#southern flounder always lie on their right side!

[t00thpasteface]

54 common fish of texas, part 15: alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula), southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma)

[m-feys]

Piece of Home

| Avatar: The last Airbender fic | words ~1800 | Sokka & Katara | Water Siblings Week prompt - Homesick | set while hiding in the Fire Nation |

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Aang had already wandered off to get water as per Katara’s request and Toph had ambled off to, “check the perimeter,” as she put it, politely ignoring Katara’s requests to go get more firewood in favor of whatever she was doing. Probably actually checking the perimeter, considering the kind of territory they were in. It was just them at camp now, with Sokka almost through with putting up the tent while Katara started on the food.

As soon as the tarp was in place (no need for extra blankets, it was hot enough in the Fire Nation already) he stepped back and arched his back in a stretch before turning around to bother Katara.

“What’s cooking?” he asked, coming to stand behind her and leaning his hand on the top of her head fondly, knowing it would annoy her. Of course, he already knew what she was going to make, options were limited, especially with them having just landed. Sokka would help her peel the potato-carrots while the water warmed up and then she would make a stew with the meager seasonings they had left over and a small serving of rice to go with it, rationed out from their time on the run since Ba Sing Se.

Maybe if he got the chance to hunt tomorrow they would have something more, save for Aang, who would just have to wait until they could visit the market.

He waited for her to snipe back something like: ‘Nothing for you if you don’t get off me!” It never came. Instead she was silent, and the spark rocks were left unused in her hands, the fire still unlit in front of her.

He pulled his hand away and dropped into a crouch beside her, suddenly concerned. “Hey, you good?”

She still said nothing, but then she turned her head to look at him, eyes shining with tears in the wane moonlight, panic spiked in his chest. His little sister was hurt but, where? How?

His eyes darted to get a quick look over her where she was sitting beside the fire wood but he couldn't see any obvious reasons for pain, no visible wounds. 

“Katara what’s wrong?” he asked urgently.

She blinked and looked back down at her hands, eyes still so watery.

“I’m just— ” she tried to speak, breath shaking. She hesitated then, her brows pinching thoughtfully before she went on, “Sokka, do you ever… miss home?”

His heart dropped then, in relief, that’s what this was, homesickness.

He let out a breath and shifted so he was kneeling down beside her a little more comfortably.

“Yeah, of course I do,” he answered, waiting for her to go on. Because with Katara it was usually best to just be patient and let her get it out on her own.

“Do you think we’ll ever get to go home?” She whispered, so breathless and the words took the breath out of him too. He looked at her sharply then, eyes pulled wide.

He had no answer, because, ‘I always planned on dying for this war, for my people, my home, the world, and for you,’ was not an answer to give his little sister, and no way he was going to lie to her either.

He had nothing. He’d always promised himself to protect her but really, what could he do? He had no bending, he couldn’t keep her out of this fight, and he had no way of actually shielding her from anything. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even promise his little sister he would get her home safe, when she was so scared. He was useless.

He could only look at her, gutted, and flounder for something, anything, to console her with.

And then Katara was the one doing the talking, saving him again, exactly how his younger sister shouldn’t have to. She was his responsibility and he was failing.

“I keep thinking about my furs, we lost them a while ago and it’s really stupid, but I used to bury my face in them when I was feeling like this,” there’s silent tears dripping down onto her hands now, head bowed towards her lap and the sight of it pulls him out of his own head, back to what’s important. He puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and waits once more.

They hadn’t needed their furs since they left the North Pole, he hadn’t even known Katara had been doing that. How long had he gone unaware of this? They lost them back in the desert, along with Appa, of course Katara never would have said anything.

“And I miss Gran Gran so much,” she said, letting out a sob with the words now, the dam breaking fully and he leaned closer to her to wrap an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him too, “I want to curl up with her by the fire while we eat and show her everything I learned, but what if I never see her again?” She said brokenly, turning her head to look at him again suddenly, tears streaming down her face and a fragile desperation in her eyes.

“What if— what if we do get home,” she started, “but it takes too long? What if we do get home but she’s already dead?” She asked of him.

Sokka let out a shuddering breath of his own, tugging her closer then, and pressing his head to hers, it was so he wouldn’t have to see that look on her face and just as much so she couldn’t see the look on his, see how close he was to breaking.

“Don’t talk like that. Okay, Katara?” he said immediately, because this was all wrong he was supposed to be the pessimistic one here, she wasn’t ever supposed to have to bear the burden of thinking like that, but right now she was and he wished more than anything he could take it away.

“No matter what happens,” he said, voice breaking for a moment as warmth gathered in his eyes, but he took a breath and controlled his voice more carefully as he went on, “no matter where we go, Mom, and Dad, and Gran Gran. they’re all with us in a way, you know?” He said, everything felt like an uphill battle and this was no different, he just wished he could be more adequate when it came to consoling his sister, if nothing else.

