#when the culture war bullshit around it dies down. believe me

[agnesandhilda]

the barbie movie was an extended commercial that existed at an unfortunate midpoint of being feminist enough to infuriate misogynists but too hampered by its need to be inoffensive enough to stay profitable to satisfy people intellectually invested in feminism, but I watched it as a teenage girl who loves the color pink and exaggerated performances of gender while adjusting to living as an independent adult and the terrifying realization of my own mortality, so like. I imprinted on it like a baby bird

[qqueenofhades]

so…now that we all know what you DISLIKE about star wars (and 400% fairly so, you have my full support here)…

what drew you into the universe, what keeps you around?

favorite characters, ships (OTPs or actual spaceships lol), overall themes, do you have a favorite random weird creature or robot that you adore? whatever you wanna talk about!

go off honey (again, but supportively 💖💖💖)

tax paid: the very nerdy star wars punk vest i made and the even nerdier matching vest i made for starsky

Lmaooo, entirely valid. You were like "star wars?" and I was like the drunk person at the bar who can't stop shouting about how much their ex sucks. But now that I have gotten all that off my chest, let's talk about why I love it (since if I didn't love it, I wouldn't have such strong opinions). Basically my feelings on the OG SW trilogy are similar to my feelings on the OG LOTR trilogy, as that tumblr post floating around somewhere put it: sure, they have flaws, but also, they're perfect. I have a complicated relationship with the prequels, as do we all, since George Lucas cannot write dialogue or direct actors to save his life (stick to what you're good at, George, hire other people to do the rest), but even they have their moments. Like. Hit me with that "Across the Stars" love theme, John Williams. Gahh. Just like that.

Because... Star Wars wasn't actually this omnipresent corporate global entertainment monolith when it started out. It was a dorky low-budget indie sci-fi film in the 1970s which everyone thought was going to bomb. But it told a simple and compelling story in an interesting way, everyone agrees that ESB is one of the best films/sequels ever made, and then ROTJ gave it a happy ending while it was still okay to do that. My main thematic gripe with the Disney trilogy (I will try to keep those to a minimum, lol, but I have to bring it up to compare) is that it very clearly fell into the "actual happy endings are naive and unrealistic and a cynical postmodern audience won't accept anything less than things being Bad" trap that, yet again, we have GOT to thank for. It obviously existed to some degree before that, but GOT blew it up to huge levels, where the only valid situation or character is that which is Grimdark and Depressing. Which, in my view, misses the heart and soul of what SW is all about??

Like. ESB is genuinely dark. ANH was this fun plucky little sci-fi film where the scrappy good guys won the day against the Nazi stand-ins, as they were supposed to, and then ESB comes along (speaking of John Williams, let us all chant together, DUH DUH DUH DUHDUHDUH DUHDUHDUH, DUH DUH DUH DUHHHH DUHHH DUHHH DUHHHH) and things go... wrong. Leia and Han are on the run for most of the movie, then get captured and tortured by the Empire and and betrayed (however unwillingly) by Lando. The Rebellion is attacked on Hoth (I tell you, those fuckin AT-AT walkers were SCARY when you see it as a young kid for the first time), and forced into hiding. Luke loses his hand, doubts Obi-Wan and Yoda and realizes that his mentors are fallible, makes dumb mistakes, and of course gets hit with The Most Famous Line In Movie History. But it's also just adrenaline and excitement. THE ASTEROID FIELD! THE HAN-LEIA BANTER! THE FIRST LUKE-VADER DUEL! THE FACT THAT YOU HEAR TWO FRICKING NOTES OF THE IMPERIAL MARCH AND YOU'RE JUST LIKE OH YEAH OH YEAH OH YEAHHHH!

But also then... Return of the Jedi. It gets shat upon for the Ewoks and reusing the Death Star as the Big Bad and being supposedly cheesy and not as Thematically Dark as ESB. Which is all kinda silly, in my opinion, but also, can we talk about Luke Skywalker's character arc and how he chooses possibly the most radical compassion ever demonstrated by a hero in an action movie, let alone a space opera. He insists that Anakin Skywalker is still in there somewhere and puts his own neck on the line to prove it. Luke doesn't save the galaxy by being a Badass Jedi. He saves it by throwing away his lightsaber and saying "I will not fight you, Father." He saves it by trusting that even in the depths of darkness, Anakin can come back from the charred ruins of Darth Vader and finally do what he was supposed to do all along. He can end Palpatine for good and all (we don't talk about "Somehow Palpatine has returned" because it's nonsense, obviously). Anakin can avenge the Jedi and what was done to him and all the lies he believed and the pain he wreaked on the galaxy, even then. It's not too late. It's not too late. Like. I don't care if this is Lightweight or Childish or whatever. It makes me CRY every time I watch it. Especially the moment where Luke takes off Anakin’s helmet and sees how ruined he actually is under there, and yet the downfall and death of the trilogy’s chief villain is not triumphant at all but instead utterly heartbreaking. “You were right about me Luke... tell your sister... you were right.”

Excuse me, I need to just /CRIES INTENSELY/

Luke won't be tempted to the dark side for his own sake, but Leia's ("If you will not join me, then perhaps she will"). I likewise hold firmly that Anakin/Vader is one of the best movie villains/antiheroes of all time and likewise have many feelings and Strong Opinions about his arc, prequel writing clumsiness and eye-rollingly tepid love story aside. (See: he and Obi-Wan were deeply in love and in a way they still are, don't @ me. I have no problems with Padme and obviously stan Natalie Portman at all times, but Anakin and Obi-Wan’s relationship is the real love story, the heart of the prequels, and in some ways even the subsequent movies, the end.) And “so this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause” is... raw af as a line. For being in a Star Wars prequel movie. What?? (Also, the Revenge of the Sith novelization had no business being as good as it was. If only that dude had also written the movie.)

Anyway, my point is: the OG trilogy had plenty of moments of staggering emotional weight and where things genuinely sucked for the good guys and the outcome wasn’t entirely clear. The difference is that it didn’t choose to dwell on them, and it allowed for a transformative fictional space where a happy ending, fiercely fought for and squarely earned, was the right outcome. We didn’t need to go back thirty years later and make everything suck for fear that a cynical modern audience couldn’t connect with it otherwise. (Like I said, we didn’t need the new movies at all, but Disney heard that Cha-Ching of the Almighty Dollar). Star Wars was sci-fi, sure, but it also had the fantasy elements that allowed a happy ending to be the right choice for what we saw the characters go through and the philosophy that carried us through the original trilogy.

Likewise it’s just... Peak as far as dynamics go. C-3PO the fussy metal butler who worries about Everything and R2-D2 who is the droid embodiment of YOLO? Flawless. Sassy scruffy space pirate and badass politician warrior princess bicker constantly, butt heads, drive each other crazy, and then fall in love? Iconic. (And has shaped my ship tastes for... all of eternity, oops.) The above-discussed transformation of Luke Skywalker, whiny ordinary teenage kid, to the truly great man who fulfills what Obi-Wan, Yoda, AND the rest of the entire Jedi order couldn’t manage to do, because of their own flaws and blind spots and black-and-white moral views that didn’t know what to do with a man who loved as passionately as Anakin Skywalker, for better or for worse? The guy who managed to save the galaxy with love? STAN.

So... what? The Disney trilogy decides to retcon all that, throw everything that they’ve fought for out the window, make Han, Leia, and Luke miserable and rejecting the roles they grew into in the original trilogy, and die without ever really reuniting or seeing each other again as a trio? The underlying message was that “these happy endings aren’t satisfactory/realistic/sophisticated enough” and idk, maybe it’s just the shitshow of the last few years, but I’d like to see some entertainment that had the cojones to tell me that despite all the darkness and despair, maybe there’s a chance for hope. (”Rebellions are built on hope,” thank you Only Valid New Star Wars Movie Rogue One.) And Rogue One worked so well, despite being utterly GUTTING as all the heroes died one by one, because we knew what was coming next (A New Hope) and that their sacrifice was going to be worth it. I don’t care if that’s “realistic” or not. As I’ve said before, that’s what stories are for, and if I only wanted things that were Real Life, I would only read the news. Besides, the idea that happy endings never happen in reality is equally bullshit. We as a culture need to accept that more, instead of finding reasons to tear everything down.

So just... yes. The original trilogy might have flaws, but also, it’s perfect. And do I want to rewatch it all now? Kinda.

(Anyway. I warned you this was gonna be long. Oh look, it’s long, and I’m sure there is even more I could say, but still. Ahem.)

sleepover weekend asks

[bitchcraftmagic]

It’s so interesting to me that it is only now that Joe Rogan is under the spotlight of mass criticism when he has been laundering white identity politics for several years now. Alex Jones, a purveyor extraordinaire of white grievance narratives and repackaged antisemitic conspiracy theories, is a regular guest on the Joe Rogan Dumb Shit Power Hour. Stephan “I went to Poland and became a White Supremacist” Moleneaux has been on the show a handful of times, as well. These people are unequivocally bigots of the highest caliber. They make their living on hateful bullshit and Rogan has them on and let’s them seem nominally reasonable because he has the intellect of a baked potato. And because his brain is the rotted corpse of an armadillo he has no means to push back meaningfully on the disgusting shit they say. Not that he seems that interested in pushing back to begin with.

This has been a pattern with this beefy boy for years on end. The fact that Jordan Peterson, a bigoted dumbass who knows big words and thinks people are lobsters, has come on to spew the most nonsensical drivel countless times should have been disqualifying. That man has been so traumatized by the vague Cold War concept of communism that it like severely effects his mental health. This is a thing he readily admits to and the fact that anyone takes him remotely seriously any longer is beyond my apparently limited imagination. He almost died from only eating meat. He speaks and behaves like he has never really spoken to any human being for longer than four minutes. It is astounding that people think he is a thought leader. Everything he says is so shallow that he makes kiddie pools look like the Marianas Trench.

And maybe people don’t really understand this but the fact that Joe Rogan is friends and colleagues with ALEX JONES should have made any attempt at discourse impossible. Anytime anyone talks about Joe Rogan with respect I urge you to remind them that he is friends with a man who harassed the parents of dead children to make money. This is not an exaggeration. This has been documented in court. That association should have been a final nail in Rogan’s coffin. And what is worse is that when Jones goes on that dumb as fuck podcast he just sits there and believes whatever bullshit Alex tells him. Alex “the frogs are gay” Jones is someone that Rogan takes seriously. And he has for decades. Are you fucking kidding me?

What this shows me, and continues to show me, is that so many people are fine with bigotry. Perhaps they aren’t going to go around spouting this shit but they find it entertaining. They can stomach enough to just sit for three hours and listen to a greasy turd talk about how everyone is just too uptight about all the bigots he platforms. And the thing about this is even if Rogan is deplatformed (which I highly doubt he will be) the desire for people just like him won’t go away. Our culture is dissolving into out and out white supremacist fascism. This is just the entertainment branch of it. This bootlicking fuck head has the ears of a millions despite the fact that he has never said anything remotely funny. And everyone he talks to just jerks him off because he is a cash cow dumbass who falls to flattery like a house of cards. Even if you claim that he is not racist (which is laughable considering the amount of times he has said the n word for fucking shits and giggles) It’s still guilt by association, for me. You lay down with dogs you get fucking flees and that motherfucker is itchy as hell.

[candycanesuckers]

A Collective Post Helping Defend and Define Stormfront:

There is a harmful narrative that has formed around a (feminist) character that appeared in the newest season of “The Boys” -- her name is Stormfront. Said narrative is the falsified idea that she is a Nazi. This was started mainly by Anti-Feminists in retaliation to the fact that the character is rather vocal about social injustice. Below are definitive rebuttals to the toxic propaganda spread by these people and the others who blindly took in it.

Defining Stormfront’s Past:

The reason why the slander on Stormfront is as active and believed as it is is because it’s based on the comic (in which Stormfront was a male, and yes, was indeed a Nazi), which then influenced the past of the TV-rendition of the character. In the show, Stormfront use to be apart of Nazi Germany before (assumedly) migrating to America and donning the alias of “Liberty” in the 50s, in which she carried out violently racist attacks behind the scenes.

Something worth noting is that Stormfront is the first ever Superhero created by Vought (the man who created the company was her husband; whether she was injected with V -- the serum to give people these super abilities -- when she was a child or well within her maturity is currently unknown). Because she’s the first ever superhero, she has a unique ability that other superheroes (from our current knowledge) lack; immortality. 

Due to her immortality, Stormfront outlived her peers. She watched as the culture around her changed. She eventually had a daughter, which she then lived past, and she too lived past her husband. This means that she lived past the time where Nazi’s were to some degree a social norm, and lived through the period(s) where people actively fight back against Nazi’ism, racism, and other forms of prejudice. She was thrust into new cultures, and in turn, molded her beliefs into something new over the years she had lived through. She no longer had the leader, she no longer had the support, she no longer had the option to use her voice. And because of that, she learned that her beliefs were outdated.

It could be argued that the point to Stormfront’s character is to reflect the social evolution of America -- from how racism was mainstream to now progressivism being rewarded.

The Accusation That Stormfront Said a Slur Towards Kenji and she Killed an Apartment Complex of Black People Simply Because They’re Black:

In episode three, for those who don’t know, there was a super-terrorist (the title given to super-humans who use their abilities to aid in their terrorism), and The Seven were sent out to capture and put the terrorist down. Basically: they were doing their jobs as heroes. During the attempted capture of the terrorist, Stormfront was ultimately the one to get him.

While she was chasing him, they entered an apartment complex; while on the chase, she most likely would have noted that the terrorist isn’t actually doing any active action of terrorism -- he was just running. While she knew, and The Seven knew, that he was a terrorist, the public would probably see it as a superhero harming an innocent. Of course since he was an active threat, she was fast thinking. While chasing him, she stroke down some casualties and destroyed a portion of the apartment complex building that way there would be visible evidence that the terrorist would’ve been a threat to the lives of the public. And it worked. While what she did was arguably corrupt, that’s not the point here; the show makes a point to say all the heroes are corrupt. 

In her fight with the terrorist, she does say something that features unfavorable language -- she called the terrorist a “yellow bastard” -- and while it’s displeasant, it is not a slur. Yellow is a color, and he was rather pigmented. It’s a distasteful descriptor. And she was right in calling him a bastard. He was a terrorist.

The Accusation that Stormfront Didn’t Like A-Train Because he’s Black:

We can assume that Stormfront has a strong sense of morality due to her past connections to Nazi Germany -- while she no longer holds those beliefs, it would suggest that she places importance on morals due to strong “moral” senses of the Nazi party. With her now being in the modern world, her sense of morality probably evolved into applying to more current issues.

In the show, Stormfront is shown to believe in the superiority of Supes (will touch on that even more later). Due to this, is is likely that she would look down on those who have super-abilities but does stuff that would harm them or otherwise negatively impact the performance of their heroics. In season two, it was shown that A-Train -- whose whole shtick was his extreme speed -- could no longer run to such extremes before triggering a possible heart failure. This would clearly motivate Stormfront to look down on A-Train and see him as a waste -- because he is effectively wasting away his own life.

Her saying “some people have quality, other’s don’t” is a clear reference to the fact that his quality of self-control and self-worth is low. He’s an addict, and has let his addiction ruin his life and multiple lives of the people around him.

The Accusation that Stormfront Thinks Black People are Trying to get rid of White People; An In-Depth Dissection on the Conversation Between Stormfront and Homelander in Which she Explains her Past:

The scene opens with her, Stormfront, finding Homelander alone and solemn overlooking the city. He’s being callous and dismissive towards her, and even says a sly comment in which could be taken as a potential murder threat, which obviously effects her and her future plans (since it’s rather clear that she’s merely using him for her own personal agenda). Because of his cold behavior towards her, she decides to bare her all to him.

“I will never lie to you again. I will tell you everything . . . Starting with this,” She begins. Stormfront hesitantly walks to a large brown box, the stoic look on Homelander’s face never leaving as he pointedly watches her every move. She opens the crate, and in it are numerous aged items belonging to her, including her Liberty attire and a collection of black and white photos.

Out of her collection of items, she picks up the photos due to them being an outline of her history and an easy open door to the unique ability she has (since she’s either immortal or has an extended life quantity).

She shows the first image to Homelander, an image that shows her next to a much older woman (who has previously been assumed by the viewer to be her mother or grandmother). “My daughter,” she begins, “Chloe. She died of Alzheimer's a few years ago.”

Before this scene, her unique relation to aging was unknown to Homelander; the only people who knew were Starlight and The Boys. Understandably shocked, Homelander asks Stormfront just how old is she.

“I was born in 1919, in Berlin.”

There’s beats of silence between them. The information that she just revealed settles, to both Homelander and the viewer, and then she flips to the second photo.

It’s of her, dressed in a beautiful, white blazer dress, standing next to three extremely influential figures from history (further highlighting her extreme age). As she flips to the next photo, she says, “And . . . The most important man in the room . . . “ Homelander looks down, and finishes the unsaid sentence: “Frederick Vought.”

The next portion of the conversation is one of the most important, both in-context of the actual conversation but also in terms of the audience finally understanding Stormfront as a person; it gives us an insight to her mentality, it further explores her history with Vought and the relationship she has with the company, while also showing us what seems to be her intentions with Homelander. “He gave me the first successful V injection. He taught me everything. And then we fell in love, and he gave me a daughter. He made me, and his genius made you.”

This one excerpt shows us an important aspect on Stormfront and her mentality: she glorifies and idealizes Vought. The glorification she has of Frederick Vought consumes her, evident through the passion she has while she speaks on how V made her into who she is. The glorification she has for Frederick then streamlines into the next aspect of what she talks about, which is the superiority that comes from being chosen to be a superhero (which she isn’t exactly unjust in; a separate post to discuss, maybe? Although I feel as if it’s pretty obvious how people with super-human abilities that routinely save the world are clearly above just normal civilians).

Emotions are clear on Homelander’s face as he hears all the new information released by Stormfront: he’s shocked, and really just at a loss for words. He turns away from her, almost in a way dismissing the rest of the photos she has as he tries to process everything. She holds the photos to her side, now untouched for the rest of the conversation, and continues to speak: “Frederick didn’t care about all the fans or stardom or any of that shallow bullshit. We are in a war for the culture. The other races are grinding us down and taking what is rightfully ours, but we can fight back. With an army of supermen, millions strong.”

This four-sentence paragraph is the strongest example we currently have from the show that showcases the sense of superiority Stormfront has due to her super-human abilities. This specific excerpt is commonly used as a dog whistle by Stormfront anti’s to push the narrative that she is a Nazi or at the very least a white supremacist, however with the context of her relation to Vought and the fact that she highlights it being an army of supermen, it’s made explicitly clear that the “war for the culture” is a culture where supes are naturally seen as higher than non-supes and don’t have to fear the possibility of public backlash due to “othering” that’s caused by a public that may be scared of people who are different than them -- which may be why Stormfront finds it so important to build an online following who truly knows her as a person, while still being aware that she ultimately has a platform and is in a position of power.

It could be argued that her current arc and characterization of glorification and superiority is meant to be an allegory for Nazi’ism, however, I will say in my own personal opinion that it’s incredibly weak to claim. Nazi allegories need to have someone explicitly shown to be wrong in their beliefs and ideals; Stormfront though, is justified -- or at the very least has solid ground to stand on. I mean, God, it’s shown that mothers and fathers were offering up their newborns to be injected with compound V. That should speak for itself.

Lastly, after Stormfront bore her history and ideals to Homelander, she says one last thing to Homelander, one last confession full of passion and desperation: “So I love you with all of my heart. How could I not? Everyone I have ever loved is in the ground. And then I found you. We found each other. And now neither of us has to be alone ever again.”

I believe this to imply that her sense of superiority is a front that she puts up and her desire to create a culture of supe’s is to create a new race of people that are similar to her in sense of life-span, that way she no longer has to keep losing those she loves and live a life where pain is a constant. I truly do think all of this is an act of longing for a life of less pain 💔

So in conclusion: her idea of a “war on our culture” is the idea of non-supes against those who are. It’s an entirely separate thing from Nazi beliefs and / or ideals.

Discussing Stormfront’s Feminism and Why it Should be Both Admired and Wide-Spread Within our Culture:

Stormfront is a traditional feminist; she doesn’t believe that women are superior to men, but rather that we’re all on equal footing and it’s our own personality and accomplishments that make us. Quoted from episode two, “Why does it matter whether heroes have a dick or vag? I mean, shouldn’t we all just be competent at our jobs? I don’t think girls do anything better, I think chicks and dicks are in it together.” She’s able to point out the systematic advantages men have and the unfair treatment of women by the media, but she’s still able to recognize that it’s an issue of the system that forms our culture rather than an issue of men themselves. She never takes out her issues on random men, but rather at the men in positions of power who fuel this sexist attitude (and the women who stand next to these men, allowing it).

She knows her worth, both as a person and as a woman. Throughout the six she has shown up in so far, Stormfront has been outspoken whenever she has seen someone reducing women to nothing but vapid sex appeal for the male gaze – such as her call-out in episode two towards the man in charge of story-boarding the commercial. She recognizes her worth and is able to voice the issues she has with the sexist disregard for the female characters.

Unlike a lot of people, she knows when to restrict herself. This is a problem with our culture at large – we reward loud, rude behavior (primarily within men) despite the fact that they’re being unnecessarily cruel towards what is a rather harmless individual (ex: Gordon Ramsay). During the scene where Stormfront is with Starlight doing press for the announcement of her being apart of The Seven, she points out the double standard and false idea of “girl power” being pushed. Despite it being a topic she would be passionate about, Stormfront is able to keep her points restricted purely to the topic at hand that she wants to discuss. Other people would be vicious and violently insult the interviewer, and they would be rewarded for it by getting clout on Twitter with strangers gushing about how she “dragged” someone, but Stormfront addressed the interviewer appropriately – she knew he was just a man doing his job.

Another example is the end of episode three. While it is “terrible” that she called the Asian a “yellow bastard” (although it’s not like she called him a Chink or BTS or whatever), she only did so because she believed that she was alone with him. If there was another individual with them, she would have restricted herself from offensive language. In a culture full of fake feminists that spew offensive language openly, I believe she is setting a standard of what the difference between personal behavior and outwards behavior that would have an impact on the world around her is. No one is effected by her saying “yellow bastard” the way she did, since she was alone. She is aware of her platform (since the introduction of her is with her on Instagram live) and knows what she can and cannot feature on her platform.

In conclusion: Stormfront is a good, self-aware, admirable feminist. Be like Stormfront.

