WildDreamsOnly

My recording of the story of the RMS Carpathia, as told by Jo. It’s a phenomenal historical telling, and I’ve always had a blast reading it. 

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So if you express a feeling about your job/working/capitalism on your own social media space that doesn’t please your employers, you’re punished.

Holy fuck

If this happens to you, you should file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/01/complaining_about_your_job_on_facebook_the_national_labor_relations_board.html

(All credits for the photo above go to thederpartist)

“What if we lose someone else out there?” Violet pauses fiddling with her fingers as she struggles to speak over the lump in her throat, emotion seeping into her voice.

“What if it’s you?”

Clementine reaches out for her hands, intertwining their fingers together despite the bitter coldness against her warm skin. “We’re going to do this Vi. We’ll be okay, we’ll get everyone out.”

“You keep saying that but-” The image of Clementine - pale and limp flashes through her mind, her laying there, a bullet leaving a mark on that flawless skin - chokes her. Her eyes are glassy, her face pale. “Things happen. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” The brunette jokes, squeezing her hands, her face growing into that beautiful smile that usually makes the blonde’s heart flutter. This time, it’s different though. There’s no time for laughing, not now.

Violet meets her eyes, her expression firm. “If anything happens and I slow you down, I want you to leave me.”

“What the hell-”

“I’m serious, Clem. I want you to get Louis, Omar, Aasim, and make sure they’re safe. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you. I-”

“And you think I would?” Clementine interrupts, looking her dead in the eyes with a defiant stare of her own. “I’m not leaving you behind.”

“You need to focus on saving everyone, getting yourself and AJ safe. This school wouldn’t survive without you.”

“Violet, stop.” She says firmly.

“You know I’m right.”

“I’m not leaving you,” She repeats. “Not now, not ever. If I have to carry you over my shoulder to get you off that boat, I’m going to. It’s either I leave with you, or I don’t leave at all. I care about you too much for that.”

Violet’s hands find her face, using her thumbs to brush away the tears that fell from golden eyes, resting their foreheads together. “You better not disappear on me, okay?”

“I promise.” Her eyes close, and she relaxes, the cool air calming her breaths.

And Violet knows, she knows these things can’t be promised, but it stops the racing thoughts and worries in her head as she leans down, connecting their lips to calm herself. She feels intoxicated by the smell of coffee, and ironically a hint of orange. Her lips are warm and soft and dry, and she can still taste the saltiness of her tears.

A cough breaks them apart.

“As adorable as that was, we need to get going if we want to do this.” Ruby stands there, a smirk across her lips. AJ is there too, looking up at them and giggling.

“What’re you doing?”

“None of your beeswax.” Clementine retorts, her eyes shining in the morning sun.

“Bees have wax?”

“Shut up AJ.” She says jokingly, as Ruby guides him away and grants him the opportunity to cut open the walker to occupy his time - to which he eagerly agrees.

“Are we good now?” Clementine asks, their bodies still close as she clings to her biseps, studying her eyes.

“Yeah.” Violet answers, but as she turns away, she thinks better of it. One last time. She needs her close one more time before they rush into this suicide mission. She needs closure. Her hand grips to her wrist, pulling her back.

“Vi, you oka-”

Her question is cut short as their lips crash together once more, Violet’s hands desperately traveling her arms, her cheeks, her shoulders. She needs to familiarise herself with everything, she needs to remember. The softness of her hands, the smoothness of her cheeks, the scars. She needs to remember it all.

She pulls back, gazing into her eyes. Those three words rest right on the tip of her tongue, but it’s too soon. Her jaw goes taut, eyebrows furrowed. She’s already said it once, but she needs the confirmation again. “You better not disappear on me.”

“I promise.” The ballcapped teen pulls her into a hug, squeezing as tight as she can without hurting her. She says it so sternly, so determined, that Violet wants to believe her.

So she does.

Violet could hold onto her for the rest of her life, but she knows it’s selfish. Her friends are still on that boat, and only God knows what that bitch has done to them. They need to move. They need to go.

She closes her eyes. They could die. They could all die out there. She wants her to know. She needs her to know.

A sharp inhale enters her nose. She exhales as their embrace ends. Her eyes avert to the floor as she kicks at the dirt, colour rising to her cheeks.

“Clem?”

“Yeah?”

Another inhale, a squeeze of her hands. A breath through chapped, parted lips. “I… I think I’m starting to fall in love with you.” It’s true, and it’s embarrassing to say out loud, but she forces herself to meet her eyes. ’The eyes tell more truth than words.’ She remembers her Grandma saying. She hopes her eyes are showing as much love, how much fear she’s feeling.

