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yourtongzhihazel · 22 days

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thoughts on anarchism?

The anarchists I've met IRL, especially while organizing, have been some of the most wonderful comrades and I wouldn't hesitate to work with them again. I'm sure there's many online too who're just like them. I do admire how quickly they are willing to use direct action, even if it's not the best tactic to be used or the only means to an end. Some anarchist ideas, while not necessarily achievable on a large scale, are certainly is very helpful for short term, small scale survival, like mutual aid for example.

Anarchism as an ideology though, I do have strong disagreements with. When I was first dipping my toes into studying political-economy, I had a very brief time where I was following both anarchist and marxist accounts and forums. And often, when I asked the marxists a question about how things would or potentially could work, they could point to real examples as much as they could theoretical ones, and they could point out the pros and cons of their own systems. But when I asked anarchists similar questions, there was generally a kind of hesitancy or wishy-washiness or vagueness which I really didn't get from the marxists. As a poc, I remember a black man had asked anarchists what the solution to a group of racist factory workers voting him out of their work force was and no one had any answers beyond, "well at that stage you really wouldn't expect racism on that level". But the marxists would say racism is a social ill that takes time to combat, even after the revolution thus the proletarian state exists to ensure cases like that are investigated and corrected. A more poignant example would be like the Chinese trans woman who sued her former place of work for firing her for being trans and the state sided with and supported her rights. In some ways, I think I was always inevitably going to go down the marxist route given my family background, but that's not to say I didn't give anarchism a fair shot in the beginning.

More theoretically, the roots of anarchism has always been deeply entwined with petite bourgeois ideology. Similar to liberalism, it supposes that the liberation of the collective comes from the liberation of the self. That's not to say anarchists are liberals (well, actual anarchists anyway), but rather, has been influenced by a deeply individualistic ideology like liberalism. The reason we marxists tend to call anarchists idealists can mainly stem from our biggest disagreement, which is the utilization of the state. It's unreasonable to destroy the greatest tool a class has in the class war once that class gets its hands on it, especially since the bourgeoisie have no qualms about using it as a bludgeon against the proletariat. The state has always been used as a mediator for class warfare and whichever class controls it controls the arbitration on class conflict. Like it or not, revolution, just like the construction of socialism, will come at different times with different arising conditions for every country. It's simply not enough to rely on hopes of either a total revolution or to defend your own revolution without the tools provided by a state. After the October Revolution, the nascent USSR was invaded by over 20 foreign countries and they threw them all out. During the second world war, more than 4 million fascists were killed on the eastern front and the Red Army marched into Berlin in the end. Both feats would be impossible without strong state apparatuses. There's more to it than just this, of course. If you want, you can read a (admittedly, pretty scathing) critique by J.V. Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism?, for some more detailed information.

My last point is that in many online spaces, there's no doubt a big overlap between radlibs and anarchism or at the very least, anarchist aesthetics. I can't tell you how many times I've been called some slur or 'tankie' or some variation of the two by someone presenting themselves to be anarchist who then turn around and say the most unbelievably liberal talking points. I've now come to realize that the reason for this overlap is two-fold. The first is that in liberal democracies, where individualism is extremely strong and thus anarchism, as a more individualistic ideology, appeals more to radlibs. The second is that anarchism is very easily marketable, even more so than marxism. These two kind of go hand-in-hand as well.

In the west and usamerica in particular, we don't have much of a choice in regards to who we side with and I would actually take an anarchist comrade over the "queering the MIC" libs in the DSA or whatever. I'll still jest about about anarchism tho.

#hazel's press releases

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pluto44 · 5 months

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ALTERNATE ENDING / WHAT IF?

Pairing: Coriolanus Snow x Lucy Gray

Warnings: none? just Snow being Delusional

Summary: Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray leave district 12. What kind of trouble might they run into?

Authors Note: Hii!! this is my first time writing anything like this. I wrote this after watching the movie and wanted more from Lucy and Coriolanus!! so i wrote this for fun. I’ve only watched the hunger game movies so some of this might seem out of character to the book readers out there? this is more of a what if? kind of fic. I changed a few of the details so that Coriolanus and Lucy would end up together. But don’t worry Coriolanus will still be jumping to conclusions, just for different reasons. anyways please enjoy, and i’m open to constructive criticism. i’d also like to know if you guys would like for me to continue writing more for this fic between Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray?

Word count: 1670

“You know what I won't miss? people” he muttered.

“People aren’t so bad,” she looks at him. “It's what the world does to them, like all of us in the arena. i think there’s natural goodness born into us all”Coriolanus let out a sardonic laugh.

“No really,” Lucy says. “you either cross that line, into evil, or not. and it’s our last work to stay on the right side of that line.”

Coriolanus shook his head. “it’s not always that simple.”

“I know. I'm a victor” she smirkes.

Coriolanus stops behind her, picking up and examining a pile of wood. Lucy walks ahead of him.

“Sure would be nice to not have to kill anyone else up north though, huh?” she grinned.

“Threes enough for me.”

Lucy stops in her tracks. “you killed three…? Who's the third?”

“what?”

“ The person you killed Coriolanus. you said you killed three people i only know about two."

He steps towards her. “Can you help me get this off?” attempting to change the subject.

“Do not lie to me.” They both stand there for a moment. Both waiting for the other to respond.

“there was bobbin in the arena and mayfair. So who's the third?”

He takes her chin into his hand, tilting it upward. “my old self. I killed him so I could come here with you.”

The rain was pouring. Coriolanus suggested that he and Lucy should stop at the cabin to wait out the storm.

“We’re gonna need food and we can catch some fish while we’re here”

“There's some rods under the floorboards if you wanna.”

“these ones?”

“mhm” she nods.

opening them up Coriolanus freezes. Staring straight at him were the guns the mayor had everyone looking all over for.

Lucy takes notice of his change in demeanour.

“what is it?”

“it’s the gun” he lets out a small sigh in relief, picking one of them up.

“the one you fired at mayfair. spruce must’ve known about this place. if you destroy that gun you're free. you can go back home. will you?” she says nervously, afraid of his answer.

Coriolanus takes a moment, admiring the gun in his hands. “no more loose ends” he smirks.

“besides me.”

His head shoots up. “Besides you? you wouldn’t tell anyone.” he chuckles.

“of course not” she nervously smiles. silence fills the room before Lucy breaks it.

“ i’m just gonna go dig up some katnis” she says, quickly opening the door again.

“Lucy Gray” he calls out.

“But it’s still raining?”

“Well I'm not made out of sugar”

Grabbing her coat and a knife she hurriedly runs out the door.

Coriolanus stands there for a moment, thinking to himself.

“Why was she acting so different?”

Lucy Grays POV.

I ran. I ran until my lungs felt like they’d burst and my legs felt numb. My vision was blurred, i didn’t know why until i realised i was crying.

My legs started to slow, making me push them harder. I didn't want to stop, but my body was forcing me to, until I came to a complete Halt.

Coriolanus was lying to me, and I don’t know why. I crouched down trying to catch my breath through my broken sobs.

“I can’t trust him. I don’t wanna leave Coriolanus, but why was he lying to me? Why? Why?” I thought to myself.

I sat against a tree so I could rest. I let the rain hit my face as I stared off into the woods, feeling completely numb.

End of POV.

When the rain started to subside Coriolanus began to wonder what was taking Lucy so long.

“She looked like she was in a hurry,” he thought to himself.

“Was she angry with me? Maybe she needed my help?… or what if she somehow fell into the lake?… or Maybe the mayor traced us here, and they found Lucy.”

Coriolanus was on edge. The thought of Lucy running into trouble without him being there made his heart ache.

Images of Lucy struggling and calling out for him flashed through his mind. Trying to find a more rational reason for why Lucy Gray was taking so long, was now out of the question. He finally had enough and swung open the door, with determination and his gun in hand.

“Lucy Gray?” He called out

“Lucy Gray where are you”

He looked towards the Lake looking for any ripples. Any signs of lucy. But none.

“Hello!” He yelled out walking deeper into the woods.

“Hey has something happened? because if something happened we can talk about it!”

“Are you hiding from me?”

*Silence*

“Luc-“

He cut himself off, taking sight of the bright orange scarf he gave to her. Fear washed over him.

“What if something happened to her?” He thought to himself.

He bent down picking the scarf up, when a snake appeared from under it. Biting him.

“Uughh!” He winced in pain.

“Lucy Gray!” he called out again. but he was met with silence.

Coriolanus was beginning to spiral.

“how could i let this happen.” he thought to himself.

All he could do was laugh in disbelief. While grasping at his head attempting to ground himself.

tears trickling down his face as he slowly pickes the scarf up off from the ground, and he puts it up to his nose, deeply inhaling the rose scent left by his mother.

“Someone must’ve hurt Lucy Gray. My Lucy Gray.” he thought to himself.

Coriolanus was angry with himself, Lucy Gray was all he had at the moment. After all of the lengths he went through to insure her safety, he failed.

*crack* The sound of a branch snaping caught his attention.

He quickly stood up, grabbed his gun and pointed it in the direction of the sound. slowly he stepped forward holding his breath. Anticipation weighing on him.

*crack* that sound again, but coming from a different direction.

He caught glance of someone running. He couldn’t make out who it was but all he could think about was Lucy Gray. So he pulled the trigger.

A scream followed by a loud thump from the direction his gun was pointed.

Coriolanus ran towards the sound. Not knowing who it could be. But he stopped.

“Lucy Gray?” his face went pale.

“Get away from me!” she yelled at him holding the wound on her left thigh.

He quickly gets on his knees to help, but she refuses.

“No! please” she pushes his hands away, forcing distance between them.

“Let me help you Lucy Gray please”

He reaches out his hands putting them on top of hers to apply more pressure and she winces.

“Ok, just keep a tight hold on your thigh like this, alright?” He looks up at her for her assurance, and she complies and hesitantly nods.

Coriolanus carefully picks Lucy up and begins to move

quickly.

“I'm so sorry Lucy Gray, I didn't know what I was thinking”

Lucy tightly shuts her eyes, groaning in pain.

“we’re almost there Lucy Gray just hold on.”

Approaching the cabin, Coriolanus kicks the door open, not wasting any time and carefully sets Lucy onto their shared bed.

