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[ID: Legend Of The Galactic Heroes screenshot. Frederica Greenhill Yang sits in the driver's seat of a vehicle, dressed in her naval uniform, and playfully tells those present, "Thank you all very much, but I prefer to be possessed." /end ID]
When I was a child, folks called me many things. Gifted, mature, intelligent, an old soul, an indigo child. Romanticizing on a spectrum from IQ-fetishizing to bullshit magic (but I repeat myself), to avoid facing how traumatized and alienated I was, instead of doing something to improve my shitty, dangerous life.
An indigo child, for crap sakes. Folks wanted to believe the Next Generation, "homo superior" as the song said, would fix everything by virtue of superpowers from the stars.
I still haven't really internalized that attempted murder is not a normal childhood experience.
Do you suppose they thought that, by believing in such things, they were being activists? That by reading books about magical alien incarnations they were making the world a better place? That wouldn't be true no matter what you're reading. There's no media consumption that can make the world a better place. If creating media makes the world a better place, it is not because its consumption is itself anything valuable; it is the actions it inspires that matter, and nothing more. (And my sympathies to anyone who tries to inspire folks to stand up for us, and instead only inspires folks to pass laws to keep lineworkers from becoming part of the sausages. One can try.)
And lemme tell ya, I did not grow up to be anything that special. I'm one more unemployed, disabled trans woman who has panic attacks in grocery stores. If testing at 99.9 percentile in several fields of childhood development yields someone who barely graduates high school and on rare occasion writes angry rants on social media, I don't think testing does what it's intended to do. And perhaps intelligence, whatever that's supposed to be, is of little use if it was supposed to be something I had a lot of, and now I can't remember advanced algebra and have forgotten how to spell "desperate."
And no, I don't think this little shitty piece of media I'm writing is important either, nor is consuming it going to make anybody a better person. They have to choose that for themselves. By fucking doing something. Find some kid who has that faraway stare, whether they take tests well or not, and fight off the terrors that plague them. Listen to what they say, try to learn what is happening in their heads, in their lives, be there for them, but don't... don't just fucking build them up and tell them what amazing things they'll be. Don't hold parades for us and tell us how great we are and how the whole world will be our oyster and how we'll save lives and invent things and win at life for everyone. Don't tell us we'll overthrow the old regime and install a new, kinder and better world. Don't tell us we can't, but if you really want something like that to happen, do it yourself.
Bertholdt Brecht said, "Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon." A weapon does no good if you don't use it.
An indigo child, for crap sakes. Folks wanted to believe the Next Generation, "homo superior" as the song said, would fix everything by virtue of superpowers from the stars.
I still haven't really internalized that attempted murder is not a normal childhood experience.
Do you suppose they thought that, by believing in such things, they were being activists? That by reading books about magical alien incarnations they were making the world a better place? That wouldn't be true no matter what you're reading. There's no media consumption that can make the world a better place. If creating media makes the world a better place, it is not because its consumption is itself anything valuable; it is the actions it inspires that matter, and nothing more. (And my sympathies to anyone who tries to inspire folks to stand up for us, and instead only inspires folks to pass laws to keep lineworkers from becoming part of the sausages. One can try.)
And lemme tell ya, I did not grow up to be anything that special. I'm one more unemployed, disabled trans woman who has panic attacks in grocery stores. If testing at 99.9 percentile in several fields of childhood development yields someone who barely graduates high school and on rare occasion writes angry rants on social media, I don't think testing does what it's intended to do. And perhaps intelligence, whatever that's supposed to be, is of little use if it was supposed to be something I had a lot of, and now I can't remember advanced algebra and have forgotten how to spell "desperate."
And no, I don't think this little shitty piece of media I'm writing is important either, nor is consuming it going to make anybody a better person. They have to choose that for themselves. By fucking doing something. Find some kid who has that faraway stare, whether they take tests well or not, and fight off the terrors that plague them. Listen to what they say, try to learn what is happening in their heads, in their lives, be there for them, but don't... don't just fucking build them up and tell them what amazing things they'll be. Don't hold parades for us and tell us how great we are and how the whole world will be our oyster and how we'll save lives and invent things and win at life for everyone. Don't tell us we'll overthrow the old regime and install a new, kinder and better world. Don't tell us we can't, but if you really want something like that to happen, do it yourself.
Bertholdt Brecht said, "Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon." A weapon does no good if you don't use it.
[ID: Fallout 1 message box text reads, "Radscorpion was critically hit for 4 hit points. The Radscorpion cannot cope with a new sensation, like missing internal organs." /end ID]
(no subject)
Oct. 23rd, 2024 07:26 pm
ID: Scene from the 2022 horror film Nope. Angel Torres and the Haywoods sit in a fast food place eating. Angel tells OJ, "Like, read the room."
Thinking about how OJ Haywood and Laios Thorden have a few things in common, and how the Jean Jacket operation had a lot in common with a Dungeon Meshi plan (albeit, one of the ones that went somewhat awry.) Laios was more knowledgeable of his foes than OJ was, but both relied on their ability to understand a specific menace in order to neutralize it, to get what they needed. There's even moments in Dungeon Meshi where Laios makes quick and important observations which then become part of a plan, even in the middle of the action, just like OJ does with regards to eye contact. (I did say there's spoilers.)
The above scene could easily have been Laios getting told off for something he said; likewise, OJ may in Laios' circumstances have said something others found uncomfortable, for its timing or for its content. He's more circumspect than Laios, so it happens less often, but it does happen at least once.
Thinking about how the autistic-coded (as in prolly very much so) character in Nope is the one who realized eye contact is bad. Thinking about how he cannot play the social game, gets overrun and ignored (as opposed to Laios, whose resting bitchface, genuine frustration with people, and almost total earnestness earn him an unfairly spooky reputation.)
(Actually, OJ's got a nearly flat affect, so manga!Laios and OJ actually do have similar vibes, just Laios is harder for others to ignore.)
The rest of their respective parties don't map to each other. Angel, Em and Antlers are not Chilchuk, Marcille or Senshi. The stories these works tell are different in most every way other than OJ and Laios being probably autistic, and everyone relying on their knowledge to win the day and survive.
I don't really have a thesis here. I just think they're neat.
The above scene could easily have been Laios getting told off for something he said; likewise, OJ may in Laios' circumstances have said something others found uncomfortable, for its timing or for its content. He's more circumspect than Laios, so it happens less often, but it does happen at least once.
Thinking about how the autistic-coded (as in prolly very much so) character in Nope is the one who realized eye contact is bad. Thinking about how he cannot play the social game, gets overrun and ignored (as opposed to Laios, whose resting bitchface, genuine frustration with people, and almost total earnestness earn him an unfairly spooky reputation.)
(Actually, OJ's got a nearly flat affect, so manga!Laios and OJ actually do have similar vibes, just Laios is harder for others to ignore.)
The rest of their respective parties don't map to each other. Angel, Em and Antlers are not Chilchuk, Marcille or Senshi. The stories these works tell are different in most every way other than OJ and Laios being probably autistic, and everyone relying on their knowledge to win the day and survive.
I don't really have a thesis here. I just think they're neat.
Star Trek: The Next Generation screenshot from the episode Tin Man. Tam Elbrun, a humanoid betazoid telepath with red hair and a green tunic, speaks with Data, an android in Star Fleet command uniform, in Data's quarters.
Star Trek Original Series screenshot. A brunette in a blue and green dress stands on the transporter pad holding a rose as she gives the Vulcan salute: Live long and prosper. Dr. Miranda Jones, episode title Is There In Truth No Beauty?(I still want her sensor web. That's the coolest accessory in science fiction, I swear to god.)
For that matter, while the more obvious choice would be someone who's blind, Tam is otherwise unusually qualified to be an ambassador to the Medusans.
He did seem to find the Chandrans pretty easy to get along with, so the Medusan job could easily go to someone else, but I'd think he'd be okay there.
And all's well that ends well, but I don't think Tam needed to feel like shit most of the time in order for him to reach out to Gomtuu or vice-versa.
Cohost backup: Making up a critter
Oct. 23rd, 2024 06:00 pmPreface: I am assured at this point that, in fact, a rocky planet or moon within the habitable range of a flare star is probably impossible. Granted the sheer number of red dwarfs out there means improbable things have more opportunities to occur, but it's somewhat liberating knowing this creature is impossible. It means I can just fuck around.
I have been tasked with making up an alien species for a sf/fantasy campaign. This is what I have so far.
Variously called twelfors, flarians, or often called "reefers" due to the creches their youngest and oldest live in. These are all exonyms; most flarians use their state or nation as a demonym, so when speaking of themselves as a species, when necessary they refer to themselves using an exonym.[1]
Their homeworld orbits a small, k-class red dwarf star catalogued by humans as 124 Zhou, though the majority of flarians live elsewhere, having colonized multiple other worlds some time ago. 124 "Twelve-Four" Zhou is a flare star, prone to solar storms that bathe the planet in what would nominally be very deadly radiation in not-infrequent bursts. Much of the planet's surface lifeforms have adapted with a strategy not unlike banksia, using the energy and chaos of the flares to flourish at the expense of most of them dying off in the flare and leaving seeds. Life underwater, such as in the seas, is more varied in this regard, depending on the depth it's adapted to.