She’d dropped the rocks now and had her hand resting on the hollow of her throat as she sniffed and sobbed, their Mother’s (grandmother’s) necklace wasn’t there, however. She’d had to take it off when they started hiding out in the Fire Nation.

He held her close to his side and smoothed a hand down her hair.

“You know,” he said, leaning away just enough to look down at her, petting a hand through her hair as he spoke and feeling vulnerable as he spoke about something he’d kept, more or less, locked away for the last year. 

“Whenever I get worried, I look up, and I ask Yue to watch over them for me,” he says at a whisper. It was never fair, because he had been meant to watch over her and he’d failed. But he only ever asked her to check in on them, make sure they were doing alright, smiling down on them in her moonly ways. He glanced up to see the moon in it’s waxing crescent form, it seemed to glow brighter in that moment, but he knew it was only a trick of his eyes.

“Do you think she’s seen home?” Katara asked in return, sounding worn down and rung out.

“Well, the moon is in the sky at home so yeah, I would guess she’s seen it,” he answered wryly, smiling at her sadly.

“What do you think she thinks of it?”

Sokka paused and pondered over that for a moment, “I think she probably likes how the people there all depend on each other, and she probably would be amazed to meet Gran Gran, especially if she knew about how she came to the Southern Water tribe.”

“And she probably laughed at your stupid watchtower,” Katara spoke then, smiling up at him slightly, eyes still puffy and cheeks still shining with tears as she looked at him through the waves of hair hanging around her face.

“Hey,” he objected mildly, shaking her against him slightly, “I worked hard on that watchtower,” he countered, falsely offended. He thought back to the fish he’d carved for her that looked like a bear and guessed Katara was probably right, Yue might giggle and smile that charmed smile to see their home. But only in a way that was kind, because she seemed to radiate kindness.

“She would have really liked it,” he said, seriously, and honest, because it’s true.

“Yeah,” Katara agreed, ”and when we get home,” she went on, softly and he didn’t miss the fact that she said it with that reliable certainty she usually had. “You can tell her about how everything’s changed when I get back to rebuild with my bending.”

“Yeah?” He asked, smiling down at her head hopefully now.

“Yeah,” she agreed, shifting her head to look at him directly now and smiling back with that icy, unrelenting, stubborn look in her eye, the one that meant she was determined to do something no matter what.

He sighed, “good,” he said, lifting his hand now to brush away the wetness on her face, though he knew she could do it more efficiently herself with bending, but this was one small thing he could do for her. Gran Gran did the same, and further back where the memories got fuzzy it was their mom, who brushed away their tears and held them close.

“I should probably start the fire,” she sighed, though she still had yet to pick the spark rocks up again. He hummed thoughtfully, normally, he was the one to keep them on schedule and made sure that they all ate and promptly got some sleep after landing but right now he knew that wasn’t what she needed.

“You know,” he started, “if you want to feel at home, you could just freeze everything and walk around shivering.”

At that she snorted a laugh, “shut up, Sokka,” she suggested happily as she pushed at him slightly.

“I’m just throwing out ideas here,” he defended mildly, smirking slightly as she leaned against his side. Both of them content to sit side-by-side for a while. This was as close to home as they were going to get out here. For each other, they were the biggest piece of home they had left.

[fluorescentpipedream]

Velvet Touch

Ryki Paelyae sat outside on the back step of his best friend Jon’s apartment in Southern Illinois, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips and a pad of paper in his lap, tapping a pen against the paper. He was half writing, half thinking while drinking a cup of coffee in the brisk fall air. Tapping the page again, he scowled as he looked down at it and crossed out an entire section of what was supposed to be a song. Long tendrils of smoke danced in front of his eyes before disappearing and for a moment he tried focusing on them. His mind was running about 12 tracks back to back, between music, Jon’s slow recovery from his depression over potentially losing his husband, the goings on at work - mostly revolving around the sheer magnitude of insanity their boss had become. Ryki’s heart and mind were warring over the people who lived to the right of Jon’s apartment. Or rather, one in particular.  He’d known her once, nearly 8 years ago but neither of them were the people they had once been.

Kristy and Ryki had a rather heated argument last night and now he was trying to work out what he should do versus what he wanted to do. And partially, what he had already done...Ryki was a car thief and while he tried to justify it because of some pendulum swinging over his head for past misdeeds against his boss, the reality of the situation was that he hated his job. He used to like the rush but now...now it was amazing that Damian hadn’t shot him and his entire crew by now. Damian was a nutjob but he was also getting in the way of what Ryki wanted to really do with his life. He looked down at the note pad in his lap once more and frowned, frisbeeing it away from him. He heard a cough behind him and shifted his eyes towards the sound.

