once, and gently helped put him to sleep with words of reassurance and kisses. “Ich liebe dich…” Dominic mumbled sleepily. You let out a soft laugh, smiling, “I love you too.” you say, kissing the back of his neck before you both drifted off to sleep.

#r6s #rainbow six siege #r6s x reader #rainbow six siege x reader #r6s bandit #dominic brunsmeier #bandit x reader #angst #angst fic #comfort/hurt #angst with a happy ending #fluff

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lokiswifeduh · 2 years

Text

I’m okay now

Pairings: wanda x dark!sister!reader, loki x reader

warnings: grief, mourning, mention of Thanos, mind control, choking, maybe language? knowing me probably, mention of Odin, evil!reader. I don’t think there's anything else.

A/n: I literally love this idea. it’s kinda rushed because I worked in an hour. BUT, I hope y'all like it. Let me know if you want a part two!!

You knew you should’ve listened. The people around you and the small voice in the back of your head telling you to stop. But love drove you into this place, as did grief. Even now, as you studied a certain spell, surrounded by lifeless trees in a field of death, you only had one purpose on your mind. To get him back.

“Y/n!” You turned, seeing Wanda land beside you, her palms glowing a bright crimson. “Give me the Darkhold.” She held out her hand, making you shake your head and grip the book tighter, “It’s not yours anymore. You gave up.” “I came to my senses.” Wanda corrected you. “I chose to live my life and not be filled with anguish which is what will destroy you.” You walked toward her slightly, your own power flooding your hand with a green energy. “I suggest you leave.” Wanda stepped closer as well, showing you she was not scared. “You know they’re scared of you.” Quirking an eyebrow, you listened as she talked about the so called friends and family you had left behind after the final battle against Thanos. “Natasha, Bucky,” She paused taking a deep breath, “Thor won’t even consider talking to you.” You scoffed, turning your back to your sister. “He was always jealous of Loki.” Your power sank back down, no longer threatened by Wanda. “I’m not surprised he doesn't want him back.” “You think he doesn't?” Wanda raised her voice slightly. Staying silent, you confirmed her question. “He loved him. Loki was his brother-” “And he was my husband!!” You turned back, shouting so loud a couple of crows flew away from the dead tree branches. “I’ve lived without him before. When he faked his death. But this..” You shook your head, gulping. “He always came back.” Wanda’s eyes softened as she came forward, attempting to grasp your hand. You let her, cold blackened fingers mixing with her warm touch. A tear slipped down your cheek as you lifted your gaze to her. “It’s been six years and...he hasn't come back.”

Your sister snaked her hand up and behind your neck, bringing you to her chest. Her big sister instincts kicking in. After Pietro had died, you and Wanda were left to the care of the Avengers. Training and fighting beside them to take down HYDRA and any other entity that threatened the Earth.

Along the way you met Loki who had been under the supervision of Thor. Showing him that he could become a trusted citizen of Earth. One thing led to another and he proposed, both of you having a beautiful ceremony in the gardens of Asgard. It was a shock when Odin actually allowed it.

Yet now, as you twist the wedding band around your finger, you don’t feel the happiness you once did. You feel misery, and suffering. “No.” Shaking your head, you back away from your sister. Breaking the hold her arms had around you. “You won’t change my mind.” “You can turn back now. You can stop this before it gets out of hand.” Wanda tried to convince you but you just kept shaking your head. “I can’t.” You gulped.

“Why?” The redhead questioned, “Just come home and we can talk about-” “I can’t stop because I'm already there.”

Wanda’s brows furrowed, “What are you talking about?” You straitened your stance, holding your head high as you lifted your hand. Green wisps surrounded the air until Wanda could see everything. There was your ticket to so called happiness. America Chavez, stuck in a paralyzing trance, waiting.

Wanda gulped, recognizing the child she had once terrorized. “Let her go.”

You laughed, walking over and behind the teenager with a smirk. “You think I’m going to make the same mistakes as you? No.” Bringing a hand up to the side of the girls head. “Loki is alive.” You placed two fingers on her temple, an array of green energy surrounding the three of you. “In every other universe but ours.”

Wanda watched through your powers as Variants of you and Loki laughed, make dinner together, and kissed in the passionate way you once did. Taking your hand away, it all disappeared. “I will get him back.” You lifted your palm, green surrounding Wanda’s body in a hold as she was heaved into the air.

“Y/n!!” Your sister shouted, her body being crushed by your tight lock. “What happens to the other Y/n that he loves?!” Her breathing was shallow, but your hard glare scared her more than the diminishing oxygen in her chest. “What happens to her?!”

“She’s just a step in the path to being with him again.” With a whisk of your arm, Wanda was sent back to the compound, out of your way.

You turned to America, controlling her mind to bring you to the certain Universe you had been spying on for a couple of weeks. A bright electric star created a pathway as you looked to the other side. The familiar golden hallways and the sound of Loki’s laughter filled your heart.

“And with that step,” you saw other you holding onto Loki’s neck as he carried her into their shared bedroom. “I’ll crush her.”

You walked through the portal, your link on America instantly breaking as it shut behind you.

“Loki!!” The other you giggled, “Come back,” holding out her hands in a grabbing motion.

Stepping through the door, just enough to see, you watched as Loki shed himself of his armor, leaving him in only a loose pair of sweatpants. “I’ll just be away for a minute darling.” He disappeared into the bathroom, making you enter and the other you had no idea.

Your power swarmed your fingers as you raised your hand, instantly cutting off the oxygen to her throat. Her chokes and sputters could hardly be heard over the running water in the bathroom, easier for you.

Finally, you made yourself visible, her eyes going wide. “What..” She choked, “What the..he-hell.”

You smirked, lifting her higher as she struggled to intake air. “You’re going to go to sleep, and I’ll wake you when I see fit.” The other you tried to shake her head but before she could protest you placed her in a deep sleep, moving your hand so her body couldn’t be seen.

“Darling?” Loki yelled from the next room, making your head snap in his direction. Moving quickly, you changed your attire. The once dark green suit was now a flowing night gown. Your fingers were a regular skin tone and your hair was tied into two long braids like she had.

“Yes?” You tried to sound as normal as possible but the crack in your voice broke through. The bathroom door opened, showing you Loki for the first time in over six years. His raven hair was down, surrounding his neck and shoulders. A smile turned his lips up as he looked at you. Looking at you with those gorgeous green eyes you had missed gazing into. “Are you alright?” He questioned, his expression softening slightly.

You nodded, not being able to hide a tear that fell upon your cheek. “My love.” Loki moved forward, wrapping his arms around your fragile body. “What ever is the matter?” You missed this. His touch. The way his skin was always cold compared to your once heated body. You missed the way his back would relax under your touch. His lips came up to your forehead, leaving a long kiss on the crown of your head.

“I just...” You gulped, looking up to your husband. “I missed you.” “While I was in the restroom?” Letting out a laugh, you nodded. “It sounds silly.” Loki shook his head, “You could never sound silly. Not to me.” He peered his head, bringing his lips to yours. You wrapped your hands around his neck, your mouth moving in sync with his. He pulled away reluctantly, “I love you, Y/n Laufeyson.”

You let out a breath, closing your eyes tightly before meeting his. “I love you.”

He held you tighter, pressing your head tightly to his pale chest, “Are you sure you're alright?”

You bobbed your head up and down, now finding happiness in twisting your wedding band around your finger. You breathed in the scent of vanilla and pine, feeling at home. “I’m sure. I’m okay now.”

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sepublic · 1 year

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Meet Nykon the Lightning Dragon! She’s a dragon made of lightning and metal, through and through! That sounds awesome, which makes it all the more unfortunate that she kinda sucks.

Nykon is cruel, vindictive, and spiteful; She is the quintessential bully, petty in her targeting of those smaller and weaker than her. This is already pathetic as-is, but being the second-largest Escapee, and powerful even amongst that group, certainly highlights the pointless disparity of it all. Nykon revels in twisting the knife, pouring salt into the wound; Inflicting both physical and emotional torment, constantly reminding victims of how weak and pathetic they are, indulging in their sense of utter helplessness.

She’s latched onto humanity in particular as her favorite targets; Nykon will terrorize a group here or there, going on tangents about how much they suck as a species to their face. How cowardly, how greedy, how bigoted they are; Which is rich coming from her, but maybe it’s a hidden self-loathing and projection speaking. And/or dragon arrogance that justifies this cognitive dissonance.

So what’s her damage? Not that it justifies anything, merely explains… But Nykon was once a regular flesh-and-blood dragon from the Monster Realm, who breathed fire like all the rest. But her family was a particularly traditional, old-fashioned one that believed in far more brutal methods of upbringing; They saw modern dragons as having become soft. Nykon’s parents were outcasts in their own right, for their extreme sadism that crossed a line even for dragon culture at the time, and so they lived on the fringes, remote from others, and thus outside the territory of any child protection laws that might’ve existed at the time.

It was unimaginably traumatic, growing up as a member of Nykon’s brood; They were forced to constantly fight each for food, survival of the fittest, with the weakest left to die and even become nourishment for the others. Pain was regularly dealt, supposedly to forge the children into stronger dragons; But clearly, it was just their parents blowing off steam. Why even have children? Maybe as targets to hold socially-acceptable authority over.

In any case, Nykon somehow clawed her way to survival and emerged alive for it, yet scarred. As someone who received abuse, she could’ve chosen to end the cycle and replace it with kindness… But instead, Nykon opted to perpetuate it, the same way people justify oppressive systems they suffer from, in the hopes that one day they’ll be the ones at the top, thereby justifying what they went through.

So when Nykon flew from the nest and joined mainstream society, she enlisted as an enforcer and thug for various dragon guilds; Sometimes raiding a village for treasure, strong-arming weekly payments from groups indebted to the dragon hoards, that sort of thing. Nykon took particular delight when it came to torturing thieves, as dragons were very possessive and proud, which translated into a severe vindictiveness towards anyone who threatened their property.

Paranoia over thieves meant drastic measures to send a message, including excessive torture, sometimes even in broad daylight, in front of those indebted to the hoards! And Nykon was always eager to deliver and enforce on that aspect… Even amongst her peers, she was seen as extreme.

So why humans? Aside from the fact that they’re an easy, socially-acceptable target… Dragons are a part of the Monster Realm and must co-exist with its other species, inevitably. But humans are generally outside that purview, meaning the occasional venture into the Shining Void for loot meant dragons and other ‘explorers’ could get away with anything, before disappearing back to their home realm.

And as someone who participated in some of these raids, Nykon found a taste for human misery. They were foreign outsiders, making humans even more easy to dehumanize (for lack of a better term), and powerless compared to most species in the Monster Realm. They were even more pathetic in Nykon’s eyes, and thus even less deserving of life, in the eyes of someone who suffered so much for the privilege of survival.

Bitterness is the reason; Bitterness that she suffered, and yet others could live so idyllically and have nothing expected of them. Bitterness upon entering regular society in the Monster Realm, only to find it not as welcoming, not as nurturing, to Nykon as she needed it to be; Even away from the nest, Nykon couldn’t truly allow herself to be vulnerable, and it drove her mad. There was a positive association to cruelty for her, rewarded by others or simply the high of feeling bigger over someone smaller.

Humans were a favorite target of Nykon’s, but not an often one; That was, until a small group of dragons attempted to defy their masters. They failed and were sent on the run, and Nykon was tasked to hunt them down, and drag these traitors back to the Monster Realm to be properly made an example of. It was an assignment for losers; To track down losers, to be given to a loser to handle.

After all, Nykon was seen as a bit extreme by her peers, which led to distancing and only contributed to her lack of social skills, as did her upbringing. Combined with the fact that she basically appeared out of nowhere, with seemingly nothing to her name, no possessions on her back, and Nykon was derided in whispers as a nobody.

To be given this assignment was to be declared almost as much of a loser as these dissenters; But it also offered a chance to be taken seriously, hopefully, in Nykon’s eyes. So despite the minor humiliation of the task, Nykon accepted it and tracked down her targets into the Shining Void, the realm of humanity. In her search, she terrorized human settlements, using force even when it wasn’t necessary.

Villages burned down, and Nykon often slaughtered the occasional group of travelers as a way to blow off steam and kill time, whenever stuck on some dead end. Tales spread of a dragon who reveled in the massacre and didn’t even care for riches, another reason for why Nykon was an outcast amongst her peers.

Nykon simultaneously enjoyed and depised humans for their hatred, feeling indignation towards them fighting back; On the human end of things, dragons were treated as foreign beasts, and thus in Nykon’s eyes weren’t given the proper respect they deserved. Granted, murdering everyone as a first impression won’t make humans so inclined to recognize and welcome dragons as fellow people, either… Still, there’s nothing a bully hates more than a victim who fights back, and ruins their fun time for them, ends it even, and wounds them.

Nykon came into conflict with her targets; But that brought her into conflict with a Wayvren, who needed help regarding a sacred task, and saw the dragon outcasts as perfect for the job. He needed them, but so did Nykon; Likewise, Nykon was a legitimate threat to innocents. Thus, Wayvren teamed up with Nykon’s targets, and together they defeated the cruel dragon.