Flarians generally have two arms and four legs; they are primarily bipedal, using the other two legs only as occasional support or for long periods of standing.
People who have never met flarians, but know of them, almost certainly are aware of their life cycle. The terms "infant," "child," "adult," and "senior" don't apply very well to flarians. If an outsider meets a flarian, they're almost certainly meeting a "youth," somewhat equivalent to adulthood. Infant or larval stage flarians live in creches, and are very much an r-strategy matter; like in sea turtles, most die. Infants who grow to the child/teenage stage and grow limbs for walking on land are cared for to a far, far more significant degree. Most disabilities have their origins either in genetics or from the conditions of the creche. There are differing cultural notions of how to approach this, including augmentation toward a mean level of ability, or simply having an unusually wide cultural expectation of what constitutes able. In the latter case, such societies tend to be very accessible, and not only physically. Such societies are also more easily able to incorporate members of other species, as differences of abilities are already normalized and accounted for as best they can.
The most common cause of disability is various forms of water pollution. The politics of such matters should be familiar to the reader. This is part of why many creches are moved out of the ocean and into other, smaller environments. The quality of these artificial waters and their conditions varies somewhat, depending on means, needs, and motives.
The child stage is a time when they learn the basics of their cultures and is generally when schooling takes place. During that time, flarian hind legs grow bigger and stronger, and the hips and back develop to make them nearly obligate bipeds. Once they have reached full physical maturity, growing in size and usually in lower body strength and endurance, they become what could reasonably be called adults, which is the "youth" stage.
Flarians have a final life stage where they go into a chrysalis, and most of their body turns into a creature that resembles a tunicate. They have a whole set of concepts around the "soul," which is the English word that is closest to how they refer to their blood. ("Internal sea" is pretty clunky, and misses some spiritual nuances.) The final stage is mindless; while flarians may talk to them, and there are beliefs about what happens to the mind, the body has changed shape and hollowed out, and its "soul" has joined the wider seasoul, mingling generally with the souls of other sessiles in the creche. (There is no scientific basis for believing the blood of a flarian carries thoughts and minds, and how a given flarian belief system talks about blood varies as well.)
This sessile stage is also sexual maturity; while younger motile "youths" may engage in play with others, especially with other species, and are functionally what one might call adults in another species, there is no sexual maturity without becoming what amounts to a sea sponge, so the equivalent to teenage years, adulthood, physical maturity and senescence of a sort, and decades-long careers all come before the age when mating and having children occurs.
One result is that flarians are also known for frequently having a rather odd bimboification kink. It's far from universal, but becoming a mindless breeding creature with sufficient intelligence and mindfulness to enjoy it is an appealing fantasy for some.
Youths sometimes put off becoming sessile, perhaps because of their career, the caretaking of a child, or sometimes personal preference. Understandably, some youths also have a fear of sessility, which is also the end of mindfulness in flarians. Most do not fear sessility, and the fear can be symptomatic of mental illness. Illness or not, that fear has driven some social movements toward actions and policies intended to eliminate the death of the mind. A sessile body is too simple to support a nervous system, much less a mind. One such social movement, Consciousers, intends to utterly remove the brain from infant-aged flarians and replace it with a growing, adaptive artificial intelligence, which might be joined with the sessile form in the creche. The research is not far along in this regard, and it is not a commonly high priority, and many flarians are horrified by the idea, and the movement is sometimes allied with technocratic conservative movements in other, extraspecies cultures.
In terms of general beliefs, the mingling of the internal sea with that of all the other flarians of the creche and of history, or at least with an immediate local sea of an artificial environment, is identified with the dissolution of the mind. Making a mind that has no part in that sea is not an entirely popular idea.
Choosing where to go once sessile is not exactly treated like end of life care; it is an advance directive, but is seldom treated as funerary. Sessile flarians in fact may live thousands and thousands of years. Talking to them may be akin to talking to a house plant, and certain things might be mourned, but by many flarian standards they aren't dead.
Some bodily alterations remain a part of sessile flarians. While augments usually cease to even be attached as the body becomes simple and hollow, tattoos and similar body modifications generally remain discernible, and part of flarian body art is planning for the sessile stage.
Flarian marriages vary in number, but if married flarians become sessile, they usually wish to go to the same local creche or family creche. Marriages into other places, moving to other cities or planets or countries, can complicate these plans. Likewise, the sessility chrysalis can have mishaps or strangeness, including (rarely) bifurcation. In some cases, the actual death of a flarian is handled by simply taking some portion of their blood and releasing it into the creche that seems most appropriate, or even multiple creches. In the dominant culture the main character was born into, intermarriage between states or nations was encouraged; theoretically, it was thought to make it harder to go to war or create conflict. In practice, the main effect of this is that damaging a creche in an act of violence is considered a very heinous war crime. It also helps avoid the equivalents of Hapsburg jaws.
Sessile flarians have numerous sexes, not dissimilar to Earthly mushrooms. What a youth's eventual sex will be is often unknown, as it is not as simple a thing to define as simply a set of chromosomes. (Flarians do have genetic material, but it is not DNA per se, and their genes are not encoded on chromosomes quite like Earth creatures' are. The molecules and structure differ meaningfully. I will not explain further, but those genes are only part of what defines a sessile flarian's sex and sexual characteristics.)
One sessile sex translates to "simply extant," and produces no nutrients for others nor takes part in mating. Some sessile sexes only produce nutrients for infants; some only mate; most strike some balance; and some have morphology that's advantageous in some environmental conditions, such as defensibility.
Some cultures like to keep trinkets made from the bodily fluids of ancestors. Some think that's a terrible idea and complicates the soul's transition and metamorphosis. It is common for those who keep trinkets to speak to them when troubled, and to ask for help with specific known strengths the flarians whose material is encapsulated were good at. Often these ancestors are alive as sessiles somewhere. In some cases, sessiles are kept in large tanks in small numbers, to keep a family close with their sessile members, or to facilitate travel, whether on a planet's surface or in space or to other planets.
On the subject of blood, flarians have two vascular systems, one for carrying oxygen and the other for carrying most nutrients. (Some nutrients are in both systems, and some are in the same system as is used for oxygenation.) They have a single, complex heart. Blood transfusions are a thing, and while there are some subcultures that get a little finicky about the idea, and some social movements which believe the internal sea should remain Pure, mostly blood banks exist, are helpful and necessary, and people in that sense mingle souls without hesitation. Bleeding to death is the soul leaving the body improperly and tragically, with a long journey before it has any chance of joining the greater sea.
Pilgrimages are common, both on a planet and to other planets, and are often not religious at all. They're treated a bit like visiting grandparents, even if the grandparents (that is, the community of sessile elders) is long gone. In spiritual peoples, this often accompanies a belief that the memories and mind of the motile stages lives on in some manner on a non-physical plane.
[1] Usually, if they aren't talking about the immediate culture they're from, and are referring to a mixed group of individuals, they just call them "people," which can be ambiguous when referring to matters such as medical needs; while generally one's home state or nationality is used in place of that term, it can be necessary to be more specific. (This can vary, and is all true only of the dominant languages spoken by most spacefaring flarians; some languages do have species-level endonyms, but as the languages they study to speak with others all do not have native endonyms for flarians as a whole, flarian has become the commonly accepted term.)
I come to you concerned.
This latest crypto craze has taken the form of desperately attempting to automate art, so that the wealthy have access to art without cost, and the poor have no access to doing art at all. One of our most valuable artistic roles is that of trans shitposter, most archetypically trans girl shitposter, though in my experience this applies far more broadly.
Soon, automation will come for this job as well, and we will not know for sure when it has happened. The quality of trans shitposting will sharply decline on average, real shitposters will be shut out by the sheer volume of low-quality shitposting, and we will be left with few if any trans shitposters at all. This is a serious concern, but the greater concern is bias automation: ChatGPT and similar "AI" systems are notorious bias amplifiers, known to be more racist than the average of what they replace. We must get ahead of this. We must create our own LLM shitposters, trained on data of our choice, to get ahead of and steer this inevitable shift. We must train our shitposters on data that makes them better than we are, not worse; that leans into the stereotypes we admire, not the ones ascribed to us; and, of course, to avoid the amplification of racism one sees in ChatGPT and other modern unethical systems marketed as "AI."
Together, we can make the automated trans shitposter we deserve.
Full disclosure, this is gonna be fairly stream-of-consciousness, and is directly reposted from a rant I said in a venting channel. I genuinely don't think any of these takes are dogshit, but am prepared to be called out for dogshit takes from this because I in fact did not carefully think this through. There are also spoilers for RoboCop (1987) and Us (2019), which I can't figure out how to conceal except by warning you now.