The man who came out the door was nearly as tall as Ryki, but significantly skinnier and incredibly pale. He looked kind of like a wisp standing there in an unbuttoned pair of skinny black jeans and no shirt. Seemingly random tattoos dotted his chest and arms and there was a large butterfly across his abdomen. Ryki acknowledged Louis with a head nod but little else.

“Why are you sitting outside?”

“Jon doesn’t like it when I smoke inside.”

“Ah..” Louis ran his long fingers up the back of Ryki’s head and through his short, black hair, giving it a soft tug before reaching around and stealing the cigarette from him. Taking a drag, he stepped around Ryki and off the back porch, stumbling a little as he missed the last step. Louis regained his footing well enough and offered the cigarette back to Ryki who turned it down. Shrugging, he knelt down to pick up the notebook, reading a few of the lines.

“So much heartaches and pain, always on my way...” Louis rose up gracefully and moved a swath of his long hair out of his face. “This is really good.”

“Eh...”

“No...really. Is it about her?”

Ryki frowned. He had been angry last night and called one of the numbers he’d meant to delete, looking for comfort. Louis knew exactly what he was good for and why he’d been called, which had paid off in the long run. Louis walked back over to Ryki, handing him his book with a smirk on his thin lips.

“I’m going back to the dorm, you should talk her.” Louis stepped around Ryki again and crushed the cigarette in a small, mushroom shaped ashtray beside the door. Ryki balked but got up, following the other man into the apartment. Jon was awake and Ryki could hear the shower turn on. He stopped as Louis leaned over to pick up a worn out heartagram t-shirt and pulled it on.

“What would you do?”

“With what?”

“If you were in my shoes?”

“Why are all the pretty ones so damn stupid.” Louis rolled his eyes and sighed. Ryki took a step back from him and waited for the inevitable clap back. “I would go over and apologize for being an asshole.” He flopped back onto the couch and pulled his shirt down over his stomach. His eyes were piercing if not a little unsettling. Louis wasn’t a particularly attractive man, Ryki had noticed that about him when they’d first met. He was long bodied with bony features. Though he had a chiseled jaw there was something about him that just screamed at being more trouble than he was worth. And to some extent, that was true. He was prone to depressive episodes and a generally bad attitude. Louis leaned forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees.

“Ryki...you called me because you wanted an angry fuck, and I’m good for that.” The scratch marks on his back could atest to that. “But what you really want is next door...you spent the entire night bitching because this woman had a weakness, wound up with the people who ruined both of your lives and you couldn’t deal with it. You’re a fucking disaster, albeit a beautiful one. Just...take a fucking chance on her, if you still love her. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that you fucked up, you hate your job, your boss is nuts and all you want is to walk over there, scoop up that pudgy little gothic girl and make her scream your name.”

Ryki stared at him for a moment. “I...She’s pregnant, not pudgy”

“Is she? Oh...well...Shit. But it still stands...You want that little gothic girl in your arms and you know I’m right. All you could talk about last night was her. If I cared any more about myself, I would have been offended.”

Louis set his jaw and Ryki couldn’t figure out if he was serious or not. But the man was right, after they’d had sex, Ryki had still been frustrated. When Louis had asked why, Ryki had unloaded. He was proud of Kristy, she wasn’t the same girl he’d met all those years ago. She had friends in both high and low places. She had big heart and a strong constitution, stronger than he expected her to have, honestly. She was brilliant and still so beautiful but eclectic...

“What do you mean?” Louis had asked.

“She devours books, hangs around creatively odd people...if you were nicer she’d be friends with you...”

“No thank you.”

“My point. But she’s into nerdy things too...”

“A fact that doesn’t surprise me...” Louis had mused, rolling onto his back while Ryki prattled on for most of the night. Now, Louis hopped off the couch, simultaneously pulling up his pants that had slipped further down his hips. Sizing Ryki up, he said nothing else as he grabbed a beat up jacket off the back of the couch and walked out the door. Half way down the sidewalk something small and fuzzy ran into his leg.

“Oof...Hey fuzzball” He knelt down and started petting the honey colored puffball that wagged her tail happily at him. It took him a second before he realized there was someone attached to the leash and he looked up through a veil of long, slightly wavy brown hair.

“Oh...hello” He knew immediately who she was but waited a minute before he said anything. Louis’ attention was more focused on the dog that was snarfling his pant leg. The young woman in front of him looked like a pixie with bright hazel eyes and a look in her eyes that told him not to push her buttons. Ryki had described her as Betty Crocker with a glock, and he could see it.

“You must be Kristy, it’s nice to finally have a face to put with the name.”