Nykon was incensed, forced to escape with her tail between her legs; She’d never felt humiliation like this before, save for when she was younger… That made her even more mad. And to be beaten by a human, no less?! Back home, she was already becoming a subject of ridicule for failing to bring back the traitors. She felt like she was losing respect both amongst peers and her victims, and Nykon became desperate to restore things to their natural order with her on top.

Somehow, she came into contact with the Terrorbrai, who lent her one of their legendary Typhonus Armors; The Typhonus Crescere. The Crescere was unusual amongst its fellow armors; It wasn’t indestructible, save for its core. But what it lacked in quality, it made up for quantity… The Crescere could absorb metal, incorporating it into a growing armor that would build layer after layer on top of itself to become stronger. If damaged, the Crescere could always replace lost metal with new pieces.

The Terrorbrai lent Nykon the Typhonus Crescere, for no other reason than to cause chaos, and they’d heard plenty regarding Nykon. Nykon returned for a rematch, making sure to feed the Crescere to bolster its strength, cover herself in layers and make herself even bigger… And still lost. Incensed, Nykon flew back to the Terrorbrai, and demanded they give her something else to become stronger.

Hisinava, the Terrorbrai in charge of these dealings, didn’t appreciate this dragon’s tone (especially as someone who had a Terrorbrai dragon for a friend who was much more agreeable); However, he agreed given Maelstrom’s goal to cause chaos.

Nykon was still a living being, and that came with weaknesses, which she despised in her victims. The limits of food, water, and other needs was such a hassle, and any Terrorbrai reborn via Maelstrom was always glad to be rid of them; As was Hisinava’s aforementioned dragon comrade, whom he had no doubt could destroy Nykon in a fight. But seeing as how Nykon clearly wasn’t compatible with the ideology of Maelstrom…

Well, there was another way Nykon could transcend moral limits; The Phantom Alliance, sworn enemies of the Terrorbrai, had dabbled in bonding souls to objects, often suits of armor in the shape of the body their subject once had. Nykon may have had armor, but she was still a soft and squishy fleshling underneath it all… But AS the armor, Nykon would always have an indestructible core to fall back on, and remain immortal with.

At this point, Nykon was desperate; She felt humiliated, self-conscious and already castigated in all but official word by her peers. She’d devoted years to this assignment, and the thought of being vulnerable and at the mercy of others all over again, simply not strong enough… The idea of her victims outgrowing Nykon, becoming superior? Those pathetic, lowly losers who should be beneath her…

Nykon agreed, having nothing to lose in her eyes. She needed to restore the natural order, at any cost; Nykon accepted the loss of her body and even fire breath if it meant an immortal body that could never tire, never die. With Nykon’s consent (a strange thing to ask for, given the Terrorbrai track record), Hisinava advised her to enjoy some last few days with the pleasures of the living body. Nykon refused, but Hisinava made her do it anyway, disappearing.

When her time was up, Nykon was approached by Hisinava once more, who led her to a mountain peak with a group of fellow Terrorbrai. Overheard, thunder rumbled as the clouds turned dark… The Terrorbrai laid out the Typhonus Crescere, and prepared an implement of soul stone. With Nykon saying goodbye to her old body, she welcomed a death to achieve rebirth, and her soul was reaped, contained within the soul stone.

Through an amateur foray into magic and some genuine luck, the Terrorbrai managed to bond Nykon’s soul to the armor… But speaking of luck! At the exact moment her soul was being bonded, lightning struck the mountain peak they stood atop.

In hindsight, maybe Hisinava should’ve remembered this as a hazard, or chosen anywhere other than the highest point of elevation to perform this ritual. But maybe, secretly, he knew the unpredictable dangers, and welcomed them due to his nature as a Terrorbrai. If so, the gamble certainly paid off, as it resulted in something truly unexpected and strange…

Lightning fused with the armor and Nykon’s soul, mixing together; And what emerged was a fusion of pure electricity, wreathed in the Typhonus Crescere’s metal. It crackled, raged, and burned, flashing and vaporizing nearby objects. The Terrorbrai were forced to fall back and maintain a safe distance, but as they watched, the shambling mess of lightning and metal began to take shape and form…

Finally, it took the appearance of Nykon herself; Now made of lightning and Typhonus Armor! The Terrorbrai applauded Nykon on her miracle, and after adjusting to both the figurative and literal shock of her new body and the unexpected twist… Nykon felt reinvigorated. She’d lost physical feeling, but fate had chosen to bestow Nykon an unexpected power to replace her fire, and why?

Because it was destiny, no doubt; The natural order of things that Nykon be stronger, be on top. And nature itself supported her with a surprise gift nobody saw coming.

Emboldened, Nykon immediately set off, deserting Hisinava and the others without even a thank you; Rude, but they didn’t mind it too much and went back to their regular schedule, which was basically anything. Nykon made a beeline for her enemies, those dragon traitors, as well as their human ally Wayvren…

And while Nykon’s enemies were initially surprised and overwhelmed by her new form, in the end, Wayvren and his allies triumphed. He’d faced insurmountable odds, strange and unstoppable enemies, time and time again; This was hardly new, in a sense. Nykon was humiliated, incensed, practically maddened by disbelief over her inevitable loss, even as Wayvren decided he needed a more permanent solution.

Nykon’s transformation was both a blessing and a curse; It made her stronger, but it also made Nykon that particularly unique type of threat that qualified her for the Tower of Tears. Wayvren had no interest in sending Nykon back to her employers in the Monster Realm to continue wreaking havoc, but despite her atrocities, he couldn’t bring himself to kill a defeated opponent, either. He was idealistic, hoping that maybe enough time could help Nykon calm down and be less… intense.

Well, it didn’t; Wayvren didn’t know about the nightmares that the Tears’ prisoners underwent. It was what you’d expect for Nykon; Flashbacks to her helpless childhood, constant reminders of her failure. Rage and bitterness at the people who ruined her fun, at those bullies who rose up and overturned everything Nykon believed in. A desire for vengeance, especially against the humans who ruined it all for her, burned in Nykon’s heart; She couldn’t get away with hating and terrorizing dragon society, but humans? That was an acceptable outlet to project her frustrations with her species onto.

Eventually, the Tower of Tears was destroyed; Its precious prisoners fled into the night. Nykon regrouped with a few Escapees who were under the command of Azayle, and while initiall reluctant and defiant to Azayle’s authority, learned to eventually bow to her. Any rage Nykon felt at being someone’s lackey, she once again directed towards humans and other victims.

As it stands, Nykon is once more a loner even amongst her own peers, who themselves are all outcasts and freaks. Of course, this time Nykon has nobody to blame but herself; Her fellow Escapees would be more than welcoming of her, but a need to feel superior, especially to these lesser beings (many of whom were once human rejects themselves!) made Nykon hostile, preferring to keep things at a distance and professional.

She’s not like the rest of these losers, she tries to reassure herself; Except Nykon totally is. Rejected by her family, her species, her own world AND this one… She’s been displaced through time and has nothing now. Unlike humans, dragons age for a long while; So most of Nykon’s peers were still alive in the modern day. Of course, Nykon couldn’t bring herself to face them after everything, after all of the transformation and loss, just to fail anyway.

She had no idea where the traitors were; And Wayvren… She’d love to kill him, she found Midas’ group appealing for this. But in the end, Azayle’s own ambition and charisma lured Nykon in, much as she was loath to admit it. So as much as Nykon despises it, her fellow Escapees are all she has left… And maybe she’ll learn to appreciate them, realize they actually kind of understand how she feels, and finally open up. Finally find people she can be vulnerable around, and be rewarded for it…

As it currently is however, Nykon insists on being hostile and abrasive, making her everyone’s least favorite teammate, even after the Mask of Menace who is mostly just obnoxious. Nykon’s teammates are hardly saints either and definitely sadistic to varying degrees, but as always, she manages to cross a line even they’re perturbed by. Her cruelty reminds some far too much of the bullies they’d suffered from, when they were younger and ‘innocent’…

Nykon is a massive hypocrite, deriding humans and others for flaws she herself is totally guilty of; For not caring about others, for leaving them behind to save their own skin. And she’ll take the chance to mock outcasts for being rejected even amongst the weak, which rubs some Escapees the wrong way, naturally. In particular, her recent massacre of a freakshow, for no other reason than she could, incenses a few from Midas’ group…

It was a distraction from Nykon’s actual mission of capturing Lloyd, but she simply had to revel in reminding these human rejects that despite their efforts, they’d still end their lives miserably, brutally murdered for their existence. This has of course earned Nykon the grudge of the few survivors, who vow to destroy Nykon for her evil…

They’re favorites of Nykon’s to torment, remind of how their friends died as she lies about them begging for their lives. But they’re also a thorn in her side that continue to survive, continue to thrive; And that insults Nykon and infuriates her, deep down, as does seeing them continue to be kind and make new friends.

Meanwhile, whichever partner was assigned to Nykon on a mission can’t help but be aghast. They thought they were awful, but this…! Don’t you think it’s a bit much, and impractical? Detrimental even, the unnecessary lengths your cruelty has gone, the time and energy it’s wasted, and especially the enemies it’s made? Jeez…

In regards to her powers and abilities, as I said; Nykon is made of a mixture of lightning and metal, through and through. She’s a powerful, overwhelming, radiant being, constantly casting a blinding light. The ground burns at Nykon’s step, and the air always smells of ozone. Her body is unliving, so Nykon doesn’t need to eat or sleep, can’t tire, etc.

Being lightning and metal, Nykon doesn’t take a lot of physical damage; But if you hit her just hard enough, the affected area will burst and fall apart in an array of sparks, bolts, and shrapnel before reforming, restoring Nykon’s shape. Nykon is still subject to the laws of entropy as a partially-electric being, so the energy lost when her form is disrupted, and used up to restore that shape… It can drain and wear her down, gradually, bit by bit. It IS possible to defeat Nykon, as much of a goliath as she may be.

As it is, her metal components are a less hazardous target, not prone to electrocuting anyone who makes physical contact with them. They’re the only ‘safe’ parts of Nykon to touch. To restore lost energy or damaged metal, Nykon can absorb outside sources into her mass, draining power plants or crunching up a junkyard, burning away any impurities to leave only pure metal to convert into the Typhonus Crescere.

Nykon has some limited shape-shifting capabilities, her body’s nature fluid; This allows Nykon to extend a limb, form a tendril armed with blades, that sort of thing. She can still fly, and generate bolts from any part of her body; But it’s most powerful when Nykon charges a lightning blast from her mouth, blue streaks of energy lighting up across her body before she fires, eyes similarly ablaze with that color.

Nykon seems like an impossible opponent; She’s made of lightning and metal, so touching most of her can result in a shock. She doesn’t even need to shoot bolts from her mouth or body, just touching you can be enough! Not to mention her weight and strength, her metallic bits. But as I said, the Typhonus Crescere is mostly vulnerable, and her form can be disrupted, wasting energy. Nykon might have potent regenerative capabilities, but with enough effort and the right assets, you can reduce her down to a puny, electrified shard of metal, the indestructible core of her Typhonus Armor; Small enough to hold in a human’s palm.

…That’s Nykon! She sucks, man. She runs on pure spite and also raw lightning. She’s terrible in a weirdly fascinating way that you love to see her suffer from; But there’s a human method to Nykon’s evil, which is a comparison she’d hate to hear. She’s enormous, gigantic and imposing, hurts people to even touch; But at her core is something puny, and Nykon still needs to make others feel small in order to feel big, despite her size.

She’s absolutely pathetic, a sad and bitter mess who resents everyone else and is deep down envious of their happiness, their sense of peace and self. She’s an edgelord who hates everyone for flaws she herself is guilty of, because I think Nykon is deeply disillusioned, disappointed and let down by the world. She’s a brute, and her arrogance and single-minded desire to hurt others has made Nykon commit some very dumb mistakes; Letting herself be distracted despite knowing it’s a ruse, because she thinks she’s clever enough to pursue a target AND accomplish her actual mission at the same time… She’s not.

You shouldn’t underestimate her… But at the same time, Nykon really is a classic example of the Bigger they are, the Harder they fall. She might be the most physically imposing Escapee, but there’s a clumsiness to her weight made even more apparent when Nykon is flustered by unexpected adversity; Inexperienced when people are too small and fast, so maybe Nykon should stick to picking on people her own size. She’s emotionally stunted, understandable given her abuse, but you can’t excuse that which she perpetuates.

Nykon is the classic tale of the big, blustering bully who torments the small and meek; Only to be caught off-guard in her arrogance, unequipped to defend when those people fight back, and are suddenly hard to hit when they’re not just taking it. The lumbering Goliath to many people’s David. And when Nykon fails despite everything being in her favor, having taken her power for granted unlike those smaller who fight to survive and make use of all they have?

Boy is she salty, seething on the inside and pushing away anyone who might be willing to extend a hand. Earning the disapproval of her superiors, be it the dragon hoards or Azayle, as Nykon struggles to earn their respect and prove she isn’t incompetent, all while sweating nervously as they breathe down her neck in judgment.

