#Not this author's first rodeo with the threat of losing her work | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

taeyongdoyoung · 3 years

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summary: you are a mermaid and you save a handsome man from drowning but little do you know it’s not his first rodeo when dealing with mermaids. seonghwa, a former prince, is currently hongjoong’s first mate and boyfriend. hongjoong is the captain, the pirate king of the most savage crew across the seas. and you want nothing to do with them. not because they’re pirates, but because they’re humans…

ships: mermaid!reader x prince/pirate!seonghwa x pirate!hongjoong; wizard!yunho x demon!jongho, pirate!yeosang x mermaid!soojin x pirate!mingi (implied)

genre: little mermaid!au, pirate!au, fantasy, humour, romance

author’s note: i can’t believe this is over omg?!?! im legit bawling my eyes out rn 😭😭 i hope you guys like the end of pirate kings because i poured my entire heart into it! 💖💖 also be on the lookout for take me home, aurora, one day at a time and promise references hehe 🌅 🌅 thank you for going on this journey across the seas with me!

warnings: some swearing, mentions of drowning & torture, bittersweet (?) ending

word count: 2.6k

chapter one ☠️ chapter two ☠️ chapter three ☠️ chapter four ☠️ chapter five ☠️chapter six ☠️ chapter seven ☠️ chapter eight ☠️ chapter nine ☠️ chapter ten ☠️ chapter eleven ☠️ chapter twelve ☠️ spotify playlist

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Yunho's POV

My genius plan was that I would become more powerful than Jongho himself. So powerful that he wouldn't even be capable of taking my soul. So powerful that he wouldn’t even dare to try. Little did I know that as I shared my idea with Seonghwa, a certain someone was conveniently listening. Little did I know how this giant mess I'd created will play out...

Once Seonghwa was reassured that I would be perfectly safe despite the deal I had made with Jongho, he left me to my own devices. No sooner had I teleported myself back to my lighthouse than Jongho appeared out of nowhere, visibly angry. But there was something else in his expression. Something I couldn't quite define. Not yet, at least.

"How much of it did you hear?" I asked, already prepared for the worst.

"All of it," Jongho scoffed.

"Regardless," I spoke confidently. "Even if you do know what I'm planning, you can't stop me. You already know how much potential I have. Or else, you wouldn't have agreed to this deal. I'm right, no?"

Jongho shook his head.

"Your silly little plan won't work, wizard."

"Really?" I smiled, because I knew my own abilities better than he did. I was absolutely certain I could beat him. "And why is that?" I inquired, out of curiosity. He didn't scare me. Just...intrigued me.

"Because I never intended to take your soul, you fool."

Now, that was something I didn't expect to hear.

Jongho had somehow managed to catch me unprepared.

"W-what do you mean?"

"You know why I'm stealing so many souls?" I was about to open my mouth but Jongho wasn't having it. "Ah-ah, just let me finish. I know what you think. I know what everyone thinks. But it's an act. Apparently, I was too good an actor and completely fooled everyone, didn't I? The reason I've been collecting souls is not because I want to be more powerful than the devil. It's because I don't have one myself."

"H-huh?" I whispered in confusion. "Jongho, I don't understand..."

He placed a finger on my lips and I felt compelled to just...listen. Hear him out.

"But ever since I met you, I've felt...different. Like I could be more than just a demon making deals. Like I could matter."

I was too shocked to say anything so I just stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. And then he continued:

"What good would taking your soul do when you're the very reason I might be growing a soul in the first place?"

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" I had to make sure.

"I know it's fucking insane and you’re supposed to be my sworn enemy or whatever but—"

This time, I couldn't let him finish his sentence and interrupted him with my lips on his. To my absolute dismay, he was kissing me back with as much vigour as I was. As much vigour as he put into challenging me and getting on my nerves and frustrating the living hell out of me. As much vigour as I knew only he was capable of.

"I thought this was impossible," I mumbled against his lips once I broke away from the kiss.

"So did I. But do you want me to tell you how I know it's real?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything else.

"Because when you look at me, I no longer feel the urge to torture you for eternity."

"I should feel flattered, I suppose," I joked.

"It's up to you how you feel, wizard," Jongho replied. "And up to me to continue making you feel this way."

"The terrifying Jongho — a hopeless romantic. Who would have thought?" I teased him relentlessly.

"It's not too late for me to change my mind and snatch your soul."

"You greedy little thing. My heart isn't good enough for you?"

"Your heart?" Jongho chuckled and wrapped his arms around my neck. "It's mine now."

☠️☠️☠️

Yeosang's POV

The more time I spent around Mingi, the more I could see how much he'd changed for the better. And how much he was about to continue changing. Despite everything that had gone down in the past, I was feeling incomprehensibly drawn to him. And I wanted to be there for him. I knew that it would take some time for the rest of the crew to get used to Mingi being out of his cell. But I was determined to give him a chance. And convince the rest of them, it was a chance worth taking. Especially my dear Soojin...

"Sangie, he literally kidnapped us and left us without water for a week!" she reasoned.

"I know. I'm not making any excuses for—"

"And he cut off your hand! Your hand, Yeosang!" she reminded me needlessly. As if I could forget.

"Like I said, I'm not going to justify Mingi's actions. All I'm asking is that you give him another chance. He's been showing remorse. And I truly believe that if the circumstances had been different, he wouldn't have behaved the way that he did."

Soojin sighed, unsure of what to say.

"People aren't born evil," I insisted. "Everyone makes choices. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. What matters is what we do to fix the bad ones."

"Yeosang...I really want to do as you say, but it just sounds so difficult, okay?"

"I'm literally a pirate, sweetheart," I rolled my eyes. "If you don't hold it against me, I don't see a problem. Mingi's not exactly the villain he's painted himself to be."

Soojin nodded thoughtfully.

"Alright. You have a point. I'll give him a chance. One chance and that's it. If he fucks up again, I'm taking him to the depths of the sea myself."

"I suppose that's fair," I shrugged. "You heard that, Mingi?"

"Loud and clear," he grinned, a couple of metres away from us.

"He was right there the whole time?!" Soojin hiss-whispered in disbelief. "This is so embarrassing."

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you've chickened out and those were just empty threats," Mingi winked at her.

She physically shuddered and I couldn't help but laugh. So cute.

"Relax, Soojin. Mingi's our friend now. Aren't you?" I asked.

"If you want me to be," he scratched the back of his head a bit awkwardly.

"Come here, let's play cards," I suggested casually. "Loser gets to swim with the sharks."

"There are no sharks in this sea," Soojin pointed out confidently.

"Yeosang wasn't talking about actual sharks," Mingi correctly guessed. "He meant that I would have to go talk to Hongjoong and Seonghwa. Because, obviously, I'm terrible at cards and I would definitely lose the game. And these two are scarier than bloody sharks."

Soojin rolled her eyes.

"Pirates and their stupid way of talking."

"You get used to it," I playfully nudged her arm.

"There's no escape now."

"Let's skip the game," Mingi suggested. "I'll just go talk to the sharks right now and beg for mercy or whatever."

"We'll come with. Right, Soojin?" I offered.

"Like I have a choice," she groaned but I could tell that she was gradually warming up to the idea of letting Mingi stick around.

"Thanks, guys. I appreciate the moral support," Mingi blushed.

"I guess you could say...I'll be your right hand," I stared at the hook replacing my missing hand and snickered sarcastically. Mingi and Soojin were beyond mortified by my dark sense of humour. "Too soon?"

☠️☠️☠️

Hongjoong's POV

"I mean...we already had dealings with a demon and a wizard so I don't see how Mingi could pose a threat," I reasoned. "No offense, Mingi."

"None taken," he smiled.

"So, you're going to let him stay? Unguarded?" Seonghwa wanted to know.

"Let him stay — yes. Unguarded — no. If you're so insistent he's changed, you'll have to take full responsibility. You think you can handle that, Yeosang?" I posed the serious question.

"I've got this, Cap," Yeosang promised.

"I'll be around, too," Soojin vowed. "You don't have to worry, Cap."

I nodded in agreement. Seonghwa seemed to be on board with the idea. Honestly, after all the shit we'd been through with that demon, Mingi was the least of my concerns. But of course, I couldn't say that directly. So I had to play the "responsible leader worried for his crew" card. And apparently, I played it well.

"Wow, this went better than expected," I could hear Mingi whispering to Yeosang, as they were walking away. Seonghwa and I exchanged an amused look.

"Shh, we just caught him in a good mood," Yeosang explained carefully. "Be nice and he might let you stay for good."

"Guys, be quiet!" Soojin warned them. Clever mermaid, I told myself and grinned. Speaking of mermaids...

"Not so fast!" Y/N ordered them to stop. And so they did. Rightaway. Made me wonder who was the real Captain of this ship. Not that I minded her taking away some of my responsibilities. I even liked it.

"Yes?" Yeosang seemed kinda nervous.

"Make sure you treat my sister well. Both of you!" Y/N commanded them easily. "Or else...I'll have no problem letting the siren out to deal with you. And she's not someone you want to mess with. Ask Hongjoong."

The shock on my face was not at all exaggerated as I nodded to confirm her words.

"She'll be safe with us, Y/N," Yeosang made a pledge. "Right, Mingi?"

"Um, yeah, what he said."

"You don't sound very convincing," Y/N eyed him suspiciously.

Damn, I had to admit I was proud of her and how much she'd grown.

"Oh, let him go this time, will you?" I pulled her aside gently and she couldn't find it in herself to argue. Once Yeosang, Soojin and Mingi had taken their leave, she removed her "intimidating siren" mask and was back to her usual, gentle self I knew and loved.

"You guys think we made the right call?"

"It'll be fine," I was fairly certain. "If push comes to shove, Yunho will just help us out again, right?"

"As if he doesn't have enough problems with that demon," Y/N argued. "We can't continue using him for our needs."

"Yeah...about that," Seonghwa started.

☠️☠️☠️

Seonghwa's POV

As I was telling them about Yunho and Jongho's change in dynamics, Hongjoong and Y/N were too taken aback to react with anything else but by opening their mouths. Which was, to say the least, quite adorable of them.

"So...these two...?" Y/N asked as if to confirm what I'd just finished recounting.

"Mhm," I grinned.

"Wow," Hongjoong managed.

"I know."

"This is good news, yes? It means both Hongjoong and Yunho get to keep their souls," Y/N wanted to make sure it was indeed real.

"I mean, demons can be pretty unpredictable but judging from Yunho's happy expression when I last talked to him, I'm willing to be hopeful for once," I explained. "We've had enough trouble as it is, don't you think? We deserve something good to happen to us."

"Couldn't agree more," Hongjoong grabbed my hand and Y/N's. "But I get what she means. After all the dangers we've experienced, it just seems so unbelievable that we're finally safe."