Ryki had been standing in the middle of the living room where Louis had left him before drawing himself out of his reverie. Jon had come halfway down to ask him to start the coffee pot, he was going to work today. Nodding to no one in particular, Ryki moved into the kitchen opening the small window over the sink. As he was filling the coffee pot, he overheard part of the conversation and cursed. Louis wasn’t exactly the most subtle of people and the look on Kristy’s face from where he was standing already filled him with dread.

“Louis. I’m a friend of Ryki’s....” Louis responded to one of Kristy’s questions. Ryki set down the coffee pot and hurried out the door, while trying to make it look like he wasn’t hurrying.  Louis held the cards in his hand and Ryki knew that all it would take was for the other man to want to add a little bit of drama to the situation and he’d tell her everything.

”He let me sleep on the couch last night, a water main broke in my dorm.” He pushed his hair behind his ear as he spoke. Ryki flinched and joined them outside. The puppy, Lilly, seemed to take notice of his arrival and made a bee-line right for him.

“Call me later”  Louis’ tone was almost a taunt but Ryki shrugged it off and knelt down to love on Lilly. He left her alone as she started doing little circles off to the side of the two of them.

“Water main broke? That’s....” It was a terrible lie and both of them knew it.

“Yeah...Louis is a....friend” Ryki winced, not entirely sure he wanted to commit that much to whatever Louis was to him. “About last night...”

“Seems like you found what you wanted somewhere else.” Ouch. But he deserved that

“No...Kristy..I...uh...” He floundered. “I want to talk to you about...that.” He gestured at Louis, who was driving away already.  “Please?” Kristy sighed very loudly and told Lilly to hurry up before she walked away. Ryki cursed and followed after her, catching her arm before she got too far away.  

“Kristy.” With an exasperated sound, she stopped and rounded on him. Ryki had a couple of inches on her so he took a step back and looked down at her. His blue eyes were icier than usual.

“I have some things to take care of at the condo before I can move in. If you want to talk....do it fast.”

Fuck. Where did he start? 8 years ago he came to Southern Illinois to escape the man he was currently working for after killing that man’s brother with a meat mallet when he assaulted Ryki’s little sister...He had no intention, at the time, to fall in love but when he did he wanted to tell her everything. His plans were waylaid by the very same hit men who she later worked for and had him so scared to come back because of their threat of watching her and having her killed if he did? Yeah...probably not.

“I...” I’m a car thief working with a bunch of degenerates no better than I am and I probably work for the mob in Chicago or India or perhaps for both at the same time depending on who my crazy boss wants to answer to today but what I really want to do is be a musician and do something meaningful with my life? ....Nope.

“I’m a fucking disaster” Ryki frowned and Kristy rolled her eyes at him as he gestured with his hands and then dropped them at his side.

“For fucks sake, Ryki! You are not a disaster! Just tell me the damn truth! What do you want, Ryki Paelyae?”

Ryki let out a breath he had been holding and just shook his head.

“I want to be doing anything other than what I am. It’s easy to say, but it’s nearly impossible to do with who I work for and what I do.” Ryki ran a hand through his hair absently.

“I had no right to get angry with you about the Four but it still dug the dagger in deeper finding out that they groomed you while threatening me that they’d kill you if I ever came back.” He paused.

“I would  -love- to walk into work and tell Damian to get fucked, but the way that little rat is strung, he’d shoot me square between the eyes and never have a second thought. I...I never stopped thinking about you and when I saw you I swore I was losing my mind.”

Ryki searched Kristy’s face for some kind of reaction.

“Me too.” Her voice was quiet, most of the venom gone. “When I realized it was you, that wound I thought was healed opened again and then you reacted the way you did...and pushing me away...”

“I know. There was some part of me that hoped if I pushed hard enough I would convince myself that I didn’t...”

“Didn’t what?” Kristy closed the gap between them, which was a little difficult as Lilly was trying to go back inside. Ryki could smell her shampoo with her this close and it brought a smile to his lips. Without hesitation, he leaned into her, taking hold of the back of her head in one hand and kissed her deeply. The kiss only lasted seconds but it was everything he’d hoped it to be.

“That I still love you.” He said as he broke the kiss but didn’t pull away.

[the-dj-is-asleep]

One Night: Chapter 2

AO3 

Chapter 1

Eventually, the cool night air forces them to start moving again. Southern California may be warm at this time of year but at 3am, even the warmest climates can feel cold. The light breeze cuts right through their thin shirts and pants (resembling hospital scrubs more than anything else). Kara doesn’t reach out to hold Lena’s hand again though she desperately wants to. She doesn’t want to live through the moment where Lena flinches away and glares at her like she hates her.

“Do you have any idea of where we’re heading?” Lena asks, irritation creeping into her voice.