Nykon suffers from both a superiority and inferiority complex, nothing more she hates than being looked down upon, especially by those she deems lesser. Her cruelty makes her predicable, and being outmaneuvered incites Nykon to anger that causes her to make even more mistakes; Too stubborn to adjust tactics because that’s an admission of shortcoming in her own eyes, until finally Nykon eats too much shit and has to give in. She’s an utter cringefail girlloser. I love her.

#Nykon #dragons #my art #drawing #oc #ocs #my ocs #sketch #the escapees #dragon #GEverse

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tsukidrama · 1 year

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alice in borderland ending is so ass booty garbage, a rant by me.

okay yeah, i get what the borderland is. its purgatory. all of their hearts stopped and they were between life and death. they're all literally fighting for their lives. if they die in the games they die in real life. but tbh ANY of the scenarios Mira describes would feel like a more fitting ending.

it doesn't make sense that the only thing that really mattered for their survival was their own "desire to live"? i get it from a storytelling perspective in that, well we need the main characters to be alive. but then that makes every death that happened in the games completely pointless. the sacrifices that Chota and Karube made mean absolutely nothing. very few of the people who died WANTED to die? i think of the girl from s1e1 in the very first game, who ran through the wrong door and was lazered. she ran through the door because she wanted to survive - so why did she get shot in the head? how is that not contradictory? the games clearly do not care about the contestants' will to live so i don't get how that can be the reason that the "winners" survive.

what happens to the people who accept residency in the borderlands? do they die for real or do they get to stay there? it would have made more sense for the face cards to be permanent residents. and that would have explained why the games are so inhuman, because the game masters are legit distanced from humanity. or for the permanent residents to be the unexplained people who were watching the games on monitors and betting on the contestants.

so who are any of those people then? does it ever explain? why the hell were cardholders were chosen to be cardholders? if the games were testing everyone, then why were they not all being tested in the same way? like bruh the tests have to be the same in order to be neutral. everyone getting different tests only shows their reaction to a specific situation.

i also don't get why they're being punished in the borderlands. like that's just some nihilistic shit right there! everyone regardless of how they behaved during their lifetime is forced through actual torture. that's Hell! and while i may be approaching the idea of purgatory with a western Christian view, it doesn't make sense that they're being punished just for existing. this system only rewards you if you're very selfish or a sinless little angel.

i saw that in the manga, the driving force behind everything happening is an entity called the Joker, which explains the TV show ending on that card. but the way that the episode ended definitely implied that he was the next thing that was gonna come terrorize them, and not what they'd already faced. everything about s2e8 read like an ending except for that.

is the reason behind all the horror because the Joker made it that way? does he influence the choices that people make? are the people who come to the borderlands the ones responsible for their own misery, and he is just a neutral observer? i guess im just confused by the choice to leave the Joker out (though from what i can tell, the manga doesn't elaborate very much).

can somebody who has read the manga let me know if overall that version makes any more sense? or are there just as many plot holes/unanswered questions? i was really into the series up until the very last episode.

i understand that there's supposed to be an element of "life isn't fair" when it comes to this show. but like??? it's too much! it's too pessimistic, too unfair. it takes away the idea that kindness and love MATTER, that they make a difference. i hate that good people were at a disadvantage in this universe. the only times where things went well for anyone was when people decided to trust each other and work together (good example: Usagi rallying everyone against the Queen of Spades).

my issue is NOT that the borderlands turned out to be the afterlife. it's that it's a very stupid and pessimist take on the afterlife that showcases the darkness in humanity. it's significant that loving and being loved is what got Arisu through until the end. love doesn't exist in the borderlands. but that's fucked up!

the idea is very interesting in concept but was poorly executed in the end. i also don't really get why EVERYONE could go home if it was only Arisu who played and won the final game? that doesn't make sense. i might have missed something there.

tldr; maybe The Good Place has ruined every other show about the afterlife for me. or maybe the Alice in Borderland ending just... sucks?

#alice in borderland #alice in borderland spoilers #alice in borderland meta #aib spoilers #aib 2 spoilers #tsuki speaks

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torntruth · 2 years

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For no other reason except that I want to talk about Emily Kaldwin, here’s a more in depth look at her choices:

- the only blood her blade ever sees is ramsey’s: and it’s the only time she ever makes a mess, a noise, the only real chaos. she just walks through the door after listening to him talk to his guards. he’s greedy, he’s corrupt, he killed alexi and she’s blindly angry. she fights him next to her bedroom. leaves him on the floor to bleed out, picks up the already dead alexi and leaves the woman on her bed. there’s nothing she can do now. - the only two people that knew of her presence leaving dunwall were the courier and meagan foster. she didn’t make a peep. didn’t make a sound. she was an absolute ghost. she barely even disturbed a rat. - she gave back to karnaca as a traveler, helped mindy, helped the woman in addermire, even so much, so powerful that she rectified the sins of the past, changed time itself and saved aramis stilton from a horrendous fate of insanity. which also saved all the miner’s of karnaca. karnaca lived more peacefully ... and not a single soul even knew that there was a future of dust and death. - the only victims of her blade continue to be bloodflies. - not only does she save alexandria hypatia, but emily helps fund the revival of alex’s institute. which in return, once more, gives the people of karnaca hope because hypatia is a kind, caring doctor and she will take care of them inside of addermire. they all have someone to rely on again. alexandria hypatia is an angel that had to be fatefully disguised as a devil. emily reinstated her significance as an angel. - she didn’t kill kirin, but that is something she mournfully regrets enough that she’s thought about passage to the clockwork mansion again to end his misery. he didn’t even see her coming. didn’t know she was there, she surpassed the maze and technology of his mansion with the ease of a shadow. he never even woke up as himself, she took his intelligence away from him, like she was a bitter god herself. he woke up as a shell of himself and merely stared as emily walked away from the mansion. - the abbey is extremist, paolo has a vengeful soul. the dust district needs a new start. the howlers can have their blocks, can have their land, they can have a seat within karnaca’s council to help better the city. with one exception: paolo doesn’t get the vice overseer. he’s being sent away. - the duke is a pitiful man. he doesn’t even deserve thought. even his double knows this. emily strikes an agreement with the double, he doesn’t end up disappointing her. he plays the role of a leader much kinder, he actually looks into karnaca’s problems and seeks to resolve them from atop his large mansion and new mound of gold. - breanna ashworth was used by delilah, romance and power are powerful tools. emily can only remember the pain in ashworth’s eyes when she fell to her knees, powerless and now romanceless because delilah certainly wouldn’t talk to someone who know longer has the magical powers she used. emily merely bowed her hed and exited the conservatory. a place she once thought was beautiful and that she wanted to visit with her significant other. emily had taken those powers, found a way, and now it all seemed empty. - delilah is delusional and emily thinks that she can have her delusion as long as there’s no chance for delilah to ever cause terror again. emily traps delilah in her own painting. the terror is over with. - meagan foster revealed that she’s actually billie foster and that she played a small part in the murder of emily’s mother. emily has no more room for anger, she’s exhausted and wants to end delilah’s terror. ‘people change,’ emily says and then takes meagan boats and leaves for home again. jessamine kaldwin deserves to rest in peace. jessamine kaldwin deserves to remembered as a loving, extraordinary mother. she deserves to be remembered as a fair and caring empress. let it all rest.

#EMILY KALDWIN — daughter of the void.

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magioftheseas · 2 years

Text

The Remnant

Written for @izuruzine

Summary: Post-Canon AU where Kamukura Izuru is a ghost that starts haunting/terrorizing his once former self.

Rating: PG

Warnings: Vague references to canon events.

Notes: This is the other fic I wrote for the zine! It’s more like a bonus piece, but I do quite like it. I’m all about post-canon recovery, and I thought this would be a fun and interesting take. It’s not my usual brand of sentimental, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s still short and sweet.

***Alternate Ao3 Link*** Commission? Donate?

He had already predicted everything that would happen. But regardless of what happened, it would be of no concern to him because he would no longer be present. Regardless of the future, Kamukura Izuru’s existence would come to an end.

There was no reason to meet any of the remnants once again. Or so he thought.

It turned out that even one so beloved by talent was not omniscient.

While he was no longer present in a tangible sense, he still existed as a specter. A transient observer to Hinata Hajime’s life from then on. Watching the once normal boy make use of his talents here and there, and toss back and forth every night, plagued by scattered memories. Every so often, Hinata would wake with a strangled gasp, his chest heaving, his shoulders trembling, and his face wet with tears. With twitching fingers, Hinata would reach up to comb his fingers through his hair. He’d flinch whenever his fingers brushed against the ruined scar tissue atop his head like a twisted crown.

Kamukura Izuru would observe. Night after night. Watch Hinata Hajime muster up an air of normalcy and force himself to lie back down and attempt restful sleep once more.

“You are hopelessly dull, Hinata Hajime,” Kamukura said. “You have people you can confide in. Suffering alone does not suit someone as plain as you.”

Of course, Hinata Hajime hadn’t responded. How boring.

Simply watching became intolerable, so Kamukura Izuru began to test the extent of his capabilities as a specter. He found that while Hinata Hajime responded to brushes of contact with a shiver, inanimate objects were more complicated. He could flip the pages of a book, but he couldn’t pick up or carry the book itself. He could only move small, relatively light objects such as chopsticks and empty glasses.

Hinata Hajime always jumped when Kamukura swept aside his eating utensils. He was especially startled when Kamukura knocked over his glass. Hinata’s gaze jerked towards Kamukura’s direction, except it wasn’t quite lined up.

Kamukura flicked his forehead. Hinata stiffened, but it wasn’t long before his shoulders slacked.

“Must be going crazy,” Hinata muttered to himself.

“As if you weren’t already?” Kamukura asked him and, predictably, didn’t receive a response.

On one hand, making Hinata Hajime worry he might be haunted was rather pointless. On the other, Kamukura did feel a twinge of satisfaction when Hinata flinched in front of the mirror. More so when Kamukura knocked away his toothbrush and Hinata was left looking rather helpless.

Kamukura was acting out. He’s quite aware of this. These acts of defiance and rebellion made for poor justifications of his existence.

Well, he hadn’t exactly wanted to keep living upon entering the simulation. In a way, this was karmic punishment for threatening to throw away not only the lives of the remnants but the remains of Class 78.

“It’s your fault as well,” he told Hinata. “You were the one who agreed to the project in the first place.”

Hinata continued to comb through his hair furiously. He can’t seem to get the antenna quite right. His grimace was darkening.

He yelped when Kamukura pulled on his cheeks.

“S-Seriously what the hell?!”

“Hell is right,” Kamukura hummed. “This existence is hellish. However, you know the saying, don’t you?” As there is no point in waiting for an answer, he simply prodded the once normal boy and watched dully as Hinata turned away. “Misery loves company.”

Of course, Kamukura Izuru could not be satisfied with stagnancy and solitude. It had only taken X amount of days before the vacancy of living day to day as a mere tool and accessory for the Hope’s Peak Steering Committee had driven him to take the first hand offered. It hadn’t mattered the wretch that hand was attached to.

Hinata Hajime could not fully retreat into himself either. Or, rather, he would not be allowed to.

“Hinata-kun! It’s been a while!”

Komaeda Nagito. The former Ultimate Luck of the 77th batch of Hope’s Peak Academy. Recently recovered from once malignant lymphoma. The second ‘owner’ of a certain wretch’s hand has since been replaced with a bionic one, which Komaeda Nagito was using to wave at hi—them.

Komaeda’s gaze flickered towards Kamukura Izuru. His smile widened. He waved again at both of them.

“Aren’t you going to let me in?” Komaeda asked in a purring lilt as if Hinata had the heart to slam the door in his face. “It’s rude to just make someone stand on your porch.”

The sky was overcast, but Komaeda Nagito is more threatening than any storm. Hinata Hajime might manage a smile, but Kamukura Izuru was now alert.

Because. Komaeda Nagito could see him.

“Come inside,” Hinata said, standing aside.

Kamukura huffed. Komaeda smirked in his direction, which was wholly different to the snide glee of one Enoshima Junko but was unpleasant all the same.

“How lucky it is that I’ve gotten the chance to see you!” Komaeda exclaimed, gushed really.

“I mean, all you have to do is call,” Hinata said. “I’m always willing to meet up.”

Komaeda’s smile didn’t twitch, yet Kamukura saw through him easily.

An irritant as always.

“I don’t know,” Komaeda went on with a patronizing attempt at innocence. “Lately, it seems you’ve been keeping to yourself.”

“Has it?” Hinata grimaced. “That’s... I just...”

“No man is an island, you know. I worry the isolation might drive you mad.”

Hinata flinched at that. But even under Kamukura’s darkening glare, Komaeda was a careless beam of light. So irritatingly bright, especially with an avid gaze that was as sharp as it was often intense.

Komaeda was similar to Hinata in some unfortunate ways. Their dedication to talent for starters. When compared to Kamukura however, Komaeda was his complete opposite.