"Too good to be true, eh?" Y/N sighed. "Let's enjoy this while we can."

"I think this one will last a bit longer," I smiled knowingly.

"Hey, don't jinx it," Hongjoong squeezed my hand softly.

"Just trust me, alright?" I looked at them both.

"I do."

"As do I."

"And I'm gonna catch you when you fall or when you're sinking," I murmured.

"I think I speak from experience when I say I'm the one more likely to save a pirate from drowning," Y/N poked fun at us.

"I was just trying to sound poetic," I pouted.

"And we appreciate the effort," Hongjoong reassured me. "But she's right."

"You two turning against me? Oh, how the tables have turned!" I announced dramatically.

"Don't pretend you don't like it," Y/N ran a hand through my hair and tilted her head towards Hongjoong. "He likes it, doesn't he, Cap?"

"I bet he does."

"Hey, Y/N. My eyes are up here," I reminded her.

"Oh, I know," she blinked, feigning innocence.

"Too bad I can't even be mad at you," I chuckled.

"Why be mad when you can be rad?" Hongjoong interjected.

"That was so terrible," I groaned. "You're lucky I love you."

"Both of us?" Y/N asked hopefully.

"Unfortunately," I admitted.

"Guess we'll have to work harder to turn that into a fortunately," Y/N teased. "Wait, my bad. I forgot you two already have a wholeass fortune in the form of a bunch of treasure chests."

"Is that why you like us?" Hongjoong teased. "Who knew mermaids could be golddiggers?"

"I'll show you a golddigger!" Y/N threatened and started chasing Hongjoong around the ship. They were so childish sometimes...

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

Reader's POV

You could tell that you had a couple of more minutes left until your siren-like side rose to the surface so you decided to enjoy them. As you were watching the sun setting, you couldn't help but recall your very first memories of Seonghwa and Hongjoong. What started as a simple joke, Hongjoong throwing Seonghwa overboard, followed by you saving Seonghwa from a whirlpool, had turned into so much more. It was funny how life often surprised you in the most unexpected ways. How a few months ago, if anyone asked you about pirates (and humans, in general), you would have scoffed distastefully. If anyone asked Seonghwa about mermaids, he would have still been haunted by the loss of Ariel. If anyone asked Hongjoong, he would have said mermaids spelled nothing but danger. And now...Now, the three of you had become so different. And in a way, so similar. Forgetting all these labels that once used to define you and just finding happiness in each other. In the adventures you'd had together. In the shared feeling of being trusted, feeling known. And loved. It was even funnier how you didn't find it strange at all. On the contrary, it felt perfectly natural that you were here. Made perfect sense that you had a home with Seonghwa and Hongjoong. A former prince, a pirate king and a lost but now found mermaid. You wouldn't have it any other way.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" you said out loud, sensing Seonghwa's presence beside you.

"Yes, it is," Seonghwa replied, looking at you.

"I have to go soon."

"But you'll be back in the morning. As usual."

You simply smiled. It went without saying.

"I wish I could stay the night," you whispered longingly. "Fall asleep in your arms."

"You could. I know you'll be able to control your powers. I'm sure Hongjoong will agree with me."

"I probably could control them. But I don't mind going back to my home in the night. Even though...this is also my home. Does it make sense?"

"I believe it does," Seonghwa rubbed calming circles on your palm. "Just like how you have a human and mermaid self, you also have two homes."

You nodded.

"Exactly."

"In a way, I feel the same. Both you and Hongjoong are my homes."

You rested your forehead against his.

"And we will always be your homes, Hwa."

"Don't go," he murmured against your skin. "I don't want to be alone anymore. Every night."

"You're not alone anymore. You have Hongjoong. And me. And I will be back with the first light of day."

"Promise?"

"I promise you, Seonghwa. Even if the whole world ends, I will always find my way back to you."

The end

#ateez #seonghwa #hongjoong #seonghwa x reader #hongjoong x reader #seongjoong #yunho #jongho #yeosang #mingi #ateez fic #ateez romance #pirate au #mermaid au #writing

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fantasyfandommaiden · 5 years

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Adrien’s Mentorship AU: Adrien’s Familiar

Not every magic user needs a familiar in order to be great, however Carmine points out that it would help move along Adrien’s magical training.... and if he happens to get a magically sidekick like some magical girls do in the anime’s he loves that just a bonus.

[[MORE]]

Carmine had preformed the lineage ritual before Adrien arrived for his next lesson a week later. Adrien had been disappointed in not being able to see the ritual being performed but Carmine had insisted to him that it was actually fairly mundane without much fanfare.

“So I do have magic in my family?” Adrien asked as they sat at the table, drinking tea. Carmine had insisted that drinking tea helped with the magical process (Adrien figured it was more to do with her tea addiction, but he wasn’t about to argue with his teacher).

Carmine nodded, smiling gently at him “Yes. The ritual showed me that SOMEWHERE in your family blood line there is magic, however it has been dormant for a few generations.”

Adrien blinked in confusion “... how does that happen?” He asked “Can you just... lose your magic?”

“Well... yes and no.” Carmine said, leaning back in her chair. “SOMETIMES, if you are deemed a danger to the magical or mortal community, you can have your magic taken, and if you have no magic in your blood, it can take a few generations for it to reappear in your family. Besides for that there is no way to lose your magic.”

“... so... is there a ministry of magic than?” Adrien asked, grinning widely “Like in Harry Potter?”

Carmine let out a soft hum as she thought to over “We don’t have a ministry so much as we have a council, and each country has one. Placing one person in charge of an entire magical community isn’t always the right idea unless you have someone like Merlin in charge, bless his soul.” Carmine stated, sipping her tea. “The politics are somewhat confusing but basically it’s usually a group of fifteen or so magic users who are appointed or voted into the council. As a collective they make major decisions about the magical community, and rulings about anyone that posses a threat to both the magical and non magical community.”

Adrien was furiously writing this all down as Carmine spoke, not stopping until he got all the information down. “So, could you be on the council?”

Carmine gave a loud laugh, Gladiolus seeming to do the same from his spot at the table “Oh by the gods no, for one I am too young to be apart of the council, you need to be at least 40. Two, I am much happier helping people directly than through politics. My uncle however, Yarrow Rosewood, is a member of the council here in France. We could meet him and he could tell you more about the politics if your interested, politics was never my forte.”

Adrien looked at her, blinking. His experience with older males in a place of authority were... great but if he was related Carmine he must be good! That and... it would be nice to have a male role model. Mlle Carmine was great! But there were some things he wanted to talk about with... a man.

“So does he decide if someone needs to have their magic taken away? What sort of ruling would need to be done for that?”

Carmine leaned back in her chair, looking at Adrien sombrely “... anyone who causes the community a great loss of life or a danger to that life. A pair of pyromancers back in 1871 were both quarreling over the affections of a young woman, their duel got out of hand and caused the Great Chicago Fire.”

Adrien’s pencil stopped as he looked at Carmine in shock “Wait... wasn’t that when-“

“300 people lost their lives, leaving 100,000 residents homeless and almost three and a half square miles of the city damaged? Yes, yes it was, and all over a woman.” Carmine said with a roll of her eyes “Said woman was the one who brought forth both of them to the council for judgement, they had been attempting to court her for months and she. Was. Done with their bullshit.” Carmine stated her eyes cold “She almost lost her best friend in that fire, and as punishment for their recklessness and the reason for the fight to begin with, they were stripped of their magic and their descendants for the next twenty generations.”

Adrien looked at Carmine, his mouth feeling dry. He hadn’t realized how... dangerous this was going to be. Cataclysm was dangerous but he had never caused that much damage to be done. “Are... are they still without magic?”

Carmine blinked at the question, closing her eyes and murmuring softly, Adrien only hearing her because of his enhanced hearing, she was counting.

“... yes, but only for another four generations, after which the magic will slowly return.”

“... what happened to the woman?”

Carmine looked at him with a raised brow, Adrien blushing slightly “... I... I mean, she turned them both in and her friend almost died... I can’t imagine that would have been easily, especially turning in two gentlemen who were courting her.”

“She married her best friend, and the two ladies were very happy together.” She stated sipping her tea “Well, married by magic standards, but back to why we are here.”

“Right!” Adrien said smiling widely “My magic! It’s not dormant, so we can start my training right?”

Carmine frowned “Well, it’s not dormant but it’s very weak, most likely you family might have only regain its magic with your mother, because I refuse to believe Gabriel has any magic in him.” Carmine said, leaning back in her chair, her fingers drumming against the table “Since you have such a small pool of magic that will make it difficult to train you...”

“Is there a way to increase so it’s not as difficult?” Adrien asked, Carmine looked at him with a raised brow “Not that I don’t want to put in the work! I mean, if it’s hard I’m willing to work twice as hard to prove myself-“

“Adrien, you don’t need to worry, I’m not going to drop you as my student just because you want to know if there is a simpler or easier way.” Carmine stated “Knowledge is power, and in this case there IS a way to increase your magic at a more accelerated pace... so instead of years it will only take a handful of a handful of months, maybe weeks depending on what you get.”

Adrien blinked, looking at Carmine confused. “What I ‘get’... what are you going to do?”

Carmine looked at Adrien, a small smile on her face “... Adrien, we are going to summon a familiar for you.”

~~~~~~~~~

Adrien had helped Carmine push her furniture in the living room to the walls and sat on the couch as she drew on the floor with chalk, Gladiolus holding the pages of her grimoire down and gesturing towards certain passages on the pages.

“So... will my familiar be like Gladiolus? A ferret?”

“Gladiolus chooses to be a ferret for the sake of convience more than appearance.” Carmine told him, her concentration on the circle she was drawing “Fey like Gladiolus typically dont have appearances in the material plane, the only ones I know of are Kwami’s.”

“Because messing with fey can lead to a lot of headaches.” Plagg stated, glaring at the circle “Your sure this is safe? I don’t want to go through the headache of getting use to a new chosen.”

Carmine looked up at Plagg with a deadpanned expression “Plagg, this isn’t my first rodeo, nor my first summoning circle! I’ve done this at least 20 times for my family, and I’ve over seen twice as many after that. I’ve got this.” Carmine stated before returning back to the circle, muttering something about ‘stupid kwami cats’.

Plagg glared at Carmine “Hey, this is my kitten, you got that, if anything happens to him, I will show you WHY I hold the mantle of destruction incarnate!”

Carmine stopped, looking up at Plagg “... the worst that will happen is he will become extrmly tired afterwards, that’s it. Besides, he’ll have fail safe, Gladiolus.”

The ferret ran off towards the bedroom, coming back with a beaded bracelet, rushing at Adrien and dropping in his lap “If you ever feel your endanger, pull it apart and it will bring you back.”

“Back?” Adrien looked at her, wide eyed “Where am I going?”

“Physically, nowhere, it’s your spirit that will be traveling to the spirit realm to find a fey that is willing to be your familiar.” Carmine stated, standing up and brushing the chalk off her hands “All done.”

“So... like Avatar?”

Carmine sighed, looking at Adrien with a small smile “... yes, like Avatar. Now sit yourself in the middle of this circle, and I’ll explain what is going to happen.”