The Accusation That People Involved on the Show Have Called her A Nazi:

It’s true. In interviews, multiple people have referred to Stormfront as a Nazi -- however, an important piece of context that these people who are spreading these quotes always seem to miss out, is the fact that every time they have discussed Stormfront being a Nazi, it’s in relation to her past. They never say that her Nazi beliefs are something carried on from Liberty to Stormfront (they refer to her as Stormfront since it’s simply easier to, though). 

Even with that though, sometimes the intent of an author (or producer, or actor, etc.) does not translate to the actual finished product. What we see has more weight than what we’re told; we’ve been told that she’s a “Nazi white supremacist” but what we’ve seen is a deeply flawed character with a troubling past who’s actively working on making herself a better person. The producers, writers -- whatever -- have not translated their intent properly, so, therefore, it is invalid. Their interpretation of the character is wrong.This is something that happens a lot -- where the author means one thing but the product says another. A good example is JK Rowling; she intended to have Snape die with his sins absolved and being a martyr, but all he ended up being was an abusive creep with a vendetta against some child. Do you get it?

The Accusation That Stormfront Caused A Shooting:

So let’s just be clear: Stormfront clearly condemned the actions by the terrorist who shot the convenience clerk; she clearly doesn’t stand by that behavior nor support it. Using it as fuel for your little Stormfront hate-boner is weird and unfounded.

The Accusation That Nothing Shows Stormfront Had Changed as A Person From When she was Liberty:

A lot of people claim that Stormfront has showed no change from in comparison to her present-self to how she acted in the flashbacks, “proving” that she is still a Nazi. However, there are multiple examples that show she has actively became a better person; there are some major elemental changes to her as a person throughout time -- we know this by comparing what we know of her currently to what she used to be.

Firstly: She explicitly says that she “changed with the times,” which is a clear indication that she’s taken purposeful strides to change her values (since racism is no longer something we deem acceptable).

Secondly: While she had the mantle of liberty, she purposefully went out looking for minorities to brutalize them. While we don’t know if she ever said explicit slurs (such as the N-word or the C-word), she did make it apparent that her attack was on the basis of their ethnicity. However, in modern times, her attacks are purely motivated to fuel the reputation of Vought / because she was told to (and with one exception, which was to manipulate Homelander); this is: when she killed Kimiko’s brother, which was because he was deemed a super terrorist, and when she killed the apartment complex, which was to add to the narrative that he was a terrorist, and the exception is when she pushed Homelander into killing the white man (which was to make Homelander believe that the justice system is unjust . . . Which she is right in, to be fair).

Thirdly: Her study in creating a race of literal super-humans was diverse; it included people of all ethnicities and skin tones.

Fourthly: Stormfront herself shows, although not in a direct way, that she has actively changed. In episode five, Starlight confronts her on her past. Stormfront says, “going against your own people,” and clarifies it even further once Starlight assumes she means ‘white people’ with, “Starlight, superheroes. Don’t be racist.” While she was being condescending in what she said, the weight behind it still remains.

The Accusation That Stormfront Admitted to Being A Nazi by Saying People Love What She Says but Hates the Word Nazi:

In the finale, Stormfront’s past was exposed to the public. Because of how sensitive that information is, she got rightfully mad at whoever it was that leaked it. With the fact that Starlight had already tried to antagonize her before, Stormfront knew it was her. She found Starlight, and the two proceeded to fight. 

However, before the fight, Stormfront said that before her past was revealed, people liked what she was saying. They listened to her. They just simply don’t like the word Nazi. She said it in the sense that “Nazi” is a word used to discredit someone, regardless if their views would make them a Nazi or not. You see it a lot now, politically, the opposing side (on both ends) call each other Nazis simply because they don’t have aligning political views. And because Nazi is such a strong word, calling someone one of them would have an impact on their public reception regardless. Stormfront isn’t a Nazi anymore, but people were still calling her one regardless, so the public reception to her changed. Nazi is a strong word. Stormfront was right -- people did like what she was saying, they were listening to her every word, up until she was slandered as a Nazi.

The Accusation that Stormfront Said A Racist Remark About Edgar:

In the finale, Stormfront and Homelander are privately discussing who they believe could be behind a recent terrorist attack that quite clearly was perpetuated by a Supe. Homelander suggested that it was planned by a man called Edgar, and Stormfront said “it’s possible, he is smart. For his kind.” A lot of people have slandered Stormfront further by saying “for his kind” was in reference to his ethnicity. However, with the audience already knowing her superiority complex around Supes, we can understand the remark was in terms of him not having any abilities (that we know of).

The Accusation That Stormfront Believes in The “Great Replacement” Theory:

In the finale, it’s found that Homelander’s son -- Ryan -- is having issues connecting with his powers and triggering them. Homelander says that he found it easy to use his powers by imagining an enemy, a person he hates. However, Ryan tries to do that too but finds that he really just doesn’t hate anyone.

Stormfront, being quick-thinking, delicately says that people are against them because of their skin color, “it’s called white genocide.” While it was tasteless and questionable for her to tell a child, she believed that Ryan needed a clear enemy in his mind and she was simply suppling him with a vague idea that would trigger his abilities for at least one time. No where does she actually say she believes in the outlandish theory; she was simply saying it because she believed it would help Ryan overcome an obstacle he was facing. 

The Accusation That Stormfront is Named After A White-Nationalist Site:

There’s a lot of discourse over her name; a lot of people think a name is a valid reason to call someone a Nazi. I don’t believe I need to point out why that is insane, but I will explain the reasoning behind Stormfront’s name:

Stormfronts powers are based in electricity. They are bolts of electricity that come from the palm of her hand, and can light things of fire, burn people, throw them around, etc. They resemble lightening from a storm, hence her being called Stormfront.

[bourbonboredom]

A Reason To Believe Chapter 14

Being an undercover officer is a perilous job and Flip Zimmerman knows this far too well. He keeps his romantic life limited to one-night stands, never letting anyone get too close. That all starts to change when he meets a vivacious Jewish woman named Elle just as he’s about to take on a seriously dangerous undercover job; infiltrating the KKK. Elle and his undercover work make him question things he’d never thought to before and challenge him to see the world, and himself, in a whole new light.

A Flip x OC Fic

Word Count: 3,817

Warnings: none

The night is gone

The light has come

A new day has begun

The weather is clear

And people are here

And morning's here

Calling everyone

(x)

The office is always a little quieter after an undercover mission is completed. Usually because the mountains of paperwork leave little time for chitchat. There was less of a busy feeling in the air though in the weeks after the explosion, it was more of simmering tension.

The case had been declared shut just a few days after the attack, but not because Ron or Flip felt it was done. Chief Bridges had made the declaration, finding the klan no longer posing a threat after the death of three members. It was bullshit and everyone knew it. To make things more outrageous, Bridges said he wanted everything to do with the case destroyed.

Flip was furious. He'd wound up walking out of the office before Bridges had stopped talking. This wasn't fair, this wasn't over. Just because three died doesn't mean there wasn't still a whole chapter in Colorado Springs left. Or that Duke wasn't still running hundreds of other chapters. No one was safer from anything happening.

Him and Ron barely looked at each other the rest of the day, both to angry to even talk about with with one another. The boxes that contained evidence were now siting next to his trash can, they weren't of any use to the case if there wasn't even going to be a case of record. The second he was off is shift he'd stormed out of the building, racing to get home.

He'd packed up some essentials from his house; clothes, documents, his photos and army memorabilia, and put it in the trunk of his car. With the organization knowing his residence, he couldn't live there anymore. He'd find a new place to live in the next few days, there were bound to be apartments with vacancies. In the meantime, he could rent a motel room or crash on Jimmy's couch, or something.

As he sat in his car, his mind wandered to Elle. At least this would give him more time to be with her. Maybe she'd let him spend the night more often, let him hold her close and tell him that things would work out.

He started his car and headed in the direction of her apartment. He'd probably get to her place before she got off work, but she didn't mind him hanging around there now. She gave him a key after all. He unlocked her front door, pulled a Coors from the fridge and sat on the couch, processing the days events.

Elle got home a half hour later. She was dressed in her shirt and pants with her necklace secured back around her neck with a new chain. She looked happy to see him, but her face feel after she saw his expression.

"Hey, is everything okay?" She pried off her shoes and sat beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"The chief closed the case even though he knows the organization is still a threat. He wants us to erase it from record. Everything about the klan must go," He mumbled. He knows he shouldn't tell her, but he doesn't give a fuck.

"What?" Her voice was full of shock, partially from the news and partially because he'd actually told her what was going on. "Why would he do that?"

"Who knows. But it's over, I gotta cut ties with the organization. And probably move because they know where I live now,"

"One, fuck your boss. He's an idiot and I'd give him a piece of my mind if you'd let me," She started.

"My boss can't know that you know about all this," He interjected.

"I know. But he's an idiot for shutting that down. You and Ron were doing great things." She rested her head on his shoulder and looked up at him. "And two, move in with me,"

"What?" He wasn't sure he heard her correctly.

"Move in with me, you practically live here anyways. There's enough room for two people, and I'm ready for it if you are,"

"Aren't you worried about what people are gonna say? What your landlord could say? Most people around here don't live together until they're married,"

"It's my apartment and there's nothing in my lease that says anything about it. I don't care what people will have to say, it's our life not theirs," She broke into a sly smile after her statement. "Besides, what are they gonna do? Call the cops?"

He cracked a smile and swooped her into a kiss.

"I love you," He murmured against her lips

"Is that a yes?"

"It's a yes,"

He heart felt full. The abrupt ending for the case was awful, and he knew he'd feel that way for a long time. But now he knew he'd be coming home to her every night. He held her against his chest, his heart beat feeling even as he calmed down. He was going to be able to get through this, get through anything, with Elle next to him.

----------

Weeks later, the office was starting to get back to normal. The holiday season was starting up, putting everyone in a better mood despite the air growing colder and snow starting to fall.

It was the end of November, and staying true to his promise, Flip was ready to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah with Elle. He noticed more than usual this year how Christmas completely dominated the season. He could count the number of menorahs he saw around town on one hand, and nothing was marketed in stores for the holiday.

He picked Elle up at the hospital that night, the two of them were going grocery shopping to pick up ingredients to make latkes. He remembered his grandparents making them when him and his parents stayed over for a few days. His mother refused to make them for him when he asked for them after.

Elle had told him that Hanukah wasn't a huge deal for her family either. It was a quiet holiday for her parents in Germany, especially right before the Second World War broke out.

"It wasn't until they got to America that Hanukkah became a big thing," She had explained to him a couple of days ago. "The rabbi at temple wanted the community to be involved and have something to look forward to in the winter, like how Christians had Christmas. So we'd give little gifts to one another and play dreidel and stuff."

He was kind of excited to celebrate with her. After turning down Yom Kippur and Sukkot, he'd felt a little guilty. At the time, he didn't think much of it. But after being faced with hate day in and day out, he wanted to learn more about his culture.

And so here he was, pulling his car up to the curb so that Elle could jump in from the snow currently falling around them. She greeted him with a kiss, her cold nose touching his cheek as she did, and they drove out to the store.

It was late afternoon and the store was quiet. It was only a week or so after thanksgiving, and a month until Christmas, so the shelves were well-stocked during the holiday lull. They strolled down the aisles, Elle reading from list she'd pulled from her jacket pocket.

Sour cream

Applesauce

Onion

Potato

It was simple enough, but that didn't stop them from messing around. When Elle sent him to get a tub of Daisy sour cream, he came back to her trying to reach a jar of applesauce on the top shelf.

He could have easily grabbed it for her, but instead opted to come up behind her and left her in the air. She let out a yelp and nearly elbowed him in the face until she saw it was just her boyfriend. She rolled her eyes, laughed, and grabbed the glass jar, asking to be put back in solid ground.

He set her back down and spun her around to give her a kiss. Normally he hated watching other people's PDA, but he could barely keep his hands off her. She broke the kiss and rubbed her nose against his.

"Come on Romeo, we've gotta get cooking by sundown, let's finish up here,” She hooked a finger on his belt, drawing him closer as she continued in a hushed voice. "We've got the night to ourselves, be patient and you might get a reward later,"

"Oh? What kind of reward?" He rested his hand on the small of her back, subtly drifting lower.

"It's something small. And lacy. You'll have to unwrap me to find out," He let out a short breath as she spoke, looking around to make sure no one heard that.

"Trouble," He gave her a light smack on her ass as she started walking toward the produce section.

"Only for you," She called back to him.

Only for him. All for him.

She had him grab onions while she looked for the best bag of potatoes. He put the newly-filled paper bag into their basket and started to head back over. He'd come up behind Elle, resting his hand on the small of her back to let her know he was there. He looked around the store as he waited, watching as a few people went by with their own groceries.

Suddenly, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see a familiar face looking at him from down the aisle.

A brunette was watching the two of them, her cart stationary as though she stopped to stare. It took a second to place her, but he remembered. She was from the klan bar out in the country. She was the one who wanted him to dance.

He stared back, waiting to see if she knew who he was. He couldn't quite place her expression. Elle didn't notice the interaction. She had turned to face him, tugging his sleeve to let him know she was finished. The woman's gaze shifted from their faces to their necks.

After the case was over, Flip had retrieved his necklace from his desk, returning it to its rightful place around his throat. The top buttons of his shirt were undone and Elle's uniform showed off her own Star of David. The woman's mouth drew tight and she walked off, not giving them a second look.

He thought about it all through the check out line and on the car ride home. That woman, who had spent nights on end checking him out at the bar, had just turned her nose up at him because of a necklace. Of course, he didn't want or need her attention, spending most of those nights purposefully avoiding her. What was bothering him was that without knowing a single thing about it besides his heritage, the woman had gone from pursuing him to being repulsed by him. The case was over, people had died or gone to jail, but the hatred still persisted. Had anything really changed?

He helped Elle unpack everything onto the counter, and she set him to work peeling and grating the potatoes as she diced an onion. The radio played in the background, thankfully the Christmas music hadn't started yet so it was just the regular rotation of pop music. Some pop group belted out their ballad as they worked in silence.

He handed over the peeled and grated potatoes to Elle, who was wiping her eyes with the corner of a towel, the onions proving to be potent. She mixed the two together with an egg. She instructed him to set a pan on the stove and turn on the heat. She formed patties with her hands and put oil in the pan, letting the latke crackle as it met the heat.

"You've been quiet, you got something on your mind?" She asked as she turned one over. Perfect golden brown.

"It's probably nothing. But I saw someone from the investigation at the grocery store this afternoon. A woman who frequented a bar the klan hung out at," He divulged.

"Do you think she recognized you?"

"I don't know, I couldn't tell honestly. But I think she saw my necklace. She was friendly before, when she thought I was Ron Stallworth, a brother. But she took one look at the necklace and suddenly it was like I was a piece of gum on the street,"

She turned the heat off and moved the pan to a different burner. She hopped on the counter, extending her arms to motion for him to come closer. He obliged, wrapping his arms around her frame, resting his head on her shoulder. Her arms reached up, embracing him. One hand ran through his hair in a soothing motion.

"People suck. She sucks," She said

"I just don't know if the case was even worth it. Sure, we got some good intel and some suffered consequences. But most of them are still out there, just living life. Ron told me he saw a cross burning from his apartment the other night. It's like nothing has really changed,"

"You changed,"

Her words confused him. He look at her, brows furrowed.

"When I met you, before this whole case started, you didn't seem to care too much. About who you were, where you came from, what others were doing in the world. This case changed you. I don't know what went on most of the time, or what you heard or saw but you'd come home angry and tired. But you also started forming opinions, taking interest in your culture and really thinking about what's happening around you,"

"So yeah, they might not have changed. They're gonna be full of hate and ignorance probably for the rest of their lives. They don't want to actually be better, they want to think they're better than everyone else. You, Flip Zimmerman came out of this a better person,"

He thought about her words. It wasn't something he really considered, but he supposed she was right. Things had changed for him. New place, new girlfriend, new perspective on life.

He kissed her forehead, a silent thank you.

"I love you,"

"I love you too. Do you wanna put some plates our for me so I can serve these up?"

"Sure thing babe," He let her get off the counter and start cooking again. He grabbed two plates from the cabinet, letting her alternate finished latkes between them.

The sun was just setting when they finished. They placed the food on the table and brought a bottle of wine out to share. Her menorah, one her family bought her before she'd gone off to college and had been with her ever since, was sitting proudly in the window.

A tiny part of him thought about how visible it was, the shiny silver with the white candles could easily be seen from the street. Thoughts of someone from the klan spotting it, someone seeing it as a bullseye for who to target their hate against. He knew what people were capable of.

"Do you know the story of Hanukkah?" She asked him.

He realized he'd begun to space out, and she had seen him staring at the menorah in the window. He had a feeling that she knew what he'd been thinking.

"Not really," He admitted.

A Syrian king named Antiochus IV sent his soldiers to enforce his rule. He had outlawed Judaism and any holiday or custom that had to do with it. Jews were expected to convert to following the Greek gods or die.

After the Temple of Jerusalem had been declared to be for the Greek god Zeus, a Jewish resistance movement led by the Maccabees began in defiance of this ruling. They fought against the Syrians in several battles and though severely outnumbered, won.

According to the legend, when the Maccabees entered the temple and began to reclaim it, they quickly went to relit their eternal flame on the menorah. In the temple, they found a single jar of oil, which would only light the menorah for one day. It would take eight days for a messenger to bring them more oil. But miraculously that one jar of oil burned for the full eight days, keeping the flame alive until more oil could be brought. Those eight days became the miracle of Hanukkah.

"It's about perseverance of our religion and culture. Hanukah means dedication in Hebrew. The menorah is displayed publicly on purpose, it's a way of asserting your faith for all to see,"

He understood what she was saying. This was an opportunity for him.

“I'd like to light the candle for the first night," He said after some thought. "If that's okay,"

"Of course babe," Elle responded. She brought over a candle she'd lit previously, handing him the shamash.

As she used her flame to light his, he thought about how the last time he held a candle was during the klan initiation. He had to stand up in front of a room and swear he was of pure blood. He had to lie, mask an entire aspect of his existence. The entire time he'd found himself thinking of Rosh Hashanah with Elle, the ritual and meaning behind the candles, how they were to usher in a new year and positivity. Holding the shamash, now lit, felt cleansing. The flame once again holding a uplifting meaning.

"Do you need me to guide you through the prayer?" She asked. He nodded. She spoke slowly, letting him take his time to recite.

Baruch atah, Adonai

Eloheinu, Melech haolam,

“Hah-oh-lahm” she enunciated, letting him correct himself.

asher kid’shanu

b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu

l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah.

The first candle was lit, the flame dancing steadily upon the wick. He set the shamash back down in its holder and stepped back to look at it.

He felt Elle wrap her arms around his waist. He curled his arm around her, hugging her to him. They looked at the menorah, watching how the light reflected on the icy window pane, creating dancing shadows on the wall.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

A few months ago, he was in a completely different place, mentally more so than physically. He looked down at Elle, her big brown eyes staring back up at him. She looked at him with love, a feeling he eagerly returned. He felt at peace, he felt accepted and in turn, more accepting of himself.

"I feel like I'm home," He responded.

He was unsure at first, if she'd understand what he meant by that. But she just smiled up at him before resting her head on his chest. She understood, he was home.

______

Welp, that’s all folks! Thanks for reading this story, I had fun writing it! It was cathartic to write a Jewish-driven story, you dont get to see those often. 

Shalom aleichem

[holidays-events]

Amanirenas (c.60 BCE - c.10 BCE) The One-Eyed Queen Who Fought Rome Tooth and Nail

Footnotes

↑1

There’s a ton of different spellings of her name – Amanirenat, Imminerant, etc – but this seems to be the most common one. The Roman historian Strabo referred to her merely by her title as Candace (kandake), but there’s a general consensus that Amanirenas was the one that he was talking about.

↑2

 No, Marc Antony and Cleopatra weren’t together when they died. Visual shorthand! Trying to cover a fair bit of history here.

↑3

This expansion was initiated by Augustus’s henchman,  Cornelius Gallus, who established Ethiopia as a protectorate. While Cornelius overplayed his hand and was soon thereafter demoted, Augustus nevertheless seemed to approve of the southern expansion, and they continued under Cornelius’s successor, Petronius.

↑4

It’s unclear as to whether Kush knew of Rome’s plans for expansion, but it seems likely, given that Ethiopia had been looped in as early as 29 BCE. Estimates I’ve read indicated Kush began early skirmishes around 27, with its major invasion occurring in 24. Rome was dealing with wars in Arabia at the time, hence the distraction.

↑5

Kush does not get NEARLY enough play in the history books. A lot of historians have treated it as a satellite state to Egypt, but it actually conquered Egypt in the 25th Dynasty, and had a fairly distinct culture. It repelled a ton of outside invasions, and had an army of archers so fierce that Egypt referred to it as the Land of the Bow. They also had metalworking, thanks to the Assyrians.

↑6

Kush is also sometimes conflated with Meroe — Meroe was its capitol city (after it was moved from Napata). You’ll sometimes see references to Candace of Meroe, whom Alexander the Great reportedly met (a myth; more on that later).

↑7

It’s a little unclear to me when her son, Akinidad, died. He was alive for the invasion of Napata in 24 BCE. Teritegas, Amanirenas’ husband, died in 27 BCE, I believe.

↑8

The Roman historian Strabo — who was a personal friend of Augustus — describes the Kushites flailing about ineffectively, with poor leadership (almost certainly under Amanirenas’ son, Akinidad. she was elsewhere during the sack of Napata). However, given that Rome later agreed to peace terms that were incredibly favorable to Kush, I view the finer details of his account with mild suspicion.

↑9

Other carvings depict Kushite leaders feeding people to dogs. The war elephant thing is true, although they were probably used more by Carthage than Kush. The biggest direct tie of elephants to kandakes is a mythic telling of Alexander the Great being greeted by an elephant-riding kandake. Nobody seems to believe that really happened, but hey.

↑10

Here’s where you get a thousand armchair historians saying ��they could have taken Kush if they wanted to, this is feminist bullshit!” (seriously, Rome “experts” are only marginally less annoying than WW2 “experts”).  I am not arguing Rome couldn’t have taken Kush – it was a combination of harsh environment, armed resistance, and logistical difficulty that sank the expansion. Kush was too far-flung to allow for easy import of reinforcements or mass export of goods. From the viewpoint of the Kushites, this was a David and Goliath story. Other cultures are allowed their heroes.

↑11

Here’s the “misunderstanding” theory, which is just my reading of events: Strabo described the Kushites suing for peace, citing grievances with previous administrators. They displayed surprisingly little awareness of Rome, not knowing who its leader was or where to find him. This indicates to me that the aforementioned administrator, Cornelius Gallus, was provoking Kush in ways that didn’t make it into the histories, and that when they started fighting, it was against him – they didn’t really know who they were fighting. It’s possible it was all a misunderstanding, one that Amanirenas ironed out. Doesn’t square with their continued disrespect for Augustus’s head, but hey. Egypt had swapped hands a lot in the years leading up to the war, confusion is understandable.

