Nothing loves what is dead like the First Order. A world conceived out of passion for the rotting corpse of the Empire and founded by her widowers—necrophiliacs, to a man. It’s a perversity that shows itself in odd ways, flickering through high ceremonies and the songs they sing. A world caught up in self-loathing for its own existence, a New Republican reporter wrote once. Survivor’s guilt given a permanent residence.
The article was widely touted, might have even won the Regaal Prize—Leia vaguely remembers reading about it over her morning caf, and resisting the urge to throw her datapad at the wall. (Instead, she threw the mug of caf, startling Han and making Ben scream. Maker, won’t someone think of the poor ex-Imperials? Leia had snarled, nostrils flaring. They’re so sad they lost their oppressive empire.)
FN-2187 does not remember reading it, mostly because he didn’t. The article was published to a New Republican holochannel, and never made it past the Order’s censors. It was deemed dangerous for public consumption—not for alleging that the First Order considered living a kind of cowardice, but for the suggestion there was anything at all strange about that.
The holonews reporter never saw any of the stormtrooper training facilities. By design—the First Order’s leaders were perverse, not stupid. They knew what story would be written, if he had seen all those warm-blooded bodies under the tyranny of the grave.
It would have been a very different article.
.
Finn remembers the way Slip wanted to die. And Zeroes. And Ace and Ello and Four—they’d discussed it enough, in whispers after lights-out, or during meals, their heads bent together and eyes bright, hard, planning for fire and glory. Though Crisper had always wanted to go in a daring undercover mission, like in the Black Ops propos—and Ohs had liked the idea of hand-to-hand combat with a dangerous rebel, a vibroblade to the gut.
(You just like that because it’d give you a chance to get out a dramatic speech, Ace had laughed, and Ohs had scowled and flicked protein flakes in her hair.)
Even he and Rey had discussed it, over the patchy transmissions sent between D’Qar and Ahch-To. I used to know for sure, she writes. I’d grow old, too old to scavenge, and then I’d starve. Or I’d fall, and break a hip, a leg, a spine, and starve. Or I’d fall ill, and if the poison in my blood didn’t take me, I’d starve.
But I don’t know anymore, she writes.
When he asks Poe how he wants to die, Poe blanches, the humor vanishing from his expression. What? Why would you ask that?
It takes a fumbling, long and terrible explanation, with Finn backtracking desperately and Poe struggling to keep all emotion out of his eyes. What was yours? he asks, after Finn has finished, and they’re sitting in awkward silence. Finn is trying not to notice how white Poe’s knuckles are, where he clutches the mug of caf.
My what?
The death you wanted.
Finn blinks. He lived on the edges of those conversations, FN-2187 with no nickname; no one’s ever—asked him before. He answers without thinking: I didn’t…I didn’t want to die.
.
Death is a flat plain endlessly, a stormtrooper sings, my voice opens and calls you in.
Hail, hail, the line of troopers answers as it marches; death, we come in.
.
Finn spends the entirety of the Resistance funeral sweating cold and shaking, his hands fisted so tightly that his nails leave crescent-marks on his palms. Afterwards, he has to excuse himself to the refresher, and his knees give out under him.
He cries, something hollow and yet heavy in the pit of his stomach. (No one is there to see, so he laughs too, against his fist, wild and terrible, an animal sound.) I guess there’s something the First Order does better, he says bitterly, to no one in particular.
.
When Leia mentions going back to collect the dead, Finn stares at her like she’s suggested he split open his ribcage and hand her his still-beating heart. Are your orders unclear, Lieutenant Finn? she asks, and he quickly schools his face back into blank stillness.
No, General.
Still, he stares throughout, they fold hands over bellies and shut unseeing eyes. (He twitches, whenever this is done, but Leia could not say why.) Even when he helps—he’s not squeamish, not the way Leia used to be around the dead—he stares, as though he can’t follow the sense in what his hands are doing.
The sun is much lower in the lavender sky when Leia comes to stand beside him. He is staring down at the blue-shrouded body frowning, a faint line between his brows.
It’s rare, that we have the chance to do this, Leia says, and Finn blinks at her. Often battlefields are compromised, we can’t…go back. X-wings are built to implode upon impact. Most of the time, our dead are lost to us.
