Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: TALK TO ME ABOUT FURIOSA I LOVE HER SO MUCH

So I’ve been planning a fic for a while and I was gonna just write it here but then I realized that HA this is an ask and you seem too nice for me to dump a few (like maybe ten) thousand words in here.  So instead here are some headcanons for the fic I am writing where Max is the immortal unaging fey avatar of the desert who fetches up at people’s doorsteps and loses himself in months and lonely years without water or company, and is delighted to find Furiosa, who is growing into the immortal unaging fey avatar of green places and oases.

• Max doesn’t stay places, he leaves places, and Furiosa knows someone who leaves when she sees them.  So it shocks the hell out of her when she gets a Fury Boy (the name wasn’t her idea, it was the Dag and, well, they had to call them something other than War Boys) rushing up to her and insisting that there’s a bike coming toward them, and it’s the road warrior who fought on their side.  And she meets Max when he pulls up through the Wretched—not Wretched anymore, just people, people who look better than ever with Capable and Cheedo piecing together a cistern for the water—and he offers her the faint shadow-smile she remembers as he brings his (wrecked) bike to a halt.  He’s loaded down with a small bag of seeds, an assortment of weapons, and a sheepish expression.

• She takes herself by surprise as much as him, when she strides forward without a pause and presses their foreheads together.  His eyes are as blue and burnished as the scorched sky overhead.

• He comes back…not often, but not rarely, never gone for more than a year or so. Furiosa flatters herself that he’s glad to see her, when he returns, and her heart tightens when he begins to initiate the gentle forehead-touch of the Vuvalini.  (The third time he comes back, they have found another underground current, and they have enough water for a public bath.  She worries that Max might have drowned himself, after the third hour of him sitting in the water, but he’s still breathing.  He tells her, in his quiet, stilted way, that it’s the first time he hasn’t been thirsty in he doesn’t know how long, and she wonders about that. She wonders how he’d known that, a hundred and sixty days out, there was nothing but salt.)  

• People start to trickle in, drawn by the siren-call of water and food, because with the Wives—the Sisters, now—in charge, there is more than enough.  And Furiosa begins to hear stories, about how the Road Warrior saved people or killed tyrants or, more often than not, was dragged into a fight not his, quite against his will, and did the right thing anyway.  Here’s the thing, though.  Some of the stories are recent, just months or years past.  Others…well.  She talks to a child, who claims that her grandfather was a child when he knew Max. But Max can’t possibly be much older than she is, and she’s…Furiosa doesn’t really know.  She tries to count back in her head, but…  The Dag’s daughter Angharad is walking well, talking well, maybe seven years old.  When did that happen?  Shouldn’t Furiosa be greying, shouldn’t there be lines at her eyes and aches in her joints?

• The next time Max comes to the Citadel, she asks him how old he is.  He tells her, in his quiet way, less stilted now than when they met because he’s more at ease with her, that he doesn’t know.  But he tells her that he had a child, once, and they played in grass, and he and his wife had all the sweet clear water anyone could want.

• Furiosa goes out on a mission.  She runs out of water in a sandstorm, and she waits to die.

• She strides back into the Citadel two weeks later, and her throat is not even dry. She drinks, and it’s good, but not necessary.  Max is there, and while everyone else marvels over the fact that she’s alive, little Radi—Angharad who is not so little, who is thirteen now and as mad and gifted as her mother—touching her unlined face in wonder, Max watches her and nods.  He doesn’t need to marvel, doesn’t need to question, because he has stood in her place and felt time trickle by like water, like sand in a clenched fist.

• Furiosa remembers being a little girl, screaming for the loss of her mother and her arm and her innocence, and wishing that, if nothing else, she might live to see victory.  She has. And it seems she will live to see a good deal more.  She leaves the Citadel more and more, and she never grows thirsty, never grows tired. She has an impossible talent for finding water, for finding places where seeds will take root, and Max trails after her like a desert wraith.  (She’s not sure how long it’s been since they met, when she kisses him.  But his breath is as hot and dry as the wind under the sun, and she is growth and water and life to his desert, and he melts under her touch.)

• She leaves for good, when Radi is old enough to take her place as Fury, the Citadel’s Road Warrior, and she and Max wander.  They will not die.  The desert has been fed for too long to be taken by the green places, but life is tenacious and neither will Max’s desert swallow Furiosa’s green places whole.  It’s an uneasy truce, between his and hers, but it stands.

Anonymous asked: Okay so I'm super into weird, sort of fucked up interpersonal/political(/sexual?) dynamics so NEEDLESS TO SAY a lot of what you've said about Borgias sounds pretty up my alley, but can you give me a rundown before I sit down and burn through three seasons? Also, is it on Netflix, and if no, where can I find it?

wildehacked:

The Borgias is AMAZING, ON NETFLIX, AND FULLY AND 110% MY JAM, but that said it is super niche and I am super niche which is why I love it so. I will attempt to give you the rundown objectively! 