↑12

 There’s other Augustus statues out there, other bronze ones even – but none had the original eyes. Hence “best preserved.”

↑13

I just wanted to share that old-school diss. The rest of the wall had crumbled so who knows which ruler it was. I’m rooting for Amanirenas.

[click to hide/expand]Art Notes

The art notes are pretty much all inline! Amanirenas’s outfit is a stripped-down version of her carving. It is more likely she would have worn something like a leopard pelt, but I liked the design so much I ran with it.

Kush had cool little pyramids that survive to present day, so I sprinkled them throughout.

That blue-eyed elephant is named Jumbo. Totally legally distinct.

https://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/amanirenas

[star-anise]

I would enjoy it greatly if you would rant about the White People Smile thing, because ever since that post, I've noticed how much I do it

Okay this one is gonna be a deep dive.

For the uninitiated, I’m explaining why white people do what they do. This refers less to the actual amalgamated experiences of every person with pale skin and European descent ever, and more the aspirational model of whiteness held up as the cultural ideal in former British colonies.The gap between these two concepts is left for the audience as an instructive lesson on how useful racial stereotypes are in predicting the experiences and behaviour of individual people of that race.

Previously, while explaining why guest towels are often not meant to be used by guests, I dipped into the white propensity to never let someone know when they’re making a mistake–to smile awkwardly and say nothing when a person is being rude or offensive–before going back to talking about the unique properties of linen and terrycloth. This is a further look at the subject.

So, I can’t explain this for every person ever. And I’m gonna take a different tack than I normally would, which would normally be to talk about trauma and the fight/flight/freeze response to stress. Instead, I’m going to talk about my research into the cultural moment centuries ago when this response started to be advocated, and how connecting to long-lost European martial arts helped me unlearn this response.

Tl;dr it emerged as an alternative to stabbing people

I said once that I was a frustrated medievalist, fitting in my history education around other concerns, and therefore ended up studying, more than anything else, how the middle ages disappeared? This is one of those cases–the only vaguely relevant history class I could get into that semester was  Early Modern England, which focused on the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, 1485-1649. That’s the period right after the Middle Ages are said to have “ended” in Britain.

At the time I was also very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a living history group. I did rapier fencing, using the long, light swords that were intended specifically for person-to-person combat in civilian settings. They’re duelling swords, at a time the duel was becoming a separate institution from the battlefield. They were used in Spain, Italy, and France earlier, but this time period was about when they became popular in England, so I decided to use the class as a lens to study duelling in England. My prof was very receptive to this, partly because it meant he had one student whose papers weren’t about the political machinations of someone named Thomas and/or Cromwell.

So, duelling is an inherently aristocratic system. To understand it, you have to understand that “privilege” literally means “privi lege”, Latin for “private law”. It meant that the laws that applied to nobles were different from laws that applied to commoners. Commoners were not generally allowed to carry weapons or kill people; if the average commoner killed somebody, he would be tried for murder before a jury of his peers and executed for murder. But the nobility fell under the privilege of the sword; they were the class of society whose job it was to carry weapons and kill people, police and army by hereditary right. Nobles were judged by juries of their peers, other nobles; other nobles accepted that sometimes they were 100% correct in killing people. And if you’re like, “Whoa that’s fucked up, it’s like police deciding if a police officer was right to kill a civilian,” DING GOLD STAR FOR YOU. It’s why Robin Hood, the anti-aristocratic hero whose archenemy was a sheriff, is such a popular folk figure in England.

So nobles could kill commoners without serious consequences, and nobles were also allowed to kill other nobles, so long as they followed a code of combat known as chivalry. That included things like: Don’t attack someone who’s unarmed or defenceless; don’t attack from behind or without warning; bow to him before you begin fighting; blah blah blah blah. They were always more ideals than realities during times of war, but when artillery showed up on northern European battlefields in the 1400s, they became deeply impractical in warfare.  (Redacted: detailed explanation of why this is.) The ideal of a fair fight between matched foes stuck around in the duel, but it became a civil affair, not a military strategy.

Okay okay so. Why did duels happen? More than anything, they were about honour, prestige, and respect. Nobles had a certain way they expected to be treated, a code of politeness and manners with which people had to treat them. A commoner who failed to treat them this way could be punished with limited ability to resist, but other nobles had to be treated according to the same chivalric values of the fair fight. They had to be challenged to a duel.

So duels occurred over all kinds of shit. Failing to give someone precedence or jostling them in the door; having an affair with somebody’s wife; insulting someone’s favourite religious figure; behaving in an unchivalric manner; accusing someone else of behaving in an unchivalric manner; anything. People could make tutting sounds over duels being fought for the stupidest shit, but that didn’t necessarily stop them from being fought.

So the duel and the culture of politeness were really intertwined. You were polite to people because if you weren’t, they could stab you and get away with it. It’s funny how the word “gentle” started out a thousand years ago meaning someone from a particular lineage, how that lineage was the only people with social permission to perpetuate huge amounts of violence, but now means restraint from violence–but that’s what happened. A lot of courtly manners among the nobility were really like… intense high-stakes peace negotiations with everyone, all the time. 

So like, imagine current Tumblr callout culture, except if somebody called you out, you had to let them try to kill you.

Many monarchs of this era HATED duelling culture. Countries like England and France had histories of war between nobles and the Crown, so the Crown hated their nobility being really strong powerful military leaders. Powerful nobility had the pesky tendency of refusing to obey monarchs they didn’t like, or even kicking them off the throne. This pushed those monarchies towards a principle of absolute royal authority over which nothing and no one had precedence. Privilege, so far as these monarchs were concerned, ought to belong to the CROWN, and then people the Crown specifically deputized. You can’t just have people running all over and killing each other whenever they wanted! So the monarchs all started, slowly, to place restrictions on duelling and noble privilege, trying to consolidate that power.

Part of how that was done in Britain specifically was to reach out to the common people. Well, the rich common people. The merchant class. You may also know them as the bourgeoisie. One of the ways the monarchs of this era got extra money their nobles didn’t want them to have was by selling rights to colonial enterprise and writs of nobility. If you had enough money, you could become a baronet! Or own land in Ireland! Or go trade fur in North America! Which led to the social mobility I’ve mentioned before–while the crown was squeezing down the rights of the nobility, it was also opening up to the concept of common people becoming nobles. 

Here’s the thing about European racism: In places where there weren’t as many people of colour around to be racist at? They just narrowed down their concept of race. Nobles genuinely believed they constituted a separate race of people from commoners, and that they were physically different and genetically superior to common people. So this kind of class mobility was an existential threat. How can someone with no noble blood become a marquis?!

(Spoiler: In previous centuries there had been much more class mobility, before the medieval concept of “nobility” fully formed, so it was in fact as bullshit as most other racial constructs. And as the noble/common divide blurred, race had to be defined in more comprehensive ways: English against the inferior Irish, until the Irish could be assimilated into whiteness and defined in opposition to black Africans. When there have in fact been black English people for as long as there has been an England. Really truly honestly, race is constructed bullshit.)

Anyway, when the British Crown prohibited duelling in the 17th century, they tried to justify it by saying to their nobles: Hey look, here are all these commoners dressing and acting like you! And duelling like you! How droll! Don’t they look ridiculous and stupid, fighting over the littlest thing? Wouldn’t you say duelling is a little gauche? A little bourgeois?  You wouldn’t treat them like your equals, as though they deserved to be treated with the rules of chivalry, would you? No, that would be silly.

So in former times, if someone breached the standards of politeness, they’d be called out and expected to apologize or fight. But now, calling someone out would be affording them noble status when they didn’t merit the racial construct of nobility. And also, like I said before–if a commoner who was trying to break into high society made a mistake, and people pointed it out to them, then they’d learn to correct that mistake and fit in better. And then they might MARRY a noble, and DILUTE the BLOODLINES and POLLUTE the shades of PEMBERLY and MASS HYSTERIA, CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER.

So now, the nobility slowly came to believe that ~taking the high road~ was the better response: Refuse to dignify bad manners with a response, just let the awkward silence hang there so everyone can see how badly-behaved they were. Well-bred people will just know the secret unwritten rules of society. Then you can quietly exclude the rubes from your parties without ever letting them know they’re being excluded. And anyway, if you did duel someone, you’d have to do it in dead secret and if you actually did kill them, you might have to flee the country or else the Crown would arrest you and try you for murder and it’s not nice to get your dwindling noble privilege rubbed in your face.

So that’s the birth of the British response of “When someone fucks up, smile, look constipated, and say nothing.” It was especially strong in noblewomen, who wouldn’t be able to duel anyway, so might as well make a brave face of the only option that feels possible. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the late 1700s and early 1800s, society was leaning further and further to “true politeness means never expressing disapproval of someone else’s bad behaviour.” Partly because pointing out someone’s lapse in manners came to mean you thought they were stupid and hadn’t been properly enculturated into your class, which was of course the worst thing ever.

Across the centuries, the threads holding all the pieces together have rotted, so we forget why we define politeness this way; it’s just The Way Things Are Done. It’s just #verybritishproblems. It’s just the lower-class belief that if someone offends or insults you, you should punch them in the nose; it’s just the anxious privileged liberal belief that violence is wrong and we should just wring our hands about it. The most aware I’ve seen people from former colonies be on the topic is Australians, who know that they don’t subscribe as much to British manners and ideals because they were a prison colony, largely settled by poor people who got there by breaking the rules.

My grandmother, born 1929, totally aspired to that level of class and gentility, even though she was raised dirt poor; being a white settler in Canada meant that theoretically, if you worked hard and went to church and improved yourself through cleanliness and education, you could join the new ruling class. She aspired to the heights of Calgarian society, for whatever that was worth. And she has this specific way of sucking her breath in that means “Oh GOD, granddaughter, you have just something TERRIBLY gauche. Think about everything you are doing, wearing, and being at this moment, and magically intuit which of them is incorrect!” She’s also the one who made my mom learn to do pulled-thread embroidery, and taught me how to lay a place setting of silverware for a four-course meal, and basically strove to turn herself into a living model of aspirational whiteness. When my mom and I go into family therapy, we usually end up talking about how much we want to reject her ideals.

How did I unlearn this?

I am not a good fencer. I love the idea of swordfighting, but in addition to my weakness and disability, I have a really timid posture and way of moving. When I was a kid, I made it a game to see if, by turning sideways or flattening myself against a wall, I could navigate through a crowd quickly without ever needing anyone to move or notice I was there.  I really connected with the idea of Arya, in Game of Thrones, learning how to be a silent ghost, learning to catch cats. 

Then, in fencing, I had to learn entirely new responses. I’ve traditionally flinched and frozen when physically threatened; now I had to train myself to assess an incoming threat and fend it off. I had to learn to stand upright, to hold my core strong and solid, to respond to an attack and then to attack in return. It’s really physical, and in turn, really emotional. When I’ve taught teenage girls in turn, I’ve had to ease them through the process of laughing in discomfort when they land a hit on someone, crying when they hit someone out of fear and shame because they’re not supposed to DO that. Those are stages I’ve had to go through as well. I was pretty affected by a book I acquired through SCA channels, The Armored Rose, about the experiences of modern women learning to do historical combat. It’s a feminist analysis and it felt true to me, but now, a few decades later, I think it’s not really about “women” so much as “people who have been socialized to never be violent”–there are a lot of men I’ve taught who have been just as likely to freeze, who needed to overcome emotional hesitation before responding assertively, and women who had no hesitation at all.

But one lesson that really left an impression on me was learning from a doña, an acknowledged master of the form, who was helping me fine-tune the way I held myself when I fought. “Pull in your core,” she said, encouraging me to bunch my muscles up so that when I uncoiled it would be even more powerful and positive. “Hold a little bit of ferocity. You gotta be a little mad at your opponent.”

“Anger gets in the way of clear thinking,” my usual teacher, an older man, said.

“Too much, yeah,” she said. “But in the women I’ve taught, the problem is usually not enough anger, not too much.”

I can still call that feeling up very clearly–legs tense and coiled, body held upright, ready to respond to an attack with a counterattack of my own. IIt felt good. I loved fencing, loved the sense of accomplishment I got learning how to respond to attacks and defeat them.

As a child and teenager I was hideously socially anxious, and had been bullied for most of my life. When people were socially aggressive towards me, it was incredibly hard not to just freeze up. Fighting back was impolite. Resistance was futile. I would either physically or metaphorically tuck myself into a ball and wait for them to stop hitting me, get bored and go away. In my late teens and early twenties I started getting medication and therapy to deal with my problems, and that meant learning to be socially assertive. To say, “No, you didn’t hear me right, what I really meant was–” and “No, I’d rather not go,” and “Excuse me, I’d like to be included in this discussion.” And a lot of the time, when I did that, I could physically feel the scrape of another sword against mine as a ghost in my mind. I’d put my feet into a fencer’s position before difficult conversations, to give me courage.

And after writing my final paper on duelling, I thought a lot about what it would be like to live in a duelling culture. How weird, how foreign would it be, to believe that somebody else deserved to die for treating me badly? How did you summon up enough anger to fight someone for insulting you? What kind of emotion would be necessary to drive a real sword into them, and not a blunted one? 

What would it be like if I treated myself like someone whose feelings and experiences mattered, whose integrity was worth defending?

I mean, it was not a quick, easy, or complete fix. Years after, I’d still do things like get assaulted and take a year before telling anyone about it because the guy who assaulted me was friends with all my friends and I didn’t want to make them choose a side. But as much as I did change, that was how. And that enabled me to have richer relationships with a lot of different people. Before, people would hurt me without knowing it, and never know why I was later too scared of them to talk. I took a long time to trust people, to feel comfortable enough to connect with them. That fragility made it hard for me to help people, to do the kind of jobs that I wanted. The sturdier I got, the better at defending my boundaries and expressing myself, the wider the array of people I could talk with, get to know. 

And since what I really wanted was to be a therapist focused on complex trauma, and a huge proportion of the people with complex trauma in Alberta are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, that put me in situations where we had to talk about colonization and decolonization, and people started to ask me, “Hey, white girl, why do white people have so much stuff in their houses you’re not allowed to touch or use? Why are white people like this?” and could explain social niceties like “Yeah, this is a weird random thing white people do that seems really rude or stupid to you? But if you’re applying to a job and want a white person to hire you, they’ll judge you for not paying attention to it.”

I also learned, later, as training for a job, another form of martial art. Specifically, nonviolent martial arts–what to use when an impaired or intoxicated person attacks you, and you want to defend yourself without harming them, and how to render them safe if they’re hurting themselves. That job left me alone for 48 hours with teenagers with serious behavioural problems, who would do things like flail their hands in the direction of my face when I was helping them with basic hygiene. 

They didn’t mean to hurt me, and it wasn’t aggressive, but still, their nails would sometimes draw blood and it frequently left me feeling frightened and angry, because I’d been physically hurt. And it’s actually really hard to convince your monkey hindbrain that they didn’t intend to hurt you, to make that adrenaline and fear go away. It made it really hard to care for them when I didn’t feel safe, because it was hard to summon up compassion, gentleness, and empathy with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. So that training helped a lot. After that, I could catch and deflect their hands before I risked getting hurt. We could have a better relationship because I felt confident and safe around them. 

It’s filed in my brain next to the time I was playing with my nephew when he was a toddler, when I discovered that he stopped blithely using me as a climbing post when I said “Ow!” when he stepped on my boob. Once I let myself vocalize pain, he realized that he was causing me pain. He asked me about it, and when I said that it hurt me when he stepped on me, he apologized, gave me a hug to make it better, and played more gently after that. He hadn’t realized he hurt me; letting him know when he was too hard let him know how to be kind to me.

Those two are physical memories I call to mind when I’m dealing with someone who’s really upset and lashing out at me: sometimes the kindest thing you can to for someone else is deny them the ability to hurt you. To let them know the effect they’re having on you, so they can stop.

Okay. Dive’s over. I just felt my ears pop.

[imagesofthegreatgull]

Hybrid Rainbow

Joy has always been a rare and precious commodity. I would argue, though, that in the developed world (Wherever, exactly, that is), it has become somewhat less rare in recent times, as standards of living and education continue to go up. That’s an absurdly privileged thing to say, I realize, but I’m trying to start this thing as evenhandedly as I can. I understand about suffering and poverty; I’m reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn right now, even! Okay, saying we’re closer now than ever to utopia is going to smack of ignorance no matter how you phrase it, but it also strikes me as undeniably true, in the grand scheme of things. I think most people--aside from the fascists--would refuse a one-way trip in a time machine to any previous era, or at the very least, would recognize that it wouldn’t improve much of anything for them. As unruly as our age is, it’s still probably the best one we’ve gotten thus far, and as the boot-heel of oppression starts to ever so slowly ease up its pressure on the necks of the long-suffering masses, the question has begun to enter into the collective consciousness: what is to be done with joy when it begins to fall, unbidden, into your life with something like abundance? What is to be done if moments of joy no longer must be pried with great effort and sacrifice from the rockface of life, but lie strewn liberally throughout our days, needing only the will and lack of embarrassment to seize them?

Thus far, the latter-day generations have faced up to this problem with decidedly mixed success. The idea that expecting anything other than the very worst leaves one vulnerable to the universe’s cruel whims has been stamped upon the human brain for centuries, and has left many sadly unable to recognize their own privilege (Which, by the way, is a big part of why a whole lotta white folks refuse to admit they have it better than anyone else and continue to dig their heels in against progress because to them it looks like cutting in line). It is still widely accepted that constantly finding joy and peace and purpose in one’s own life is the purview of children and children alone, that it is a naivete to be grown out of. We have the impulse always within us to be hard, to be warlike, to show the world that we’re not weak and frivolous but monsters to be feared, without emotions to be appealed to or ideals to be fallen short of.

Remedying this problem has turned out to be one of the primary functions of counterculture. If it is often unhelpful to simply look at the entire value system of one’s parents and say “Fuck that”, as it tends to foster a rather negative self-definition, still, if part of that value system is a deeply entrenched distrust of happiness, “Fuck that” may be exactly the response called for. The beauty of “Fuck that” is that it leaps past the slow loss of faith in something and arrives immediately at a flat rejection of it, and since much of the history of civilization has been bound up with blind faith in arbitrary and harmful things, the ability and the courage to flatly reject something, to give it no credit for however widely accepted it is but to dismiss it as bullshit from the ground up, is a step forward in human consciousness tantamount to the reinvention of the wheel.

The great irony of the end of the sixties is that all the hippies were miserable for no reason: they won. Rock n’ roll did change the world, it just didn’t immediately transform it on every level into an unrecognizable nirvana. For all the apparent emptiness of its utopian dreams, the basic thrust of the thing worked out just fine: that particular cat will never be put back into its bag, and those ideas are now out in the ether forever, always waiting for someone to find them and be inspired to change their own life and the lives of those around them for the better. The same goes for the punk rock revolution a few years later: they may not have brought the bastards down, but they did successfully bring personal liberation to a lot of people, and poured exactly as much gas on the fires of populism as they intended to. Culture, and in particular art and in particular music, cannot, unassisted, change the world, but it can change your world, and has been changing small worlds all over the frigging place at least since those mop-topped Brits set foot on American shores and probably since Johnny B. Goode learned to play guitar just like a-ringin’ a bell. 

The thread can get lost, however. Culture is always a reflection of the people, and the people still spend a lot of their time bored, frustrated, and terrified of letting on that they have feelings about stuff. Young people especially, formerly the eternal pirate crew waving high the flags of “Liberty” and “Up Yours”, in recent times have often capitulated and resigned themselves to no more than a few stray moments of fun pilfered from the fortresses of the almighty Money Man-Kings, usually in the form of drugs, sex, and reckless self-endangerment. The cost of the hippies and the punks giving up their battles is that the counterculture lost its intellectual leadership, at least until the resurgence in political literacy in the 2010s. In the wasteland following the 70s, there were no John Lennons or Joe Strummers to look to for guidance; even the people who were elected to speak for their generation seemed adamant that there was fuck-all they could really say. Yeah, it’s nice to know that someone else feels stupid and contagious, but that’s not really a direction, is it? The generation-defining message Kurt Cobain and his peers sent out was “We’re all way too fucked up to do anything about anything”, and that introspective moodiness pervaded American underground rock music from the invention of hardcore at least all the way up to the moment Craig Finn watched The Last Waltz with Tad Kubler and said “Why aren’t there bands like this anymore?” and set out with rest of the Steadies in tow to remind everyone that music can save your immortal soul and that hey, that Springsteen guy was really onto something, headband and all, and together they all successfully ushered in the New Uncool and now we’ve got Patrick Stickles wailing that “If the weather’s as bad as the weatherman says, we’re in for a real mean storm!” and Brian Fallon admitting “I always kinda sorta wished I looked like Elvis” and everything’s great, except it’s not, everything’s fucked, but rock n’ roll is here to stay, come inside now it’s okay, and I’ll shake you, ooo-ooo-ooo.

The point of all this is my belief that even with the responsibility rock music has to provide cathartic outlets for dissatisfaction, is has an equal or greater responsibility to provide heroes. I think it’s time we all got over pretending that we’re better than the need for heroes, because we all insist on having them anyway, imperfect roses by any other name, and we’d do a hell of a lot better selecting them if we just admitted what we were after. We don’t just want particularly talented comrades, we want King Arthur, Robin Hood, Superman, Malcolm Reynolds. Damn it all, they don’t need to be perfect, they don’t even need to be all that great really, and yeah, Arthur dies, and Robin never gets Prince John, and Superman can’t save everyone, and the war’s over, we’re all just folk now, and John Lennon beat women and Van Morrison is a grumpy old fart and John Lydon’s a disgrace, but it’s the faith that counts. The faith that there’s something greater than ourselves that some people are more keyed into than others, and that whatever they can relay from that other side is what’ll see us through. All the best prophets are madmen, and madmen aren’t always romantic fools; sometimes they hurt people, or fail at crucial moments due to a compulsion they can’t control. Let he who is without sin etcetera, right? Why not cast aside realism and sincerely believe in something or someone, huh? 

I believe in the Pillows. I don’t know hardly anything about them; my expertise of Japanese culture and history extends to the anime I’ve seen and that “History of Japan” YouTube video that made the rounds a while back. I can’t locate them within the Japanese music scene; all their western influences seem obvious to me, and the rest I know nothing about. They’re the only rock band from their country I’ve listened to any great amount of, I don’t speak the language they mostly sing in, I don’t even know their career very well. The particulars of any experiences they might have had that motivated them to make the art they make are not ones I could possibly share in, so, saying that I “Relate” to their work sounds a little preposterous. They ought to be a novelty to me, a band that clearly likes a lot of the same bands I do despite hailing from a foreign shore, marrying that shared music taste with a cultural identity I have nothing to do with, a small, nice upswing of globalism pleasing to my sense of universalism but not having any kind of quantifiable impact on me.