~~~~~~

In short Carmine explained it like this.

- she was going to help his spirit travel to the spirit realm, there he was encounter perhaps three or fourth spirits who would be interested in being his familiar.

- Don’t give any of the fey your name, they will use it against you to make you do things. (As some sort of mind control or something, he was still confused but agreed to not say his name out loud)

- He is to decide who would be the best familiar for him, his spirit will know which is best.

- Once he finds a familiar, he is to rip the bracelet apart brining him and his familiar back.

Carmine had told him there was a chance that there was no spirit that would be suited for him, and Carmine herself had taken three attempts before she met Gladiolus, so not to feel distraught if he couldn’t find one, and most importantly to not ‘settle’ with one.

“This is a bond that will last for the rest of your life, it is not something to be rushed.”

Adrien simply nodded, sitting on the floor cross legged, eyes closed. He didn’t know how long he sat there, but it must have been a REALLY long time, because he was getting bored, and honestly nothing had changed.

He sighed as he opened his eyes “Mlle Carmine, I don’t think it’s-“ he stopped short, looking around. He was no longer in Carmine’s living room anymore, but instead in a large grassy field.

He felt the wind gently blowing against his his skin as he slowly stood up, looking around. The grass was a deep green colour and the sky the deepest blue he had ever seen, but he didn’t see a town or building anywhere as far as his eyes could see.

“Hello?” He called out, his voice seeming to echo out into the grasslands. Adrien looked around, no seeing any spirits... was he suppose to walk around? Carmine hadn’t really given him any instructions beyond him arriving and meeting possible spirits.

As if sensing his unease, the scenery changed as if everything around him had been a mirage, and now he stood in the middle of a forest, standing on top of a large tree stump. Her heard the soft chattering of birds, and soft wind blowing through the leaves.

Although it was a nice change, it didn’t help out Adrien too much with finding a spirit. He knew he had to be patient, and it might not happen this time, but he REALLY wanted to impress Mlle Carmine... or at the very least prove to her that it was the right decision to take him on as her student...

Adrien blinked when he heard a different sound.... it sounded like soft, gibberish chatter that got louder, and louder, and the wind seemed to pick up as the trees groaned and seemed to sway. Adrien felt his body tense up as he gripped the beaded bracelet in his hand, looking around as suddenly a horde of lights and sounds and wind tore through the tree line into the small clearing were where Adrien stood.

The lights and sounds circled him in a never ending tornado, it shocked him so much that he dropped the bracelet somewhere, but Adrien was to preoccupied to notice. It was too LOUD, there was too much sound and colours and he felt like his brain was going to BURST with all the chatter that the dozens, maybe even four or five dozen dancing lights circled him, chanting different thing. He fell to his knees, his hands covering his ears and his eyes closed tightly. He wanted it to stop, but Carmine had told him to be respectful, and his mind couldn’t take this torture as the spirits continued to talk and chant.

‘So much magic!’

‘Ancient magic!’

‘The ring! It’s the ring!’

‘Pick me! I’ll be your familiar!’

‘No me! I will make you stronger! I must be near that ring!’

It was too loud, Adrien didn’t known how much more he could take much more, he would give anything to make them all stop, even if it was as simple as accepting one of the as his familiar, but none of them felt right. He didn’t feel a pull to any of them, or a strong connection, not like what he expected, but he needed all the noise and lights to stop! He opened his mouth, about to accept the first spirit he saw when he heard one voice speak, not too loudly or in a bossy tone, but a voice that commanded authority.

“Will you all shut the fuck up!” It snapped, and all the lights and sounded stopped. Adrien felt his body trembling, not daring to look up as he kept his ears covered in case the spirits tried to begin chanting again.

“Now get the hell out of here, can’t you see your scaring the kid to death!”

“But... the ring-“

“Did I fucking stutter?” The voice responded “Your not becoming a familiar to some damned ring but to the boy himself! Now, if I have to say it again, you will all cease to exsist, am I understood?”

“Ah-“

“Am. I. Under. Stood?”

And suddenly there was silence, but Adrien still did not dare to remove his hands from his ears or open his eyes. His body trembling as he remained on his knees.

After a few moments of complete silence he dared to open his eyes and saw a light, this one not as blinding and not so much a ball as a shape. It looked humanoid, possibly masculine if the outline had anything to say, but it still appeared to be light, albeit much dimmer than the other spirits, and they sat cross legged in front of him, seeming to be waiting.

“First time in the spirit realm?” The spirit asked him in a quiet voice, to which Adrien nodded. “Pfft, that explains it. Whoever sent you here is either not very smart and hasn’t dealt with a lot of ancient magical items before.” It stated, pointing at Adrien’s ring. “THAT is why they swarmed you. Powerful and old item like that was bound to draw that many excitable spirits. Most of them don’t mean you any harm but they don’t understand boundaries.”

Adrien simply nodded again, still not moving besides his trembling body. The spirit looked at him thoughtfully “... You do know you could have told them to fuck off right? Maybe not in those words, but you could have told them ‘No thanks, your not for me.’ Or ‘no thanks, I’m not ready for this’.”

“I was...” Adrien licked his lips, which felt dry before speaking again “I was told to be respectful.”

“There’s being respectful and there’s being a doormat.” The spirit told him, looking around the clearing “Honestly, if I hadn’t come along you would have probably just picked the first spirit you saw to be your familiar, no questions asked and live with some subpar or down right awful spirit, and trust me you don’t want any of those LEECHES for a familiar.” He stated, before looking back at Adrien.

“... do you want to go back to your world?” The spirit asked, holding out Adrien’s bracelet “There’s no shame in not getting a familiar on the first try... at least that’s why I assume you are here for.” The spirit said to him.

Adrien took the bracelet gently, looking at the spirit “... but... I don’t want to let my mentor down...”

The spirit seemed to almost give off the impression that he rolled his eyes “Listen, you won’t let your ‘mentor’ by not getting a familiar on the first try. Did he get it on the first try?”

Adrien blinked, shaking his head “... no, the third apparently.”

“There you have, so your old coot of a mentor won’t be on your ass for it, I sought he will be mad.” The spirit said standing “but if your that determined to get a familiar I’ll help you out... but first...” the spirit helped Adrien stand up, than walked behind him, grabbing his shoulders and forcing them back slightly before he walked in front of him, grabbing his face and making Adrien look straight in front of him.

“Good, now hold that pose and tell me to leave.”

Adrien blinked, relaxing slightly with confusion only for the spirit to snap his fingers again and Adrien (of his own will) go back to the more confidant position the spirit had place him in “Go on, pretend I’m one of the annoying spirits from before and tell me to leave you alone.”

“Um...” Adrien looked at the spirit somewhat confused “... please leave me alone?” He said in a somewhat lame tone.

The spirit looked at him in a bored manner “... are you asking me or telling me? Try again.”

“Leave me alone please.”

“No.”

“I said, leave me alone please.”

“Yeah, still no.”

“Leave me alone!” Adrien shouted at him angrily, getting somewhat annoyed with this.

“I’m stubborn, not deaf. Show me some resolve, make me want to leave.” The spirit said to Adrien.

Adrien glared at the spirit, taking a deep breath as he thought of all the people he wished he could say this to. The fan girls, the pushy photographers, the models that were a little TOO hands on, Lila with her touching and invading of his personal space.

He let the breath out slowly as he glared at the spirit “... leave me alone, now please.” He said in a deadly serious tone. The spirit clasped his hands on Adrien’s shoulders, bending down slightly to look Adrien in the eye.

“.... now that is how you do it. Alright kid!” He stood up straighter and began to walk towards a random direction “Let’s go find your familiar spirit.”

Adrien looked at the spirit curiously, remembering back to the conversation he had with Carmine before entering the spirit realm...

“Will it be like love at first sight or something like that when I meet my familiar?” Adrien asked excitedly, almost bouncing in his seat as he watched Carmine start the chalk circle.

“Some people say it’s like that, that it’s an instant connection, like a part you didn’t know is missing is found.” Carmine replied back evenly “Others say it feels like you’ve been shot with lightning, the sensation causing tingles to go down your whole body, others say it’s like meeting a new best friend, everyone’s experience is different when it comes to finding your familiar.”

“What was it like with you and Gladiolus?”

Carmine stopped momentarily, a small warm smile spreading across her face “... like meeting an old friend.”

Adrien looked at the spirit in front of him as he continued to speak about the different kind fo spirits he could potentially have as his familiar.

He didn’t feel like a part of him was found, or like lightning had struck him, or like meeting a new friend. Heck, he didn’t even feel like he was meeting an old one, but something about this felt... right, like being around that one person who gave you a boost of confidence even when you were at your lowest. It felt... good, and maybe that was what Adrien needed.