ID: Scene from RoboCop. Murphy as RoboCop holds a drill. Looking away from Lewis as he prepares to remove his damaged exterior armor, he says to her, "You may not like what you're about to see."
Compared to everything else on my mind, it's really very minor, but I suppose after a rough day like today, it's no surprise I'd be thinking about it:
If it weren't so difficult, I don't think semantically I'd bother saying I'm not human. My feelings of kinship with machines, with robots and automata, including with unintelligent machines, wouldn't be so strong if I weren't going through some shit all my life.
It's kind of incredible to me, when I think about it, that there are folks who look at me as if I were unreal, even inhuman, just for having not grown up in the socio-economic situation they did.
It's a minor point, really, compared to all the other ways people are defined or described as inhuman, but that's kind of my point. The concept of human that most folks have is weirdly tight, just this small, rigid archetype with countless exceptions that are, to them, off-model.
It's kind of weird for me to be going on about this, in a way, but like... the question of what is human, with the answer being "more than you think, and yet easily taken away unjustly," comes up a lot in the media I'm fond of. I'm rewatching RoboCop, as I am wont to do, and a making-of I saw pointed out that something that Weller did for the character, demanded for the character in fact, was moving with a dancer's precision. If RoboCop, if Murphy the robocop, moved like most folks do, he wouldn't be uncanny.
That's it, isn't it. There's human, and then there's uncanny.
That comes up in Us, too. Red, Adelaide's double, is a dancer, and uses those same motions, standing on point, pivoting, isolations, etc., beautifully. And it is so beautiful. But she is so uncanny. And it's for the same purpose. Us is in fact incredibly direct about it. Both are, in a way. These are dehumanized characters, and the narrative is sympathetic whether it casts them as protagonist or antagonist.
(Shoutout to Lupita Nyong'o, whose acting in the roles of Adelaide and Red was absolutely captivating, and whose casting was absolutely perfect. All the actors in that film were amazing, the direction and writing were enthralling, and the visual metaphors and implicit historical references are not talked about enough. Folks are sleeping on this entire movie.)
I'm human, but I'm uncanny, so I am often dehumanized.
Well... I actually tend not to call myself human. It's not worth the trouble.
(At this point I would like to bring up a fascinating term, "Voidpunk." To quote a reddit community's description of voidpunk,
Voidpunk is a subculture for those who have been dehumanized to reclaim their dehumanization. Many are told that all humans experience romantic and/or sexual attraction, are binary cisgender, are neurotypical, are white etc. This subculture is for those who don't match that criteria of humanity and don't want to match it.
This may not be helpful or necessary for everyone, but I've had a few folks thank me for bringing the concept to their attention, and it seems relevant here.)
Semantically it is a very personal thing, I don't expect anyone else to adhere to it. If I call myself inhuman, it's to breathe a sigh of relief, y'know? It's to worry less. It's to give myself permission not to meet expectations.
Maybe that's part of why I get bone-deep chills when I encounter antisemitism. It's not about me, but dehumanization is something I directly experience, so it doesn't take much imagination to see how it plays out, how it applies. And, of course, if it happens to me (not antisemitism but dehumanization), generally it's not that big a deal; it's what happens to others that hurts most.
I've thought about that sometimes, that unhealthy traumatized mindset that I sum up by saying, "if someone else falls down the stairs, it's a tragedy. If I do, it's a comedy." I think part of it is, I live with me. I live inside me. So I know what I can handle, and also know that if I can't handle it, that's okay too. Other people, I cannot know how they feel, I cannot know their limits. To me their pain is limitless, their durability unclear and potentially nil. There's no sense of relief, of "it's okay, I'm still here," because I do not know what they can handle. I have heard it said that laughter is a relief, a sign that everything's actually fine; that it often comes from a moment's distress or wrongness, that is responded to with the knowledge that no harm will come of it. A fellow monkey falls out of a tree. We worry. The monkey gets up and walks it off; we laugh because they're okay. (Sometimes, it is that we laugh because they aren't okay, but it happened to someone else, so it'll be okay for us. That's kind of horrible, but demonstrates the concept nevertheless.)
The last time I watched Us with somebody, I had to hold my tongue when they, not knowing the big reveals of the story, began theorizing that the Tethered weren't human, including Red herself. That Red is simply Tethered by circumstance rather than birth is the point. It's why there's that incredibly raw exchange: "What are you people?" "We're Americans." (Which is a whole fascinating conversation all its own; that's not liberation. It's a good point about rights unjustly denied, but -- I'm getting off the subject here.)
It's shocking how little it takes to be uncanny.
Me, performing humanity:
[ID: Scene from RoboCop. Murphy as RoboCop holds a drill. Looking away from Lewis as he prepares to remove his damaged exterior armor, he says to her, "You may not like what you're about to see." /end ID]
It's extremely significant to me that, as we are sold that these uncanny characters are in fact human, and deserving of human dignities that they are denied unjustly, they do not stop moving like dancers. They continue to isolate, to pivot, to move beautifully. When RoboCop realizes he is Murphy, even though he cannot remember who Murphy was, he does not suddenly, magically begin to move fluidly like Lewis and other humans do. He still moves with a dancer's grace, even after much of his armor is removed and his tightly stretched human face becomes the face people see.
Likewise, Red never exactly stops moving with a dancer's grace. It's far more deliberate on her part, not the result of her body being a prosthesis but rather because she is an artist, so it comes and goes, but she never stops being uncanny.
It would have really undermined the rehumanization of these characters if, upon their repatriation to humanity in the viewer's eyes, they suddenly became reliably fluid, no longer uncanny, no longer strange. In the end, they still move like dancers, with uncanny precision and isolation of motion, one voluntarily and one involuntarily.
I don't exactly know where I'm going with this. It's entirely possible I've gone out of my lane, which would not be ideal nor would it be my intention.
There's a whole unwritten chapter of this about Amalthea the unicorn in The Last Unicorn, by the way, about how her uncanniness gave her away to King Haggard and captivated Prince Lir, and how she became less uncanny as she lost more of herself to the enchantment of a human seeming. Or to the voices we put on when working at call centers, to warp ourselves into something acceptable to people on the other end of the phone line, a phenomenon apparently with overlap with White Voice, and played with to create a distressing, uncanny effect in Sorry To Bother You. I'm white, and I still had to warp my way of speaking in strange ways in that job, and that kind of masking makes me feel genuinely nauseous, as does when I see alienation that produces a self-hatred of one's natural body or of harmless distinctions, like when a friend of mine talked about their mother getting rhinoplasty decades ago to make her Persian nose more white because it was fashionable and considered desirable at the time.
A lot of Sorry To Bother You made me nauseous, actually. The second half was almost a relief, as it brought the satire around to its natural absurd conclusions.
(By the way, don't spare me such things; I can't fight what I can't see, and I can tank a little nausea if it helps me identify what needs destroyed.)
Honestly, other than encouraging everyone to read The Murderbot Diaries, particularly the first (and sufficiently standalone) novella "All Systems Red," I think I've said more than I should on this subject, so I'll close here by saying that my lovely wife took ballet when she was younger, and watching her in a boffer fight pivoting and gracefully flowingly dodging and parrying was always such a joy. She remains the light of my life, and always shall be.
Yesterday I had been putting off a crying jag most of the day. No specific cause. Once I had a room to myself and privacy, it was probably inevitable. Still, it's a little vindicating that my brain decided it was going to break down over Roadside Picnic.
What is Roadside Picnic, you ask?
Wikipedia:
Roadside Picnic (Russian: Пикник на обочине, Piknik na obochine, IPA: [pʲɪkˈnʲik nɐ ɐˈbotɕɪnʲe]) is a science fiction novel by Soviet-Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, written in 1971 and published in 1972. The story leads among other works of the authors on the number of translations into foreign languages and publications outside the former Soviet Union. As of 2003, Boris Strugatsky has counted 55 publications of "Picnic" in 22 countries.[1]
(...) Roadside Picnic is a work of fiction based on the aftermath of an extraterrestrial event called the Visitation that simultaneously took place in half a dozen separate locations around Earth over a two-day period. Neither the Visitors themselves nor their means of arrival or departure were ever seen by the local populations who lived inside the relatively small areas, each a few square kilometers, of the six Visitation Zones. The zones exhibit strange and dangerous phenomena not understood by humans, and contain artifacts with inexplicable, seemingly supernatural properties.
The title of the story comes from a scene in the middle where Dr. Pilman, introduced in the first page and hardly brought up again, is being buttonholed by Richard, a poor schlub who's in over his head. This fellow's job is to control and stop the flow of artifacts from the Visitation Zones, because frankly they're an unknowable hazard. He slowly realizes he can't. Which leads him, understandably, to ask what the hell this all means anyway. So he grabs Dr. Pilman, a rather philosophical and rambling scientist, and plies him with booze and starts asking, why did this happen? Where's it all going? What will happen next? Why did they come here, and when will they come back?