Yet I, like a good many other westerners, believe in the Pillows. I’m a little buster, and my eyes just watered as I wrote that. In fact, it’s likely because of the barriers of language and culture that exist between us that my belief in the Pillows is so strong. Pete Townshend, someone else I believe in, once opened a show by saying “You are very far away...but we will fucking reach you”, and though the Pillows are both geographically (At the moment) and culturally miles away from me, Lord strike me down if they don’t fucking reach me. They reach me in a way many of their American college rock peers, many of their biggest influences in fact, never have. Dinosaur Jr, Bob Mould, Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Nirvana--all these artists speak directly to the American adolescent experience, but though they have all moved me to one degree or another, none of them have produced a body of work I can so readily see myself in as that of the Pillows. Maybe it is the novelty of it, maybe I’m fooling myself and it is just my sense of universalism carrying me away, but there’s something I hear in the Pillows that I don’t hear in those bands, and though the obvious candidate for that thing would be the foreign tongue the majority of the lyrics are written in, when it comes down to it, I think that thing is joy.

Joy, to me, is the possibility glimpsed by rock n’ roll. Not hedonistic pleasure, not a sadistic glee over the outrage of authority figures, but real, true, open-hearted, “Freude, schöner Götterfunken/Tochter aus Elysium”--type joy. Buddy Holly had joy. The Beatles, The Who, the pre-fall Rod Stewart, they had joy. Springsteen’s got joy to spare. Those people have such profound love for their art and their audience that just the continual recognition of the fact that they have a guitar in their hands and they’re being allowed to play it is enough to make them ecstatic, and whenever they want to actually express something serious they have to get themselves under control to do it. Yet, whether it’s the unfashionability of those utopian dreams, or the simple fact that rock music has become accepted by mainstream culture and is now a commonplace, unremarkable thing, but half the people who have picked up an electric guitar for the past few decades don’t seem all that excited about it. From Kim Gordon snarling about how people go down to the store to buy some more and more and more and more, to Thom Yorke moaning about how he’s let down and hanging around, crushed like a bug in the ground, even up to Courtney Barnett asking how’s that for first impressions, this place seems depressing, it’s not really a given anymore, if it ever was, that people who make rock music are very joyful in what they do. 

Of course, I’m not demanding that our artists be empty-headed fluff-factories; far from it. The Pillows write sad songs and angry songs same as everybody else. But the important thing is this: every song the Pillows play is played with an exuberance and abandon that is immediately striking, regardless of the emotional content of each song. Channelling that kind of revelry into rock music is both to my mind the initial purpose of the genre in the first place and something which has become so rare as to be remarkable. A veneer of detached cool, a howling ferocity, a whimpering woundedness--these have become the hallmarks of American rock music, and they are nowhere to be found in the Pillows.

At the same time, the Pillows are the very antithesis of artlessness. Joy of the caliber they deal in is more commonly found in folky rave-ups, a lack of musicianship giving way to trancelike festivity. But the Pillows are skilled song craftsmen like few others; their sound has evolved throughout the years, but they tend to settle in the neighborhood of power-pop, abounding in glorious hooks and surprising structures. A hundred unnecessary, perfect touches seem to exist in every song; a pause, a solo, a bassline, all deftly elevating the song into a perfect expression of something sublime, something that always--always--takes ahold of the musicians themselves and imbues their performances with power and purpose the likes of which most little busters can only dream of feeling. It should be testament enough to their brilliance that upon first listen to a song I never know what most of the lyrics mean, but whenever I look up a translation, they always turn out to be exactly what I felt they must be; their songs are so musically communicative that they all but lack the need for lyrics. 

This dual nature is why I believe in the Pillows: by so utterly failing to neglect both the highest possibilities of musical composition as an unparalleled tool for capturing emotional nuance and the unrestrained id-like rush that is the province of rock n’ roll, they successfully attain the lofty realm that is--or ought to be--the goal of music in the first place. Never once is there a hint of straying into the realm of primitivism nor into overthought seriousness, and instead they locate themselves somehow exactly center on the scale between punk and prog, lacking the weaknesses and gaining the strengths of both. They make rock whole again by finally disproving the tenet initially laid out by their heroes, your heroes, and mine, The Beatles: the notion that growing up means having less fun. The viscerally exciting early work of The Beatles lacks any of the depth and vision displayed by their later records, but those records are so carefully and expertly crafted that they tend to lose spontaneity, and constantly second-guess themselves where the juvenilia they followed forged unselfconsciously ahead. That legendary career path has laid out a false dichotomy that every proceeding generation of kids with guitars has chosen between, save for the few who could see past it, the ones who heard the wildness in “Revolution” and the wisdom in “Twist and Shout” and realized that they were of a piece, were one and the same, not to be chosen between but embraced fully. Pete Townshend. Bruce Springsteen. Joe Strummer. David Byrne. Paul Westerberg. The Pillows. The real heroes are not those who champion one side or another but fight all their lives for peace between them, knowing that we have not yet begun to imagine what could be accomplished if that were made possible.

Just as they bypass the divide between what Patrick Stickles termed the Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies of rock (I prefer to think of the usual battle as being between the Dionysians and the Athenians, with the true devotees of Apollo being most of those heroes I keep referring to, except Dylan, who might be a Hermesian), so too do the Pillows bypass the Pacific frigging ocean. And the Atlantic, to boot. Their music quotes the Pixies and The Beatles directly, and obviously owes much to Nirvana and all their college rock predecessors who spent the entire 80s desperately stacking themselves until the doomed power trio could finally vault over the wall. Their first record is practically a tribute to XTC. They do speak a lot of English, too. I’m informed that much of western culture is seen as the epitome of coolness in Japan, which might explain their obsession with Baseball, and apparently sprinkling a bit of the Saxon tongue into the mix is far from uncommon in the music scene(s). Regardless, there is something ineffably touching to a distant fan in a foreign land about hearing Sawao Yamanaka spit “No surrender!” or exclaim “Just runner’s high!” It looks from here like a show of mutual effort to understand me as much as I’m trying to understand them. They’re generous enough to have already walked to the middle where they’re asking me to meet them, a middle where it doesn’t matter that I don’t have a suffix attached to my name or that they don’t wear shoes in houses. The invisible continent that all forward-thinking and sensitive people come to long for is where the Pillows are broadcasting from, because they’ve realized that its golden shores and spiraling cities are attainable. They’re attainable with joy, with the fundamentally rebellious act of refusing to let the fascists bring down even your globdamn day, because who the hell gave them that power other than us? I know enough about Japan and America to know that either one accusing the other of being imperialist and socially conservative to a fault is a fucking joke, and to know that we’ve done a lot more wrong to them than they’ll ever do to us and the presence of the Pillows amounts to a “We forgive you”, not an “I’m sorry”. Having watched a decent amount of anime, which is basically the result of Japan’s mind being blown by western media and then proceeding to show their love by often almost inadvertently surpassing their inspirations, I know that the only way to save our respective national souls and everybody else’s too is to put our knuckles down, have Jesus and Buddha shake hands like Kerouac tried to explain that they would anyway, and embrace each other’s dreams and passions and adopt them into our own. 

It takes better people to inhabit that better world, and in case that sounds like fascist talk, I mean we’ve got to do better, not be better. It’s no physical imperfection that holds us back, nor a mental imperfection exactly, as we all have our own neuroses and if we expunge those then we’ll be kissing art and lot of other vital stuff goodbye. No, it’s our discomfort with ourselves, our world, our neighbors, our aliens, that keep us from seeing that crazy sunshine. If we can’t even acknowledge the greatness around us, that surplus of joy I mentioned a while back that we just seem to have no idea what to do with, then we have no hope of ever achieving further greatness, of ever quelling man’s inhumanity to man down to an inevitable fringe rather than the basic order of the world. 

There was always more to do 

Than just eat and work and screw

But now that there’s time at last to do those things, we’re still afraid to, afraid that we’ll come up empty, that the search for fulfillment leads only to disappointment, better to hang back and play it safe, better not to risk becoming one of those people I shake my head at and pity and will secretly envy until I die. It’s a new world, and we must learn to be new people. I believe in the Pillows because I believe they make excellent models for that new kind of person. The way they behave in the studio and on the stage is the way people behave when they’re truly free, and we’ve all been set free already or will be soon, so if we’re going to try and learn what the fuck is next from anyone, I think we might as well learn from the Pillows. At least, that’s one of the places we could get that insight. There’s a lot of art and a lot of philosophy and political theory to sift through to in order to put together a workable 21st century identity, and the Pillows are hardly the only people to have begun making the leap. But because of a silly thing like the size of the earth, the infinitesimal size of the earth even compared to the distance between us and the next rock we’re gonna try and get to, not everybody is getting their particular brand of free thought and action, and I happen to think that’s regrettable, and it’s my will as a free individual to rectify it as much as I can.

Writing about music really is worthless, isn’t it? I haven’t said jackshit about what the Pillows actually do other than to vaguely qualify their genre and temperament, and the only more useless thing I could do than not describing their songs would be to describe their songs. If you don’t hear the bracing weightlessness in “Blues Drive Monster”, or the aching nostalgia in “Patricia”, or the soul-bearing cry in “Hybrid Rainbow” then nothing I could write about those would be more effective than “Little Busters is a really good album.” The better primer might be Happy Bivouac, from a few years later; it has the melancholic rush of “Last Dinosaur”, the ascended teenybopper “Whoa, whoa, yeah” chorus in “Backseat Dog”, and the intro that should make it obvious immediately that you’re listening to one of the best songs ever recorded which opens “Funny Bunny”. Those two, Runners High, and Please, Mr. Lostman are the classic era, selections from the former three immortalized in their biggest claim to western fame, the FLCL soundtrack, a brilliant use of their music that could warrant an equally long piece. Before and after those four are periods of experimentation and discovery equally worth your time, not all of which I’m familiar with yet. See, now I’m just an incomplete Wikipedia article; it’d be equally worthless to expound upon the individual bandmates, on the pure yawp of Yamanaka’s vocals, on the passionate drumming of Yoshiaki Manabe and the supernaturally faultless lead guitar of Shinichiro Sato, or the contribution of founding bassist Kenji Ueda, which was so valued by the others that when he left he was never officially replaced (They’re so sweet). I’m not here to write an advertisement or a press-release, I don’t really even know why I’m here writing this, but I know that I believe in the Pillows, that they’re important, and that people should write about them. I’m being the change I want to see in the world, get it? That’s all we can be asked to do.

It occurs to me that people believed in Harvey Dent too, and that didn’t turn out so well. Hell, let’s leave the comic book pages behind, people believe in Donald Trump, they think he’s a hero, and that’s all going down in flames as I write this. Having heroes can be dangerous, but I still believe it’s not as dangerous as not having heroes. “Lesser of two evils” sounds an awful lot like one of those false dichotomies between fun and intelligence or between misery and foolishness I mentioned earlier, so, let’s call it a qualified good. I’m not much of a responsible world-citizen if my only effort towards bringing the planet together is spinning some sweet Japanese alt-rock tunes and bragging about how open-minded I am, but if I do ever end up doing anyone any good, then I’d consider it paying forward the good done to me by the Pillows, among others. They helped me form my identity as an artist (Read: functional human being) and they made my adolescence a lot easier. Actually, that’s a lie: my adolescence was (And continues to be) pretty easy already, and the Pillows reassured me that I wasn’t avoiding reality by feeling that. While American bands sang about the downsides of being a mallrat or a non-mallrat, the Pillows offered a vision of teenagedome much like my own, one that was grandly romantic, in which suffering wasn’t a cosmic stupidity but a trial with pathos and merit, and joy was not an occasional indulgence but a constant presence, whether it was lived in or lost and needing recovery. 

That’s the old idea of youth, the youth of John Keats, the youth that makes the old miss it, makes it required that we explain to them that it’s still there, it never left, it’s a dream, a momentary affirmation, an attitude, a muttered curse word. So many of my peers, now no longer engaged in a constant race to stay out of the grave as their ancestors were, seemed intent on beating each other into their tombs, as if reaching walking death before their parents was the only way to outgrow them. There’s so much life just lying around and it’s just plain wasteful to let it lie in the sun and rust in the rain. There’s space enough to stretch, to not keep who you are awkwardly curled up inside yourself, to breathe the air and taste the wine and dig the brains of your fellow travelers in this loosely-defined circus. I found that space in the Pillows, having often suspected it was there, and while everyone is going to find that space in their own way--or not, still, tragically not--I have to think that experience was due in part  to some innate and unique quality of the music itself, not just a complimentary sensibility contained within myself. The Pillows are free, and that makes them freeing, it’s easy as that. Their liberation is plain as day; it rings in every chord, every snare-hit, every harmony; it’s up to us ascertain what we can do in our own limited capacity to hoist ourselves up to their level and give some other folks a boost along the way and a hand to grab afterwards. It’s the gift that art gives us, and the Pillows just give it more freely than most is all, which is why I think the suggestion to listen to them is more than just a solid recommendation. Like the insistence on listening to The Beatles, or The Clash, or any of the others, it’s a plea to save your soul, to learn the language of tomorrow and drink the lifeblood of peace and love and piss and vinegar, or else you’ll be lost, lost, lost. 

Can you feel? Can you feel that hybrid rainbow?

[wolfiefics]

To all the fans of Steve Rogers who persist that Steve was in the right during Civil War, consider this:

Your argument that after the events of Winter Soldier he lost faith in the US government, why did he stay? Why did he not renounce his US citizenship and try elsewhere? He likely had enough ties with another country, either of familial origin or one he helped liberate during WWII, to do so. Why did he stay? Why did he continue being an Avenger? Living by US society rules put in place and maintained by the government he no longer believed in? If you can answer that in a logical way that isn't knee-jerk high-mindedness, I'll concede it.

If he was right to go against the Accords because "they stifled his freedom" then you are advocating the same mindset of the people taking guns into government buildings in an attempt to terrorize officials into not wearing protective gear designed to save the lives of themselves, their family and their fellow citizens AS IS IN THE US CONSTITUTION CHARTER. Or you are the one calling the police on someone for doing something you don't like, lying about it to make it wrong when that person was doing nothing wrong to begin with? You just didn't like them for some reason, they have to go away. FREEDOM is not a gift. It's not a thing that everyone has. EVER. Not even in the US at the time of the American Revolution. Freedom is a CONCEPT, an ideal to reach for. A utopian dream. The very nature of human civilization NEGATES freedom by its very existence. You want "freedom"? I can rob, rape, murder, enslave, and destroy everything I want to because I'm FREE to do so! No one can tell me what to do! You're the victim? Not my problem! Maybe you should be bigger, meaner, carry a bigger weapon or have more people in your side. FREEDOM is ANARCHY, lawlessness, and disrespecting others wants and needs for whatever you want to have withoutrestrictionsof moral conscience instilled by society (i.e. laws and government).

Society, civilization, has rules for a reason. So that shit DOESN'T happen. You don't follow the rules? You're a criminal. Since the Law Codes of Hammurabi its been this way (before that, those are just the first known written laws). Rules can be amended, recodified, or completely rewritten as your society and culture expands intellectually, technologically or in accordance of getting along with another culture different from yours. They aren't concrete (I was going to say "written in stone but some actually were...aforementioned Hammurabi law codes for example).

But to argue that Steve Rogers was right to IGNORE the rules and laws and do whatever he wanted because he was "betrayed" by the government is ignorant, elitist bullshit. He had NO RIGHT to do that. Attempt to dissuade, argue down or compromise, yes, definitely. But give it the middle finger and stomp off in a snit and do whatever HE thinks is right? He's no longer a law-abiding citizen who has EARNED the rights of his society. He has turned his back on them. I'm not saying the Accords were right (though they had a strong argument for it) but everyone tried to tell him "do this now, we'll wiggle it around til it's more acceptable. If not, they are going to ram it down our throats or throw us in a dark dank corner and forget we're there". But noooo! Steve was too good for that! The petty concerns of almost the entire world is not his problem! HE knows better than ANYONE what's right and what's wrong! Fuck them! He was not interested in compromise, trying to work a deal, nothing. He saw it as oppression and done! And that's how all of you who say he's in the right feel too. 112 out of 128 countries have no RIGHT to feel threatened! What's their problem anyway? It’s not like the Avengers destroyed an entire country! Oh wait.. well it's just some backwater Eastern bloc country, no big loss. And part of South Africa. And an entire floor of visiting humanitarian and diplomat workers. No big deal. The UN should just suck it up. Steve knows what he's doing.

All governments have laws a person doesn't like. Nature of the beast. You might get away with bending it on occasion, depending what it is. But if your actions breaking it means ending the lives of others or compromising/destroying their property or culture because "I'm right, you're wrong"? Bigotry. Elitism. Holier than thou. Entire civilizations have vanished for that and we know little to nothing about them because that attitude meant no one cared to note it. Those civilizations could have cures for, I don't know, CANCER!!? (Medicine Man with Sean Connery is awesome. You should watch it).

The first rule EVERY writer learns when writing about sentient beings is there are good things and there are FLAWS. There is no such thing as perfect. If you have a perfect person who can do no wrong, makes no mistakes, just rolls through life getting everything they want without effort...why would you want that? It's boring. It's unrealistic. Why is this persistent idea that everything Steve does is right and just and morally incorruptible? Sounds like some asshole that needs a bullet in the brain before he decides to kill ME for getting in his way. Most of you don't write him in your own fics that way. Why on EARTH do you think he's perfect in the movie verse? Is he not fictional? Is he not a character in a story? Is he somehow exempt in the movies of all writing conventions?

Civil War is easily the worst of the MCU movies. The potholes are so large you can hyper drive the Deathstar through them. Too many to go into here. That's a whole nother rant. But this movie is the basis of this fan idea that Steve can do no wrong and anyone who opposed or argued with him are immoral, arrogant and oppressive...or government doormats. REALLY?! It's obvious Steve trusts NO ONE. Not Sam, whose life he continually puts in danger with very little remorse. Nat, who has been at his side since two weeks after he woke in the 21st century, fought aliens, was on an elite task force with (two in fact), etc ad nauseum but since she DARED to disagree with him, she's obviously not to be trusted. And he was hyper focused on two things:Bucky and Peggy. Peggy, he moped and brooded over, punishing himself for a trick of Fate. FOR YEARS. And Bucky, who was such an obvious distraction that Hydra knew it was a HUGE weak spot and CONTINUALLY used it against him at the expense of other people's lives that Steve apparently didn't give two shits about or even attempted to modify that weakness. How many legitimate, under cover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were exposed world-wide when Nat laid bare every record of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Not even a flicker of remorse from Steve. Made this big patriotic speech to the Triskellian but not one single mention at all in the planning of those people. None. Cannon fodder. So sad, too bad, ah well! Gotta save Bucky!! Same in Civil War. Steve headed that op in Africa. He ordered and helped gather the Intel on Crossbones and his gang. He made the plan, placed an unstable high-powered individual ALONE in the field with Nat telling her what to do over an ear piece (and Wanda blew her off), as soon as Crossbones blew Steve's strategy, he went gung-ho through a major, heavily populated marketplace, confronted the enemy, IMMEDIATELY got compromised by the word "Bucky" and allowed Crossbones to set off a suicide vest. If Wanda hadn't been there, Steve and that entire block would have been decimated. Wanda did her best, but she was not up to snuff and lives were lost anyway. Did Steve show remorse? No. He brooded that Rumlow said "Bucky and I was 16 again". He told Wanda essentially that it's regrettable but not to worry about it. Those dead people due to his hard-on to get Rumlow? All those lives of diplomats and humanitarian workers gone? No big whoop. Sad but you know, Steve's perfect so they just had to die. He willingly and uncaringly put people in harm's way that got them killed that with a cool head and better planning (or compromise with others ideas) could have been avoided. That's the making of a sociopath. A monster. NOT someone who should be in charge of an elite team that defeated an ALIEN INVASION HEADED BY A GOD.

Think about this. I loved the Winter Soldier. I think it's in my top 5 MCU movies. Other than the exposure of who knows how many legitimate S.HI.E.L.D agents who may have been in the middle of stopping child slavery rings or something, it's an excellent film. Civil War? Garbage. Utter garbage. Trash. They had a good plot, the Hydra super soldiers, that could have been action packed, exposed Bucky's whereabouts, had a big fight scene, had Tony learning Steve had been omitting how his parents died and still had Zemo taken down and the Avengers break up. Set it up even. Those soldiers were shot off screen as this confusing red herring. Why even mention them if you're just going to shoot them off-screen like an afterthought? Hmm. I should write that. I may have too, if someone hasn't done it already. If so, DM me the link?

But get away from this "Steve Rogers can't be wrong cuz he's Captain America" schtick. Bad enough Civil War turned him into a callous, selfish tool. Don't make the situation worse for him.

I love my Stucky, don't get me wrong. I'll die on this ship. But Civil War is NOT the Steve Rogers characterization you need to be advocating as the ideal. In that movie, he's an asshole and if Peggy or 1930s Bucky knew what he'd done, they'd have BOTH punched him. Maybe more than once. And withheld his dessert at dinner.

I'm just saying.

[yiangchen]

Hey, I wrote a thing, and it’s another divergent Bellarke fic. I feel like I’ve been working on this for so long, and maybe it could use more editing, but I don’t care. I just need to post it already.

Anyways, this fic diverges from the end of 4x04. So, essentially, the last scene never happens because Octavia died in the fall, and this fic follows Clarke helping Bellamy come to terms with that, as well as Octavia’s treatment of him since Lincoln’s death. This fic is not Octavia (or Kane) friendly, so you have been warned.

Title from “The Scientist” by Coldplay.

you don’t know how lovely you are

Clarke can’t believe they’ve wound up here again—on the brink of war.

Then again, a part of her had known it was inevitable. No matter what she does, it seems, this always happens.

As she stands with the gates to Arkadia at her back, she knows she should have seen it coming, but she’d just had so much on her mind. Bellamy still hadn’t returned from the hunting trip, and she’d been struggling without him by her side. Still is, actually.

She takes a deep breath, channeling the strength she only feels when she thinks of him, and starts down the path the Ice Nation warriors have left for her. They lead to a tent—a large one that’s surrounded by many others, where they’ve set up camp for the night.

Clarke can’t help but be reminded of the last time the land before Arkadia was lit with torches in the night, surrounded by a grounder army. She can’t help but think that this time they could have Bellamy—another person who she loves—held hostage.