Things the Borgias contains: 
-crazy renaissance political intrigue 
-apparently the marketing slogan for the show was “the original crime family”, which is 100% true. There’s a very heavy mafia family vibe, and it’s not just because they’re Italian. 
-brother/sister incest. Incest between consenting adults, but incest all the same. (Also, to be fair: the incest Vibes start when Lucrezia is still fifteen, although the characters don’t do anything about it until years later.) 
-very graphic violence. Think Game of Thrones and Hannibal? (Although with a few exceptions I think the violence skews more GoT than Hannibal.) 
-multiple graphic rape scenes. They’re not filmed super grossly, in that awful Game of Thrones way, but they’re still graphic rape scenes. 
-non-graphic yet still deeply disturbing medieval torture!  
-three (3) canonically queer characters, one of whom is in a major supporting role
-so much murder
-so. much. murder. 
-queer sex scenes, although you have to wait a while for them 
-sex scenes featuring Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia Borgia, which is AMAZING
-sex scenes featuring Jeremy Irons, which is less amazing, even as I actually really love his lecherous pope 
-for a while, Luke Pasquilano being often shirtless
-Giulia Farnese’s legs, which are Quality Legs
-a badass warrior queen who at one point throws her dress up and threateningly flashes her map of tasmania at her enemies 

I feel like this is more or less the objective rundown? The unobjective rundown goes like this: 

The Borgias contains: 
-MICHELETTO CORELLA, LIGHT OF MY LIFE
-CESARE BORGIA, FIRE OF MY LOINS 
-LUCREZIA BORGIA, MY SIN MY SOUL 
-DECADENT AND LUSH CATHOLIC ICONOGRAPHY (IE PEARL-STUDDED CRUCIFIXES AND BLOOD-RED CARDINAL’S VELVET AND GIMME THEM GOLD COINS GIMME THEM COINS)
-GOOD PEOPLE DOING TERRIBLE THINGS FOR LOVE
-BAD PEOPLE DOING TERRIBLE THINGS FOR LOVE
-GOOD PEOPLE BETRAYING THE PEOPLE THEY LOVE BECAUSE OF THEIR TERRIBLE AMBITION
-BAD PEOPLE BETRAYING THE PEOPLE THEY LOVE BECAUSE OF THEIR TERRIBLE LOYALTY
-EVERYONE BETRAYING GOD AND DESPERATELY WANTING GOD AT THE SAME TIME. THEIR FAITH AND THEIR TERRIBLE LOVE LIVES FOLLOW SIMILAR TRAJECTORIES. 
-LUCREZIA’S SMALL SHARP ODDLY FRIGHTENING PEARLY TEETH
-CESARE CALLING MICHELETTO “MY SWEET ASSASSIN”
-MICHELETTO BENDING OVER A LITERAL RACK AND CALMLY ORDERING CESARE TO BEAT HIM
-CESARE’S OVERWHELMED AND HUNGRY EYES
-LUCREZIA’S SULKY MOUTH AND CHILD’S HANDS AND EQUALLY HUNGRY EYES 
-PEOPLE SO TERRIBLE THAT WHEN THEY ARE GOOD, THEIR GOODNESS SEEMS TRANSCENDANT 
-I HATE, I LOVE, I DON’T KNOW WHY IT HAPPENS, BUT I BURN. 

GODDAMN, I AM SOLD.

boys:

cabybakes:

elf-kid2:

homopower:

septemberpoems:

honeybee-x:

allboysarelovely:

if a girl is making you uncomfortable, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SAY IT.

fucking crush the stereotype that men are always supposed to “want it”

It’s really such a sad idea. I remember once with my ex, I was kissing him when we were in bed, and it started getting more heated, but I could tell it felt different. I stopped and asked if he wanted to carry on, and he said yes, but I knew him well. I had to ask again before he admitted he wasn’t really feeling it at the time. It just made me feel so bad and so upset for him. I think there’s more pressure on men to be sexual. Men love sex, they’d never want to turn it down, if they do it’s unmanly, it’s gay, it’s girly. It’s something ingrained into them from such a young age. It’s terrible and wrong. They think they have no right to not want sex.

Not all men have sky-high sex drives. I doubt any man in the world wants sex 100% of the time. It’s fine to reject it in any situation, whether a planned one night stand or a committed relationship. It’s fine to change your mind before or halfway through.

Men, it is FINE for you to not want sex, and it is FINE to say no if you want to. In fact, please do. It’s not guaranteed the other person will be able to sense your discomfort.

All of this. It’s always okay to say no, or wait, or maybe not right now or whatever it is you’re feeling.

Forever reblog.

It is always okay to say No, for any reason, and at any point.

Your feelings *always* matter.

(via clockwork-mockingbird)

taahko:

the first time chirrut touches bazes face is before they even start dating and when hes done he kinda laughs and says “i didnt need to do that. i already knew you were handsome” and baze doesnt sleep for 3 days bc hes still thinking about it

(via punkrockpatroclus)

Anonymous asked: #9, The Secret

thejakeformerlyknownasprince:

Short opinion: This is one of those books where the only thing more terrifying than the alien invasion is the planet the aliens are trying to invade.  