He runs to his bag bringing it over to the side of the bed as he crotches down, levelled with her wound.

“Let me see” he says, reaching towards her hand before she flinched away.

emense guilt began to wash over Coriolanus as he looks down.

“I can't help you if you won’t let me touch you, Lucy Gray.”

She looks away from him facing the wall.

He sighs. “I'm so sorry. I don't want you to be afraid of me... Will you please look at me?”

She turns her head towards him in frustration.

“Who was the third?”

“what?”

“who. was. the third. Coriolanus.” her voice shook with anger.

“Tell me who else you killed, and I'll let you help me.” tears began to well up, as she tried to hold back her sobs.

Coriolanus’s head drops down to the floor. Silence filled the room as Lucy waited for his answer. Then he finally spoke.

“Sejanus,” he mumbled.

Lucy looks at him confused. “but he was hung at the hanging tree-“

“because of me.” he blurts out.

“I-.” he cuts himself off trying to find the words.

“I couldn't save him.… he was calling out for me. He needed my help and i stood there and did nothing. ” He says as he buries his head into the mattress while he grips Lucy’s dress, his knuckles turning white.

Her eyes soften. “His death wasn’t your fault Coriolanus. there is nothing you could’ve done differently that could’ve saved him.” she says caressing the top of his head with her free hand.

“I'm so sorry for doing this to you Lucy Gray.” he looks up at her.

She takes in a deep breath switching her tone of voice . “Let’s not talk about that right now. you’ve still gotta patch me up” she anxiously smiles.

“No Lucy.” Coriolanus stands up from the side of the bed and sits down next to her. taking her chin into his hand, and tilting it upwards he says, “What I did to you is unforgivable, and I'll spend the rest of my life making up for it.”

Lucy softens under his touch. Gently closing her eyes as he pulls her face closer to his. anticipating a kiss she holds her breath, but quickly pulls away.

“Lucy Gray.” he says softly, taking her face into his hands again.

“Open your eyes for me” he says, caressing her cheek with his thumb.

She takes a deep breath before slowly opening her eyes again, and is met with his.

“ I would never do anything to hurt you. you know that right." She nods her head slowly in agreement.

“good.” he pulls her in and their faces collide, melting into one another. Their lips moving with each other in sync. Lucy deepens the kiss eager for more. but he pulls away, leaving them both breathless.

“Now let me stitch you up.”

#the hunger games #coriolanus x lucy gray #coriolanus x reader #fanfic #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #lucy gray x coriolanus #snowbaird #snow #the hunger games the ballad of songbirds & snakes #tom blyth #coriolanus snow x reader #snow x reader

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bestworstcase · 7 months

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something. about the brothers “gave them roles to play,” and “if this is what they were supposed to do, how did remnant come about?”—this is only a half-formed thought still—but i think it’s probably important that the blacksmith uses this language in her tale, contrary to what we see in the ever after in the present where purpose is not assigned but rather chosen. the notion of “supposed to” or “should” is antithetical to the ever after now, but it wasn’t then and indeed the principal role the brothers had was to describe purposes for the other afterans.

which clearly isn’t something the tree cares about, because the tree is passive and cannot but follow what is chosen inside of it. but it did give the brothers destruction to clear the wilderness and creation to imagine something new, and it of course wouldn’t impose upon their free will either, so they imagined a hierarchical garden with everything and everyone in its proper place and that’s what the ever after, evidently, became.

(i think there is an argument to be made that the tree is not, itself, sapient. the brothers were givendestruction and creation, but grew curious and wanted to do more. if the tree is a solely passive force except in reaction to the will of those who commune with it, does it have a will of its own? the blacksmith, though an aspect of the tree, is a construct built around a tree branch and she subtly disassociates herself from the tree; she is part of it but not the tree itself.)

anyway the point is, the brothers created the cat in secret, realized they could make new beings to do their jobs for them, and then created jabber for that purpose.

except.

their jobs were made-up. arbitrary. the brothers invented this particular way of doing things and committed to it so thoroughly that they began to feel it as a limitation, so when they made two new beings to take over…

…what they actually got was two new beings with the power to destroy and remake the world, just as the brothers themselves had destroyed and remade the wilderness. “brutal and effective,” the blacksmith says of jabber. he didn’t do what he was “supposed” to do because the brothers mistook tradition for natural law.

and then light sees this happen and goes “we created a dangerous aberration, we have to get rid of it” but dark looks at the situation and realizes, i think, that they were mistaken about what the rules areand chose to accept reality as it was. (and this, this is why dark is associated with knowledge and light with choice. dark values truth, light values rules.)

something similar happens again in the lost fable. “rules that i see now work ever in your favor, and yet the day a mortal comes to pray at my feet before your own, so do you arrive to lay your judgment upon me.” i think—i’ve discussed at length before how the jabber history recontextualizes dark’s actions in lost fable, but like, dark is specifically associating himself with jabber here, subject to light’s judgment on the basis of rules he already knew were arbitrary but is now grasping are also deeply unfair.(probably not coincidentally, salem inspired dark to help her by recognizing and empathizing with his loneliness.)

i’m always chewing on the apotheosis by drowning and revival but i think. it’s interesting that dark refers to salem here as “a mortal.” and then he destroys ozma, but not her (even as she’s engulfed in fire). and then light bites her. and then she falls into the pool of life and she’s immortal. light tells her to learn her lesson but dark tells her “you cannot die; you cannot be with your beloved” and it’s like

dark has known since jabber that he and his brother don’t have the power to dictate what things can and cannot do with what they’re given. he knows that salem was so determined to be reunited with ozma that she was willing to both openly defy the god of light and walk into dark’s domain to entreat him instead and assert that they’re both monsters and fight back after they treat her monstrously. so like, what does he mean really. “you cannot die so you can’t be with your beloved”—he knows she is literally willing to Fight God to be with her beloved. he knows that. and he just elevated her into a position equal to himself and his brother by agreeing to make her immortal, and poked her in exactly the spot he knew would push her toward open defiance.

knowledge then choice, huh

#i wonder if she ever looks back #and wonders #salem understood him once. she might understand him even now

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oscconfessions · 1 month

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Oh my gosh, this community is giving me nightmares!! Literally!!

I was having a completely normal dream about two of my favorite games. There were dodos and dinosaurs wandering around and I was trying to tame a megasloth/wolf creature, just minding my own business. Suddenly, there's an awful screeching noise echoing through the air. I look to my right and there's this GIANT insectoid looking creature covered in brightly glowing dark blue markings that's appeared out of nowhere. All of the animals are scared of it, even the rexes and thrumbos back away from the thing. It takes notice of me and once again screeches before bolting in my direction. I start running away from it and maneuver over a wooden trap (that I don't remember constructing) which it passes over but utterly destroys, continuing to run unhindered. It eventually catches up and impales me in the torso, killing me.

I respawn in a city where absolute chaos is breaking out among the human and object people around me. Several of those monstrous insect creatures are running around, terrorizing and killing whoever they can. If they kill someone the body turns radioactive blue before transforming into another one of those things. If they only injure/touch someone that person gets infected and another horrific insect rapidly incubates inside of them for a few minutes before bursting out. Then the leftover corpse also morphs into a glowing blue beast, effectively creating two more of the blue horrors. The eldritch noises the creatures were making had some kind of cryptic symbol language, you could see the letters around them every time they "spoke". I was too busy trying to escape to figure out what they meant, everything had fallen to complete insanity.

The dream went on for a good while after that, mostly just survivalist stuff. I think towards the end of it I got pretty good at understanding the monster's behaviors and even managed to kill a few of them. Anyway, it was obviously derived from both Objectified and The Four Moons Initiative, maybe a bit of that one PPT2 episode with the jumpscaring monster objects. Some of the things people said and did were very similar or exactly the same as what happened in either comic. I recently found out about them both at the start of March and got a little obsessed, I've fully read each one multiple times. Maybe a little too obsessed if this nightmare means anything.

I usually really enjoy dreaming about objects, but wow, I've never previously dreamt something quite like this.

#confession #/objectified #/tfmi #/pp

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psychangels · 10 months

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May I request Chai and 808 meeting a friendly KEM-0N0?

we love our robo-pets!

"Oh, hey, never noticed this before!"

Chai jogs over to the door he spotted, 808 following in her orb form. It's orange and grey, with a familiar, large, glowing orange crack running through the center of it. The screen above it says, "Locked," in big red letters.

Macaron falls into view. Chai and 808 step aside. As he rears back to punch it, Chai punches the air on beat, cheering him on. With a single swing, the door bursts open.

He looks over to 808. "Think you could bust this open, Macaron?"

Her lights turn green. "You bet!"

He leaps out of view as Chai runs into the room.

The light that comes in from the hall behind them doesn't reveal much. There aren't any in here that can help. None that still work, anyways.

"Thanks!"

"No prob, lil' guy."

"Huh...pretty dark in here..."

There's rubble everywhere—aside from the remains of the door. Either this place got totally destroyed, or it's under construction. Probably the second one. Most places around campus seem to be. For whatever reason. Chai's learned to not question it too much.

808 sticks close as they head further in. Her lights aren't strong enough to help with the dark, sadly. Not a big deal, though. His eyes will adjust eventually.

His mouth drops open as he spots a big, shiny container of gears. He beams as he races over to it.

"Is this place on any maps or whatever?" he asks.

"Yeah, but it's just a storage room," Peppermint replies.

"Huh...well, nothing's being stored in here n—"

"Ohoho, don't mind if I do!"

808 turns back into her cat form, landing on his shoulder as he crouches down. She smiles, meowing as she hops into the container. A few gears go flying. One hits Chai in the face.

"Ack-! 808!"

She pokes her head out, eyes wide. He sighs fondly, petting her head. She purrs as she leans into his touch.

"I can't stay mad at you," he coos.

The creaking of metal echoing through the dark causes both of them to freeze.

"What was that?"

A thud comes from behind him. It's joined by the sound of clanking.

Chai leaps to his feet, whirling around as his trash collector pops out, scrap guitar forming all within the span of two beats.

808 leaps out of the container, going into her orb form.

The sight of a KEM-0N0 greets them. It's lights glow ominously in the gloom.

Chai groans. "Not one of you!"