(A field of rubble, where Alderaan hung amid the stars.)
Do you—believe they’re still in there? Finn asks tentatively, glancing down at the shrouded body.
No, they’re dead.
Why, then?
The First Order never retrieved bodies? He shakes his head, and Leia considers this for a moment. What did you do with the armor of dead troopers?
Finn blinks. If it was still in—working condition, their squad got first pick. I had a…a friend’s armguards.
Leia nods. The principle is the same. It’s easier, when there’s something to hold. Otherwise it’s just absence. Open wounds heal more slowly.
Finn’s expression flickers on ‘heal’, and his mouth shapes the word almost uncomprehendingly, trying to sound out a strange language. (She wonders how they speak about mourning in the First Order—necrophiliacs, she suddenly remembers. Then she wonders if they mourn at all.)
Yes, General, Finn says, finally. I understand.
They stand there together in the gathering violet dusk, as the bodies are carried up from the dust.
look i don’t know anyone who could realistically walk around in those but it wouldn’t even matter bc if you put them on everyone in a mile radius will feel a chill run down their spine and not even know why
Listen this is very specific and never gonna happen but I would like Isabella in Still Star-Crossed to appear in these.
You wake up with two small lumps on your back, just around your shoulder blades. Your friend has a similar dilemma, however, theirs are on their forehead, and look like zits. Small horns protrude from theirs, while feathers come from yours.
Within a month, you have large, white, dove wings, while your friend has long, curly horns. Turns out, you’re an angel, they’re a demon, and you’re supposed to fight. But you both’d rather just go see a movie.
she looks like the way summer tastes. but she’s my best friend. she’s just my best friend, and this entire thing is too cheesy.
she’s spitting up into the sink. blood has been in her mouth a lot ever since the teeth starting coming in. “do you think teething is like?” she lisps around a sore tongue “permanent?”
i’m scrubbing at my eyes. i’m allergic to certain animal dander. my body has been going through shock; fever on, fever off. the truth is that human bodies don’t like foreign cells inside of themselves.
“you know,” i say, “i wrote this story once.” the movie ended a while ago but we had to wait until the bathroom was empty. if we’re lucky, people just think we’re cosplaying. we locked the door behind us.
“my mouth hurts,” she says.
“i was like, twelve,” i say. i feel like there are mites, always, everywhere, crawling all over me. the other day a third set of eyes started growing in my hands. i’m not used to it yet and i get a lot of vertigo and 3D glasses per pair are super expensive. “it was bad.”
“i mean,” she pauses. “we look stupid.” for a second, the fire on her starts again, and she swears while she puts it out. i meanwhile send her another “i can be ur angle or yuor devil” meme, leaning against the counter while she again washes her mouth out.
“it was stupid,” i say. “i didn’t even know the word nephilim, like some kind of pleb.”
“get wrecked, twelve-year-old you,” she says.
i’ve learned a lot these past few months, have scoured the bible sixteen times. “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” Genesis 6:4. Maybe that’s us. Or maybe we’re in the X-Men. If it wasn’t for the creepy voice who told us otherwise, we have no evidence.
i have trouble looking at her sometimes. not because she’s so different now, but because she makes my heart swell up like balloon. like an explosion. like heavenly light.
she makes eye contact with my original set. i feel my hearts start revving. she smiles at me in that way that makes me forget about wings and horns and eternal forces.
“i liked the movie, though,” i blurt.
“ugh!” she rolls her eyes, drying her hands by shaking them off. they again ignite, and she swears again, clapping them out. “it was bad, ray.”
i laugh, we head out. two girls in a jeep with too many layers for the heat. i can’t drive anymore, i’m too distracted by the extra eyes. she does better but has to stop sometimes to put out fires.
she pulls off on the lookout by the watertower to shake a few teeth loose. i stretch and almost fall over, unused to a new body and no balance. my bones are hollowing.
“was that crack your wrist?” she asks.
“yuh,” i say, holding it.
“yuck,” she says, “sounds broken.”
