We are one Iowa caucus into the absolute shitshow that is going to be the US 2024 elections, and I'm already sick of seeing takes downplaying the risk that Trump and his fascist followers represent.
Look. Around 1900, my mother's grandparents immigrated to the Lower East Side of New York City. They brought with them children born in Europe (Poland? Ukraine? which country they were in depends on what year we're talking about) - we're not 100% sure they were THEIR children, even, but there were three, and they were young, and they came. But my great-grandparents had siblings, parents, cousins, uncles, aunts, huge families. And while my understanding is that an attempt was made to convince those folks to move to the US, none of them ultimately opted to.
They all kept in touch as they were able, exchanging letters and pictures, but through World War 1, through the 20s, through the Great Depression, through the worsening situation in Europe in the 1930s, my entire extended family who chose not to immigrate...continued to stay.
I think we all know how this story ends.
I have an entire family photo album of people whose names I will never know, because after every single one of them died in the Holocaust, my great-grandparents and grandparents couldn't bear to even label them. And they were PEOPLE, poor, vibrant, eager to maintain connections with their loved ones abroad. One was a Klezmer musician, and we have photos of him with all the different instruments he played. They're so real on the page, and they all ended in ashes.
And you know how that started? Fascism started with every inch allowed, with every well-intentioned moderate who tried to maintain a middle position even as the whole ground shifted right beneath their feet and even "middle" became extreme, every "no that change isn't coming fast enough, I want instant full improvement NOW" liberal who felt that doing nothing was better than accepting a slower improvement in the (truly awful!) post-World War 1 living situation in Germany.
Most of the members of my extended family also downplayed the risks. They never imagined that the worst could happen to them. They never fathomed how bad things could become.
And now I have their example always before me to know and to scream:
I KNOW HOW BAD THINGS CAN BECOME. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FAMILY THEN.
I WILL NOT LET THAT HAPPEN TO MY FAMILY NOW.
People look at me like I'm crazy when I say I've got our passports ready (and have had since before the 2020 election).
Look. I don't know what will happen if Trump is elected, but there's a very real possibility he will, and he's been extremely clear about saying what he'll do. He did a lot of the things he said he'd do last time. I expect he'll continue to do the things he says he'll do. And the things he say he'll do will lead to the deaths of more people than we can imagine - in the US, in Palestine, throughout the world.
Don't tell me there's a middle ground here. Don't tell me I'm over-reacting. Don't tell me the worst won't happen. Don't tell me the risk is mild. Don't tell me we're safe.
We. Are. Not. Safe.
The lives of dozens, hundreds, of members of family were lost in the 1940s amid the horrifying statistic "6,000,000 dead Jews."
I will not let my life (as a Jew), my wife's life (as a disabled woman), my son's life (as a biracial boy), my daughter's life (as a biracial trans girl), be part of the statistics that come from our a second Trump presidency.
If you won't vote like YOUR life depends on it, vote like someone ELSE'S life depends on it, because IT DOES.
And if you can't even do that much, at least shut the fuck up and stop spreading your poison around. You're wrong. The danger is real. Downplaying it now won't make your conscience feel any clearer when it actually happens, and comforting everyone else downplaying it will just make you that much more complicit.
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"I forgive you."
It came out like a blood clot—like an artery dripping gore—like an oil spill. Crowley felt his shoulders rise, fall, fall, fall. The air between them hummed, the tension of six thousand years turning every atom electrified and silently screaming.
Breath shuddered out of him, human and terrible and hollowing. He had never been more grateful for the swallowing darkness of his glasses, for the way they hid the centuries of pre-emptive grief and wicked terror. The air was suffocating, the once familiar bookshop turned catacomb.
And then, hating himself for it but seeing no other way forward, he spoke the words aloud.
"Don't bother".
And then he was out in the middle of Soho and the breeze was harsh against his too-warm skin. Stepping out into the sun felt like rising to the surface of some great ocean—the gasping, desperate feeling in his lungs, the sudden crash of noise. A woman across the street called for her wife. A car horn. A dog barking. Laughter, cruel and far-off. He pulled breath into lungs that didn't need it, winced as he felt slivers of cold drive into the soft flesh of his throat.
So that was it; five and a half million years of want and need and burning, aching somedays, cyphered pleas for "our side". All gone in the space between shaking half-breaths and a kiss still seared against his lips.
Fuck it.
He'd ruined it the first time, had forced them both to look directly into the sun, to face the thing they'd been dancing around for the better part of six millennia. He could do better—would do better.