Part of her hopes they have him, if only it means he’s alive and not dead somewhere in the woods, but there’s this other part. This other part of her that remembers so clearly what it felt like to slide a knife into the heart of the boy she loved. This part that desperately needs for Bellamy to be far away from all this, safe and unharmed, maybe just lost with the others.

When she pulls open the flap to the tent, her heart nearly stops. Roan stands before her, and Bellamy is on his knees, gag in his mouth and wrists bound, but that’s not what has her heart feeling like it’s breaking inside her chest. No. That’s the look in his pained, watery gaze. How his cheeks are stained with tears. She doesn’t think he’d move or say a word even without the restraints. It’s enough to have her bottom lip tremble, despite how desperately she tries to keep her voice steady.

“What did you do to him?” she manages to ask. She tries to step towards him, stopping instantly when Roan holds a knife to Bellamy’s throat and takes a handful of his hair in his hand.

Bellamy’s eyes land on Clarke’s, and he swallows, hard. Clarke aches to go to him, to hold him, and the realization that she can’t comfort him in this moment kills her.

“What do you want?” she asks Roan when he doesn’t respond, eyes not leaving Bellamy’s.

“The truth.”

That gets Clarke’s attention. Reluctantly, she lifts her gaze from Bellamy to Roan. “I don’t understand.”

“You’ve been working on a way to save your people and not mine behind my back.”

“I—” Clarke blinks. “I what?”

“The ship you’re restoring will only save a hundred people. Your people.”

“That’s a backup plan.”

“To what?”

“The nightblood solution,” Clarke says, exasperated. “We’ve been working on a way to make us all nightbloods.”

Roan is unimpressed. “You don’t believe in religious bullshit. Neither do I.”

“It’s not about what the blood means to your culture. It was genetically-engineered to withstand high levels of radiation.”

Roan just gives her a blank look and Clarke rolls her eyes.

“It can help us survive the end of the world.”

“And you know this how?”

“Luna. The nightblood who fled her conclave a few years back. She was infected along with the rest of her clan, but she survived and the rest died.”

Roan shakes his head. “You couldn’t know that. Luna lives in a hidden settlement somewhere off the coast.”

“She came to us when she got sick.” Clarke sighs. “Look, you just have to trust me.”

Roan considers this, then nods. “Okay, on one condition.”

“Yeah?”

“Half the spots on the ship belong to Azgeda.”

Clarke opens her mouth to protest, but Roan continues before she can.

“If you really have faith in the nightblood solution, you won’t mind sharing. Besides, you don’t have much of a choice now. It’s either this or war.”

Clarke holds her chin high, calm and collected. “We have more bullets than you have men. You’ll lose.”

“We’ll both take loses.” The ghost of a smirk graces Roan’s mouth. “Bellamy among them.”

Clarke falters, her resolve fading away, and she returns her eyes to Bellamy’s. He shakes his head. Don’t do this for me.

But she does anyway.

I’ll do anything, I’ll stop fighting—just please don’t kill him, she had told Roan months ago, giving up her chance at freedom so that Bellamy could live.

And she’d still do anything for him. Even sacrifice the lives of fifty of her own people.

“We’ll share the ship,” she says, looking back at Roan.

He nods. “Good choice.”

“Now please,” Clarke goes on, and she doesn’t care that her voice is trembling. “Let him go.”

He does, making a comment as he releases him, but Clarke hardly notices, taking the few strides that separate her from Bellamy and kneeling in front of him. She doesn’t notice when Roan pulls back the flap of the tent and leaves either.

All she can think is Bellamy.

She reaches out, without hesitation, to pull the gag from his mouth and tenderly brush the hair out of his eyes. “Hey.”

His eyes flutter closed and he shutters, leaning into her touch when she cradles his cheek in her palm. She doesn’t ask him what’s wrong, knowing he’ll tell her when he’s ready. Somehow, she knows what happened before he says it.

“She’s dead,” he whispers brokenly, eyes opening into hers as he shakes his head, and this time, Clarke’s heart does stop. “They killed her, and I—” Tears slip down his cheeks. “I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t—”

Clarke brings his head into her chest, holds him as he falls apart in her arms. “You’re okay,” she says into his hair, and her voice is shaking nearly as much as his body. “You’re okay.”

I’m not, he says without having to and Clarke squeezes her eyes shut.

Because she knows that. Knows Bellamy and how Octavia was his whole entire world.

He gave up any life he could have had on the Ark; nearly killed the chancellor just for a spot on the dropship, not knowing if he’d survive the landing, let alone a potentially radiation-soaked planet; left camp in the middle of the night and searched dangerous, grounder-inhabited woods; and took the blame for Lincoln’s death—all for her. He suffered every day because she was his sister, his responsibility.

And now she is gone. He’s lived for that one girl—so detrimental to his own well-being—since he was six years old and now she is gone.

The last thing Bellamy is right now is okay, and Clarke has no idea how he’s going to survive losing her, but that’s not going to stop her from trying to comfort him.

“You’re okay,” she says again. “You’re okay.” She can’t help but repeat the words to him, over and over, and maybe, just maybe, if she holds him tight enough, she can just be here when he feels like he’s lost everything.

The last time he needed her, she ran.

She’s not running now.

…

That night, Clarke wakes to light knocking on her door. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she makes her way across the room and answers it.

Bellamy is there, hair disheveled and gaze faraway. She opens the door further to let him inside.

He stops when he sees the bed, as if just now realizing that they will be sharing it. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Clarke shakes her head. “I don’t mind, Bell. I’m here for you, in whatever way you need.” Bellamy nods, and Clarke climbs into bed. “The left side is yours.”

Bellamy hesitates, but at the look she sends him, soft and warm, his feet are carrying him forward.

For a few minutes, they lay there, not touching, facing away from one another, but then Clarke turns and brings a hand to his bicep. He softens into it instantly. Clarke takes this as an okay, shuffling in behind him and wrapping her arm around him to pull him against her chest, where her heart beats. His hand covers hers, clutching her fingers.

Instinctively, without thinking, Clarke presses a kiss between his shoulder blades. His shirt separates her lips from his skin, but it’s still the most intimate they’ve ever been, and maybe that’s why he starts to cry just then. There’s nobody’s else's arms he feels safe enough in to fall apart in.

…

In the morning, Bellamy is gone when Clarke wakes, but there’s a note on his side of the bed.

Had to get going on today’s work, but you should get some sleep, so don’t rush out of bed, okay?

Thanks for last night.

— Bell

It brings a closed-lip, half smile to Clarke’s face. Even in his grief, Bellamy cares so much. He’s the one who needs more sleep than her. The girl he sacrificed everything for is dead, and she’s never coming back.

Clarke wishes he would give himself a moment to rest. A moment to grieve. One that lasts more than half a day. But she knows he won’t. That’s not Bellamy. He’ll find comfort in her during the night, but when there’s work to be done, nothing can stop him from doing everything he can to save their people.

It’s what frustrates her the most about him.

But it’s also why she loves him.

With that thought, she pulls back the covers and gets out of bed. If he’s not resting, she’s not either. They’re in this together, and this time she really means that.

…

She finds Bellamy speaking with Monty.

“Raven radioed,” Bellamy says to her when she joins them. “Nightblood can only be made in zero g.”

Clarke visibly deflates.

“But there might be something we can do about that,” Monty goes on. “Raven found a rocket in the lab, and we have enough hydrazine to get us into space and back to the ground.”

“Okay,” Clarke nods, but by the looks on their faces, there’s a catch. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Hydrazine is highly unstable and dangerous. The littlest bump in the road could cause an explosion, and we need every last drop of fuel to get back down.”

“The plan is to have everyone wait until we’ve made it back down, but…” Bellamy trails off.

“But if we lose a barrel, we’ll be stuck in space, and we won’t be able to distribute the nightblood before the death wave hits,” Clarke finishes.

“And everyone dies but you guys and the lucky hundred that are picked,” Monty says.

Clarke nods, taking all that information in. For once, she doesn’t have to choose. They can strive to save everyone, and if they fail, humanity still survives. The thought makes her feel lighter. They can do this. “Then we won’t lose a barrel.”

“You’re in?” Bellamy asks.

Clarke almost smiles. “Of course.” Bellamy nods and turns to leave, presumably to prepare the rover, but Clarke stops him with a hand on his arm. “But first…”

“Yeah?”

“We should probably let Roan in on the plan.”

Bellamy tenses at the idea of walking into the Ice Nation army, still camped out beyond Arkadia’s walls.

Clarke sees this. “I can go alone.”

“No,” Bellamy says instantly. “No, I’m coming with you.”

…

They’re lead into the same tent Clarke found Bellamy hostage, only this time, Echo is there instead of Roan. Clarke watches as Bellamy visibly hardens at the sight of her.

“My king will be here shortly,” she says, and a muscle in Bellamy’s jaw ticks. “But first, I just wanted to…” She takes a step forward, stopping and trailing off in what she was going to say when Bellamy moves to stand protectively in front of Clarke.

“You’ve already gotten two people I loved killed,” he says at the questioning look in her brow. “Forgive me for not trusting you.”

“Your sister was an accident.”

Bellamy fights back against the tears gathering in his eyes. “Gina wasn’t. And you’ve already threatened Clarke numerous times. You nearly killed her a few weeks ago.” He swallows. “Right in front of me.”

Clarke doesn’t cut in and say that she can handle herself. She knows Bellamy knows that. This isn’t him disrespecting her own ability to take care of herself. He’s just scared of losing anyone else.

She gets it. She felt the same way when Finn died.

I can’t lose you too, she’d said all those months ago, refusing to let Bellamy go undercover as an inside man.

She knew he, more than anyone, could do it. She had faith he could survive. But that didn’t mean she wanted him to go ahead and risk his life. Not even when she turned to believing love is weakness. Even then, she cared. Even then, she struggled without him and longed for his safe return. Desperately did everything she could to keep him alive in there.

All that said, of course she understands his need to do the same. So, she stays quiet, hand on Bellamy’s arm to calm him. Let him know she’s right here and not going anywhere. Not if she can help it.

The touch reaches him, if the way she feels the tension there ease is any indication.

But that muscle in his jaw is still working. Part of her wants to bring a hand to his cheek, press her thumb there until it settles.

Before she can, Roan enters the tent.

“Leave us,” he says, almost instantly.

“But, sire—”

“Now, Echo.”

Reluctantly, she does as she’s told.

The moment she’s gone, Bellamy seems to relax just a bit.

“Sorry,” Roan apologizes, moving to take Echo’s place in front of them. “I didn’t know she was in here.”

Clarke gives him a small nod before getting right to it. “There’s been a slight change in plans.”

…

Much to Bellamy’s annoyance, Roan decides to come with them.

“I just,” Bellamy sighs, hand shifting on the wheel of the rover, “I needed a moment away, you know? He’s not the one that did it, but…”

One of his hands twitches on the stick, and Clarke reaches out to steady it. “He’s a reminder.”

Bellamy looks at her softly. “Yeah.” He blinks at the tears already starting to form again. “Everything is.”

“Everything?”

He nods. “Even you, but with you…” Bellamy swallows and returns his eyes to the road. “With you, it’s different.”

Clarke’s lips part at that. Before she can think on it much, there are some grounders on the path. Bellamy slowly comes to a stop.

“They have wounded,” Clarke says, instantly hopping out.

“Clarke.”

She ignores him, and Bellamy sighs.

“What is she doing?” Roan asks.

Bellamy brings the radio to his mouth. “Being Clarke,” he says before hoping out to follow her. “Nobody else gets out.”

…

When Bellamy sees the ocean hours later, it’s everything he needs. Soothing. Calming.

And that he expected.

But what he didn’t expect was Clarke taking him by the hand and dragging him towards the water. Come on, she had said, a smile on her face, one hand in his and the other tugging off her boots and then her socks.

Okay, he had said back, the barest hint of a smile glinting in his eyes. But just for you, okay?

She had beamed at him, and he swore for just one moment his heart stopped.

Now, he’s standing with Clarke, just far enough out so that the water reaches their ankles, with his pants rolled up to keep them from getting wet.

Dork, Clarke had teased.

“Thank you,” he says once it’s been a while since either of them have said anything, and amusement pulls at Clarke’s lips.

“It’s nothing.” She shrugs. “You smiled earlier today, and I just wanted to see you happy like that again.”

Something in Bellamy’s chest swells at that. Something warm. “Not just for this,” he says softly, bringing a hand to the back of his neck. He thinks about today. How sure he’d been that he’d lost her. “I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here.”

Clarke shakes her head and steps into his arms. “That’s okay,” she whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Bellamy doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her, pull her closer. The ocean breeze is brisk and chilly, but Clarke is solid and warm in his arms.

“Sounds good to me, princess,” he murmurs, and Clarke hides a smile in his chest.

“Princess?”

“Thought it was about time I brought that back again.”

“Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I missed it.”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes fluttering closed. “Yeah, me too.”

“Hey, guys,” Roan calls suddenly, pulling them from the moment. “We’ve got a problem.”

…

It turns out losing a barrel of hydrazine isn’t the only problem. According to Raven, the death wave has accelerated significantly.

It’ll be here in a day, giving her just enough time to get the rocket ready for takeoff before it comes.

There are only four spots, one for Clarke, Bellamy, Raven and Luna. The rest have been sent back to Arkadia with the rover, not knowing if they’ll survive until tomorrow.

(Initially, Bellamy had been adamant about someone else taking his place, but when he realized that Clarke would do the same if he did, he quickly changed his mind.

If I’m on that list, you’re on that list, she had said to him, echoing his words.)

Now, Clarke stands alone in one of the rooms in Beca’s lab, trying and failing to keep it together. She just said goodbye to her mom, possibly for good.

Take care of each other, Abby had said, looking between Clarke and Bellamy.

Yes, ma’am, Bellamy had said back, and Clarke had only nodded before burying her face into Abby’s shoulder.

She’d fled shortly after.

“Clarke.”

It’s Bellamy, and she shuts her eyes at the sound of his voice, how soft he says her name.

“You okay in there?”

Clarke answers the door but doesn’t say anything. Just shrugs weakly. The second her face starts to crumble, vision blurry, he steps towards her and closes the door behind him.

“Hey,” he says, barely audible, and wraps her in his arms. A tear slips down her cheek as his warmth surrounds her.

(Much like him, there’s nowhere she feels safer to fall apart than in his arms.)

Her trembling body nearly brings Bellamy to tears and he rocks her side to side, not planning on letting go anytime soon. But she’s not either. So he just continues to hold her.

And in that moment, though everything in her is breaking, he’s enough to keep her standing. Something to cling to when the world is ending. Her home.

…

After exchanging tearful may we meet agains with their friends in Arkadia, the ss4 get right to work. They only have ten hours now. Ten hours for Raven to survive ALIE. Ten hours to prep the rocket. Ten hours to make it off this planet.

Raven saving herself and Clarke nursing her back to health take up most of it. By the time she can be up and moving around again without the risk of her heart giving out, they’re down to just an hour. Now, she’s getting the rocket ready for takeoff with Luna while Bellamy watches from above, Clarke checking over the plan for rationing.

“...So, let’s go over this again. I figure two months until the algae farm produces enough to feed us. If we ration the MRA’s, we should get there.”

She lifts her gaze to Bellamy, planning on saying more, but stops herself when she sees him standing at the railing, looking out, and makes her way to stand beside him.

“A grounder in space,” he says to her. “It’s an oxymoron.”

“Survival’s a team sport, especially up there. It was the only choice.” She looks at him, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Only choice, also an oxymoron by the way.”

Bellamy reaches out to her. “So is cold sweat,” he says, brushing the back of his hand across her forehead and down her cheek. Her eyes nearly flutter closed.

It makes what she’s about to say so much harder. She’d promised him he wouldn’t lose her, but she’s not sure she can keep that promise anymore.

“My mom had a vision of me dying,” she says quietly. “Just like the one that told Raven there was a rocket here.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“They were both EMP’d.”

“And Abby will be fine too. Raven told her how to stop it.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Clarke swallows. “If anything happens to me—”

Bellamy doesn’t let her finish that, instantly placing his hands on her shoulders. “Nothing is happening to you.” When he releases her and walks back to the computer, Clarke sighs. “Now, come on. Let’s run these water numbers again.”

She follows him. “Please, Bellamy. I need you to hear this.”

He refuses to look at her for a moment, stubborn, that muscle working in his jaw like always. And like always, she wants to reach out and steady it.

But then he looks at her. Albeit reluctantly and with a look on his face that says he really doesn’t want to be having this conversation, but he’s looking at her all the same. He’s listening.

Clarke falters a moment, not sure entirely what to say. There’s just so much he needs to know and so little time.

“We’ve been through a lot together, you and I,” she goes with, and she finds that despite feeling more comfortable around him than anyone else, she’s nervous.

Bellamy gives her a small nod, afraid of where she’s going with this.

“I didn’t like you at first, that’s no secret,” she says, trying to lighten the mood. It has him ducking his head in the way he does, a closed-lip smile on his face. It gives her the strength to go on. “But even then…” She shakes her head, a soft kind of adoration in her eyes as she realizes just how much he means to her. “Every stupid thing you did, it was because of this.” She reaches out to place her hand over his heart, feeling it beat beneath her palm. “And it’s why I—” She hesitates. “It’s what makes you you, but the only way to make sure we survive is if you use this,” her hand rises from his chest and she taps his temple, “too.”

Bellamy’s lips part and he shakes his head. “I got you for that…”

Clarke’s eyes water. “Raven’s premonition came true.”

He shakes his head again, but before he can fight her on this, convince her that she’s not dying today, an explosion and simultaneous frustrated cry from Raven interrupt them.

…

According to Raven, the generator that they need is far too heavy for a single person to lift, let alone carry for nearly quarter a mile. With her bad leg, Raven won’t be any help, and of the remaining three, Bellamy and Luna are the strongest, so she sends them off to collect it and assigns Clarke the mission of realigning the satellite dish.

But before they go their separate ways, Clarke calls after Bellamy. “Wait, Bellamy—”

“Clarke, if this is one of those moments where you tell me to use my head—”

“No, I was just gonna say…” I love you. “Hurry.”

Bellamy stares at her, eyes wide and lips parted, like he wants to say something more too. He doesn’t.

“You too.”

And then he’s gone, and Clarke’s face crumbles as she watches him go, fearing that might have been the last time and she couldn’t just fucking say it.

She’s just too afraid. The last person she gave into her feelings for was shot and killed with a bullet meant for Clarke.

I love you, her mind screams. I love you. I love you. I love you.

…

Her heart breaks when she realizes she’s really not gonna make it back in time.

“Raven,” she says into the radio, and her bottom lip trembles when she gets ready to say his name. “Bellamy…” She swallows. “If you can hear me, don’t wait.”

…

She makes it back before the death wave.

Her face is covered in boils and she passes out for who knows how long—a day or several, she can’t be sure—but she made it back. Not before her friends had to leave, but at least she’s alive.

Without nightblood, she can’t be sure how long she’ll last. There are only so many rations stored in the lab, and it’s not as though she can go outside. The only thing holding her together is that she thinks she managed to realign the satellite dish and send power to the ring.

“Hey,” she says into the radio. “Bellamy.” Her voice nearly cracks on his name. “Please tell me you can hear me up there.”

Silence.

“Please tell me you made it too. I can’t—” She purses her lips to keep them from trembling. “I need to know you’re okay.”

Again, silence.

It has a tear slipping down Clarke’s cheek. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be—

“Clarke?”

Her heart stops and starts again all at once, and it’s like she can finally breathe.

He’s crying. She can hear him sniffle after he manages to ask her, “Is that really you?”

Tears slip down Clarke’s cheeks, but she’s smiling. “Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, it’s really me.”

“I thought—” his voice cracks and she aches to touch him, but there are miles and miles separating them, “I thought you were dead.”

Clarke huffs out a watery breath of air. “I thought you were dead.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Yeah,” she says, actually manages a laugh. “I gathered that.”

When she hears his responding weak laugh, her heart swells with something she recognizes as hope.

“Clarke,” he says then, and she can hear how his amusement is fading. “I’m so sorry.”

She shakes her head even though he can’t see her. “It’s okay.”

“Clarke—”

“I’m so proud of you,” she says, and she wishes she could see his face. Her voice cracks. “I’ve never been more proud of you.”

Bellamy huffs out a breath on the other end of the line—because of course Clarke Griffin found a way to be proud of him over that.

“I can’t believe you can hear me,” she goes on. “Even if I could have made it on my own, I don’t think I could have survived five years without hearing your voice.”

“You might get more than that,” he says, and she can almost hear his smile through the radio. “We’re not alone up here.”

Clarke’s brow furrows. “There were still people left on the ring?”

“No. There’s another ship up here.”

“Another—another what?”

“I know. I couldn’t believe it either, but they left before Apocalypse I.”

“So, you’re with their ancestors?”

“Actually, no. They’ve been asleep the whole time. Raven called it...cyro sleep, or something.”

“Cryo,” Raven cuts in. “It’s called cryo.”

Clarke smiles. “Raven?”

“The one and only,” she says, proud, but Clarke can hear that she’s been crying.

Clarke laughs. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Yours too.”

“Is Luna there? You all made it?”

“Yeah, she was just resting while I figured out how to work the radio.”

Clarke starts crying again.

Bellamy’s voice comes through, worried, when she hasn’t said anything in some time. “Clarke, you still there?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m still here.”

“Okay, good. Look, I hate to do this, but I have to go so we can get ready to come back down. There’s enough fuel, but Raven has to make the nightblood serum first before we go anywhere.”

“Wait.”

“Yeah?”

“How are we going to survive down here? The death wave must have wiped everything out.”

“There’s a small patch of green left. It looks plenty big enough for us.”

“How is that possible?”

“We don’t know. Not even Raven can figure it out.”

“Hey.”

Clarke laughs again.

“But anyway,” it’s Bellamy again, “we’ll see you soon, princess.”

Princess. Clarke’s heart swells at the nickname.

“See you soon.” She’s about to leave it at that, but then she remembers what it felt like to lose him and never having said it. “And Bellamy?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you,” she says with so much emotion her voice nearly cracks with it, but she says it without hesitation, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to say. As if she’s said it a million times before. “I love you so much.”

His voice is gruff and thick with tears when he says it back. “I love you, too.”

And Clarke swears that even though he’s thousands of miles away, she just knows everything’s going to be okay. Because he’s alive. He’s alive and in just a short while, he’ll be coming home to her. It’s enough to have her crying again, but she’s never been happier.

…

Bellamy calls Clarke again just before they head back to the ground the following day, and again when they land. He even radioes her the entire eight-hour walk to the lab, only stopping once he’s inside and lays eyes on her slumped against the wall.