This place is way too cramped for fighting. Especially against a KEM-0N0. How did it even get in without either of them noticing?

Chai shakes his head. Doesn't matter. He needs to focus. It could spring into action at any moment.

Twelve beats pass. It doesn't move. It just...stares at them.

Chai's brow furrows. "What the...?"

It tilts its head.

Slowly, he lowers his guitar, tilting his own head.

She sighs, then continues. "Right now, it's on the offense. Or...supposed to be."

"Is it supposed to do this?"

"No," Korsica replies, "not at all. Well—not while here."

"Whaddya mean?"

"It's designed to be a companion for children, but—"

"It's what?! No way!"

The KEM-0N0 steps forward. Chai tenses up. 808 moves a little ways away ahead of time.

However, instead of attacking, it nudges his left hand.

He blinks at it. It nudges his hand again, looking up at him with it's wide, electric blue eyes.

After a beat, Chai pats its head. Its tail flicks.

His eyes widen.

"Do you...just want pets?"

The KEM-0N0 nuzzles his hand. He huffs a laugh.

808 moves closer as Chai starts petting it properly, letting his scrap guitar fall apart. Its tail starts wagging.

The KEM-0N0 moves closer to Chai, turning to lean against him. He's forced to step back a bit from its weight.

"Geez—you're like a puppy!"

The more he pets it, the faster its tail wags. It stirs up the rubble, sending some of it flying. A piece hits 808, sending her spinning. When she recenters herself, she glares at it.

"Hey! Watch it!" Peppermint snaps.

It turns its head to look at 808. Its wagging slows a bit. The KEM-0N0's eyes pulse, like it's apologizing.

808 flies closer, turning into her cat form and landing on it. She meows as she licks the top of its head.

Chai chuckles.

"Guess we made a new friend!"

#hi fi rush #chai hi fi rush #808 hi fi rush #macaron hi fi rush #peppermint hi fi rush #korsica hi fi rush #angelanswers.txt #angelwrites.txt #cookie

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iviarellereads · 6 months

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Network Effect, Chapter 1

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one!)

In which Murderbot doesn't want someone to make a sad face at it fulfilling its named destiny.

Murderbot has had clients who wanted absurd levels of security, and clients who thought they didn't need any. Dr. Arada, whose "marital partner" Overse(1) calls her a terminal optimist, is somewhere in the middle. Dr. Thiago, a marital partner of Dr. Mensah's brother, wants none. Which is why Arada is just inside the hatch to the observation deck, and Thiago is on the observation deck trying to negotiate with a potential hostile. MB, for its part, is swimming under the raider vessel to infiltrate.

Several pages are spent establishing the scene. MB kind of wants to fly a drone into the leader's head, but Arada would be sad, Thiago would be angry, and the raider's wearing a helmet anyway.(2) Still, eventually Thiago seems to be making headway, as MB gets to the control station.

MB is a little upset that Thiago doesn't trust it. He'd had a discussion with Mensah before they left, in which Mensah threatened to withdraw permission for Amena, one of her children, to go along if SecUnit wasn't in charge of security. He was surprised that she trusted it so fully. MB mostly just feels the pressure of being responsible for Mensah's child's safety.(3)

Back in the present, the raider leader is starting to move toward Thiago, and MB wants to avoid a hostage situation. MB uses some of the drones to attack raiders on its way to prevent disaster, but makes them go for nonlethal spots, thinking of Arada's sad face again. It finally gets out onto the deck of the raider boat, and uses some more drones to disable everyone but the leader, who has a weapon pointed at Thiago's head by now.

MB walks up the ramp onto the team's own deck, and says to let him go. The leader is showing signs of stress, as is Thiago. Leader asks what MB is, Thiago says, a SecUnit, bot-human hybrid construct. The leader asks why it looks like a person. MB, aloud, says it asks itself that sometimes. (Over the comm, Ratthi says it is a person. Overse tells Ratthi to get off the comm.)(4)

The leader tells Thiago to order MB to back off. Thiago says it doesn't listen to him. MB thinks it listens to him plenty, actually. Leader says whoever controls it should order it to stand down, but MB says it's destroyed the raiders' engine. It didn't, but the leader doesn't know that yet. He jerks in reaction, letting Thiago lean away from him, out of the line of fire, just as a hole blooms in the leader's arm, between two sections of armour.

MB takes the opportunity to launch at the leader, throw Thiago to the side, relieve the leader of his weapon and then knock him in the gut with it. Arada asks how they're doing, having reengaged the safety on her weapon. She took a course in weapon use after the GrayCris incidents, and MB was setting up her shot.

In the feed, MB tells them both to get inside as it throws the leader to his own boat. Its scans show the raiders' weapons system is charging, and it tells Overse now's good. Overse and the others have been preparing for launch in the background, so the deck rumbles and the ship heaves out of the water. The raiders, not expecting this, get shoved sideways and lose their target lock.

Our outer supports folded in and we lifted further above the surface. The comm loudspeaker broadcast a siren and a translated warning about minimum safe distance and I guess the raiders believed it because their engines revved frantically. I recalled my drones and they shot down toward us to stream in through the hatch. I walked in after them and let the hatch close behind me as the launch protocols started.

=====

(1) I know they were described as together in Exit Strategy, but I think adding marital to the mix is new. Where's my confetti… (2) Some of the asides like this could be considered kind of pointless, I gotta grant that much. But, to me, they add so much personality. It's aware that it shouldn't try to kill the other humans except as a last resort, but it's gotta make its preferences known, at least within its own story. And, it's another way of showing how… See, I dance around calling MB human a lot because it doesn't want to be, but "how much of a person" is clunky. Either way, it shows how person-adjacent it is, to have rambling internal monologue. (3) It cares for all its humans, but it's definitely closest to Mensah. And being so close, it puts so much extra burden on itself to save her from any distress it can. It's so... so good. (4) Ratthi tries so hard. I gotta admit, he's growing on me.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #network effect #murderbot #secunit #overse #arada #thiago

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kellanved-ammanas · 1 year

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TF2 Drabbles: Demo/Engie/Medic - Rouge Science

Summary: Demo doing rogue science with Engie and/or Medic?

“You know, in hindsight, leaving the three of you alone in charge of the base was probably a bad idea. I don’t what I was thinking.” Her arms crossed as she tapped her foot, Miss Pauling glared down at them. “I should’ve known this was going to happen.”

Demo couldn’t exactly disagree with that assessment especially when they stood only a few yards away from what remained of the base. Which was less than half of it. As was always the case with explosives, one going off exploded everything else explosive around it as well. The fact that they’d been working in his lab only made the final explosion that much bigger.

“Thanks to me, no one got seriously injured though,” Medic said, jovial and proud despite their failed experiment. “Or we did but we’re all fixed up now.”

“Yeah. And the opposite side of the base is still standing… mostly,” Engie added. “So really it ain’t as bad as it could’ve been.”

“And it mostly ain’t our fault.” Demo was an expert, accidents like this didn’t happen when he was actively in charge. “We wasn’t even in the room at the time.”

“My hypothesis,” Medic said, lifting a finger, “is that one of the cages was faulty, allowing one of the bread monsters to escape and try to attack one of the others. Exploding both of them in a process, setting everything else off too.”

Miss Pauling didn’t look the least bit appeased. “Why were you guys even making exploding bread monsters in the first place?”

“We was gonna catapult them at the enemy,” Engie replied. “I even had the catapult machine about built. Lucky my workshop’s in the part of the base that’s slightly less destroyed so it might still be intact. If not, it shouldn’t be hard to rebuild even if I gotta start over with the blueprints too.”

“No more bread monsters. They’ve caused more than enough trouble already.”

Demo could understand her reasoning, the bread monsters had indeed caused quite a lot of trouble, this destroying most of the base thing being the biggest issue of all. They should’ve taken more precautions to prevent this, especially since they were working with explosives that could propel themselves and wanted to bite anything and everything they could put their mouths around. So not exactly a normal explosive and thus different safety rules applied. On the other hand though, with how different their scientific disciplines were, it wasn’t often the three of them had a chance to work on something that they could all equally contribute to. And they’d put so much time and effort into it. If not for this misstep, they’d have had everything ready to wreck havoc on the enemy team when team battles started up again. So…

“All right, fair. No more bread monsters for a bit. But once the base is rebuilt, we’re going back to making our explosive monsters. We’ll be more careful though, promise.”

Miss Pauling gave him a measuring look, making him feel almost like a child getting scolded again. “Fine. But only because I think it’s a good idea. The Administrator told me to warn you to not ever make a mistake this bad again though. She doesn’t like having to pull in construction workers to rebuild. It’s a lot of work for us to hide what we’re doing out here from them and killing all of them is a lot work and rises too many potential complications. Understood?”

“Understood,” the three of them said in near unison. A warning from the Admin herself was not to be taken lightly. So they would have to be extra careful next time. Not that they weren’t going to be anyway, just they had that little bit more incentive to do so now.

#my writing #tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 drabbles #demoman #engineer #medic #miss pauling

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xerox-candybar · 1 year

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Once again, I am massively behind deadline because I love these scenes too much.

Anyway, the subtitle of this chapter may as well be “tell me you (the author) have a crush on Sukuna without saying you have a crush on Sukuna.” 🤷‍♀️

…also tell me “you remember nothing about chess” without saying “you remember nothing about chess.”

Anyway, Sukuna and Uruame play games. Since this is from the flower shop mafia AU, the detective is Nanami.

“You’re not still thinking about the detective, are you?”

Uruame shook their head, but this answer did not seem to satisfy him.

“No,” Uruame said, instinctively lowering their gaze. “You have my full attention.”

Sukuna’s eyes gleamed in the darkness. His expression hardened, drawing worried creases along his eyes and brow. As he rested his chin against his folded hands, he watched his companion with a silent intensity—and, Uruame realized, a kind of hunger.

You’re not still thinking about the detective, are you?

There was a second question embedded within the first.

No words would reassure him, Uruame began to understand. With the utmost care and attention, they arranged the last of the chess pieces; a display of reverence for the tools of the master, a wordless response to that second, unspoken question.

A piece was missing—Uruame’s rook. But how? They had placed it, hadn’t they? They always reset the board in the same, meticulous way—starting at the borders and then going in. They looked around hurriedly and started searching, first with disbelief and then with worry.

