#'If I lose her there would only be cruelty and injustice left in this world and so I will bring it all down with me'

[thesnacken]

"You really live like this? Every harboured hatred, every onze of malice, you see them all clearly as any weapon?"

"Yes. All the time."

"How do you do it? How do you choose kindness every time, anyway?"

. . .

"When a soldier is about to die, do you know what they think of? For most, they think of home. Of what they stood up to protect, and of how they will have let down those they left behind. They feel guilt."

"Yes... I can relate..."

"If they can still feel guilt, they can do better. Maybe, just maybe, if I give them the same chance I got, then they could choose mercy, too."

"The chance you..?"

. . .

. . . . .

. . .

"Oh. Oh, my fellow walking damned. You were given terrible purpose."

"I was. I can only make the best of it and hope it is worth its weight."

. . .

"So be it. Surely I can walk that path, too."

"That may be the most vulnerable thing I've ever hewrd you say."

[horse-girl-anthy]

the first time I watched Penguindrum, I remember feeling totally lost and even pissed off watching episode 13. the show takes a turn I was not expecting, and I couldn’t follow what was going on at all. even after other parts of the show started to grow on me, I never could figure out the “Mary-san” story Shoma tells. it felt like such a weird addition because it’s never returned to; I mean sure, you could say it is since it features apples and it introduces the black bunnies, but I felt it stuck out like a sore thumb. here’s the conclusion I’ve finally come to on that scene after long examination.

there’s some obvious things in it. Shoma is placed in the front of the lambs representing the Takakuras, probably the only time in the show he looks like the “pack leader”--this is his point of view, this is the way he interprets things. similar to other characters’ understandings, we can see this as Shoma’s “survival strategy” more than the absolute truth of what’s going on. when before, he was being treated to Ringo’s delusional world, she is now seeing his cursed fate and way of coping with it. I think Shoma’s interpretation is a bit closer to the truth, but his own fatalism, deep-seeded guilt, and belief in karma is reflected in it. 

the core cast of characters are all suffering from the loss of the “apples.” the sunlit garden of Utena and the apples of Penguindrum are both Biblical references which use the Garden of Eden as a metaphor for lost childhood memories/innocence. in Penguindrum, it also has the connotations of sin and punishment. due to the way society is set up, people are isolated, expendable, faced with injustice, and they either never have any connections or their connections are severed by the cruelty of the world. in such conditions, it’s inevitable that people seek to “take back” what they feel, on a deep level, they once had, or could have had if things had been different. but it’s very easy for this tendency to create organizations like the Kiga Group. 

in the story, we are are told that “Mary-san” (who I think is supposed to look like Kenzan Takakura) steals the fire to make up for the loss of the apples. but not only will there have to be a punishment for this action, but also, the fire itself is not the apple. this is shown to be a theft rather than a murder, I think, and also to be a crime with misguided intentions, because of the motivations of Kenzan Takakura. he is being misled by the black bunnies (later shown to be Sanetoshi), and, in his own delusional mind, trying to create peace and prevent children from turning invisible. he is trying to restore humanity to the Garden of Eden by cleansing the world with fire, and he is trying to take back what has been stolen by the greedy who rule society. 

Shoma’s story also explicitly frames Himari’s illness as punishment for the Kiga Group’s actions. this is one of those Ikuhara things where I hesitate to say either way whether this is literal. partially, it is Shoma’s point of view. growing up under the weight of his parents’ crimes, feeling as though Himari never should have gotten caught up in this, realizing that many people will in fact look at them funny if they know who there parents are... it’s not hard to see how he could come to see things that way. also, Japanese culture does, as far as I understand, often tie health to morality, and the idea of generational karma isn’t something Shoma made up. 

at the very least, Himari’s illness is a reminder that the world isn’t fair, and although she’s portrayed as sickly as a young child, her terminal illness set on after her adoptive parents’ crimes were revealed and they left the family. she hsd to quit school, losing her friends and the chance at being in Triple H, and the stress and pain she experienced was enough to make her sick by itself. she is also shown to be a character prone to believing the worst and resigning herself, so she doesn’t have much will to live at times; you could say that she never would have died in the first place if her adoptive parents had been there and not put her in a terrible situation. 

all three of the Takakuras may feel that her illness is a punishment; Kanba posits it in the very first episode. however, the show ultimately decides that framing is a mistake. in fact, it was not dying but living that was the punishment. the characters accept the punishment of living and being family because that is the price of being together. rather than destroy to get rid of sin, Penguindrum says there is no Garden of Eden to return to but each other.

[forestwhisper3]

Welcome back to the SI/OC series, where I introduce my various brainchildren. This time around, though, we’re gonna do something a little different. Apart from giving you a couple of pics, I’ll also give you snippets that I’ve written out. This is mostly because I have nothing near resembling an actual fic and have literally just written segments.

It’s kinda long, so click the expand to read on.

So...this SI/OC is one that I’ve had in my head for a while. I mentioned her in one of Klonoadreams’s streams and figured I should probably mention her in this SI/OC series too. She is one of two for the Kingdom Hearts fandom, and when the mood strikes, I try to flesh out her story a little more. Maybe one day I’ll have something publishable. For now, here’s Ignis, a fellow student of Master Eraqus, along with Terra, Aqua, and Ventus:

This is her before everything goes to pot, however. The thing with this SI is that, despite her knowledge of the games, and despite all of her efforts to prevent the events of Birth by Sleep, she still fails. Master Xehanort is not a man easily defeated, after all. So, it is a weary, heartbroken Ignis that finds herself on Destiny Islands after she loses everything yet again...

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

'This is...'

I smiled, knowing it was a bit wry in nature. After all, whenever I'd given the thought to being here, I'd never quite pictured it...like this.

"Whoa, you were right! There is another weird person here today!"

I found myself laughing at the comment without meaning to, the reaction startling me and filling me with sorrow all at once. It had felt like ages since I'd laughed so freely...

"Hey...are you okay?"

I looked at the two boys before me, ready to assure them that everything was fine but...the words just didn't want to come out.

"You're crying..."

Fingers touched my cheeks, only to come away wet. How did I not realize...?

I gave a start when I suddenly felt small arms wrap around me, the warmth of the action seeping into the chill that had seemed to settle in me these past days.

"Don't cry," Sora pleaded, his own eyes staring earnestly into my own. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

If my next laugh was mixed with a sob, I didn't think any of us would tell.

"You already have," I told him once I'd calmed down, making sure my smile was gentle.

"Really?"

"Yes. I think a hug was just what I needed. Thank you."

"Oh! I'm glad! I don't like seeing people sad."

I smiled, the warmth continuing to spread as I studied him. I'd thought...it would be strange to see them as children while not being the same age, but...this felt right.

Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.

"My name is Ignis," I began softly, "and I come from somewhere far from these shores."

"I knew it," Riku piped up. "You're from the outside world! Just like-...uhh..."

I chuckled a bit at his attempts to back up, clearly not wanting to break his promise.

"Going by your comment earlier, I'll have to assume you've met Terra or Aqua?"

"Yeah! Miss Aqua was nice!"

"Terra was too," Riku added.

"And he left you with something special," I finished.

"Err...yeah."

"What?! He gave you a present!? No fair!"

"Hey now, don't get upset. What's your name?"

"Sora!"

"Sora..." I put my hand out, smiling at his gasp when my Keyblade appeared. "Terra entrusted your friend with something very special because he must have seen something in him...just like I see it in you."

It wasn't just because I knew what was to come. Riku's light was...amazing- there was no doubt about that. But Sora-...Sora gave off his own light too. A light so warm, and loving, and kind that it chased away the darkness and made me feel safe. I know the games had always made Sora's light out to be something special, but...Being able to feel it, and knowing that both Aqua and Terra had passed him up for one reason or another made me want to cry all over again at the injustice of it all.

Sora would not be the backup plan. Not if I had anything to say about it.

"In your hand, take this key..."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Master!/Master Ignis!"

I groaned, turning over in my cot and doing my best to block out their yells and subsequent pounding at my door.

"Master!"

I yelped when a large weight practically threw itself upon me, sighing at the sound of Sora's giggles and Riku's snickers. Still, it wasn't quite enough to stop the smile that tugged on the edge of my lips.

"Alright, alright, I'm up. What are you two doing here so early anyway?"

Sora propped his chin up on his hands from his position on top of me and grinned. "It's not early. You just slept in!"

"Yeah...I thought adults were supposed to be responsible and stuff."

Riku laughed when I threw a pillow in his direction.

"You're lucky I like you," I said without any real heat.

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"This form was a particular favorite of Master Eraqus," I began, smiling slightly when I saw how much Sora and Riku were struggling to remain in position. "Not so much one of ours."

"I-...I can't feel my legs!"

"Don't tell me you-...you can't handle it, Sora!"

"Your legs are shaking too!"

I felt a laugh bubble up. God, those two really were like-

A sharp pang shot through me, and despite my best efforts, it left me feeling desolate all over again.

'I'll see them again. I know I will...but...twelve years is a long time.'

And I would be the only one to actually age.

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"Kairi, I understand that you don't like fighting like Sora and Riku do. Really. But...Keyblades don't just go to anyone- you have to be chosen. The fact that you have one...will you at least learn the basics? You don't have to use them, but you'll know them. Just in case."

She mulled it over for a while, before nodding.

"Thank you," I sighed out with a relieved smile.

"It...means a lot to you...doesn't it."

Despite my efforts to the contrary, the question made me freeze. By this point, the boys had given up any pretenses of being busy and were watching in unabashed curiosity. With a welling sadness that hadn't really dulled these past years and an ache in my heart, I nodded.

"It does," I confirmed quietly. "But more than that, I just want you three to be safe. To know how to take care of yourselves if-...Anyway, this is the best I can do."

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"Master Ignis, when-...when is Master Terra coming back?"

The question, sudden and unexpected as it was (though I really should have seen it coming), hit hard. All of a sudden, it felt like there was a vice-like grip around my heart, and I flinched so violently that there was no way I could have hidden the reaction.

And Riku- who was so clever and so observant that I was constantly reminded of Aqua -didn't fail to catch on.

"...He's not coming back. And...Master Aqua isn't either."

There was a deep hurt in his eyes, and hints of betrayal. All three of them were aware of how the relationship between Masters and students worked by now, which meant that they knew that despite the fact I was teaching all of them, only Sora was my true apprentice. The rightful heir of my teachings, so to speak.

"Oh, Riku," I breathed out, feeling that all too familiar twist of my heart, though this time, it was accompanied by the sharp sting of tears. "They-...They can't."

Riku blinked, the hurt look being replaced by a questioning one. A few feet back, Sora and Kairi watched on, too hesitant to get closer, but not enough to leave their friend completely.

I sighed, and if there was a breath of a sob mixed in, well, no one would know but me.

"Come on...I think it's time I told you."

They were young yet, but if I didn't tell them now, I didn't think I'd ever work up the strength to do it.

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"...When I finally managed to get back to Radiant Garden, there was no sign of Terra or Aqua- the only hint of their fate being the lingering chill in that courtyard. I-...I can only assume they were dragged into the Realm of Darkness. I spent the next few months searching for a way to get to them, as well as keeping an eye out for Ventus, but..."

"...You didn't find either," Riku finished sadly.

"No. Eventually, I found myself here, on these islands. When I saw you, I-...I knew that I couldn't leave. It would have been the height of negligence and cruelty to move on- to leave you ignorant of the legacy you bear. I knew Terra well enough to say that he had every intention of coming back for you, but since he can't, I will do my best to train you in his stead."

He was silent for a while, mulling it over. Finally, he nodded.

"Thank you for telling me, Master Ignis."

"What about Kairi?" Sora asked, his head tilted. "If Mister Terra chose Riku, and you chose me, who chose Kairi?"

"That would be Aqua," I told them. "Just like I could feel Terra's claim on Riku, I can feel Aqua's on Kairi."

"...I don't remember," Kairi said.

"Perhaps it's one of the things you've forgotten," I told her gently, even though I knew that even if she had remembered her meeting with Aqua, she still wouldn't have known when she was given the power. "But even if the mind forgets, the heart remembers."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The stars were disappearing.

I looked up at the night sky, unease settling in my stomach as I watched another one blink out of existence. It was the third one this week, and while I now knew that some stars actually were just stars in this universe, I also knew that those weren't what was going out.

Xehanort was on the move again.

I'd been wondering about it for a while- mostly since the finer details of the games had slipped from my memory as the years passed -whether or not his plan had some sort of deadline he needed to meet. It seemed I'd gotten my answer. The question now, however, was how were things going to play out.

I was under no delusions that I hadn't derailed things. I had not only trained Sora, Riku, and Kairi, but I had actively done my best to keep them hidden. My unease mostly stemmed from worry over whether it had been enough. If it hadn't, then odds were that Xehanort was going to be paying a visit to the islands soon.

Just the thought of it made my blood run cold.

Ten years, and it still didn't feel like I'd had enough time. I had known what was going to happen, and I hadn't been able to stop it. It had taken everything Terra, Aqua, Ventus and I had had to fight him, and we'd still lost. This time, I was alone. If he came-...

If he came, I probably wasn't going to make it out alive.

I swallowed, feeling my eyes burn as I continued to stare up at the sky. Years ago, that was all I could have hoped for. Anything to escape the agony brought about by losing everything yet again. Now, however...

"Miss Ignis!"

"Master Ignis!"

"Master!"

I found that...I didn't want to go.

"Master...?"

I sighed, a small, wry smile making its way onto my face at the voice. He would be the one to run into me tonight, wouldn't he?

"You should be asleep, Sora," I scolded, though anyone could tell it was halfhearted at best.

"I can't," he said, settling down next to me.

"You should at least try," I told him. "You've got a big day tomorrow."

His grin was just as bright now as it was when I'd first met him.

"That's exactly why!" he exclaimed, turning his gaze up to the night sky. "We've always heard the stories, but to know that we'll actually get to go out there! To see other worlds! It's amazing!"

I couldn't help the fond smile that slipped onto my face at that. He was so much like them, and yet, the warmth he always seemed to instill was unique to him alone.

I hoped that by nurturing it in him, I'd thrown Xehanort's, and even the mysterious Master of Master's, plans awry.

"But," Sora continued, his much more subdued and hesitant tone instantly drawing my attention, "there's...something I've been meaning to ask."

"What is it?"

"If-...If Riku hadn't been chosen when you first got here...or if Kairi had already been with us and not chosen by Master Aqua...would you have still chosen me?"

I blinked, honestly taken aback at the question. "What?"

He seemed a bit more embarrassed now, but the question still seemed to be weighing him down. "It's just- since you've started teaching us how to sense light and darkness in others, me an' Kairi noticed that Riku's...bright. Like, really bright. Then I noticed later that I couldn't sense any darkness in Kairi, and I just-...I couldn't help but think that-...that I-..."

"That you were chosen only because they were first."

He winced and I felt my heart twist painfully at his small nod.

"Sora, no," I told him, perhaps a bit too vehemently, but maybe that would make him listen more. "No, that's not it at all."

I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and waited until he was looking back at me to continue. "Sora, even if I'd had the option, I still would have chosen you. Precisely because you are you."

"Because...I'm me?"

I smiled. "Maybe Riku's a bit brighter, and maybe Kairi's a bit purer, but you...You want to know what I see when I look at you?"

He hesitated for a moment, probably afraid of what I might say, but nodded in the end.

"I see a warm light. Soft and gentle, like a sunset on the beach. It was that very light that reached out to me ten years ago, and pulled me back from the abyss I could feel myself starting to slip into. Sora, I wasn't kidding when I said your hug was just what I needed. That warmth- your warmth -kept me from ending up just like the others."

He blinked rapidly, his eyes becoming glassy with tears, and I sighed softly before throwing an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. Even after all I'd done, Sora had still ended up doubting himself and his place as a Keyblade wielder. Still, at least this had happened now, when I could set him straight, as opposed to later, when I...might not be around.

"...Do you really mean that?" he asked quietly.

"I do," I reassured him. "Never doubt yourself, Sora. If you ever find yourself feeling low just remember this:

I chose, and would always choose, you. Not Riku. Not Kairi. You. Because you are kind, and cheerful, and strong- even if you may not believe it at times. You also have something special that they don't: a warm light that welcomes all. A light that shelters and heals. I know, without a doubt, that you will do great things. Amazing things." I smiled down at him, my heart lightening at the small smile on his face as he looked back. "And you trust your master, don't you? So trust in me now."

"...Okay."

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Sora watched with growing concern as his master paled. His gaze fell onto the figure behind her, his eyes widening when he realized it was the man in the cloak he'd spoken with just yesterday.

"I must admit to some surprise," the man continued, seemingly unaffected by the storm that raged around them. "I thought I'd gotten rid of all of Eraqus's pupils, yet here you are- with students of your own, no less..."