Nosy, pushy, and passionate in his pursuits—Komaeda was...completely different.

“I guess I do...get lonely,” Hinata muttered deferentially. “There’s just so much going on my head.”

Komaeda looked at Kamukura.

“Stating it out loud might be a good start,” Komaeda said. “Simply not acknowledging it will not cause those problems to disappear. The opposite, really. You’re causing it to fester.”

“Is that really what you think I am?” Kamukura huffed. “A mere problem to solve? A loose end to tidy up?”

“I think,” Komaeda said, “That ignoring Kamukura-kun isn’t doing you any good.” He paused just a moment, looking at him. “You’re behaving rather childishly.”

Hinata was quiet. Komaeda smiled.

“You don’t need to make such a dour face,” he laughed then, waving his bionic hand. The mechanical whirl was only slightly less grating than the wheeziness of his giggling. “It’s just a comment.”

Because of his transience, Kamukura could not see whatever face he was making reflected in Komaeda’s twinkling gaze. All he knew is that he felt agitated. It was as if his very being was bubbling.

“You’re such a jackass,” Hinata remarked quietly.

“Ill-bred, even now,” Kamukura agreed just as quietly. “It is as if getting on the nerves is your talent, Komaeda Nagito.”

Hinata tensed beside him. Komaeda looked rather despicably pleased with himself.

“It’s just a comment,” Komaeda repeated stubbornly. “Rather than insult me, we can all talk things out like adults, yes?”

They both wanted to throw him out. It was easier, after all, to just be childish. To simply lash out at annoyances and pretend that menial rebelliousness was enough.

Some time ago, on a boat en route to a certain island, Kamukura had met this annoying person he quickly dismissed.

“There is no reason we’ll ever meet again,” he had said.

There hadn’t been any reason for Kamukura to think he’d still exist after. And perhaps for that reason, Komaeda could not be deterred now.

“Hinata-kun. Kamukura-kun.” Stubborn until the end of time, Komaeda kept smiling at them. “Let’s talk things over.”

“This is your fault,” Kamukura told Hinata sourly. “You were the one who let him in.”

Hinata...flinched. Then, Hinata let out a long, heavy sigh. Kamukura, too, couldn’t help but sigh.

It was a little like submitting to fate itself.

“What do you even want me to say?” Hinata asked.

“I do not want to even have this conversation,” Kamukura muttered.

Komaeda laughed again.

“I think it’s lucky that we’re all here,” he said. “There’s no reason not to take advantage of this opportunity, right?”

Even one beloved by talent can be unlucky.

That was the thought Kamukura Izuru had. But now that it came to this, he could only look forward.

Because he was here, he would have to move forward.

“I suppose I should begin,” Kamukura said.

Hinata gave him a wide-eyed look as if seeing him for the very first time.

It was, admittedly, not only comical but another push forward for someone who had thought his existence would be voided. Perhaps, then, there could be other forms of amusement down the line.

Either way...

“I had thought I wouldn’t be present anymore,” Kamukura said. “And yet, here I remain.”

This will be the first step.

#izuru kamukura #kamukura izuru #hajime hinata #hinata hajime #nagito komaeda #komaeda nagito #sdr2 #Magi fics #KamuHinaKoma #but not really #they're not even all that civil with each other lmao

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mahvaladara · 2 years

Conversation

Matt: DellaSanta! Can't you exorcise the tall guy with a lantern? He's kinda freaking me out.

DellaSanta: Who Charon? He is harmless. He used to be the chariot driver for the house owners in the 18th century I think. He can't talk cause the house matron had his tongue cut and him hanged after he got involved with her daughter.

Matt: He is staring intently at me.

DellaSanta: Probably because you're black. He does this alot with Cara too and with me at first.

He's pre-civil war. So he's not used to people of color.

Matt: Racist ghost?

DellaSanta: Not him. His master. He's probably scared the old house matron will hurt you or something. Thankfully, I already exorcised that ghost first thing I got here. She thought I was Chinese and did not want me here. Been cleaning the house of the less friendly manifis.

Matt: Then why is he still here?!

DellaSanta: Because he's friendly. Dude doesn't let anyone get lost by house. Sadly most people run away from him, but if you follow him, he'll guide into or out of the house without any major danger. This is why I named him Charon. He was a slave himself, so they never named him.

Besides. The house tries to murder me any time I try to get rid of her tennants. The house is a living entity and it needs the spiritual energy to keep itself grounded in this reality otherwise it'll poof out of existence.

Matt: It's a house!

DellaSanta: Yes, a murder one.

Matt: It's a house.

DellaSanta: Do you believe that Ankh protects you, warrior of Set?

Matt:...

DellaSanta: If you can believe an object can gain energy of protection, you must also believe, houses can feed in the energy of misery and cruelty and become evil.

Besides? You never seen the Haunting? This bitch with bricks will try to kill me Owen Wilson style!

Matt: Then burn it!

DellaSanta: No! Are you crazy? With this economy I'd rather live with the crazy serial killer lady, the bed bound grandmother, the girl in the wheel-chair, the deaf grandpa and black Charon, the friendly guide!

Matt: But you said the house is evil!

DellaSanta: The house is evil because as you have noticed by it's tenants, most of them are malevolent manifis! I need to cleanse these out and fill her with nice spiritual energy and friendly ghosts so it grows more benevolent. So it doesn't need to kill people to exist.

Matt: Wait, you're trying to 'save' the house?

DellaSanta: Houses are like people. If you treat a child bad its all life, and fill it with nothing but terror and misery, don't be surprised if it grows up twisted. However if you give it love, compassion and affection, it will grow healthy. This house is hundreds of years old, and it has been filled with nothing but suffering. It is a beautiful house, and in its walls, I have seen a time were it was loved, where it was beautiful, and then a time when it was abandoned and made ugly. This was a house built for a family, to be beautiful, to be loved, to be compassionate. Someone twisted her.

Matt: I never thought of it like this.

DellaSanta: Plus, it has a private library two stories high. Ain't no way in Void I am getting rid of it.

Matt:...

DellaSanta: I use reality anchors to force her to be a good girl. -Piano wire snaps in the distance- OI! QUIT IT! This ain't Corpse Party!

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bbreferencearchive · 2 years

Text

My 2021 New Years Revolution

At the end of the previous year, I wrote and sent out a little poem speaking to how 2019 had been a rough row to hoe, and raising hints for the better times ahead in 2020. The dubious quality of lyrical content aside, it’s obvious that I’m hardly a reliable oracle.

Now, with the passing of another rough year, a part of me is wishing we could skip 2021 altogether and use the time to get a running start at 2022. If the previous year was a difficult row to hoe, this last one has been a bitch in the ditch, and it worries me that tough years might run in threes.

But then, it’s already a clearly established fact that when it comes to making predictions about the future my track record is dismal. With that understanding, here comes the straight skinny as I see it, unvarnished by flowery platitudes.

We’re all doomed. The world is on fire, literally and figuratively. People living in regions all over the world are drowning in suffering and misery, variously being ravaged by devastating storms, floods, mudslides, massive wildfires, earthquakes, plagues of infectious disease, abject poverty, hunger and thirst, joblessness, homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness, mass incarceration, suicide, violent political upheaval, religio-political terrorism, widespread ethnicism and endemic ethnic genocide, organized predatory thuggery, and war. Burgeoning multitudes of people have left their homelands to join increasing populations of refugees in search of a safer and better life, some now imprisoned in refugee camps where conditions are poor and despair flourishes.

Looming over all of us, regardless of social standing or affiliation, like a dark cloud overshadowing this entire litany of tragedy and disaster, are shifts in the weathersphere so massive and momentous that the narrow conditions that make this planet habitable for our species are collapsing faster than most scientists were predicting just a few years ago. Moreover, we are woefully behind the 8-ball in taking those measures we must take if we are to have any chance at all of slowing, let alone stopping and reversing, this implacably advancing threat to our continued existence.

The debate between industrialist profiteers and the scientific community over whether or not climate change is real has us lagging in our response to the threat, when we don’t have the luxury of time to fool around. At the rate we’re going, greed and willful ignorance may spell our extinction as a species. It should not be so hard to arrive at some consensus on the basis of our own senses alone, science notwithstanding. When smoke from monstrous fires in the western states this past year darkened the skies over Europe, that alone should be enough to cinch the case in the minds of intelligent persons. I am left with a lingering cough after two months of breathing that same smoke, so I’m definitely convinced.

And as if we needed any more distraction from the need of rising to meet these challenges, there’s an orange guy in the White House who has barricaded himself in the bathroom, refusing to comply with the eviction notice that was, along with his ass, recently handed to him. Enough already!

Have I overlooked anything in this doomsday review? Oh, yeah ... the viral pandemonium. Perhaps I should’ve led with that considering how it has played such a devastating role in the lives of us all, and how large it has been playing in my personal life.

Prisons notoriously make an ideal environment for the spread of an infectious disease. The prison where I reside has been on varying degrees of CoVid-19 lockdown since last March. The number of coronavirus infections among prisoners and staff has been relatively low compared to some of the other prisons in the state. Inter-facility transfers of prisoners have been halted for the most part, with quarantine protocols in place for transfers deemed necessary, such as in the case of a medical emergency.

The danger of an unknowingly infected prison employee being the source of coronavirus transmission inside the prison is minimized by subjecting staff to temperature checks when they arrive for work, and weekly CoVid-19 testing. The system is fairly reliable but not foolproof. With the spike in community spread after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and a significant rise of new cases among prisoners, the authorities took the precaution of putting the facility on full lockdown as of the beginning of December. All I wanted for Christmas was a hot shower. That didn’t happen.

Despite the hardships, I’m grateful to all the local decision-makers who have kept me, and most others in here, safe from coronavirus infection during this time.

Am I suffering from pandemic fatigue? You betcha! And I’m probably a little too fixated on the news from outside for my own good. It’s like I’m feeling all the pain and confusion people are suffering in the world these days, and I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to do with that.

Unlike the other challenges to survival that our species is facing, this one, the current pandemic, is not manmade. A virus is a lifeform produced by nature. Some of the notions I’ve heard ascribed to the CoVid-19 pandemic strike me as pretty weird. Bizarre absurdities.

This pandemic is not God’s judgement on humanity. It is not a morality play, not karma, nor is it nature’s way of culling the human populations with any kind of intelligent plan or intention. A virus, or any other microbe that might make us sick, is neither good nor bad. To nature, the progenitor of all lifeforms on this planet, a parasite is just as valid a form of life as its host. Any species, one supremely intelligent or one as gormless as a slug, must adapt to prevailing conditions or perish, simple as that. And nature is too busy making the next new thing to care about the outcome one way or the other.

But we humans care. We tend to be curious creatures, and some of us observe what nature is doing very closely. Biologists believe that most if not all of the viruses that have plagued us across the millennia (for many of which we carry instructions coded in our DNA to immunize us against their former ability to make us sick) emerged out of bat caves, where there are steamy brews of bat poop and bugs and microorganisms, all squirming around in the muck and experimentally mutating. Mother Nature likes to play with herself in the dark, cooking up new life.

New viral contagions are typically delivered to humans and other mammals by unwitting bats, as it is believed happened to trigger our current pandemic. Just last week I listened to a talk by a biologist who described how he and others in his field are capturing bats to swab their mouths for new viruses, to map the viral DNA for the development of vaccines that might be used to make pre-emptive strikes on future pandemics. The researchers are also vaccinating bats to prevent them from contracting diseases and transmitting them to human beings and other mammals. What’s more, they’re getting the bats to inoculate each other. Bats like to lick one another’s fur. If a vaccine is applied to the fur of one bat, that bat will then carry the vaccine to all of the other bats in its cohort. Clever, eh? Turns out it’s a whole lot easier to inoculate a population of bats than it is to inoculate eight billion people.

This time around, though, we’ll be doing it the old-fashioned way. The US is in the midst of a somewhat rocky rollout of the first CoVid-19 vaccines. Certainly, we are at the beginning of the end of this pandemic, but we are far from being out of the woods. Infections are peaking in many parts of the world. Even with multiple vaccines being made available we are looking at some long months before we begin to get the pandemic under control. The majority of the world’s population must be inoculated against the virus before a high enough level of immunization is reached to be able to say we’ve beaten this strain of coronavirus.

We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the out-going administration for the success of the Operation Warp Speed vaccine development program. This truly remarkable achievement is a testament to what is possible when people pool their ideas and come together in a concerted way to realize a goal. It’s a pretty safe bet that it wasn’t Donald Trump’s own strategy (Dr. Trump’s idea, remember, was a cleansing injection of bleach), but it happened on his watch, and it was his administration’s task force that rallied the pharmaceutical companies to tackle vaccine development. In spite of his almost criminally lackadaisical and disingenuous approach to the handling of the pandemic in this country he deserves the credit for this remarkable success.

Yes, I’m aware that this acknowledgment seems somewhat begrudging. Sorry, it’s the best I can manage for now.