“Um, Mr. Spirit, actually....”

~~~~~

Adrien groaned as he felt his spirit return to his body, feeling exhausted both mentally and physically. He saw Carmine sitting cross legged in front of the circle, like she had been when he entered the spirit realm and she sat up straighter.

“Adrien, thank goodness, you were in there so long, I was beginning to... worry.” Carmine’s eyes were looking down at Adrien’s lap, a look of shock on her face. Adrien looked down as well in concern only for the expression to change from concern, to confusion, to joy.

Sitting in his lap was a hamster, it looked like it was a grey dwarf hamster, however it’s eyes instead of being a dark brown were a deep shade of blue. Adrien starred at it and the hamster starred up at him. “... hi?” Adrien said slowly, only for him to ‘hear’ a response in the back of his head.

‘Hey Kid, you look like shit, you should really rest-‘ the hamster stopped short as he examined his surroundings only to freeze at the sight of Carmine who was still starring at him.

“Adrien, you summoned a familiar!” Carmine said, her face breaking out into a large grin as the hamster climbed up Adrien’s shirt to sit on his shoulder, which had been a good thing because Carmine all but FLEW at Adrien to hug him tightly “Good job! This is amazing! Hardly anyone summons their familiar on the first try!”

‘Psssst, kid!’

Adrien, who had been to distracted by the hug, glanced at his familiar who was looking at Carmine with great interest.

‘Who’s this lovely woman?’

“This is Mlle Carmine, my mentor!” Adrien said to him, as Carmine sat up straight and looked at the hamster “What’s his name?” She asked.

‘You did NOT tell me your mentor was such a fine example of femininity and grace!’ The hamster exclaimed, and Adrien felt himself becoming more confused as he noticed how the hamsters eyes were starring directly at Carmine’s bust and waistline and... lingering there.

‘Oh, I look forward to getting to know you, AND her quite well~’ the voice all but sang.

Adrien felt his face blush deep red... of god... his familiar was a pervert!

“Adrien.” Carmine said, looking at him confused. She couldn’t hear the voice since the hamster wasn’t her familiar “Have you two decided on what his name will be?”

Oh, Adrien had the perfect name for him.

“Zeus.”

#ladybug au #ml au #adrien’s mentorship au #carmine regal #adrien agreste #tea magic #introducing Zeus the Familiar #Familiar!Zeus #Hamster!Zeus #long post

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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What Makes an American? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/sunday-review/immigration-assimilation-texas.html

PLEASE READ 📖 AND SHARE this important perspective for our current time. We have a DECISION TO MAKE about WHO WE ARE AS A NATION!!! Do we want this to be Trump's America or the America that is a patchwork quilt of diversity and culture that blends together that makes us uniquely American.

"Trumpism itself may impede assimilation: if you constantly tell immigrants they’re unwanted, they may come to believe it."

What Makes an American?

I took reassurance this past week in a Texas immigration story that suggests America’s powers of assimilation remain formidable.

By Jason DeParle | Published Aug. 9, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 9, 2019 1:00 PM ET |

One man likens immigrants to snakes, frets that they will never “go back to their huts,” and insists that they threaten “jobs, wages, housing, schools, tax bills” and more.

Another sees a “Hispanic invasion,” fears that it will bring the “cultural and ethnic replacement of Americans,” and warns that the foreign influx endangers “our way of life.”

After last weekend’s shooting in El Paso, it was so hard to distinguish President Trump’s views of immigration (paragraph one) from those of the accused killer (paragraph two) that the suspect offered a pre-emptive defense against charges of plagiarism. In a “manifesto” released just before the massacre, he insisted he wasn’t just mouthing “Trump’s rhetoric’’ but offering thoughts of his own.

Posted on a far-right website, the statement never used the word “assimilation.” But it rested on the Trumpian view that immigration was failing and that this failure posed an existential threat. The fear that foreigners refuse to adapt is widespread among immigration critics, and even Americans with more welcoming views sometimes worry that assimilation is proceeding less surely than it once did.

I took reassurance this past week in another Texas immigration story, which suggests that America’s powers of assimilation remain formidable. It involves a third grader with an apt name, Precious Lara Villanueva, who lingered at dinner a year after arriving in the United States and said, “I sort of agree with Rosa Parks.”

This was news. The previous year, Lara’s teacher had called Parks a “hero.” But the idea of a hero in handcuffs made no sense to a girl straight from the Philippines, where children are admonished to respect elders and obey authority. “She didn’t listen to the policeman,” Lara had said. (Besides, she added, heroes wear capes.)

By the following year, her views were in flux. “It wasn’t, like, fair for the black people to sit in the back,” Lara told me at dinner in 2014. Parks’s courage impressed her, but so did her manners: “She said no — but she didn’t use a bad word.” To an immigrant deftly blending cultures, Rosa Parks became “The Civil Rights Hero Who Didn’t Curse.”

I’ve followed Lara’s family for 32 years, as they completed a remarkable rise from a Manila shantytown to the Houston suburbs. As a young journalist, I moved into her grandparents’ hovel, to better understand the country’s vast poverty, and I’ve been reporting on the family’s migrations ever since. Lara’s grandfather worked abroad for years at a time, cleaning pools in Saudi Arabia, and her grandmother raised their five children on the money he sent — 10 times his Manila pay.

All five children grew up to become overseas workers, too, and the one I know best — Lara’s mother, Rosalie — used her father’s remittances to get through nursing school. She worked in the Persian Gulf for nearly two decades, then got her big break in 2012 when a short-staffed hospital in Galveston, Tex., offered her a nursing job. Her husband and three children soon followed.

While opponents of immigration insist (ever more loudly) that assimilation has failed, the Villanuevas’ experience offers a retort. With a house in the suburbs and kids on the honor roll, they achieved in three years a degree of assimilation that used to take three generations.

They did so, moreover, in metro Houston, a pro-immigrant corner of Red State America where nearly a quarter of the work force is foreign-born. Once synonymous with honky-tonks and rodeos, Houston now sells itself as a hub of diversity, with Hindu temples and Viet-Cajun cuisine.

In a country of 44 million immigrants, no family stands for the whole. The Villanuevas merely stand for the substantial immigrant success missing from the Trump Twitter feed.

I got to see the process of becoming American through the eyes of Lara and her older sister, Kristine, who assimilated rapidly, in surprising and contrasting ways.

When they arrived in late 2012, it was obvious who had been the first-grade beauty queen. Kristine reigned as if she still wore the tiara. She was saucy, bossy, purposeful and proud, with a toughness that belied her nine years. Proud of the English she had learned back home, she spoke it with a syntax that conveyed exuberance. She was “so very, very excited” to see America and “so very, very proud” of her visa that she taped it to the wall.

But her move was very complex. In coming to the States, she had gained her “mommy” (Rosalie), but lost her “mama” (Rosalie’s sister, Rowena), who had raised her on a Philippine farm while Rosalie and her husband, Chris, worked in Abu Dhabi. “I didn’t want to leave Mama Wena, but I also couldn’t leave my parents — either way it’s sad,” she told me. Mama Wena called in tears and needed money. When Kristine bought a Barbie, “Mama” chided her for not sending the cash.

Kristine’s English, good for a foreign child, was weaker than it seemed. Whenever her teacher said “keep your book out,” Kristine put hers in her desk. It took a Filipino teacher to explain that itago, Tagalog for “to keep,” means to hide away. Asked to describe a “pet peeve,” Kristine wrote about her dog. Losing confidence, she hid behind a frozen smile.

In fifth grade, a new persona appeared. Tired of being the meek foreign girl, Kristine reinvented herself as a wisecracking diva of the sort she saw on TV. She described herself in diaries as “honest” and “joyful,” but also “mean” — a boast. “My classmates say, ‘Kristine, it’s not like you!’” she said. “Now I’m a Kristine who will fight for herself!”

Kristine snapped selfies by the thousand and posted them on Instagram accounts like “kristinecute” and “swelfwe.queen.” She practiced poses: Fish Mouth required an exaggerated pucker, Duck Face protruding lips. She touted them as sophisticated American looks her Philippine cousins wouldn’t know.

Kristine’s Barbies, like Kristine, straddled contrasting worlds. Her stories revolved around a family named the Fashion Fashionistas, who lived in a Manila trash dump but used their private plane to shop in America. For Kristine, poor Filipinos becoming rich Americans needed no explanation. It simply felt true.

Mostly the straddling went smoothly, but occasionally the Fashionistas’ daughter, Stacy, felt burdened by those left behind. When she caught someone back home wearing her shoes, Stacy beat her — as Kristine dramatized by whacking the doll’s head on the floor. Freed from obligations to the needy, Stacy flew back to the rich country and decorated her room in Hello Kitty.

As her frustration mounted and her school progress stalled, Kristine indulged in a series of minor rebellions — ignoring assignments, disrupting class, and affecting a scatterbrained personality in a bid for popularity. Her teacher affectionately groaned, “She’s becoming Americanized.”

Once, that would have been a compliment. The classic version of Americanization is called straight-line assimilation. It’s a three-generation tale as central to America’s mythology as the Boston Tea Party: The immigrants struggle amid poverty and bias; their children awkwardly juggle two cultures; the third generation completes the rise, with a white-collar job and a house in the suburbs. The story imparts two lessons: The descendants of immigrants advance and do so by blending in.

Straight-line assimilation was the reigning narrative of the mid-20th century. Half a century had passed since immigrants from southern and Eastern Europe had poured through Ellis Island. Learned men had warned that they would never adapt, but they did so decisively. A unified country had beaten the Nazis, with Mayflower descendants sharing foxholes with Kowalskis and Mancinis. Groups that warred abroad lived as neighbors in New York and Chicago. A Catholic became president.

Sometime in the 1960s, this assimilation story fell from favor. It overstated the acceptance that immigrants had won and understated the hardships they had faced. It idealized WASP culture and slighted the satisfactions of the ethnic community. It overlooked race — the lengths to which the country had gone to prevent the assimilation of blacks.

Leftist scholars condemned “the blight of assimilationist ideology” and celebrated ethnic struggle. Ozzie and Harriet gave way to Kojak and Columbo, heritage travel and klezmer bands. Assimilation seemed wrong as an explanation of what did happen and offensive as an explanation of what should happen.

The resurgence of ethnic identity was heartfelt but no sign that assimilation had failed. On the contrary, as scholars like Herbert Gans and Mary Waters argued, Americans could celebrate their heritage precisely because it meant so little. It did not affect where they could live, whom they could marry or what jobs they could get. “Symbolic ethnicity” flourished, but divisions faded: intermarriage rose, discrimination fell and residential enclaves dispersed.

Given the difficulties that immigrants and their descendants faced, Gans rightly called their assimilation “bumpy line” rather than straight. But bumps and all, assimilation prevailed.

It’s possible that Kristine’s generation will find assimilation harder. Economic mobility has waned, a quarter of the foreign-born lack legal status, and most of today’s immigrants are racial minorities, which could attract more enduring bigotry. Mass media once encouraged common identity. In today’s narrowcast world, pluribus triumphs over unum.

Trumpism itself may impede assimilation: if you constantly tell immigrants they’re unwanted, they may come to believe it.

But other differences between the eras could ease assimilation. Immigrants have civil rights their predecessors lacked. (Sicilians did not have affirmative action.) Many arrive like Rosalie, already middle-class. And mainstream culture is much more diverse, making it easier to fit in.