She stiffened, finally whirling around to face him with a glare. "You will get nowhere near them, Xehanort!"

Suddenly the gravity of the danger was clear, and going by how Riku and Kairi seemed to freeze right next to him, they realized it too.

Xehanort. The man who was responsible for all of the bad things that had happened to Master Ignis and her friends. Because of him, Mister Terra couldn't be here to teach Riku, and Miss Aqua and Ventus were lost somewhere.

It was because of him that his master was so sad and lonely.

Even his laugh was sending chills down his spine. "Is that so? You may have ten more years under your belt, girl, but you're still nowhere close to my level."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOo

...To be continued?

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! Maybe I’ll post snippets of my other, as of yet, unpublished SI/OC fics if you all like this well enough. I leave you with a picture of how Ignis looks at the end of these snippets, or rather, at the beginning of the events of KH1:

[vinterdronniing]

@applesforanna​ said: The governess looked frazzled. "It's Her Highness again," she said, a familiar line on her tongue, "She refuses to calm herself! I am at my wit's end---" And Anna, within the nursery, was screaming, bashing her tiny fists upon the floor, with a face as red as a tomato, causing a scene that could be heard through that entire wing of the castle. The toddler grieved in one of the only ways she knew how, with rage and a sense of injustice at a world that failed to return her parents to her.

Any other day might have brought a far different reaction from the young woman. A calmer demeanor, one of understanding. Elsa could only just imagine what all of this must be like for her sister. A child barely older than an infant, a child without a true understanding of the world and the cruelty it could inflict upon the lives of others. And to lose one’s parents while so young...it was unfair to Anna. Yet, that usual understanding and patience was wavering that day.

A weary sigh accompanied by heavy, drooping shoulders was Elsa’s first response, as though the governess’ words had only added an extra weight onto her; and in a way, it had. On days such as this, it felt as though the entirety of the world had been placed precariously upon her. Another unfairness that the world felt it owed to the two sisters of Arendelle.

"I understand,” the crown princess quietly answered, shoulders pressing back and a stiffness seeping into her back. “You’re excused for the evening. I’ll look after her.” Elsa gave no option for the other to protest, steady steps guiding her out of her study and down the halls to the nursery. She could hear the shouts and cries of her baby sister, a sense of dread creeping up her throat...yet preparing herself for a long day to become twice as much so.

There was no argument that the princess adored her little sister, no question in the love and care the young woman held for her, but she was still so young. Robbed of their parents, of their guidance. Left with a kingdom to watch over and a small child to care for. It strained her. Stretched her thin and wore her down as she desperately tried to do all at once, tried to be everything for everyone.

“Anna,” she spoke as she came to the door of the nursery, voice raised just enough to be heard of the screams and banging at the door, yet still retaining a softness to it. Meant to be nothing more than a careful warning that she was there before she opened the door. “Anna, what’s the matter?” She carefully closed the door behind her as soon as she was able to step inside, tired eyes falling upon the small, blubbering form of her sister.

“Come here.” Her arms gently outstretched to her, a silent offering of a hug. A promise to pick her sister up as she always did. A way that had always seemed to calm her enough...and a method Elsa prayed would work once more.

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

this is the first chapter in a series that takes place during TWD episode 9x16 “The Storm.” It’s somewhat of a continuation of my story “Swept Away,” but you don’t have to read that to follow this (though I obvi think you should :))

Through the Storm - Chapter 1: A Glimmer of Light (also on 9L)

“The cold set in. Fires raged. The rot spread.” – Ezekiel ________________________________________________________

Carol watched the pipes deteriorate, and with them, her marriage.

The fissures steamed with heat and pressure, making wailing sounds of pain, and no amount of tape throttling the cracks seemed to help. They wheezed and hissed, threatening to break and take the life they’d faithfully pumped into the Kingdom for years.

And she sympathized.

Ezekiel tried. He’d coddled and tiptoed, pleaded and pushed, cried and comforted, eventually turning his own grief into a single focal point of compassion—her—hoping to hold on to what they’d had.

Like the pipes that cracked more and more each day though, the tendrils of caring, the desire to continue, the push to move on, the hope of shared comfort only felt like ribbons of tape wrapped too tightly, hoping to prevent the expulsion of what it held.

She felt the pressure building, knew the gasket would eventually blow. Even craved the release from the suffocation of human hands and paltry words that attempted to re-strengthen her.

She didn’t know how much longer she could hold on before bursting into uselessness.

Ezekiel didn’t deserve the inevitable blowout, but no matter how many circles of logic she ran in her head, she knew she was done. They were done.

He remained all he’d ever been: kind, caring, loving, and fanciful. But she…she’d become fire and ice, burning hot with anger and injustice one moment, her heart caving in on itself, leaving her stoic, emotionless, and indolent the next.

He was a Romeo—and she’d become his poison, a sweet concoction muting the bitterness inside until it was too late.

He didn’t see it like that, though whether he couldn’t or simply wouldn’t she couldn’t tell. She just knew they were wrong now. Maybe always had been, but with Henry between them, they’d managed the farce for far longer than she should have allowed.

She loved him well enough. Had spent the past six years as a reluctant right hand to the gentle soul who only desired safety and smiles for his people. He believed they could provide that.

She’d known better. Should have shaken them out of their fantasy, brought them back to this hellish plain, instead of attempting to live in their clouds of fancy. Or should have simply walked away.

Oh, yes, she was bitter. But mainly at herself.

Had she really thought she could love a child into adulthood, watch him grow into a man? Could protect him? Could hold on in a world that ruthlessly, grotesquely forced you to let go, that wrestled your grip away one finger at a time, bruising and breaking as it went? Had she really fooled anyone?

Just herself.

And her king.

And now monsters wearing the faces of the dead had woken her up from the dream that kind of was to find she’d never really been inside of it after all. She’d tiptoed the edge, dipped her foot in the river to test their waters, allowed them to think their fairy tale would outlast the horrors visiting the outskirts of their kingdom, but she’d known all along. She’d straddled the line of waking and dreaming, hoping she could forget for just a while, praying it could mean something different than all the heartbreak before.

She’d realized too late that she’d played the fool, not the queen.

She sighed, staring up into the shadows above the bed, her thoughts too loud, the hurt in her heart too heavy to grant her sleep.

How had it come to this?

Her thoughts floated back through time, over the years of claiming not to be a queen while living as one, the peace she’d felt while others suffered. Past the loss of everyone she’d started out with since that quarry, save one. So many had ripped a piece of her heart out, she now realized she’d had very little to work with, to offer to the husband who loved her more than she would ever love him. Through the evil deeds both done and felt, most of which she’d never spoken of to the people she cared for. Only one now knew her hit list, the people that haunted her dreams even still. And he, so shattered by their collective losses, had taken to living in isolation, which worried and wearied her more than nearly anything else had. Settling on each one of her lost children. The years had been brutal and cruel. So much suffering, things no sane person could see and live to tell of without themselves becoming a monster. The injustice of each loss. The cruelty of motherhood.

An ache gripped her heart so tightly she couldn’t breathe for a moment, only releasing it when she thought she might pass out, and she quietly gasped for air.

She couldn’t pretend any more. She couldn’t convince herself she was in love with a man when only the love of their son had kept them together. Couldn’t pretend to lead people hell-bent on maintaining the innocence and idealism that’d caused her son’s downfall. Couldn’t act like she didn’t have some role in his death as she’d quieted the warrior inside with the fairy tale she thought she could have. Couldn’t live like she knew how to keep a city from falling apart when that’s all she did inside each day, every hour, second by second, cracking and crumbling beneath years of solid wear until she rotted like those pipes.

Who was she anymore? Not a queen, not a mother, not part of the community she oversaw, and no longer wanting to be Ezekiel’s wife. Her roles felt threadbare, like a cherished shirt worn and washed a few too many times, now see-through, thin, and faded, a paltry remnant of the fabric and color it once was.

It was time to throw it away. She couldn’t lose herself, not again.

She’d allowed herself to happily believe it wouldn’t—couldn’t—happen again, not with the fortifications of a community that needed her, problems to fix, a child to raise, and a husband to support.

She’d been wrong. So wrong.

Those things couldn’t stop the dark from creeping into her mind, clouding out all that she’d thought mattered. It didn’t make the ache lessen or the tears dry up or even the fantasy real.

It had all been make-believe.

Her eyes darted to the quote Ezekiel liked, so much so he’d had it painted on his bedroom wall, the one she’d even quoted to him on several occasions.

“At times we crack, only to let the light in.” The ironic crack dividing the words nearly caused a maddening laugh to rise up in her, but she tamped it down.

She’d cracked alright, but no light shown here to brighten up her insides.

In the two weeks since they’d happened upon those stakes, she’d realized her son had provided the light in her life here at the Kingdom; he was the reason she’d stayed all these years. Without him, she no longer fit into the fairy tale illusion everyone else thrived in.

Henry was everywhere and nowhere: in every room, in every person, in all their thoughts, written on their faces, a shadow that stalked her night and day, dredging up not only his absence, but the absence of what she thought she still had.

She couldn’t stay still any longer.

Quietly, so as not to wake Ezekiel, she slipped from the bed and snagged her shoes from their place by the door, glad she hadn’t changed out of her clothes from the day.

She knew he grieved differently than she did, but it grated on her that he could at times still find peaceful rest when it had escaped her nearly her entire life, both before and after the Turn.

A wave of guilt crashed into her as she stuffed her feet inside her shoes and tiptoed through the building. Why should she begrudge him snippets of peace in this hell of a world, from the pain of loss he suffered, from the struggle he faced trying ceaselessly—and lucklessly—to get her to open up to him? What kind of person was she anyway?

She sighed, disgusted with herself, and suddenly felt the cloying darkness around her.

She needed fresh air.

Moving quickly now, she shoved at the front door, springing out into the frigid night air, taking deep breaths through her nose, the cold soothing her burning skin and lungs.

“Carol?”

She swung to her right, her hand instantly at her bare hip as she realized she’d left her knife on the bedside stand.

Daryl stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight, and she relaxed, kept the mask she now wore on a daily basis on the shelf, relieved the voice belonged to him and no one else.

He’d been in and out of the Kingdom the past few weeks, first taking Lydia to the border they’d been given, then helping the fair-attenders return to their communities. More and more she hated watching him leave, fearful he wouldn’t return. The thought of losing him, of becoming unmoored from everything in the past—from the only other person on Earth who was there at the beginning, who’d met the daughter she missed with every beat of her slivered heart, who’d known both of Judith’s parents, who missed the family they’d built through trial and error, who knew a prison could be a home and the lengths they’d go to keep the ones they loved alive—sent an ice-cold terror through her veins.

She hadn’t shared much of her grief with anyone, but she could with him…and had. He’d seen her through this before, had become a stabilizing factor in the world that never ceased tilting off its axis. There was very little they didn’t share with one another after all this time, and her heart burgeoned with gratitude that he’d chosen to come back here after ensuring the community groups made it home safely.

She knew it was for safety, yes. But she also knew he wouldn’t leave her until he knew she’d come through the darkness. It was his way, had become their way through the many goodbyes fate had forced them to say. The gravitational pull they had always felt strongest when the other threatened to spiral out of control.

Guilt came again, that she couldn’t share her sorrow with Ezekiel, who’d also lost his child, but she brushed it away for the moment, basking in the comfort of her closest friend, the one presence that didn’t invade or push but merely supported and had only ever unconditionally loved.

Nearly overcome with her warring emotions, she focused on the man before her. Shaggy hair she’d recently trimmed—she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him, missed his unassuming nature, his quiet loyalty and rough edges, until she’d visited him with Henry—broad shoulders carrying his ever-present crossbow, solid stance that had supported her far more times that anyone else knew.

“You okay?”

She swallowed hard, unable to pretend with him, not wanting to lie. “I’m trying to be.”

He moved toward her. “Where’s your coat? ‘S freezing out here.”

“I…it’s…” She motioned back towards the building as he set his bow down on the steps and shrugged out of his own jacket. “Daryl…” She meant to protest, but his name on her lips sounded more like a sigh, and she couldn’t think clearly. All she knew, all she felt, was relief. Relief that she didn’t have to fight alone, that she didn’t have to keep up appearances for people who’d suffered, yes, but had peacefully lived behind the safety of walls since the beginning. Didn’t have to hide behind her own walls or pretend she belonged or that she was working through her grief instead of it taking her over. Didn’t have to wonder who she was around him or how to act or what to say. She could be silent and still or rant and rave or fall in a sopping mess or fume with fire and he would stay. Stay with her and by her and for her and let her work through the mess of life with silence and support and remind her of who she was and could be.

She needed him here.

Daryl slung the jacket around her shoulders and rubbed her arms, transferring his warmth into her cold limbs and freezing heart. She stared up at him in wonder, the moonlight falling behind him, casting his face in shadow. But she didn’t need the light to know the contours of his face, the lines of scars he hid beneath his hair, the tired, squinty eyes and high cheekbones, the mole on the left side of his face, the scruff that circled his mouth, his strong jawline. She knew the comfort of the arms that would catch her—had caught her—when she fell. And had helped right her again.

How could a person feel like home? His arms a sanctuary? His presence a balm? His friendship more important than any other relationship she’d ever had next to those with her children?

How could she get through this without him?

His hands slowed their movements, and he gently gripped her biceps. “You warm enough?”

She swallowed hard, past the realization that she’d always had a home where he was, that the kingdom felt more like a cage without Henry. That only one place lent light to the darkness inside her.

Staring up at him, she felt the first glimmer of warmth ease into the cracks in her soul.

At times we crack, only to let the light in, she thought.

“Yeah,” she answered softly, resolutely.

“Wanna sit down?” Daryl gestured toward the gazebo in the courtyard where a few blankets lay rumpled on the bench and his lantern sat, casting off a soft glow.

She needed to. Her world had just shifted, and she felt off-kilter, unsure of what lay ahead but desperate for warmth.

She nodded, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders, mooring her to his side as they walked toward the light.

[daemonusdea]

Zero and Her Sisters { meta }

  This is something I don’t think I’ve ever talked much about, maybe individually with some people or just vaguely, but with Zero’s sisters being an important key to Zero herself as a character and their roles as a concept in the games I really wanted to lay all of it out!

I guess this is technically??? Spoilers for the game…So uuuuh just be aware of that I supposefnjg. Other than that here we hecking go, under the cut! It’s long, so strap in!

  The first to get out of the way, is to know that her sisters are, put blankly, not actually her sisters– the sisters are more like corpse copies of Zero. In an attempt to preserve itself when she tried to dig the Flower out of her own chest ( which would kill her and the offshoot Flower, as well as any chance to destroy the world like it intended ), it spat out five copies, five little girls each with their own Flower. Along with that, they were given false memories, though each girl differed in what they believed to be their past, how their ‘parents’ were, and how they lived. To make these girls, the Flower used resources from Zero such as a chunk of her magic, split off between the five of them. But most importantly, it took the faces of girls Zero knew or killed when she was alive, and took fragments of Zero’s own psyche to base their personalities off of. Now onto the sisters individually!

Five. Five is the youngest of all the sisters. Five, being extremely promiscuous, gluttonous and greedy, got her appearance from a nun Zero killed while trying to steal food. Lovely irony. Five is materialistic, and has a lust for finding and conquering the ‘next best thing’. Her desires reach out into sex, exotic foods, and clothing, but once she obtains what she desires, she immediately loses interest and moves on to her next conquest. She believes to have a longing for her father who died before she met him. Five is the part of Zero that could never truly grasp her desire for happiness. She turns to meaningless instant gratification, but it fades in an instant to leave her empty and finding the next thing to strive for. It’s shown as well in her final moments before Zero kills her that she has an intense desire to live, even if she loses sight of who she is. When Zero was alive, her sense of self and life quickly dwindled down to nothing as she suffered more and more, to where she shut off all of herself just in hopes of surviving. There was a distinct dream to pursue a life where she was happy, but with how twisted and vacant she’d become over the years, she had no real way to achieve that– she didn’t know how. Life had stripped her of everything, and she wandered and killed and stole until she no longer could. It was an empty way to slowly die, but it was almost a hope that if she kept living, kept surviving, perhaps she’d finally get what she desired. Five continues this and amplifies it, so desperate to live and obtain more she forcefully regenerates herself into a zombie-like monstrosity.

