The protector

Home (Se-ri's POV)

Author's note: uhm... I would have gladly avoided to add such note, but recent events convinced me it's sadly needed. 

This FF often deals with the subject of violence against women, and it has been often remarked how a traditional, conservative mindset still is - and again, sadly - the aquis for such cancer to be nurtured. Not meaning with it that the conservatives are violent, but that when a wife, a daughter, a sister, a colleague, a schoolmate, a friend, the woman who sells you the breakfast while you're going to school, the woman you met on the bus every morning, are abused, this systematically happens behind the pretest of a conservative mindset: women have to be disciplined, women don't respect their men ecc. Of course, they do this misreading conservative values, but the fact is: they do it. 

Thus, consider when you use terms like "a man has his needs" or "a woman knows" or similar, while you are - and I'm totally sure of it - just expressing your opinion, you also are unwittingly perpetuating a stereotype that has worked and still works as an excuse for men to be abusive and for a certain rotten part of the society to justify the abuses. Sad to say, this comes from men, but this often comes from women too: judging, giving advice, or educating when it comes about younger women, to simply bear in silence and be a good girl.

This also means that readers who have suffered it on their own skin will feel triggered, because certain words could bring out memories and traumas even if they are not meant to support violence, because they belong to that specific area. And other readers could feel triggered because, sorry not sorry, conservatives sometimes (often) forget to modulate their opinions so as not to make it sound judgmental, and sometimes they simply are judgmental. 

Now, as I have already said in another note, this FF aims to be a safe space for my readers. This means that everyone is welcome - and I seriously mean everyone. You believe in one love for all your life? Welcome. You believe in polyamory? Welcome. You believe in dying alone with 20 cats? Welcome. - and so I have to kindly invite you to re-read your comments before posting, and if you feel they could make feel other people judged, please fix it. 

Seoul, 2027, September

The woman stepped as fast as the tube skirt, the medium yet uncomfortably produced in a low-quality leather heel, and the even lower quality nylon tights of the company-issued uniform, allowed her. The irritation from rubbing in her inner thigh had her lips forming a grimace of discomfort – "if you were thinner this wouldn't happen" they had told her, body shaming remaining a vacuous word to make the policy documents look fancier. Should read: aligned to the western standards – without the woman stopping, though. The acute sound hovering from the cabin 1A was alarming.

She found the woman slightly blushed. The eyes – incredible – curved into a crescent moon, were displaying at their corners little, shining tears. Her laughs were low, but of the kind that couldn't be stopped, the kind that left one breathless, and redden the cheeks. It was a bitter, grieving, evil laughing. Her mouth was smiling, and her eyes were curved. But they were cold too, bereft of human warmth. She was laughing like hyenas did. Though, she didn't look mean. She looked lost.

People usually didn't expect from a flight attendant to know such things, but the truth was that one could learn a lot travelling every day in the first class of a flight. Could, and had to. Recognizing a nervous manager from one who had just consumed cocaine in the toilet – and please don't try to guess how they had possibly brought drug on a flight. Spoiler: it's a gross and dirty business – for example. The first would have slightly trembled, the second shook with little tics. The first needed a glass of wine. The second absolutely no, if they didn't want to attend the show of a manager willing to walk on the wall of the plain thinking he was Spiderman – it wasn't a joke: it had happened.