Two academic camps have shaped debate about the children of immigrants. Both see the majority succeeding — advancing in school, securing jobs and integrating. Intermarriage is high, and English is near universal. “Today’s immigrants are actually learning English faster than their predecessors,” the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2015.

But some scholars warn that Americanization carries risks, especially for the poor. The longer newcomers are in the United States, the more likely they are to smoke, grow obese or commit crimes. Two prominent scholars, Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut, have warned that the children of the most disadvantaged immigrants may assimilate downward, joining the native poor in a “rainbow underclass.”

Kristine’s teacher wasn’t thinking about that when she fretted about Americanization. But even her mild concerns turned straight-line assimilation on its head: She saw Americanization as the problem, not the solution.

A rival group is more optimistic. They found that children of immigrants not only outperformed children of natives (of similar races) but did so despite having parents with less income and education. How could that be? Philip Kasinitz and three colleagues argue that children of immigrants often enjoy a “second-generation advantage” over native peers.

Two parts of the argument are familiar — immigrants, self-selected for ambition, pass along their drive, and the intensity of ethnic networks provides support that natives lack. But the researchers also argue that children of immigrants benefit intellectually from living at a cultural crossroads. (They note it took a Russian-born Jew, Irving Berlin, to write “White Christmas.”) Children of immigrants, they wrote, often “combine the best of both worlds” — their parents’ and their peers’ — or innovate in ways that “can be highly conducive to success.’’

In the Villanueva family, each theory offers a guide to a different daughter. (A son, Dominique, was too young to share his thoughts in equal depth.) Kristine’s experience provided a small reminder that Americanization isn’t always beneficial: She assimilated energetically, but to the distractions of middle school. Lara blended her Filipino and American selves in ways that supplied an edge. She was second-generation advantage personified.

While Kristine experienced migration as division (English vs. Tagalog, her mother vs. her aunt), Lara found it addition — Rosa Parks’s protests plus her politeness, parents beside her and grandparents on Skype.

Lara’s Filipino traits included her manners, her long dinnertime prayers and an immigrant’s belief in opportunity. They also included the benefits of a two-parent family, which social science finds considerable. (“American families are a mess!” her teacher complained.)

From the United States, Lara got a reduced sense of class and gender constraints, a school full of books and a classroom with just 24 students, instead of 70 in the Philippines. Above all, she got a license to ask questions.

Nothing about the Philippines had encouraged her to probe. On the contrary, a classroom so crowded had little time for raised hands, and children were taught to respect their elders, not interrogate them. American teachers loved questions.

“Do fish sleep?” Lara asked.

“Is the Leaning Tower of Pisa ever going to collapse?”

“Do nurses have to be caring? Maybe I’ll just be a doctor.”

Curious about how she had grown curious, Lara formed her own assimilation theory: America had scared her into asking questions. Confused when she arrived and afraid of repeating second grade, “I told myself I should be interested right now.” Being interested became a habit. Put differently, blending cultures produced new thinking — Lara was simply repeating what the Kasinitz camp argues about the cultural crossroads.

In her second school year in America, Lara flourished. Her teacher first noticed her gift when the class read a book about a bully. Asked what a story is “about,” most third graders summarize the plot. Lara extracted a lesson: “The theme of this book is not to be rude. We should show good character.”

Lara liked to debate, largely with herself, which of the heroines she studied was greatest. Rosa Parks didn’t swear and Helen Keller didn’t quit, but Harriet Tubman rescued others, “even though they weren’t her relatives!” Every Filipino understands sacrifice for family, but selflessness toward strangers opened a new moral universe. “She did the really, really right thing.”

One day when we stopped for an after-school snack, Lara sprang a sneaky question. “Do you know how to infer?”

I frowned as if trying to remember. “I’m going to teach you how!”

She paused to dip her fry in her milkshake and increase the suspense. “It’s like when you say, ‘Oh, it’s cold — it’s really snow outside.’ I didn’t tell you what season it is. But you can infer it’s winter.”

She stabbed the air in triumph with a milky fry. “You see? It works!’’

By the end of their third year in America, Kristine and Lara had each become an exaggerated version of herself, with Lara reveling in grade-school epiphanies and Kristine deep into middle-school intrigue. Her 15 closest sixth grade friends were arrayed in a fluid hierarchy, with “sisters” at the top, followed by “best friends for life,” then “baes for life” and “ride or dies.”“Your ride or dies are like your best friends but not your best-est friends.”

While Lara’s new word was “onomatopoeia,” Kristine’s was “stuffy-fluffy.” Her science teacher said she “wants to be one of the popular girls” who “act like they don’t have a clue. Her English teacher blamed the “ditsy’’ pose on “Americanization” but said, “I don’t think that’s really her.”

It wasn’t. With a little more time her English strengthened, her conflict about leaving Mama Wena waned, and the awkwardness of middle school passed. In tenth grade she sent me a matter-of-fact text that read,

“My current grades:

History: 91

Chemistry: 99

Geometry: 100

English: 100”

Two texts followed:

“Yes!” “Yesssss!”

When the family bought a new suburban house, Rosalie reminded her Americanized children how far they had come. “Mommy grew up a shanty,” she said.

“What’s a shanty, Mommy?” Kristine asked.

Lara spent our last ride to school talking about the difference between mean, median, and mode, then pumped her fist when she heard there was a test. She had studied Harriet Tubman again (“she saved people, even though they weren’t her relatives!”) and made the A-honor roll.

I offered to mark the occasion with a trip to the toy store, but Lara chose Office Depot and wrote her first book — an enigmatic study of a girl who asks questions.

“Why would I be excited for a TEST? Just why?!”

“Why do I have emotions just why — please tell me? Would you?”

“Why am I so curiouse (cq), just why?”

I thought back to second grade, when her first experience of America was a classroom of especially disruptive kids. Lara spoke little English but was so well behaved that her teacher exclaimed, “I need a few more like her!”

Fresh from the Philippines, Lara was the most foreign student in the class and in a Norman Rockwell way the most classically American — the earnest girl in a dainty sweater with an apple on her desk. She didn’t replace an American, she became one.

Jason DeParle is a reporter for The Times and the author of the forthcoming, “A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century,” from which this essay is adapted.

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beckettmoba468-blog · 6 years

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KRATOM: THE BITTER PLANT LIFE THAT SHOULD HELP OPIOID NUTS-- WHEN THE DEA DOES NOT BAN IT

The girl up in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. It is a little community, upscale and charmingly New England. Heroin was very offered there, and very excellent.

She stopped going to school, stopped doing much of anything besides scoring drugs, doing drugs, taking things, selling things, scoring more drugs, doing more drugs. "This was the start of the New England heroin epidemic," she says.

In 2014, overdoses from heroin or prescription opioids eliminated 30,000 people-- four times as lots of than in 1999. Today, 3,900 new individuals begin using prescription opioids for non-medical functions every day. The annual health and social costs of the prescription opioid crisis in America?

Campellone kicked her routine at 19-- with rehab, suboxone, and a lot of willpower-- and moved out west, to the San Francisco Bay Area. Her employers and colleagues presented her to a huge selection of plant-based items, amongst them a tart-tasting leaf called kratom. It was also a good painkiller, so she 'd take it when she was hurt, or on her menstrual cycle.

And, on two events, she utilized it to help with the withdrawal symptoms following heroin relapses. "Nothing truly feels good when you're withdrawing from heroin, so no matter what you're taking, you're still in pain and it's quite excruciating," states Campellone. Kratom assisted some.

Campellone never requires a prescription to obtain kratom. Nor does she need to visit a dealership. She purchases it from an herbal remedy store-- about $20 for a 4-ounce packet, which lasts about a week. When she takes excessive, she gets a stomach pains. And when she does not take it, she doesn't crave it like she yearned for heroin. Mostly she does not consider it; it simply beings in her cabinet. So, she was amazed when, on August 30, the DEA revealed that it was pursuing an emergency scheduling of mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, the active alkaloids in kratom. Campellone was one of maybe 4 or 5 million Americans who were being informed, for possibly the first time, that this leaf posed an " impending risk to public security."

The DEA Takes an Exception to Kratom

Biologically, kratom acts enough like an opioid that DEA considers it a threat to public security. The firm planned to use a regulative system called emergency scheduling to position it in the exact same limiting classification as marijuana, lsd, and heroin . This classification, Schedule I, is reserved for exactly what the DEA considers the most hazardous drugs-- those with no redeeming medical worth, and a high capacity for abuse.

Before they completed the scheduling, something surprising occurred. An advocacy group called the American Kratom Association (yes, AKA) raised $400,000 from its impassioned membership-- excellent for a not-for-profit that normally raises $80,000 a year-- to pay for lobbyists and legal representatives , who got Congress on their side.

On September 30, representatives both conservative and liberal -- from Orrin Hatch to Bernie Sanders-- penned a letter to the DEA. "Given the long reported history of kratom use, combined with the general public's sentiment that it is a safe alternative to prescription opioids, we believe utilizing the routine evaluation process would attend to a much-needed discussion amongst all stakeholders," they composed.

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The DEA raised the notice of emergency situation scheduling, and opened a public remark duration until December 1. Galloway might not remember another circumstances when the DEA responded to public protest like this.

As of this writing, those remarks number nearly 11,000. They are from: individuals who use kratom to relieve persistent discomfort or endometriosis or gout; people who use kratom to treat depression or wean off opioids or alcohol; individuals who stated it saved their life. "It does not allow you to leave your problems," says Susan Ash, founder of the AKA, who used kratom to deal with discomfort and leave an addiction to prescription opioids. "It rather has you face them complete on since it doesn't numb your brain at all, and it doesn't make you feel stoned like medical cannabis does. But it's effective on so lots of things, like pain and stress and anxiety and anxiety."

That guarantee is part of the issue. Researchers understand almost nothing about kratom-- how its substances work in concert, what it can really deal with, how addicting it might be, what counts as a safe dose. And certainly not enough to support all the life-changing claims proclaimed in public comments, and by the numerous kratom users we interviewed. In the lack of excellent science and the slightest tip of policy, Ash and possibly countless other users are winging it. And ought to the DEA follow through on its guarantee to set up kratom, these people will end up being crooks overnight.

For Ash, that's totally undesirable. "I desire the future to look like this is your next coffee," she says.

An Herb Wades Into an Opioid Crisis