"What do you think about the Visitation? You can answer unseriously."
"All right, I’ll tell you. But I must warn you that your question, Richard, comes under the heading of xenology. Xenology: an unnatural mixture of science fictionand formal logic. It’s based on the false premise that human psychology is applicable to extraterrestrial intelligent beings."
Over the course of the conversation, Richard and Pilman, increasingly intoxicated, examine and throw out such lofty answers as "man is the animal who thinks."
The closest Pilman gets, reaching drunkenly for something comforting after accidentally making Richard's sense of helplessness worse than before, is,
"Wait a minute," Valentine said. "Listen: ’You ask me what makes man great?’"he quoted. "’That he re-created nature? That he has harnessed cosmic forces? That in a brief time he conquered the planet and opened a window on the universe? No! That, despite all this, he has survived and intends to survive in the future.’"
He doesn't commit to it, but it's an answer he's willing to throw out there and not immediately dismiss. That a human is an animal that intends to survive.But the end of the book is, if anything, kinder.
Red is the lead character of the book, the "stalker" (that is, hunter) of artifacts of the Visitation Zones who has been most single-handedly impressive in his ability to get in, get something, and get out alive and unscathed. He can't guarantee the safety of those who go in with him per se, or at least I don't think in good conscience he would make that promise. It hasn't always gone well.
There's a thing, a golden ball, or perhaps some other color. It's oft-rumored. It's said it can grant any wish you make.
He has evidence enough that something can make miracles. He's met those miracles. He's met the people who paid the price for the person on whose behalf those miracles have been made. One of them even lived.
And he curses himself for not having the words to make the wish to make it all better.
"I am an animal, you see that. I don’t have the words, they didn’t teach me the words. I don’t know how to think, the bastards didn’t let me learn how to think. But if you really are... all-powerful... all-knowing... then you figure it out! Look into my heart. I know that everything you need is in there. It has to be. I never sold my soul to anyone! It’s mine, it’s human! You take from me what it is I want... it just can’t be that I would want something bad! Damnit all, I can’t think of anything, except those words of his... ’HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!’"
This, too, is human.
To want something right, to want something better than the life we have, not just for us but for everyone. To see that it is wrong, and to try to make it right. But not to know precisely what that is.That's not survival, that's not even intent, whether to survive or not. In that scene he's not even seeking his own survival. In all likelihood, he will die there, having angrily communicated his point as best he can: that this can't go on, that it can be better, and that he is ill-qualified to be the one to make it so, yet here he is.
That's the last line in the book, shouted at the golden ball. ’HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!’ And that's the line that always makes me cry.
[5:41 PM] macksting: Okay let's see where do I start.
So I joined a Communist Party club (don't ask me why they're called clubs, I have no goddamn idea) just before (and in part because) they were splitting from the CPUSA. Basically the entire Pacific Northwest CPUSA kinda disintegrated because there were old men and their lackeys who owned copyright and trademark on CPUSA stuff and were terrified and uncomfortable of the sudden drastic increase in interest in leftist stuff toward the middle or end of the Bush Jr. administration.
The club then helped found and became a chapter of an org called the CLP. Not the first CLP that's existed, prolly not the last; it's a straightforward and reasonable name for a communist party that's not related to the old Moscow or Chinese communist parties without abandoning good theory and praxis.
During the course of my membership there I did have to deal with some occasionally meaningful problems of working out some toxic masculinity; basically, as a person with Asperger's Syndrome who sometimes reads as female anyway, and was always sorta "sensitive" and "gentle" and stuff, and grew up short, skinny and with slow reflexes and nerdy and socially awkward, I had to overcompensate in a lot of areas in order to survive, which means there were some parts of my language and body language which I'd used to emulate that in order to get by, and they sometimes came off as threatening. Microaggression stuff which had once been a survival strategy (literally; in second grade I got thrown in front of a moving bus by five bullies in an incident which was anything but isolated), and these strategies had been largely useless since my junior year of high school. (I was now in my early 30s.)
[5:43 PM] macksting: But the problem with responses to microaggressions, and behaviors which can be mistaken for microaggressions, goes beyond the obvious when dealing with the mentally disabled. I could not understand subtle corrections of my behaviors, and overt corrections required that I be able to trust the person with whom I was speaking, something made increasingly difficult if I discovered anybody in the org was prone to gossip. If they were gossipping about each other, if they were forming cliques, what would that mean? What does that mean as regards me? I'm not part of any cliques. Cliques exist to exclude (and as I read it subconsciously attack and maybe even kill) me.
[5:44 PM] macksting: So we went through some emotional labor stuff rather formally, and I was asked to present my disability and a summary of what needs I understood to the party chapter.
I did, almost nothing came of it, and a few weeks later for unrelated reasons about half the membership left for another state.
[5:47 PM] macksting: We tried to rebuild membership, and got some enthusiastic new folks. One worked as a housepainter and put in a lot of long hours, the other worked in radio; they were husband and wife, with a few kids and honestly I like them.
But apparently I made them nervous regularly, I think, and they were dear friends of the person who, after the chapter was nearly eliminated by the mass move of folks to another state, was now the internal coordinator of the chapter. (Internal coordinator is half the old job of chairperson for a club.) Which wouldn't be such a big deal except I had slowly gotten the impression that she just didn't like or trust me at all.
[5:48 PM] macksting: She was now, not counting myself, one of only two people in the chapter who knew about my disability. My requests for concessions having fallen on deaf ears, and her friendship apparently out of reach, I had decided whatever. I'm privileged enough I can just soak it, right? Just... try to do what they want me to, be the person they say they want me to be, only voice an opinion when no other option is tenable, do the dishes, go along and get along. There's work to be done.
[5:48 PM] macksting: Which brings us to last March.
[5:49 PM] macksting: We were working with a local Anarchist collective. If that sounds ironic, I'm sure I can contextualize the matter for you, but suffice to say that around here commies and anarchists get along pretty well because both are mostly interested in activism, not in theory.
[5:50 PM] macksting: (Which isn't to say we don't have long arguments about theory, but we know it's a purely academic point unless and until things significantly change and our theories begin to become more relevant to our activism.)
[5:52 PM] macksting: The anarchists had a share-fare. Mostly attended by the local rather large unhoused population (a.k.a. homeless), and we were there (a) to help with the hard work and providing services, and (b) to table and get a survey done trying to suss out who was most impacted by certain housing-related fucked up policies and/or what those policies might be. Uh, point is we wanted to know where to put our efforts as a party in the local area.
[5:53 PM] macksting: I volunteered to help out, but
I didn't realize it was an indoor event in what amounted to a loud echo chamber
I didn't realize there would be constant shouting as they did some kind of interminable goddamn bingo game
I asked for several specific concessions to make the task easier on myself, and every single one of those fell through entirely by the end of the day.
[5:54 PM] macksting: The first and second of those were kinda my fault, since apparently everybody else knew. It prolly means something about the meeting format didn't suit my needs, but it doesn't change the fact that the information was made available.
[5:54 PM] macksting: The third is honestly more alarming and symptomatic in retrospect.
[5:55 PM] macksting: So I was overwhelmed by noise. I had somebody there who was supposed to help me take breaks, but he left in a hurry. See, he had party duties higher up the chain of command, and nobody else wasn't busy.
[5:56 PM] macksting: So now I was alone among strangers, trying to approach them and keep a brave face, and some of those strangers were regularly under a great deal of stress due to their living situations and not always very... polite.
[5:56 PM] macksting: Then, as scheduled, my wife shows up with our kid, who goes to play with the other kids across the room. I'm left watching him while she gets a massage, as intended. Which would be fine but nobody was able to give me a break.
[5:57 PM] macksting: At which point my kid falls, slides on the floor, and gets a long linoleum-burn across his hip down along his leg. It's shallow, vaguely bleeding and oozing, and clearly hurts like hell. He's deeply upset, we're looking for bandages, and the anarchists somehow can't find a fucking first aid kit? And somehow we didn't bring one either?!
[5:58 PM] macksting: And then the local anarch coordinator demands I wash my hands before handling the wound because they didn't realize I was the kid's parent.
[5:59 PM] macksting: So my kid is in considerable pain and I have to walk away to wash my hands to apply the bandages they couldn't find until now while I leave the table and our party's stuff unattended half a room away and everybody's still shouting and trying to be heard over one another and everything's loud and scary and I'm alone and frightened and sad and I don't know what to do and I begin to have a true and proper panic attack.
[6:00 PM] macksting: So we tend to my kid's wounds, my wife returns and takes over with the kiddo, and I return to the table, but at this point I need to leave. I really, really, really need to leave. And nobody from the Party chapter comes anywhere's near my table for an hour, and my mind is a rattling buzz of gross anxiety, and I really need a break and have needed one for a couple hours at this point before that disaster happened.