Sukuna began to laugh softly. Between his fingers, he held the missing rook.

“Please.”

Uruame extended their hands forward, gazing up through lowered lids. Sukuna placed the piece in their waiting hands, and then closed their hands.

…the “extend both hands as if begging” and “close somebody else’s hands” thing popped up unexpectedly… sometimes writing characters reminds me a little of my (very brief, very amateur) stints directing—like they have minds of their own and they’re always finding new ways to play around in the scene each time I revise it.

Unrelated, but I can’t resist sharing the story. Once upon a time one of my actors presented me with a very elaborately constructed bit of origami art, because their one line (which they repeated multiple times throughout the scene), was “may I have another scantron, please?” The original line was “may I have another blue book, please?” but my high school didn’t use those. I changed the line without really considering the implications—blue books are for written exams, you could plausibly run out of space and require more space for your essay(s). Scantrons are for multiple choice tests; you wouldn’t need more than one unless you happen to destroy yours. So she improvised by making paper cranes. I hadn’t realized until the final show that she’d been keeping the things, because she showed up to curtain call wearing them all like a boa.

#jjk fanfic #sukuna x Uruame #but let’s be real I’m using them as a self-insert #my writing #wilf #(work i’d like to finish)#everything’s pushing up daisies

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the-bjd-community-confess · 2 years

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I’m lichen anon. It seems like vinegar is the thing. We’ve stopped the water where it leaks into my room but we can’t fix the roof for the moment because my dad is afraid of being on the roof and the guy who typically fixes our roof (my house is over 100 years old and it’s in shambles, so a dude who owes my dad money fixes the stuff my dad can’t whenever he’s free. My dad is a engineer/construction/handyman basically he can do anything except stand on the roof) is on vacation or something idk, but we know where the leak is and we have tarps and bins catching the water so it doesn’t leak into the actual house part anymore. So ever since my dad did that and then drenched my ceiling in vinegar the lichen has not returned even though it’s been rainy and humid. I wouldn’t want to use anything harsher than vinegar or household cleaner because my room is a poorly ventilated glorified closet and my dad would never hire a guy to get rid of it because we don’t have money for that. Also mold doesn’t scare me we have mold in a few places in the house because we live on the beach in a dilapidated beach house so it’s inevitable, we treat it and no one’s ever gotten sick. My dad was just worried that this lichen would like take over my room. We were really more worried about water damage and the ceiling collapsing that anything else.

My dolls are safe tho and in their proper places. The ceiling doesn’t appear compromised so I shouldn’t have to worry about anything dripping or falling on them. I wish my room wasn’t a literal closet because one I don’t have a lot of room for stuff but also because we get hurricanes and stuff a lot and sometimes water leaks in the windows a bit and I worry about my dolls because they’re mostly under one window. So far only one doll got anything on it and it was because we had the house power washed so it could get painted (literal worst thing my dad has ever decided to do because it’s the reason the roof leaks, it gave us a flea infestation, and it destroyed a whole bunch of property when the dirty water leaked in and drenched electronics and a lot of my craft stuff and they didn’t paint stuff they were suppose to paint) and it stained one of my doll’s dress with rusty water that leaked through the window.

My dad on multiple occasions has gone into my room and thrown blankets over my dolls (cue heart attack) because of the water that could leak in from hurricanes and stuff. I appreciate that he cares but it also freaks me out everytime because I worry he’s going to damage one of my dolls because he doesn’t get how fragile they are. He does understand that they are expensive which is why he does this.

Anyway hopefully the lichen is gone for good, but hurricane season is like next month so we’ll see if the water leaks in again and I’ll have to protect my dolls from the weather. Also as a side note, I can’t get like cases for my dolls because my room is both small and not like a normal shape and the windows take up a lot of wall space and there’s a giant overhang in the middle of the room so anything taller than like 3-4ft won’t fit and the set up I have now literally leaves like a 4ft square of floor space at most. I can’t even have my clothes in my room because I have no closet and a dresser won’t fit lol

Sorry for the tangents I have adhd lol I appreciate anyone’s concern or advice tho

~Anonymous

#BJD #ABJD #BJD Confessions #Community Confessions #BJD Care #BJD and Family

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dzthenerd490 · 2 months

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Tales: Married to Faith

It was 2015, Iris and Meri were just enjoying a date together while traveling to New Marias. New Marias was only one of the Nexus Points under the Foundation's control, but it was popular for being the safest and best to live in. Here Species of Interest and anomalous humanoids could wander, walk, phase through, and fly freely without discrimination or worry of being hunted. As such it was a perfect place for Foundation staff to go and live a normal life every so often. It was also the best example of what a perfect life would look like if the veil over the anomalous world was ever broken.

Iris and Meri were just walking through the streets and enjoying their life together, though that was not all. Meri was here to help establish a new church. In fact, they just came across Dr. Wells and his wife Charlie who were also here to help with the church. Both Charlie and Iris left their lovers to work on the church as both were atheists and couldn't really help anyways. Instead, they both decided to sit on a bench close to the construction of the church.

"I'm surprised they didn't fight over which faith will get more attention."

"Those two are on such odd but good terms, I heard Meri didn't even get into one argument with Mathew, not even when he became Matilda."

"No, she doesn't actually like being around Matilda, she's just too nice to say no to hanging out with a friend. She's so lovely but too nice for her own good, but it makes me glad to be her wife so that I can stand beside her when she needs it."

"Hahaha, god you two were practically meant for each other, I remember when you guys were little you always wanted to hold her hand, every chance you got." Iris blushed and Charlie laughed again at this, the two both of them remained silent as they sat there. However, Iris then remembered her childhood within the Foundation and how much she wished she had the power to escape. She only got through it with the help of Meri, Daniel, and her friends. She then looked at Charlie with concern but quickly realized she was probably thinking too much and stopped herself from talking. She took a deep breath in, then out, and thought calmly about what she wanted to say.

"Charlie?"

"Hm? Yeah Iris?"

"Why did you decide to stay with the Foundation? With your power you could have escaped any time you wanted."

"Hm... yeah I could have but if we're being honest, they would have hunted me down and used my family as hostages. Besides, where else could I go? Be worshiped by the freaks at the Serpent's hand? Hunted to the point of insanity by those GOC pricks? Enslaved by Marshal, Carter and Dark Ltd? Probably brainwashed and recruited by the Black Queen's Insurgency. Like it or not, even I can't deny the Foundation is humanity's best hope for survival. And yeah, I know I got captured the same day I destroyed those government pricks that killed my dad, but they weren't anything like them. After throwing some fireballs they surrendered and asked for compromises.

I only accepted for the sake of my family and the barn, and they were surprisingly nice. I mean there were always those assholes that thought they were better, but I showed them who was boss in the end. They agreed to letting me have some freedom in exchange for working with them in the future. I figured I was just going to burn everything down as soon as I got there but I was genuinely shocked when they sent me on my first mission. It was to take down an army of evil Sarkites and boy where they a fucking threat but nothing I couldn't handle.

They have never once sent me to take down a building or kill civilians. I swear I would kill them if that was ever the case. Don't get me wrong I still hate those faceless O5 fucks, I've only heard have of the evil shit they do but that alone makes me hate them. Still the Foundation isn't all bad once you get used to it and it can actually be pretty rewarding regarding the perks and awesome people you get to meet. That's the main thing I like about staying, if I didn't join in the first place, I wouldn't have met you or the others. It was honestly so refreshing to know there were other kids out there that had powers like me. It was also refreshing to know I was both the oldest and the strongest." Charlie then winked at Iris to which she busted out laughing.

"Hahaha! Don't let Alexi and Claudia hear you saying that."

"Ah, Alexi's a sweetheart, he doesn't mind admitting I'm stronger, and Claudia can complain all she wants, it doesn't deny I'm right... Haaa... it's also thanks to the Foundation that I met Mathew. He does preach his faith a lot but he's still so sweet and caring about all. Don't tell him I ever said this but he's an absolute angle and a true light in my life. Haha, at times he may be an idiot but he's my idiot and I'm his, forever and always."

"Wow... and you say me and Meri were made for each other." Charlie then noticed Iris staring at her with admiration and sparkling eyes, Charlie blushed and looked the other way out of embarrassment.

"Haha, so what about you? I mean I know it's not easy to say no but why do YOU stay in the Foundation? What keeps you here?"

"Besides the fact that it's impossible to leave? I... Well at first it was the desire to take what I could from the Foundation and use it against them but now... it's because I have hope."

"Hope?"

"Yes, Hope that life can always get better, hope that nothing is impossible, just difficult, and hope that those we love can give us just as much strength and we give them... Hope is what drives me every day."

"Huh... And here I thought you were one of those people who believed naivety and hope meant the same thing."

"Nah, I used to, but after a certain train ride I learned the two couldn't be any more different. Besides, I can't deny that my life is pretty good right now. So yeah, guess having hope is working."

"Hm, well I'm glad it's working out... So now that they're distracted do you wanna talk about something a little spicier?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean it's just us here, and both our religious lovers are not here to get mad at us for having sinful talk so... What's Meri like in bed?" Iris blushed and looked at Charlie with shock, she then looked around and sighed in relief when there was no one close enough to hear them.

"Charlie! Are you serious right now?!"

"Oh, come on! This is always something married girls like us do when our significant others aren't around."

"That's not a thing! And even if it was, I have no reason to oblige!"

"Fine then if you won't start then I will." Iris groaned and covered her ears as Charlie giggled and continued.

"Ahhh... Mathew is an angel both out and in bed, he's so gentle but also full of energy. He really knows how to make a lady feel special any time of the day." Iris blushed as she didn't want to be hearing about another couple's sex life. Though she did stop tensing up when she noticed how lovingly Charlie was about it, it almost didn't make it sound as nasty as it could have been.

"And then after we're done, he hugs me so gently and lovingly and I just fall into the warmth and comfort of his embrace. The best part is he also wraps his wings around me, and they are so soft! It's like after making love to each other I get rewarded by being wrapped in a cocoon of love. Seriously I'm not religious but he's quite literally a man made in the perfect image of heaven." Now Iris was pouting in jealousy but also annoyance, she knew Charlie was baiting her into bragging about Meri. The worst part about it, is that it was definitely working.