“might be,” i’m biting my tongue, “it’s lit.”
she comes over to examine it. “broken,” she says. she glows in the darkness, but i don’t know if that’s literally her or just how i see her, all alight with life and perfect. she helps me wrap it. we sit on the hood of her car and look out to the forest below us. we sip snapple i stole. i hear my bone heal. we both ignore the noise it makes.
“that guy is kind of a dingus,” i say. i put on a deep voice, “Thou must wage in the eternal war. Put on Earth so that thy may Know; as above and so below.”
“might not be a guy,” she says. “very gender-specific of you, ray.”
“my apologies,” i say to the sky, “that was crass of me. you can be whatever gender you want, giant sky voice. or many genders. or all. whatever works.”
“i’m still like… what the hell does that middle part about knowing mean. like. also. crack open a grammar book for the modern century.”
i “hmm” into my snapple. my running theory is that our time spent as mortals meant we knew what it was exactly we were fighting for. i don’t tell her this because my entire evidence is how i feel about her, is how every day with her made it worth it, how being her best friend was the best experience i ever had. but like. it’s chill.
“it’s a broken capitalist heaven economy,” i say. “war eternal?”
she laughs. i love it when she laughs. “at least you can be sure you’re going to the place that profits off of all of this,” she says. “heaven’s got the big guy.”
i make a note in the back of my throat and face her. “you don’t know that,” i whisper, “we’ve talked about this.”
she laughs in a new way, a sad one, staring out ahead of her. “yeah, you and your bible. ‘angels and demons are the same species but separated geospatially,’ blah blah blah, either one of us could be the damned soul, blah blah blah.”
“hey, i did research,” i say. “and i’m right, a lot of angels are…”
“goatish? have devil horns? light on fire?”
“micheal was like, forty to ninety percent fire.”
“micheal also was like, always an angel. he don’t need to question anything. fire? sure, he good. he was born angel.”
“i don’t know they’re like, born,” i say. i look up at her. “but i’m serious. i got like sixteen eyes and counting -”
“nine, you have nine”
“and like that’s not counting the spiritual aspect of this whole thing since -“
“oh my god, ray,” she says, sighing, “not this whole ‘morally impure’ thing again.”
“i’m just saying,” i don’t like how upset she is, but the more i try to fix it, the worse it is, “i’m not, like, a good person! i’m -” i stop myself two milliseconds before finishing the loaded end of that sentence about her, and how i feel, and the terrible gap before us.
she whips around and looks at me. just really looks, like i’m pinned there by her. for a second, she’s my best friend, not angel or demon, and she’s glaring.
“that’s not true and you know it,” she says, her voice barely over a whisper, “don’t say that kind of thing about yourself.”
i sigh and pull my hair, dropping her gaze. “i’m sorry,” i say, “i’m just… this whole thing is messed up and, like… i’m not… an angel, i guess.”
“i thought you said that the original angels were all-powerful and scary,” she says, “that purity was a new myth.”
i stare at her. how do i explain to my best friend that i’m taking advantage of her just by being around her; how every time she hugs me i mean more by it, how holding hands with her gives me little shocks that keep me happy.
“you know what?” she says, kicking off the hood, “fuck this, let’s go back to my place and let’s get drunk.”
we do.
late in the night i wake up and she’s not in bed anymore. i’m still drunk and my mouth feels like a trash bin. i blink in the light of her room, grab my toothbrush, put toothpaste on both tongues as an appetizer, just to dispel the taste. stretch the gross chicken-finger nubs of a sore back with six pairs of soon-to-be wings and stumble to her bathroom.
she’s sitting on the floor and her horns are gone. bandages bloodied with green ooze sit around her. black scars hide up in her hairline.
“how’s it going?” she says casually.
i drop everything onto the sink and drop to her side. “oh my god,” i whisper, my hands touching her warm skin, “what happened?”
she looks at me. our faces are so close i have to stop myself from shaking, but the more i look at what she’s done, the worse i feel for her. i push back her matted hair and reach for new gauze to wipe away the blood she missed. her hand loops gently around one of my wrists, not restraining, just comforting.