No one is to be blamed for a natural catastrophe, of course, but it didn’t have to be so bad. Unfortunately for folks in the US, and some other countries, we were hit with the global outbreak of an infectious disease at a time when we had saddled ourselves with nationalist leadership predisposed to protecting its self-interest. When suddenly facing the ravages of a pandemic societies quickly discover that there is little protective value in meticulously drawn arbitrary borders and their assortments of barricades. Ethnic and religious divisions, gender biases, ideological disagreements, class divisions, and the myriad other contrivances we humans have devised to separate ourselves from one another only serve to disguise the fact of our commonality and get in the way of concerted efforts needed to beat back our common enemy.

Without equivocation, my position is that all of humanity is of common stock. Responsibility for oneself carries with it the need to be responsible for one another. Just try to name a single thing that should be more unifying than a common threat to our existence. The coronavirus itself recognizes our commonality better than many of we humans do. To the virus we are just one big yummy feast, and the perfect playground to propagate its species.

The next time we are confronted by the challenges of a pandemic disease — and I hate to break it to you, there will be many next times — we may be too late in responding to it if we fail to learn some important lessons from the current experience. We may be too slow on the uptake if we have to adjust for being misled by leaders who have convinced us that the enemies to be guarded against are brown border jumpers, foreign religious zealots, asylum seekers, the free press and members of the opposing political party. These constructs of suspicion and fear tend to be the foundation of self-fulfilling prophesy; these mocked-up preoccupations are ultimately revealed to be frivolous when natural phenomena catastrophically assume pre-eminence on a global scale.

In this case prejudice, fear, complacency and petty self-interest conspired to distract us from preparing for what we had long been told by the experts in communicable disease would certainly come. It was a failure that turned out to be debilitating and even fatal for a great many people, a failure to take enough notice of the little things. A tiny invisible enemy was sneaking up on us.

The invader hitched a ride in a bat and was transported into Wuhan by an enterprising trader in exotic wild animals, brought to market for eating by people. Or so it was conjectured during the earliest investigations of the outbreak, which means it’s likely closest to the truth of the various theories that have been tendered in the past year.

Oh, the perils of eating bats in the 21st Century!

Now, speaking strictly for myself, although I have a fairly adventurous palette for a westerner, I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around the notion of eating any part of a bat. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about the sorts of places bats hang out in during the day, the corpses of their fellows littering the floors of their caves along with all the other creepy stuff roiling down there, and triggers my gag reflex when I associate that with eating one of those critters. But that’s just me, so no judgements. Sensibilities vary from one culture to another. In parts of Asia in particular, virtually any creature that crawls, flaps, swims, squirms, buzzes, hops, waddles, or what have you, is on the menu. In some of these cultures it is believed that certain animals, or parts of animals, impart curative or enhancing benefits when consumed. Now we know there can be unwelcome consequences to some of these practices.

It is possible, I suspect, that the Chinese government was slow to inform the rest of the world about the outbreak because, perhaps, it would mean losing face to have to admit that some Chinese citizens are inclined to put highly unusual items on their dinner plates. And maybe they believed that they could contain the outbreak before anyone in other nations became the wiser. Reportedly, the wet markets where exotic animals were being sold for food in Wuhan have been shut down by the government, suggesting my surmise may be the right of it.

Blame is one of the most unproductive behaviors a person can engage in, it seems to me. Donald Trump apparently believes otherwise. Like a common schoolyard bully, he makes up derogatory names for people he doesn’t like or who threaten or thwart him, and deflects responsibility for his failings by blaming others. Both of these propensities are dominant features in his personality that he has brought into the office of the presidency. He has consistently, without evident shame, employed infantile name-calling and blaming throughout his tenure as the POTUS whenever he is confronted by an obstacle he is ill-equipped to deal with.

And that’s what gripes me about the guy: that he occupies the space reserved for a most important leader while lacking any real leadership qualities at a time when leadership is what this country needs most.

In keeping with his immature propensities, Trump wasted no time in shifting all the blame for the pandemic onto the Chinese, calling it “the China plague” during his speeches. He has yet to mention, as far as I know, that Chinese geneticists acted immediately to make the genetic code of the new coronavirus public as soon as they had mapped it. This shaved valuable time off the vaccine development period so that big pharma companies could get vaccines to us rapidly. In a pandemic there is much more to be gained by cooperating than with divisive rhetoric. The virus is a threat to all people of all nations equally, after all.

I knew we were in trouble when, in the early stages of the pandemic spread, Trump appointed his dipped-in-Colgate VP to head the new coronavirus task force team. For a time, President Trump stood to one side, self-consciously rotating to and fro from his hips like a mechanical Santa in a store window while his yes-man and health experts did the talking. This couldn’t last for long. Trump commandeered control of the microphone and returned to making vague reassurances to America, playing down the severity of the pandemic, saying he had it all under control, and emphasizing the need to get the economy back on track at all costs. He contradicted the guidance of medical experts on his own task force with his talk of quack remedies and cures, as if wishful thinking could ever be a replacement for real and responsible policy.

It became clear to me then that to Donald J. Trump, even in the face of a dire national threat, the only thing truly important is what’s good for Donald J. Trump. How he might look to the supporters of his re-election campaign would henceforth take precedence over any other consideration, including the safety and well-being of the American citizenry.

Absolutely unconscionable to me is that the erstwhile leader of the free world would fail to inform the American people just how infectious the viral outbreak is, and how severe and potentially deadly the CoVid-19 illness could be, as soon as he knew. And when the extreme seriousness of the pandemic became self-evident, he again failed to lead, failed in his responsibility as a president to recommend and exemplify the safeguards that help to slow the spread of the disease and help to provide personal protections against getting infected. He failed his office by failing the people.

Trump said he didn’t like to wear a mask because he thought it made him look weak, and chided others around him for wearing one as a way of badgering them into following his bad example. Well, take it from someone who has lived for more than half a century in a world where guys who want to look tough are in abundance: the need to look tough to others is the refuge of one with weaknesses to hide. Hard looks may seem impressive in a theatrical wrestling ring where bombast and athleticism are combined to make a show of being tough, but hard looks have never won a war in real life. In my experience, giving people hard looks is an invitation to getting a punch in the face.

There was a time in this country, and it was not so long ago, when it was understood that being an American carried with it a certain level of patriotic responsibility, or civic duty. It was considered a small price to pay for the freedoms we enjoy. Seeking to support the well-being of fellow citizens, even when a sacrifice of some sort may be involved, was believed to be about the most patriotic thing one could do.

Nowadays we have American citizens wrapping themselves in American flags and sporting American insignia, as if to say they are more patriotic than those other Americans, while refusing to do a few little simple things that would truly support their country at this time. By modifying their behavior in accordance with the expert guidance they would help to safeguard themselves, their immediate families and cohorts, neighbors and other Americans, as well as severely challenged hospitals from the ravages of coronavirus infection.

The excuse used by elected officials and regular citizens for refusing to go along with the guidance from the medical community is the need to get the US economy back on track at all costs. Many people are stricken by the loss of their livelihoods, so this is understandable, if acutely myopic. If the US health care system collapses as a result of being overwhelmed with coronavirus cases the economic consequences will be orders of magnitude worse than what we’re already experiencing. This is because the health care system is intimately connected to many other parts of the economy, through insurance companies, employers, corporate holdings, drug manufacturers and suppliers, banks, first responders, etc. The collapse of a hospital triggers a domino-effect cascade of financial disruption downstream.

During the second World War the government imposed strict curfews, blackouts, mandated selective service in the military, commandeered private manufacturing for wartime uses, implemented rationing and other austerities. These government orders were a hardship or an inconvenience to the country’s citizens, yet few of them complained. Everyone understood it was their duty as patriots to comply with the measures the government deemed necessary to defeat a determined enemy and win the war for the free world.

The current pandemic has already killed more Americans in the past year than were killed in all four years of WWII combined. This evening I heard a news report that decried a record 4000 Americans dying from complications from CoVid-19 in just the past 24 hours. We are at war. Make no mistake about it. The out-going president’s cavalier attitude regarding CoVid-19 casualties notwithstanding, we have to be on a wartime footing if we are to succeed in keeping the number of deaths of our citizens to a minimum and avoid the complete collapse of our economy.

Some very brave nurses, doctors, medical technicians and other healthcare professionals have been fighting on behalf of all of us for the better part of a year. Many are exhausted, some are experiencing PTSD or something very much like it, while struggling and failing to stay ahead of the rate of infection. Other frontline workers, too, some of them immigrants, some of them undocumented, have put themselves in jeopardy to keep us safe, and keep us in food and supplies, largely freeing us from the need to be concerned about these necessities so we can hunker down and slow the spread. All they have asked from us in return was just a few simple things: wash our hands, wear a mask, keep a reasonable distance from anyone outside of our personal cohort, and stay at home when possible.

Yet we have a large segment of the US population waving American flags and wearing MAGA apparel who have made the refusal to wear a mask and socially distance a symbolic gesture of loyalty to the Ignoramus In Chief, in defiance of the common good. My God, I wonder where the America my father joined the Marines to fight for in WWII has gone.

Hypocrisy has infected the social integrity of this country like I have not seen before in my lifetime, and may threaten the American way of life even more than the coronavirus pandemic. A sad irony is that many of the people who object most loudly to stay-at-home orders and mask mandates on the basis of their being infringements on their civil rights as Americans see no contradiction when they demand that the government enact a law that would deprive a woman of sovereignty over her own body.

On the day that the result of the recent presidential election was called I authored a brief reflection on the significance of the event and shared it openly. In one part I referred to the current president as a “malignant narcissist” and otherwise cast him in an unflattering light. Most readers who responded agreed with my assessment. There was a little push-back, however, mostly from people who mistakenly assumed from my remarks that I was a fan of his opponent in the race. The fact that “narcissist” is not a word that appears in a dictionary, much less a personal noun in the way that I used it, was not among the objections.

Anyway, I do regret applying the term in the way that I did. No person should be labeled with the name of their illness or disability as if it is who they are, no matter who they are, and even when that’s the way it seems.

Once upon a time when I was a much younger man and quite naive in some respects, I befriended someone who suffered from malignant narcissism, a man by the name of Charlie Manson. Being too inexperienced back in those days to apprehend my own human frailties, much less the complex psychology of a man who had been damaged as much as Manson had, I couldn’t see the danger he posed to everyone in his sphere of influence. I continue to pay a heavy price for the failure of discerning judgement that allowed that man to be any part of my life.

From hard-knocks experience, I developed an acute sensitivity that allows me to detect that particularly toxic form of narcissism whenever I encounter someone who is possessed by the trait. Though only a small minority, such people are a feature of the prison landscape. One is wise to be on guard when in their vicinity.

It seems to me that some people may be born with a defect that exhibits as that form of malignancy, but I think in most cases it manifests when a child’s innate desire to love and be loved is crushed by one or more adults in the child’s early life. Donald Trump’s father, who is said to have been a notorious predatory slum lord, no doubt subjected young Donald to brutish treatment, if only love denied.

Based on what I have seen and experienced, malignant narcissism is a kind of immoral self-delusion. Those suffering from it are typically willing to sacrifice without compunction the well-being of anyone and everyone on the altar of what they perceive is the image of themselves in the eyes of others. To one who has not known love and doesn’t know what genuine love looks like, the trappings of popularity, adoration, and devoted loyalty will do. Such people are driven only by what they believe best serves the interests of number one, without any detectable suggestion of regret, there being no true self-awareness to raise the specter of moral dilemma. An all-consuming egocentricity of this sort is the sanctuary of one who is incredibly lonely, a loneliness often hidden behind a veneer of bravado or hostility.

Many years ago something like a grub crawled into the space where Donald Trump’s heart should have been, and it squirms around in there to this day.

While I don’t really want to alarm anyone, it might be of some value to take note that Donald Trump has a whole lot more followers than Charlie ever dreamed about having. And they’ve got a ton of guns.

A man, a father, a loved and respected member of his community, is being slowly executed by asphyxiation on a street in Minneapolis. His clean white t-shirt has picked up dirt from the asphalt where he lays in the shadow of a police cruiser. The city policeman seems almost nonchalant as he kneels over the man, pressing down hard on his knee to suppress the big man’s struggles; he is following his training, after all, employing a procedure prescribed for dealing with an uncooperative individual who meets a certain suspect profile. The officer ignores the pleas for mercy, those of the big man as well as those of some onlookers, including a fellow officer. The man knows he is about to die; he begs for someone nearby to relay a last message of love and regret to his mother. The knee on his throat presses down harder, closing his windpipe, and, after almost nine long minutes, the big man dies. The cell phone video goes black.

Mark me now, I have seen some bad shit in my days on this earth. My life is that kind of puzzle. Even so, not much comes to mind as dreadful and horrifying as witnessing the slaying of George Floyd in that bystander’s film on my little prison television.

President Trump’s response? Pretty much zilch. If that grub in his chest wriggled at all it was not so as anyone else could tell.

Whatever may be the final determination in the killing of George Floyd, it certainly looked to all the world like the modern equivalent of a lynching. And it followed a long series of killings of people of color that bore the markings of being racially motivated, going back years, decades, centuries. What made the killing of Floyd so profoundly different was the compelling film, and the way the internet made it possible for people all over the world to see it. The cry for justice continues to resound.