"Well, Meri is quite innocent but up for trying new things, and she makes the cutest reactions sometimes." Charlie then leaned closer to Iris with her fists cutely under her chin to show she was extremely curious and ready to listen. Iris sighed while blushing in embarrassment, she knew Meri would hate it if she told anyone, but she couldn't help but want to talk about it, so she continued.

"Like for example she's actually really sensitive when you pet her legs. Most people call me crazy for thinking her legs are cute, but they are! And they're so soft too, it makes her turn so red and get so cutely defensive when I brush my hand across them."

"Oh? What about her horns? Does grabbing them turn her on?"

"Oh, no way! Her horns are strong but are quite sensitive and I don't mean in the aroused kind of way. It hurts her a lot when someone grabs them in any way. So, I always make sure to never touch them and she always sleeps with her chin down and head up."

"Ah sorry... so wait, does that mean she's always on top?" Iris blushed and glared at Charlie with disappointment while Charlie started giggling deviously with pride.

"Yes, actually. Once she's in the mood she starts taking control though she's very gentle yet also so powerful too. it's like this weird combo of gentle and rough that makes it all the more... exciting."

"Woah... you're such a slut." Iris turned red, glared at Charlie in anger, and punched her as hard as she could in the shoulder. Charlie grabbed her shoulder in pain but managed to laugh it off while Iris crossed her arms in anger.

"Hahaha! Okay! Okay, I'm sorry! Besides, it's not like I can judge, especially when I have lots of fun with Matilda." Iris then froze up and slowly turned her gaze back to Charlie in shock.

"... Matilda? As in Mathew's satanic form? You have sex with her too?"

"Yup, turns out I'm bisexual." Iris continued to look shocked at Charlie while she smiled and raised her chin with pride.

"Haha, it all started with a couples therapy session thing, it's kinda personal so I won't go into details, but the main point is that we wanted to get closer by exposing our flaws to one another. One of Mathew's flaws was that he felt uncomfortable yet free when he was in his satanic form. So, we worked together to help him be more comfortable in that form. After a few days one thing led to another and now every so often we sleep together. And oh boy! Is she aggressive in bed! And it's also hot, pun intended, that she can control fire like I can. Though the main take away is that now Mathew doesn't feel so trapped our out of control of his powers now, so the sex is good but it's more of an added bonus you know." Charlie blushed and smiled at that; it was nice to know that the married lives of her friends were doing good with a little couples therapy to help.

"But oh man does Matilda have such a hot body. You've and Meri have probably noticed back when you were teens but woah is she so gorgeous and sexy. Honestly it's like I won the lottery of love knowing I got one of the most handsome, gentle, funny and caring men who can also turn into the sexiest and hottest women on the earth." Iris then got annoyed again.

"Hottest women on earth? Meri is the physical incarnation of Gaia! She's literally gifted with the most beautiful face in the world made by the goddess herself."

"Sure, sure but Mathew is cute and gentle in his own way."

"No one is cuter or gentler than Meri!"

"Mathew is the combination of all the best aspects of both men and women!"

"Meri does this adorable thing where-" Before Iris could finish Meri suddenly hits Iris on the head while Dr. Wells slaps Charlie on the back of her head. The two girls then turned around and looked up in fear as their significant other. Meri was radiating a dark aura while glaring at Iris arms crossed and disappointed. Dr. Wells on the other hand was smiling despite his face clearly twitching with anger and radiating an aura of burning rage.

"My, my, Charlie, I'm glad you're having such fun talking about things I specifically and politely asked you not to talk about."

"Now, now. Don't be so harsh on them Mathew, after all we knew what we were getting into marrying such ruffians."

"Fair, fair, but I think it's time for the conversation to end." Mathew then grabbed Charlie's ear just hard enough to drag her away. Iris watched in horror at the sight, Charlie clearly wasn't in actual pain as Mathew was still being sure to be gentle, but it clearly hurt emotionally that her husband was very disappointed in her. Iris then fearfully turned to her disappointed wife who still had her arms crossed in disappointment.

"... *sigh* let's go home, Iris." Meri then walked away to which Iris silently but quickly followed her wife to the SFH-2 ″Raven" they came to New Marais in. Iris was really annoyed with herself for embarrassing her wife by bragging like that, so she just stayed behind Meri the entire time they were walking.

"... Though I have to ask."

"Hm?"

"You... Do you really like my legs? You don't think they're gross at all?" Meri turned to Iris while blushing in embarrassment. Once Iris noticed this, she blushed at how cute Meri looked; she then smiled warmly, walked up to her and gently put her hands on her cheek.

"I've already told you, haven't I? There's nothing hideous about your legs."

"I always just thought you could bear it because you loved me. You know love is blind and all."

"Meri, you really thought all this time I was secretly disgusted with your legs?" Meri then looked down in shame and nodded.

"But you're always so up front with everything that bothered you, why hide something little like that?"

"I guess, I just thought it was so little it wasn't a big deal. Compared to the stuff you have to deal with."

"... Oh Meri, nothing that bothers you is so small that I wouldn't make time to help you deal with it. I do have my own problems but I'm not dealing with any of them alone, so please don't deal with yours alone even if they seem small in the long run."

"Hm, thank you Iris... I really do love you." Iris and Meri then kissed, and it was perfectly timed too as the sun was just setting on the horizon. When they stopped Iris looked into Meri’s eyes full of love and wonder.

“... Will you marry me?”

“Huh? Iris, we’re already married.”

“I know… I think I just fell in love with you all over again.” Meri giggled in that adorable way that Iris loved. Meri then lovingly hugged Iris’s arm and the couple continued their walk to the “Raven”.

***

"Aw! I'm sorry Mathew! I just love talking about how great and amazing my husband is so I got carried away!" Mathew was wearing a look of disappointment as his wife was following him.

"... *sigh* You really did enjoy talking about Matilda as well."

"Oh, uh well..."

"And she is the hottest girl in the world if I heard you correctly."

"Well you are!" Mathew then stopped and turned around looking at Charlie in confusion.

"What?"

"Wha- what? I just mean that I like you in both forms and sure Matilda has her perks but at the end of the day it's still you. And that's what I love most about it, whether it be a different form or a different show of love, it's still you at the end of the day."

"You... still see it as me?"

"Well. yeah? I know your personalities change more dramatically when you touch certain items but when you're Matilda you have the same memories, the same basic likes, the same adorably laugh too. Frankly theirs are not that much different between you, Ah! But um obviously that doesn't reflect actual Satanism and Christianity... I think." Mathew looked at his wife confused but then chuckled which allowed her to calm down and smile again.

"Hahaha, the truth is, I'm not actually sure I like the Christian faith that much."

"Wha?"

"It's just what I feel in my blood is the right thing to do, but when I touch that pentagram talisman it's a new and exciting experience. It just so happens like with Christianity I feel freer than if I were to touch another religious item. So, I enjoy being Matilda almost as much as I like being Mathew. I just find it hard sometimes to decide which one I like more." Charlie smiled warmly and hugged her husband from behind while kissing his cheek.

"Well one thing is certain, whether you make a choice or just keep flipping between the two. I will always love you, forever and always. Because in my eyes, you will always be the one I love." Mathew blushed as he lovingly touched his wife's arms with one hand and placed one hand on her cheek with the other.

"Well, I just MIGHT feel like becoming Matilda again, for tonight! But I also might not want to be her for another month or so." Charlie felt a little hurt by that as she felt an arrow stab through the desire part of her heart. However, she quickly swallowed her pettiness up and faced her husband with a reassuring smile.

"Your anomalous body, your anomalous choice." Mathew smiled and leaned forward so he and Charlie could kiss, they both kissed for a short while. Afterwards, they both flew off into the skies together, seemingly dancing in the skies and taking their time before going back to Site-AM.

SCP: HMF Tales Hub

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hydriotaphia · 4 months

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Hey, thanks for replying - yeah I've been in fandom for most of my life, but have never been that into fanfic. Bridgerton I think is the first for which I started reading. Despite my minimal experience, I'm aware of the general rules and don't believe I've ever violated them. Based on what you've said about constructive criticism though, I have perhaps been going about it differently. When an author says smthn like 'let me know what you think,' I'll give it freely. I don't do this for fics I don't like, but for the fics I do like, it feels like excluding the criticism is weirdly disrespectful. I want to show that I wasn't just reading with half a brain, and that I spent time thinking about how I felt about certain parts. I try and make sure I use 'i think/I agree' a lot, and I believe I used these phrases excessively in my first ask to communicate that everything is my humble opinion. When discussing the antwina fic I mightve neglected to do that, and as a result mightve ended up sounding harsher.

Anyway, I get your point about fanfic being fun and the distinction you draw bw it and published fiction. I wasn't thinking about it that way. Sometimes fanfic is written so well that it's hard to forget you're not reading a published piece, and that as thought provoking as it is, you're not meant to share those thoughts if the author hasn't requested it. Smthn to keep in mind ig.

No, I agree with you about the headcanon thing. There was this modern au I read some time ago that had kanthony dealing with grief. By the end of the story, we saw them both in better places in their lives after having been broken up for a while, and it was clear that both would still lead happy, healthy lives even if they didn't have each other. Ofc they got back together though, and one of the reasons why it worked the second time around was bc they knew they were stable enough individually that they wouldn't be destroyed if things bw them ended again. I found it totally believable and loved that that idea. For your fic, I don't remember all that I said, but I think one of the reasons I felt differently about anthony's ability to recover is bc it's a regency au, so no therapy and no one to really help show him the path to recovery. Ik you said heartbreak is nothing like death of parent and its aftermath, so it wouldn't really be something he'd need help for (time would be enough), and while I agree those two things aren't equivalent, for someone like Anthony whose repeatedly experienced loss (of 'two' parents, of youth, etc.) and who would lose the one other person who could understand/take care of him, everything would sort of pile up into a lifelong sadness. I think the park scene you're referring to is in the featherington gardens in ep 8 (?) I agree that at that point he wasn't hoping for anything and was resigned to a fate of losing her. But I think we disagree on what exactly his survival after that entails. It seems like you think he'll recover completely (?), whereas I think he'll survive, channel the hurt into care for his family, but nonetheless always keep that hurt buried within him. If he had married edwina, then I think she would've been too much of a trigger for him to keep it buried, and he’d lash out at her/become more erratic. I think I brought up a scenario where someone else who's gone through similar experiences can forge a similar bond to him that kate did, in which case I could see him getting over it. Either way, for me, time alone isn't enough for him to forget her.