“Northwest,” Kara says. “I’m from space remember? I know my stars. I think the compound we were at was south-east of National City so we should hit civilization at some point.”

“At what point exactly?” Lena asks. “Because you don’t have super endurance right now and I certainly do not. Also, we’re in the middle of the forest. We could get attacked by bears or something.”

Kara rolls her eyes.

“Bears are docile unless provoked. And either way,” Kara says turning to face Lena, who looks entirely unimpressed, “I’ll protect you.”

The DEO is too loud right now. Cadmus released another video, this one without any sort of narrative and instead just including clips of destruction wreaked on Metropolis and National City by Supergirl and Superman. There’s some of when Kara was affected by red kryptonite but most of them are from when she’s still herself and she gets thrown into a building, or one of her punches runs a little off course. Somehow every shot manages to miss the alien that Supergirl or Superman is fighting and it frames them destroying public property just because a whim strikes. It’s a PR nightmare.

There’s not much Supergirl can do to fight this. There’s no one to punch, no one to interrogate, no one to fight at all. So instead, Kara has to watch helplessly as Winn furiously types away at his keyboard doing his best to limit exposure, though the damage is already done. J’onn is having a conference call with the President. James had disappeared the moment the video appeared on their screens saying that he needed to get back to CatCo so that they could at least try and control the story in the Tribune release tomorrow. And Alex is calling Maggie to make sure the police department has people on hand for the inevitable uptick in human on alien violence (and human on human violence as well).

And Kara, for all her powers and strength, feels completely useless. Alex had warned her about going out as Supergirl right now because it was sure to increase tensions on both sides of the argument and that was the last thing the city needed. So Kara has been quarantined to the base and it’s too loud. It’s rare that she gets sensory overload these days. She’s mostly figured out how to control her hearing but every so often there are some stressors that can make her slip. (Her superhero alter-ego’s name being dragged through the mud by the people who had kidnapped her and made her bleed did the trick.)

She gets up shakily from the desk she’d been sitting at and gestures at Alex that she’s going to leave. Alex has the presence of mind to look concerned but when Kara waves her off, she turns back to her phone. Kara flies quickly to her apartment, taking advantage of the low-hanging clouds to cover her. As soon as she touches down, she grabs the lead-lined ear plugs Jeremiah made for her way back when she was young and stuffs them into her ears.

The world instantly goes quiet and Kara feels like the fist that was clenching around her lungs loosens somewhat. She lies back on her bed and relishes for a moment in how quiet the world has become. She gives herself half an hour until her heart rate has evened out and until she’s processed (as much as she can in such little time) that Cadmus is back at it again and they’re after her. She waits until the roiling anger and fear calm into something more solid, something she can handle. Then she pulls the ear plugs out. The sounds of the city come rushing back to her enough too quickly and too loudly and Kara has to press her hands over her ears for a second to acclimate.

Carefully, she pulls her hearing back until she can only hear what’s inside of her apartment: the quiet rush of water in the walls, the light hum of electricity from her laptop, all those strange noises her fridge makes that maybe she should get checked out. When she’s got a handle on it she stands up and glances out the window. The sun is starting to fade and Kara looks out over the city she loves so much and wonders how many of the people there wish she were dead.

Her phone on her nightstand buzzes and Kara reaches over to check who it is.

u alright?

Kara smiles softly at her phone. Alex always knows when she’s not doing so well.

Fine, just overwhelmed. How are things?

It takes Alex three minutes to answer and Kara can feel her hesitation through the phone. It means that things are bad and Alex wouldn’t lie to Kara but she is trying to figure exactly how much she should tell her.

Not great. People are unhappy. Aliens are scared. But I think things will calm down soon, like they did after the last video. people will forget.

Kara can tell that Alex is trying to make her feel better and, honestly, it works.

u sure ur good tho? because technically I’m supposed to stay but i have some sway with the boss and i can come over if you need me.

I’m sure

Alright sis. i love you.

love you too.

The truth is, Kara would love it if Alex came over. She still feels shaky. Every time Cadmus rears its head, releases a new video, and stirs up all of the anti-alien feelings in National City, Kara is forced to remember that she doesn’t belong here. She isn’t human and this isn’t her home as much as she wishes it were. She’s different. And there are always people who will hate her for it, regardless of what good she may do.  

When she’d become Supergirl she had thought that people would like her, almost without exception. And the few that would hate her, the Lex Luthors of the world, she thought she could easily place in a box labelled evil. But it’s not that easy. Cadmus is evil. Lillian Luthor is evil. But the guy at the grocery store who thinks aliens shouldn’t have the same rights as humans. He’s not evil. He has a wife and a kid who love him and he’s always nice to Kara when he bags her groceries. He doesn’t fit into that pretty little box that Kara had built for him.

