A Little Bit Genghis Khan

>world settings

What always stuck me as odd about this whole thing is like, yeah, most cultures have laws against hurting and killing people?? Did they need an extra one for imprintees? "Hey, don't hurt or kill people but ESPECIALLY not these specific girls." Also there's something icky about the idea that they are a protected class because of who they are to a man vs who they are as a person in their own right and that these Indigenous characters needed a special law not to hurt women and girls. Not great.

Again, it's one of those things that seemed especially designed for the Jacob and Renesmee situation. There was no reason they would need a special law to protect your average Quileute girls who were the subject of imprinting before. They would already be familiar to the group and their whole mission is to be protectors. But boy howdy is that "you can't hurt someone's imprint, it's our most sacred law" convenient when that imprint is a blood-drinking half-vampire potential abomination that everyone wanted dead five minutes ago.

And the thing is, the whole moral quandary around Renesmee and the visiting vampires could have at least been interesting if any of the characters had been allowed to like, be more than "uncomfortable" with it. It comes back again to SM not being that interested in the Vampire Stuff. She likes the romance, she likes the super hero aspect, she doesn't really care about "hey this group of people is dedicated to the protection of human life; earlier in the SAME BOOK Sam says something along the lines of they 'protect everyone we can no matter where vampires plan to hunt.' But none of that matters with Renesmee.

This is another one of those times, like the car chase, where the narrative is telling us like "there is no other choice, this is what they must do to save Bella/Renesmee" and implies it's lowkey noble that they are willing to go to these extremes, to stretch the bounds of their beliefs, to do that, out of love for them. But the books never really convince me that this was ONLY way let alone the BEST way to help or protect those people?

I don't know where any of this is going other than, yeah, it felt contrived to force Jacob and by extension the rest of the pack to be on board with the assembly of the X-Men vampires. And for so many reasons this all feels like the least interesting way to go about any of this. The tenuous truce the Quileutes and Cullens came to in Eclipse after working together against the newborns (Paul and Emmett, Seth and Edward, Billy shaking hands with Carlisle after he treated Jacob) was way more interesting than the forced "one big happy family now!!!!" of imprinting. In Breaking Dawn, Carlisle basically tells Sam they don't need to show up for the confrontation with the Volturi, something like "don't get your family slaughtered for pride" and Sam responds that Jacob cannot abandon Renesmee and the packs cannot abandon Jacob. But he means LITERALLY. Because of the imprint, they really don't have a choice. I think it is, like you said, a biological imperative. Renesmee's destruction would equal Jacob's destruction and all the other wolves have shared the pack mind with him, so they are compelled nearly as much as he is.

This is to inform you that I didn’t die young.

i wrote this while working in a program for new writers. on wednesdays, two of the teachers would be contractually obligated to read our writing aloud to the group of 300+ teens. i had never read my work in public before. i had something like 6k poems and was panicking about it. none of them are good enough. sometimes the train is howling. it is hard, actually, sometimes, even as an adult.

and then i thought - what is one thing i wish i could tell all of them. each of these 300 kids. what did i need to hear, at 16?

i wanted to tell them about the day you wake up, and the sun feels warm finally. i wanted to tell them about carving a life out of soapstone, your hands turning bloody. i wanted to tell them that sometimes yes - it actually does feel easy. i wanted to tell them about weddings and cookie dough and long road trips. about albums of new music and old friends laughing and the sound of snow falling.

you will learn the pattern of the train. you will learn to close your eyes when you hear the engine rumbling. you will learn to let yourself have the grey days in their lily-soft numbness. sometimes it will feel like life is wet paint, and god has smeared your canvas across a sewer grate. sometimes it will be so boring it isn’t even pronounceable - the tenacious, soundless blankness. survival isn’t just ugly nights and wild mornings. it is also the steady, unimportant moments. it is just driving with your seatbelt on. it is calling a friend on the way home. it is burying your face into the fur of your dog.

when i had finished reading this poem aloud, the auditorium was silent for a solid minute. someone stood up to take a picture of where it had been projected onto a screen, and then three more people followed the action, and then - like a bad internet story, people remembered they were supposed to be clapping. kids came up to me after it - thank you for writing that. i think i hear a train coming.

i would write this differently now, i think, but it has been 7 years. i still live by the tracks. i also haven’t picked up a blade in over 10 years. the scars are still there, but these days i only pick up scissors to cut my hair. i know why you can’t tell your mom about it. i know how the numbness slips over everything, a restless horrible cotton. i know how when you dropped the dish, you weren’t crying about the broken glass. i know about feeling like all the roads have closed their exits, that you aren’t supposed to still-be-here - and yet.

i am still here, and still yours, and i haven’t forgotten. what i’m saying is if any hope is calling to you - i know it’s hard, but you have to listen. i’m saying keep driving, but slow down the car. sit down in the shower, i’m not judging you. we can stay in the dark with the good hot water and do nothing but stare. notice the stab wound. make it through another tuesday.

i know what it is like to miss yourself. do what you need to. come home to me. i am writing to you, my past self, from the future. i’ll be waiting for you.