Four. The second youngest, self-righteous and always seeming the morally straight one, her innocence and loathe of fighting are all a mask for a vindictive, cruel, and paranoid truth. Four is plagued with a pride of higher-than-thou, trying to hide a hideous inferiority complex, though if pushed on it is easy to crack that good girl exterior, suddenly switching to insulting your character with any flaw she feels she can expose and twist to make you seem the villain. She holds a secret disdain as well, mostly for anything non-human, going as far as degrading what she thinks as inferior, even going past orders and common mercy to slaughter retreating elven sky pirates, gleefully so. She has memories of Zero being a sweet and caring sister that she looked up to, and hated her parents. Four is a particularly irking one, as Zero sees her just as she was as a young girl while in the brothel; the fighting urge to cling to the last bits of pride she had. This becomes even more irritating with the knowledge that Four, out of her own pride and repressed attitude, is a virgin out of all of the Intoners, who all harbour high sex drives. Four is a culmination of repressed anger, jealousy, and self-hatred. A high paranoia of trusting the people around her, really an image of Zero and her outlook on the world, mostly while she was still alive. A girl trying to hold onto nothing, lashing out whenever she feels threatened.

Three. The third youngest, and the most strange. Lethargic most of the time, she falls asleep in any spot, and seems to fall to laziness whenever things don’t interest her. Which is most of the time. She speaks in riddles that hold no meaning or make any practical sense to anyone but her. When her interest is sparked however, her personality seems to switch. She obsesses over ‘dolls’, creations she makes by her own hand, often monsters operated on to create soldiers she wants in often horrific experiments. When asked about them, she sparks into excited, fast-paced speech and acts quite animatedly. Unfortunately, her experiments have delved into human territory, using them to make mishmashed monstrosities with other creatures, killing many in her attempts to successfully create a doll, others falling victim to tests she’d created to find the core of a human’s strength. She enjoys making toys so much, there’s no regard for the lives she’s brutalized, only interested in why strange things are the way they are. She comes off very childish, an unending curiosity, simple-minded likes, tantrums, and even a juvenile humour. A broken Intoner. She disliked her parents. Even Zero finds difficulty in understanding just where Three even came from, but knows without a doubt that she’s a very dark, twisted facet of herself. The child in her questioning why humans are the way they are, why humanity behaves the way it does, and a dangerous, empathy-lacking disregard for lives she takes the more she goes on. A complete dissolution of her own humanity, the numb carelessness she developed while she was still alive, murdering more and more not even out of necessity.

Two. The fourth youngest, and another oddity Zero finds quite bizarre due to how wildly different they are. Two is bright and bubbly, effortlessly trusting, and endlessly caring ( even continuing to treat Zero kindly, and like a normal big sister NOT trying to kill her ). She runs an orphanage, taking care of the children who were left behind in the previous wars alongside her disciple Cent, and considers them a giant family. Out of all the Intoners, she was the only one to actually form a romantic relationship with her disciple. She enjoys cooking, and takes to carefully watching over all of her people. She is, in essence, very happy. Until her power outgrew her, and her mind buckled under the weight of it as well as the trauma she suffered from having to kill her soldiers and the orphaned children she cared for, turned into zombie-like undead and a monstrous conglomeration homonculus respectively. Two loved her parents immensely, who she noted were very loving. Zero finds however, that Two makes more sense than originally thought. Two is the culmination of everything Zero wished her life could be– who she could have become, if her life hadn’t been so horrid. A girl with everything; a girl who could be happy, who could trust and find love and have a family. Two is what could have been, dead dreams Zero could never reach.

One. The second oldest under Zero, with the face and voice of the rebel Zero briefly knew for the time she was chained up with her outside the Bastille in Cathedral City. With the rebel having been tortured ( her eyes being gouged out ), One’s eye colour defaulted to red, in essence of the blood Zero saw in it’s place. One is intelligent, tactful, and has a strong sense of justice. She is the one who lead her sisters to defeat the corrupt Lords of all the lands and freed the people from the endless warring. She’s the strongest of her five sisters, a formidable match for Zero, not even needing a disciple to help control her power of Song. With this, she is one of the only ones to discover something amiss with their power and place within the world ( the other being Two ), and decides to delve further to find an answer as to why the Intoners exist. One remembers having no parents, only all six of the Intoners living together. With how opposite Zero and One are, they constantly butt heads, and Zero questions once again just where One came from. She speculates for a while that maybe One is a product of the Flower trying to go against her; giving a powerful rival that would keep her from killing them all off. It takes the final battle for Zero to finally understand– One is a true part of herself. A facet that could never be satisfied with given answers, with a so-called truth of her own fate. The pure confusion and anger over the injustices of the world; how she could never accept such a cruel life where she was constantly betrayed, used, and tossed aside. Where the good were constantly stepped on like cockroaches and suffered, where the evil were rewarded and won out in the end. In Zero’s last moments, tried as a murderer and sentenced to death, she hated the world, yet still tried to grasp for an answer. How could she accept something so unfair, how could she ever be satisfied? One is in her entirety the burning dissatisfaction of cruelty and those who perpetuated it.

[celestialsoft]

⤻   *       GREETINGS AND HELLO !!!! :   IT IS I   ,   ADMIN EDIE !    HERE ONCE AGAIN HERE TO POST AN INTRO  :~))))  

this time i’m here to introduce you to my tenderhearted wee bab of an angel who clears my skin and grows by crops tBH, FRANK KANGDAE LONGBOTTOM, my lionhearted boi who deserves e v e r y t h i n g ( literally ; empty out your pockets and give EVERYTHING u have to frankleface longbooty—— he . deserves . it . all . !!!!! ) if you’d like to plot, please like this post or hmu in my im’s & without further ado —— here’s frank ! pls love him

⤻   *       APPLICATION   —— !

* ╰    ( KIM YOUNGKYUN )┋have you met ( FRANKLIN KANGDAE LONGBOTTOM ) ? ( he ) reminds me of ( deep loneliness and deep kindness grown in equal parts —— and he speaks, so overcome with love, that i forget we are at war. he grew up hanging lanterns on hilltops to make sure the moon could see at night ; and practiced catching droplets of rain with his lips —— because even the clouds deserved a little romance. ' i infinitesimal being, drunk with the great starry void ' —— tenderhearted boy , luminescent boy : boy frightened , boy destroyed. unravelled by kindness ; compassion consumed —— on the precipice of supernova , he burns brightest in the darkest hour. he looks to me as if he were a man forged entirely of tenderness and the sun ; yet he is the sweet nocturne that plays despite how the beginning of the end has begun ). a ( twenty-one ) year old ( tenth ) year ( gryffindor ), the ( paladin ) is known to be ( + tenderhearted & + clement ), yet ( — oversolicitous & — pensive ). that explains why they’re majoring in ( healing ). rumour has it, ( frank ) is siding with ( the order ) in the solemn war that blazes beyond the castle walls. ( edie, 22, aedt, she/her )

⤻   *       ABOUT FRANK  ——   !!

ahhhhh, frank longbottom —— where do i even start ????? if there’s just one thing that you should absolutely know about frank longbottom, it is that he is a gosh darn heckin’ angel. his heart is ??? so ??? genuinely pure ??? just thinking about it makes me want to tear up tbh

frank is the kind of boy who will charge straight into the carnage and chaos of the whomping willow to save a cat. he’s the kind of boy who hangs out by the edge of the black lake, worried that the giant squid is feeling lonely. he’s the kind of boy who sees the potential for good in everyone & everything, and is genuinely confused and appalled by acts of unkindness and malice when they occur. he chooses the path of benevolence, always, and he wants to keep everyone he loves safe so he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and feels like it is up to him, & him alone, to SAVE THE WORLD and make it a better place. i repeat for you my fronds : frank longbottom gosh darn heckin’ angel. but my god, is he a broken one.

⤻   *       BACKGROUND   ——   !!

frank was born into a sacred 28 pureblood family who cared very little for blood purity, but a whole lot for social justice & fighting for what is right. thomas and augusta longbottom first met at the ministry of magic, where their ‘ left-wing ’ progressive ideas about wizard / muggle / magical creature relations brought them together. their love brought frank longbottom into the world ; a child who was, from an early age, exposed to concepts of in/equality, systematic oppression, privilege, biased public policy, and injustice through his parents.

under the steady & tireless virtuous guidance of his mother and father, frank longbottom bloomed from infancy into childhood with a strong sense of egalitarianism & selflessness that most children only learned well into adolescence, and he had an awareness of the injustices of the world that many people did not gain even well into adulthood. yet despite his parent’s rather strict & heavy hand in discipline, there was always a remarkable air of benevolence and incorruptibility about frank that refused to be befouled.

nevertheless, frank was a terribly lonely child. he was homeschooled by a thoroughly screened, left-wing half-blood governess, and she was just about his only connection to the outside world. it goes without saying that sacred 28 pureblood socialising events & parties were off-limits and out of the question for frank, and since the longbottoms lived in suburban muggle england, frank was always too scared to socialise with many of the children in his neighbourhood, fearful that he would accidentally expose his magical lineage & incur terrible consequences for his folly. shut away in a house of absolute virtue and morality, frank longbottom was a victim of utter loneliness & never got to experience the world his parents adamantly taught and trained him to save … until his letter from hogwarts arrived, that is.

⤻   *       HOGWARTS   ——   !!

frank was a heckin’ confusing four-way house hat stall during his sorting. the hat sensed the resolute loyalty and benevolence of hufflepuff in him, the love and respect for knowledge and learning of ravenclaw in him & the tenacity and ambition to achieve his goals of slytherin in him, but ultimately, the sorting hat settled on “ GRYFFINDOR ! ”, declaring its choice with a booming roar. above all, the sorting hat sensed frank to be brave —— willing ( & desperate, even ) to fight for what is right. it’s a shame that frank, to this day, doesn’t seem to see this bravery in himself. but by the warm beacon of the gryffindor common room fireplace, under the twinkling candlelights of the great hall, and at the top of the astronomy tower ( the stars and galaxies at the reach of his very own fingertips ), frank, at hogwarts has grown to be exactly the kind of person his parents have always wanted him to be : stalwartly true ; combatting hate with kindness, and enveloping cruelty with warmth. he loves deeply and vastly, and he honestly radiates this other-worldy quality of brightness ??? he’s the light in the dark, and oh how he shines. 

however —— the fact that he’s already grown into someone that his parents are proud of doesn’t stop frank from still wanting to be better, and wanting to save the world. what frank doesn’t realise is that he can hardly save the world if he can’t first save himself. he’s constantly emotionally and physically exhausted ; spending every moment of his time helping those around him and making sure to change to the world one kind act at a time. slowly but surely, frank’s bleeding heart and compulsion for kindness is coming to the point of being harmful to his own health and wellbeing. 

so yeah … … . though frank is falling apart, he never lets this show & he really tries to never make this anyone else’s problem. through the haze of responsibility and moral duty that has always clouded frank’s life, there’s still a profound tenderness and warmth about him ; and among all his advocations and efforts towards justice & peacetime, it’s difficult to discern just how deeply scared, lost, and confused the boy is in a world that refuses to cease changing right before his very eyes ; an inevitable war upon the horizon. 

⤻   *       LITTLE HEADCANONS   ——   !!

frank has always been V MAGICALLY GIFTED. he showed his first signs of magic when he was just one and a half, when he had a terrible nightmare & woke up screaming in the middle of the night. instead of waiting for his parents to come and calm him down though, frank simply closed his eyes & focused on his breathing. when his parents stumbled into the room ; sleep hazy in their eyes, they could hardly believe what they saw : the entire room, covered in flowers and lush foliage —— something that frank had somehow conjured up to keep himself calm ( b/c untamed childhood magic be CRAZY ). frank is now able to command wandless magic, which is a GODSEND tbh b/c he’s such a sleep-deprived mess & he loses his wand c o n s t a n t l y istG

being a sacred 28 pureblood with quite advanced magical abilities, frank has always been in high demand for pureblood partnership through an arranged marriage. his parents, have always hastily shot down offers ( bc they aren’t all up in that pureblooded nonsense ! ), but that hasn’t stopped pureblooded parents from reaching out anyway :/ yIKEs :/// 

frank is part of the slug club ,,,,,,,,,,,,, and like ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, every single other club / extracurricular. baby longbottom is an OVERACHIEVER EXTRAORDINAIRE —— YA BOI DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO CHILL. it’s not that frank is driven by any sort of particular ambition and self-interest, though ?? rather, frank’s heavy involvement in every aspect of school life stems from the aforementioned incredible pressure of his parent’s expectations ; frank applying himself to every possible aspect of school life and extracurriculars in the hopes that he will make them proud

frank has so little chill that he’s actually started sleepwalking … yikes ????? it probably doesn’t help that frank is involved in almost every sport club tbH, & he is also gryffindor quidditch team’s seeker. the thing is that he could never give any sport up. sport is so cathartic for frankie my boi, because it helps him forget his worries & his responsibilities. while he’s playing sport he is just a body —— he is pulsing blood, deep breaths & he is free.

⤻   *       OTHER FUN FACTS / GENERAL SUMMARY DOT POINTS ABOUT FRANKLEFACE LONGBOOTY   ——   !!

THE MOST CLEAN CUT KID OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO : frank longbottom, OFC. innuendo is lost on the kid ( he is v v v lost every time someone uses the word ‘ wand ’ as double entendre ), and has only consumed alcohol once in his life —— and even then, it was by accident ( it was in a spiked cherry berry trifle at an end of year christmas party back in first year ). 

LATELY, THOUGH, frank has taken up smoking. he does it in secret ; one cigarette every night in the astronomy tower, or by the black lake. if anyone ever found out about this frank would be MORTIFIED & would legitimately probably DIE of shame, so ………….. *coughs* someone pls walk in on him smoking one day. 

it’s so strange, because frank is incredibly in touch with the real travesties and injustices of the world, but in many ways he’s completely naive and lacking in real life experience. he is such an experientially sheltered kiddo, someone pls take him out and get him RAGING DRUNK bc he needs to chill out tbH

#mumfriend

takes literally 15 minutes out of each of his days to have a few conversations with a few of hogwarts’ cats ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, what a loser ??

gets excited when people ask him for help with their homework ( hELP ME ???? )

excels at all his subjects, but has a particular soft-spot for astronomy, herbology and care of magical creatures :’)

LOVES KNITTING —— stress knits a lot . he’d like to just knit the entire world up into a snug lil blanket and keep it safe and warm 

wants to single handedly save the world

did i mention ????? babe is a gosh dark heckin’ angel

in the mirror of erised, frank would see all his friends and family happy and smiling —— but he wouldn’t even be in the frame. mY HEART BREAKS OVER THIS HEADCANON TBH

frank has a cat named alexis de tocqueville 

i’ve run out of things to dot point & this is probably WAY TOO LONG ALREADY ANYWAY ??? so i’ll stop :o :o :o but please come and interact with my son ?!!!!!!??!? i love yall peace out

[the-woman-in-the-writing]

“My Name is Tomas Zamora” a short story

Rating: PG-13 Contains: Graphic imagery and physical violence Word Count: 3,221

Author’s note:

Last summer, I took a creative writing workshop. We held one of our sessions in a historical church (Barasoain Church) and we were asked to write a short story inspired by our surroundings. This story started when I mixed and matched first and last names from the list of people who participated in the making of the constitution (however, I’m not sure if that was really the list, but it did have a lot of names). I also wanted to write about the oppression of something that wasn’t usually written about.

Found note in the barracks of a house in Manila Circa. 1890s Translated into English

My name is Tomas Zamora, a loyal and compliant soldier of one of the fiercest commanders of my time – Antonio Luna. It is my duty and purpose to serve my country and to obey the orders of my commander until death has come to my door to take me home. But alas, death has lit his lamp and is on my doorstep, preparing to knock.

I will die before the sun rises.

In my contemplating, I have come to realize that I had another purpose to fulfill and that is to write this note or letter. I do not know who will read this after my well-accepted death or if it will ever be found, but if it does fall in the hands of a noble and faithful soul, I trust that he will use this as a torch to light the way of others.

I do not write, nor do I express myself in feelings or words. Unlike Franco, I am a man of action. I hope you can forgive me for the cluttered storytelling. My late mother had always been better at this than me. Like she had often told me, I am more like my father.

I never knew my father as well as my mother. I have only remembered his face in a picture my mother kept. When I was two years old, he was executed for a crime he did not commit. A guard house was burned down, and he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Accused of arson and perjury, my father did his best to defend himself so that he could come home to see me and my mother again. Unfortunately, the Spaniards’ cruelty and injustice prevailed. They did not even bother to investigate or find the true criminal; they just pointed their fingers at the nearest Filipino they could find and accuse him, so that they could simply say their job was done.

My father was punished with cavayo y vaca. While being dragged behind a horse in the scorching heat, he was paraded around our town, whipped, and spat at until he fainted and eventually died.

My mother and I moved to a town where nobody knew us. A fresh start was something that she needed after her husband’s demise. I was too young to understand this back then, but when I grew older I understood that the scandalous accusations against my mother were cruel enough to make her leave.

In our new life, my mother was fortunate enough to work as a maid for someone generous. She let her leave whenever my mother liked, but my mother was a diligent woman and she never abused that privilege. We had enough money to be able to eat and sleep in a decent house, however, I was never given a proper education. My mother only taught me what she knew, and I learned some basic concepts taught in school. Mostly, I learned manners and how to cook, clean, be a gentleman, and impress women – some of those I never used.