Kratom is not an opioid-- really, it is in the coffee household-- but its active particles bind to the same neuronal receptors as opioids like heroin, morphine, codeine, and oxycodone . Usually, those drugs give users a feeling of bliss and dull their discomfort-- that's why David *, a previous boarding school instructor, started using prescription opioids to treat his pain from ski injuries.

When David eventually committed himself to rehab, his medical professionals weaned him off heroin utilizing suboxone, a mix of 2 drugs-- buprenorphine, a partial opioid that satiates the body's chemical thirst, and naltrexone, which blocks any euphoric opioid feelings. Suboxone can give users signs of withdrawal, not to discuss a dulled sense of truth. And users like David can still discover methods to abuse it. "Dependence on that was various from heroin, and it became simpler to take more suboxone to a higher high, or offering it to score heroin once again," he says.

As of this writing, though, David has actually been tidy for 18 months-- success that he credits to kratom. Given that it binds to the exact same receptors as opioids, kratom users report https://www.wired.com/2016/11/kratom-bitter-plant-help-opioid-addicts-dea-doesnt-ban comparable euphoric and pain-killing effects, but they're muted. After other 12 step recovering addicts presented David to the plant, it assisted him restore his life-- he did ultimately lose that boarding school teaching task-- and handle the physical discomfort that got him hooked on opioids to start with.

Given that it mirrors opioids in other ways, the issue is that kratom is also addicting. Once again, the genuine science is sparse. David and numerous other users we spoke to said kratom is routine forming, to some degree, though one study in Southeast Asia found that for people using it to kick an opioid dependency, the reliance is far less most likely to disrupt their lives. "When I take kratom, that addicting part of me begins and it ends up being habitual," states Jeffrey *, another previous opioid addict. "It doesn't toss my life out of control, but it bugs me when individuals say things like, 'it's not more addictive than coffee.' I believe that impedes us making inroads with the regulators."

There is no doubt, nevertheless, that kratom is less hazardous than opioids-- even take-home synthetics like suboxone. "The two main alkaloids in 7-hydroxy, mitragynine and kratom , appear to have a low ceiling for breathing anxiety," says pharmacologist Jack Henningfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who with the consulting firm Pinney Associates has recommended the AKA on kratom scheduling.

In its initial notice of emergency scheduling for kratom, the DEA did connect the drug to 15 deaths in between 2014 and 2016. Folks utilizing kratom to wean themselves off opioids might still be taking those opioids.

And some deaths could be attributed to contamination: Because kratom isn't really strictly regulated, bad actors can and do lace the plant with real opioids, like the exceptionally effective artificial opioid fentanyl. Well, we've got a special kratom product,'" Henningfield says. The concern is whether the DEA's scheduling is the ideal kind.

Regulative Wranglings

The FDA might assist prevent contamination-related deaths by strictly controling kratom as a supplement, as opposed to the DEA scheduling it as a drug. "FDA has a great deal of authority to actually help customers understand that what they're buying is exactly what is labeled, and have at least some level of assurance," Henningfield states. "It's not near to the drug requirement, however it's far better than something that's illicitly marketed."

The FDA is actually likewise pivotal in encouraging the DEA on the scheduling of drugs. "The decision to completely schedule any drug is not a DEA unilateral choice," states Steve Bell, a DEA representative. Consider the regulative pathway of suboxone. The FDA authorized the drug in 2002, and the Department of Health and Human Services suggested that the DEA put it in Schedule III, which the DEA accepted. This puts the drug in the same category as Tylenol with codeine: It's offered for physicians to recommend for narcotic addiction, however is still a illegal drug.

Schedule I, though, is an entirely various rodeo. If the DEA locations kratom here, no one can touch the things. Existing users, should they continue to utilize, will be required to even sketchier sources. And scientists will have a more difficult time learning how kratom works, and supporting, or refuting, the claims users make with tough data. (Consider cannabis, also a Schedule I drug. Science has a dearth of information on it because getting authorizations to study the drug is an exercise in administrative insanity.).

All that research study costs cash. Which is kratom's catch-22: The DEA desires to set up the drug since they think it may position a risk to public health, however the only way to confirm (or refute) the DEA's concerns is with more research-- which will be next to difficult should the DEA follow through on its pledge to schedule.

Among the couple of scientists studying kratom is the University of Florida's Oliver Grundmann, who is completing up an online study of nearly 10,000 users. And the information ( initial, though Grundmann plans to release a paper in the coming months) exposes a different profile of kratom users than you 'd get out of an " illegal" leisure drug.

" The age variety is more geared towards an older population," states Grundmann, "which is more likely to experience work associated injuries or persistent or intense discomfort from another medical condition." Over half of users are in between the ages of 31 and 50. Eighty-two percent completed a minimum of some college. Nearly 30 percent of respondents draw in a home income of over $75,000 a year. Not quite the celebration drug group. And the public discuss the DEA's https://www.drugs.com/illicit/kratom.html scheduling notification show that population. Many of those folks are utilizing kratom to either wean themselves off prescription opioids or utilize the drug alone to deal with discomfort.

Still, that's self-medication utilizing a item that may be contaminated. "The market has to come together," says Susan Ash of the AKA. "There's no method the FDA is going to feel comfy not seeing this as a set up regulated substance without a commitment from the industry that there will be appropriate steps put in place." Much better labeling, for instance, would be a start.

Grundmann states he understands the DEA's inspiration. "They do not desire to have another drug out there that could potentially contribute to the currently devastating opioid epidemic that some neighborhoods are experiencing," he states. "But on the other side, we likewise have to think about that the 4 to 5 million estimated users of kratom may face a health crisis of their own if kratom ends up being arranged.".

Anecdotes and Evidence.

Ariana Campellone takes her kratom with coconut milk and protein powder. She mixes, watering down with water to take the lumps out of the mix. "Coffee offers me a visible spike and high, and can feel when I'm coming down," she says.

The DEA's public comment period closes tomorrow. The company says it will consider those comments together with the FDA's scientific and medical assessment prior to continuing to schedule. The FDA did not react in time to comment on this story.

However, if the DEA follows through on its previous intent to schedule, Campellone states she'll still continue to use kratom. "Just like individuals have continued to utilize marijuana where it's not legal," she states. In useful terms, it suggests getting ahold of kratom would most likely get more personally dangerous and pricey . Those costs, those dangers-- those inconveniences-- may not be worth it to some kratom users. Then the not-so-small neighborhood of recovering opioid addicts lose something offered, and possibly quite great.

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taeyongdoyoung · 4 years

Photo

ship: mermaid!reader x prince/pirate!seonghwa x pirate!hongjoong

genre: little mermaid!au, pirate!au, romance, ANGST, fantasy

warnings: suicide mentions, murder mentions (rip ariel), depression, panic attack, threats, someone loses a hand (bc let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be a pirate story without hooks), manipulation, betrayal, kidnapping

author’s note: mingi has a cameo, i made him a huge asshole (so sorry, irl mingi), just a reminder that everything i write is completely fictional! mingi is a a total sweetheart, i just needed a villain for the story to develop lmao

word count: 3k

chapter one ☠️ chapter two ☠️ chapter three ☠️ chapter four ☠️ chapter five ☠️ chapter seven ☠️ chapter eight ☠️chapter nine ☠️ chapter ten ☠️ chapter eleven ☠️ chapter twelve ☠️ chapter thirteen☠️ spotify playlist

You finally felt ready enough to face Seonghwa and let him explain himself. It was only fair, after all. You couldn’t take Hongjoong’s word for it, considering how he felt about you. You had to hear Seonghwa’s side of the story in order to make a proper decision. So, when you swam back to the ship all by yourself (because you didn’t want to deal with Soojin’s cheerful remarks right now), you were happy that Hongjoong wasn’t anywhere to be seen. You assumed he would drown you himself if given the chance. Luckily, you saw Yeosang nearby.

“Yeo!” you whisper-yelled. “Can you call Seonghwa for me?”

“Y/N!” Yeosang seemed surprised to see you. “I’ll get him for you rightaway.”

“Great, thanks!”

“Are you…okay?” he was obviously concerned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” you lied, because you didn’t feel like getting into it in front of Yeosang.

“Just asking,” Yeosang replied vaguely and went to call Seonghwa.

Soon enough, you were faced with him. It had only been a week of no contact with the gorgeous man and you felt like you had missed him for an eternity. You quickly reminded yourself of the reason you’d come here. You couldn’t go easy on him.

“I need to talk to you,” you stated directly.

“I understand,” Seonghwa sighed. “What about?”

“You know what,” you observed. Judging by how guilty his pretty face looked, he knew very well. And he’d spent many sleepless nights considering it. Serves him right, you thought.

“Do you want me to deny it? Because I can’t,” Seonghwa’s voice broke. “It’s true. I knew Ariel and loved her and she died because of that. You have every right to hate me. What more can I say?”

You looked away, overwhelmed by the painful realization Hongjoong had been telling the truth. But he’d left something out, you knew it.

“Tell me the whole story,” you insisted. “You didn’t kill Ariel yourself, right?”

“Of course not!” Seonghwa cried out.

“Then give me a reason to forgive you for keeping this a secret!” you continued. You couldn’t imagine Seonghwa to be the bad guy. You just couldn’t.

“The local tales have got it all wrong,” Hwa admitted. “I was going to marry Ariel, I didn’t give a shit about that princess my parents were trying to set me up with. See, the thing is…they just couldn’t let me be happy. They bribed the sea witch into turning Ariel into sea foam. When I found out, I was so heartbroken I considering ending my own life. But I had to avenge her death, first. So, I tricked the witch into transforming her body into an exact replica of mine. Her greed was so big she really thought I was just going to hand her my kingdom on a plate. After she was done with the magic, I killed her. I made sure my parents would find the body, because I wanted them to suffer for what they’d done to Ariel. By the time I was done executing my revenge, I didn’t want to die. I knew I had to keep living. For her.”

Your eyes were welled up with tears. Seonghwa’s story was completely devastating. And looking at him now…you knew that was the whole truth. You couldn’t have it any other way. But you also couldn’t bear staying. Not yet, at least.

“Seonghwa…I appreciate you telling me all this,” you murmured. “But I’m going to need some time alone, okay? I loved Ariel, too, you know? And this is just…a lot to take in, yeah?”

Seonghwa nodded sadly.

“I’m going to respect your decision. If you want to talk again, you know where to find me, right?”

“Right. Take care, Seonghwa,” you closed your eyes and sniffed lightly.

“You too, Y/N.”

“And…Seonghwa?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember I don’t hate you. I could never hate you.”

And with that, you swam away.

☠️☠️☠️

Seonghwa’s POV

This shit hurt like hell. I thought my heart had been at its limit when I found out Ariel had been turned into sea foam. Or when I realized Hongjoong had betrayed my trust. I didn’t think it could take any more heartbreak. But here it was. Still beating despite everything I’d been through. I remembered the time I’d wanted to kill myself. Put an end to all my suffering. I felt that wish slowly returning to me. But I couldn’t imagine inflicting such pain on Y/N or my crewmates. Not even Hongjoong…Because even though he stabbed me in the back, I still cared for him deeply. I also thought about Y/N’s last words to me. She didn’t hate me. Despite all I’d had done, she couldn’t hate me. I kept repeating that to myself. She just needed some time to figure things out for herself. If she could potentially forgive me…why couldn’t I forgive myself?