After weeks of nearly constant protest marches and demonstrations that brought together people of every age and skin complexion, to raise a cry, in the midst of a global plague, for an end to the abuses of a derelict criminal justice system, Trump finally makes a statement in response to the concerns of the populace. Only obliquely, though, in typical Trumpian fashion, framing a response he believes will promote his image as a tough guy in the minds of voters, while obscuring the glaring social inequities troubling the national conscience with yet another calculated misdirection.

A slumbering giant has awakened and is demanding equity in opportunity and justice under the law, with an end to the violence brought by law enforcement into the communities of people of color. And all President Trump can think to do is puff out his chest and toss insults at the giant. A fool fails to rise to the moment. When what we need is some leadership with a heart, what we get instead is a stunt empty of purpose or meaning.

It is June 1st, 2020. A loud, somewhat raucous but peaceful demonstration is underway in Lafayette Square, near the White House. The POTUS stands at his bully pulpit in the Rose Garden and blathers some inane rhetoric about how he is the law-and-order president, and that he’s going to bring the might of US law enforcement down on the heads of rioters and looters who threaten the American way of life. And then, as a demonstration of his intention, with a phalanx of federal police and military personnel to clear his path of protesters, Trump crashes the BLM protest demonstration in Lafayette Square so he can get a photograph of himself taken with a Bible he has never opened in front of a church he has never entered.

One of the more indelible moments in the video of this spectacle is an extended shot of an elderly white man, one of the protesters, brutally knocked to the ground by the police escort in their rush to clear the path for Trump. He was left lying there, flat on his back on the concrete pavement, his head split open, bleeding out of his ears. I don’t recall any mention of that man’s name.

The election is done. Not done, however, is all the drama over the result, which is likely to linger for some time. Everyone, if only on a deep level some people are unwilling to acknowledge, knows that the election was fair and the result accurate. Those who believed that Trump was going to be their conquering hero and deliver on his empty promises to bring their old jobs back and keep the darkies out of the country may want to believe that the election was rigged, and the presidency stolen. Honestly, I feel for them all. The political elites in Washington have ignored their plight and their needs for far too long. Nevertheless, the people have spoken. A significant majority, including many republicans, acted to assert that demagoguery in the office of the Presidency is not a good look for the nation. Otherwise, the winner in the election is divided government.

Looks like we’re not going to be able to expect a whole lot of help from that quarter. The challenges people in this nation and the world are facing are not insurmountable, but many of them are massive. We need help from the people who are elected into offices to provide that help, yet it seems that when all those political folks get together in Washington all they can do for the most part is bicker over which side has the best political philosophy, and jockey for position in preparation for the next election cycle. It seems that no one is actually doing any real listening, each politician only waiting for their next turn to do the talking. Those of us down here in middle earth have been disappointed so many times!

This nation was founded as a democratic republic. How did we get to the place where it’s become republicanism versus democracy? Where are “We the people ...” in all this?

The two-party system in its current incarnation is so dysfunctional, so mired in power struggle for its own sake, that it’s no longer able to serve the people. All the energy, for the most part, gets spent leapfrogging from one election cycle to the next, with dark money determining outcomes.

But what do I know? I’m just a guy in prison who has never voted in his life (though I would if I could), and who didn’t pay much attention to what happens in the political arena, tracking what happened in that world with one ear and sidelong glances, until I saw a guy I knew to be deadly dangerous elected into office as President. That got my attention. Now that I’ve invested a good deal of time in watching the goings on in Washington much more closely for a while, I can see the real danger that ineffective government poses to the well-being of America. And now that I see it, I find that I am not comfortable being complacent about what is happening in the political world. For what value there may be in sharing what I’m seeing from my low vantage, here you are.

* * *

We’re living in a burning house, folks. The writing of my reflections on the past year and my thoughts looking ahead had to be put on pause for a bit, my process having been rudely interrupted by yet another Trump-instigated drama. The events of 2020 are literally bleeding into 2021. The Trump Presidency is like an unwelcome gift that just keeps on giving.

A little over a week ago a friend gave me a heads up, tipping me off that a new wrinkle in the fabric of American society was developing in the nation’s capital. Ordinarily I never turn on my television during the day. There’s only so much pop culture a guy can take before something like a bout with depression sets in, so I usually limit my television watching to evenings only. Significant world events are the rare exception.

I turned on the tube and watched as the nightmarish events at the US Capitol Building began to violently unfold, learning only later that Donald Trump was doing precisely the same thing at precisely the same time. Not since the days of MAD and the Vietnam conflict during the Cold War era have I felt less proud to be an American.

When I first tuned in the scene that greeted me was that of a hostile horde of white-complexioned people converging on the central edifice of our American democracy, like a mob of angry villagers hot on the heels of Doktor Frankenstein’s monster. Only this was not an old black and white movie; it was an ugly horror show in hi-res living color, and the mob was not carrying torches and pitchforks; they were wearing apparel and carrying banners and flags emblematic of the cult of Trump. Many in the mob were waving signs saying “Stop The Steal” or messages with a similar meaning.

A couple of the rioters were scaling the walls of the Capitol Building freestyle, which seemed especially odd since there were plenty of staircases nearby. And as time went on most of the climbers seemed to get stuck in place, not going up or down but only clinging to the walls like weird ornaments. Stranger still, there was no evidence in sight of police or military personnel for quite some time. It baffled me why it took such a long time for law enforcement to bring the rioting under control and clear the grounds of the would-be revolutionaries.

Way back in the day I used to think of myself as a revolutionary. What I saw on January 6th bore little resemblance to what I imagined the revolution would look like in those long ago days.

The scenes filmed inside the Capitol Building, shot with cell phones, reveal people who have been made mad by years of a steady diet of poisonous rhetoric. Insurgency is too polite a word, and sedition too sensible a word for what was taking place in those hallowed halls. It was a rape of America by some of its own citizens. Rampaging lunatics in an asylum smearing their feces on the walls and decorations to express outrage over the conditions of their confinement. Juvenile delinquents on a vandalism spree, trashing the local high school, indiscriminately breaking up furniture and ripping papers, stealing a few objects to keep as mementos. These are the impressions one is left with after watching the amateur films that will surely remain a centerpiece of the historical record of this disgraceful episode from here on.

The efforts of the Capitol Police and the Washington Metro Police to hold the line on the mob were impressive. The police personnel who were on site on the Capitol Building grounds when the siege began, though uncharacteristically outnumbered by a factor of many to one, comported themselves with professionalism and valor in the face of hundreds of maddog zealots intent on doing great bodily harm, or worse, to the Vice President and members of Congress. They stood fast and did what was possible to mitigate the situation and protect the lawmakers, all the while taking a lot of vocal and physical abuse. Some were injured, and one cop subsequently died from his injuries.

Doubtless some of the police officers in the line of defense had voted for Trump, and may have struggled with some moral dilemmas during the riot. Most if not all did their jobs regardless. Insurgents with connections to the military and law enforcement notwithstanding, of course. The following day it was reported, with few details, that one of the cops on site during the uprising had taken his own life.

Newscasters frequently cut away to video flash-backs of the speech Trump gave to his supporters just prior the assault on the institution of our republic. Like a typical wily mob boss, Trump did not specifically tell his hit squad to storm the Capitol Building. He will claim that all of his remarks were perfectly fine and innocent, that it’s not his fault if some of the people in the crowd took some of his statements the wrong way. His lawyers and the most mendacious of Republicans in Congress will use this rationale to defend Trump against accusations of inciting the throng to engage in seditious acts.

Deny deny deny, Trump’s fall-back position in every instance when he’s been caught in the act of behaving badly. Lie lie lie, like a small boy with chocolate smeared all around his mouth who swears he didn’t eat the candy bar.

The truth is obvious: President Trump stood in front of a crowd of people already twitchy with nervous fervor, like a weapon loaded and cocked, primed by months of being fed the bogus narrative of a fraudulent election, and gave a rabble-rousing speech exhorting his followers to go up to the Capitol Building and demand that his VP alter the count of electoral college votes in his favor. He implored them to disrupt the process of affirming the vote tally concurrently under way, admonishing them that they couldn’t succeed if they were weak, saying they needed to “fight like hell” to take their country back from those he claimed had stolen the election from him. Call it what you will, the truth is that Trump deliberately poured gasoline onto a fire he had been stoking since before the votes were even cast.

The President of the United States of America has the duty to uphold the oath of the office, to stand for truth and justice, adhere policy to the Constitution, and protect the country from all threats, foreign or domestic. Trump’s speech on January 6th did precisely the opposite. Exhorting a mob already lathered-up to near-hysteria to commit seditious acts is in itself an act of sedition, marginally veiled by a cunning speech-writer to allow the possibility of an arguable way out. Trump’s last acts as a sitting President are so disgraceful and repugnant that disgust gets in the way of finding the right words to describe a response.

Trump’s own failures as President and his rhetorical terrorism indict him; yet there are Republicans in Congress who will not, much less convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors. Some of the people who have enabled their Commander in Extremis over the past four years bear at least equal culpability for how effective Trump has been in brutalizing the nation by degrading the trust in democracy that holds it together. Dignifying the betrayal of America in pursuit of an agenda that is inconsistent with the needs of the nation is to be as complicit as the titular face of the betrayal. And in consequence, to be subject to reaping the reckoning that such betrayal will inevitably bring.

I wonder how long it will take for the majority of Trump’s supporters to wake up to a dawning awareness that they’ve been duped. It may take awhile because no one likes to admit they’ve been suckered. Some cracks are already showing, though, as it’s evident that the truth has already begun to sink in for some.

During that reprehensible little pep talk he gave to his supporters just prior to the siege on the Capitol Building, Trump made assurances that he would accompany them on their mission, standing with them during that critical confrontation. Of course he lied again. Bravado and bombast are often a cloak for cowardice. Ducking back into the White House, Trump bunkered down to watch the events unfold on television (anyone who’s been paying attention will know it’s only real for him when he sees it on the tube). A couple of days later he would betray his followers again, in a televised statement from the White House, telling those who had taken his cause to the Capitol Building on the 6th that they do not represent America. (ouch!)

The insurrection, if that’s what we’re calling it, must surely go down in history as the world’s most inept attempted coup. While it was in progress it seemed that there was a kind of interrogatory taking place, a collective introspection of the American conscience, a questioning look at the moral crisis this event represents in the national psyche. The seemingly sleepy response by law enforcement, from the perspective of watching what was going on outside of the Capitol Building, gave us all a long lingering look at what happens to people when the government fails to do some of the most basic things it was created for, and fails to adequately address the real concerns and dire needs of large portions of the country’s population.

Setting aside for the moment those malicious hard cases who scooted in under the camouflage of the Trump parade, most of the people who joined the horde storming the Capitol Building that day were not domestic terrorists. By and large they were a mob of confused, justifiably angry people who had been misled by the lies of a blowhard they revered, and who got swept up in the crowd madness. The same dynamic is at work in prison riots, which are not outside of my personal experience. Peer pressure often plays a role in this sort of thing. In a large assemblage of people caught up in the moment and under the influence of anger and fear a kind of crowd fever can take over, and people get involved in things that are not necessarily representative of their normal moral identities. Yeah, a bunch of impressionable dumbasses, that’s another way to put it. Consequences from a legal standpoint are likely to vary. The price of involvement for some will not be cheap.

There was a steady stream of Trump supporters appearing on the scene at the Capitol Building for some time. The smarter ones, when they saw what was happening up on the walls and landings, turned around, put their flags and signs over their shoulders, and walked back in the direction they had come from. Others were more determined to fulfill their fantasies of being in a revolution, and charged ahead. Some of them climbed the walls, some taunted police with insults, some went into the building after some doors and windows were breached so they could take selfies to use for bragging rights on their social media pages. Poor gullible dumbasses! Imprisonment is a high price to pay for such meager returns.

Even from my faraway vantage it seemed to me that the garden variety Trump supporters were being used like cannon fodder in a more sinister scheme than they understood they were participating in. Some very bad actors with some very bad intentions were prime movers in what took place at the Capitol Building: people who believe that Timothy McVeigh was a patriotic hero; people who are being radicalized from the pulpits of some evangelical churches in rural communities; people who believe that fomenting a race war is the only way to push back on what they see as the browning of the country in order to preserve white majority rule; people who are enthralled by visions of an ascendency of chaos in the world.

I know these types; I can spot them a mile away. They have been stuck inside of propaganda-driven echo chambers for so long they have self-talked themselves into believing in alternate realities built of elaborate fictions. Ask them what the world will look like if they succeed in getting what they want and their faces go blank. A foggy, amorphous aspiration at best; no clear vision of something better on the other side, no real plan, no goal beyond the opportunity to feel the fleeting power of using their guns on people they’ve been warped into believing are either a threat or inferior, or both.

Trump did not create these groups, nor do many in them consider him to be anything like a leader. It’s more a case of mutual exploitation, an alliance of convenience. Self-obsession makes for strange bed fellows.