I was about ten years old when I became a sacristan at the church in our town. My mother taught me to be a man of God and that every good trait will come after I serve the Lord. I believed in her words. Every time one of the Augustinian priests will punish me for forgetting something in the mass or I did not clean the chalice or washed the cloths enough, I would remember my mother’s words: The Lord will reward you for enduring the pain and acting love upon it.

And so, I submitted and patiently endured the whips and punches that landed on my skinny body. I was very thankful for the fact I was able to come home, unlike the other sacristans. Even though my mother cried every time she would trace my wounds and bruises, I came back to the church, so I could earn a little money and serve my God. However, my time as a sacristan ended after my mother’s death.

Now that I think of it, I feel unworthy to share the same time of death as my mother, who gave her body and soul for a sinner like me. It was all my fault. I can never forgive myself nor repay her actions.

It all started with Rafael, a fellow sacristan. As I was about to go home, I heard him being accused of stealing the chalice used earlier in the mass. He never looked like the type who would commit such a crime, especially around priests who were not afraid to enact violence. Rafael was younger than me, yet he suffered cuts and bruises on his frail little body that only grown men could endure. I felt sorry for him.

After all those times I obeyed and submitted to the priests, I talked back to defend Rafael against their false accusations. The priest was shocked at my actions, and from his shocked face, it quickly changed into a mask of rage and disgust.

I will never deny it – one moment, I was brave and then, I am cowering in fear, wishing I went home. The priest smacked my mouth as he cursed me. I fell to the ground and he made me stand up by grabbing my ear harshly. Rafael’s cries were heard as he fled home and by this time, I was also crying as I was the one taking his place.

They say you get used to the pain after a while, yet I felt every lash sink into my skin the whole time. The sting of the whips and heaviness of the punches hurt so bad that I could not think of the time. The torture probably lasted very long, because my worrying mother came to the church to fetch me. I ran into her arms when I saw her, and she kissed every inch of my face until the priest confronted her.

“I am not done with him.” The priest said, harshly.

My mother did not even bother to ask what I was being punished for, she only said, “Please, let my son go home. And please, do not punish and let him return here anymore.”

The priest ignored her request and slapped her on the cheek.

“How dare you interrupt a man appointed by the Lord!”

My mother got on her feet swiftly and grabbed the robes of the priest. His face displayed utter disgust as if a leper was holding onto him, yet it somehow softened when my mother said, “Please, father, I would give anything.”

“Very well,” he pulled his robes from her grasp, “let us negotiate in the other room.” And they disappeared.

After what seemed like a long time, I knew something was wrong, so I decided to look for them in the other room. However, they were not there nor in the priests’ office or in any of the quarters. What was left was the worship hall where the masses were held. When I pushed the slightly opened door, I heard my mother’s muffled cries echo in the room. Pew by pew, I searched for them, but I was unsuccessful, until I heard the priest’s voice.

It came from the confessional.

I silently approached the latticed window of the confessional where the priest sat at to hear the sins of the penitents, and what I saw was something a child my age should never have to witness.

My mother was being raped by an Augustinian priest.

I never forgot the feelings that surged through my veins as I heard the cries through the latticed window. I knew what I had to do and even though I was afraid again, I opened the door and told the priest to stop. Before anyone could react, I grabbed my mother’s wrist and tried to pull her away, but the priest held her tight.

“Tomas!” My mother said before the priest tightened his arm around my mother’s neck.

“Mama!” I cried back as I kept on pulling her away, but she did not budge from the priest’s embrace.

The priest spoke severely like how he preached sometimes, “If you ever speak about this, I will kill you.”

My mother’s grip tightened around my hand as tears rolled down her cheek. All our grips – my mother’s, mine, and the priest’s – tightened until I felt the life leave her hand. The priest finally released her, letting her limp body slide down the steps of the confessional. And as I stared at her lifeless body, my hand held every love that was left in her fingertips.

“Mama, mama, mama…” I kept whispering as I hugged her close to me.

The priest wiped sweat from his forehead and stepped out of the confessional, careless about what happened.

“Go home.” His voice echoed.

And so, I did, even though without my mother, home does not exist.

I could never tell you how it feels like to lose someone. However, the tragedy of it is agonizing enough to damage a soul. Because when you lose someone, a part of yourself leaves you and goes along with them. And when I left that church with my dead mother slumped on my tired and wounded shoulders, she went to join God and a part of my soul came along with her.

I did not have anyone left.

I was all alone.

I know I should not doubt God but that night, I lost everything, and I do not think He even cared.

I ended up on the doorstep of the house my mother worked for. Before I could even knock I already fainted from fatigue. This was the last time I slept beside my mother.

When morning had arrived, I learned that the woman’s name was Rosalinda Mariano and that she was kind enough to help me burn my mother’s body. As we stood and silently cried in front of the burning stacks of wood that covered the corpse, she pulled me into her arms and kissed my hair. From that moment, I knew I was safe.

“The world is full of injustice, boy, but there is a proper time to fight for the balance of the scales.” She whispered and took me back inside to clean my wounds.

Aunt Rosa never married nor had any children, but she treated me like I was her own family. She had inherited her house and money from her wealthy father, and in the years I stayed with her, she cared for me, fed me, taught me, and loved me. I had another mother to repay.

My years as a young man were mostly spent at the home of Aunt Rosa, cleaning and helping around. I still did not get a proper education because she did not trust the teachers would treat me well. She said she was educated enough to teach me. Nevertheless, I had a few friends and still suffered the sting of young love as most were unrequited.

Like other young men, I left my home to work, and in my case, as a soldier. My time in training was quite dull because the days were monotonous, but I learned how to be a good soldier. I was one of the best, they say, but was too young to lead my own men.

After moving from one commander to another, I finally ended up under Antonio Luna’s command. Fierce as he may seem, his heart is full of nationalism and love for people. Luna has sharp skills and an intelligent mind, and with it, we were victorious in most battles. Luna cared for his men in his own way. Tough love, that’s what I called it, but others said it was madness.

I have respect for him until now. I still choose to obey his commands and accept the circumstances he put me in, even if it costs my life. Under his command, I will not die in vain. I am Luna’s man through and through.

His words earlier echoed in my mind.

A few hours ago, I was asked to report to him. Vicente, sweaty and tired, said I had to come with him immediately as it was a matter of life and death. I put my uniform back on and brought my rifle.

I knocked courteously at his door before entering. It was a small hut, so when Luna closed the door and slapped me, the sound reverberated, and birds flew from the roof. I did not know what he was slapping me for. He had never done it prior to this meeting.

“You are a disgust! An abomination!” He scolded as he slapped me again.

I supported myself using my rifle. Confused, I asked him, “Sir, if I may ask, what have I done wrong?”

He turned himself back to me and his face was full of rage. He grabbed me by my collar and said, “Do not pretend like you do not know. You are smarter than this, Zamora.”

I was scared but I did not show it. “Sir, I really do not know.”

He looked at me in the eye more intensely as if he was trying to figure out how I could not have known. And at last he said,

“Franco Herrera.”

My heart stopped.

Franco…

How could he have known?

After every carefully planned meeting, how could have he known about Franco?

Franco, my love.

I have thought carefully about writing the truth about me and Franco here in this note, but as I recalled and imparted the story of my existence, I figured I had nothing left to lose but my own life. And if I write about us here, then in a way, we will never really die.

Franco Herrera is everything and everything, all at once. That does not make much sense but so does the world now. I have an unfathomable affection for him and I always will.

One does not meet Franco and not fall in love with him. In my case, I have walked into a profound likeness for him when I met him.  It was at a secret meeting with the Propaganda five years ago. Antonio Luna introduced his best men to the writers of the La Solidaridad because if he is unable to report to them the current events, we will do it on his behalf. In that conference, I met Laong Laan, Plaridel, Tikbalang, Buan, JoMaPa, Magdalo, Elias, and Diego Laura. As you have noticed, the names I gave are their aliases, just in case this note falls into the wrong hands. I have full trust in those whose names I gave away that they will rather die than betray their country and comrades. The people who wrote for the La Solidaridad briefed to us the password to use, and as soon as the meeting ended, Luna ordered us to leave. And as we were doing so, a knock came from the door.

“Who is it?” Laong Laan asked.

“Archera Ferron” the voice said and told the password next.

Tikbalang opened the door and the man entered. Franco gave him a courteous nod and looked at his fellow writers as a greeting.

“Please forgive me for my lateness.” He looked at the three of us next, and in that moment when he looked at me, I knew his stare lingered for a second. “I see some new faces.” He turns to Luna. “Your men, Taga-ilog?”

“Yes,” and Luna faces us, “introduce yourselves.”

“Manuel Bautista.”

“Rommel Vicente.”

“Tomas Zamora.” And he shook my hand, firm and welcoming, like he did with my other comrades.

“Franco Herrera.” He introduced himself as he looked me in the eye with a sly smile on his face.

Every beautiful thing came after that. I do not want to bore you with how we became friends and eventually became intimate with each other, for it is also private. Franco had asked me earlier when I told him about Luna’s confrontation that I should not write too much detail about us in this note. He believed that what we have dies with us as it had lived. But I cannot control myself enough.

I want to share with you a little of my love for Franco.

Franco Herrera has an ability to stop time when he stares at me and he can make it run again, but much more slowly, when he touches me. He is what I survive for in battle. He is my newfound home. In those nights when the sheets embrace us, I remember that there is a little good and a little love left in this cruel world. I have only seen the sunrise with him twice, but in those times that I did, the sun never looked as beautiful – waking up never felt so bright and warm. When he writes for freedom, he writes for the Filipinos; when he writes for love, he writes for me. Not every time his words land on paper, sometimes it is on my skin; and not every time he uses a pen to express himself, sometimes he uses his lips. However, in our shared silences, our eyes are what speak for us.

And last morning, I shared with him my second sunrise as I rest in the quiet of his love. The end never felt sweeter and warm and safe.

“Franco…” I whispered.

“Yes, Tomas...?” He replied.

“Let us look at the sunrise.”

And we did.

We watched the sun light up my little house from the window, with our hands around our waists. The sky burst with colors of pink, orange, and yellow. And at that time, as I was in his arms with the colors and light passing through our lips, life did not feel tragic and we were simply humans learning to love in the little time we have left.

Because of Franco, I have lived.

“Zamora, are you listening to me?!” Luna barked. “I will not remove you from my command because of our situation, but if you get shot or injured later in battle, I will let you die.”

And now, I will pass away.

It was Bautista who saw us earlier this morning. It was him who told Luna. It was him who told the Propaganda. It was him who took my life away.

In complete honesty, I am not bitter that I am about to die. I know I have served my country well and that I did my best to give my countrymen the freedom they deserve. I will soon be reunited with my mother and father, and wherever I am, I will watch Franco until his time comes that he gets to join me. I have fought for what I believe in and I have loved tremendously with all I have.

Tonight, we will fight for our freedom even if we do not have enough men. The liberty of the Filipinos travels with the bullets we fire, and its price is paid with bodies of men. Tonight is my turn.

“Zamora?” Vicente called.

Death has come to knock on my door.

“Sir Luna has called us to assemble.”

And I will open it boldly and kindly.

[i-may-have-a-point]

Review of 14x10 “Personal Jesus”

So many people were fantastic in this episode, but my review mainly focuses on April’s story as she is the one I connect with the most.  

“In a course of one day, Job received four messages with separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children had all died.  He continued to be a faithful servant.  He praised God.  He persevered.  Job’s faith was tested, and he passed the test.  And for his faith God rewarded Job with twice what he had before.”

There is an idea in many circles of Christianity that has been perpetuated for years.  To really be a Christian, you must prove yourself. You follow all the rules, you stay as far from all forms of sin as possible, and you never question the teachings of the Bible.  If you can do those things, and do them well, then maybe you will be a good enough Christian.

April Kepner was taught those same ideas.  She grew up believing, knowing, that God is the answer for all of life’s difficulties. All she needed to do was to believe in him and follow his teachings, and life would go according to plan.  

Except it didn’t.  

It didn’t go according to plan in that hotel room in San Francisco when her feelings for her best friend contradicted everything she had learned about sex and virtue.  For the first time in her life, she stopped following the straight path that was laid before her.  She took a detour and found, that if she let it, life could be fuller and hold more joy than she ever imagined.  

And it was. For a moment.

But the guilt and shame that come from being taught your whole life that good Christians don’t sin quickly caught up with her, and her unshakeable pillar of faith swayed just enough to crack the surface.  

Christians fail, though. She knew that.  She only needed to ask forgiveness and to reaffirm her faith, and eventually she did.  The on-call room escapades stopped, and she grounded herself again, back on the right path.  She would work harder at being a better doctor, a better person, a better Christian and eventually, God would reward her.

And the she met Matthew, who was seemingly everything she ever wanted.  A kind, handsome man who was strong in his faith and loved her completely.  Her world had been set right.  Except for that quiet spark, deep in her soul that yearned for more.  She heard it in still moments.  It would whisper to her that there is more to life than settling for what you are “supposed” to do.  She continued to silence that nudging voice, until the day she was supposed to marry Matthew, and the voice became a roar.  It was so loud that it was all she could hear as she turned from the altar and ran from the church with Jackson, terrified and overjoyed all at once.

Her faith shook once more, unsure that she had made the right choice, but then peace came.

God had brought her happiness.  She married Jackson, they were expecting a baby, and all was right with the world. Until it wasn’t.  Until she was given an unimaginable test.  Her child was sick, and no medicine in the world could cure him.  She held her son and watched him take his last breath. She had no explanation.  She prayed for a miracle. Her whole life she had been taught to be faithful and obedient and God would answer her prayers.  Yet he didn’t.  And this ripped a hole in her faith so large that it could never fully close.

The hole grew as she traveled to Jordan searching for healing, but she lost her marriage instead. Jackson was her rock.  He was one of the few people in her life who had ever truly believed in her.  Losing him made the hole grow bigger.

Oh, but Harriet. Harriet is her strength. Her reason to keep going.  Her light in the darkness.  

But she is still hurting. She has to ask herself, how can someone like her, a good Christian, face so much pain?  And why would a loving, caring God allow one of his followers to suffer when he could prevent it all?

This season has been building to April being forced to look at her life and the decisions she has made, and this episode is a turning point in that journey.

April walked in to season 14 with a broken spirit when she told Jackson that what they were doing was causing her pain.  Her heart was broken over Jackson, and things only got harder from there.  All season, she was repeatedly reminded of Samuel, Jordan, leaving Matthew at the altar, losing Jackson, and her insecurities as a doctor.

Like Job, she has been tested.  Job lost everything that was dear to him, and yet he still kept his faith.  He was patient because he knew that, no matter what, God was with him.  April did the same.  Through her trials, she kept believing in God and his grace.  Until today, when all of her struggles and all of her failures were placed in her path at once.

Paul is brought in as a hit and run victim and April treats him, while Meredith, Jo, and Alex discuss how best to handle the situation.  Mer goes into the room to check on Paul’s status, and tells April not to kill him. “You really can’t lose him.”  April is constantly being told she is not as good as Meredith, but this is not actually a moment of Meredith distrusting April’s abilities as a doctor.  Mer tells her she can’t lose him because she is afraid Jo and Alex will be charged with murder.  Unfortunately, April doesn’t know that, and it comes across as Mer doubting her.  We see that when April calls after her, “Thanks for the vote of confidence!”  Once again, April feels that she is not good enough.

Because she is so trusting, she thought that Webber had asked her to run the contest because she is a good leader.  She soon finds out it was simply so he could compete, and now, she is missing out on a great surgical opportunity.  This is another small reminder that she is still not valued as a surgeon in her peers’ eyes.

She doesn’t have time to dwell on that, though, because Karen Tayler is very pregnant and will not make it to Labor and Delivery before her baby is born.  So, April steps in for Robbins, delivering the baby who turns out to be Matthew’s daughter.  It seems that Matthew, the man she left at the altar, has the happy life she dreamed of, and she is forced into a front row seat to witness it.  She is happy for him, though.  He deserves happiness, and this is reassurance that she made the right decision leaving him.  He is happy. Even if she isn’t.  

(Side note: Arizona claims she didn’t tell April that she was treated Matthew’s wife because of HIPPA. Arizona sure didn’t care about HIPPA when she told Jackson that April was pregnant.)

Deluca drives the pain in a little deeper by telling April that Matthew’s wife is just like her.  At this point she is visibly frustrated, but she spots Jackson and heads over to him, knowing he will understand.  They have an adorable exchange about the embarrassment of treating Matthew’s wife as well as the contest.  April tries to get Jackson to take back the contest, which he unbeknownst to her, created.  He, of course, says no, and we get our first hint that this contest is going to be big for both of them.  