Long opinion:

Although it’s not my favorite of the series, this book has a lot of really cool moments, both light (Marco referencing the Ramones, Cassie’s dad making her pick up the skunk, GRAPE JUICE) and dark (Cassie’s panic after killing the termite queen, everyone’s near-death in the logging camp battle).  This plot also nicely resolves the question of why the yeerks aren’t doing more to find the “andalites” allegedly living in the area through showing that, although humans might destroy forests and shoot skunks, humans also do a lot to protect their own planet.  

Another thing I love about this book: Marco and Jake’s interaction.  It only gets mentioned a few times in this book (and comes up again a couple times later in the series), but one of my favorite Little Things from the series is Marco and Jake’s ongoing Batman vs. Spider-Man debate.  I am really fascinated that Jake argues in favor of Batman and Marco is so in favor of Spider-Man, given that Jake is a tactician who fights primarily through quick hit-and-run attacks (like Spider-Man) whereas Marco is a strategist who fights by thinking ahead of his opponents and coming up with creative ways to have them solve his problems for him (like Batman).  Maybe it’s a matter of mutual respect for one another’s abilities, or a tendency to discount their own abilities.  After all, Marco tends to describe his strategic perspective as “simple” and “clear,” whereas Jake continuously underestimates his impact on the team no matter what it is.  

Then again, maybe Jake is such a fan of Batman because Bruce Wayne is (like him) a pensive, privileged justice-fighter focused on working hard to teach himself the skills he needs to be effective at his job.  And maybe Marco sees himself in Spider-Man, since Peter Parker’s a goofy kid who gets thrown into a situation way over his head and spends the next several years flailing around trying to rise to the occasion.  Or maybe they just played too many arcade games.  Maybe they just need to watch this.  

The other scene from this book that I really love is the one where Jake finds Cassie after she falls asleep in skunk morph protecting the baby skunks and he yells at her for being careless.  She tells him she wants out of the war and that humans suck so much they might as well get taken over by yeerks; Jake calmly shuts her down when offers to go explain to Tom that he deserves to be enslaved by the yeerks according to Cassie’s philosophy.  Cassie tells Jake that she’s saving the baby skunks no matter what, to which Jake responds that in that case they’d better recruit the whole team.  

I love this scene for a couple different reasons.  For one thing, it’s refreshing to see Cassie being wrong for once.  In the series as a whole and in this book in particular there are several moments where she makes relatively dumb decisions that end up working out for her anyway (trusting Aftran, refusing to help with Taylor’s plan, letting Tom’s yeerk take the morphing cube, letting Aftran infest her, etc).  In this instance, however, Cassie nearly gets herself trapped in morph over some baby skunks, and she risks her friends’ lives when just a few minutes ago she was angry with Tobias for killing to survive.  She’s wrong, and both she and Jake acknowledge it.  

This scene is also one of the many reasons I ship Cassie and Jake: they call each other out on bad decisions and resolve their differences of opinion through talking things out.  Jake is wrong to dismiss Cassie’s concerns about the logging permits, as he freely admits later in the book.  Cassie is wrong to tell Jake that the fight doesn’t matter in a universe this brutal when (unlike him) she doesn’t have any loved ones on the line in this war.  They discuss their differences of opinion and resolve them.  

Not only do they discuss their disagreement openly, but they also both make concessions.  Cassie agrees that she needs to be a lot more careful in the future, especially with morphing time limits.  Jake agrees that (even though he doesn’t see the point) they’ll “save the lousy skunks” (#9).  They listen to each other and find a solution.  It’s a pattern that comes up several more times over the course of the series: Jake and Cassie are the only ones willing to tell each other when one of them is wrong, but always do so in a way that avoids polarization or passive aggression.  (Rachel and Tobias do not do nearly as well with this kind of conflict resolution when the circumstances arise, but that’s a whole other can of yeerks I’m not going to open here.)  

Jake and Cassie might not have a perfect relationship—it doesn’t even survive the war, and its passion pales in comparison to what Rachel and Tobias have—but they also have a healthy relationship.  Jake mentions a few times that the only time he feels able to drop the whole “I’m the leader, I feel no pain” act is when he’s alone with Cassie.  Cassie agonizes over every major decision they make but also never stops trusting that Jake knows what he’s doing when he makes a tough call.  Their arguments don’t have a single winner, and involve both of them openly confronting each other with their own points of view.  They work to understand each other, since there are a lot of things they do not have in common, and that work might make for less melodrama but also makes for better communication.

Final note: the motif of Visser Three doing dumb shit and none of the human-controllers in the immediate vicinity who must know better correcting him comes up here.  It’s another one of those Little Things that K.A. Applegate uses to speak volumes about why the yeerks lost the war just as much as the Animorphs won it.  This book shows that it’s a bad idea to behead subordinates who disagree with you, because then you end up surrounded by sycophants who never once mention that you just dyed yourself purple for no reason.