Kara glances down at the phone that is still resting in her hand and she finds herself very suddenly wanting to see Lena. She must have seen the video by now. Must know that Cadmus and, by extension, her mother are up to their old tricks. Kara still wonders exactly where Lena stands on all of this. The alien detection device had been ambiguous. It was clear that Lena’s intentions hadn’t been malicious but the undertones of prejudice were hard for Kara to ignore.

Still, Kara needs a friend and she has a feeling that Lena might need one too right now. After all, any reminder of her mother usually sends Lena into a small spiral of self-doubt and unhappiness.

hey… can i see you?

Lena’s reply is immediate.

Of course. i’m at the office if you want to swing by.

i’m nearby actually, i’ll be there in five.

It’s a lie, of course, but Kara doesn’t want to have to wait around for too long before flying there. She grabs a change of Kara clothes before hopping out of her window and into the night sky. Normally she’ll scan the city for signs of trouble, but tonight she’s afraid of what she’ll hear. So she flies straight to L-Corp and changes in an alley around the corner (she’d found it the third time going there and loves it because it’s mostly blocked off so no one can see her and it doesn’t ever smell like pee like most of the dingy alleys she finds herself changing in).

Jess is not at her desk, but that’s unsurprising because its past seven and Lena really should have gone home by now. So Kara just sweeps up into the elevator and knocks gently on Lena’s office door. When she hears the quiet ‘come in’ in response, she pushes the door open.

Lena’s sitting at her desk looking prim and poised and lovely and if Kara didn’t know her as well as she does, she wouldn’t have noticed that anything is wrong. But there’s a shadow in Lena’s smile as she greets Kara that she wishes she could wipe away.

“So, what does CatCo want to know?” Lena says, her tone a little tight. “No, I do not know anything about Cadmus. Yes, I do condemn my mother’s actions. No, I do not think aliens should be killed. Yes, I do support Alien Amnesty.” Lena pauses and raises an eyebrow. “You’re not writing anything down?”

Kara gapes and flounders for a seconds. She hadn’t even considered an interview (though now that Lena mentions it, she’s sure that Snapper would be impressed with her initiative.)

“I… I wasn’t going to… I mean, I didn’t come here for an interview.”

Lena’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise but the defensiveness in her posture settles a little and her eyes get softer.

“You’re not?”

“No… I just… I don’t know. Wanted to see you? I saw the video and I just… I don’t know…”

She wants to know what Lena thinks. She wants Lena to tell her that she doesn’t fear aliens like she was raised to. She wants Lena to tell her that if she knew Kara was an alien they would still be friends. Kara had gotten used to the ambiguity, to Lena’s slight but very present discomfort around aliens. But today, with the city roiling beneath them, she needs to know that her best friend would still be there if she knew the truth. But there’s no way to ask her without putting herself in the cross hairs.

“Kara, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just really don’t like Cadmus.”

Something about what Kara just said, or maybe her expression, makes Lena smile in that soft, warm way that Kara selfishly hopes is reserved for her. Lena stands up from her seat and walks around her desk inclining her head towards the couch in the corner of her office in invitation. Kara follows and plops down next to her.

“Tell me what’s bothering you, Kara,” Lena says and while her words are a command, it sounds more like a question, a request.

“I…” Kara pauses because she needs to be careful with her words. When she starts again it’s with a little more confidence. “Whenever Cadmus releases a new video, people start to talk and I hear horrible things. And I have… friends who are aliens and they don’t… they’re good and they don’t deserve this.”

Kara is talking mostly about J’onn, who had almost lost his job, his life, his dignity when he came out the year before. He had done so much for the DEO, so much for humans overall, and he had revealed himself to save Kara’s life. But she’s also talking about M’gann who has struggled through so much to get here and who deserves to be safe. And all the other aliens at the bar just trying to live their lives: Lyra, Mon-El, Brian. And of course, she’s talking about herself. But honestly, she’s the least of her own worries because Supergirl seems to get a free pass from many people because she’s a hero, because she looks human, because they don’t have to worry about bumping into her on the street.

“Friends?” Lena says. “Like Supergirl?”

“I-I mean, she’s one of them,” Kara stutters.

Lena chuckles lightly.

“You’re right. The stuff that people say about aliens are awful. Supergirl, and your other friends, don’t deserve it. But I can understand where people are coming from,” Lena says. “I mean, there are bad aliens out there. You admitted that yourself.”

Lena’s words cut like a knife, though Kara is sure they won’t supposed to. Lena doesn’t know that right now Kara needs unwavering support. Lena doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to be supporting. Still, in her current state, it’s enough to get Kara a little defensive.  