Their conversation is cut short as April has another incoming trauma.  A twenty-year-old man tried to cut off his own hand because he couldn’t stop masturbating, and according to his interpretation of the Bible, this was the only logical thing to do.  This patient is a message directly for April, but also for the audience.  The Bible is a book of stories that has wonderful teaching and morality lessons.  However, in no way should we interpret what it says literally at all times.  It has been translated countless times and was written by human hands.  Fallible human hands.  It is a guide book and not a how-to manual.

The next trauma is another sign for April that God doesn’t always intervene, even when he can.  Eric, a twelve-year-old boy, was shot by a police officer climbing in the window of his own house.  Jackson and Bailey are visibly angered by this, as things like this happen too often in our country.  He is an innocent child who was shot for no reason other than the officer’s assumption he was a criminal based on the color of his skin.  April does not have personal experience with this, but she can see the cruelty and unfairness of the situation.  She jumps in to help and the weight of the day’s injustices begin to weigh heavily on her.

Like Jo tells Jenny, “The good outweighed the bad.  Until it didn’t.”  

Everywhere April looks she sees bad.  Paul, Karen and Matthew, Eric, Jackson, her career.  But she still has faith, and she tries to explain that to the guy who attempted to cut off his hand.  “God doesn’t tempt us beyond our ability.  He doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” And one of my favorite lines, “When God created the world, he also created metaphors.”

The only problem with this is that God does give people more than they can handle, and April is feeling that right about now.  

Eric’s family arrives and April watches as his parents and Jackson have to fight for him to be treated as a child, a human.  How could these cops, who swear to uphold justice, clearly be so wrong?  

She exchanges a silent look with Jackson, a look that holds so much tension and unspoken thoughts, but Karen Taylor is in pain, and she is pulled away again before she can decide to speak.

Karen has a blood clot on her vagina, and April finds herself in the embarrassing situation of having to drain the blood clot off of her ex-fiance’s wife’s vagina.  Talk about humbling. But that’s okay, because as Karen reminds her, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”

This message is repeated for April because she is feeling overwhelmed with sorrow, but her Christian upbringing has taught her she is suffering this much for a reason.  God is teaching her something, and she just has to be patient, like Job.

During Eric’s MRI, April hears about the discrimination Jackson faced from police and she realizes there are things she doesn’t know about Jackson, but again, she doesn’t have a moment to get deeper into what he tells her because she is paged back to Karen Taylor.

Karen is still waiting for a room, and she ends up catching up with Matthew while they wait.  She gets to hear all about how Karen is the love of his life. Even after April hurt him so much, he found something better.  “She the love of my life, you know?  Of course you know.  You have that with Jackson.”  In that moment, we all heard April’s heart break.  Jackson is the love of her life, but she feels that she failed in that, too. Instead of telling this to Matthew, she pretends to be happy.  At least something good came from her leaving him.  God gave Matthew a great life and she doesn’t want to take away from that. But that happiness is hard to fake when Matthew says, “I heard from the pastor that you were pregnant.  So, you have, what a three-year-old now?”  Samuel. He would have been three had he lived. “I had – I have – We have Harriett. We have a beautiful daughter named Harriett.  She’s one. She is the light of my life.”  And the love that April has for her daughter is heard in the emotion that comes through in that line.  Harriet is her life at this point.

Matthew is happy for her.  “So, it worked out perfectly for both of us, didn’t it?  God used that pain and turned it into something beautiful.  Guess he knew what he was doing all along.”

He returns to his wife, and April’s face falls as she walks away.

Karma reaches Paul’s room as he injures himself in his angry fit, causing a head injury that leads to him being brain dead.  Can’t say I’m sad.  Jo is told that she gets to make the call on what to do with Paul.  Her reaction from laughter to tears was perfect.  And the way she reached out for Alex’s face for support and relief was everything.  

Robbins finally shows up to help April with Karen who is in extreme pain just as Eric crashes.  

April, Jackson, and Bailey get him to the O.R., and Bailey tells April they can take it from there. April backs away feeling helpless, only to turn back to run into Karen’s O.R.  She is shamed as usual by her co-workers, and she is overcome with guilt.  Maybe she isn’t a good enough doctor.  Maybe she did something wrong.  Did she cause this like she caused all the other bad things in her life?

In this time of despair, she turns to the only source of strength she can think of – God.  She heads to the chapel to pray for her patients, only to find an angry Matthew.  He leaves her, and she sits, beginning to pray for healing and good, but the words of the prayer fail her.  She hears no answer.  And all she can do is cry.

Cry for Karen, whose body is failing her when her child and husband need her the most.

Cry for Eric’s family, who have to bury their child way too early.

Cry for Jackson, who has to live with bias in his life every day because of his skin color.

Cry for a system that has failed.  A system that is supposed to be good.  “How am I supposed to have any faith in a system like that?”

Cry for Ben and Bailey who have to explain their son how not to get killed by the police.  

And she cries because she has no answer for the patient who questions his own faith.

“Then tell me what to do! If I can’t trust this, if the word of God is just a bunch of stories, what does anything mean?  What is any of this even for?”

And that’s the question April cannot answer.  That is the questions that brings her faith tumbling to the ground.  What is the meaning of a new mother dying and leaving her daughter motherless?  What is the meaning of a twelve-year-old boy being murdered outside his house?  What is the meaning of her son, Samuel, dying? What is the meaning of her marriage to Jackson ending?  What is any of this for?

She has spent her life being good because that is what she is supposed to do as Christian, or so she believed.  But why? So she can die with no explanation one day?  So she can experience suffering and loss over and over again?  So she can watch good people suffer daily?  Why is she trying so hard to be good when God allows these terrible things to happen?  Why isn’t he doing anything? Because if he is not going to intervene, then there is no reason to try to live this perfect life.  There is no point to any of this.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Job asked the question, too.  But he kept the faith. And what did he get for it?  Replacement children.  PTSD.  Was it worth it, to be a faithful servant?  Or would it have been better to just curse God’s name from the beginning? Where was God throughout all of Job’s suffering?  He was winning a bet with Satan.  Makes you wonder where he is through all of the unfairness and inequity and cruelty in the world.  Where is he now?���

To April, God has forsaken her.  She was a good and faithful servant.  She was patient.  And it got her nothing.  So, she is done being faithful.  We saw the pain on her face as she drank herself numb at the bar and as she stood in the shower, desperate to wash off the pain of the day, the light in her eyes burnt out. This is where April’s journey begins.

Her decision to let Vik in the shower had nothing to do with love or lust.  It was just one more thing to numb the pain.  She sees no reason to continue to always do the right thing because it has gotten her nothing.  She is alone and broken, and those feelings will guide her decisions from now on.  So stop saying that the show made April a slut or that this decision was out of character.  The character we know as April is not the one who made this decision.  This decision was made by a woman who feels abandoned and lost.  This decision reflects her hope leaving.  I agree that April only having been with Jackson was beautiful, but calling her a slut perpetuates the idea that women, particularly Christian women, should be shamed for having multiple partners.  April has felt that shame her whole life.  That statement would never be made about Jackson, or any other character on the show for that matter, and April should be given the same grace.

But as Sarah said, this story is not over.  Job’s story did not end in the middle of his pain.  It ended with him being rewarded with twice as much as he had before.  I believe that is where April’s story will end, too.  She will come full circle and find her faith and happiness again, so don’t be angry at the turn of events in this episode.  Just wait for the moment that forces April to feel again.  The moment that forces her to stop being numb.  That is the moment when everything will change for the better.  Because even though April was reminded over and over again that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, that’s just not true.  He does.  He gives us so much to handle that we need to turn to him for help and answers.  April knows this, but in this moment, she doesn’t believe it.  But she will find her faith again.  Good things are coming for April, and I still believe for Japril as well.  

[efeafdfw]

here was smoke rising from Seal Rock as well

Then you could hack off my head, same as you did for Slynt. I’ll not give you that pleasure, bastard. The maester protested noisily until Lorren cracked zapatillas de tacos futbol him hard across the face with a mailed fist. Lady Glover emerged from the godswood on the arm of her lugosis carhartt bedmaid. Elsewise the village was gone. She was alone in a white world of snow and silence, plowing through snowdrifts as high as her thighs. The decision has always gone in this way: The slave power will not concede,—we must. The South says, fekete női bakancs “We will take no religious book that has anti-slavery principles in it.” The Sunday School union drops Mr. We mourn and lament over it. We are trying, by gradual and peaceable means, to exclude it from our churches. Griff made no reply. You will die before you drink, his pale eyes seemed to say. She had seen scarecrows with more flesh. His face was a skull with skin, his hair bone-white and filthy. The dwarf snapped one off and sniffed it. Delicious, he thought, and deadly.. The priests denounced him, the lords rose against him, and his own captains hacked him into pieces. Torgon the Latecomer became the king and ruled for forty years.”. The jetty that divided the inner and outer harbors had been fortified with a long stone wall, thirty feet tall and almost a mile long, with towers every hundred yards. There was smoke rising from Seal Rock as well, where once there had been only ruins. That was a lesson Melisandre had learned long before Asshai; the more effortless the sorcery appears, the more men fear the sorcerer. When the flames had licked at Rattleshirt, the ruby at her throat had grown so hot that she had feared her own flesh might start to smoke and blacken. The three Dornishmen cheered with all the rest. Silence would have drawn notice. He was of middling height, his shrewd peasant’s face weathered by wind and sun, his grizzled beard and brown hair well salted with grey. His garb was plain as well: old boots, brown breeches and blue tunic, a woolen mantle of undyed wool, fastened with a wooden clasp. The cheek unmarred by greyscale, Jon did not fail to note. “We are sorry for the little ones, of course, but we must be sensible. This is implied in the whole current of law-making and law-administration, and is often asserted in distinct pantofi sport cu scai barbati form, with a precision and clearness of legal accuracy which, in a literary point of view, are quite admirable. Thus, Judge Ruffin, after stating that considerations restricting the power of polo raflorene the master had often been tommy hilfiger backpack cizme din denim drawn from a comparison of slavery with the relation of parent and child, master and apprentice, tutor and pupil, says distinctly:. When the public sentiment of Europe speaks in tones of indignation of the system of American slavery, the common reply has been, “Look at your own lower classes.” The apologists of slavery have pointed England to her own poor. They have spoken of the heathenish ignorance, the vice, the darkness, of her crowded cities,—nay, even of her agricultural districts.. “Young ones, and pretty,” Mance had said. The unburnt king supplied some names, and Dolorous Edd had done the rest, smuggling them from Mole’s Town. That’s how I must always behave. And I speak as frankly to you as I would speak to myself because for one thing you are a splendid man and I know about your past, with Natasha, before Alyosha’s time, and I cried when I heard about it.”. This can only be upon the principle, that they are men and rational beings. The Roman law has been much relied on by the counsel of the defendant. “Watch,” he commanded. “You too, bear.”. Bubnov. Only two months ago I got some money out of that lady. “Cousin, take this creature to the Wolf’s Den and cut off his head and hands. I want them brought to me before I sup. Stout and Slate, Whoresbane Umber, the quarrelsome Ryswells, Hornwood men and Cerywn bocanci grisport 480 cousins, fat Lord Wyman Manderly … not one of them had known Ned Stark’s daughters half so well as he. And if a few entertained private doubts, surely yeezy off white boost they would be wise enough to keep those misgivings to themselves.. The sight of her sent a knife through his hopes. Her hull was black and gold, her figurehead a lion with an upraised paw. A being, ignorant of letters, unenlightened by religion, and deriving but little instruction from good example, cannot be supposed to have right conceptions as to the nature and extent of moral or political obligations. This remark, with but a slight qualification, is applicable to the condition of the slave. Lady Melisandre watched him rise. “FREE FOLK! Here stands your king of lies. Would you believe it? I don’t know, though, whether I loved that one thing; I just simply loved him altogether, and if he’d been different in some way, if he’d had will or been cleverer, perhaps I shouldn’t have loved him so. Her children are alive, at cizme vara cu toc least, and that is thanks to me. Asha had left them at Ten Towers in the care of her aunts. One was Harwood Fell. His knights pulled him out before he drowned, but not before his lips turned blue and his skin as pale as milk. This fear usually becomes more and more acute, in spite of all the protests of reason, so much so that although the mind sometimes is of exceptional clarity at such moments, it loses all power of resistance. It is unheeded, it becomes useless, and this inward division intensifies the agony of suspense. “Talk. Aye.” Lord Jonos sheathed his sword. “Truths the First Men knew, forgotten now in Winterfell … but not in the wet wild. We live closer to the green in our bogs and crannogs, and we remember. But let us quote from it the directions which God gives for the treatment of the stranger: “If a stranger sojourn with you in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth among you shall be as one born among you: thou shall love him as thyself.” How much more does this apply when the stranger has been brought into our land by the injustice and cruelty of our fathers!.

[lewepstein]

The Banality of Evil

“Evil” is an interesting word and not one that we usually associate with modern times.  To me, it harks back to The Dark Ages in Europe when Christ allegedly battled Satan for men’s souls and sinners were  condemned to spend eternity in a fiery hell.   For a therapist like myself, the word “evil” is also an outlier, with much of the field  grounded in the social sciences and more recently the physiology of the nervous system and the brain.  Psychotherapy’s foundational principles and methods have mostly to do with the use of inquiry and understanding in the service of change and there are probably few therapists who subscribe to the more fatalistic belief that there is inherent darkness lurking in the human heart.  And yet, the existence of what has begun to feel like an impulse or instinct to do evil becomes harder to deny as privileged individuals who live in a post-Enlightenment world, and are the beneficiaries of affluence, science and an almost unlimited access to knowledge continue to act in ways that are cruel and inhumane.  

This post, “The Banality of Evil,” is taken from the subtitle of a work by political theorist Hannah Arendt.  The full title of her book is “Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil,”  published in 1963.   It was written during the trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal and architect of what was called “The Final Solution,” - the extermination of over six million Jews in more than a thousand German concentration camps scattered throughout Europe between 1933 and 1945. ​​  What Arendt saw as “banal,” as she observed Eichmann during those hearings was how inarticulate, ordinary and even boring he was.  He would claim during the trial that he had no particular hatred for the Jewish people.  No malice at all.  He also stated that he bore no personal responsibility - just a man following orders and doing his job - a joiner all his life with a need to belong.  

My personal definition of evil includes a lot of what Hannah Arendt describes in her book.  It also relates to things that people may see as normal and reasonable -  the beliefs they hold, the leaders that they follow and the actions they take.  But when it comes to rooting out and understanding evil, there are two crucial questions that people need to ask themselves:  Are my actions doing harm to and disempowering others?  And, am I allowing others to disempower people with my knowledge of it?  Whether this kind of cruelty occurs in families in which one member imposes a brutal regime of control and terror on his partner or his children and sees it as justified and normal or, if it happens within a political system in which a leader and his followers dehumanize, abuse or willfully disempower another group of people - to me, the underlying ethos is the same.  

There are laws that Republican dominated legislatures in Texas, Georgia and 12 other states have recently passed or are currently enacting that are to me examples of the banality of evil.  On the surface, and to someone who knows little about the historical context, these laws may appear to be reasonable, common sense approaches to protecting the security and sanctity of elections in their states.  They have even been framed by Republican majority legislatures and their leaders as attempts to reassure citizens that voter fraud will not occur.  

What these laws are actually designed to do is suppress the votes of African Americans, Latinos and young people with laser-like precision.  The statutes disenfranchise these groups by restricting mail-in voting, purging voter rolls, diminishing the number of voting drop boxes in urban areas, and eliminating the amount of time and days that would allow members of these targeted groups to vote. Other parts of the hundreds of bills rushed through Republican majority legislatures are crafted to intimidate election workers by imposing tremendous penalties for any action that might violate these laws.  The laws also give partisan “poll watchers” the power to harass and further intimidate workers who are simply and honestly doing the job that they were hired to do.  These same state legislatures have further empowered themselves to challenge the results of elections and overturn them if they are unhappy with the results.

The Republican Party is doing what every kid who has played ball on a sandlot or in a schoolyard knows in his gut is wrong - changing the rules of the game to disempower the other team and give your own team an unfair advantage.  It violates the core values that we try to instill in our children around competition and fairness - but what is at stake for our society is much greater than which team wins a little league game.  It  has to do with the very survival of our democracy.  If winning at any cost becomes the way that we operate, and legislatures are willing to disempower another party or group of people and rig an election so that some people’s votes do not count - and they do this in order to maintain what they see as their own power, privileges and advantage - then we as a society have truly lost our soul.

What may be the most pernicious part of all of these Republican efforts is that in November’s presidential election there was no evidence of voter fraud or so little as to validate the integrity of the system as a whole.  This was upheld in court after court as Trump challenged the election results and appealed to Republican officials to “find him votes.”  He particularly cast doubt about the legitimacy of voting in cities with large Black populations in swing states - Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit - a part of his divisive strategy and his underlying message that Black votes do not really count.  It was his “Stop The Steal” campaign and his big lie that the election was stolen that sowed doubt, fueled the January 6th attack on the Capital and  gave Republican dominated legislatures the cover to push through their raft of voter suppression laws - all in the name of stopping voter fraud that did not exist in the first place.