At a music café some years ago, a human had been playing the piano—something soft and slow. A jazz number, if the demon remembered correctly. But the remarkable thing wasn’t the song itself, but that they were playing it with their eyes closed. Aziraphale had pointed this fact out to Crowley, excitement lilting in his voice (even then, the sound had thrilled him, sent a stab of warmth through his heart). It was only after the final note reverberated through the room that the artist opened their eyes, blinking in the sudden rush of stage lights. Aziraphale, ever the music connoisseur, approached the musician. The pianist had explained that, for them, reading music never came easy. Rather, they learned by touch, by the way the keys felt on their fingertips. In fact, the only way they could play a song was with their eyes closed. If they watched their hands as they played or thought too hard about their next move, they got confused and tripped over the notes. Muscle memory, they’d said.
It was muscle memory—the galactic familiarity of finding the space between seconds and prying—that guided Crowley now. He hadn’t done it since Not-Armageddon, but it came easily to him just the same. Time, you see, operates kind of like sound, like music; it loops and sways and carries forward in waves. If you know where to look (as the demon did), you can disrupt the flow, send it back towards the shore.
And this was what Crowley did now. Drawing his hands through the ripples of minutes and seconds and hours and millennia, time stilled around him. It was natural. Easy, like breathing or sleeping. Or loving Aziraphale.
Slowly, the world turned backwards; humans retreating from whence they came, cars driving in reverse, the wind blowing in the opposite direction. If Heaven had taken notice of their "half-a-miracle", Crowley expected them to be able to see this from every edge of the universe. He likely only had one shot at this.
The world aligned itself once more, and time returned to its regular, steady gait—a rubber band snapping back into place. Something hummed in Crowley’s chest. Something bright and burning and the shape of a neutron star.
Hands shaking, he reached for the handle of the bookshop and pushed. The bell above the door rang, clear and and too-loud in the morning air.
Aziraphale whirled around, a trembling half-smile on his face. Oh. Oh, somebody, this was going to be harder than he thought. It felt like all the oxygen, all the courage, had been punched clear out of him
"Crowley!"
A beat, a shuddering breath. "Angel". He pressed his still-trembling hands into his pockets and strode forward.
"Oh, Crowley, dear, I've been looking for you. I have excellent news."
His stomach did a little flip, something deep within him growing hollow and fearful. "We have to talk," he managed to choke out around the heart still lodged in his throat.
"Yes, I quite think we do. I have something to tell you." Aziraphale strode forward, all grins and beauty like a flickering star, all plasma and heat. He could practically feel the agitated warmth roll off of his angel. Crowley shivered. "I just met with the Meta—”
"No. Wait," the demon held up a hand, pausing the rushing torrent of Aziraphale’s words. "Just let me say my thing, please."
"My dear boy, just—oh, what is that lovely human expression—"
"Hold that thought," Crowley muttered. His eyes burned behind his glasses. Aziraphale looked pleasantly taken aback.
"Yes, how did you know? I—"
"No."
The angel's eyebrows crinkled in confusion. "No?"
"No," he repeated, enunciating each letter with perfect clarity. He was going to do it right this time. He was going to keep him from leaving. He could be good. Right? "I’m gonna speak, and I want you to listen to me without interrupting, m'kay?" Words were building in the basin of his sternum now, pushing up on his airways. He was going to have to say it outright this time; no more waltzing around this frenzied galaxy of emotion. Willing his hands to steadiness, he pulled his glasses from his face, and tucked them into the collar of his shirt.
Aziraphale's breath seemed to catch for a moment, meeting the ferocity of the demon's gaze head-on. A deer in headlights. And then, "Crowley, I really—"
(Eons hurtled through his mind in a split second, the serrated knife's-edge of want like a being all its own. Aziraphale in the garden. Aziraphale in the tavern, on the cliffside, on the West End stage, in the Bentley, in the bookshop, in the very marrow of Crowley’s bones.)
"I love you," he rasped, ichor writhing in his veins.
There, he'd said it., said it fully and completely, without so much as flinching. It was the same love he'd expressed for the past several thousand years in a million little, unspoken ways: an ox rib, a revolution, a church, a burning bookshop and the bottom of a glass and a lost best friend. A yellow Bentley, a lifetime of tethering his life to Aziraphale's, of trailing after him like a moth to flame—like a dog to its owner.
"I love you," he pushed on. They were both looking directly into the sun again, Crowley urging them to stare straight into the heat of it all. The words were spilling out of him now, a heaving, thrashing current falling to the bookshop's hardwood floors. "I love you and you can't go to Heaven."
Aziraphale froze, pupils blown wide and unblinking, for just a moment. Tension stretched out like a thread between them. And then he pulled in breath like a drowning man (who wasn't really a man at all), and tears were gathering in the corner of his eyes, and oh god, he'd made his angel cry.
Fear and guilt and horror slammed into him at a million kilometers an hour and left him halfway between dizzy and nauseous. His fingers tensed at his side, desperate to do something, fix what he'd so obviously broken. Heaven would be on the front step any moment. It was too late, wasn't it? It was always too late.