With the glamour spell broken and Trump revealed as a tin god, now mostly impotent, both his garden variety supporters and the opportunist hard cases who have been exploiting his platform will, each in their own ways, be floundering. The latter have always been lurking in the fringes, and if enough of the country’s population can manage to get cleaner information and move toward the common good, those factions will retreat to whence they came. I worry most for the regular folks whose significant needs have largely been ignored by Washington, making them easy marks for the empty promises of a self-styled savior who claimed he could fix all their problems if only they would vote for him. I worry that in the absence of the demagogue they might just return to their Fox News/Rush Limbaugh echo chambers and get seduced again by fear mongering and conspiracy constructs, leading to another dead end of false hope.

For Trump, you see, was never the real problem. He was a symptom, like itchy bumps are a symptom of chicken pox. As far as anyone can tell, the root of the despair he played on to con his way to enough votes to win the presidency in 2016 persists undiminished by anything he did during his four years in the office. The coal and steel and manufacturing jobs he promised to bring back to rural American communities did not come back. The promised infrastructure projects that were supposed to bring so many new jobs did not manifest. It appears the only building project that actually resulted in something being built is a part of a wall on the southern border, and in fact it only replaced some of the border wall that had already been there. This will remain, I suppose, a lasting monument to the xenophobic egoism that gave rise to it.

The world moved on and left a lot of people in America behind, and essentially cast aside, their plight largely overlooked by media agencies. Out of sight, out of mind, they were left to figure things out on their own. So many people living in digital deserts exacerbates the disconnect, limiting access to unfiltered information and education opportunities. A recipe for social disintegration on a major scale.

None of this should come as a surprise to the bigshots in Washington, not if they’ve been paying attention. The crisis has been in development for decades. It’s an old story: With the regularity of evolving progress come new and better technologies that make earlier technologies obsolete. Artificial intelligence and robotics are rapidly making manufacturing more streamlined, economical, and therefore more profitable to manufacturing companies and their financial holders. Added to this is that America’s affection for inexpensive imported products has resulted in many domestic companies sending their manufacturing to countries with developing economies, so they could compete in the domestic market.

Steam power was replaced with electricity and the internal combustion engine, opening up tremendous new markets, and the need for the work force to adapt and learn new skill sets to keep pace. Technological advancement and changing market forces will tend to displace working people from their livelihoods. Where the failure in the free market system occurs is when there are money-grubbing corporations treating displaced workers as expendable casualties of doing business, as if they were not actually people, and the government ‘for the people’ lets them get away with it. Only in the world of organized crime is it said: Nothing personal; it’s only business.

On the one hand, it’s a good thing we have new technologies to take us beyond reliance on industrial age technologies that are largely dependent on fossil fuels. This may help us to avoid the fate of making the planet too hot and stormy for our species to continue living on it.

On the other hand, as the industrial era jobs have dried up during the rise of the digital age, so too did the livelihoods of millions of people who have depended on those jobs to provide for their families, and to give meaning and purpose to their lives. It’s truly a shame that we lack a leadership in Congress that makes a concerted effort to keep the working people from being stranded and left behind, and makes it a priority to keep them whole and contributing to the nation’s vitality as the job market adapts to progress.

This is a systemic failure of good governance in this country. It is a failure to properly evaluate developing trends in industries and markets, to make preparations and take steps to head off catastrophic social collapse within affected communities. Consequently, the underlying conditions that have engendered a massive outbreak of hopelessness in many of the nation’s communities continue to fester unabated. These communities are in dire need of some solutions that get to the root causes of the despair.

While there has been some lip-service and a little bit of action brought to bear on the symptomatic crises – pervasive mental illness, drug addiction and alcoholism, suicides – that have so mortified affected communities, and some grass roots efforts to upgrade skill sets within their work forces, efforts to address the underlying causes of community disintegration have been minimal and patchy at best. This is not the sort of problem that can be solved by throwing food stamps at it.

So that’s how it happened. When local economies collapse and the government fails to take heed and step up to provide some meaningful support, you suffer, and you blame government. You as a man or woman living in such a marginalized community, having lost options for making a satisfactory living, suffering with feelings of hopelessness and despair, and trying to drown the misery in drink or drugs doesn’t really help, and you just keep getting more and more angry about the conditions you’re trying to survive in, well, that makes you vulnerable, susceptible to someone prone to shady dealings. Along comes a chubby charlatan selling his own special brew of MAGA snake oil. Step right up, folks, he says, I’ve got what you need right here, just the thing to ease your pain and cure what ails you. My special potion is the only thing that can fix you, just one vote a bottle. So if you’re desperate enough, you might be willing to risk a vote to take the guy up on the remedy he’s offering.

Now we’ve all had the benefit of seeing what happens when things are allowed to get so bad that a snake oil salesman is able to get his little mitts on the reins of government.

Yes, it was heartbreaking to watch the cradle of democracy in this country be debased by an angry mob. People jacked up on MAGA juice, a circus of disgrace, sickening to witness.

And yet, was it all that surprising? Some would argue that it was almost inevitable, that we could have predicted just such an outcome given all that had preceded it in recent years. All the sniping and take-no-prisoners politics in Washington, the inability of Congress to rise above party loyalty to come together, to find some wiggle room for compromise, to act decisively when the need for action is so plainly visible ... I mean, it’s just tiresome. Congress could not have been more effective in enticing angry citizens to stage an attempted coup if they had actually planned it and sent out engraved invitations.

Again, as someone who has never voted, I claim no party affiliation. Generally speaking, it’s been good enough for me if Congress finds some way to work things out and get the job done. I don’t need to know all the little details. Unfortunately, Congress is broken. The dysfunction in Washington has forced me to pay more attention to government than I would ordinarily care to pay.

The two party system is not my idea of a good time. I’m sure there are some very fine people on both sides, but put them all together in a room and it’s just a basket of deplorables. Robert’s Rules of Order keep the bickering between the two sides superficially polite, but in the end it’s still just petty bickering, with catch phrase sloganing as a politically correct form of name calling used ad nauseum to insult the opposing side and invalidate its position. Jockeying for position in the next election race has taken precedent over serving the public good.

In these incredibly challenging times what we need more than anything else is leadership that has the ability to think and act creatively, to come up with innovative solutions to the problems we face. As an artist, a creative person by nature, I seek to align myself with people who have the ability and inclination to think and act creatively. What success I have had in this life has almost entirely come out of that type of relationship.

The elected representatives we currently have in Washington, both parties combined, can’t seem to rub enough brain cells together between them to produce effectively innovative strategies to bring to the process of finding solutions to the kinds of problems we are facing in today’s world, where the solutions of yesteryear frequently won’t work. We are in great need of some fresh thinking in that very place where ideology so often gets in the way of actual ideas.

As things stand, we have two political parties in perpetual loggerheads around issues of economics, equity, criminal justice, climate change, and other pressing concerns. The persistent log jams invariably arise out of the same tired arguments, often based on principles demonstrably outdated and invalid. Too often, policy is driven by paranoia, the misplaced belief that something of value will be lost if there is capitulation toward a position that veers from the traditional party narrative. There is an irrational presumption that, looking ahead to the next election, it’s safer to stick with the party line. Consequently, the machinery of government is rusted, frozen in place. Broken.

Where is the courage to step out of line and do the right thing, when simply doing the right thing is clearly what is called for? What will it take for Washington to bring teamwork to the process of governance, to obtain the best available information and be ready to take bold, swift action to meet challenges that are already at the crisis point?

Oh, yeah, now I remember. A couple of dinosaurs, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, are locked in a pissing contest, and we all have to wait for them to finish before we can begin to get anywhere – which is liable to take us beyond the foreseeable future, what with the enlarged prostates and all.

Don’t get me wrong: both of the main political parties have valid points of view and precepts in their respective philosophies, and there are aspects of each of those philosophies that I tend to agree with. At this juncture, however, if I were forced to pick a side, Republican or Democrat, my brain would probably short-circuit and fry before I could arrive at a decision.

Frankly, every time I hear Chuck Schumer talk I feel like curling up, pulling the bed covers over my head and going to sleep. Democratic senators have crippled themselves by choosing that man as leader, in my opinion. Pompous, self-righteous, always seeming to be wagging his shaming finger at Republicans. He stands on principle, and dies on that hill almost every time. Principle is a stance, not a strategy. Little wonder that Democrats get outfoxed by Republicans so much of the time, even when they hold both majorities in Congress.

Democrats, by and large, have good intentions. And in this context what this brings to mind is an old saw about a road to somewhere being paved with those things. A philosophy that promotes a level playing field for all of Americans across ethnicity and culture and economic standing (a fairly recent adoption for the democratic platform as a whole, by the way) is admirable, and I believe it is mostly genuine, if somewhat immature. How to go about achieving these goals is where Democrats tend to fall short. Their strategies are typically blunt force, lacking in imagination and effective sales pitch language, and tend to require too much bureaucracy to implement. In consequence, most of the legislation introduced by Democrats crashes and burns against a stone wall of resistance from the other party. I wouldn’t know from real experience, but it must be frustrating to be a Democrat. The leadership’s tendency to blame failure on obstinacy by the opposing side is just a cop-out. Righteous indignation does not a strategy make.

Sometimes I think that the only reason Democrats succeed in winning some elections is because so many Republicans have made themselves so disagreeable that most voters can’t stomach what they’ve come to stand for. Like last November when a significant percentage of voters turned out to say “Nope!” to a Trump re-election when not being wildly excited about the Biden/Harris ticket. And again in Georgia’s Senatorial run-off election when for many voters the main impetus to vote was to flip the Senate in order to pry McConnell’s cold petrified fingers from the tiller of the federal government.

Once the party of Abe Lincoln and Ronnie Reagan, the Republican party of today has lost much of its former dignity. Traditionally, Republicans in government stood as a bulwark of resistance to unfettered government growth and fiscal irresponsibility, a sort of counter-balance to hold the line on attempts by progressive lawmakers to add too much well-meaning but unnecessary or repressive legislation to the books. There’s a good reason for this: Every new law or regulation requires an agency of cops to enforce it, adding another layer of bureaucracy to government. Once these policing agencies are created they tend to stay there, hidden from view, drawing paychecks, even after they have long since become obsolete. Republican conservatism brings balancing restraint to the process of governance to help the country to avoid winding up with a government that is too bloated, too costly to function efficiently, too restrictive for commerce to operate freely, and too much of a tax burden on the people.

That is to say, this once was, in short, the traditional role of the party.

Now we have a Republican party dominated by a collection of jokers who surely have Lincoln and Reagan tossing in their graves. Right, white, and tight, and proud of it, for whom working with Democrats in partnership for balanced governance is anathema. The party has been willing to embrace and enjoin an odious Administration in order to obtain endorsement for stacking the courts with the anti-abortion, pro-Christian, anti-egalitarian, pro-corporation judges they wanted. And to get Presidential buy-off on shifting even more of the tax burden onto the working class by giving a whopping tax cut to megabucks tycoons and corporations, who in turn, quid pro quo, supply dark money to fund wickedly conceived schemes to suppress Democratic participation in voting, and to pay for creating the attack ads used to demonize opposition election candidates.

Very few Republicans in Congress have had the courage to stand up and publicly denounce the Administration for the steady stream of lies, half-truths and disinformation that came out of the White House during the Trump Presidency. Those who did were ostracized by their fellows for breaking with party solidarity, while those who may have agreed with the censure but lacked the courage to express their agreement turned their faces down to the papers in front of them and played dumb. Being in government to represent the people, and failing to speak out in the face of a pack of mistruths from the Executive Branch is dishonorable, and tantamount to being in collaboration with the source of the falsehoods.

In recent years some of the best of the traditional conservatives in Washington have dropped out, resigning from their elective posts in disgust, rather than to compromise their integrity and professional ethics by staying in an office that requires them to violate their principles. They have chosen to forfeit their careers rather than to take part in what amounts to an orchestrated power grab to put all the levers of government solely and exclusively in the hands of an unscrupulous cadre of Republicans, leaving the progressive wing effectively routed from having any real influence in political decision-making.

And it almost worked. Fortuitously, the political coup planned by no-mask MAGA-hat Republicans was foiled by a surprise attack on an exposed flank, and America dodged a bullet. Had that bullet struck its intended mark our democracy might have gone into a death spiral.

Someone who doesn’t have a dog in the fight has to be the one to say it: Donald Trump’s re-election was stolen. Not in the way that he and some of his supporters have claimed, though. The voting was fair and legal, and the tallies were accurate, as confirmed by every election monitor all the way up to the US Supreme Court. Nevertheless, there was a theft of some of the votes Trump had been counting on — and they were not stolen by dead people voting, or jiggered voting machines, or deep state aliens abducting ballots, or any of the other wacky conspiracy stories people like Rudy Giuliani and Steve Q. Bannon would have us believe. No, the diabolical schemes of Trumpist Republicans were thwarted by none other than the viral plague.