On the surface this may seem like partisan politics as usual - one group merely seeking a competitive advantage but isn’t that what can make evil so banal?  This underlying issue that cuts so much deeper is that there is a demographic trend in the United States predicting that it will no longer be a majority white nation by 2045. The core of Trump’s “Make America Great Again'' movement that challenged Obama’s citizenship, vilified Muslims, labels Mexicans as “rapists and murders,” and calls African nations ``shithole countries,” is a a white Chritian nationalist  “us versus them” strategy designed to delegitimize and disempower non-whites while it plays into the fears of many white Americans that they are losing “their country” to the feared others.

This is the playbook of every dictator and authoritarian regime:  appeal to a majority group and manufacture a threat about a disempowered and disadvantaged minority - for Hitler it was Jews, Gypsies, Socialists and trade unionists for Trump and the Republican party it has been Mexicans, Blacks, Muslims, LBGTQ’s and refugees.  Repeat the lie often enough and you can create a fascist movement.   Then, barrage a population with so many vile acts that they become inured to what is going on and  begin to accept the caging of refugee children and the separation of parent and child asylum seekers at our borders. Once the envelope has been pushed that far, internment camps for the despised others might not be such a stretch.

For Black people in the United States the intersection of being in physical danger and being emotionally harmed by a white supremist narrative is nothing new.   History has proven that increases in voting rights have always been followed by periods of backlash and disempowerment:  Slavery is followed by emancipation and what is called Reconstruction which included the 15th Ammendemnt - the right of Black men to vote in elections.  But Reconstruction was soon abandoned along with the enforcement of the right to vote for the former slaves. This period ushered in a reign of terror and lynching that included voter intimidation and poll taxes in the Jim Crow South.  The Civil Rights movement, along with the The Voting Rights Act of 1965 attempted to redress some of these injustices only to be gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013 and again in a decision in June of this year.  

Republican state legislatures are currently scrambling to make sure that once again there will be infringements on the rights of Black Americans to vote.  The third of America that fiercely supports these laws and  policies has been around for a long time -  they include those who would choose a George Wallace or an authoritarian Donald Trump over living in a multiracial democracy.  The policies pushed by these demagogues have been called the “politics of hate” but they always involve the willful denial of rights along with a moral injury -an  assault on a person or group’s dignity, worth and esteem.

In the big picture of Trump and the Trumpification of the Republican Party and its base, it is a story about normalizing what is criminal,  cruel and crass - the willingness to lie, cheat, steal and demean others in order to achieve one’s ends.  The underlying message to people is, “look what I can do - I can hold another nation hostage to my selfish needs.  I can demean a reporter with a disability.  I can have affairs and pay women off so they won’t talk.  I can assault women sexually and get away with it.  I can call a Black congresswoman ‘low I.Q.’  I can lie every day when it suits my interests. I can use the bible as a prop. I can even shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and pay no price for my crime.  I can say and do all that we know to be wrong and get away with it”   What Trump has done is to activate and validate the basest parts of us and has left Americans with the cynical message that we are all chumps if we do not follow in his path.  

Psychiatrists have analyzed Trump’s behaviors and labeled him a “pathological narcissist.”  Others have said that he lacks a moral center and have called him a  “sociopath.”  He has also been described as a shallow, incurious and selfish man.  I see him as an evil man, one who has unleashed the dark side of our humanity and tried to turn it into the new normal.  This is truly the banality of evil and Trump’s evil legacy and there will need to be a deep reckoning before we absolve our nation of these sins.

[dulma]

On “The Glass Essay” by Anne Carson

If a literary genie were to ask me for my one writerly wish, it would perhaps be  to attain the same brilliance of "The Glass Essay" by Anne Carson in my own essays. The piece, a poem (essentially) about the end of a relationship, has a devastation, strangeness, and formal virtuosity that leaves me stunned and aflutter. Sadly, though I have called upon said genie with fervent, melodramatic sighs over the years he is nowhere yet to be found, so in the meantime a self-directed apprenticeship in studying my personal literary greats must suffice.

Part of this self-education involves mercilessly deconstructing the works I love (death by intellectualization) in order to articulate their strengths and thereby kindle my own. So, a few jotted notes.

WHAT I I LOVE ABOUT "THE GLASS ESSAY"— 

(FORGIVE THE NON-EDITED SPEWAGE)

- the sounds! sonic clicking clacking strange rhythmic hypnosis! great use of consonance, great use of Anglo Saxon words strung and clamoring like wooden beads.

Exhibit A: first stanza—

"I can hear little clicks inside my dream. Night drips its silver tap down the back. At 4 A.M.. I wake. Thinking"

The sounds like the hands of a ticking clock that tracks the time, and the way time slows and speeds in lurches in the aftermath of loss. The tyranny of time weighs down on the “I” of the poem, and we feel its heft, its quicksand. The matter-of-fact clacking of the consonants in these words is one more way the poet refuses sentimentality. 

(BTW - Anyone else find these opening lines reminiscent of the opening lines from Lolita?)

- she weaves the strands of the braided narrative (a perilous form) with such skill. they are separate and together, evoking the wanderings of the mind, capturing both the desperate attempt to compartmentalize & the utter impossibility of it in the face of deep psychological distress. she tracks the narratives of her intellectual life (Emily Bronte being the subject), her family life (her mom, her father), her inner life and loss (heartbreak/breakup), and the weatherly goings on of the "moor" in which she stays with her mother. by the way, her repetition of "moor" feels mythic and elemental and induces trance. brings us back. evokes some yearning to thread things through with observations of the real; a way of "holding it together."

- the restraint of tone throughout is brittle, dark, tenuous, wrought with irony, and superbly devastating. one could drown in the pathos of watching a breaking heart try to act unbroken, sound unbroken. we have all been there. the restraint is also, we suspect, from some shame or acknowledgment of banality. our subject is heartbreak: the most shattering, all-consuming sort of loss (nothing feels bigger when you're in it), and yet what could be more common? what is there left to say when all of literature has said so much about loss and grief when the very fact of a longing heart is such tedium? perhaps an acknowledgment of that very fact. and that is what she offers, in earnest, touchingly.

"When Law left I felt so bad I thought I would die. This is not uncommon."

(we can search for all the fresh poetic images in the world but is this not what it comes down to? feeling like the beloved left so we will die. i love her for saying it so simply, for settling for the bare pulsing heart of the thing with no embellishment, because an undressed truth is truest poetry.)

"It pains me to record this,

I am not a melodramatic person."

She knows, like we do, that heartbreak—especially the female bleeding about heartbreak—is a landmine of clichés waiting to detonate and render saccharine or unseemly the spectacle of grief. the poet, however, is a step ahead and knows to acknowledge this banality, inspiring our trust that she is skirting the fine edges of this risk with exquisite effort. whence this strength? or is it not strength but an expression of the frailty itself, the desperation to contain what feels uncontainable? is the controlled voice a front or authentic symptom?

restraint. the animal in pain is want to wail, but the human animal is ever aware of the brazen display of gushing blood. it is a shameful thing, one feels, to cry tears of poetry, and we feel the speaker's reticence. who among us has not tried to hold back the rivers unleashed by loss. and so we feel seen in seeing her valiant attempt to sort through the anguish with the supremely futile spade of language. words when no words help. and words when only words might help.

- and yet, and yet. she finds the words. she finds new words for the oldest sad story in the world, and she makes them take flight:

"In the days and months after Law left I felt as if the sky was torn off my life. I had no home in goodness anymore."

No home in goodness. the cruelty of love is that it always feels like home for the exile within us, if only for a moment, until we see how uninhabitable the space. the sky, the home - all sense of orientation, gone. floating in empty, searching still. the plight (sad but shockingly beautiful) of the human story, rendered with such precision.

And this:

"Not enough spin on it, he said of our five years of love. Inside my chest I felt my heart snap into two pieces

which floated apart. By now I was so cold it was like burning."

There is a bottomlessness to heartbreak if you peer down the well. and this is where i live now on some days. it is not a normal heartbreak - less heavy and yet more, and more deluded with hope, confusion begetting optimism and terror. the rug has been pulled out, as they say, and few words can really do justice to the injustice of this human predicament: we are fashioned out of a pure substance of wanting and loving, in turns, and when given breath we seek for nothing else for all our days. and those days are colored by wanting and loving and losing, ever and ever, until the brittle heart shatters or sheds, but which of the two is not up to us. none of it is. and words that sing your sorrow into life are a balm, impotent but soothing all at once, the grand paradox of poetry and perhaps of art. the gleaming uselessness of it all, and the redemption too. this is what this essay is for me: redemption, if momentary, through words. mere words.

[whiskynottea]

Chapter 1 – The storming of the Bastille

Claire knew it. She could feel it, in her throbbing heart. The time had come.

After years of struggling to survive an uneven fight, it was time to rise up and fight back. To gain control and demand the rights every human being deserved. 

They wanted a chance to live. And this time they wouldn’t ask for it kindly.

It had been almost ten years since Claire decided to help and heal the people who were treated like animals by the aristocrats. During this time, she had faced poverty, famine, devaluation of life and loss of hope. Destined to heal, all her work could be diminished in a moment, just because an arrogant aristocrat believed that lives of commoners were of no value. Because he thought they didn’t matter -- not as he did. Claire had seen people die, more and more people as the years went by, but none of these deaths made sense to her. 

Each death had left more angry and frustrated than she had been before. 

While the aristocracy was bathing in luxuries, common people were dying from cold and hunger. While the ones committing the crimes were free, strolling around in silken clothes, innocents were rotting in prisons. People were dying just because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cause of dead: bad luck, your Honour. 

Claire had seen with her own eyes five-year-old Nicolas dying under the weight of a Monseigneur’s carriage, just because he was standing at the wrong spot of the alley. “He got in the way!” the driver had stated as if it was explanation enough. The lord inside the carriage hadn’t even bothered to move the little curtain and see what had happened. 

The rich never paid for their crimes. None of them felt the pain he caused, neither he cared to. The world was theirs and they behaved accordingly. 

That was an injustice too heavy for Claire to bear. But bear it she would.

It was during the last five years that she noticed the change in people’s manner. The way they whispered, their meaningful glances. It felt like a drop of hope in a desert of despair and Claire could do nothing but navigate towards it. She needed it to survive, desperate as a thirsty man dreaming of a glass of water. The moment she recognized hope, she reached for it to forget her empty stomach and even emptier heart.

Claire had been tending to little Marie who had developed a fever when she took the risk and asked the girl’s mother, Louise, about the talk she had heard. She knew Louise as an honest and kind woman. She was one of the few people Claire trusted to enlighten her about the stirrings in the Parisian alleys and the increasing number of men calling each other ‘Jacques’ and then murmuring imperceptibly. That was when Claire first heard of the upcoming revolution. They were biding their time, Louise had said, waiting for the right moment. 

Claire decided to become a part of the upcoming rebellion without a second thought. She had realized soon enough that justice would be won through blood and there was no other way around it. So she joined the rebels, giving to their purpose all the force of her existence. She participated in a women’s political club, distributed pamphlets and swore oaths of loyalty on her patriotic allegiance and responsibilities of citizenship. Being English-born didn’t help her being trusted at first, but she was determined and managed anyway. 

And on the morning of the 14th of July in 1789, Claire was there. Her heart was screaming: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. The world wouldn’t be 'theirs’ anymore. Everyone would have a piece of sky for themselves after the revolution. And a piece of bread to feed their children.

The city of Paris was in a state of alarm. The rebels had invaded the Hôtel des Invalides and without facing great opposition had gathered a significant amount of muskets. The gunpowder, however, was stored in the Bastille and the decision had been taken immediately. They were going to storm in the Bastille, which at the moment stood with its standard garrison of 82 veteran soldiers, reinforced a week ago by 32 grenadiers. Nothing was going to stop them.

It was a matter of minutes. Weapons were distributed immediately; from pikes and knives to bayonets and muskets. And powder. All the powder they had. Every person left weaponless grabbed any object that would prove useful in a fight and fortified themselves with pure force. When ready, they headed towards the Bastille, forming a huge wave of bodies that left the streets empty behind. 

Claire ran to her room and collected her own weapon, her medicine box, already prepared from the night before. She then became one with the mass, hearing the drums playing from somewhere amidst the crowd, their beating in the tone of her heart. She turned her head around she smiled to Henri, Louise’s husband, who spotted her and smiled back. 

They were all in this fight together and that thought filled Claire with excitement and determination. The small fragments of fear that hid occasionally inside her heart had now disappeared, and the only thing she felt was purpose. She might die, yes. But her death would have meaning because she was part of something bigger than herself. She had risen together with others against tyranny, and for that, she felt proud and courageous. 

Claire noticed that the solemn faces in the crowd became fewer and fewer the closer they got to the Bastille. It seemed like everyone was going mad with revenge, indifferent for human life. Holding her box tightly, she tried to remain composed and resolved that she would save as many people as she could. 

It didn’t take them long to reach the Bastille. When they did, they gathered outside the fortress and demanded its surrender. Two representatives were accepted inside to negotiate, but the negotiations lasted way too long. In the early afternoon, the crowd invaded the undefended courtyard and broke the chains of the drawbridge. The moment Claire got in the courtyard she heard the soldiers of the garrison shouting something unintelligible in her ears. There were too much noise and confusion around her and she panicked, wondering how they would know what to do. Then, the men in the front decided to enter the prison.

It was at that moment that Claire heard the gunfire. The guns pointing from the castle towers towards the crowd had fired, indicating that no one was allowed to move inside. In merely a second, everything around her changed. Everybody changed. Every man and woman seemed to lose sanity like it had vaporized under July’s sun. Their inner beasts were free.

“They trapped us!” men were shouting.

“Kill them all!”

“We are going into the Bastille one way or another! Go!” cried a woman who stood behind Claire with a ferocious flash in her eyes.

Individuality was lost, and Claire could only see savage faces forming a mob around her. The picture scared her alright. But maybe that was the right thing to do. She didn’t know. They were supposed to fight to win. And the fighting had begun.

Holding her medical box, Claire tried to get herself to a relatively safe place where she would treat the wounded. She stood close to the stone wall and searched the mass for injuries. With the bloodshed that was unravelling in front of her eyes, she didn’t stay on that spot for long.

It was more than an hour later when two cannons and more men arrived to reinforce the attack, but Claire had lost track of the time. It could be mere minutes since the firing had started. She kept rushing to the fallen men and women, trying to remedy their injuries as best as she could. They were many, too many, far more wounded than she’d imagined. 

Almost two hours later the firing stopped and Claire took her first deep breath in as many hours. Governor de Launay finally realized that his men wouldn’t last much more defending the prison without any supplies inside. He offered his terms with a letter, and even though his demands were refused from the attackers, the prison gates were opened. 

In half an hour the fortress was theirs. Everyone was ecstatic. People were laughing and singing and shouting while dragging De Launay towards the Hôtel de Ville. Claire looked at them, and then looked around with a bittersweet feeling nestling inside her. She was elated about the outcome of the battle, of course she was. They had made it! This was the beginning of a great transformation for France! But looking at all those dead bodies and the wounded, she couldn’t but feel gloomy as well. How many more would they need to die, to gain the victory? She had been used to the sight of illness and blood and her eyes had seen much violence, but it wasn’t in her heart to consent with cruelty. She was certain that the ending of De Launay would be a vicious one, so instead of following the crowd, she stayed back in the courtyard of the Bastille and tried to help the wounded.

Claire was checking at the medical supplies left in her box when a Scottish burr started sounding louder than her thoughts. 

“Come here, lad. Ye need help.” 

Surprised, she rose, turned, and saw a gruff man with black hair and a beard that covered most of his face, leading a huge red-headed man towards her. She noticed the older man’s sad eyes and smiled to encourage him while moving towards the wounded one. It was when she reached him that he raised his head and looked at her. Their eyes locked for a moment too long and Claire lost herself into those deep blue eyes, forgetting where she was.

“I told ye, I’m fine,” the red-haired man replied without taking his eyes from her. His lips curled just a bit on their way to a smile.

Claire felt herself smiling back and lowered her head. This move allowed her to see the wound on his shoulder and she suddenly remembered the reason she was standing in front of him. ‘Get yourself together Beauchamp! Where is your mind?’ she silently chastised herself.

“Let me see your wound,” she heard herself saying and felt glad that her voice was louder than the whisper she thought it would be.

“Aye,” the man said smiling a bit more this time, although Claire was sure he must be in pain.