“You getting here any time soon?” she asks into the radio, bored, not noticing him standing by the railing and looking over her; Luna and Raven in tow.

Bellamy grins. “Look up.”

She does, hopping right to her feet the second she sees him and dropping the radio in her haste. Bellamy has already made it halfway down the steps, and so she only has to run a few strides before taking his face in her hands and kissing him.

His eyebrows raise in surprise, heartbeat picking up, even though he’d met her halfway. He’s still reeling over the fact that all this time, she’s loved him back. Can’t believe that after thinking she had died for him, she’s right here, kissing him, and she tastes so much like home that he can’t help but smile. It makes it kind of difficult to kiss her, but he doesn’t care.

“I thought I told you to hurry,” she says when she pulls away.

Bellamy breathes out a watery laugh, that adoration in his eyes that’s always there when he looks at her. He leans back in, just to press his forehead to hers and allow his eyes to flutter shut as he takes it all in. Clarke alive and well. “I love you so much.”

Clarke’s nose brushes his own, and she smiles, stupidly giddy. “I love you,” she breathes.

When he pulls back, his face falls instantly, and she feels the happiness fade. Bellamy tentatively brings his hands to her cheeks, eyes roaming over the radiation burns. Tears gather in his eyes.

“Hey,” she says, placing her hands over his own when they start to tremble. “I’m okay.”

He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, vision blurring.

“Hey,” she says, leaning forward to press her forehead to his.

“When I said I could use a break from keeping you alive,” his voice cracks, “this isn’t what I meant.”

A breath of air that sounds a lot like a sob escapes her and she kisses him. “I know,” she says, carding her fingers through his hair, and he shutters. “I know.”

…

Clarke runs a thumb over the inside of her elbow, where Raven had helped her inject the nightblood serum. It’s weird to think that all her life she’s had red blood running through her veins, and now, black.

But it’s better than having to have spend the next five years alone.

She looks at Bellamy then. He’s seated beside her, lost in his thoughts, and she brings a hand to his cheek to draw his eyes to hers.

His gaze is so soft she feels her heart thump against her ribs. She opens her mouth, then closes it and glances around to look for Raven and Luna. She spots them talking in the corner and then turns back to Bellamy and drops her hand from his cheek to take his hand in hers.

His brow is furrowed when she gets to her feet and pulls at his hand. “Come on,” she whispers.

He follows her. “Where are we going?”

Clarke just looks at him and smiles, eyebrows raised, and he understands instantly. He shakes his head at her, amused, and puts a hand on her back as they sneak out of the room. “You’re gonna be the death of me, princess.”

…

When they return to the lower floor of the lab, Raven is exasperated. “Where the hell have you two been?” she asks, but then she sees that Bellamy’s hair is a complete mess, even more so than usual, and Clarke’s doesn’t look much better. “I hope it was worth it,” she says, flat. Luna almost laughs, and Raven sends her a look.

Bellamy glances at Clarke, amusement glinting in his eyes, and she smiles, leaning up to kiss him. She would be lying if she said part of jumping him hadn’t been because...well, he’s Bellamy—one of the most beautiful humans she’s ever seen—and the dropship girls hadn’t been lying when they said how good he was, but this wasn’t about that.

At the start it was. When they first snuck off, she wanted to keep things light and fun, but then the weight of what was actually happening set it. She’d cried, feeling stupid until she saw that there were tears in his eyes too.

“Look,” Raven says, bringing Clarke from her thoughts. “I’m happy for you two, but we gotta get going.”

Bellamy nods. “How far is it to Arkadia?”

“By foot?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. A few days. A week.”

“Unless we can find the rover,” Clarke speaks up, and Bellamy can’t help but grin at that.

That’s my girl.

…

They find it almost completely buried in sand. Bellamy nearly cries when they do. “I know it’s only been a week,” he says, adjusting the gear as he accelerates. “But I really missed this.”

Clarke pouts at that.

“And you,” Bellamy adds, a teasing smile on his lips. “Missed you the most actually.”

“Nice save,” Clarke says.

Bellamy leans across the console to press a chaste kiss to her lips. “I thought so too.”

Clarke laughs—a real, full laugh—at that, and damn, if it isn’t the best sound Bellamy’s heard in a while.

“Hey,” Raven calls from the back, putting her feet up on the console to separate them. “Eyes on the road, dumbass.”

“There is no road,” Bellamy quips back.

Raven makes a face and whacks him on the head over the top of his seat.

“Watch it,” Bellamy mutters when he swerves.

“What,” Raven says. “I thought there was no road.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes.

…

They stop when night falls.

Bellamy is about to turn towards the back seats and say something smart—Clarke knows him too well—but she puts a hand on his arm before he can, drawing his attention to her. She brings a finger to her lips.

Bellamy turns to see that Luna and Raven are fast asleep, Raven snuggled into Luna’s arms. He gives Clarke a look, eyebrow raised. We’re teasing her about this tomorrow,” it says.

Clarke nods and smiles. Oh, definitely.

With that, she hops out of the rover and gently closes the door so as not to wake Raven and Luna.

They build a small fire, made from what was left of the nearby trees seared by the death wave. Clarke instinctively snuggles into his side and he throws an arm around her, pressing a kiss to her temple. They’ve done so many terrible things, but around each other, they’re soft. Around each other, they can just be.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks after a moment.

“What makes you think I’m thinking about something?”

Bellamy shrugs, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth that Clarke can practically hear. “You always are.”

“You’re not wrong.” She laughs, the sound muffled into his shirt. “I was thinking about you. Us.”

“Yeah?”

She pulls away and looks up at him, nodding with a smile on her face, one that reaches her eyes. He leans down the slightest bit and she leans up to meet him halfway, and God, it still feels like the first time. She still feels warm and fuzzy, just from the soft press of his lips against hers.

When she pulls back, it’s just to tuck her head under his chin, rest her cheek against his chest. She can feel his heart beating beneath ear—a comforting rhythm that has her eyes feeling heavy.

“Tired?”

She nuzzles further into him and allows her eyes to flutter shut. “Just a little,” she says.

Not a minute later, the steady beat of his heart lulls her into sleep.

…

When she wakes, she’s in the passenger’s side of the rover, head resting against the window; he must have carried her.

With groggy eyes, she looks over at Bellamy, brow furrowed. The early morning light dances across his freckles, lights up stray curls. It would have her heart beating faster if not for the muscle working in his jaw.

“Morning,” she says, pushing off from the window to sit upright in her seat.

“Morning,” he says back, not unkindly, but he doesn’t look at her.

This time there’s nothing stopping her from reaching out to steady the muscle in his jaw. Her voice softens. “Hey.”

She cradles his cheek in her palm, thumb brushing across his jawline. His eyes flutter, but they don’t close, and maybe that’s a good thing since he’s driving, but it’s not how he usually reacts to her touch and that worries her.

“Hey,” she says again, even softer this time. She brushes the hair back from his eyes.

This time, his eyes do shut for a moment, but that muscle in his jaw is still working.

“There’s no way all of the 100 were chosen,” he says, at last. His watery gaze finds hers.

“You did everything you could for them.”

He shakes his head, turning back to face the windshield. “Not enough.” A tear slips down his cheek, and she catches it with her thumb. “I wasn’t enough to save my sister either.”

“Shh.” Clarke runs her fingers through his hair again.

“Or even you.”

“Bellamy, I didn’t die.”

“But you almost did.”

“That wasn’t your fault. None of this is.” She sighs, hand leaving his cheek in favor of interlacing her fingers with his own. “Okay?”

When he doesn’t say anything, she folds herself into his side. She doesn’t say anything more. She knows words won’t reach him in this moment. Won’t comfort him.

Only her touch will.

So, she stays there, cuddled up against him, for the rest of the drive, Luna and Raven still fast asleep in the back of the rover.

…

They arrive in Arkadia that same day.

Clarke smiles when she hears Raven yawning in the back. “Good afternoon, sleepy head.”

Raven stretches her arms above her head as Luna wakes. “How long were we out?”

“A solid fourteen hours.”

“Fourteen hours. I was asleep for fourteen hours and you didn’t think to wake me?”

“You obviously needed it.”

Raven scoffs, and Clarke’s grin widens. She chances a glance at Bellamy, and even he cracks a smile.

“Alright,” he says, amusement fading as quickly as it came. “We’re here.” He has a faraway look in his eyes, and it worries Clarke. “Home sweet home.”

…

There are far more than a hundred people crammed into the ship, it turns out. In a panic, many had stowed away in places no one had thought to look.

(To Bellamy and Clarke’s immediate relief, what remains of the 100 are among them, along with Gaia, Indra, Niylah and Emori.)

Things were just about to descend into chaos before Clarke and the others showed up. It’s still quite chaotic in there though, Clarke would argue, considering that she, Jackson and Abby are rushing to administer the nightblood in an effective and safe manner. The quicker they can disperse people from the area, the better.

Meanwhile, Bellamy and Miller—one of the first to be given the treatment—are delegating everyone outside and keeping them calm, informing them on the plans for food, water and shelter.

The rover can only carry so many and it’s already running low on fuel, so it’ll only be used to transport the children. The rest will have to walk, and the valley is quite a journey away from Arkadia.

However, they had stocked up on rations, both of water and food, before leaving the lab, and they should have just enough for everyone to make it.

It won’t be a comfortable trek, but they’ll survive. At this point, that’s all that Bellamy cares about. Well, that and Clarke not overworking herself to death, which she seems to have done by the time she’s finishing up with her last patient.

“I’m fine, Bell,” she tries to say when he asks her, but then she sways on her feet and Bellamy rushes to her side.

“You’re not fine,” he murmurs, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

She wants to fight him on it, but she’s just so tired. Her eyes flutter closed and she allows herself to lean her head against his chest. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Can I get that in writing?” he asks wryly.

Clarke huffs, amused. “No, but I’ll let you take care of me for once.”

Bellamy’s lips quirk up at that. “I’ll take it.” He bends down. “Get on.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she says, but for once, she listens to him and climbs onto his back.

Bellamy rises back to his full height and hoists her up further. “I’m taking care of you,” he shoots back, but there’s no heat it in.

“Hey, Bell?” she asks, after just a few steps.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here either.” Bellamy’s heart swells at that, and Clarke presses a tired kiss to his cheek. “I love you,” she adds then, soft.

Bellamy just smiles. “You have no idea, princess.”

…

Much to Bellamy’s disapproval, Clarke only lets him carry her for about an hour.

“I’ve taken a nap,” she tells him. “I’m good now.”

“You need about twenty more of those and then you’ll be good,” he argues.

“I’ll take it easy when we get to the valley.”

“You promise?”

Clarke rolls her eyes fondly and kisses him. “Yes.”

…

A week of uncomfortable nights huddled together on the ground, days of seemingly endless walking, and far less food and water than any human being should be getting, they arrive in the valley.

Luna is already there, having volunteered to care for the kids, but for the rest of them, this patch of green has the first vegetation they’ve seen in over two weeks.

Bellamy lets his eyes flutter closed, a breeze ruffling his curls and bringing him the fresh aroma of flowers blooming.

“It’s so beautiful,” Clarke says.

He opens his eyes into hers. “I know, right?”

“I was actually talking about you,” she teases, a tired kind of amusement reflecting in her eyes. “But yeah, the valley’s beautiful too.”

Bellamy laughs and pulls her in for a kiss. Clarke smiles into it. In that moment, she realizes she’ll never tire of kissing him. She’ll never tire of him.

…

After Praimfaya, only a few of each clan remain, but they still insist on living separately (aside from Luna who decides on staying with the Sky People). Sky-landia—the temporary name Clarke and Bellamy have been calling it—is only one of twelve. The other eleven are scattered about the valley.

Sky-landia is the largest, with a population of 73 people, but it’s still relatively small, and as such, its construction has been slow moving.

Clarke hopes to bring everyone together with a celebration of humanity’s survival, but Roan doubts that it’ll work.

“I’m not sure about this gathering,” he says. “The world ending did the opposite of uniting the clans. I think a little separation might do us some good.”

“He has a point, Clarke,” Bellamy says. “There hasn’t been any conflict since before Praimfaya. It would be better not to rock the boat.”

“I don’t see how a gathering with food and moonshine would cause problems.”

“You’d be surprised,” Roan says.

Clarke sighs, exasperated. “Well, I’d rather we try for peace now than wait for a new conflict to arise. If things aren’t resolved, that’s inevitable and you know it.”

“Conflict is inevitable no matter what course of action we take.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Then you’re just being naive,” Roan says, and with that, he turns to walk away.

Clarke glares. “And you’re just being a coward.”

That stops Roan in his tracks.

Bellamy puts a hand on her arm. “Clarke.”

“I know what I’m doing,” she assures him, soft so only he can hear, and then she turns her attention back to Roan, who’s looking at her now with narrowed eyes. Clarke arches an eyebrow at him. “Am I wrong?”

Roan huffs. “Funny how I’m the coward when you’re the one who couldn’t sacrifice one life,” he motions at Bellamy, “to save fifty of your own people.”

Clarke swallows at that. Because he’s right in some ways. She’s done so much for her people, but she’s done more for Bellamy.

You worry about him more, Lexa had said.

She had been the one to pinpoint Clarke’s “weakness” before Clarke herself had been able to.

And then there was her mother under the control of ALIE, wanting to torture Bellamy first.

Start with Bellamy Blake.

Even though she hadn’t needed to make the choice in the end, she knows what she would have done. She’d have saved him over humanity. In a heartbeat. No question. Even if it meant that the rest would die, and possibly herself and Bellamy, for just the chance that he might live—she’d do it.

But she’s learned something since then, and Roan is wrong about one thing. Bellamy is not her weakness but her strength.

“Roan,” Clarke calls after him as he turns to leave.

“What now?” he asks, annoyed. “More genius ideas to stop the violence that’s plagued my people for a hundred years?”

Clarke ignores him. “I’m not a coward for loving someone. When I was forced to murder a boy I loved and pushed people away that cared for me, that made me a coward. When I ran away and isolated myself for months, that made me a coward. But choosing Bellamy over the rest of my people?” Clarke shakes her head. “No. I love him, and that does not make me weak. And I’m not going to let anyone else convince me of that. Least of all you.”

Roan just looks at her, having expected none of that. He opens his mouth, closes it. Clarke crosses her arms over her chest. After a moment, something she says must reach him, but he doesn’t respond directly to anything she just said. “You can have your gathering,” he decides on.

Clarke’s lips part and she nods.

He nods back before leaving.

“That was some speech,” Bellamy says to her then, amused.

Clarke breathes out a laugh. “Come on,” she says, taking his hand in hers. “We should go tell the others.”

…

Sky-landia hosts the gathering on a brisk, chilly night—one that has everyone wrapped in blankets and seated around the fire with cups of Monty and Jasper’s moonshine and various fire-roasted meats.

It’s one of the best decisions Clarke has made, if only for seeing how adorable Bellamy is with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, cheeks and nose red and puffy from the cold.

“What are you smiling at?” he asks her, but he himself is smiling and it even reaches his eyes, something that warms her heart. He’s been through so much, lost his sister, but he still manages to find these moments of happiness.

Her smile widens and she presses a kiss to his cheek. “Just you.”

“Me?”

“Have I ever told you how much I adore you?” she asks then, and it’s probably the cheesiest thing she’s ever said, but she doesn’t care. Not when his heartbeat picks up beneath her fingers and his eyes flutter.

Instead of responding, he brings a hand to her cheek and kisses her softly. When he pulls away, it’s just to rest his forehead against hers. “Have I ever told you how happy you make me?”

Clarke breathes out a laugh at that, kisses him again. The fire is warm, but Bellamy is warmer, and she just wants to be warmer. “Let’s get out of here,” she whispers.

Bellamy looks at her, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Your the host of this gathering, Clarke. We can’t just leave.”

“We won’t be gone long. Five minutes.”

“Which will turn into ten,” Bellamy teases, and Clarke makes a face at him, scrunching up her nose in the adorable way she does, “then fifteen…”

“Shut up,” Clarke says, but there’s no heat in it. Bellamy grins.

“I have to hand it you, Clarke,” a voice cuts into their moment, and Clarke and Bellamy turn to see Roan take a seat across the fire, “no one’s stabbed anyone yet. This gathering might just be what we all needed.”

She shifts so she’s snuggled against Bellamy’s side, his arm thrown around her shoulders to keep her close. “I told you.”

“If things turn out okay, maybe we could make this a monthly celebration. Trading during the day. Food and drinks at night.”

Clarke looks at Bellamy and they share a nod before she returns her attention to Roan. “Sounds like a plan. Bellamy and I have actually been discussing what we should do about governing the land.”

“There is too much rivalry between the clans to have just a single leader,” Bellamy goes on. “We were thinking we’d have a small council instead, with a representative from each clan.”

Roan raises an eyebrow. “There’s an even number of settlements. How would we decide in the event of a tie?”

Bellamy shares a look with Clarke. Should we tell him?

She nods.

Roan is looking at them both, brow furrowed, when Bellamy explains. “When we said that Raven found a way to get us back down to the ground, it wasn’t entirely true.”

“How so?”

“They kinda,” Clarke purses her lips, “stole fuel.” Roan blinks. “From another ship.”

Roan’s eyes widen. “There are more people in space?”

“Yeah, but there’s no need to worry for now,” Bellamy says. “They’re from before the bombs destroyed the world, and they’ve been asleep since then. It’s complicated—you’d have to ask Raven or Monty on the science behind it—but essentially, they haven’t aged a day.”

Clarke has to stifle a laugh at how Roan just looks at them, slack-jawed. “When they wake, we’re sure they’ll come down and want to settle in their own area of the valley. They’ll be the thirteenth member of our council.”

“And if they don’t wake?”

“Raven can hack into the system and wirelessly open the cryo sleep pods.”

“She can do that?”

Clarke and Bellamy nod.

Roan huffs. “You people are insane.”

“Raven is insane,” Bellamy says. “I couldn’t disarm the acid fog in Mount Weather without her help to save my life.”

Clarke looks at him, amused. “Bellamy Blake: nerd in history, not in science.”

His lips twitch with a smile and he kisses her.

Roan clears his throat, rising to his feet. “I’ll leave you guys to...” He shakes his head and walks off.

Clarke hardly even notices him leave.

…

They find Madi a few weeks later.

Things have really started to get up and running when they do. With Monty in charge of food, Raven a water system (and possible shower), and Bellamy the construction of a new settlement, they’re well on their way to building a life here.

Clarke had indirectly gotten Bellamy to take a day off, with the help of Miller who had told everyone not to listen to a word he says.

They had all listened, of course, knowing that Bellamy, more than anyone, is in desperate need of a break. They love him. They really do. But he’s been short with everyone lately, and he just really needs to get away for the day.

He doesn’t agree, but if no one is going to listen to his orders, there’s no point in sticking around. He even tried doing the work himself, but Miller had already anticipated he would, also informing everyone they are not to allow him to help.

Every time he tried to pick anything up—a piece of wood, a tool, anything—it was taken from him.

Fed up, he returned to the makeshift shelter he’s been sharing with Clarke, only to find a note in her place.

Went for a swim. Join me?

— Clarke

Bellamy couldn’t help the smile that broke out across his face.

I should have guessed you put Miller up to this, he’d said to her when he found her, and she’d just laughed.

“Admit it,” Clarke says to him now, in the water, as she brings her hands to either side of his face and wraps her legs around his waist. “You’re happy I got you the day off.”

His hands come to rest on her hips. “Yeah,” he says, brushing his nose against hers just to make her smile. “Yeah, I’d say I’m pretty happy.”

Clarke closes the small distance between them and kisses him, but they both startle when a rustling in the trees reaches their ears.

What was that? Clarke mouths to him.

He shakes his head, brow furrowed in concern. I don’t know.

Slowly, Clarke untangles herself from him and they both make their way up out of the water, drying off before tossing one another their respective clothes and slipping them back on.

Clarke grabs the knife she usually keeps strapped to her hip. “Stay behind me,” she tells Bellamy, and he nods as they venture towards the source of the noise.

Clarke stops suddenly when she sees movement in a bush and holds out one arm to stop Bellamy from going any further, holding the knife in the other hand.

Just then, someone emmerges and Clarke is about to lunge forward and attack, but then—

“She’s just a kid,” Clarke says, eyes wide.

There before them stands a girl who can’t be older than six, and her hair is a mess atop her head, eyes wild like those of an animal.

“She’s not with us. How…?”

“Nightblood,” Clarke says. “She must have been in hiding when the death wave came.”

The girl just eyes them warily during the short exchange, unsure. She’s not running, but that doesn’t mean she won’t.

They expected her to run. What they didn’t expect, however, is that she was going to run towards them. With a scream that sounds nothing short of a battle cry, she starts after them, knife in hand.

Clarke hardly has time to wonder where the hell she got that before she and Bellamy are running. Of all things, she never thought a six year old feral child could be this terrifying, but here she is, practically sprinting. She’d be embarrassed, but Bellamy is just as frightened.

“What the hell is happening?!” he shouts as they weave in and out between the trees.

“I don’t know—!”

Her voice rises into a high pitched scream of surprise when the ground suddenly rises before him, and she swears she hears him yelp.

But she doesn’t stop running.

“Clarke!”

“A little busy at the moment!” she yells back, registering that he just got caught up in a net, but the more pressing matter is that she’s squaring off against a fucking demonic child. She turns her attention back to the kid. “Hey,” she says in trig. “It’s okay. We’re not here to hurt you.” She holds her knife out and goes to place it on the ground. “Look.”

“Clarke, what the hell are you doing?!”

She ignores him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she repeats. “Now put your blade down and we can talk, okay?”

To Clarke’s surprise, she drops it and actually smiles.

“Bellamy?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s smiling and it’s kinda freaking me out.”

The little girl laughs at that, and it brings a nervous smile to Clarke’s face. “You speak English?”

She nods.

“Great,” Bellamy calls, “now that that’s established, can you maybe let me down?”

Clarke rolls her eyes, fond, before turning back to the girl. “Can you help me get my boyfriend down from there? I promise he’s just as nice as me.”

She doesn’t say anything, but she seems to understand, picking up the knife and walking to the base of the tree where he had been caught.

“Wait.” Clarke runs after her when she raises the blade to the rope that’s holding him up. “There has to be another way—”

She breaks away when the little girl cuts through the rope and Bellamy lands with a thud. Clarke winces and hurries on over to him.

“Hey,” her hands instinctively go to his face, “you okay?”

Dazily, he blinks up at her. “I think so.”

She rises to her feet and holds out a hand to help him up, and he’s a little unsteady on his ankle, so Clarke reaches out to steady him.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” Bellamy winces. “Just need to walk it off.” He turns and meets the young girl’s gaze. “Do you have a name?”