A long time ago, Clementine hated that word. It meant she was letting someone be close to her, and that ment another she could lose. But as those green eyes look back at her, full of pain and honesty, she can’t lie about what she’s feeling. “I love you back.” She responds with that smile that can somehow comfort Violet, without even saying anything. “We’re going to get them all out - and alive, okay? Just trust me.”

“I trust you.” She doesn’t understand why, but she truly does trust her. Anything could happen out there, but this is Clementine, she’s gone through much worse. She’ll make it out of there, they’ll protect each other.

Because although not all promises can be kept in a world like this, where dead can kill anyone within a single motion and the living are just as dangerous, they have love. The love of their family, their friends and each other.

I really appreciate this question, because I see so often the accusation that Violentine shippers only like the ship because it’s gay. Obviously, for many of us, there are shades of truth to this - we crave visible and loving representations of wlw love, especially because we don’t see nearly as much of it in the video game industry compared to m/f pairings. And Violentine is one of the most “realistic” depictions of a young wlw relationship that I have seen, and I am defining “realistic” in terms of my own experiences of young romance. Like a lot of other wlw, I couldn’t just openly flirt with or express blatant attraction to my crush - I had to rely on signals and just the pure hope that my feelings were reciprocated, and that meant feeling SO nervous and so afraid when I confessed my romantic feelings. But that lack of confidence just made those reciprocated feelings EVEN MORE worthwhile and beautiful - knowing that despite being a pretty small minority in the general population, I managed to find a girl who liked me back and finally could get to experience what comes so much easier to heterosexual people. 

One of the main “justifications” I’ve seen for preferring to ship Clem with Louis is that he brings her joy she hasn’t been able to experience much of before since the apocalypse began and teaches her that survival does not always have to be the number 1 priority. And I would definitely agree with the second analysis, but I think people miss or at least diminish the mutual joy and sense of being ALIVE, not just SURVIVING, that Clem and Violet bring into each other’s lives. 

Choosing Violet certainly does entail considering survival more often than you do with Louis; just the dichotomy of the Violet vs Louis choices (go check the defenses vs tune the piano, fishing vs playing walker piñata) makes this point clear. But I dislike how the Violet vs Louis decision is often pitted as choosing survival (Violet) versus being alive and in the moment (Louis). I don’t consider it that simple, for multiple reasons, but the most important being that Violet’s coping mechanism of soft romantic gestures and making survival as entertaining as possible is *just* as helpful to Clementine as Louis’ coping mechanism of humor, light-heartedness, and having fun regardless of the situation. 

Violet and Clem have both survived unimaginable traumas, pretty much incomparable to the rest of the group (as far as we know). Violet witnessed her grandmother commit suicide right in front of her before the apocalypse even started and death became a “normal” phenomenon for the other kids, and closed herself off from others. She presumably allowed Minnie and Sophie to get close to her, and then (allegedly) lost them both to walkers. When she first meets Clem, she’s closed off on purpose; but the speed by which she opens up to Clem reveals what she’s like when she isn’t occupied by the trauma of losing so many people she let herself grow close to. 

And we don’t even have to get into all of Clem’s traumatic experiences. Both of these girls have gone through so much, but make each other SO happy regardless. In particular, I love how understated but thoughtful Violet’s romantic gestures are for Clem. Violet isn’t really the type to engage in PDA or openly flirt - which I relate to A LOT as a lesbian because sometimes it just isn’t safe to do that - but there’s no denying that she’s a closeted romantic who is more than capable of making Clem equally as happy as she is with Louis. 

And getting back to my point about Violet and Louis being pitted against each other as either emphasizing “staying alive” or “living/being alive”. Obviously, Violet is extremely protective of the people she cares about and the most physically capable boarding school student (aside from Marlon), so it makes sense for people to want her and Clem together romantically on that basis alone. But I think it’s important to recognize how Violet isn’t just some walker-killing strategy machine whose number 1 priority is safety and survival. She genuinely tries to make survival as light-hearted as she believes to be possible and under the constant circumstances of threat to her, Clem, and the school’s survival. 

Overall, Violet and Louis both provide different but equally as “useful”/cherished things for Clementine. Louis offers to Clem something similar to what Omid offered Christa - temporary escapes from the post-apocalyptic world, light-hearted humor, more open affection. Violet offers to Clem kind of what Christa offered Omid, actually - a sense of security, but coupled with more subtle yet equally as loving moments of shared humor, joy, and romance. If Clem’s in trouble, Violet’s gonna be in front of her with her cleaver out ready to kick ass without a second of hesitation. But Violet and Clem are also both learning together how to have fun while also surviving.