She looked around to find a place for him to sit and with the older man’s help, she moved him towards an empty barrel fallen nearby. He was tall, with broad shoulders and he seemed like a strong young man, but his face was pale and she needed to be fast in assessing the damage on his shoulder. With tender hands, she removed the outer layers of his sooted garments and reached to remove the cloth above the wound, finding that it was still oozing blood.

“Jesus Bloody Christ! You’re still bleeding!” she said, biting her lips.

“Seems so. Dinna fash lass, ‘tis no but a scratch.”

“Huh! A scratch he says! Well, it is much more than this, I can assure you my lad. You need to be still for me to stop the bleeding and dress the wound,” Claire said, belatedly realising the informality of her words. He nodded, with a little lopsided smile lingering on his face.

“Unfortunately I can’t cleanse it right now because I’ve run out of supplies. Would you mind coming with me to my place, where I have a stock kept? I could work much more properly there,” Claire asked, and it was when she felt her question hanging between them that she considered what these two strangers think of her. 

Really, Beauchamp? Inviting them to your place? 

She looked into the lad’s eyes again and saw concern, and something more, something she had a hard time defining. Challenge, perhaps?

“I don’t live far from here,” she added, looking towards the older man. She was a healer, after all, and she was trying to help. Nothing wrong with that.  

Claire continued with the dressing of the wound (with the occasional cursing when the cloths slipped from her hands, not all of them being the right size) and when she finished, she looked into the kind blue eyes again, raising an eyebrow in question.

“So, what do you say, Jacques?”

He looked the other man who responded with a plain, “Mmphm,” that was the exact opposite of the Gallic sounds Claire was used to. It could really mean anything.

“We’ll come with ye, Sassenach,” the redhead said, looking at her again. He stood up with a tiny wince of pain and held Claire’s hand so very lightly. “And it’s not Jacques, even though in France I suppose it is. It’s actually Jamie,” he added with a grin on his face and mischief in his eyes.

“Jamie it is, then. I’m Claire,” she returned, her fingers pressing against his for a moment before she left his hand to move a bit further away and gain a few precious moments to force her heart to remain inside her rib case.

“This way,” she said, collecting her box from the ground and nodding towards the street she had walked that same morning, or in a previous lifetime; she wasn’t sure.

Turning her head to see if they followed, two blue eyes smiled at her whisky ones.

Chapter 2

[gratefulslug]

Between the World and Me: Chapter 1 Notes

Opening quote critiques the way we respond to certain deaths, romanticizing the deaths of these kids who are killed. They are not born to die, their purpose was not supposed to be a “martyr”, their purpose should have been their life, not their death.

Portrays living as different races as living in different worlds, I have a feeling this will be an overarching theme (pg. 1)

America has allowed for their own definitions of what “the people” mean (in terms of politics), because of this they have allowed and excused their own violence (pg. 6)

Naming who “the people” are is based on hierarchy because America is based on hierarchy, why do we assign value to physical traits? (pg. 6-7)

“America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist” (pg. 8). This is how I view “Trump’s America”, but maybe America has always been this way, and I simply just seeing it now. 

“The police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body” (pg. 9) --> clear connections to current day, use of “destruction” over and over again, but America does not deem it as destruction because of what we have determined as “okay” 

I find myself forgetting that this is a letter to his son, when I remember it makes me tear up, I cannot imagine living a life where I would have to write a letter like this to my child. I suppose that is the whole point, as much as I want to and as much as I try, I will never be able to understand. 

Is the America dream just to be white? (pg. 10)

“That this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must ind some way to live within the all of it” (pg 11-12). --> this seems to sum of the black experience living in America. They are coping with a world that rejects them. 

“But the black body is the clearest evidence that America is the work of men” (pg 12).

I am reading this book in a cafe, I have started to cry as this subject material is very sad and very necessary. I keep having to put the book down as I read to take a breath. But I noticed that as soon as I began to cry, I reached for my phone to tell my friends “omg I am literally crying in this coffee shop right now”... what does that say about me? I am trying to turn this pain into my own when it is none of the such. I’m embarrassed that this was my initial reaction and embarrassed to be typing this.

I am thinking about the mold black kids are meant to fall into. I am thinking about a boy at my school, he is black and he has gotten himself into a lot of trouble with the law throughout the past year. But, the past few months (after an expulsion) he seriously turned his life around. But, for him that also meant taking the twists out of his hair, changing his style, changing the way he speaks. I wonder how much of that is from internalized racism? or from what the school has projected onto him as being the “ideal student”? (pg 14). 

How much of black culture in America is built out of fear? (pg 14-15)

I imagine the parents beating their children out of fear, they want their kids to be harsh in order to survive, but at the same time they don’t. Do they want to take away their blackness? (pg 15)

“Then she beat your grandmother terrifically, one last time, so that she might remember how easily she could lose her body” (pg 16.) --> This quote really affected me, it seems to perfectly encapsulate the idea of fear manifesting in violence, but the violence doesn't have bad intentions. She was trying to help. 

“Either I can beat him, or the police” (pg 16). 

Is this beating a shared experience for all black kids? Even now? Why are these kids continuing to put themselves into dangerous situations after being beat for it? Or is that too easy of an assumption to make? (pg 17)

Laws are made for “the people”, which has never included black kids. (pg 17)

I will never know what it is like to be a young black kid reading of police brutality, I cannot begin to imagine. I wish I could share their understanding in order to empathize, but I can’t. (pg 19)

“cosmic injustice” and “profound cruelty” (pg 21) used to describe violence toward black bodies, I think those definitions will be the closest I can come to understanding. 

“And that cut me because, for all our differing worlds, at your age my feeling was exactly the same” (pg 21). As much as the world has changed, ex. it is significantly more acceptable to wear natural black hairstyles, not to say that it is fully accepted/gone without judgement in any way, the systems have stayed the same. Black men and women and children are still left with the same unfairness. 

“I recall learning these laws clearer than I recall learning my colors and shapes, because these laws were essential to the security of my  body” (24). I think this is a really good example of how white privilege works. I have never had to worry about the security of my body.

the “need for escape” seems to be why kids are turning to the streets, it is partially because that is where they are told to go, partially because that is how they escape? 

“The world had no time for the childhoods of black and boys and girls” (25). These black kids are forced to learn two lives, both of which are necessary for their survival, the streets are their now, school is their later, Imagine how exhausting that must be, and how stressful it is to quite literally have your life on the line. 

School is made for a certain, white, student. It takes that student and turns them into a uniformed student. They do not learn, they do not grow, them memorize and their curiosity is taken away from them. (26)

He felt like he had two options, the streets or school. But did not fit either mold, he was too “soft” for the streets and too curious for school. (27)

I had always thought that these kids were born into a world too hard to escape, but didn’t necessarily understand that they tried, but it doesn’t matter when the world isn’t built for you. (28)

“I had no sense that any just God was on my side... My understanding of the universe was physical, and its moral arc bent toward chaos then concluded in a box” (28).

New definition of interrogation as “drawing myself into consciousness” (29).

“the month could not pass without a series of films dedicated to the glories of being beaten on camera” (32). Reminds me of modern day police brutality and the videos that are shared. Is showing that graphic footage actually helpful or does it act as “trauma porn” to certain viewers? 

“Why were only our heroes nonviolent? I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of the sense that black are in especial need of this morality” (32). Education seems to have this failing view that violence is bad. You cannot always declare violence as bad, especially when the people writing that history are probably white men. This land is acquired “through murder and tamed it under slavery” (32), and now you are going to preach of nonviolence? 

Talking about intentions of individual educators, reminds me of certain arguments about “ACAB”, intentions of the individual are essentially bullshit. They don’t matter. It is the systems that need changing. But what does that really mean? We seem to throw around that idea without really knowing. How should education become more inclusive, how can ALL educators practice this? How can a police force be a positive thing when it was originally made as slave capturers? (33).

Definition of politically conscious: “as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty” (34). Also connects back to arguments of rhetoric! 

Knowledge brings hope, or opposite (34)

“Black is beautiful-which is to say that the black body is beautiful...” (34)

THIS is what Malcom X represents, not just unruly violence, that is what I was taught in school. (34-36)

“it was human for the enslaved to hate the enslaver” (36) --> connection to modern day, looting/violence from protesters was criticized but you cannot understand what they have gone to, and why their actions do appear justified

“White America is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies” (42). How is this moved past? How do I, as a white person, contribute to this?

I don’t necessarily understand the distinction he seems to be making about being black/ having a black body (pg 44)

He turned to literature for answers on black history, but found differencing opinions are more questions instead. (47-48)

“bound by my ignorance” (48). This is often how I find myself feeling, even while reading this book. 

Writing = thinking, connection to summer assignment 

Trauma passed down in our bodies, he didn’t need to directly experience the things his ancestors went through in order to feel them. (51)

Idea of “intellectual vertigo” (52) piqued my interest. I think I am constantly feeling that, especially surrounding politics. 

Fear seems to be an overall theme of black lives, fear of difference/culture/lack of understanding (57)

Story of the woman eating with her hands reminded me of going to lunch with Apurva and Alex, she felt the need to ask us if it was okay for her to eat with her hands. She said she hadn’t done it with any of her other friends, but because of my and Alex’s perspectives and us going to the temple, she felt more comfortable. It still made me sad that she felt she had to ask, and even as she did it I remember watching her eat. Embarrassment of ignorance. (57)

“... ranged between women and men, asserted this not just with pride but as though it were normal, as though she were normal...” (58)

“But I was from a place -America- where cruelty toward humans who loved as their deepest instincts instructed was a kind of law” (58) !!!!!!!!!!! Wow, what a way to think about this. 

“Hate gives identity” (60).... how exposure changed a person.... I identify as a bisexual woman. 

The way he talks about love on pages 60 and 61 really resonated with me. But I think it is more of a for-me thought than a class thought. 

“And I could no longer predict where I would find my heroes” (61) this is something I also find myself learning more and more. The people around me have changed so much, this seems to be the purpose of him telling these stories of different men and women. 

You control what you can, find comfort in that. (62)

“It was beginning to come together- even if I could not yet see what the ‘it’ was” (63). How this is so much of what I feel, always. 

Black women have “a knowledge of cosmic injustices” and I enjoy that he is able to recognize the different struggles black women will face compared to black men. (65)

The way he talks about his child is not something I have ever heard before, I cannot tell if I find it beautiful or confusing. “you were our ring” “we’d summoned you out of ourselves” “you were the God I’d never had” (67) is this too much for a child ? (66-67)

Perhaps the main theme of the letter: “There was more out there than I had ever hoped for, and I wanted you to have it. I wanted you to know that the world in its entirety could never be found in the schools, alone, nor on the streets, alone, nor in the trophy case.” (68). What a beautiful message and interpretation of his own curiosity, he definitely did not lose it as a child, as many do.

“’Slavery’ is this same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and inscribes this love in its essential texts, a world in which these same professors hold this woman, a slave, hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and when this woman peers back into the generations all she sees is the enslaved” (70). Relating back to beginning of the letter, there are the people, and slaves do not fit into that group. 

“you are a black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way that other boys cannot know” (71) --> this seems to be what he is trying to tell his son.

“You have to make peace with the chaos, but you cannot lie. You cannot forget how much they took from us, and how they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold” (71). This is the line he chooses to end his letter, reminding his son of what his body was. 

[imhereforbvcky]

Absolution - Part 3 (end)

Masterlist  -  Part 1  -  Part 2

Summary: Bucky must figure out how to live with some of his worst memories when he can’t shake one particular ghost from his past.

Prompt(s): Could you do a Bucky story inspired by Murder Song - Aurora?

Warnings: AAAAANNNNGGSSTTT so much angst. Ok, we’ve got swearing, nightmares, looks at Bucky’s captivity and the unpleasantness related to it, murdery sadness, I think that covers it?

Word Count: 2667

Author’s Note: Oh god. Okay. I just want to say… I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I just am riding the angst train hard lately. Also I’m watching Iron Man 2 rn and have all kinds of Tony feels, so he’s going to be my supportive buddy, because I think he would get it to some degree, my poor iron baby with the squishy heart.

Italics are Bucky’s journal pages/memories. * I snagged this line from Winter Soldier #12 by Ed Brubaker

August 1

I had the dream again. The whole dream. It comes back to me again and again. Sometimes if I’m lucky I wake up and the whole memory doesn’t replay in my head like a broken record. When I’m lucky I don’t wake up with her voice in my head begging me for death, absolving me of the thing I could never ask forgiveness for.

Every time I wake up, I remember pulling the trigger.

She had been sick for days, I mean really sick. I told her every story I could think of just to keep her conscious. I asked her questions I already knew the answer to so I could gauge whether she was delirious. I begged her to eat but it was pointless, she couldn’t keep anything down. Eventually they’d taken her away. All I could do was worry about her, and do all the things she would have encouraged me to do to survive, hoping she’d come back.

She never did. Instead they came for me a few days later, shoved a gun in my hand and pushed me into a bright room. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that room now that I remember it again.

I blinked against the bright spotlights that somehow made the dingy cement seem to glow. Rooms like this weren’t unfamiliar to me. Rooms like these dominated my life here. It was where they filled my head with words that turned my body into a machine I didn’t know how to operate. It was where they tested the strength of those words with increasing cruelty. It was in rooms like these where my nightmares became a reality, or rather I became the nightmare

This time though, there was only a woman in the room, clearly another prisoner. She looked so incredibly frail. She was just skin and bones, and her skin had that thin ashen blue tint that’s almost always the calling card for death.

She looked at me and I will always be haunted by it. Though her heart still beat, and I could see her breathing, it was a ghost who looked back at me. A ghost with tired eyes that reflected only an immeasurable well of anguish.

Worse still, when her eyes flickered over me and she glimpsed the metal of my arm glistening under the harsh light and the dark metal of the gun in my hand she seemed… relieved.

“Bucky,” she rasped and stepped closer, a warmth gathering in the pools of her eyes. The second I heard her voice I knew it was her: the woman in the cell beside mine, my only companion and friend, my solace and sanity when this place and these people tried to take it from me.

I’d never seen her before, but she must have recognized me for the metal arm. I whispered her name when she moved even closer and lifted the cool metal into her own hands, those small hands that I’d only seen pushing through a drainage pipe in my wall to offer me support. I spun the metal hand over to hold onto her, not daring to lift my right because for a moment she looked comforted and the cool metal handgun I was holding at my side would surely bring an end to that.

“Test P2405 to commence in Chamber 4b.” A voice rang over the speakers. I looked around, spotting the theater of lab coats above with a row of guards, their rifles trained down on us.

“Bucky, listen to me,” she urged, her fingers sliding higher up my arm. Her hand tentatively settling on my chest brought my attention back to her face.

“Test subject: Winter Soldier,” the voiceover continued.

“This is a trial for you, not for me,” she sounded urgent, like this was the only thing that mattered to her on earth.

I only shook my head, refusing to accept the reality in front of me. I wouldn’t be able to do it. “They want me to hurt you.”

“I know, Bucky,” she soothed, “But you won’t. I’m already hurting, don’t you see?”

Her hands gripped my metal arm tighter and I forced myself to look at her again. I knew it was true. They’d hurt her the second they dragged her from her home and destroyed her village. Every time she left her cell meant more pain. She’d been brave and strong, and now here when she had no way out, she still used that pain to ease my own.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I heard the words begin to echo through the room.

“Желание. Pжaвый”

“It’s a gift Bucky,” she tried again when she heard the anguished growl from me, trying everything I could think of to hold it back, this monster they’d put in my head. “It’s mercy. You can… you can do it quick?” she asked, voice trembling, I looked at her despite the pain squeezing my chest and the knot in my throat. She was trembling all over.

“Добросердечный.”

Shit. I don’t know how they got so far so fast. I could feel a shift, it was happening despite everything in me screaming for it to stop. My voice was raw. I must have been actually screaming until I felt her ball her fists into my shirt and press herself even closer against me.

“Bucky, listen to me,” she urged, sounding stronger than I thought possible by the look of her. “I’m dead either way. You will be the one to suffer if you don’t do this, not me. Just--”

“You think I won’t suffer if I do this?” I asked, gripping her by the back of her neck, trying to be gentle with her, but needing to feel her, needing to feel something that wasn’t iron and ice. I needed to hold on to something soft and warm for as long as I could.

“Один.”

“You have to be the soldier, Bucky. That’s the best you can do for me now,” she was pleading with me, tears streaming down her cheeks now, “Be the soldier, be efficient, and let the blame fall on their shoulders.” Her eyes darted to the gallery of monsters before flitting back to me, pleading and sad. “Please.”

She kissed me quickly, clinging to me, needing her last memory to be something less ugly than the life we’d both known the last several years. I would have held onto her like that for a lifetime if I could.

“Грузовой вагон.”

I could only watch her breathing pick up pace, like she was struggling for every ounce of oxygen as my body shifted, releasing her and rising to a rigid position. I wish there had been any way to convey to her that I was sorry, that I didn’t want to do this, that I wished I could have protected her, but I was a prisoner in my own body.