“My name Madi.” Her English is broken when she says it, and Clarke thinks, despite everything that just went down, she might just have the most adorable voice she’s ever heard.

“Madi,” Bellamy repeats.

Clarke just looks at him and smiles. Somehow, she knows this one’s going to become one of their own.

…

“She reminds me of Octavia,” Bellamy says to Clarke one night. They’re by the fire, his arm thrown around her like always, and she follows Bellamy’s gaze to where Madi is “sparring” with Luna. “Only difference is she didn’t have me to screw her up.”

“Hey.” Clarke brings a hand to his cheek, presses her thumb against the muscle working in his jaw. What she became is on her, not you, she wants to say, but she knows Bellamy too well. He won’t believe her, and saying anything that shifts the guilt he feels onto his dead sister will just push him away. That’s the last thing he needs right now. To grieve alone. So, instead, she just presses her forehead to his temple and whispers, “I wish you saw yourself the way I do.” Bellamy’s eyes flutter shut, but he doesn’t say anything to that, so she slides her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck—the way she knows he likes, the way that comforts him when he’s close to falling apart. I love you. She doesn’t say it this time. She doesn’t have to.

He brings a hand to her cheek and kisses her. I love you, too.

…

They hold a funeral for Octavia a week later.

The other lives lost during Praimfaya had already been honored upon the Sky People first settling here, but Bellamy hadn’t been ready.

Even now as he stands at her grave—one without her actual body buried—he’s not ready. Saying goodbye to the person he’s spent his entire life protecting isn’t something he can ever prepare for.

Clarke is at his side while Kane, Abby, Raven and what remain of the 100 stand before them.

Bellamy opens his mouth, closes it, as tears gather in his eyes. He doesn’t know what to say. Whatever he does, it won’t be enough. It won’t bring her back.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can manage, a lone tear at last slipping down his cheek.

Clarke has to look away when her own tears threaten to fall. Tentatively, she places a hand on his back.

Kane steps in. “Would anyone else like to say something?” When no one speaks up, he goes on. “Because I’d like to.”

Miller scoffs.

Everyone turns to him, but he has his eyes on Kane.

Monty reaches out to him. “Nate—”

Miller ignores him. “Now you have something to say?”

Clarke looks between both of them, sees how Kane swallows hard but says nothing.

“Nate,” Monty says again. “Not here.”

Miller still doesn’t look at him, eyes trained on Kane until he turns and storms off. Harper starts to cry.

Clarke’s eyebrows draw together. There’s something she doesn’t know. She turns to Bellamy, and he’s even more closed off than before, shoulders tensed up, that muscle in his jaw working.

Her eyes water further, but she says nothing, and for the rest of the funeral, Bellamy doesn’t look at her, doesn’t say anything.

…

Clarke runs into Miller a few hours later and pulls him aside. “What the hell was that about earlier?”

Miller’s lips part. “You don’t know…”

“No,” Clarke says, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

Miller swallows. “He didn’t tell you.”

“Didn’t tell me what?” Clarke asks, exasperated.

“Clarke.” Tears gather in his eyes. “It’s not my place to tell.”

“Miller.”

He sighs. “She beat him.”

“She—she what? When?”

“After Lincoln died.”

Clarke’s eyes water. “The cuts and scrapes he had on his face…” Miller nods, and Clarke brings a hand over her mouth, her stomach twisting into knots. “Oh my god.”

“I tried—” Miller’s voice breaks. “I tried to stop it, put myself between them, but she just went after me instead. She wouldn’t stop. And Kane—” Something in Miller’s eyes hardens, goes cold and angry and betrayed. “Kane hardly said anything. Bellamy said it was okay, so he just stood there and watched. And yeah, I know that Bellamy aided in the grounder attack, and I disagreed with him every step of the way, but those people weren’t innocent and he thought they were going to hurt us. He was scared and trying to protect us. The very second Pike sentenced Kane, Lincoln and Sinclair to die, Bellamy turned on him. He wanted to save them, but Octavia didn’t let him. She drugged him and chained him up and then beat him when Lincoln died, and Kane just let it fucking happen. He even had the nerve to call him the enemy and then allow Octavia to use him as a fucking bargaining chip for Monty. I shouldn’t be telling you this, and I shouldn’t have snapped at Kane yesterday. That wasn’t fair to Bellamy, but everyone feeling sorry for her isn’t either. She treated him like shit and she deserved everything she got. Bellamy didn’t.”

By the time Miller is done, he’s fuming, but Clarke has just been reduced to tears. She knew that Octavia blamed him, that Kane did too, but she didn’t know all of that—how Bellamy’s own sister beat him for something he had no control over and how the man he saw as a father figure just didn’t give a shit.

And all Clarke can think is how shitty of a friend she’d been. If she hadn’t still been running away, she could have been there. She could have helped Miller stop it.

Clarke shakes her head, huffing out a watery breath of air. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

…

That evening, Bellamy doesn’t come back from work, and Clarke knows exactly where he’ll be.

She finds him there, on the roof of the cabin he’s been building for the two of them, feet dangling off the edge from where he sits as he watches the sun go down for the day.

Clarke starts up the ladder and joins him at his side. She doesn’t say anything and neither does he, but he won’t look at her either. Clarke studies his side profile, and her bottom lip trembles when she sees a faded scar just beneath his right eye. She only hesitates a moment before reaching out to him, slowly, but still, he flinches, and Clarke’s eyes widen as she instantly retracts her hand.

Bellamy looks at her now, but her gaze is averted, trained on her hands, and she’s fidgeting with them as if she’d burned him. A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Someone told you.”

Clarke nods. She’s not looking at him, but she can feel his gaze on her. “Miller.” Bellamy breathes out sharply from his nose, conflicted. At last, Clarke looks at him once again, but he looks away when she tries to meet his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t about you.”

“That’s not—” Clarke swallows. “Bellamy, I could have done something.”

Bellamy finds her eyes, eyebrow raised as he shrugs weakly. “And what would you have done?”

“Tell her to stay the hell away from you.”

“Clarke.”

“I mean it, Bell. What she did to you is fucked up. You didn’t deserve it.” She falters. “But that’s...that’s why you didn’t tell me. You thought you deserved it and you knew I’d try to convince you otherwise.” He looks away, tear slipping down his cheek. “Bellamy…” She reaches out to him instinctively, without thinking, and he flinches away again. Clarke’s eyes widen. “Shit, I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay,” he says, reaching for her hand as he takes in a shaky breath. “It’s not you.”

Clarke’s lips part as he takes it in her own, and she can’t look away from their hands as tears start to slip down her cheeks and her face crumbles. “I should have been there for you.”

“Clarke…”

“None of this would have happened if I had just been there, Bellamy.”

He shakes his head. “Everything that’s gone wrong is because of me,” he says, gaze faraway. “That’s what she said to me when we first got to the ground, and she was right.” His voice cracks. “I ruin everything I touch.”

“No,” Clarke says instantly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “Bellamy, you carry people. You carry me.” He shuts his eyes. “When I said I didn’t know what I’d do if you weren’t here, I meant it.” Clarke pauses a moment, squeezes his hand. “Look at me. Please.” He does, lips pursed to keep them from trembling. “You matter,” she says. “You matter to so many people, and nothing that she said or did to you changes that. I know you don’t believe me, not now, and that’s okay, but the people who have treated you terribly and the people who have allowed that to happen do not get to decide who you are.” Bellamy sniffles. “You do. You have people who love you so much, Bell, and that’s what matters.”

“You through?” he manages after a moment, weak amusement in his voice despite everything.

Clarke almost smiles. Of course he would find a way to make a joke about this. “Yeah,” she says, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand. “For now at least.” He huffs out a tired breath and looks away. “I’m not going anywhere, Bellamy. As long as you’ll have me.”

That draws his eyes back to hers. He sighs. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

He nods.

Clarke’s heart swells with hope. “Okay.”

…

Madi isn’t like Octavia at all, Clarke realizes one day. She was raised in isolation, raised in a world of violence, but since staying with them, she has calmed down.

Even though meeting her hadn’t been a walk in the park, Madi hadn’t known Clarke and Bellamy, and now that she does, she hasn’t attacked anyone since. She’s lost so many people—everyone she ever knew—but that didn’t stop her from finding a new home with the Sky People. She doesn’t push people away who care about her; she welcomes the attention.

At first, she’d been shy, only hanging around Clarke and Bellamy and not saying much, but one day she just began talking. Before Clarke knew it, she was having relatively long conversations with her, considering her young age and how english clearly isn’t her first language. Bellamy noticed the change too. A few days later, they saw her with Luna, and now they have regular sessions where she teaches her the more peaceful ways of grounder life and how to protect herself. Emori has become a steady part of Madi’s life too.

The entire camp, really, just loves her—especially Bellamy, and Clarke’s heart melts every time she sees them together. Part of her aches too. Because he’s just so good with her, and he doesn’t see it.

But maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to, Clarke hopes. Maybe this young girl and his growing relationship with her can be what heals him.

“And then what happened?” Madi asks Bellamy then, drawing Clarke out of her thoughts.

Her gaze drifts across the fire, where the two of them are sitting. Madi is staring at him, eyes wide with curiosity and anticipation, and Bellamy just looks so happy. There’s only one thing that makes him so. Clarke’s lips twitch with a smile when she realizes he’s telling Madi one of his favorite greek mythology myths. A surge of affection for him rushes through her. Nerd.

Bellamy goes on with the story, and Clarke just watches them, not wanting to intrude in on the moment, but at one point, he catches Clarke’s gaze and gives her a soft, closed-lip smile.

She gives him one back. I love you, she mouths to him.

Adoration for her glints in his eyes. I love you too, he mouths back, and in that moment, Clarke knows without a doubt that he’ll make it through this. That they will. The three of them.

Together.

[irikahkrios]

okay i gotta talk about vyrix nuaj, juniper's asari wife, because i really love her and her backstory. also i was writing another version of this post that was this whole massive thing and like. im gonna try to write a version that's more condensed and not three long paragraphs and counting. anyway tw for domestic abuse

so like. vyrix's asari mom, elendia t'lom, was one of the first asari to reproduce with a drell partner after the hanar took the drell off of rakhana in the 1980s. said partner was a young drell woman named demtras nuaj, who was only 19 or 20 at the time, was alone and the only member of her family who made it off their home planet, and was easily drawn in by this rich, affluent alien who promised her not only love but security and a future. everything elendia told her about love and security was a lie, she wanted a beautiful exotic trophy spouse from this newly discovered species and demtras happened to be the one who fell into her trap. after they were married and vyrix was born, elendia showed her true colors and became controlling, manipulative, and outright physically and emotionally abusive. demtras desperately wanted to leave, but thought that this was still her best choice to secure a future for herself and now for her infant daughter. eventually as vyrix reached the age of around four or five, elendia's behavior got worse, openly being abusive to demtras in front of their daughter and even showing the first signs of the same behavior towards little vyrix herself. demtras plotted to get the two of them out, squirreling away credits in secret accounts and secretly booking transport as far away from elendia's influence as possible, until finally she snuck away to a waiting cab under cover of night with her daughter in tow and carrying a bag of what little possessions she could carry with her.

demtras did her best to raise vyrix by herself, working multiple jobs in shady places to put food on the table. elendia didn't let her "exotic trophy wife" and daughter get away so easily, and regularly sent private investigators to track the two of them down, forcing them to move often. still, even with all this bullshit and hardship, demtras managed to be a good, loving mother who maintained a strong bond with her daughter, and taught her about drell culture (something elendia had been strongly against vyrix learning about) and the main polytheistic religion that the majority of her people followed. eventually demtras got lucky, finding a steady job that paid relatively well and falling in love again with a security guard at the company (not sure of her species yet tbh, another drell or maybe a turian??) who swore to protect her from her abusive ex-wife. after this, elendia eventually stopped hounding them, moving on and instead beginning the search for another young, easily manipulated trophy to take demtras' place.

from this point on, vyrix's upbringing was much more stable. she grew up to work in a security-related job like her stepmother, and followed her mother's drell culture and religion devoutly. this devout nature was only strengthened after demtras eventually died of old age, having lived a long, happy life after escaping her abuser. her wife followed soon after. as vyrix grappled with her grief, she clung even more strongly to the customs and beliefs her mother had taught her, believing that this was all she had left of her. to make matters worse, elendia resumed her search for vyrix after learning of demtras' passing, forcing her to uproot her life and go on the run just as she and her mother did when she was a child.

after many decades of taking security work around the galaxy before elendia's investigators caught up with her and forced her to move again, and a few short decades after the horrors of the reaper war, vyrix received news of a new colony, a drell colony, as the species grew tired of their coerced servitude to the hanar (bite me bioware it isn't fucking okay) and many of them left to try to form a new society of their own. still feeling a connection to her mother's people, vyrix signed up for a security job at the fledgling colony. the guarded, wary-looking asari stuck out in the crowds of drell, and it was only when worshipping the gods at the colony's temple that she seemed to truly find moments of peace, and in these moments happened to catch the eye of her priest's younger human sister, one of the heads of colonial development and the only other non-drell to come to worship at the temple.

[etatmagique]

❝ screw that book, it was written by men. [...] we’re rewriting it. ❞

( jessica alba, cis woman, she/her ) · you know, the gossip in new york city is insidious and gossip about a pureblood like geneviève “gen” ramos-tremblay seems to constantly be afloat. what i know for a fact, though, is that they’re a thirty-eight year oldjournalist who graduated as a thunderbird from ilvermorny. apparently that inclines them to be a bit inquisitive and generous when she rolls out of bed in the morning. as a member of the resistance (inner circle), i feel bad that they’ve resorted to taking up the moniker mariposa. ( always doing the best for your kids, not only by helping them directly, but also by making the world a better place for them; always being the best listener in the room, and letting people talk rather than constantly asking questions; constantly trying to keep plants alive and yet never succeeding, no matter how much you appreciate them and try your best to take good care of them; keeping your wedding dress in a box at the back of your closet and looking at it every few months to remember one of the best days of your life & trying to keep up with all the current trends as you don’t believe that just because something was good in the past makes it better than what’s happening now / sam )

— ♡ CHARACTER PARALLELS ( MOST LIKE ) :: Helen Parr ( The Incredibles ) + Padme Amidala ( Star Wars ) + Martha Jones ( Doctor Who ) + Eragon ( The Inheritance Cycle ) + Princess Peach ( Super Mario Bros ) + Pepper Potts ( Marvel ) + Clarke Griffin ( The 100 ) + Matilda Wormwood ( Matilda ) + Nancy Wheeler ( Stranger Things ) + Belle ( Beauty and the Beast ) !!

— ♡ CHARACTER PARALLELS ( LEAST LIKE ) :: Nick Miller ( New Girl ) - Homer Simpson ( The Simpsons ) - Harley Quinn ( DC Comics ) - Gollum ( The Lord of the Rings ) - Tarzan ( Tarzan ) - Dwight Schrute ( The Office ) - Gina Linetti ( Brooklyn Nine-Nine ) - Sadness ( Inside Out ) - Patrick Star ( SpongeBob SquarePants ) - The Master ( Doctor Who )

TRIGGER WARNINGS THAT CAN BE FOUND BELOW THE CUT: None I can think of.

STATS PAGE + CONNECTIONS + PINTEREST BOARD

i’m too lazy to do a tldr at the end rn so if you want one, just ask me when we’re plotting and i’ll do one for you on the spot !

backstory.

Geneviève was born in Montréal, and has been trilingual (Spanish, French & English) ever since she was ten years old. English was the last of the three languages she learned, not having ever spoken it at home, but it was very important to her parents for her to be fluent in all three languages.

Her parents were artists. Her mother was a prolific French-Canadian author, and her father was a Mexican-American drummer in a wizarding band that had formed in Montréal. They always encouraged creative expression in their children, yet never pressured them to perform in a certain way or at a certain level. They just believed that creativity was one of the best ways to learn to interact with the world.

Geneviève is the oldest of three siblings, but her parents never made her feel like she was “responsible” for her younger siblings. Her mother was also the oldest of her siblings, and had grown up with a lot of pressure on her shoulders because of that, and Geneviève’s parents didn’t want to make her go through that, too. (Her siblings might be wanted connections; I’m not sure yet).

Always a curious child, Geneviève was constantly asking questions growing up. She wanted to understand not only the world, but the people around her. She talked a lot, yes, yet she also listened deeply when others spoke. Not when she was super little, of course, but as soon as her parents realized that she was very inquisitive, they started teaching her the way to listen well to the answers she got.

After Ilvermorny, she traveled around the world for two and a half years, wanting to learn about different cultures and make her own experiences. She dreamt of becoming a journalist, and she thought it would be a good way to expose herself to learning. Plus, she got a deal with a small magazine that paid a bit of her expenses in exchange for articles, and though she now realizes they kind of took advantage of her, she doesn’t regret the experience.

After coming back, she started doing freelance journalism, and did so for a little while. It wasn’t until the age of thirty-one that she settled down at one newspaper, The New York Ghost, preferring the way they ran their business.

Her wife proposed to her when she was twenty-three years old, a year and a half after the two got together. It was kind of funny, really, because Gen had bought an engagement ring for her girlfriend already and was also thinking of proposing. A year later, they got married, and are still together to this day. 

Her wife will be a wanted connection, but basically, she comes from money and inherited a Manhattan penthouse from one of her richer uncles when he died, where she now lives with Gen and their three kids. She also has a high-paying job, which explains why the two can afford to remain in such an expensive place.

They adopted their first kid when Gen was twenty-eight years old, and have adopted two more kids since. Their two oldest are currently studying at Ilvermorny, whilst their youngest lives with them all year long at the moment.

present day.

Gen and her wife adore their kids, and would do absolutely anything for them. The five of them are a very close-knit family, and Gen’s main reason for being so involved in the resistance, along with just wanting to do what she knows is right, is that she wants to make the world a better place for them.

Gen’s a giving person who tends to put others first, and though she’s learned how to prioritize herself with time, she still cares a lot about others, and shows kindness to all. Except for those who don’t deserve it, aka the kind of people who started this whole mess.

She’s maybe not the most skilled fighter, but she knows a good amount of defensive magic. Her strength, though, is definitely recruitment, and getting people together to discuss things. She’s also a pretty good diplomat during meetings of the Resistance, and loves getting as involved as can be.

personality.

Gen’s very inquisitive, not just on the job, but in general. She loves learning about others, and listening to what they have to say. She needs to understand things, and not just accept them as they are without an explanation. 

Quite stubborn, if she sets her mind to something, good luck changing it. She’s strong-minded, and will always stand up, not only for herself, but also for what is right.

She’s also very loving, and affectionate. Her affection is reserved to those close to her, though, but she’s still very kind to others. She won’t hesitate to call you out on your bullshit, though. She’ll just do it in a way that she hopes won’t hurt you. Unless, of course, you’re a dick.

[to--love--and--be--loved]

Hey Mom,

Dad and I saw Rise of Skywalker (the new Star Wars movie) tonight. It was objectively a decent movie, containing a lot of good parts (the settings! the action sequences! etc etc), but it also really pissed me off. I know you don’t know or care really anything about Star Wars, but you always let me ramble on about things you didn’t know about when you were alive, so I’m going to list some of the things about it that made me mad.

1. I’m pretty sure they put Daisy Ridley (the lead actress) in makeup, even though she plays a scavenger-turned-warrior who would definitely not wear makeup (and also it’s really unclear whether makeup even exists in the Star Wars universe?). It was subtle, so I could be wrong, but I don’t think normal human eyelashes clump like that without mascara. Which, like: the usual feminist rant; for once why can’t women just exist without it mattering if we fit some bullshit patriarchal beauty standard, etc etc.

2. Obviously the fact that Rey ends up with Ben instead of Finn, which is totally out of character, and also really quite fucked up for a lot of reasons that you would find very boring for me to spell out but just trust me on this one.

3. The self-congratulatory way the camera stayed focused for a few extra seconds on the two women kissing in the big celebration scene at the end, like they wanted to really make sure we all noticed that they put in some queer people -- as if spending 5 seconds instead of 2 on these random undeveloped background characters is any kind of meaningful representation. I know it’s not possible to instrumentalize fictional characters, but that’s what it felt like.

4. All the people dying for cheap emotional hits. These big blockbuster save-the-world movies (Star Wars, Marvel, all the spy franchises) kill so many people so easily. The last battle scene in pretty much every Star Wars movie features like half the planes getting shot down -- they have these wide shots of total chaos and destruction, one ship after another exploding, and then they’ll zoom in on one specific pilot who dies mid-sentence and their friend in the other ship calls their name and there’s no response, that sort of thing. They show you all the cute little kids at a festival on this planet I don’t remember the name of, and have one of them give Rey a necklace so we know they’re kind and friendly, and then later the bad guys blow up the whole planet. It’s so cheap. We’re supposed to feel sad -- and we do, ok, I cried multiple times, I’m not saying it doesn’t work -- but it pisses me the fuck off. They use death for cheap emotional hits but they don’t have the guts to follow through. Like this is all death is? Leia dies and everyone stands around and is sad for a minute, and then Poe uses her memory in a rousing speech to inspire the remaining fighters, and then at the end everyone is joyfully hugging and it’s all great, it’s wonderful, the galaxy is saved!

They kill all these people and they want to use their deaths for pathos and emotional impact but they’ll never in a million years actually follow through and show the grief. The most we get, and this is genuinely pretty good for a big blockbuster movie like this, is Chewie falling to his knees when he hears the news about Leia. Which I appreciate, the falling-to-your-knees thing is real, but then what?

I know it wouldn’t be a good movie if they showed the reality of grief. I understand that most people don’t want to watch Rey in her room scream-sobbing until she gags, or Poe snapping at people and picking fights over nothing, or Finn sitting somewhere not saying a word or smiling even when he’s surrounded by friends, or the few people from that destroyed planet who were somewhere else when it got bombed, who spend years frantically writing down everything about their species/culture (because if they don’t it will be lost forever) and have sobbing breakdowns when they forget the tiniest detail. I understand that there’s no way they’d ever put any of that in a movie, so it’s futile to even think about it, but it just pisses me off. If they’re gonna kill all these people for the cheap emotional hit they should at least follow through.

5. All the dramatic and perfect deaths, and all the dead people who don’t stay dead. Leia dies using the last of her strength to speak to her son Ben, to say his name -- what I wouldn’t do to hear you say my name one more time! -- and because of the Force he hears her even though he’s planets away. And then a bit later, despite the fact that Ben murdered his father in cold blood, Han (his father) comes back to him as a ghost to gently touch his cheek and basically tell him he’s forgiven. Well, isn’t all that just great for Ben! It’s some bullshit, is what it is. Some bullshit that Rey gets to talk to Luke’s Force ghost when she’s scared and doesn’t know what to do, and he gives her advice and shows her a hidden light saber and brings her a plane and reassures her that she’ll be fine. Some bullshit that later when she’s on the ground almost dead she hears the voices of all the dead Jedi in her head and that’s what gives her the strength to get up. I know it’s powerful and meaningful to believe that we carry our ancestors with us and to imagine drawing on their strength and wisdom to help us, but that’s totally different from the easy-way-out bullshit in this movie.