About lesbian edwina - no you're definitely right; when I mentioned lesbwina that was me mostly joking. There's nothing in the show to suggest that. Even when I said the reason she didn't recognize the tension bw kanthony was bc she doesn't understand straight ppl, i wasnt being serious at all. Me wanting a lesbwina is entirely wistful thinking.

I don't want to clog up your blog, so it's cool if you end our back and forth upon reading this. It's been nice to engage 👍.

Hi Anon, it’s been a few days so you may not see this but work has been insane and I took a little time to step away. Thanks for taking all that on board.

I do want to engage and I am always happy to talk head-canons and meta, so feel free to message about those.

In thinking about it, though, I wasn't sure if your ask was seeking genuine connection because, while many people thoughtfully engaged with the Anthony/Edwina get married AU or ignored it because it wasn’t for them, it is by far the one thing that people seem determined to argue about as if I had concluded wrong. Almost a version of ‘This hurt me and therefore it is not true/you are wrong’ versus ‘This hurt me AAAAAAAAh’. And the former is exhausting as you can imagine and how I originally understood your ask.

It seems like you think he'll recover completely (?), whereas I think he'll survive, channel the hurt into care for his family, but nonetheless always keep that hurt buried within him. …Either way, for me, time alone isn't enough for him to forget her.

Your definition of recovery seems very similar to mine actually! You’ve described him doing productive things to cope while acknowledging he’s been hurt in the past, which is pretty much what I think too. To me therapy isn't the only way to get through it though so that's not a deal-breaker for me. I also can’t see Anthony as Miss Havisham where the past is always intruding on the present.

Ha, I didn’t realise this was gentle teasing as it was mixed in with other things in the context of characterisations based directly on canon! Of course, pairings are whatever one’s little heart desires (meta is a bit different). But yeah, I do that too – almost none of my slash ships have ever been canonical (again I exclude Stucky from being made up because fuck you Marvel you wrote that and then denied them like COWARDS). Lesbwina is a pretty fun characterisation for sure! I’m pretty sure I have a WIP kicking around somewhere feat. Lesbwina 😊

#asks #bridgerton season 2 #anthony x edwina get married AU

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ourflagmeansdeath-kinkmeme · 7 months

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Stede/Any or Stede + Crew Gen — During a raid they find Stede's Dad and hear how abusive he is.

I've seen a fic where Ed's mom ends up loving Stede, I'd love the opposite: The crew finding and hating Stede's dad.

Raiding a ship one day like they do but one of the main passengers is Stede father. And Stede freezes for just a moment as his father starts to lay into him. Feels the dread creep up and begins to feel like a fragile child again. But he's been a pirate for awhile now and he can't breakdown just because of his father of all things.

So he just kind of gets this vacant look and disassociates and loots on autopilot, father tied up and hurling verbal abuse and threats of violence on him in the future, how easy it was to discipline him when he was small and how he should have done it harder so he wouldn't be this much of a disgrace to the Bonnet name etc.

And it just kind of filters through Stede's head cause yea, that's right, I'm a dissapoinment, yes Dad. No one could ever love me I know I know. I know I destroy everything I touch.

If he just accepts it and agrees then the words hurt less and he stops sooner. It's not like they wrong anyway, although that bit he keeps to himself.

The crew however is hearing this onslaught coming out of this man and they're both horrified that Stede is agreeing and enraged that this man saying such awful things about their captain.

I'd like to see Ed, Izzy and the crew getting a face full of what Stede had to deal with as a child and why he has the issues he does. No one just chooses to be that neurotic.

+ Another (or more) of Stede's bullies is there and are adding fuel to the fire describing how they tied him to the boat etc. + The crew huddle around Stede at story time a lot closer than they normally do to try and comfort him. + Even Izzy is uncomfortable with the shit that is coming out of Bonnet Senior's mouth. Like at least what he says is cruel yet constructive to help keep them alive on the ship, this man is being spiteful for the sake of it. + During some point of the night someone gets up to use the facilities and hears quiet sobbing. Its coming from Stede's room but they can't find him because he's hiding in the auxiliary closet and has huddled himself into a corner to not disturb anyone as he cries.

Fill: None

#TW: Abuse #C: Stede Bonnet #C: Stede Bonnet's Father #C: Revenge Crew #P: General | No Pairing #P: Stede Bonnet x Any #T: Backstory #T: Bullying #T: Learning a Secret #T: Self Esteem Issues #T: Hurt Comfort #T: Caretaking #Fill: None

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imspardagus · 11 months

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Everyday kindness 2: British values

I woke up in the middle of the night remembering Auntie Kay. Well, not so much her as her father.

Auntie Kay wasn’t our real Auntie. She was a friend, perhaps the only friend, our Mum had when she came to live in Ilford after the Second World War. I never knew, never asked, where she had come from. She was just one of those women who had enormous resilience, which they needed to cope with their weak husbands’ implicit right to dominate their environment. Women who got things done: the housework, the shopping, the cooking, the bringing up of the children. It was all that they had left after their abilities had been carelessly cast aside when the boys came home from war and needed their jobs back.

Auntie Kay’s husband was an electrician at the local electricity board. A little shrivelled weed of a man, he had a kind heart but a fierce, visceral hatred of all things Japanese (which you could afford to have back in the 1950s because our accountants hadn’t yet sold out our industries to Asia to cut the cost of making things at home), having been a guest in one of their prisoner of war camps for several years. Yes I know it is starting to read like a phoney cliché. The trouble with cliches is that a lot of the time they are true.

Auntie Kay and Uncle Frank both smoked cheap cigarettes constantly (see, I avoided saying “Like it was going out of fashion” or “like chimneys”. I’m trying.). It killed them both eventually but it gave Auntie Kay a deep gravelly voice that matched her East End ways – straight, plain speaking, loud in her dislike of unfairness and lies but not averse to stealing an edge if it was offered. It was that dislike of lies that led her to pursue the truth about her son Andrew’s death*. She was, I recall, a bit frightening and not at all genteel, which made her all the more surprising as Mum’s friend. But she was always there for us children and in the summer we would play around the swing in her garden or the massively overbuilt pond that Uncle Frank had constructed, more like a tank trap than a garden feature.

Anyway that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.

Auntie Kay’s father had been a teacher before the war. I never met him. He died before I could, in the early fifties. He had some degenerative neurological condition that gradually destroyed him. And that’s what I woke up recalling.

One of the stories Auntie Kay told Mum was of her father’s latter years, when his balance was shot to pieces. Apparently, he had been walking over Hainault Bridge from Ley Street into the High Road when his legs collapsed under him, sending him sprawling on the pavement, from which prone position he could not get up.

A man who was passing offered no help but took the opportunity to berate him loudly for being a drunk and a disgrace, this being only early afternoon. Then, duty done, the man went on his way, and it wasn’t until a woman came along and helped him to his feet with care and concern that he was able to teeter onwards.

Auntie Kay told this story with a fury for the man’s assumption that her Dad was drunk in the middle of the day. Her father was a respectable man and was ill and deserved better than to be condemned by a loud-mouthed scoundrel. And I thought so too. It didn’t matter to me that the man could not have known of her dad’s condition. I was incensed on her behalf because a person in need of help had instead been made the victim of prejudice to satisfy another’s self-righteous anger.

These days of course it would not happen like that. These days, there would be half a dozen people standing around using their mobile phones not to call for assistance but to capture the moment to upload to Facebook or TicToK. But almost certainly there would have been some gammon-faced clown taking the opportunity to shout the odds in the fallen man’s face about his degeneracy and what was the world coming too. Just as well he wasn’t obviously an immigrant. But then again someone, probably, it has to be said, a woman, would have come to his assistance, helped him to his feet, dusted him down, maybe even offered him a coffee in the local coffee shop, made sure he was okay.

And I started to think about these “British values” that disreputable, grifting politicians lift their snouts from the trough to bang on about. They want us to “return” to them, like we are all prodigal sons who have turned our backs on our fathers’ generosity and gone swanning off on some self-indulgent woke frolic of self-destruction. But they can’t, or won’t, say what these “values” are or why they were so much better.

It’s not the world that I, a 71 year old, recall. And in any event it misses the point.

What is the point, then? The point is that “values”, like so much else that matters, are living things. They are not things to be harked back to in a fit on misty nostalgia. They should define and determine how we live now. Yes, it is good to have an eye to the past, to learn its lessons and sometimes to remind ourselves that it is our job to do better, not worse. But we can’t, and shouldn’t be trying to, live there. The past only exists in our heads (and by extension now, in books and films and hard drives and memory sticks and the Cloud). It is a country for old men’s nightmares, like Uncle Frank’s prison camp. We do not expect the Germans to hark fondly back to their Nazi aberrations. We do not expect the Japanese to want back to Pearl Harbour. We hope that they have learned from their culturally imposed misery and inhumanity to do better. And, to be fair, they have.

And so it is with us. I mean, most proximately, us English but I am embracing you, over there, you evangelising, paranoid, mammon-worshipping Yanks. If there is an expectation, it is that we will do better, that we see the sins of the past not as something to emulate but to deprecate and resolve never again to make those appalling errors of judgment.

We can be kind, we can be tolerant, we can allow ourselves to assume the best of people until they prove us wrong, we can stand up for the weak and the displaced. It is strength, not weakness to do so. We can afford to be good and decent. It is not a sin to be “woke” if being woke makes us see the needs of others for kindness and an occasional helping hand. It is the essence of being human. It draws on values that long pre-date our murky and often vicious, but also mercifully short in historical span, recent history (a history of great technological advancement but often at the expense of pain and depredation and exploitation carelessly inflicted on others). The sin is to pretend for selfish reasons that caring and kindness are luxuries and that those who have fallen by the wayside are the parasitic authors of their own misfortune. If they are doing their best to survive then we must do our best to help them.

