Imho the idea of ‘cruelty free’ products or food shouldn’t mean that nothing died to create it, but rather that anything and anyone involved in the creation process hasn’t been exploited or harmed.
Leather is good actually. Veganism isn’t the end all be all to morality and consumption. The issue isn’t that a chicken died for those nuggets, but that while the chicken was alive, it’s life fucking sucked. Vegan chocolate means little if the cocoa that made it was gathered by child slave labor.
Factory farms, abuses of the people who pick the fruit and vegetables we eat, the focus profit and productivity over all else - that’s the fucking issue here. It’s capitalism folks.
This idea has been stuck in my head for a while and wouldn’t let me off until I do something about it.
I wonder if those who look at the wordless comic strip would understand what I was trying to convey…
In a dystopian where corruption is common, Kuroko was sold to the auction house as a slave by his parents at a very young age. He was often tortured, abused, starved and made to do harsh physical labors. One day, he saw a child and his parent interact with each other, and he was filled with longing for someone who would care for him, but believed that it would never be possible. When he saw the child throwing away a half-eaten food, he immediately went to dig it out from the trash bin. However, he was caught by his masters for doing so and thus, was punished. His masters then left him in the abandoned basement of their mansion with little food and water.
Akashi was maybe a prince or official-in-training sent to this rural town to deal with the corruption by his father as part of his training. As he was reading the notes about the town, he realised that slavery is a practice in the town and he immediately called for people to arrest those who took part in illegal human trafficking. He freed all the slaves in the mansion and gave them a huge sum of money to help them build a new life(so huge they could live comfortably for the rest of their lives). One of the older slaves then informed Akashi that there was still another slave, the youngest, who was bought when he was still a toddler, and that he knew nothing about a normal life. She then inform him that the kid is being locked up somewhere, as they haven’t seen him around for weeks.
Akashi immediately turned back into the mansion to look for that last slave. In the master’s bedroom, he found a dilapidated metal door cleverly hidden and picked the lock open. He head down the flight of stairs and open another door to find a young teenager staring back at him. As Akashi tried to approach the boy, the boy scurried and cowered away from him, up until he was cornered. The boy then went into a defensive position, curling up his body and covering his head while he whimpered in fear for the impending pain.
He was shocked, however, when instead of feeling pain, he was embraced gently. Looking up at the redhead, said redhead smiled kindly and told him, “You don’t have to be anyone’s slave anymore. You are free now.”.
Kuroko was so shocked to hear that that he cried, and Akashi simply held him as he calmed down.
After that, Akashi decides to bring Kuroko to his mansion and teach him about the normal life. Kuroko was, however, wary and terrified of everyone except Akashi, and he often still behaves like a slave. Though, over time, that changed, and Kuroko now acts like a normal person, except with recurring nightmares about his abuse.
Overtime, as Akashi showed Kuroko the ways of being a normal human(he refuse to send Kuroko back to his family after finding out from some old agreement papers that he was sold by his family), he slowly fell in love with Kuroko, finding him to be sweet and endearing. However, he is hesitant to act on it as he is worried that Kuroko would reciprocate his emotion out of gratitude and obligation.
When Kuroko realised that he too, loves Akashi, he then had to deal with his insecurities as a former slave and showing Akashi that his love is real and not out of obligations.
I am a horrible writer, drawing is the best I can do. Hope this would appease my mind.