“But they’re not all bad. There are so many aliens that are just trying to live their lives. People just don’t know about them because the media only reports on the horrible things. An alien attacked this, alien weapons did that. No one ever talks about the alien family that went to the grocery store today to be ingredients to make lasagna because it reminds them of a food from their home planet. Or the alien guy who does accounting for a non-profit. There are so many aliens who are not exceptional at all. They act like humans, talk like humans, are humans in everything but biology.”

Lena blinks and, while the knowledge that aliens live on earth is pretty wide-spread, seems surprised.

“How many of them do you think there are though? I mean, compared to the ones that are violent?”

“So many,” Kara says. “The violent aliens are not representative. Every race is going to have people who are bad. Humans kill humans all the time. In fact, more humans have died at human hands than at alien hands in the last three years. Most aliens are trying to keep their heads down and just survive because no one abandons the planet they grew up in to come to one where they are hated just for fun. The idea that aliens are coming to earth to invade is a myth and it’s preposterous.”

“What about those aliens last year? The ones that enslaved all of National City?” Lena asks.

Kara feels a familiar twist in her gut. Non is still locked up in the DEO in a cell so secure he could never hope to escape and Winn had figured out a code that would incapacitate Indigo entirely. But they are still an itching worry in the back of her mind. A reminder that though she was supposed to be a safe-keeper of Kryptonian knowledge and culture, she had also locked up one of the last of her people.

“Not representative. And anyway, they didn’t come to earth to enslave us. They crash landed here.”

“And decided to mind-control everyone.”

“They thought they were doing the right thing,” Kara says. “And it’s not like humans haven’t done similar things just without the technology. Censorship, laws, and propaganda all serve similar purposes. They’re just less high tech.”

Lena pauses and seems to consider Kara’s words.

“Still, it’s frightening to some people to consider that there are aliens out there who could kill them in a second if they wanted to.”

“Are you one of those people?” Kara asks.

“I… I don’t know. I’ve never met an alien. I trust Supergirl because she’s saved my life more than once but… I admit that there are few aliens I would feel safe around. I guess I’m not afraid of aliens so much as I’m afraid of what they may think of me and want to do to me because of my family. It wouldn’t be the first time an alien tried to hurt me because of what Lex has done.”

Kara blinks in surprise because she… had not thought about that. She supposes that if anyone on the planet had a right to fear aliens it would be Lex Luthor’s little sister. Of course Lena has a target painted on her back and of course it must be hard for her to trust aliens if she has been attacked by one before.

“But you trust Supergirl?”

“Of course, Kara,” Lena says with a slight laugh. “How could I not? She’s Supergirl. Strong and kind and righteous. She’s better than many humans I’ve met.”

That, at least, is enough to put some of Kara’s fears at ease. She hopes that maybe with time she’ll be able to convince Lena that she can trust aliens and that they aren’t to be feared.

“You’ll protect me, Supergirl?” Lena spits out, and her voice is ice and fire. “Like you protected him? I didn’t see you doing much when he was screaming out my name. You left him there to die.”

“It was you or him,” Kara says back, her voice dreadfully calm. “I don’t have powers right now, I can’t save everyone even when I do. And between you and him, there was never a choice.”

Lena clenches her jaw and turns away from her. Even in the moonlight, Kara can see the tears glistening as they roll down her cheeks. She remembers, before all this, holding Lena in her arms as she cried and swearing to herself that she would do everything she could to make sure she never looked like that again. She wishes she could fold Lena in her arms again and not let go until her tears were dry and her breathing settled. But this time it’s her fault that Lena is crying and Kara wishes, not for the first time, that she could turn back time and start all over.

[trebaolsmovingcastle]

I read and reblogged a quote from this yesterday, and then spent the rest of the night pondering it.

The notion is simple...there’s so many competing facts that it breeds frustration and thus causes people to retreat into their passions and ignore facts.

It’s the old ‘Are eggs good or bad? Last week a report said they were good, this week they’re bad...so fuck eggs, and fuck facts.’

The end result is that if I have a shitty opinion, I can very easily go online and get that shitty opinion reinforced, rejecting any effort in looking at differing or alternate opinions. The inherent work needed to pursue truth is simply too much.

The outcome, we become more tribalist, where we retreat into our familiar groups and reject angrily outside information, driving conflict and leading to the complete downfall of civilization and ruin of mankind's work.

It’s a hip article, looks good, feels pretty good reading it. By the end you’re like...’damn, you’re right we are all gonna die because I can’t accept a Trump supporters point of view, and they can’t accept mine...fuckin...internet man.’

The problem became that the more I thought about it, the more it just seemed like he was angry at human history. When he describes tribalism he in essence is describing culture or social groups themselves. He tries to mean that you basically retreat into your ethnic group to the exclusion and hatred of all others and similar ideas, your ideology takes precedent over all facts and you reject the truth of the world.