Jesus did not say “Blessed are the privileged for they shall have more”. He said Treat others as you would have yourself treated, even if they are your enemy. He taught us, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, that kindness knows no national or racial boundaries.

Values are what you aspire to. They are not campaign medals to hang proudly on your chest in the vain expectation that others will respect you. Quality, integrity and decency are not slogans, buzzwords, they are measures for how we live, day to day, day on day. And our British values cannot be defined by a shouty, smug, gammon-faced man who is grateful each day that he is not as other men are. They must, for our own sakes as much as for the sake of others, respect the humanity of all people and drive us to be better, kinder, more understanding people, more willing to be the Samaritan without needing to be prompted.

Here endeth the lesson.

*Andrew died on the HMS Sheffield, a victim not so much of the Exocet missile, which failed to explode on impact, but of cyanide poisoning when the fire that started aboard the ship melted the cheap plastic coating on the miles of wiring, filling the ship with toxic fumes. A victim of friendly fire in its truest sense perhaps. Heroically, he had died trying to locate and save a friend. Values, eh?

#Kindness #British values #Good Samaritan

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geometropolis · 11 months

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grt3D episode 18: race to the 2nd dimension

hexagon was awoken by a loud buzzing sound. it was about 2 am, so primeforsaken a time to wake up that for most shapes it was still considered night. the orange polyhedron groaned when she saw that it was still dark outside.

“i’m, like, on the 8th floor,” she muttered, taking the pacifier out of her mouth. “if there’s any construction going on, i shouldn’t be able to hear it.”

hexagon opened the window to take a better look. her eyes were barely over the windowsill… when suddenly she began to rise. her nose was over the windowsill. her mouth. she widened her eyes in fear and befuddlement only to see a giant, golden star suspended in the air: this star had 6 points: one on top, one on bottom, and four around the middle, like a sparkle of light. knowing what was to come, hexagon shoved the pacifier back in her mouth.

hexagon found herself stuck fast to the giant shape, her arms and legs disappearing. “hey,” she exclaimed, “are you origin’s sister?”

“oh?” the shape replied. “why, yes i am! my name is origin… i guess for the sake of clarity you can call me origin z and my brother origin y. say, how’d you come to know the little guy?”

“i was in the competition show he co-hosted.”

“which one?”

“what?”

origin z began to speed through the air without hearing her question. hexagon looked down and saw the buildings flying beneath her.

“aaaaaah!” she wailed. she hadn’t been afraid when origin – origin y – had carried her to the grounds of race to the 3rd dimension, but that was because she wasn’t quite… above the ground.

as hexagon sailed along, she hoped that this fear would go away; after all, she was new to this dimension! any native of the 2nd dimension would find this kind of experience disorienting, right? unfortunately for her, though, the feeling stayed.

i guess if i’ve gained anything here, hexagon thought, it’s a new phobia!

origin z stopped near an apartment building; a lavender shape came flying out through the window and stuck onto her beside hexagon.

“who’re you?” the shape asked curtly.

“...my name is hexagonal prism,” hexagon replied, smiling sheepishly as she said her ‘name’. “and you?”

“...cylinder. my name is cylinder.” cylinder broke eye contact as quickly as she made it.

“right…”

origin z went on to pick up two more shapes: a perfectly round tan one from a cozy little house, named sphere, and a familiar face from off the street.

“pyramid!” hexagon exclaimed when she saw them.

the mint green polyhedron chuckled uncomfortably. “who knew i’d be seeing you again so soon? and sphere, cylinder… good to see you as well.”

sphere smiled a worried smile.

cylinder nodded solemnly. “good luck, both of you,” she said.

soon enough, origin z had arrived in the vast gray field north of geometropolis. she stopped right above a sign saying “put contestants here!” and proceeded to drop the four shapes, still limbless, on the ground.

“ouch!” sphere yelped, biting their lip.

after a few minutes, the infamous möbius strip made his appearance. he translated over to origin z. “say, sparkle,” he whispered, “you don’t happen to have your grapher, do you? i left mine back in the 2nd dimension…”

origin z pulled out a little gray remote and zapped all four shapes with it, causing their arms and legs to reappear.

“anyway… GLAD YOU ALL COULD MAKE IT!” he said to the contestants in his typical loud voice. “OVER THE YEARS ALL OF YOU HAVE PROVEN YOUR WORTH AS WINNERS. YOU HAVE DESTROYED THOSE IN YOUR PATH IN PURSUIT OF A NEW LIFE… BUT, APPARENTLY, YOU ALL WANT, NAY, NEED THE OLD ONE BACK. SO? WILL YOU PROVE YOUR WORTH AGAIN?”

hexagon looked around at her fellow contestants, her eyes wide with shock and confusion. they seemed upset, but not surprised.

“what is he talking about?” she cried. “did you guys win race to the 3rd dimension too?”

sphere nodded. “yup…”

“there were other seasons? ...but i’d never heard of it before a few weeks ago… how long ago did the last winner get here?”

“five years ago,” cylinder answered in a monotone voice, her brows knitted.

hexagon edged back. “a-and–”

“i got here ten years ago,” pyramid said.

“and i’ve been here for 15,” sphere finished.

hexagon’s eyes were as wide and round as dinner plates; she glared at möbius strip. “what. the hell. is wrong with you.”

“YOU ALL KNOW THE DRILL.” möbius ignored her. “I WISH I COULD’VE GOTTEN MORE CONTESTANTS BEFORE STARTING RACE TO THE 2ND DIMENSION, BUT… due to some complications… WE’RE STARTING NOW. SO ANYWAY. FOUR CONTESTANTS, NO TEAMS, FIRST CHALLENGE IS GONNA BE CHECKERS. SPARKLE?”

“yes, sir!” origin z manifested two checker boards and checkers for each.

“OKAY SO UM. UH… PYRAMID AGAINST CYLINDER AND SPHERE AGAINST… HEXAGONAL PRISM :)”

hexagon sat down across from sphere, her face grave.

“something wrong, my dear?” sphere asked, moving a black checker.

“it’s…” hexagon started. “it’s just… are you okay?” she moved a gray one.

sphere chuckled. “you mean given everything möbius strip has done?” they moved another checker.

“what else?”

“well… there’s a reason why i signed up for this show. i was reminded of my old home.”

the two continued moving checkers around. hexagon captured one of theirs.

“hm…” sphere bit their lip. “watch this!” they captured two of hexagon’s checkers in one move.

“wow, i didn’t even know you could do that!”

“you learn something new everyday, my dear.”

hexagon smiled.

while pyramid had seemed casual enough while talking to hexagon, at the present moment they were quite desperately trying to win at checkers.

“i’m sorry i’m taking so long on my turn,” they said, pensively holding a black checker. “i just don’t want to mess up…”

“no, pyramid, i get it,” cylinder replied. “take as long as you like. hell, the longer you take, the more mad we’ll make möbius. by the look of it, he’s trying to get this thing over and done with as soon as mathematically possible.”

“and wouldn’t we like to make him mad… well, i know you would. but what if he puts us both up for elimination because we’re taking a billion years?”

“hm.”

pyramid finally made their move. cylinder immediately captured their checker.

“and wouldn’t it also be in our best interest to speed this along?” pyramid asked. “we have families to get back to… and it’s been so many years…”

cylinder conceded.

“i still can’t believe it…” hexagon murmured. “15 years?”

“mhm,” sphere nodded. they moved a checker.

“how come i’d never heard of disappearances? surely you’d hear on the news if somebody vanished one day and never came back.”

“well, people move out of geometropolis all the time, my dear. if somebody’s suddenly gone, everyone just assumes they found somewhere better to live.”

hexagon bit her lip. “geez…” she captured one of sphere’s checkers.

“mm… yes, when i met my wife i told her about where i came from, and she said that if i ever found a way back i should take it. after all, it was sort of like we were kidnapped.”

“you have a wife??”

sphere smiled. “yes. her name is octahedron. we met… ten years ago.” sphere captured two more of hers.

“i suppose i shouldn’t be too surprised! given how long you’ve been here, it’s no wonder you’ve found a new circle of loved ones.”

“well dear, to be honest, it was my first circle of loved ones. i didn’t really have anyone back in geometropolis.”

“nobody? nobody at all?”

“well… i had a family… but let’s just say that we were estranged. you seem like the type to have a lot of friends and folks back home in the 2nd dimension.”

“i do! i’m not super close to my family, because they don’t live in geometropolis, but i do have a lot of friends. a lot of best friends, too.” hexagon moved a piece to the end of the board, crowning it.

“then i pray you won’t stay here long enough to make some 3D ones…!”

hexagon chuckled.

“you know,” cylinder said, furrowing her brow, “you’re very good at checkers.”

“sorry,” pyramid replied, capturing a piece and crowning their own at the same time.

“it’s horrible for möbius to pit us against each other. i know he wants money. but why doesn’t he just have us pay to go home? why waste time with a silly, dumb competition?”

pyramid chuckled uneasily. “he loves to see us suffer…”

“he loves to see us hate each other is more like it.” cylinder turned to sphere and hexagon. “can we all agree not to get upset at each other over this whole thing, and instead just get upset at möbius?”

hexagon blinked. “sure.”

“he’d get a kick out of it if we tore each other apart to get home. we’re already giving him our money; we don’t have to give him anything else.”

hexagon and sphere nodded.

“WHAT IN MATH ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT???” möbius asked. “GEEZ, JUST PLAY YOUR CHECKERS.”

origin z had been spinning around, not paying attention, but what möbius strip said made her curious about the contestants. she edged closer to them, wanting to join their conversation.

“STOP RIGHT THERE, SPARKLE!”

she turned around.

“do not talk to the contestants,” möbius strip growled. “i’m not making that mistake again…”

“but why?” origin z asked.

“blame your brother, dimwit. go back to spinning or whatever.”

his co-host edged back in shame. “okay…”

hexagon frowned. “at the very least möbius could be nice to her. he’s always so mean for no reason… it’s not like he’s proving a point by being a bad boss.”

sphere crowned a checker. “you tell him that.”

“anyway, what were we talking about?”

“friends? family?”

“right… golly, i miss my friends so much.” hexagon captured one of sphere’s checkers.

sphere looked up at her. “i bet you do.”