"Crowley—what?" Aziraphale breathed, mouth twisting into a brutal, terrible, heart-wrenching sob. Crowley ached, panic lancing through him like a knife. "I—I really, I can't. You could come with me." He stepped forward, moving to place his hands on the demon's shoulders.
Crowley leaned into the touch, almost unconsciously. "Don't go," he croaked, tears beginning to prick his own eyes once again. This time he didn't reach for his glasses, didn't try to hide his fear. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. And then Aziraphale could hate him and his desperate, hungry, reverent love in the aftermath. "Don't go where I can't follow. Please".
His angels blue-grey eyes searched his own, and the weight of his gaze was impossibly heavy, pressing down on his chest like a river-smoothed rock.
"Crowley, please. I don't understand. The Metatron said—" His palms found the sides of Crowley's throat, thumbs resting gently on the side of his jaw.
Crowley sucked in a breath. "Angel," The scent of earl grey—of old books and soft tartan chairs. Aziraphale's hands were shaking. "I know what the Metatron said," he intoned, soft as rainfall. "You can't go. It's not—they won't change. You're better than that."
"But you could be an angel. With me," he murmured, soft thumbs running across sharp cheekbones. "Be my second-in-command."
"Don't want to be. Want t' be an us," he felt tears—traitorous, burning tears tip over the edge of his lashes and fall against his face.
"Crowley, darling, please." A beat. "I love you."
The bottom of the world dropped out from under him in that moment. Aziraphale loved him. He loved him and he'd said it aloud and now it was out there in the world and it was as though every nerve on his body was on fire.
His angel pushed on, "Truly, I love you. I need you with me. Please, come with me. We can do good, I know it."
He could never say no when his angel asked something of him. Especially not when his kind, gentle hands were holding him like something good, something precious. Especially not when Aziraphale had just admitted to needing him, had injected the word with so much warmth he thought his all-too-human heart might beat clear out of his chest.
But there was a first (technically, second) time for everything.
He drew in a heavy breath, and tilted his head, breaking his angel's hold on him. Aziraphale's hands—now empty, still shook. He made a soft whimpering sound, and Crowley ached to kiss his fingertips, banish the fear. But instead, he looked up towards the ceiling, to a God who was not there—who maybe had never been there at all. He felt the Heavenly Host drawing near, a sense of hollow emptiness, the scent of absence. This was the time of last-ditch efforts, of holding his heart out and hoping Aziraphale might take it as it was, bruised spots and all.
"I can't. I won't. I need to be here, on Earth, with you."
"Crowley, please. I don't think you understand what I'm offering you," he huffed.
A residual shard of anger stabbed at him then, and he turned his gaze sharply back to the angel before him. "Oh, I understand perfectly well, angel. I'm fairly certain I understand better than you do."
Aziraphale's mouth drew into a thin line, tears welling fresh in his eyes again. And still, Crowley ached.
A beat. Something in the angel shifted, then, turned on its edge—the walls beginning to go up again, and it was just like it had been not fifteen minutes ago. He was watching the same moment play out over and over again; some cyclical, torrential nightmare.
"I would like you to come with me, but," Aziraphale paused, voice breaking in the middle. "But I'm leaving, with or without you."
And there it was, like it was predestined. Despite the love, despite the want, despite every shared bottle passed between them, every half-accidental touch and glance and whispered word—despite the way he would’ve let Aziraphale run a sword through his chest...
It wasn't enough. It was never enough.
They were re-enacting their old magic trick, right there in the bookshop, this time with Crowley staring down the barrel, letting Aziraphale pull the trigger. Aim for my mouth, but shoot past my ear. Aziraphale wasn't shooting past his ear. His bloody ribcage felt as though it might splinter apart.
Wingbeats in the distance, a grief wide enough to drown the sea. Crowley reached down, pulled his sunglasses from their resting spot against his clavicle. And then the hunger in his eyes was once more hidden, and he was walking towards the door like a man headed to execution.
"Crowley—" Aziraphale nearly keened, the wall crumbling for a split second.
Without turning, Crowley said the only words he could think of.
"I forgive you."
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In rewatching s8 i have some thoughts. Why it didn’t work as an ending, and what i think could have been changed.
WARNING THIS POST IS LONG AS FUCK, so strap in if you’re interested.
- The feel of the writing is distinctly off. Not bad, but it doesn’t feel like you’re watching Voltron anymore. It feels grittier and more like a high stakes adult animation than the other seasons. Which, again, isn’t necessarily bad, but the shift is too quick and it could have been executed better if they spent more time digging into the individual characters and their growth during s6/7.
