Bandit Axemas Anno 9
Love that expression on Bandit in the penultimate panel there. It perfectly captures the shock of hope running through her. Today is a good, good day.
I’m writing this on Christmas Eve, so forgive a few thoughts about the nature of Christmas in general. My attitude is that you celebrate Christmas by giving, not receiving, and that extends to gifts and general holiday wishes. I understand that some people say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” as a self-identifying, borderline hostile act: choosing sides in the War on Christmas and all that. And therefore some of us get scared out of wishing goodwill to others out of fear of saying the wrong thing.
I can’t live that way. I say both, depending on circumstance a bit, and hope that a kindly tone smooths over any misunderstandings. I’m not real ostentatious as a gift-giver, but I give to my nearest and dearest whether they’re Christmas-celebrators or not. We have to try, you know?
Rachel knows her friends appreciate her largesse and that none of them, not even E-Merl, will match it. The best gift she can get is the gift she’s getting in the last panel.
I kinda understand some people, to whom such holidays are actually forced, that they’d feel agaisnt them.
But surprisingly often it’s simply people who have tired of it and feel like they should be left alone with it and just because they are they and their’s is the want have it happen so, so of course everyone should respect them alone and just have a good day, fellow person!
And the problem is, they are not entirely wrong. No person should be forced to suffer something they don’t like. But they should also know to allow every other person the same right by letting them enjoy what the like.
Just as you mentioned, especially on Christmas, it shouldn’t be about what you get, how you feel, how you are in comparison to others. ‘Cose while those are important and things that matter, the best a person can do, is to give something to another, be it love, care or just hope.
And of course everything is never so black&white as the simple idea of giving and getting, but lets be honest, it’s not that realöy that complicated either that we have to fight over who, why and how it is done.
Don’t believe in Christmas? Good. Give something just to make someone happy. Don’t believe giving something makes other happy? Fair enough. Find some other way to make a friend smilr. Don’t have friends who’d smile? Well, I guess you know what you need to do then. ;)
I’m mostly tired of the retail aspect, having Christmas jammed down my throat for four months. There’s no joy in Christmas music when it’s all you’ve been hearing when you leave the house since Labor Day.
The other tiring thing the societal pressure to enjoy all this. Decorate, attend parties, find perfect gifts, do a bunch of other stuff you don’t normally do AND do it all at once. That’s too much like work for me to get much pleasure out of it.
The Big Holidays are fraught times for people. I have very few positive (and a lot of fairly awful) memories of family Christmases and Thanksgivings. My partner has PTSD revolving around the abuse flying around in their family of origin, and can’t even look at Christmas stuff without (at least) tensing up. So we don’t do Christmas and generally spend Thanksgiving apart (because I actually like the idea of it and spend it with friends).
While I don’t celebrate Christmas, I can take a poorly-aimed “happy Christmas” in the manner in which it was intended. My partner can’t (again, PTSD). All that said, the only people I’ve actually experienced flipping shit over “happy Christmas” vs. “happy holidays” are my own idiot family who feel that anything other than “Happy CHRIST-MASS” is equivalent to “you’re an idiot who believes in superstitious nonsense; I’m going to go abort babies and have gay sex (probably at the same time) just to spite you”.
We don’t get the Christmas/Holidays rift in Sweden; it’s all Yule to us.
Poor Bandit. She deserved better.
So well put! Happy 2020 to all!!
Anything new in the horizon? Comics or otherwise? Always a fan!!!💜🥳
Doing a lot of work on crosswords right now, actually! Just finished gridding a big one that’s a homage to one of the most influential of all comics creators. If you hang around this space, sooner or later I’ll have more announcements about the results.
This ending was the sweetest I could’ve hoped for and more. Just like the annotation said, that penultimate expression on Bandit shows her deepest hope and made me fall in love with her as a character. It’s funny that in the bonus comic the most lasting connection was made (for me) but that’s just how it worked out. Anyway I loved this ending with all my heart <3 <3 <3
I don’t actually understand the reactions of the team to Bandit’s story, tbh. She just explained her “origin”, her fall from grace. That’s a huge thing, especially for someone like her. So rather than scratch their heads and chase her out of the room, the appropriate reaction should be empathy. Well, except for Frigg who hates that sorta thing, of course. But for everyone else, this would be the moment to acknowledge the load that Bandit is carrying. Instead they’re all acting as if that had been some kind of meaningless nonsense.
On the other hand: When I read this first, it took me until the previous page to notice that you meant for all of this to be canon. The complete change in tone (and Bandit talking in rhymes and whatnot) made it look obvious that it was _not_ meant to be “in-game”. So I myself was somewhat confused about how much of the story is meant to be within the continuity — but the fellow Peacemekers wouldn’t have noticed the change in art style, and Bandit wouldn’t have actually started speaking in rhymes, so … yeah, still confused why everyone’s either confused or angry at the end.
Those last few panels made me appreciate Rachel in a big way, though.