[6:01 PM] macksting: So the painter arrives, and I flag him down and he comes over and I say, "I need to leave."
him: "You need to leave?"
me: "I NEED TO LEAVE"
[6:02 PM] macksting: He balks, clearly shaken, but nods, sits down and lets me take my break. I know I've hurt his feelings, but survival mode has kicked in, and I know the damage has already been done there anyway. I probably mumbled an apology, I usually do, but simply getting those four words out around the verbal paralysis of panic and autism were not easy, so a mumbled apology might not have even happened.
[6:02 PM] macksting: And would have fallen on deaf ears anyway.
[6:03 PM] macksting: See, it turns out he'd come off a nine hour shift and was here to unwind. Which would have been incomprehensible to me; how do you unwind when everybody's shouting, everything's too bright and too loud, and not everyone's being nice to each other?
[6:03 PM] macksting: But I'd yelled in his face and put him back to work and abandoned him.
[6:04 PM] macksting: At the next meeting I tried to address what I thought were the main problems with how that went, but at first the only responses I got were,
No, that went great, it was excellent, let's do it again, shut up
and finally
The only problem here is you! You yelled at him! You're scaring him even now! Look what you've done!
[6:05 PM] macksting: So I apologized, had the first of what has been a great many little panic spirals about how I'd hurt another person, and left.
[6:06 PM] macksting: I considered attending the next meeting a couple weeks later, but instead e-mailed the internal coordinator that I would want an opportunity to apologize and make amends to the other fellow before I did so, and until we could address my misbehavior I felt like it would hang over me like a dark cloud and stop me from being able to focus at meetings.
[6:06 PM] macksting: I knew I'd been hurt, but I felt like building bridges again required I suck it up for a while, help him with his wounds, then return to my own at a later date.
[6:07 PM] macksting: Two months pass.
[6:08 PM] macksting: I've literally been losing sleep over the fact that I'm being talked about behind my back (true), shut out of politics by him not talking to me during the 2018 political season, apparently none of them give enough of a shit about me to do anything about it, and I have reason to believe I've hurt all of them at this point and that's torture to me.
[6:08 PM] macksting: And I get an e-mail.
[6:11 PM] macksting: The e-mail says basically,
We find that your behavior at the March share-fare was part of a larger pattern of toxic masculinity. You must address this problem if you wish to continue engaging in party business. We aren't going to provide you a structure for how to do so, nor are we going to tell you precisely what we mean, as we feel we've done so before. It is your responsibility to understand what we mean and to figure out what to do about it. You may continue to come to meetings for the foreseeable future, because we don't want to do anything formal about this, but you're on notice.
[6:11 PM] macksting: That's not what they intended to say, but everything I just said is an understandable and perhaps even inevitable interpretation of the e-mail.
[6:12 PM] macksting: It apparently sounded better in committee.
[6:12 PM] macksting: Cue the biggest panic attack I've ever had.
[6:13 PM] macksting: I quit the party. I tried my damndest to find a way to do so that didn't make me look like I was ragequitting over being told not to be a douche, but there was absolutely no way I could retain even the vaguest sense of sanity, health and well-being and still remain a part of that organization.
[6:14 PM] macksting: The party coordinator, when she found out about this from me as I attempted to enlist her help in quitting the org, was frankly fucking horrified.
[6:14 PM] macksting: I made super clear she really needed to hear it from at least two other people instead of taking my word for it, and getting me to tell her my side of the story had been like pulling teeth. I do not like talking behind folks' backs.
[6:18 PM] macksting: I wish I could say anything good came of that, but I don't think anything did. Me quitting and the hullaballoo did result in the internal coordinator quitting the party as well, which leads me to believe she feels she mishandled the whole affair. (There are less charitable interpretations of all of this as regards her behavior, but what would be the point of dwelling on those?)
[6:19 PM] macksting: Interestingly enough, somewhere in this process, during yet another literally sleepless night I began to think quite a lot about myself. It was thinking about the March event or thinking about anything else, so I opted for anything else.
[6:20 PM] macksting: And I started to revisit some old, less than charitable, less than gentle conclusions I'd come to about myself.
[6:21 PM] macksting: You know how he (we'll say he for now, I'm not caught up so I'm not sure of his pronouns presently) says "there's nothing wrong with that" while looking away in shame?
[6:24 PM] macksting: But instead of dialogue with a brilliant, empathetic girlfriend who helped unpack that closet, it was just me.
[6:27 PM] macksting: I didn't even have that comic to guide me. My guide was mostly Neon Genesis Evangelion episode 26, whose arc words are tattooed on my arm to tell myself not to be so uncharitable in my self-appraisal and that perhaps the solution to the hedgehog's dilemma is to revise my estimates of the harm I do to others;
[6:27 PM] macksting: and Julia Kaye's comic Up And Out, over the course of which she stopped using the name Jeremy.
[6:28 PM] macksting: (I don't usually drop deadnames like that, but her transition has been very public, and her old comics are stilled attributed to Jeremy, so I don't think I'm doing any disservice.)
[6:29 PM] macksting: It's one thing to say "there's nothing wrong with being kinky," but
a) that's not how it feels,
b) I was using it to invalidate actual gender dysphoria I was feeling,
and c) the old me was dead. Died in March.
[6:30 PM] macksting: Honestly, the rest is best described taking clips from my blog at the time.
So I joined a Communist Party club (don't ask me why they're called clubs, I have no goddamn idea) just before (and in part because) they were splitting from the CPUSA. Basically the entire Pacific Northwest CPUSA kinda disintegrated because there were old men and their lackeys who owned copyright and trademark on CPUSA stuff and were terrified and uncomfortable of the sudden drastic increase in interest in leftist stuff toward the middle or end of the Bush Jr. administration.
The club then helped found and became a chapter of an org called the CLP. Not the first CLP that's existed, prolly not the last; it's a straightforward and reasonable name for a communist party that's not related to the old Moscow or Chinese communist parties without abandoning good theory and praxis.
During the course of my membership there I did have to deal with some occasionally meaningful problems of working out some toxic masculinity; basically, as a person with Asperger's Syndrome who sometimes reads as female anyway, and was always sorta "sensitive" and "gentle" and stuff, and grew up short, skinny and with slow reflexes and nerdy and socially awkward, I had to overcompensate in a lot of areas in order to survive, which means there were some parts of my language and body language which I'd used to emulate that in order to get by, and they sometimes came off as threatening. Microaggression stuff which had once been a survival strategy (literally; in second grade I got thrown in front of a moving bus by five bullies in an incident which was anything but isolated), and these strategies had been largely useless since my junior year of high school. (I was now in my early 30s.)
[5:43 PM] macksting: But the problem with responses to microaggressions, and behaviors which can be mistaken for microaggressions, goes beyond the obvious when dealing with the mentally disabled. I could not understand subtle corrections of my behaviors, and overt corrections required that I be able to trust the person with whom I was speaking, something made increasingly difficult if I discovered anybody in the org was prone to gossip. If they were gossipping about each other, if they were forming cliques, what would that mean? What does that mean as regards me? I'm not part of any cliques. Cliques exist to exclude (and as I read it subconsciously attack and maybe even kill) me.
[5:44 PM] macksting: So we went through some emotional labor stuff rather formally, and I was asked to present my disability and a summary of what needs I understood to the party chapter.
I did, almost nothing came of it, and a few weeks later for unrelated reasons about half the membership left for another state.
[5:47 PM] macksting: We tried to rebuild membership, and got some enthusiastic new folks. One worked as a housepainter and put in a lot of long hours, the other worked in radio; they were husband and wife, with a few kids and honestly I like them.
But apparently I made them nervous regularly, I think, and they were dear friends of the person who, after the chapter was nearly eliminated by the mass move of folks to another state, was now the internal coordinator of the chapter. (Internal coordinator is half the old job of chairperson for a club.) Which wouldn't be such a big deal except I had slowly gotten the impression that she just didn't like or trust me at all.
[5:48 PM] macksting: She was now, not counting myself, one of only two people in the chapter who knew about my disability. My requests for concessions having fallen on deaf ears, and her friendship apparently out of reach, I had decided whatever. I'm privileged enough I can just soak it, right? Just... try to do what they want me to, be the person they say they want me to be, only voice an opinion when no other option is tenable, do the dishes, go along and get along. There's work to be done.
[5:48 PM] macksting: Which brings us to last March.
[5:49 PM] macksting: We were working with a local Anarchist collective. If that sounds ironic, I'm sure I can contextualize the matter for you, but suffice to say that around here commies and anarchists get along pretty well because both are mostly interested in activism, not in theory.
[5:50 PM] macksting: (Which isn't to say we don't have long arguments about theory, but we know it's a purely academic point unless and until things significantly change and our theories begin to become more relevant to our activism.)
[5:52 PM] macksting: The anarchists had a share-fare. Mostly attended by the local rather large unhoused population (a.k.a. homeless), and we were there (a) to help with the hard work and providing services, and (b) to table and get a survey done trying to suss out who was most impacted by certain housing-related fucked up policies and/or what those policies might be. Uh, point is we wanted to know where to put our efforts as a party in the local area.