I ask you all to take a moment and again ponder when this was never not the case in human history. I vote democrat, because the democrats are the group closest to my ideology, within that I vote for candidates who will advance my ideological viewpoint. My friends and the place I live often are made up of similar individuals. If I was alive in Georgia in 1840 I’d probably have a pretty narrow view of ethnic issues because, my world view was being informed by my passions and the environment I was in. Barring some random event or intervention by a family member or person close to me I would not doubt think chattel slavery was the best possible future for me, and pursuit of land and slaves my lifes goal.

He uses the notion that when he goes online he believes Trump’s cabinet is floundering based on news sites and people he speaks to, but when he hits up breitbart the narrative changes and the polls change too, reflecting an entirely different reality, and because of this society is being sundered. As if this were something new, some new concept that had not previously been the driving force behind politics and civilization up to this point. Returning to the South in 1840, I am confident that if I was able to read and could grab a gazette I would be apt to find vitriolic words of wisdom about the aggression and ignorance of my neighbors to the North. I would in fact be hard pressed to find a publication or person who would not reinforce that the North was all child labor and cruel factory work, while my ma and pa’s land passed down for generations was the honest to goodness paradise described within the bible.

If...if...we were suddenly becoming a new tribalized society, and this wasn’t just a continuation of our behavior and disposition, wouldn’t the left...the group I and many many people are a part of, and which is growing in size, wouldn’t this group in essence not exist. His image of tribalism is special interest groups as pillars of reality. You don’t belong to the left, you belong to white, hetero, men, 25-30, brown hair, with strong feelings about Reservoir Dogs...you see out only news that supports your very narrow world view, you only talk to other Dogheads as they’re called, you only drink Shasta, because there was a reddit joke about it and now everyone in your little internet mental tribe is obsessed with Shasta.

He basically pictures the Homestuck fandom as the grim future of society, ruined by the internet.

The reality of course is more complex than that. We have been ruled by our passions for all of history, just because it was hard to send a letter to Fat King George in parliament, doesn’t mean that we brilliantly filled all that time in between learning all the careful nuance of what reality was and how economics and the philosophy of the day crafted our worldview. No, we died of smallpox and kept slaves under the auspices of Christian charity.

He in essence is now forced to look at the bare ignorance of some people, and tear out his hair over how they got this way...when in the past, before the internet, and before the modern news cycle, he could comfortably go years with a bias and never have to think about it, be confronted by it, or even worry about changing it because it never existed to him in the first place. Just deep down he had a vague dislike of people from towns where the gas station is the tallest building. The internet age now allows him to intimately know the residents of bucolic Haberdash, Arkansas as he is forced to read their comments on the news article he was reading...causing him to frustratedly think of what rubes they are...and by extension drive him more into the arms of people he does not see as rubes.

This would all of course be terrible if, as he points out early on, there is no truth, or that truth simply doesn’t exist in the modern era. However I would argue that truth does indeed continue to exist, we continue not just to have a multitude of truths and realities, we have our competing viewpoints. What our issue is...is that the language and attitudes of our government and media bodies, is lumbering behind the times. We are unsure and mistrustful of government, because the language of government for as long as I have known it, has been disingenuous, it is recognized as double speak, there are no positions held because you try to look like you hold every possible position at once to avoid the scandal of having an opinion.

In this day and age it means that when the public, whichever side of the aisle you’re on, wants reassurance that something is being done, or that they’re hearing the truth, you get instead a rambling response that sounds as if its been read by a robot, who has laced it with nice sounding things...but when you think back on whether you got anything from it you’re left empty handed.

Meaning a blowhard, who declares everything he says true, does not speak that way, and generally acts completely off the cuff, is regarded as a ‘breath of fresh air’ in the stale tomb of the Capitol. Manson’s fear is in reality a fear of the intensity of the vastness of human behavior and experience. If you’d provided all the facts about the ills of slavery to that speculative southerner from earlier, who lived in 1840, would you perform any better than telling a Trump voter today that a Muslim ban would not protect america? No. So what’s the difference? Well now you gotta look at the people you disagree with, you’re already in your niche, you were there before you noticed you were, and changing your viewpoint hasn’t changed none, it’s just now you can’t wrap your head around how dumb some people seem and why they can’t seem to listen to reason. 

What will have to happen, what will happen, is likely a push towards candor. You’ll see politicians either lie outright if they worry about performative action, or you’ll end up with more ‘personalities’ in government, people who have convictions, right or wrong, and will speak them without being afraid of the political fallout, they’ll simply say what they think. The trick is whether the establishment will advance quality personalities, or flounder under a desire to remain true to the establishment and tradition.

But this freaked out ‘we’re fucked’ is just a guy waking up and realizing he lives in a stupid world, but not realizing that it’s always been this stupid, it’s just faster now.