- The issue of ‘there’s always a bigger enemy’ starts to make the plot feel stale. You get bored of a bigger robot, higher stakes, more to lose. They start killing people and planets for a cheap audience reaction when we weren’t all that invested in the first place. It felt like a split second decision by the writers to destroy Olkarion. Something like that needs to be pencilled in from the beginning. There were too many attacks on Olkarion, and as a consequence we got too used to seeing it’s people in peril. There should’ve been a distinct shift where we, as the audience, realised Voltron wasn’t going to be there to save them this time. Whether that’s a writing, animation or atmospheric issue i’m unsure. Maybe it’s just a me thing.
- The Atlas should never have been able to transform. That for me was the biggest investment turn off. Why do we need Voltron anymore if there’s a bigger, stronger robot on their side? If they were going to replace the castle, they should have made it clear and stuck with the intention. That’s not a support ship anymore, that’s something else entirely. I’d gladly watch a show JUST about the Atlas, with Shiro at the helm, but it’s not Voltron.
- Too many things happen at once, and it’s massively convoluted. 13 episodes is not enough time to: introduce a romance, have me actually care about that romance, kill off a main character, form a new version of voltron, redeem three main antagonists, AND cutely tie up all the glaring plot holes of the show. S8 needed to be two seasons at least. If things were spread out and more passion was pumped into the writing, it could’ve worked.
- Allura’s character was ruined. She became a nagging, reckless, martyred love interest. I love her dearly, i have from S1, but they did her SO dirty. Lance, too. They both deserved better.
- I think, personally, that Sendak should’ve been the final villain. Not Honerva. Her arc was rushed and her CORE motivation made little sense. They used the flimsy excuse of her corruption to redeem her love for Lotor, and his name was literally raked through hell and back for a very mediocre payoff. If that was the plan from the start, it needed to be hinted at more.
- There was too much, as i call it, flip-flopping. The alteans are alive, now they’re evil, now they’re not. We can’t get into Oriande, but now we can! Personally, i need explanations, and strict universal rules. If those rules are to be broken for whatever reason - it has to be a show stopping exception and a main event. Everything is excused and explained away when it doesn’t make any sense.
- Now, i actually really likes the subtle art style and animation adjustments in the season, visually it was spectacular so i have no critiques there. If only the plot could have done its outer shell some justice.
AND GET LANCE OFF THAT DAMN FARM.
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MK+ Reflections
(1x00 A Hero is Born)
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MK: “I just...I don’t want to let my friends down, you know? [...] But it’s too hard! I’m just one guy.”
(1x02 Duplicatnation)
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(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)
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Mirror MK: “Ugh, Stop that! Listen, every time we get in trouble we turn to Monkie King or our friends or someone—they tell us a story and we find that smidge of motivation we need. Well! Now we’re on our own. It’s just you.”
(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)
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“I gained a new power!”
“The power...of self-reflection”
(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen) (This one is an honorary mention)
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(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)
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(2x02 Dumpling Destruction)
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Lady Bone Demon: “Whatever she’s planning, it’s all to do with that. I- I’ve seen you use your staff, surely you could use it to smash that thing?”
(2x05 Minor Scale)
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Mirror MK: “No, stop! What are you doing!”
(2x05 Minor Scale)
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MK: “This is the trigram furnace, from the celestial realm! How is this-”
“...Trust your instincts.”
(2x05 Minor Scale)
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(2x05 Minor Scale)
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Totally Not Macaque: “The Hero and the Warrior were like the sun and the moon, their light like a protective glow shining upon the world. As the hero’s light grew, so too did his shadow—and soon, the Warrior was cast into that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the Hero.”
(2x07 Shadow Play)
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(2x10 This is the End)
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Lady Bone Demon: “This is your destiny.”
(2x10 This is the End) (This isn’t MK, however MK’s self reflection is so closely tied to the celestial furnace, and LBD appears in a trigram furnace reflection so many times with MK that I am obligated to include it)
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Tang: “Um, MK? I get the feeling you aren’t telling us something.”
(2x10 This is the End)
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Tang: “My mother was right! Associate with the wrong people and see where you end up.”
(3x02 Great Grand Dragon of the East)
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MK: “It’s like a whole new me!”
(3x02 Great Grand Dragon of the East)
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Sandy: “Are we sure we’re going in the right direction?”
Tang: “Not a clue. All Monkey King said to do was head west, so-”
(3x03 Smartie Kid)
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MK: “UGH. How am I meant to fight the lady bone demon?”
(3x04 The Winning Side)
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(3x06 The First Ring)
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(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)
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Sun Wukong: “You actually might have done more for this world than I ever have!”
(4x01 Familiar Tales)
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(4x02 New Adventures)
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MK: “Remind me how this ‘game’ is supposed to convince me I’m not destined to turn into an evil demon monkey thing again? Cause, EVERY option I pick brings me to this! Same! Screen!”
(4x10 The Jade Emperor)
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Oh reflection motif, how I love you.
Interesting to note, MK’s reflection never shows up in the Demon Revealing Mirror (something that is actually, you know, a mirror). Very intriguing to think about, isn’t it?
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