[5:53 PM] macksting: I volunteered to help out, but
I didn't realize it was an indoor event in what amounted to a loud echo chamber
I didn't realize there would be constant shouting as they did some kind of interminable goddamn bingo game
I asked for several specific concessions to make the task easier on myself, and every single one of those fell through entirely by the end of the day.
[5:54 PM] macksting: The first and second of those were kinda my fault, since apparently everybody else knew. It prolly means something about the meeting format didn't suit my needs, but it doesn't change the fact that the information was made available.
[5:54 PM] macksting: The third is honestly more alarming and symptomatic in retrospect.
[5:55 PM] macksting: So I was overwhelmed by noise. I had somebody there who was supposed to help me take breaks, but he left in a hurry. See, he had party duties higher up the chain of command, and nobody else wasn't busy.
[5:56 PM] macksting: So now I was alone among strangers, trying to approach them and keep a brave face, and some of those strangers were regularly under a great deal of stress due to their living situations and not always very... polite.
[5:56 PM] macksting: Then, as scheduled, my wife shows up with our kid, who goes to play with the other kids across the room. I'm left watching him while she gets a massage, as intended. Which would be fine but nobody was able to give me a break.
[5:57 PM] macksting: At which point my kid falls, slides on the floor, and gets a long linoleum-burn across his hip down along his leg. It's shallow, vaguely bleeding and oozing, and clearly hurts like hell. He's deeply upset, we're looking for bandages, and the anarchists somehow can't find a fucking first aid kit? And somehow we didn't bring one either?!
[5:58 PM] macksting: And then the local anarch coordinator demands I wash my hands before handling the wound because they didn't realize I was the kid's parent.
[5:59 PM] macksting: So my kid is in considerable pain and I have to walk away to wash my hands to apply the bandages they couldn't find until now while I leave the table and our party's stuff unattended half a room away and everybody's still shouting and trying to be heard over one another and everything's loud and scary and I'm alone and frightened and sad and I don't know what to do and I begin to have a true and proper panic attack.
[6:00 PM] macksting: So we tend to my kid's wounds, my wife returns and takes over with the kiddo, and I return to the table, but at this point I need to leave. I really, really, really need to leave. And nobody from the Party chapter comes anywhere's near my table for an hour, and my mind is a rattling buzz of gross anxiety, and I really need a break and have needed one for a couple hours at this point before that disaster happened.
[6:01 PM] macksting: So the painter arrives, and I flag him down and he comes over and I say, "I need to leave."
him: "You need to leave?"
me: "I NEED TO LEAVE"
[6:02 PM] macksting: He balks, clearly shaken, but nods, sits down and lets me take my break. I know I've hurt his feelings, but survival mode has kicked in, and I know the damage has already been done there anyway. I probably mumbled an apology, I usually do, but simply getting those four words out around the verbal paralysis of panic and autism were not easy, so a mumbled apology might not have even happened.
[6:02 PM] macksting: And would have fallen on deaf ears anyway.
[6:03 PM] macksting: See, it turns out he'd come off a nine hour shift and was here to unwind. Which would have been incomprehensible to me; how do you unwind when everybody's shouting, everything's too bright and too loud, and not everyone's being nice to each other?
[6:03 PM] macksting: But I'd yelled in his face and put him back to work and abandoned him.
[6:04 PM] macksting: At the next meeting I tried to address what I thought were the main problems with how that went, but at first the only responses I got were,
No, that went great, it was excellent, let's do it again, shut up
and finally
The only problem here is you! You yelled at him! You're scaring him even now! Look what you've done!
[6:05 PM] macksting: So I apologized, had the first of what has been a great many little panic spirals about how I'd hurt another person, and left.
[6:06 PM] macksting: I considered attending the next meeting a couple weeks later, but instead e-mailed the internal coordinator that I would want an opportunity to apologize and make amends to the other fellow before I did so, and until we could address my misbehavior I felt like it would hang over me like a dark cloud and stop me from being able to focus at meetings.
[6:06 PM] macksting: I knew I'd been hurt, but I felt like building bridges again required I suck it up for a while, help him with his wounds, then return to my own at a later date.
[6:07 PM] macksting: Two months pass.
[6:08 PM] macksting: I've literally been losing sleep over the fact that I'm being talked about behind my back (true), shut out of politics by him not talking to me during the 2018 political season, apparently none of them give enough of a shit about me to do anything about it, and I have reason to believe I've hurt all of them at this point and that's torture to me.
[6:08 PM] macksting: And I get an e-mail.
[6:11 PM] macksting: The e-mail says basically,
We find that your behavior at the March share-fare was part of a larger pattern of toxic masculinity. You must address this problem if you wish to continue engaging in party business. We aren't going to provide you a structure for how to do so, nor are we going to tell you precisely what we mean, as we feel we've done so before. It is your responsibility to understand what we mean and to figure out what to do about it. You may continue to come to meetings for the foreseeable future, because we don't want to do anything formal about this, but you're on notice.
[6:11 PM] macksting: That's not what they intended to say, but everything I just said is an understandable and perhaps even inevitable interpretation of the e-mail.
[6:12 PM] macksting: It apparently sounded better in committee.
[6:12 PM] macksting: Cue the biggest panic attack I've ever had.
[6:13 PM] macksting: I quit the party. I tried my damndest to find a way to do so that didn't make me look like I was ragequitting over being told not to be a douche, but there was absolutely no way I could retain even the vaguest sense of sanity, health and well-being and still remain a part of that organization.
[6:14 PM] macksting: The party coordinator, when she found out about this from me as I attempted to enlist her help in quitting the org, was frankly fucking horrified.
[6:14 PM] macksting: I made super clear she really needed to hear it from at least two other people instead of taking my word for it, and getting me to tell her my side of the story had been like pulling teeth. I do not like talking behind folks' backs.
[6:18 PM] macksting: I wish I could say anything good came of that, but I don't think anything did. Me quitting and the hullaballoo did result in the internal coordinator quitting the party as well, which leads me to believe she feels she mishandled the whole affair. (There are less charitable interpretations of all of this as regards her behavior, but what would be the point of dwelling on those?)
[6:19 PM] macksting: Interestingly enough, somewhere in this process, during yet another literally sleepless night I began to think quite a lot about myself. It was thinking about the March event or thinking about anything else, so I opted for anything else.
[6:20 PM] macksting: And I started to revisit some old, less than charitable, less than gentle conclusions I'd come to about myself.
[6:21 PM] macksting: You know how he (we'll say he for now, I'm not caught up so I'm not sure of his pronouns presently) says "there's nothing wrong with that" while looking away in shame?
[6:24 PM] macksting: But instead of dialogue with a brilliant, empathetic girlfriend who helped unpack that closet, it was just me.
[6:27 PM] macksting: I didn't even have that comic to guide me. My guide was mostly Neon Genesis Evangelion episode 26, whose arc words are tattooed on my arm to tell myself not to be so uncharitable in my self-appraisal and that perhaps the solution to the hedgehog's dilemma is to revise my estimates of the harm I do to others;
[6:27 PM] macksting: and Julia Kaye's comic Up And Out, over the course of which she stopped using the name Jeremy.
[6:28 PM] macksting: (I don't usually drop deadnames like that, but her transition has been very public, and her old comics are stilled attributed to Jeremy, so I don't think I'm doing any disservice.)
[6:29 PM] macksting: It's one thing to say "there's nothing wrong with being kinky," but
a) that's not how it feels,
b) I was using it to invalidate actual gender dysphoria I was feeling,
and c) the old me was dead. Died in March.
[6:30 PM] macksting: Honestly, the rest is best described taking clips from my blog at the time.
[6:33 PM] macksting: Anyway, I should rest. I'd apologize for the wall of text, but I think you more or less expected one.
(edit 3/2/2019 for misgendering)
Dana Perino Made Queso
Feb. 5th, 2019 09:45 pmLots to unpack here!
So here's a sort of funny thought I had. Dana Perino's infamous queso tweet has made her a laughing stock. But why?
Well, the most important reason is, she thought everybody should congratulate her and participate in her cooking. I guess. Or whatever reason it is that people who have a brand will go to Twitter with every stupid thing they do.
Let us consider, though! She has now also become a Japanese comedy stereotype!
Dana Perino has found herself as an edge case of the trope known on TVTropes as "Lethal Chef."
In most cultures, cooking is a traditional aspect of femininity. (Being paid for your cooking, of course, is usually a masculine trait.) So being a bad chef is failing to woman, which is funny if you're a female, yes? One imagines Dana Perino does build some of her brand on the basis of her being an acceptable woman. She's a Fox News anchor. She even has a show in the morning slot. Can't be too unconventional in that role. So let's look her up.