“it’s okay, ray,” she says softly, “i found a tutorial on the internet. how to cut off goat horns. it didn’t hurt that bad, i promise. like, when we pierced our own cartilage back in middle school hurt a lot worse.”
i stare at her. “you cauterized your own wounds and you expect me to calm down.” i clean up her face frantically. i feel tears, but i’m not sure in which pair of eyes.
“i didn’t say i cauterized anything.”
“it’s clear!” i almost burst into a thousand pieces, holding her round face in my hands, struggling to lower my voice, “it’s clear.”
“i’m okay,” she says, half-smiling, “i’m okay.”
“you should have woken me up,” i say. “what kind of -“
she kisses me and i understand why she’s got the power of fire. if i immolate, i don’t notice. we move from bathroom floor to hallway to bedroom. her hands and my hands and our bodies almost feel human.
when we finally separate, her voice is low. “fuck,” she says, “i wasn’t supposed to do that. you weren’t supposed to know.”
i’m breathless. i can’t form words. “know…?” i manage.
she leans in. kisses me again. “i like you, ray,” she whispers, “i like you a lot, you giant six-winged bug.”
“in a gay way?” i ask.
she laughs. “the gayest.”
“okay,” i say. i’m shaking. “because, like, i like you too. like. in the gay way.” my voice sounds different, high and tense and fluttery. almost too loud, even though we’re both whispering.
“your wings kind of look like chicken fingers,” she says, “or like, really big nipples.”
“you know,” i say, “i think the same thing.” i stare at her. all of my eyes, on her, on this girl, on the girl i can’t have, on the girl i couldn’t have even if we weren’t magical beings from a metaphysical plane, because we’re best friends and that matters more than anything.
i think of us and of our future and of her, surrounded by the pieces of her horns, and of my wings, and of the world. i think of the bad movie we watched and how it was good because she was next to me. i think of the words of the giant sky voice and how we’re supposed to fight in an eternal war and how i do know, how i’ve always known, how love was the only thing that was worth fighting for, how she has always been my angel. how i would tear heaven down in order to have her and that’s how i know: i’m the one who fell long ago.
she deserves heaven and holy and the best things. she deserves more than a twelve-year-old’s silly plotline, more than to be forced into fate, more than to be a drafted soldier. she deserves a better life than this.
look out, god, i think, i’ve got a hell of a bone to pick.
“i love you,” i whisper, “and i have loved you for a long time.”
she kisses me.
in the morning, i’m gone.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH What the fuck AAAAAAH This is glorious!
billionaire could give me %.01 of his wealth and change my life while he is virtually unaffected.
0.01% of $1,000,000,000 is $100,000.
Which, for some people, is as much as they’d make in five years of 60 hour weeks of labor.
And this is one hundredth of one percent of the bare minimum of being a billionaire.
Also, if the billionaire has a decent bank account setup (which, let’s face it, billionaire has), that $100,000 will just come back the next time interest happens. It is a perpetually regenerating $100,000.
With $100,000 I could fix my credit, buy a house in my family’s hometown and a car, drive back there to live, and have a small cushion left over to get me through till I find a local job—which wouldn’t have to be high-paying, mind, since my house would be paid off. If I brought my mom with me, she could afford to quit her three jobs and start collecting on her Social Security. We could live quite well and I might not even have to finish college to get a job with a wage that would pay our bills and expenses. “Life-changing” is no exaggeration.
reasons USA capitalism and especially “trickle down economics” are both bullshit: because they allow situations like this
Obligate note that everyone is hot and I am
having A Rough Time. Especially Romeo
and Rosaline. Damn. Relatedly, I’d die for Rosaline. DAMN.
Lovin’ that character interpretation
and her friendship with Juliet. I
couldn’t give less of a damn about Benvolio/Rosaline, but give me all of
Escalus cutting out his own heart to save Verona and Rosaline hating herself
for not being able to hate him. The
scene of them in the church was some good shit.
This was EXACTLY the overwrought historically
inaccurate Shakespeare nonsense I hoped it would be, frankly. Sweeping beautiful visuals, sudden closeups
for theatrical one-liners, slightly confused plotline timing, and The Drama™. Good stuff.