I want a movie where the dead people stay dead. No force ghosts, no magical resuscitations, nobody coming back after years when everyone else thought they were gone. I want a movie where the dead people stay dead and everybody else has to figure it out themselves. Where they don’t know what to do, so they go try some stuff and worry the whole time that they’re doing it wrong. Where they feel crushingly alone and if they want that to change they have to go out and build connection with other people, which is incredibly hard and exhausting and also their only option because they don’t have a built-in support network in their head. Where they don’t get closure on a lot of stuff and they have to live with all the regrets and mistakes and guilt and unsaid things. Where they have to remember the people they’ve lost, with all of the effort and worry and pain that goes with that, instead of those people just coming back to visit, perfectly preserved.

[gawaine]

I will express this coherently at some point but to summarise;

this became longer than anticipated.

some common criticisms of the finale and why I politely think that, for the most part, they’re (respectfully) fucking wrong

what was the point of the whole show if not the Targaryen storyline?! The ascension of House Stark. The entire series is about the ascension of House Stark. How Bran the Broken’s forefather rejected the throne and died a traitor, like his fathers before him; how Arya escaped King’s Landing and returned as (however which way, or accidentally) a lauded hero, there to save others; how Lady Stark, who was mercilessly abused at the hands of Joffrey and held accountable for the sins of the Lannisters butchering her family, took forward their cause and everything that they died for. Love. Respect. Honour. The North. I’m fucking fine ok no I’m not my baby I’m emOTIONAL

there were good parts but it was a shitty ending! so anti-climactic! It’s the final episode. The penultimate episode of GoT is always the big one; the dramatic fight, the huge scenes. The ending is always quiet. It’s always about the aftermath. The but what is the result of that? That’s the GoT structure. GoT is about politics, human nature, cunning. If you expected anything more than that in the final episode of the final season, you haven’t been paying attention.

Drogon didn’t kill Jon! The argument that Drogon has always showed slight (albeit significantly less than with Dany) deference to Jon; we see he’s wary of him and I guess we all knew that when it came down to it, it would take something fantastic for Drogon to allow Jon to ride him, but we see it as Jon enters the castle and in multiple scenes throughout the season. Him not reacting to Jon isn’t well explained, but there’s an argument there that Drogon senses Jon is at least part Targ. And fire cannot kill a dragon.

what was even the point of Jon being a Targaryen if he’s not king? ... All of it. He chooses to be a Stark first. He denounces fire and blood. He denounces his own free will and choices, even if it means saving whatever remainder is left of House Stark. This is about the rise of House Stark. It always has been. Their suffering, their loss, their triumphs. I can’t remember when, but i remember posting once that as much as fans argue otherwise, we travel with the narrative. Our two narrative threads, that we’re led to follow as an audience, are the Starks and Daenerys. Jon symbolises that; more than that, he IS that. He is us in that world. The world isn’t that simple. Also, he goes down in history as the man who saves Westeros.

they played us with Dany. Right. No, they didn’t... And yes, they did. Her storyline has been there from the start. The schism between dual supporters of House Stark and House Targaryen only started around season 7, which was when Daenerys conveniently started exhibiting behaviour that indicated she wasn’t as stable as we’d been led to believe/before. I’m not anti-Daenerys, but there have been breadcrumbs this whole time. I’d go so far as to say that the writers probably overestimated the intelligence of their audience; that’s not me being abrasive, that’s fact. The nuggets people looked for in earlier seasons is based on source material. The nuances people enjoyed became ignored for the ‘bigger picture’ - but everyone assumed what that was based on the monolith that the show became (past tense! urgh), not on what the show has always been/was meant to continue to be this season. Was it poorly written? Yes. Absolutely. I felt betrayed by the voice over in the penultimate episode. It was lazy and shoddy. I may not like what Daenerys has become, but she deserved so much more. Also, there was a lack of consistency. This episode highlights her belief in her own benevolence and yes, it’s meant to be ironic and show us how stupid we’ve been - with Jon - and I would’ve respected it more if she’d been written to stand by her fury. But she’s also not her brother. She will purposefully not act that way whilst ignorant to her own faults. She’s delusional. I could write a whole essay on Daenerys’ mental health (did the show write it as misogyny? Yeah, I see it. Is that the basis of her character’s madness as a narrative? Um, no)

what the fuck was Tyrion’s speech? The writers assumed the audience was smarter (in their sense of the word) than they are. So they spelled it out for us, just in case. Clunky, lazy, etc? Yes. Fitting for that scene? Also yes.

lol the episode was so bad, the only good part was Jon petting Ghost It now makes sense why they didn’t have the budget for two Ghost scenes (you know about 70% of their CGI budget went on Drogon in this episode). There’s a reason for that; the season structure of GoT so far [see above], and the reminder of the true theme here - House Stark’s rise [see above]. Jon is at home in the North. At the Wall, he’s not a Targaryen, or a Stark; he’s Jon. It’s the only place where he can be just that. And that includes being half a Stark (ironically, the only consistent thing in his life), but not only that. Does it make relatively little narrative sense to have the Unsullied be invited to stay in Westeros, just to demand Jon is made a prisoner and then leave? True - but the point is, the door is kept open. That’s life. People move, people change, cultures adapt. The Unsullied are now a part of Westeros, no matter how far they go. Plus, Jon in the Wall... Knowing Bran knows the future... urgh, I see it. Poor writing, badly executed (props to the actors and production teams for doing a fantastic job with the material given), but I see the point being made.

the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives - what bullshit! Incorrect. Everyone assumes that’s meant literally; that’s only in times of war, that it’s literal (which is why it’s all we’ve seen so far; it’s eight seasons of war  against the Starks, or involving them). They are together. They are united. They are safe and they are happy. Personally, it’s all I’ve ever wanted from this series. I see others’ disappointment, I do. But Sansa is home. People saying she’s lonely and suffering the burden of ruling... No. Yes, she’s alone. But she’s not lonely. She’s home. With people who love her. With not just her father’s and forefathers’ legacy behind her, including in rebellion against the Targaryen’s for independence of the North/the ‘greater good’; but her mother’s and Robb’s, too. She’s always been somebody else’s. “x’s wife”. “x’s assistant”. “x’s chess piece”. Like Jon beyond the wall, she is just Sansa Stark in Winterfell. Like Jon, it was a legacy she craved - a home - and now she has it, without being the forced bystander she was as a child. Same with Arya. She always wanted to be free to do as she pleased, without losing her identity. House Stark is no longer against the world, fighting to survive. It has. They are a family. Your family aren’t dictated by who’s closest to you. They have survived. They’re not alone. This is the beginning of the series whilst it isn’t, because what’s changed? They know their loyalties lie. The pack must always survive. They have. They know that, after this, no matter what, they always will.

I could go on for hours but you get the point.

It wasn’t the greatest season. My favourite will always be seven. But that finale was one of the best episodes this season, because, as much as it may not feel like enough, it tied the strings relevant to the story it set out to be; which was ALWAYS about House Stark. 

The promo? Of their statues in Winterfell’s crypts? They bury their old selves. They become someone unrecognisable, born from who they were at the beginning.

But the point remains, they are, and always will be Starks first. Daenerys will always be a Targaryen first. You cannot escape your family. You can try and do better, but you can never escape who you are and how who that is affects you.

I fucking love it. Everything else can - bad pun intended - burn. The story this was meant to be got its ending. The stories in between may not have and that’s dissatisfying; but the ending to the original story was there.

[zhanael]

@The RWBY FNDM

Fuck off with that “manipulation” bullshit in regards to Ozpin, thanks.  Rant under the cut.

First off, in case you didn’t play Grimm Eclipse, Oz actually doesn’t want anything to do with Grimm at all.  Dr. Merlot was experimenting with Grimm, mutating them, and was responsible for Mountain Glenn’s destruction, all of which Ozpin found disgusting and heinous.  He never sounded more angry with anyone than he did in that game with Merlot.  Suggesting that Ozpin manipulated Salem into experimenting with Grimm in any way and that’s why he’s “cursed” is flimsy and reaching at best and outright ignorant at worst.

(Yes, this is actually a “theory” I read.  Ugh.)

Second of all, immortality just by itself is a curse.  You live on, watching friends and family live and die, and you’re very, very alone.  But you still get attached because it’s what makes this immortality bearable, at least for a time.  Oz has it a little worse because he does die, but ends up resurrecting in someone else, still remembering literally everything, and actually absorbing that person.  It’s not that the gods themselves cursed him, it’s that he sees it as a curse.  I’m 100% sure that he doesn’t want to do this anymore, but he literally cannot stop it until he stops Salem.

And that’s the kicker, there.  Y’all keep wanting to blame him for shit Salem does.  He wouldn’t have to train warriors or make Maidens to throw at her if she wasn’t trying to destroy humanity (and faunus-kind).  That bitch started the war, and he’s trying to find ways to end it for good.  That’s the thing about war, kiddos.  It’s never bloodless.  People fucking die, and no, it’s not great, but what do you want him to do?  Salem and her Grimm want to kill everyone.  How the fuck do you expect him to fight that?  Walk up to her and give her a hug and tell her everything’s okay, that she doesn’t have to be this way anymore?

You people who blame Ozpin for Pyrrha’s death, saying he manipulated her or whatever, sound exactly like Hazel.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say Hazel was made as a portrayal of your portion of the FNDM (which I do know better, thankfully).  Pyrrha made her fucking choice, just as Gretchen did.  Pyrrha was a warrior with a heart of gold, ready to sacrifice herself for the greater good, Maiden or not.  Even if Ozpin hadn’t explained to her what was going on, if she hadn’t lost her life on the tower, she would have lost her life to Salem and her minions or her Grimm at some other time.  That wouldn’t have been Ozpin’s fault, but she would have died anyway, because she would have fought Salem--or at least her Grimm--and thrown herself in harm’s way for anyone else.

But since she did actually die after making her choice, let’s go over these circumstances of said death here.  First up: the world of Remnant as a whole.  Semblances are a thing, Grimm are a thing, Dust is a thing.  The supernatural isn’t uncommon.  But magic, the ability to manipulate reality in more ways than just one and without the use of Dust, is entirely unheard of anymore.  It’s lost to legends and fairy tales, much as it is in our own world.

So take a high school jock that’s still pretty nice and actually pretty smart.  Not nerdy by any means, but aware of pop culture, at least.  Then tell that jock that magic is real.  They’re not going to believe you at first, laugh you off.  But then other people they trust go “well...............yeah” and they’re going to start worrying.  “What do you mean?” they’ll ask. “Like, fireballs and shit?”

“Yes,” says the authorities they’ve grown to trust. “No special tools like lighters or flamethrowers.  From their hands, from nothing but the energy inside themselves.”

They’re probably going to start freaking out.  Like, a lot.  Their reality has been shattered.  Everything they thought was true could be a lie. 

There’s a show on Netflix called Magic for Humans.  Episode 5 featured a gimmick where the magician convinces a bunch of people to pretend the subject of his trick was completely invisible.  The show only featured two separate subjects.  Neither thought it was real at first, but when they came to realize that no one seemed to see them, their reactions changed.  The first bought into it pretty handily, even tried to steal some wine thinking he actually was invisible (lmfao at the Ring of Gyges actually proving right).  But the second was absolutely panicking and breaking down into tears, enough to make me wholly uncomfortable with the entire thing.  He believed he actually was invisible, and he hated it.  That’s how your average joe would react to magic.

And that’s how your average Remnant joe would react to magic.

It was revealed in Volume 5 that the Spring Maiden (before Raven) had panicked and fled.  The burden had become too much, Leo said.  She was scared, Raven said.  She was the dude who was turned invisible and she fucking hated it.

Given all that, why on earth would you people think putting all this shit up front would be at all helpful?  Why do you think Ozpin wants to scare off anyone who could take on this power when he’s already had it happen once?

Now, no.  Pyrrha was not your average Remnant joe.  She was strong, resourceful, and willing and able to learn.  I don’t think she would have freaked out, at least not that much, but you could hear how shaky her voice was when Glynda, Ironwood and Qrow confirmed that Ozpin wasn’t joking.  Even before she was given the actual choice, she was questioning everything she knew, and I’m sure Oz could see that.  I’m sure Oz could see another Spring coming on.

So he was going to take the slower approach with her, even despite the circumstances around Amber.  Surely he thought he had more time.  Even the choice he gave her was intended to be answered at the end of the Vytal Festival.  How long would that have been?  The Olympics, which is the closest real world comparison to the Vytal Festival, lasts 16 days, so just over two weeks.  We were probably close to halfway through the Festival when Oz called Pyrrha into his office, so that decision would have been given maybe a week, week and a half.  Not that long when it comes to a big decision like this, but certainly a lot longer than what she actually had.

Because the next day, Beacon fell.  And that wasn’t Ozpin’s fault.  That was Salem’s fault, and Cinder’s fault, and Emerald and Mercury’s fault.  That was Roman and Neo’s fault.  That was Adam and the Vale chapter of the White Fang’s fault.  Pyrrha saw what was happening, knew she had an opportunity to do good, to try to keep more people from being hurt, and she fucking took it.

If Cinder hadn’t ambushed Amber, she wouldn’t be in a coma.  If Amber hadn’t been in a coma, Ozpin would not have needed to seek out someone to take her on in an effort to keep the power out of Salem’s hands.  If Oz didn’t need to find a replacement Fall Maiden, he wouldn’t have called Pyrrha into his office.  If he hadn’t called Pyrrha into his office, she wouldn’t have known about magic or anything else.

But even if she hadn’t known about magic or anything else, if she had an opportunity to stop Cinder, she damn well would have taken it and died anyway.  Because that’s how Pyrrha do.

Yes, Ozpin appealed to her sense of justice and protectiveness.  But I don’t think that was unique to her, or to anyone.  I think that’s actually his own perspective.  He seeks out people who are willing to fight for humanity and protect it from the darkness, and tries to empower them to do so in any way he can.  But he hasn’t stopped being human (or faunus), despite being immortal.  He can still make mistakes.  Unfortunately, because this is war, those mistakes can be big ones, and cost lives.  Gretchen Reinart.  Summer Rose.  The second-most-recent Spring Maiden.

Pyrrha.

Their deaths burden him.  He’s exhausted, he doesn’t want to do this anymore.  The Wizard was him trying to escape it, or at least rest, just for a while.  But he can’t, quite literally, not while Salem is still around.  And now he’s stuck with a bunch of teenagers and one trusted friend, in the body of another teenager.  He no longer has the support he used to have--especially since Leo betrayed him.

Salem is winning.

And yet y’all want to think he’s the bad guy too, for doing what he can to stop her??

Right.  Okay.  What the fuck ever.

You people exhaust me.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2018 Anime Overview: Continuing Series- Golden Kamuy Season 2 and Banana Fish

Golden Kamuy Season 2

If you enjoyed the first season, this is pretty much more of the same, so check out my review of season one to know what to expect.

Though I guess you could say this portion of the season DOES lean even harder into weirdness than the first one did. There’s not many anime where you’ll see two dudes having the time of their lives modeling fashionable outfits made out of human skin, which include...crotch appendages...only in Golden Kamuy y’all.

Interestingly bizarreness tends to overlap with queerness a lot in this season and its hard to know how to feel about it. For instance, it’s definitely an unexpected revelation that dudes are attracted to Lieutenant Tsurumi like whoa. 

IDK apparently he’s a catch. Half of his subordinates are in love with him. It’s handled as comical and of course the dudes are mentally unbalanced weirdos (as is everyone in Golden Kamuy except Asirpa and Sugimoto only sometimes) and one of them dies, but the show is never overtly mean to them either. Nobody acts disgusted about it and when one character observes the attraction, he basically shrugs about it.

 Satoru Noda apparently also REALLY loose with his fixation with dudes muscles with this part of the story, to the point we got the beef-cakiest hotsprings episode I’ve ever seen, which includes an extended fight scene where the male characters were naked throughout. There’s also an entire scene where apparently otter meat is an aphrodisiac that causes the dudes to be really into each other, so they engage in nearly naked sumo wrestling.

This is all clearly supposed to be wacky and funny, but at the same time it’s pretty clear the mangaka must REALLY LIKE drawing these scenes of muscular, naked men, and I support him following his dreams. Also I won’t deny it’s refreshing to see a hot springs episode where not a single woman got objectified, but there was dude oglin’ a plenty. It healed me a little.

I guess while we’re talking about this show and its weird relationship with queerness I should reporting that my prediction was right and the trans woman I mentioned in the previous review did become an ally. Her transness hasn’t been bought up again (though for some reason the subs decided to switch to “he” despite sticking with “she” before) and her role is pretty minor, she does reveal she’s skilled in both cooking and surgery (because she likes dismembering people) and talks about how great it would be to see people murdered every so often, so pretty much more of the same.

And that’s really all there is to say. Golden Kamuy has only gotten weirder and the plot only more convoluted (I’m starting to have a hard time keeping track of the characters tbh), but it’s an entertaining story and there’s still characters with resonance and heart underneath it all (the scene where Sugimoto discusses his trauma from being in the war with Asirpa genuinely tugged a heartstring. These two are still great and have really settled into a kinda of adorable dad-daughter dynamic at this point) and the historical and cultural research that went into this story is still amazing. 

I can tell the anime’s still skipping a lot of the manga (most of volume 7 was completely skipped), but since the English release of the manga is so slow, I’m happy to watch it in the meantime. It helps that the show has a bangin’ soundtrack and and it managed to pull its ginormous cast together for some truly exciting and action packed final episodes that left me eager for more. 

Banana Fish (13-24)

Again, if you read my review for the first half of the show, you can basically expect more of the same, both with the good and especially the bad parts. We do get more downtime with Ash and Eiji’s relationship, and they continued to make me think this show would be so much better if it focused more on these quiet scenes rather than on piling as much trauma on Ash as it possibly can. 

I think this second half did allow me to see what was compelling about Ash and Eiji’s relationship and why it’s stayed with so many people. When Ash explained that he’s finally found someone who will love him without expecting anything in return, so of course he’s willing to do anything for that person, that got me in the heart. Ash is someone who has either been viewed as a threat or someone to exploit- he’s especially used to being treated like he’s nothing more than a body, a receptacle for desires. Eiji isn’t afraid of Ash, or in awe of him, and never asks anything of him other than for him to be okay and by his side. Ash genuinely can just be a dumb teenager with him while he can’t with anyone else. Eiji is an outsider, to Ash’s gang-bangin’ world, to his culture in general, and that allows him to see Ash as he truly is, just a kid who needs to get out of this mess.

The romantic in me really loves that concept, and as an ace person, I especially connect to the underlying implication that Eiji is a romantic partner who isn’t going to demand sex from Ash or try to force him into it. Though Ash’s implied desire to avoid sex almost certainly stems from trauma, I know how he feels in a broad sense. And I think it’s a thing a lot of women can relate to even if they aren’t ace, wanting to find a relationship where they aren’t used or objectified, so it goes back around to how Ash acts as kind of a representation for the anxieties and desires of (likely) the mangaka and many women despite being a male character, and I still find that very interesting. The scene where Ash has a complete breakdown and screams at his rapist while laughing hysterically was really affecting.

So there’s moments of real resonance here, but is it worth the bullshit surrounding it, which includes every single gay man being represented as a rapist, to the point a gay bar is connected to a child porn ring? The nasty implication that gay sex is inherently evil and non-consensual, and Ash and Eiji’s relationship is only okay because they’re not doing it is very strong, and as much as this ace appreciates a romance that doesn’t require sex, I don’t want it THIS way.

There’s also some SERIOUS anti-Semitic bullshit that I can’t believe MAPPA didn’t edit out in a couple episodes. Like it would have been so easy to cut. Also some more pretty rough scenes of black men being murdered (they’re extras this time at least, and the main black dude for this part of the anime miraculously manages to both survive and not be an offensive caricature. Also his name is Cain Blood which is the best name in this story, and possibly ever). 

The second half of the anime also involved some of the more absurd elements worsening. I got REALLY tired of every character commenting on how hot and amazing Ash is like. I GET IT.  Also Ash’s life of being sexually exploited somehow gives him the ability to seduce any man holding him captive, and every bad guy is down for raping a teenage boy, I guess. It’s actually again, a little surreal to see these tropes with a male character. I’m used to seeing hot female characters who’ve been through sexual trauma and have magic seduction powers and are endlessly drooled over...I almost want guys to watch these segments so they can see how uncomfortable it feels when the tables are turned. 

There’s also some really good examples of ACTUAL jarring tone shifts, where the anime really fails to land some of its attempts at a funny, light moment in the midst of really tense and tragic situations. I think it’s possible the manga managed this better, but I can’t imagine the “joke” where Ash has to crossdress and a male doctor gropes him and Ash punches him out cold and his friends chortle and tell him he’s not a gentle woman could ever be done in a non jarring way. Like, I don’t like sexual harassment humor in anime at the best of times, but it’s especially bad when the person who is harassed has been raped more times than he can count.  We’re expected to take that seriously, but not this, because Ash is in a dress? It’s also like, appalling that his friends who are fully aware of his history would laugh about him getting assaulted again. It’s a moment that feels like it comes from a completely different anime. 

So um, yeah. My conclusion is those resonant moments are not worth the bullshit. The ending really cemented this for me. I had an (admittedly overly flippant) reaction that kind of sums my feelings up. Let’s just say I HATE meaningless cruel tragedy for the sake of tragedy, and I especially hate the implication abuse victims can never find happiness. 

I can’t say Banana Fish is an anime I’ll think fondly of or recommend. I do still find the discussion about it interesting, much more interesting than the actual story (as presented in the anime, again, haven’t read the manga), tbh. And I can see the seeds of a good story there, and I can understand why fans would want to see a reboot that truly modernized the story, cutting out the worst stuff and giving it a better ending, while keeping the resonance of the main relationship and the good characters (I really did like Sing, and Yut Lung was interesting. Shorter and Skip both deserved way better. Also Jessica, who at least got to do something besides be victimized at the last minute. One whole female character got a few moments of agency. Hallelujah.) Maybe someday it will happen. 

In the meantime, there’s a bunch of cool articles on Banana Fish that are worth a read. All of the pieces published on animefeminist as well as this post on Otaku, She Wrote are really informative, illuminating, and break down a lot of the issues I found here.