Not wildly regressive, but definitely well within the norms of performative femininity. Corny jokes, establishment, blonde, and tweets about cooking. So that's certainly good for a laugh all by itself.
Raise the weeb flag high! A cruel anime stereotype brought to life! Legit funny in my opinion.
That said, it's worth examining for a moment, I think. Is it funny? God yes. Should it be funny? Ehhhhhhh some parts of it seem a little risky. (Doesn't change that it's funny as hell.)
Anyway, Dana Perino, welcome to the ranks of lethal chefs. Usagi brought curry.
Curry Joke Provided by Lashana Serene
Consultants: The Minbari Federation Discord Server
Picture located by: PenroseParadox
Happy Cudgelmas!
Dec. 25th, 2018 11:34 amEvery winter solstice, the people of Canmaru, be they human, gnome, canin, subcanin or visitant, all share one holiday: Cudgelmas. Druid, maltheist, Avarian, it matters not. All are welcome, and some compelled by circumstance, to take part in the festival.
Canmaru is no stranger to inequality. Anywhere there are rich, there are poor, and the poor vastly outnumber them. Avarian traditions are very clear in their notions of the role of rich and poor; per their philosophy, the rich either deserve their position or will lose it, and the poor must learn to follow unless it is their destiny to lead. To live in harmony with one's role is among the highest virtues, and to know one's role is a crucial part of that.
The Cudgel
Tane, the chaotic neutral god of playful hounds, whimsy, and disorder, wields a club. It is in imitation of a royal scepter, as he is the court jester to Queen Mahanin, as he was to King Gregonne before, even during the Unending Hunt. It's a simple weapon in every sense of the word, though it may take very ornate and festive forms.
The Mass
The role of the poor is to serve, but the role of the rich is to provide. Cudgelmas is that time of year when the poor are provided for in the deepest, harshest months of winter, long after harvest. The wealthy open their doors and the poor pour in, eating their meat, drinking their wine, and walking out with their best goblets and tapestries. It is mob rule, so the distribution is often unfair, but traditions are never clean, perfect affairs. Not all recognize these beliefs, but they're upheld by both religious and secular belief systems, even in desperate times.
The Cudgelmas
The pious wealthy open their doors and set out their best things. They buy in advance and try to provide enough glad and shiny baubles for everyone. The informal but widely understood contract is that generosity and piety at Cudgelmas should be rewarded by accepting it graciously, joining the patronizing old bastard for a toast or several, and moving on.
The miserly, however, will hide their good silver, and this does get noticed. If you're known to be wealthy, and you seek to keep your material goods from the hands of those who enter your home, you can expect to suffer. The contract is void, your home is theirs, and they outnumber you and are given license to carry clubs. Retribution may come tomorrow, but tonight is another matter, and those present are likely to be intoxicated, greedy, and very possibly full of righteous (and not unjustifiable) indignation.
Canmaru is no stranger to inequality. Anywhere there are rich, there are poor, and the poor vastly outnumber them. Avarian traditions are very clear in their notions of the role of rich and poor; per their philosophy, the rich either deserve their position or will lose it, and the poor must learn to follow unless it is their destiny to lead. To live in harmony with one's role is among the highest virtues, and to know one's role is a crucial part of that.
The Cudgel
Tane, the chaotic neutral god of playful hounds, whimsy, and disorder, wields a club. It is in imitation of a royal scepter, as he is the court jester to Queen Mahanin, as he was to King Gregonne before, even during the Unending Hunt. It's a simple weapon in every sense of the word, though it may take very ornate and festive forms.
The Mass
The role of the poor is to serve, but the role of the rich is to provide. Cudgelmas is that time of year when the poor are provided for in the deepest, harshest months of winter, long after harvest. The wealthy open their doors and the poor pour in, eating their meat, drinking their wine, and walking out with their best goblets and tapestries. It is mob rule, so the distribution is often unfair, but traditions are never clean, perfect affairs. Not all recognize these beliefs, but they're upheld by both religious and secular belief systems, even in desperate times.
The Cudgelmas
The pious wealthy open their doors and set out their best things. They buy in advance and try to provide enough glad and shiny baubles for everyone. The informal but widely understood contract is that generosity and piety at Cudgelmas should be rewarded by accepting it graciously, joining the patronizing old bastard for a toast or several, and moving on.
The miserly, however, will hide their good silver, and this does get noticed. If you're known to be wealthy, and you seek to keep your material goods from the hands of those who enter your home, you can expect to suffer. The contract is void, your home is theirs, and they outnumber you and are given license to carry clubs. Retribution may come tomorrow, but tonight is another matter, and those present are likely to be intoxicated, greedy, and very possibly full of righteous (and not unjustifiable) indignation.
The truly foolish attempt to hire guards. This never goes well. Any other time of year, one can expect loyalty, but only the suicidal get between their employer and a lynch mob the size of a city.
Knightly orders take a holiday (literally), druids retreat to the woods or lead the mob themselves. The vulnerable remain vulnerable for the most part, but often those with a higher calling will look to those most in need, either securing them a piece of the pie or simply guarding them against harm on what is a night of sometimes dubious law and order.
Cudgelmas, while not always fair or just, is a holiday of the people. In Canmaru, a world rife with inequality and injustice, it's a light in the darkness and warmth in the cold.
Backup Post 42
Dec. 17th, 2018 12:06 am
www.deviantart.com/myriamyuki/art/Anne-and-Diana-758273156
www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/05/tokyo-new-law-bars-lgbt-discrimination
Japan has long struggled with various areas of human rights. Homosexuals from Japan looked longingly at the victories of queer communities in the US, even as US queers envied the open availability of some forms of discourse on the subject they could find in Japanese media. Even now there’s much work to be done, not only in matters of sexuality and gender politics but also in equality among ethnic groups and those of foreign ancestry.
But I know a change is gonna come.
Tokyo, in preparation for hosting the 2020 Olympics and in response to the Russian Olympic fiascos of 2014, and also in response to local pressure and the advancements of society, has adopted broad legislation protecting people from discrimination based on sexuality and gender identity.
From the link above (Human Rights Watch)
‘(Tokyo) – The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has passed a bill that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Human Rights Watch said. The act, enacted on October 5, 2018, also commits the city government to conducting public education about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights.
Tokyo authorities were inspired to draft the bill in advance of the city hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics, Human Rights Watch said.“
The Tokyo metropolitan government has enshrined in law its commitment to hosting an inclusive and rights-respecting Olympic games,” said Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities now need to put the policy into action and end anti-LGBT discrimination in schools, workplaces, and the wider society.”’
Tokyo is home to 11% of Japan’s population, and is the largest prefecture in Japan by population.
A starfield fades in and out of view on the holoscreen. ‘What happens when a mortal dies? In sufficient time, all men must meet their end. Whether for weal or woe, they all pass through my realm, for I… am the Angel of Memory. ‘Death holds no fear for some. Indeed, some have more to fear from life.’ A man in angelic garb with a priestly bearing, honestly passably acted, walks out of the shadows into center stage, holding a glass globe prop made to pass for a crystal ball. 'They leave these fears behind when they take their rest, and I tend them in my garden. Come…’ The holocam focuses ever deeper on the glass, and a distorted hologram of a dining room with five comfortably dressed actors takes up the screen. 'Observe.’
CHAMELEON
Based on a story by Richard Roberson
Screenplay by Lourden Devoni
DARIL, SIGNE and KORVUS are laughing, standing next to a table where a dinner has recently been finished. One plate looks hardly touched. JASON clears the dishes, getting half in a go while ALESANDRU is finishing an anecdote.
Alesandru: And that’s how we lost the boat.
Signe: Reminds me of the time I networked my way into a bratwurst –
KORVUS interrupts. Korvus: Signe, that’s a very long story, and if you tell it we’ll be here all night!
Signe: True, I could try to keep it short, but no, we should have been gone half an hour ago.
Alesandru: Save it for next time, dears, it sounds intriguing. Oh, Daril?
While SIGNE, ALESANDRU and KORVUS were wrapping up their conversation, DARIL had surreptitiously stepped off camera; when he is addressed, he stops dead in his tracks and slowly, reluctantly turns, crestfallen, toward ALESANDRU. SIGNE and KORVUS walk toward the door arm in arm and exit stage, saying goodnight to DARIL as they go, unaware of his distress.
JASON returns from the kitchen; a few dishes remain, including one nearly untouched meal.
Jason: You nearly gave us the slip again! But we have the house to ourselves, and no one is the wiser.
DARIL looks behind him off screen.
Daril: Please. I don’t know what you want.
Alesandru: Why so suspicioussss, we’re all friends here! Just old alumni, reminiscing together.
Jason: Alesandru, don’t tease. Time to call it. We’re not working for anybody, Daril, but we’re understandably curious. All these little games you play, all these little tricks, and you’ve hardly touched your food.
Alesandru: That’s fresh nutmeg in that pilaf.
Daril: Working for – wait, what? Oh no. No no no.