“Mercy is a gift,” she whispered, closing her eyes against the harsh commands coming my way. Maybe she didn’t want to remember me like this. Maybe she didn’t want me to remember her fear. I can’t forget it though, she may have closed her eyes and stood as tall as she could in that weakened body, she may have given me permission and called it mercy, but I remember.

“Cолдат?”

“Я готов отвечать.”

“Убей bаша девушка.”

That’s the thing about being under mind control that nobody talks about… You’re still in there. Some small piece of you is awake… watching. Like being a passenger in your own body. You struggle to break free… but you lose… over and over again… you lose.*

I lost everything watching my body take an aggressive stance, watching my arms rise, gripping the gun with the familiarity of an expert and press it to her forehead. She was still so close. I don’t know if she was too afraid to move, or if she really didn’t care in the end. I guess it didn’t matter because she was dead in an instant when I pulled the trigger.

The worst part was watching her body crumple to the floor while I stepped back and handed the gun to a guard. I knew they were displeased by the tears on my face, but even in this state there was nothing I could do to stop them. There was no one else there to mourn her, to remember her, to scream at the injustice, to weep at the loss. And she deserved at least that.

She was my first kill as the Winter Soldier and I’ll never forget her. I’m unable to forget the awful things, but I make myself remember the good about her. She deserves that, too.

Three weeks later on another late frittata night, Tony had excitedly slid Bucky a large legal envelope with her name written in the corner in Tony’s small, efficient hand.

“I found your girl!” he told Bucky around a mouthful of egg and bell pepper. “But I gotta ask, is she…?”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed heavily, holding the package in his hands like it was a bomb that might set him off if he opened it too quickly or too roughly.

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to chase this down?” Tony asked, skeptically. “I mean, I think we both know from experience here that her family might not want you--”

“Her family’s gone.”

Tony nodded, not quite sure what that meant. For all he knew they’d also met their end at the hands of the Winter Soldier, but that wasn’t the man before him. The man sitting at his counter was hunched over a relic from the past, pained and lost.

“This one haunts you, huh?” Tony probed gently.

“More than you know.”

Only days later the pair of dysfunctional Avengers wound up in a rented car from the mid 1990s driving through an endless sea of uncultivated fields somewhere in northeastern Europe, looking for a village that the world preferred to forget.

“I don’t think this is right,” Tony sighed, completely flustered that his technology had no record of their destination, nor of this road, if you could call it that. “There’s nothing back here but more dirt and grass. We haven’t even passed a potato in like, 5 miles, there are no villages here.”

“Not anymore,” Bucky agreed, “But we passed that oak tree by the river, this has to be right.”

“There are trees by every river, Barnes, that’s what they do.”

“There!” Bucky pointed to a small cluster of old buildings in the distance, the wood greyed with age and buckling under their own weight with rot.

He stopped the car and climbed out slowly, taking the envelope with him. He walked cautiously at first, with his hand outstretched over the tall wheat colored grass tickling his palm. Tony followed at a distance, for once, not saying a word.

Bucky ran his hands over the wood trim of one of the buildings, feeling the smooth worn grain of it, as he imagined her hands in this exact spot, at home, laughing as she chased down that chicken that had gotten loose. He’d told her about every detail of this place and he’d built a picture in his head, but this… was an echo, a skeleton of the life it once held.

He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, an overwhelming sense of loss taking hold of him, not just for her, but for all that HYDRA had taken from this place. The warm sun on his shoulders, and the rich earth at his feet reminded him with distinct potency of the magnitude of war.

He took another breath, memorizing the smell, earthy and simple: warm thick air, dry wild grass, cool black dirt. It’s what she should have smelled like, here, in her home, away from the harsh chemicals constantly in and around her body, the taste of blood staining her lips and iron hemming her in. It’s what she should have smelled like without the stench of HYDRA.

“Hey, I think I got something.” Tony’s voice was gentle, like he didn’t want to disturb a single speck of dirt.

Bucky walked over to meet him. In the apparent center of the abandoned village stood a series of boulders with names carved into them. He knelt in front of one of the stones and ran his fingertips over her name.

“You okay?” Tony asked.

Bucky nodded, unsure how to answer. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find here, but it was crushing to see her name on this stone, in a list of so many others. He wondered how many had gone with her to the same base in Siberia where he’d met her and how many had never made it past the walls of this small village.

A part of him was relieved. He was glad someone had remembered her, had grieved for her when he’d been unable, and had memorialized her like this. His own instability following her death had lead HYDRA to begin their crude efforts to clear his memory. He hadn’t remembered her at all before Wanda had begun digging in his brain to remove the triggers. Now he couldn’t get her out of his head.

“I just can’t let her go.”

“Goodbyes like this don’t happen overnight,” Tony suggested, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder. “If you’re hanging on to her memory, there’s gotta be something there you still need to work out.”

Bucky nodded, taking Tony’s outstretched hand and pulling himself back to his feet. Tony reached into his pocket and took out a piece of scrap paper and a piece of charcoal vine that he’d snatched from Steve and passed it to Bucky.

“What’s this?”

“How old are you?” He couldn’t resist the urge to tease a little, “It’s a rubbing, here.” He snatched the paper back and covered her name with the paper and pressed the charcoal against the engraved stone, brushing back and forth until her name appeared clearly in white against the black background.

Bucky stared at the paper in his hands, transfixed. It was small, and messy, the charcoal already staining his fingers, but it was her.

“Put it in your notebook,” Tony advised, “Be careful not to smudge it until Steve can get some fixative on it, that charcoal will smear, but it leaves a clearer print.” He patted Bucky on the shoulder harshly before turning back towards the car.

“You’ve done this before,” Bucky observed.

“You’re not the only one who’s lost someone.” Tony turned with a raised eyebrow. Bucky followed him back through the grass, smearing black coal across the edges of the page he still wasn’t ready to relinquish.

“Know what? I learned something pretty valuable on this trip,” Tony mused, talking over his shoulder as they meandered through the field.

“What’s that?”

“You’ve been holding out on me. I’ve been making us frittatas every night, but you can make some killer latkes!” He teased, and Bucky couldn’t help the laugh that burst from his chest. The last sound he expected to hear in a place like this, much less from his own lips, but it felt right, like this place had a life and a voice for even a fleeting moment before it returned to its solemn memoriam.“We’re trading off from now on.”

“I can live with that,” Bucky agreed. “It’s her recipe.” He laughed softly a long moment later, enjoying the idea. “After a few years we ran out of interesting things to say so I told her about my mom’s meatballs and how I never learned to cook and she told me how to make her grandmother’s latkes.”

“Latkes it is then,” Tony smiled, sliding into the car and propping his feet on the passenger seat, spinning the dated paper map in his hands. “Now how the hell do we get out of here? I think I’ve developed an arrhythmia from the lack of wifi.”

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[sinrau]

How the American Idiot Baffles, Bewilders, and Horrifies the World

Warning: this essay might make you angry. I want to share with you the kinds of conversations that I have with people from around the world lately. Maybe that will give Americans a window into how bewildered, baffled, and horrified the world is by what they’ve let their country become. If you’re American, you may want to say, “But I’m not stupid!” Fair enough, you may not be. But the entire world can hardly be wrong either. The question is whether in America, stupidity has become a kind of institution, way of life, cultural value — whether it’s the only system left that governs anything at all. The question isn’t about you — the well-meaning, intelligent, good American. It’s about systemic stupidity, going thermonuclear.

I have these conversations almost every day. With people from Europe, Asia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. And today’s particular conversation went a little bit like this.

“Humair!” Claudine cried, spying me strolling into the park with Snowy the magic wonder puppy.

“We have a question pour vous.”

I sighed. It was too early for this.

“We want to know — ” asked Helen. And then she paused.

“Go play, buddy!” I said to Snowy. Off he sped, overjoyed, towards the doggies running happy circles around the green. I, on the other hand, was exasperated.

“Well?” I asked. “It’s not another question about Americans, is it?”

They tittered. They were from all around the world, my new friends at the dog park. Claudine from France, Wolfgang from Germany, Helen from Oxford, Massimo from Italy. Everywhere but America. And watching America imploding, they had question after question. For me.

“Mate,” said the Ben, the London copper. “They want to know — “

Claudine cut in. “Don’t they teach Americains about fascism at school? We don’t understand it.”

“Don’t understand what?” I asked, still baffled. All I wanted to do was play with my dog.

Helen said: “Look. We’re all taught about fascism in grade school. How it goes from demonizing minorities to concentration camps to mass death. So…”

I waited.

“So why don’t Americans get it?” I asked, finally.

They all nodded.

Wolfgang cut in. “I’m German. Of course we are taught about fascism. It is something we still feel guilty for. But America…they act as if they are not taught about it in school. Aren’t they? When you go to school in America, don’t they teach you this about fascism? The cycle, the sequence, from hate to — to death?”

“Yes!,” cried Claudine. “That is the question we have.” She pronounced question in the French way. “It isn’t sensible. Americans must not be taught about fascism in school.”

“They are,” I said. “Just like you. They’re taught about the Nazis when they are children. And then again when they are young adults. The appeasement, the escalation, the steady trajectory towards concentration camps and mass death.”

Massimo frowned. “Impossible. If they are taught about fascism, then why don’t they understand they are going through fascism?”

Helen said, in her dry, precise, posh way: “Exactly. They can’t be taught about fascism. Look at America. It has undergone just what we’re taught. First, minorities are hated, then camps are built, and finally, mass death happens.”

“Mass death,” muttered Wolfgang, darkly.

Helen replied, “Isn’t that what a hundred thousand dead of Coronavirus, and counting, many of whom are minorities, is? OK. Trump didn’t start Coronavirus. But he is totally indifferent to it killing people. So are his Red States. They even cheer it on. That’s exactly what we’re taught: fascism is indifference to mass death.”

“Well — “ I began.

“Stupid,” said Ben, like a copper talking to a drunk driver. “They’re just stupid. They don’t wear face masks, even though it could stop spreading Coronavirus. They protest lockdown, even though it could save lives. They go to pool parties during a pandemic. They don’t care about the greater good. What else is that, except stupidity?”

“No, Ben,” Wolfgang replied, in his clipped way. “They can’t just be stupid. Stupid is not knowing something. But Americans are taught about this just like we are, according to him.” He pointed at me.

Ben replied, laughing. “No, mate. Stupid is when you know something, but you pretend not to know it, anyways.”

That one cut them like a knife. They all fell silent.

Ben expanded on his theory. “Everyone’s taught about fascism by now. Think about the kinds of people I arrest. Not shoot, like an American copper, by the way. They know what the law is. They just…break it. Stupid. Americans know what fascism is. They just won’t say the word, even when Trump is taking over their country. Stupid.”

Massimo objected. “But that doesn’t make sense! How can a person be educated about fascism and not speak up about it?!”

He was baffled. They all were. Was Ben right?

I said, weakly, “Guys. I think Ben is right. Maybe Americans are just stupid. Obviously not all of them, not every single one. Certainly not oppressed minorities, who are simply trying to survive in a fascist state. I mean something more like the Red Stater, who prides himself in not wearing a face mask. The spring breaker who jumps in a pool during a pandemic. Unfortunately, there are enough of them — the American Idiots. They’re educated about fascism, just like you. But they just don’t…just don’t…”

“Seem to care?” cut in Helen.

“Maybe they’re not able to care,” said Wolfgang. “Maybe if they say it, they will pay a price, like in Germany before. You couldn’t really challenge the Nazis much. They would beat you up, you would lose your job, maybe your home. Maybe it’s like that in America.”

Claudine laughed. “It can’t be like that in America.”

“It is for minorities,” said Ben, gruffly. A real copper. He hates two things most of all: injustice, and violence.

“OK, OK,” Claudine sighed. “But the average American can say fascism and no one will get him, no?”

Massimo nodded. “Of course they can. That is the point. Right now they can say it. But if Trump steals the election, then they won’t be able to say it. He will build secret police forces and crack down and monitor people. They prevent not being able to say it then by saying it now.”

“But they don’t,” said Wolfgang, reminding them of the question.

“Like I said,” Ben replied, “Stupid.”

Helen, the most analytical, said. “So far, we have three theories. One, Americans are uneducated. We ruled that out. Umair says they’re taught about fascism just like us. Two, Americans can’t say this is fascism, because they’ll pay a price for it. We ruled that out, too, and decided they prevent Trump taking over by saying it now.

That leaves us with one. Ben’s theory. They’re just…”

Ben grinned. He didn’t even have to say it.

“Fou,” said Claudine. Crazy.

“Vahnsinn,” said Wolfgang. Insane.

Massimo spiraled his finger around his head.

“Come on, guys.” Helen needed to play devil’s advocate. There had to be a better reason than this.

She looked at me, expectantly.

“Guys,” I said. “I’ve been trying to teach Americans this is fascism for years now. And they still refuse to say the word. Trump keeps doing awful things. They refuse to say the word. Just this week, he purged the Voice of America, he used an actual Nazi symbol in his campaign ads, he banned entire groups of people from entering the country, he declared himself anti-anti-fascist… and that’s just in the last week or two. And—

“They refuse to say the word.

“Honestly? I’m on Ben’s side, even if I don’t want to be. Maybe they are just stupid. Isn’t denial a kind of ignorance? A deliberate one? And what’s ignorance but…”

“Stupid,” Ben said, grinning.

That brought us full circle.

“Do you mean,” Claudine said, pressing, “that they are really taught that fascism is all these things that have already happened in America? The camps, bans, raids, purges…the…the hate coming from the President? The President tweeting a supporter yelling, ‘White Power’?”

I nodded.

“They’re really taught that fascism is a cycle that goes from camps to mass death?” Asked Wolfgang, still suspicious. “Like the mass death of Coronavirus? They’re really taught that mass death is the goal, culmination, desire, of fascism?”

I nodded.

“Actually?” Massimo said. “They’re actually taught all this? That fascism is everything that has happened in America over the last few years.” He struggled for the words. “They learn this in school?”

I nodded, and shrugged. “Of course they do.”

“They really learn that a fascist is someone who thinks of themselves as superhuman, and doesn’t care if the subhumans die,” asked Helen, carefully, narrowing her eyes, trying to make the definition as precise as possible. “Just like all the logic behind reopening all those Red States? They’re even taught the moral logic of fascism’s cruelty and brutality and violence?”

I nodded. “They’re even taught that.”

“ARRRUUGH!!!!,” Claudine shouted, stamping her feet in frustration, and throwing her hands up to the sky.

They all laughed. And then they joined her. All except Ben.

“It’s like I said,” Ben chuckled. “There’s no other explanation for it. You’ll be much less frustrated once you understand that Americans are…”

“Trump’s going to win again, isn’t he?” asked Wolfgang, worried, before Ben could finish.

“You mean he’s going to steal the election.” Massimo corrected him.

“They’re going to let him get away with it,” added Helen, frowning.

“Because they still don’t challenge it as fascism, which it is, and they should know it, because they are taught it, but they don’t?” finished Claudine, trying to unravel all the knots America ties a thinking person’s mind in now.

“AUUURGGH!!!” She shouted again.

I laughed. They all did. It was frustrating. “Guys. Here’s one thing I’ve learned over the last five years. Forget about it, OK?

“Nobody — and I mean nobody — can make Americans understand things they deliberately don’t want to understand. They learn all this at school. From fascism, to the hygiene that can save lives during a pandemic. About the greater good. But they are still in willful denial. That only leaves one way out.”

“They’re going to have to learn it the hard way,” said Ben grinning, emphasizing each word.

Wolfgang looked at me, his eyes wide. Massimo stared past me. Claudine looked at me as if to plead. Italian. German. French. They knew all this in a deeper way, the price of it, the ruin of it, of traveling to the place beyond stupidity, that has no name, how hard it is to return from that wasteland, what horrors take place there.

I looked back at them with a kind of sadness in my eyes. I’d seen it, too. In country after country, of poorer people. Strongmen, violence, hate, brutality, ruin. What made us different from Americans? We’d all seen it happen to us. We understood the price of denial, the bitter reality of fascism, in a way that Americans had yet to learn, and seemed to be begging daring history to teach them. Not just from textbooks. But from life itself.

“This is how history repeats itself,” I said.

The puppies circled around, laughing in delight. The sun shone over the ancient city of poets and kings, revolutionaries and dreamers. And on this little patch of green, where I’d made these unlikely new friends, I understood something new. These gentle, decent, humane people, I’d come to know and love a little bit, wanted only the best for everyone they met. And nothing surprised them more than people who didn’t. Like Americans. That was what it had always meant to be civilized, in the final analysis. That is why we shared something, me this frail exile, and these gentle, wise Europeans. And America, perhaps, had never crossed that line at all.

Umair June 2020