Siderism

i. in which valentine's day occurs and amelia watches buffy the vampire slayer

❝ then i defy you, stars! ❞ - william shakespeare, romeo and juliet

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AMELIA DELANEY WINDHAM'S LIST OF THINGS CONSIDERED TO BE THE BANE OF HER EXISTENCE:

#1: Misogyny. In any way, shape, or form. God, she hated it with a deeply feminist passion that filled her veins with a satisfactory feeling that she was aware of the sickly false superiority of men.

#2: The systematic oppression of people of color as well as the LGBTQ+ community. It's fairly self-explanatory. Who wouldn't hate the degradation and persecution of fellow human beings with the same natural rights as anyone else, regardless of race or gender identity or sexual orientation? (Unless you happen to be an ignorant, racist, homophobic, transphobic asshole who benefits from white supremacy, that is. Which, unfortunately, a lot of people apparently are.)

#3: Romeo and Juliet. Though not necessarily the play itself, as Amelia loved the fluidity and style of the Shakespearean language, just the fact that it was treated as the epitome of romance and tragedy when she believed Shakespeare wrote it as a humorous jab at naive, youthful declarations of "love." Once, she had a debate with her freshman English teacher on the subject and it took up the entire two hours of class. Also, she didn't believe in the concept of love at first sight. Lust, curiosity, desire, maybe; but certainly not love. (Besides, the amount of dick jokes in the play was just plain ridiculous.)

#4: Valentine's Day. The only useful purpose the holiday serves is in elementary school, when everyone would give out candy to each other for an entire school day and you would get sick from eating too many chocolate bars or your tongue would turn blue from the excessive amount of Fun Dip consumed in the twelve hours it would take to finish everything. When you get to middle school, this holiday is reserved to the few who consider themselves to be "dating" and high school is, unsurprisingly, even worse. Also, the entire history of the holiday doesn't even slightly align with the traditions: the origins of Valentine's Day were inspired by the martyrdom of a Roman priest, Valentine, during the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius II, who was beheaded on 14 February as he had conducted forbidden marital ceremonies. Though it was not until Pope Gelasius I thought it to be a brilliant idea to bring together the celebration of Valentine's martyrdom and the feast of Lupercalia, which involved drunk naked men whipping women with the hides of recently killed animals, that Amelia Windham's least favorite holiday was born.

Which was precisely the reason as to why, when it was broadcast that this year's performance would be of Shakespeare's classic tragedy of the infamous star-crossed lovers on none other than Valentine's Day, Amelia nearly had a fit as she stood in the midst of students frantically hustling to get to class before the second bell rang, glaring at the bulletin board which read:

WAVERLY PREP THEATER DEPARTMENT IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THIS YEAR'S STAGE PRODUCTION: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROMEO AND JULIET! FOR INFORMATION ON AUDITION SIGN UPS, CONTACT MR. CHESTER

"I can't believe this!" she shouted. "I gave him plenty of other suggestions: Legally Blonde, Wicked, hell I'd even rather do Grease, and you know how I feel about Grease. What's wrong with Legally Blonde? It's got a simple script, kick ass lead female character that experiences a journey of self-discovery and finds out how much she can achieve, plus one of the most iconic songs ever performed on Broadway? How could you say no?"

"Amelia, for God's sake, calm down. We have to get to class!" Robin stated, grabbing her best friend's wrist and pulling her down the hall, the bell ringing right as they had barely managed to sprint through the door to their first class of the day: Environmental Science. When the two made their way to their usual seats at the back of the classroom, Mrs. Durand stated, "How wonderful of you to grace us with your presence, ladies."