This happened in two ways: Faced with the first real crisis of his time in office, the arrival on our shores of a deadly virus, Trump revealed himself to be thoroughly ill-suited to the job of being President. Anyone with one eye half-open, if one was willing to look at all, could plainly see that he was an incompetent fool who would happily risk the lives of the country’s entire population to stay in power. And secondly, in response to the pandemic, mail-in ballot voting was established in many places where that option had not been available, to allow citizens a method they could use to vote in safety. This emboldened many citizens to participate in the election who had previously been disenfranchised or discouraged from voting. Effectively, this did an end run around most of the meticulously planned gerrymandering and other voter suppression schemes employed by many Republican majority state legislatures. Turns out that Trump’s fears around mail-in ballot voting were justified. Ironically, things might have turned out better for him if he had told his supporters to use mail-in ballots instead of sowing so much distrust in that method of voting.

The coronavirus pandemic may have inadvertently saved American democracy, for the time being at least, but that nasty plague has wrought too much death and devastation in the lives of families and communities, and too much damage to our economy to think of it in terms of silver linings. Even in the midst of utter catastrophe there might still be little bits of good luck to be found here and there.

The United States of America, the greatest nation in the world. That’s the reputation. Lately that reputation has been tarnished, and our dignity as a nation has taken some hits. This seems to speak to a need for all of us to make a discriminating assessment of who we are and who we want to be as a nation. Some of the challenges we’ve been dealing with might serve as an instrument for such an examination.

The last four years of an Administration with Trump at the helm might be said to be the nation’s way of revealing how far we can stray from having a government of the people, for the people, by the people, and how easily we can drift away from the principles and core values that fortify its ability to guard, support and preserve the commonwealth.

The coronavirus pandemic might be said to be nature’s way of exposing our human weaknesses, the chinks in our armor, the disparities and inequities in our social system that make some people more vulnerable than others. It has stripped away some of our assumptions and misconceptions, opening windows on some of our bad habits, delusions and complacency regarding the status quo within our society, and how some within it will put politics ahead of the well-being of people. Seeing ourselves naked, so to speak, with all of our vulnerabilities exposed, can be painful. Experiencing ourselves exposed in this way can also make us stronger, more insightful, more humble, and more appreciative of what is truly precious as we approach coming out on the other side of this pandemic. It’s not so much about looking on the brighter side; it’s about getting to a better place.

Here, then, is a lens through which to focus in on that place of vulnerability. Ask yourself: Who am I? The pursuit of answering this single question will, I promise you, lead to all of the questions and answers worth knowing.

What each of us brings to community individually will define the shape of the community collectively. It is the willingness to engage with one another in this conversation that will heal a hurting and confused nation.

* * *

There is a dog in the White House. Not just one dog, but two dogs! This to my mind signifies a Major step in the right direction.

Under circumstances that looked a lot like martial law, a Presidential Inauguration was somewhat nervously held dignifying a peaceful transfer of power despite a recalcitrant former head of state. With our new POTUS sworn in we can begin to breathe a little easier, even though an American is dying from CoVid-19 every few minutes as the pandemic continues to rage around the world, and there are still lots of grumblings in the Trump camp.

With some coaxing from people who apparently have a working understanding of child psychology, the orange guy was enticed to leave the White House on the promise of a military ceremony honoring his time in office. I thought, Firing squad? Funny how an embarrassing thought can pop into one’s mind unbidden. But, no, the ceremony of pomp and circumstance turned out to be a length of red carpet leading out of the White House, and a helicopter ride taking him out of Washington.

Most of us would prefer to be done with the guy, I’m guessing, but Nancy Pelosi is not yet done with Trump, who now goes down in the history books as a President twice impeached by the House. She has delivered the Articles Of Impeachment for a trial in the Senate for inciting sedition. I’m on the fence about Trump being tried in the Senate. Does he deserve it? To quote Koty Lee, one of my all-time favorite singing piano players, “Heck yeah!” But it’s doubtful that enough Republicans in the Senate have the cajones to convict out of fear of political repercussions from Trump supporters down the road. I don’t see the point of the time and expense and distraction of a trial when it’s likely to result in Trump getting another newspaper headline saying he’s been acquitted.

My views on the matter are purely academic, it appears. Madame Speaker is fixated on giving Donald Trump a public spanking. What Nancy doesn’t seem to understand is that Donald likes that sort of thing. In his world, being twice impeached by Nancy Pelosi is a merit badge. Malignant narcissism, remember? A darling of the tabloids, Donald Trump doesn’t care if the focus on him is good, bad or ugly as long as the spotlight is on him. Turning off the spotlight and leaving it off is about the only thing that would be a real punishment to a guy like him.

During his speech in the 2017 Presidential Inauguration ceremony, the freshly sworn-in President Donald J. Trump told a bewildered nation that he saw America’s outlook as bleak and grim, and predicted carnage in its future.

Joseph Biden, in his Inaugural address, promised that he would be a President for all Americans, that he would always tell the American people what he knew to be true, and work to bring unity to a fractured nation.

May it come to be proven that Joe Biden is as true to his words as Donald Trump was to his.

As things stand, the orange guy is out, and dogs are in the White House. This makes me smile. On both counts.

What my part in all this might be is anyone’s guess. Having been in prison for such a long time (if I said how long it wouldn’t mean much because so few people have points of reference enough to be able to imagine the effects) makes it difficult for me to know how I fit in under the present circumstances. I had to work very hard to preserve my sanity, and to avoid becoming so filled with rage and cynicism that I turned myself into a bitter old man of little value to anyone. My perspective, therefore, is something of a rarity. Through this running commentary it may be that I can bring some value to people who, like me, have been struggling to gain some clarity around where we are in the world today, trying to figure out how to fit their piece into the puzzle, and find a way to move forward that produces something beneficial.

To be sure, I could list decades’ worth of grievances as reasons why I resent and despise the US government’s justice system. Although the prison populations in this country are predominately comprised of blacks, latinos, and other people of color, once a resident of the system everyone gets the same treatment. No exaggeration: I have seen, and felt, some of the worst the criminal justice system can dish out. And I am only one of millions of people who have been hand-cuffed to draconian prison sentences and shoved inside to feed the insatiable appetite of the prison industrial complex machinery. A national disgrace, that is, the way human beings are chewed up and spit out the other side as broken people, or dead bodies. Nonetheless, God help me, I love this country and everyone who lives in it, the whole crazy mixed-up bunch of us.

The government in this country, at state and federal levels, has a good many shortcomings, more lately than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. The people themselves, however; that’s a different story. The real assets of this nation are not its abundance of material resources but in the living blood and spirit of its people in all of our diversity. Some of those holding political office don’t get this. They want to pick and choose, favoring some over others. This weakens us as a nation.

What our elected officials need to understand, and truly what all of us need to understand as we move forward, is that the full potential contained in the people, in the body politic, can be realized only when there is equal participation by all the people of every stripe, gender, cultural history, ethnic features, social standing, and economic worth. This is the true power of our nation. Some will say that the power is in the US Constitution. It is an important document, one that describes the organization of principles and definitions to help guide the formation of a working nation, but in the end it is still only ink on parchment. The real power is the people, and in the people, the talents and skills that each of us brings to community and enterprise.

Who among us failed to recognize that “Make America Great Again” was a dog whistle? Its obvious message: that we were all supposed to sign on to take the country back to some fantasy yesteryear when America was better than it is today. The best I can figure it to mean, what with everything that was packaged with the slogan, was a return to something like the era of manifest destiny and the second industrial revolution, with the whitest and richest men among us holding sway over all. I fail to see what’s so great or attractive about that sort of unimaginative world view. Who wants to buy a ticket to ride on a train to Backwards?

On his last day in the office of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo posted a tweet saying, “Multiculturalism, all the -isms – they’re not who America is.” And I thought, Huh?! What alternate America does that guy live in? And where does he think he got his last name from? Seems to me that Mr. Pompeo would be well-served if he talked this view over with some of my Native brothers and sisters. I’m sure they would be happy to explain a thing or two about who America is with respect to culture.

Until I read Pompeo’s tweet I was unaware that multicultural was an ism. Having been very nearly my entire adult life in a world where my skin complexion puts me in a minority qualifies me to say: It’s better that than racism. We’ve all had just about enough of that fallacy. So much precious time and exhaustive efforts have been squandered in the perpetuation of falsehoods used to deprive American citizens of fair treatment, equity of opportunity and equal justice under the law. It’s wearisome.

Look, I have been a musician for almost my entire life, and over the years I have played in numerous bands, and with some truly great musicians. If there is anything I know for sure it is that talent comes in all colors, sizes and shapes. Throughout my life, well beyond my work in music, it’s been proven to me time and again that talent and skill and imagination are readily found in people of every cultural background. No one gender, culture, ethnicity or age group has a corner on the market when it comes to this sort of thing. To limit who is heard on the basis of how much melanin a person has in his or her skin, or in what part of the world was their ancestral home, or any other similarly contrived and distracting consideration, is literally self-defeating. Applying any arbitrary bias to limit the diversity of human resources brought to the challenges of building community and finding some solutions to our problems risks the possibility of misplacing that one single idea or element that could bring a great achievement, or even our salvation as a species.

How about we come to an agreement to make America America, and have it done. What I would like to see is a forward-looking vision for this nation and, by extension, the world. Give us the Imagineers! Now more than ever before we need the creatives to step up and show us visions of what a post-industrial era world might look like, and how all the parts might function together harmoniously.

So here’s a full-throated call to the innovators, the artists, the poets, the daydreamers, the mystics, the mythologists, the learned elders, the inventors, the hot-rodding customizers, the ingenious entrepreneurs, the agile-minded economists, the idealists, the pragmatists, the builders, the judicious demolitionists, the conjurers, the green-thumbed gardeners, the curious botanists, the intrepid scientists, the science fictionists, the stalwart explorers, the wordsmiths, the multilingualists, the storytellers, the crafty shop wrights, the organic digitechnologists, the fuzzy logisticians, the fanciful architects, the extraordinary conceptualists, the enthusiasm motivators, and the tactical juxtaposers. All hands on deck!

The canvas is blank; show us what you’ve got. Let’s see some imaginings of a way cooler world.

The disruption in our lives brought by the coronavirus pandemic has prompted a variety of adaptations and some remarkable innovations. Some of them are likely to remain with us after the pandemic is behind us. A good many of them are positive developments, worth hanging onto. There are some worrying social symptoms as well, like kids in difficult family situations, people with substance dependency issues, and no doubt a lot of people have been eating too much, sleeping too much, playing video games obsessively, and grappling with bouts of depression. There will be some adjustments to make during the recovery period once the contagion has been tamped down.

Over these past many months I’ve been humbled by some of the ways people have responded to the pandemic. So many people have suffered the loss of friends and kin, and I feel their grief, even as I feel an abundance of gratitude for the bravery and selflessness of those who have risked their own well-being to help the afflicted and protect the rest of us. Often I have been moved to tears by the acts of selflessness that have been on display, and been inspired by the myriad ways artists and regular folks have found or invented to connect with and support one another during a time when staying physically apart is a necessity to keep each other safe. I love seeing how many people have been looking out for their neighbors, or stepping up to support the homeless, or to help families who have run out of food, while observing the restraints imposed by lockdown. My faith in the innate goodness of humanity has been elevated even as my confidence in the leadership of the federal government has been deeply shaken.

Oh, there will be assistance through the Treasury to help the country scrape by until the pandemic is over. Beyond that, there will be a need for the people to be more resourceful than ever. That’s as it should be. The founding fathers never intended the federal government to be a Big Daddy Warbucks, except when very significant needs arise. Top-down government is not what we want — that way lies autocracy. That said, a national health care system seems to make a lot more sense now, considering the haphazard response to the coronavirus outbreak in general, and the patchy, uncoordinated process of getting people vaccinated across the country. Beyond that, however, whatever creative ideas and projects the Imagineers come up with will mostly have to rely on bottom-up action plans.

So, now that we’ve seen the pitiful end of the manifest destiny era, and the old standard for western civilization has died with an embarrassing whimper, what comes next? I dunno. Your guess is as good as mine. As I said at the beginning of this, I’m out of prophetic pronouncements.

There has been a lot of talk about how we all want to get back to normal. Having been locked in a cell 24/7 for the better part of three months, with only a few brief opportunities to get out for a shower, I can certainly relate to the need to have some normal social interactions with other people. We all miss that. Humans are social creatures, after all. However, speaking strictly for myself, I sincerely hope that the normal we return to after we defeat the virus is one significantly different from the old normal we knew prior to the pandemic. A normal that feels brighter, fresh, outside the box, and more equitable. That would be nice.

I am feeling hopeful but not particularly optimistic. Despite having to sort through some discouraging set-backs, I would not say that I feel pessimistic. My once half-full cup has been drained, and now it’s just empty, containing only potential and expectation, open and waiting for whatever may arise in the world from this point.

As I raise my empty cup to you in salute, I wish you health and safety on your journey. May you be fortified by strength and courage as you face the mystery ahead. Be kind to yourself, be kind to others. Be fearless, and be fierce.

Expect the unexpected.

Bobby BeauSoleil

Crossroads 2020-21

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