“Hyung, your hands are shaking!” Yeosang interrupted my distressing thoughts all of a sudden. He grabbed them tightly. “Just, breathe, okay?”

I tried to do as he said. But I felt so numb. So weak. So…alone.

“Everything will be fine, hyung, I’m here,” Yeosang kept repeating until my hands stopped shaking. Then, he held me while I fell asleep without saying a word. I was too weak to even open my mouth. What had become of me? I needed to pull myself together.

☠️☠️☠️

In the morning, I couldn’t find Yeosang in the room. I was just about to thank him for everything he’d done for me. I was feeling a lot better and wanted to cook him some chicken to show my gratitude. When I came out of the room, I asked Wooyoung and San if they had seen him, but they said they hadn’t, which was slightly troubling. Me and Hongjoong still weren’t on speaking terms, so I didn’t bother looking for him. I would find Sangie myself. After an hour, I had searched the whole ship. And there was no trace of Yeosang. Which was extremely distressing. Where could he have gone? Without telling anyone? Not me, not even his best friend Wooyoung. Well, desperate times called for desperate measures. So, I found myself forced to reach out to Hongjoong.

“Have you seen Yeosang?” I asked him without even knocking on his door.

“Oh, so now you want to talk to me?” Hongjoong scoffed.

“I don’t want to,” I groaned. “But I’m worried about him. No one’s heard from him for the past hour. I couldn’t find him anywhere. It’s weird.”

Hongjoong put a hand on his forehead in a tired but unsurprised manner. He obviously knew something I didn’t.

“Hongjoong, where is he?”

“Set the course for Mingi’s territory, I’ll explain everything once we get Yeosang back.”

“WHAT?” I yelled, completely terrified for Yeosang’s life. “WHAT WOULD YEOSANG BE DOING IN MINGI’S TERRITORY?”

☠️☠️☠️

Yeosang’s POV

In retrospect, coming here on my own was a very bad idea. But when I woke up in the middle of the night found a note next to my pillow, saying “Come alone if you don’t want your friends to get hurt,” signed with Mingi’s name, I just couldn’t refuse the challenge. I thought I could take him down once and for all. After he’d sold us out for more treasures and a bigger ship, I wanted nothing more than to get rid of him. But I had overestimated my abilities.

“Where is my ring, Kang?” Mingi roared angrily the minute I set foot on his ship.

“What ring?” I played dumb and gave him the most innocent smile I was capable of.

“The ring you stole from me, you bastard!” Mingi hissed. “Fight with me again. Winner keeps the ring.”

“I don’t have your ring,” I admitted. How could I? I had given it to Soojin…But I would never tell Mingi that. I couldn’t risk him going after my sweet angel.

“You lost it?” Mingi screamed in frustration.

“Whatcha gonna do if I did?” I smirked mischievously. I shouldn’t have asked, damnit. Shouldn’t have provoked him.

Mingi lunged at me with his sword. I pulled out mine quickly and fought back. But fuck me, he was faster and more skilled than the last time I’d faced him. He’d been working out, too. Why did I come here again? Ah, yes, thinking it would be noble to sacrifice myself. As long as my friends were safe, right? Well, guess what, dumbass. If I died, what’s the guarantee Mingi wouldn’t come after my friends, anyways? I fought him as hard as I could but I was so tired…I hadn’t been sleeping much the last coupled of days, because I was too busy comforting Seonghwa and making sure he wasn’t going to do something stupid to himself. And now, all these sleepless nights were taking their toll on my sword performance. One moment of distraction and I would be dead. Mingi could spot my frailness and took advantage of it. So far I was managing to give as good as I get. But I knew this couldn’t last forever. I had come totally unprepared for a fight. When Mingi cut off my right hand, I could barely register what had happened. I just stared at my bleeding arm and the limp hand lying on the ground. Mingi was staring, too. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done.

“Fuck!” I screamed in pain and no sooner had I said that than Hongjoong and Seonghwa appeared from out of nowhere and attacked Mingi’s ship with guns blazing. Thank God. Then, I passed out.

☠️☠️☠️

Hongjoong’s POV

“Shh, let him rest,” I whispered to Wooyoung who was being way too loud once we had safely returned to our own ship. Recap: we took Mingi by surprise, which is why we were lucky enough to succeed in disarming him and snatch poor Yeosang away from him. Mingi had not expected us to find him so quickly but the thing is, I knew him all too well. So, locating him hadn’t been difficult. It was watching the consequences of my mistakes that was hard. Because of my softness, Yeosang had lost his hand…If only I had killed Mingi when I’d had the chance. But he used to be one of us. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. We’d almost gotten executed by the army for being pirates because of his betrayal. And for what? More treasures? A bigger ship? Insignificant things when compared to having a purpose in life, having a family. But who was I to judge him? After all, I had been guilty of treason myself. The way I hurt Seonghwa…I could never forgive myself, even if he, by some miracle, did. I was such an incorrigible asshole.

“What happened?” I heard Yeosang’s weak voice pull me out of my self-deprecating thoughts.

“Well, for starters, you lost a hand,” I informed Yeosang, thought I doubted my input would be of much help.

“I can see that, jackass,” Yeosang rolled his eyes. “How did you get me out in time? How did you beat Mingi?”

“We were just lucky, that’s all,” I lied. I was doing an awful lot of that recently. Yeosang didn’t have to know what I’d given up in order to get there on time. It would break him. And he had already been through hell.

Yeosang narrowed his stare in suspicion, but didn’t push it.

“Where is Seonghwa?”

“He’s resting,” Wooyoung responded. “You should, too, pal, you look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Yeosang groaned sarcastically.

“Listen, Sangie…I know you probably don’t want to hear any of that right now, but this is just a reminder that we’re here for you. And this isn’t the end. You can always learn how to use a sword with your left hand and…”

“You’re right, Cap,” Yeosang cut me off. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

I nodded in understanding.

“Get some sleep, yeah? We’ll talk again…once you’re ready.”

Wooyoung gave his best friend a supportive squeeze of the arm and we left Yeosang to his own devices. He’d be okay. He was a strong one. But me? I was way past saving…

☠️☠️☠️

Seonghwa’s POV

“You promised you’d explain everything once we get Yeosang back,” I grabbed Hongjoong by the collar of his shirt. “We got him back. How did you know he would be on Mingi’s ship? And how on earth did you make the ship move so fast?”

Hongjoong closed his eyes to hide himself from me. But I wasn’t going to let him. He would tell me the truth or he would have to say goodbye to me. For good.

“Seonghwa…”

“No, Hongjoong. You will tell me everything right now or I’m walking out of here, you hear me?”

Hongjoong opened his eyes, fear evident in them.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning.”

“But you have to listen without saying a word. Telling you all this is going to be quite difficult for me. If you have any questions, ask me after I’m done. Can you do that for me?”

I nodded.

“So…you know how Yeosang stole this really pretty ring from Mingi back when he betrayed us? But what you don’t know is that this ring was the only thing Mingi had left from his lover. Now, I don’t know her identity but whoever she was, she meant the world to Mingi. See, the problem is…Yeosang gave that ring to Soojin. And I somehow…suspected that Mingi would find out the ring was missing. That he would come looking for the ring. And I was right. It’s just a miracle we got there on time.”

I tilted my head slightly. Something didn’t add up. I didn’t trust Hongjoong’s bullshit explanation. He was keeping something from me. Again.

“You suspected it? A miracle? Do you take me for a fool, Hongjoong? What are you not telling me?”

Hongjoong bit his lower lip as if it to keep his precious secrets from spilling.

“Mingi’s lover was the sea witch you killed. The same who turned Ariel into sea foam.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I hissed angrily.

“I wish I was. A couple of hours ago when we were on his ship, Mingi confronted me about it. He said he knew she wouldn’t just disappear from him without a trace. I told him she was dead. I’d buried her body. Well, your body. ”

“Hongjoong…” I clenched my fists and gave him a warning look that was self-explanatory.

“I didn’t tell him you killed her, of course,” Hongjoong replied quickly. “But I did tell him it was mermaids who killed her,” he announced proudly. What the fuck?

“You didn’t…” I said in vain, even though I already knew he did. He was that big of a dumbass. “What if he comes after Y/N? After Soojin? They’re innocent, Hongjoong! How could you involve them like this?”

“Was I supposed to let Mingi come after you? We barely escaped him...”

I shook my head in disappointment. He was insane. Then, it hit me. He was still hiding something. Something bigger.

“How did we get there so fast?”

Hongjoong gulped nervously.

“Don’t make me…” he begged.

“Make you?” I laughed maniacally. “You dug your own grave, sweetheart.”

Hongjoong flinched as if I’d struck him. Had I gone too far? Maybe. But he started it.

“I won’t tell you,” he was adamant about it. “I’ll tell you anything else but not this.”

“Then, we’re done here,” I turned around and started walking away.

“No, Hwa, please,” Hongjoong begged and tried to take my hand but I shrugged him off.

“You don’t get to keep things like that from me, to betray my trust again and again, and then ask me to stay,” I whispered.

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

Reader’s POV

“How long will it take you to forgive Seonghwa?” Soojin sighed, exasperated.

“What’s it to you? You can go see your precious boyfriend whenever you want,” you snapped at your sister.

“Yeah, but it’s way more fun when we go to our pirates together!” Soojin explained.

You laughed sarcastically.

“Since when are they our pirates? They are humans, Soojin, not property!”

“Okay, okay,” Soojin lifted her arms in the air, surrendering. “But seriously…we should go talk to them again. I have a bad feeling…I don’t know how to explain it, I just…I’m worried about Yeosang. Please?”

You agreed reluctantly.

“But if everything’s alright, I’m going back here,” you announced.

Soojin nodded excitedly. The two of you swam up. Once you reached the surface, you realized Soojin had picked an awful time to check up on Yeosang. It was too dark. And as you approached the ship, you were overwhelmed by a gnawing sensation. Soojin had been right. Something was awfully wrong. The ship seemed exactly like Hongjoong’s…And yet, there was something strange you couldn’t quite place. Did it look bigger at night? How was this possible? You had seen it at night when you’d saved Seonghwa from drowning…And it did not look like this. Had your memories deceived you? You could tell this was certainly a pirate ship. But why were you doubting it was the pirate ship you’d been looking for? What were the odds to run into other pirates in the middle of the night? You were fairly certain you could recognize Hongjoong’s ship anywhere. And yet…

“Yeosang!” Soojin started screaming mournfully. “Where are you?” You could tell by her voice that she was worried sick about her pirate boyfriend. And for a good reason.

“Shh,” you pressed your hand against your sister’s mouth. “Quiet. Something’s not right.”

She blinked at you in confusion.

“What do you mean?” she mouthed.

“I don’t know,” you mouthed back. “But before we found out, can you keep it down?”

Soojin nodded, obviously trusting your judgement. She was uncharacteristically anxious, too. Instead of her usual cheerful self, she was being very jumpy.

“Listen…let’s come back here when it’s daylight, okay?” you suggested. “I’m sure Yeosang will be fine.”

“Just let me try calling his name one more time, yeah?” Soojin murmured hopefully.

“Soojin, no!” you tried to stop her but it was already too late.

“YEOSANG!” Soojin cried out.

It was in that moment the fishnets fell upon you.

To be continued…

#ateez #seonghwa #hongjoong #yeosang #mingi #seongjoong #seonghwa x reader #ateez angst #ateez x reader #soojin #(g)i-dle #pirate au #mermaid au #writing

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beckettmoba468-blog · 6 years

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KRATOM: THE UNPLEASANT TREE THAT SHOULD ASSIST OPIOID JUNKIES-- WHEN THE DEA DOES NOT BAN IT