I don’t generally care for versions of Romeo and
Juliet where the love story is played straight (Shakespeare wrote it as a
tongue-in-cheek tragedy, a lot of the narrative makes more sense with that
perspective, and the love-at-first-sight angle is kind of desperately overplayed
and therefore I Do Not Care) but I’m willing to roll with it because I knew
what I was getting into. And like they
do a decent job with it, it’s very tragic, Juliet is good, I like her, Romeo’s
death is nicely done. Kinda annoyed that
Juliet poisons herself rather than stabbing herself because I like the tragedy
of “I will kiss thy lips//Haply some poison yet doth hang on them.”
That being said, I think it was a narratively
good move to add some additional weight to the Montague/Capulet feud. Like, on the one hand, yes, folks are being
murdered in your streets, that is Not Good, but also let’s…have a solid reason
for the Prince to care, seeing as
that’s the whole plot of this show. And
it being Italy in the 16th century, concerns about a power grab by
the winning family are pretty legit. (I’ve
watched a lot of Borgias lately.)
ANTHONY. STEWART.
HEAD. AS LORD CAPULET. Aw man y’all the part of me that really
enjoyed the first two and a half seasons or so of Merlin (another show I have
Opinions on) as a terrible romp through somewhat bastardized Arthuriana is real
excited right now.
Glad to see Paris is a dick. Very pleased.
The all out riotous brawl at the funeral was
honestly the top thing on my wish list for this show and I feel intensely
gratified to have gotten it.
The line “Escalus, Verona is burning” was my fucking shit to be
honest. Like, damn, son, Isabella is
Athena, the clear-eyed goddess of wisdom and war, and I feel like the world
deserves to see her with a sword in her hand.
Here is my #1 Complaint: they seem to have
accidentally switched Benvolio and Mercutio’s personalities. This is not to say that Benvolio is
necessarily the voice of reason in the play (it’s a play of Bad Choices), but
Mercutio is 100% the “I am drunk at 10 AM,” Do It For The Vine friend. I got to the scene where Mercutio dies before
I realized that the other guy wasn’t Mercutio, and I was solely tipped off by
the fact that I knew Mercutio died. I
get it that they clearly wanted some sort of bad boy thing to be happening
here, but I’m so salty about this. Like,
why WOULDN’T you want Benvolio to be loyal and honest and grief-stricken and desperate
to do right by his best friends’ deaths for this thoughtless crusade? Romeo, the hopeless romantic, and Mercutio,
the laughing rogue, both dead from this hopeless feud, and Benvolio, true and dependable
as good steel, the last one left alive, who will see it mended if it kills him
but who can’t quite forget his friends’ voices enough to marry a woman he doesn’t
love. Like, what part of that DOESN’T
sound like good shit.
….I mean…personal headcanon that he’s drowning
himself in alcohol and misery because Mercutio doesn’t love him, and that he
doesn’t care what happens to him afterward because Mercutio is dead. Like, that’s the only way I can reconcile the
dude in the show and the play character.
But whatever that’s just me.
Ultimate conclusion: 10/10 on The Drama™, but it ain’t exactly Sense8 for structure or narrative cohesion. Will I show my Shakespeare nerd parents? Jury’s out. Will I continue watching it? HELL YES.
I JUST HAD TO CLOSE MY EYES FOR A SECOND AND LIKE……..DIGEST THIS WHA T THE HELL
You know why
clowns actually originated in egypt to entertain royalty- they wore weird masks and imitated gods. there were also clowns in ancient china, greece, and italy. it wasn’t “black face and then switched to white face” like i saw in the notes– the clown white paint was invented in 1801.
the big, red nose is associated with alcoholism/being drunk (heavy alcohol usage can lead to severe rosacea and swelling of the nose), because drunkards in ye olde times were seen as fun for the whole family. the overlined lips create an exaggerated smile). curly or big hair was seen as whimsical and fun, as was a lack of hair (if you look up ‘vintage clowns’, you’ll see their hair is puffed out to the sides or upwards. nowadays, people probably wear afros because they’re cheap, and don’t involve lots of styling.
i am passionate about clowns
They are a terrifying breed of monster, and must be eradicated from the face of the earth, but it’s relieving to know they weren’t born from a place of racial prejudice.