“the worst thing is that i did something horrible to one of them before i came here and didn’t get the chance to apologize… i’m so worried about her. here, look.” hexagon showed them octagon’s pacifier. “this is hers. another friend gave it to her. but anyway… now i wish i hadn’t won at all. not like i’d wish this fate upon anyone else, but y’know. i just wanna tell my friend how much i love her.”

sphere sighed and smiled sadly. they were about to capture two more of hexagon’s pieces, but they paused.

“...is something wrong?”

“i’m fine, dear. i just believe i’ve made a grave mistake.”

hexagon eyed them with concern.

“i never had anyone in the 2nd dimension. i’ve been trapped here in the 3rd dimension against my will, but i have loved ones now. i have a wife. when the advertisement for this competition came on the television i automatically had the urge to go back. part of me felt like i should miss home. i lived there for so many years. i met so many people. i can’t just throw that life away, right? but i now realize that i never had a life there to begin with. call it delusional, call it stockholm syndrome, but i love living here. i love the people i’ve met here more than i’ve loved anyone before…”

“even though this dimension is boring as sin?” hexagon smiled.

“just as boring as yours. but you miss your beloved friends. they are where your life truly resides. not in the gray: in the colors of the people you love.”

sphere proceeded to make a very dumb move.

“if you insist on letting me win,” she said, capturing two of their pieces. “aw man…”

“what is it now, dear?”

“you’ve been so awfully sweet! now if i do win this competition, and i do go back home, i’ll have to miss you!”

sphere smiled and shook their head. “well sure, but you’re always going to be missing someone. you can’t be in two dimensions at once, my dear.”

“i just wish i could travel between these two more easily. maybe then i could meet your wife!”

sphere laughed affectionately at that.

“...so sphere doesn’t want to win anymore,” pyramid said, capturing one of cylinder’s pieces. “i suppose we should feel happy about that.”

“at the very least,” cylinder began, “there’s one fewer person to worry about. good for sphere! anyway, i’m wondering about hexagonal prism. she’s a fresh face, and the friendly type too. cuz she last saw her loved ones a few days ago she’s still on that desperate high to get back to them.” cylinder moved a checker.

pyramid frowned. “are we not?”

“well, sure we are, but it’s different for us. we’re older and we’ve been here longer. we’ve had the time to at least start the semblance of a life here. the only thing hexagonal prism has is the memories of home.”

“i guess you’re right. but man, i just really miss my husband and kid…”

cylinder nodded sympathetically and sighed. “i can’t believe möbius would even need to do another season of race to the 3rd dimension, and then this. doesn’t he have enough digits? what’s he even doing with all of them?”

“paying for our therapy bills?”

“that’s rich!”

both of them laughed, but soon retreated back into their default states: cylinder, bitter and focused, pyramid, nervous and tense.

“sometimes i feel like i’ll never get out of here,” pyramid whispered.

“you will,” cylinder replied firmly.

“but we can’t both go back home!” pyramid cried. “it’s you see your family or i see mine or neither of us do. there’s no happy ending for all of us.”

hexagon heard them and frowned. cylinder sighed, unhappy that she had no good rebuttal. it was all up to möbius strip, after all.

möbius strip was flying back and forth, impatient. “WHY ARE THEY TAKING SO LONG???” he seethed. “I SWEAR TO THE PRIMES!!!!”

origin z was gazing at the four contestants sadly.

hexagon turned and waved at her.

excited, origin z manifested a hand and waved back. she giggled.

“WHAT’S SO FUNNY?”

“oh, nuttin…”

hexagon, as expected, won against sphere.

cylinder was so lost in thought that she lost against pyramid. also, well, pyramid was just good at checkers.

“good game?” pyramid said.

“good game.” cylinder replied, shaking their hand.

“OKEY DOKEY!” möbius announced. “CYLINDER AND SPHERE ARE UP FOR ELIMINATION!!!!”

pyramid patted cylinder on the back.

sphere yawned. “say, möbius strip, where are we sleeping? i’m pooped…”

“OVER YONDER. SPARKLE?”

“yes?” origin z replied.

“BRING THESE GUYS TO THE CABIN.”

“gotcha.”

origin z began to buzz, and the four polyhedra stuck to her in the typical fashion. she began to translate over to the cabin; there was only one, as there were only four contestants (and as was standard practice for these competition shows, there were always four beds per cabin).

“sooooo….” origin z began once out of the earshot of her boss, “how’s everyone doing?”

“not very well, unfortunately,” cylinder muttered. “i’ll probably be eliminated tomorrow.”

“what makes you say that? it might be sphere for all you know.”

“well,” hexagon explained, “möbius strip has a history of using eliminations to stir up trouble. if somebody really wants to lose? he’ll keep them in the game. if somebody really wants to win? he’ll eliminate them.”

“so…” pyramid said, “cylinder’s probably gonna be eliminated tomorrow.”

“darn,” sphere sighed.

“hm… well i wish you both luck!” origin z exclaimed. “i hope möbius strip has a change of heart.”

“heart?” cylinder chuckled. “he doesn’t have one!”

the contestants were soon dropped off at their cabin and given back their arms and legs.

“thank you, origin z!!!!” hexagon said.

the other three thanked her as well.

“why, thank you!!!” she replied before departing.

the four polyhedra entered the cabin and all claimed their beds. sphere went to sleep almost instantly, even though it was the middle of the day.

“what are we supposed to do now?” cylinder asked. “what’s the point of having short challenges if möbius is waiting for the next day to do eliminations anyway?”

“i don’t know…” pyramid groaned. “can we just collectively admit that we don’t know what he’s up to? he’s a jerk. he’s a creep. but beyond that we have no clue who he really is or what he’s really doing.”

“maybe that’s all he is,” hexagon murmured. “a greedy, low-down son of a gun. he keeps telling us about how desire turns us into horrible people. takes one to know one, i suppose.”

cylinder glanced at sphere and chuckled. “they’ve got the right idea. we’ve done nothing and still i’m wiped…

“so good night?”

“why not?”

cylinder and pyramid proceeded to nod off, leaving hexagon awake and alone.

“i heard what you said,” she said softly. “but we will get our happy ending. we’ll all go home.”

hexagon put the pacifier in her mouth.

“i promise.”

#story #object novel #osc #geometropolis #geometropolis: race to the 3rd dimension #grt3d

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getmemymicroscope · 1 year

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No. Just no.

It's not a suspense - not only do they spoil it super early, they also do a miserable job of hiding it before that. You know almost instantly who it is: what they do hide, for a bit, is the "why?" but even that is ruined very quickly. (Though, I guess, "revenge of the artist" as a tagline also sort of gives it away - though they do initially try to hide who the 'artist' actually is.)

And ruined, both of them are, simply because the 'gruesome' they've given us thus far (one man naked and with numerous deep cuts; one man cut in half with organs spewed; one man with organs distributed over a field) is apparently not enough for them - but they also want to re-live everything by showing it again, this time from the point of view of the killer so that they can be even more morbid. It's unnecessary, but more than that, it immediately takes our 'protagonist' (okay, probably not) and makes him not worthy of supporting. And then, all of a sudden, you have no one to care about.

His backstory, revealed through a bad film at the end of the movie, is too late to garner much sympathy, because that's a reality for many people who do not fall to these depths of cruelty. Bollywood's constant obsession with psychological disorders (especially schizophrenia or delusional disorder) in villains is also sorta grating: they're just playing, deeply, into a stereotype that can be pretty harmful. Which is unfortunate.

Even worse, though, is the 'transformation' she undergoes into, eventually, a screaming bean bag. ... Like, I get it, you signed up (willingly) for something crazy risky and refused to back down when offered. But then to go completely insane because your mom was hidden away (for her safety!) and to constantly scream about wanting Danny (even though you'd been told you keep it a secret and just let the event play out) - you've gone through a multi-year pandemic, so how can 1 day without mom and Danny drive you insane? - was not only somewhat inexplicable, but also fucking annoying to hear. Like, you were better than this for the entire movie. And then this nonsense. ... And then, somehow, he picks her up and throws her out the window, across an entire fucking street as if she's a bean bag. What in the what?! (Even more stupid, she only has a cut on the face; later, Sunny Deol makes that same leap and apparently destroys his leg.) Like, he literally throws her as if she's a bag of flour. It's so unbelievable there.

In fact, that whole scene - from the moment she starts yelling, through the bean bag toss, and all the way until Sunny Deol fucking finally looks in the room (and then leaps out of the window and across the fucking street) - is an absolute mess of a sequence in an otherwise pretty well-constructed story (I have issues with the way it plays out, yes, but it's well constructed despite those issues).

Even at the end, the Guru Dutt connection is very flimsy; his reasons for acting now are unexplained; and Pooja Bhatt's character, in the role she has and with her given specialty, not knowing who Guru Dutt is is insane; and her final proclamation that "the pain makes the artist" (paraphrased) is ridiculous. And, even if that were true (it's not), that doesn't justify everything we've just seen him do.

This felt like a movie made by someone who had gotten a movie badly reviewed by critics and he was just acting out on internal wishes/anger. Worse yet was that they made it so clear who was guilty and then, in spite of this, had to still reveal everything early just so they could glorify the morbid. Of course, it's not like there were many other options for the "who" anyways: half the people are critics themselves, her mother is blind, and Sunny Deol is the cop. No one else really gets any significant screen-time.

I read a review somewhere the decried the movie for giving the serial killer a 'flimsy' reason to act - and while I do question 'why now,' I disagree with that part of it. There's too many 'larger than life' villains who want to take over the world or destroy all of humanity or end everything. Seeing someone with a slightly simpler/narrower focus is not a bad thing - that's one thing the movie does well.

Of course, what he fails to realize is that everyone has different opinions of movies. Not everyone will like or hate the same films, or even if they do, not for the same reasons. Critics are, yes, overblown in their power - especially since they're seemingly so aghast with any sort of comedy or masala film or anything that isn't uber-serious ... but the simple response is to just ignore them. There's some types of movies that they can be listened to about, I'm sure (I just haven't found that yet), but, in general, they're best left ignored.

Maybe it's because I had heard/read some good things online, but I'm pretty disappointed with how this non-suspense movie turned out.

#movies #gmmm does bollywood #movieblr #gmmm does movies

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