i think ppl stereotypicall think that violence cannot also be an act of love because love is like a 'good' and 'pure' thing and therefore cannot be synonymous with violence @thebubbledragon
One of my best friends sent me this while talking about a book trilogy they had just finished reading. (The Green Bone Saga for the curious.) It's become one of those things that twists and turns in my mind. It's this call that I feel like I need to write a response for. My hearts sings out with something that my mind and fingers can't quite capture yet.
I sat down earlier trying to turn a variation of "violence as an act of love" into prose. What I wanted was that to be my drum beat. Something where I dove into it with that as the singular repeating line while each paragraph answered it. Those words are still stuck as sounds and feelings.
It touched me because I write so many things where acts of violence serve as acts of love and respect and acknowledgement. Hell, sometimes it's born from a tangled sense of compassion. Between my favorite ships and settings and tropes it melds in so perfectly. So many of my characters when cornered go, "I love you so much I'll fight for you. I'll take your place. I'll bleed for you without flinching."
The greatest acts of violence Solus carries out with the Force (and many outside) have been born of love. She respects loves a man so much they tear chunks out of each other on Concordia. Their blood splatters seems into the ground because this is as much a dance as the night before was. As their meeting had been with turns of phrase and looks and assurances half given. She loves Mandalore so much she burns parts of the Jedi Order and Republic Spy Networks. "Let them know what it feels like to have Outsiders invade their home." She breaks a friend's arm in three places as a village burns around them because she'll suffer no disrespect to her family. A man nearly two feet taller than her was tackled from a balcony as a distraction, as a show of prowess. All of the finesse of the Force, of her lightsabers (the gifted kyber burning orange), of most of her training as a warrior in favor of a brutality fueled by love. Him and his brother were endangering her family, defiling her home, and it would stop. Later when Inquisitors caught her and her family her riduur died; he died knowing he couldn't win but he could buy his two riduurs and their children time to escape. She dug so deep into the Force a shockwave echoed seemingly across the time and space. Them and their forces died because would lay waste to everything to protect her children, her family, her home. There's so much more drawing from her and her love that appears as violence. Later, she juggles the world for her riduur as she works to take their home again and again. She's guide and advisor and assassin and the rock to build upon.
Nico Bright loves Claire Redfield so much she ingests a variant of t-virus to save her. Her body bleeds antibodies because fate is fickle. It doesn't change but it hurts. Later she fights a man with decades of experience over her and wins. (A shotgun is a great equilizer.) There's blood and broken bones and bruising on her end. Her own life was in danger and that fuels her. But, even more so was he hurt people she loves. It's an act she'll never be able to undo, what he did to them and countless others, but she can stop it from happening again. It ends here and it ends now and it ends with her almost hyperventilating body thrown so deep into this she becomes calm. She protects civilians (a title she no longer views for herself) with a calm tone and good leadership and acts of violence. Because it keeps them safe from the zombies outside their little SUV. So many of her brushes with bioterrorism are born from this unyielding love for humanity and others even if it almost breaks her.
There's so many more; Alijah Kastor who hunts people who could kill her with her hands tied behind her back, Lumi Kirrin bathed in blood from such a young age to defend the basic rights of others, Jazari Naaji who acts for love and family no matter the personal cost, Vren Avitus who makes herself in a guide and assassin and solider to save her sister and her loves, Fe Cataegis who has a panic attack so intense she throws up because she hates travel by water but this fight needs her more. Sosha Soruna is canon but she helps reclaim a home that is not her own wearing none of the trappings of those around her; it's violence in the act of love because this is Jila's Home and she wants her girlfriend happy.
There's just something so twisting in violence as an act of love that calls out. It's the answer to the question of "What would you do for those you love?" with a defeaning, "Anything."