The girl up in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. It is a small neighborhood, wealthy and charmingly New England. Heroin was very available there, and very great.

By age 15, Campellone was a everyday user. She stopped going to school, stopped doing much of anything besides scoring drugs, doing drugs, stealing stuff, offering things, scoring more drugs, doing more drugs. "This was the start of the New England heroin epidemic," she states. "Everyone I knew was overdosing, passing away, lives falling apart, people contracting diseases from sharing needles."

That experience was mirrored around the country. In 2014, overdoses from heroin or prescription opioids eliminated 30,000 people-- four times as numerous than in 1999. Today, 3,900 brand-new individuals start using prescription opioids for non-medical purposes every day. Almost 600 start taking heroin. The yearly health and social expenses of the prescription opioid crisis in America? $55 billion.

Campellone kicked her routine at 19-- with rehab, suboxone, and a lot of self-control-- and moved out west, to the San Francisco Bay Area. Her managers and co-workers presented her to a myriad of plant-based items, among them a tart-tasting leaf called kratom. It was also a decent painkiller, so she 'd take it when she was hurt, or on her menstrual cycle.

And, on 2 occasions, she used it to help with the withdrawal signs following heroin regressions. "Nothing really feels great when you're withdrawing from heroin, so no matter what you're taking, you're still in discomfort and it's quite excruciating," states Campellone. But kratom assisted some.

Campellone never needs a prescription to obtain kratom. Nor does she have to visit a dealer. She purchases it from an organic solution shop-- about $20 for a 4-ounce packet, which lasts about a week. She gets a stomach ache when she takes too much. When she does not take it, she does not crave it like she craved heroin. Primarily she does not consider it; it just sits in her cabinet. She was amazed when, on August 30, the DEA announced that it was pursuing an emergency scheduling of mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, the active alkaloids in kratom. Campellone was among perhaps 4 or 5 million Americans who were being told, for possibly the first time, that this leaf positioned an " impending threat to public safety."

The DEA Takes an Exception to Kratom

Biologically, kratom acts enough like an opioid that DEA considers it a danger to public safety. The firm prepared to use a regulative system called emergency situation scheduling to position it in the very same restrictive category as marijuana, lsd, and heroin . This category, Schedule I, is scheduled for exactly what the DEA considers the most harmful drugs-- those with no redeeming medical value, and a high capacity for abuse.

Before they finalized the scheduling, something unexpected happened. An advocacy group called the American Kratom Association (yes, AKA) raised $400,000 from its impassioned membership-- outstanding for a nonprofit that usually raises $80,000 a year-- to pay for lobbyists and lawyers , who got Congress on their side.

On September 30, representatives both liberal and conservative -- from Orrin Hatch to Bernie Sanders-- penned a letter to the DEA. "Given the long reported history of kratom use, combined with the public's sentiment that it is a safe option to prescription opioids, our company believe utilizing the routine review process would offer for a much-needed conversation amongst all stakeholders," they composed.

It worked. The DEA raised the notification of emergency scheduling, and opened a public remark duration up until December 1. When was the last time the DEA withdrawed anything? "This is uncommon," says Gantt Galloway, a Bay Area pharmacologist specializing in treatments for addicting drugs. Galloway could not recall another instance when the DEA responded to public outcry like this.

They are from: individuals who utilize kratom to eliminate persistent discomfort or endometriosis or gout; individuals who use kratom to treat anxiety or wean off opioids or alcohol; people who stated it saved their life. "It doesn't permit you to escape your issues," says Susan Ash, founder of the AKA, who used kratom https://www.drugs.com/illicit/kratom.html to deal with discomfort and leave an dependency to prescription opioids.

And definitely not sufficient to back up all the life-altering claims extolled in public remarks, and by the numerous kratom users we interviewed. And ought to the DEA follow through on its pledge to schedule kratom, these people will become criminals overnight.

For Ash, that's entirely undesirable. "I desire the future to appear like this is your next coffee," she says. "I 'd like it to be offered in Starbucks. I'm not even kidding."

An Herb Wades Into an Opioid Crisis

Kratom is not an opioid-- in fact, it is in the coffee household-- but its active particles bind to the same neuronal receptors as opioids like heroin, morphine, codeine, and oxycodone . Typically, those drugs provide users a feeling of euphoria and dull their pain-- that's why David *, a previous boarding school instructor, began utilizing prescription opioids to treat his pain from ski injuries. He became addicted, and when his prescriptions ran out, he changed to heroin. "I ended up being a high working user," he states. "My addiction was never ever discovered at my place of work, although I do believe my behavior became more unpredictable."

When David eventually devoted himself to rehab, his medical professionals weaned him off heroin using suboxone, a combination of 2 drugs-- buprenorphine, a partial opioid that satiates the body's chemical thirst, and naltrexone, which obstructs any euphoric opioid sensations. "Dependence on that was different from heroin, and it ended up being much easier to take more suboxone to a higher high, or selling it to score heroin again," he says.

As of this writing, though, David has actually been clean for 18 months-- success that he associates to kratom. Considering that it binds to the exact same receptors as opioids, kratom users report similar blissful and pain-killing effects, but they're silenced. After other 12 step recuperating addicts presented David to the plant, it assisted him reconstruct his life-- he did ultimately lose that boarding school teaching job-- and deal with the physical pain that got him hooked on opioids to begin with.

Since it mirrors opioids in other ways, the concern is that kratom is likewise addicting. David and a number of other users we spoke with said kratom is routine forming, to some degree, though one study in Southeast Asia found that for individuals using it to kick an opioid addiction, the reliance is far less likely to interrupt their lives. "When I take kratom, that addictive part of me kicks in and it ends up being regular," states Jeffrey *, another former opioid addict.

There is no doubt, nevertheless, that kratom is less harmful than opioids-- even take-home synthetics like suboxone. When opioids eliminate, they do it through respiratory depression-- they slow your breath up until you stop breathing totally. But kratom's chemical composition does not appear to produce the very same effects. "The two main alkaloids in 7-hydroxy, kratom and mitragynine , appear to have a low ceiling for breathing depression," says pharmacologist Jack Henningfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who with the consulting company Pinney Associates has actually encouraged the AKA on kratom scheduling. "And that's why if you look hard, it's very challenging to discover deaths attributable purely to kratom."

In its preliminary notice of emergency scheduling for kratom, the DEA did link the drug to 15 deaths between 2014 and 2016. Folks utilizing kratom to wean themselves off opioids may still be taking those opioids.

And some deaths might be credited to contamination: Because kratom isn't really strictly managed, bad actors can and do lace the plant with actual opioids, like the very powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. "You can just envision, 'Oh you got pain? Well, we've got a special kratom item,'" Henningfield says. "Maybe it has fentanyl in it. That's frightening." Plainly, the plant needs some kind of policy. The question is whether the DEA's scheduling is the ideal kind.

Regulatory Wranglings

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The FDA might assist avoid contamination-related deaths by strictly regulating kratom as a supplement, as opposed to the DEA scheduling it as a drug. "FDA has a lot of authority to in fact assist customers understand that exactly what they're purchasing is what is labeled, and have at least some level of guarantee," Henningfield says. "It's not near the drug requirement, however it's much better than something that's illicitly marketed."

But the FDA is actually also essential in advising the DEA on the scheduling of drugs. "The decision to completely arrange any drug is not a DEA unilateral choice," says Steve Bell, a DEA representative. Think about the regulatory path of suboxone. The FDA authorized the drug in 2002, and the Department of Health and Human Services advised that the DEA put it in Schedule III, which the DEA accepted. This puts the drug in the very same classification as Tylenol with codeine: It's offered for doctors to recommend for narcotic dependency, but is still a illegal drug.

Schedule I, though, is an entirely different rodeo. No one can touch the stuff if the DEA locations kratom here. Current users, should they continue to utilize, will be forced to even sketchier sources. And researchers will have a more difficult time discovering how kratom works, and supporting, or refuting, the claims users make with tough data. (Consider marijuana, also a Schedule I drug. Since getting authorizations to study the drug is an exercise in bureaucratic insanity.), Science has a dearth of information on it.

All that research study costs loan. Which is kratom's catch-22: The DEA wants to set up the drug because they think it may posture a threat to public health, but the only way to validate (or refute) the DEA's concerns is with more research study-- which will be beside difficult should the DEA follow through on its pledge to schedule.

Among the couple of researchers studying kratom is the University of Florida's Oliver Grundmann, who is ending up an online study of nearly 10,000 users. And the data (preliminary, though Grundmann prepares to release a paper in the coming months) exposes a different profile of kratom users than you 'd expect from an "illicit" recreational drug.

" The age variety is more geared toward an older population," states Grundmann, "which is most likely to experience work associated injuries or severe or persistent pain from another medical condition." Over half of users are in between the ages of 31 and 50. Eighty-two percent completed a minimum of some college. Almost 30 percent of participants pull in a family earnings of over $75,000 a year. Not the party drug demographic. And the public remarks on the DEA's scheduling notice show that https://www.wired.com/2016/11/kratom-bitter-plant-help-opioid-addicts-dea-doesnt-ban population. A lot of those folks are using kratom to either wean themselves off prescription opioids or utilize the drug alone to treat pain.

Still, that's self-medication utilizing a product that might be polluted. "The market needs to come together," states Susan Ash of the AKA. "There's no other way the FDA is going to feel comfy not seeing this as a arranged controlled compound without a commitment from the industry that there will appertain steps put in place." Much better labeling, for example, would be a start.

Grundmann says he understands the DEA's motivation. "They do not wish to have another drug out there that could potentially contribute to the already devastating opioid epidemic that some neighborhoods are experiencing," he states. "But on the other side, we also have to think about that the 4 to 5 million approximated users of kratom might deal with a health crisis of their own if kratom becomes set up.".

Anecdotes and Evidence.

Ariana Campellone takes her kratom with coconut milk and protein powder. She mixes, watering down with water to take the lumps out of the mixture. "Coffee provides me a noticeable spike and high, and can feel when I'm coming down," she says.

The DEA's public remark period closes tomorrow. The agency states it will consider those remarks together with the FDA's clinical and medical evaluation prior to continuing to schedule. The FDA did not respond in time to talk about this story.

If the DEA follows through on its previous intent to schedule, Campellone says she'll still continue to utilize kratom. Those costs, those risks-- those troubles-- might not be worth it to some kratom users.

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