DARIL holds his head in his hands and sits down in a chair. ALESANDRU sits on the edge of the table, one leg on a chair.
Alesandru: Daril, time to come clean. Who do you work for? Who are you? This has been entertaining, but if you want it to end, if you want to leave here tonight? No more games, no more shadowing, no more spying? To be sure, we’ll decide what to do with the information when we have it. High bids for turncoats and spies right now.
JASON is gathering more dishes from the table.
Jason: Could build that new deck we’ve been wanting. Daril would have liked that.
Daril: I am Daril. I – no, that’s not quite true.
DARIL raises his head from his hands. JASON sets down the dishes he had gathered, watching intently and menacingly. ALESANDRU is closer, and calmer, bemused.
Daril: I’m honestly flattered. But it’s not what you think. Do you remember that weekend where I disappeared twenty years ago?
Alesandru: Yes, go on.
DARIL is silent for a moment, staring down at his feet.
Daril: I don’t think I’m anybody’s asset. Yes. Yes, it’s time to end this charade, though. I don’t mean anybody any harm. Dru, could you please hand me that knife? Don’t worry. I won’t hurt either of you. I couldn’t, I would never do that to a friend. But I have something to show you.
ALESANDRU raises his eyebrows and reaches for the knife from DARIL’s place setting. It is clean, shining and unbesmirched, a simple steak knife. JASON frowns, grips the table, looking from one to the other, fretful and alarmed.
Alesandru: We’ll humor you. Twenty years we’ve known each other, if not the thirty we’d’ve liked to know Daril.
ALESANDRU hands DARIL the knife, handle first. DARIL raises his shirt and tucks it under his chin. JASON cries out in distress; slightly muffled, DARIL holds out his off hand to halt JASON.
DARIL: It’s all right. I said I wouldn’t hurt anyone, that includes myself.
Cut to a closeup of a bare, hairless torso, the shirt bunched up at the top, the waist of the pants below. DARIL’s hand cuts from the middle down with barely a trickle of dark blood, and then reaches into the cavity and pulls the skin easily apart, exposing inhuman organs and unusual bones.
Daril: As you can see, I’m not what I seem.
Alesandru: What– what is that? What are you?
DARIL closes the cavity again, setting the nearly bloodless knife aside with a soft clatter. Cut to him wiping his hands absent-mindedly on a cloth napkin ALESANDRU has just handed him, letting his shirt fall over a line drawn down his stomach. DARIL wipes the knife clean and sets it and the stained napkin aside.
Daril: I knew you wouldn’t take what I say at face value. It’s too unbelievable on its own. I had to show you first so that you’d have an open mind. But I’m no professional. If what you say is true, I’m no more a professional spy than you are. We’re all three just old college buddies.
DARIL pauses, still looking very downcast, his elbows on his knees and his hands listlessly hanging between his legs.
Daril: Twenty years ago, I was abducted. I didn’t remember what happened at the time. You’ll recall my mother asked after me, and all campus was abuzz. When I returned on Tuesday, I was changed. I didn’t even know what day it was. Classes I had been good at, I was failing, and classes I had been barely passing I was now catching up in with ease. You’ll recall I’d always been good at math, but I switched majors to business. Everybody could tell something was very, very wrong, but I tried to just blunder through it as if nothing had happened.
By the year’s end, I’d long since noticed I wasn’t able to feel pain. I’d forgotten your birthday, and then nearly missed by own; they’re so close together, we used to celebrate them with a single party. But I didn’t remember that. And, of course, I didn’t bleed. Not really.
I haven’t been to a doctor since January of 1998. I’d scheduled a check-up. The doctor said he couldn’t find my pulse. I got out as fast as I could.
Slowly the weekend started to come back to me, usually in dreams. I remember the aliens, if that’s what they were. They took me into their ship. It was like I was in a trance. I was put to sleep, and when I woke up, without a word they dropped me back on the side of the road, in the middle of the night, in the same clothes I’d left the house in.
Since then, I’ve gone about my life as best I could. Every night I wonder, is this the night something will happen? Sometimes I think it all must be just some horrible dream, or that I’m going mad. I keep a needle in my pocket to prick myself to remind myself that it’s all true.
DARIL reaches into his pocket as he says this and draws out a small pin in a tiny plastic case. The end of the pin is dark with ichor.
Daril: Day after day. I’ve been waiting for twenty years for something to come of it. I can’t help but think, now that I’ve finally told someone, maybe it will all be over.
I’m sorry.
DARIL puts the pin back in his pocket and buries his face in his hands, exhausted. The camera zooms out to include ALESANDRU and JASON. ALESANDRU and JASON exchange worried glances, but look compassionately on DARIL, who speaks through his hands, muffled.
Daril: I really am sorry, Dru. I don’t know what happened to your Daril. I remember so much. I remembered you, and Jason and Signe and Korvus. They’ve become quite a couple, too. I’ve watched my friends grow up, get married, move on with their lives, while every day and night I just waited, wondering if this is the day my purpose will come to light, if this will be the day something terrible happens. I’ve learned how to lie, how to steal, how to run. I’ve learned so much about how to pretend to be somebody I am not. And now that I’ve said it, now that the game is up between us, I don’t know what will happen. Maybe tonight will be the night. Maybe I am an asset, but not for some government. Something very strange happened to me, and I don’t know if it’s ever happened to anybody else ever. I don’t know how many of us there are, or if there’s only me; I don’t know what happened to Daril, and I don’t know who I am anymore.
I’m sorry.
JASON comes slowly around the table and puts his hand on DARIL’s shoulder.
Jason: Dru, it sounds like we’ve put everybody here in a dreadfully awkward situation. Daril… We’re sorry, too. We had no idea you were going through all this.
Alesandru: I’ll go get the cordial. I think we’ve got a long night of waiting ahead of us. Daril… Do you still drink?
The episode ends. ALESANDRU’s words echo and the screen fades to the sorrowful Angel. 'Remember, this is but a memory. His suffering in life is over. But to what world does he depart?’
The camera pans a bit to the right, and an effects error makes the split screen obvious. ‘And from what world do you hail, stranger?’ The Angel walks onto the scene, speaking to the first, bewildered Angel, who sets the glass globe aside and peels back his robes to show ticking clockwork.
‘Why, I’m as surprised as you are.’
The second Angel peels back his robes to show a bare, hairless midriff, and both look up at the camera, surprised.
The end credits roll.
ANGEL ….. LOURDEN DEVONI
minor edits 10-12-18
CHAMELEON
Based on a story by Richard Roberson
Screenplay by Lourden Devoni
DARIL, SIGNE and KORVUS are laughing, standing next to a table where a dinner has recently been finished. One plate looks hardly touched. JASON clears the dishes, getting half in a go while ALESANDRU is finishing an anecdote.
Alesandru: And that’s how we lost the boat.
Signe: Reminds me of the time I networked my way into a bratwurst –
KORVUS interrupts. Korvus: Signe, that’s a very long story, and if you tell it we’ll be here all night!
Signe: True, I could try to keep it short, but no, we should have been gone half an hour ago.
Alesandru: Save it for next time, dears, it sounds intriguing. Oh, Daril?
While SIGNE, ALESANDRU and KORVUS were wrapping up their conversation, DARIL had surreptitiously stepped off camera; when he is addressed, he stops dead in his tracks and slowly, reluctantly turns, crestfallen, toward ALESANDRU. SIGNE and KORVUS walk toward the door arm in arm and exit stage, saying goodnight to DARIL as they go, unaware of his distress.
JASON returns from the kitchen; a few dishes remain, including one nearly untouched meal.
Jason: You nearly gave us the slip again! But we have the house to ourselves, and no one is the wiser.
DARIL looks behind him off screen.
Daril: Please. I don’t know what you want.
Alesandru: Why so suspicioussss, we’re all friends here! Just old alumni, reminiscing together.
Jason: Alesandru, don’t tease. Time to call it. We’re not working for anybody, Daril, but we’re understandably curious. All these little games you play, all these little tricks, and you’ve hardly touched your food.
Alesandru: That’s fresh nutmeg in that pilaf.
Daril: Working for – wait, what? Oh no. No no no.
DARIL holds his head in his hands and sits down in a chair. ALESANDRU sits on the edge of the table, one leg on a chair.
Alesandru: Daril, time to come clean. Who do you work for? Who are you? This has been entertaining, but if you want it to end, if you want to leave here tonight? No more games, no more shadowing, no more spying? To be sure, we’ll decide what to do with the information when we have it. High bids for turncoats and spies right now.
JASON is gathering more dishes from the table.
Jason: Could build that new deck we’ve been wanting. Daril would have liked that.
Daril: I am Daril. I – no, that’s not quite true.
DARIL raises his head from his hands. JASON sets down the dishes he had gathered, watching intently and menacingly. ALESANDRU is closer, and calmer, bemused.
Daril: I’m honestly flattered. But it’s not what you think. Do you remember that weekend where I disappeared twenty years ago?
Alesandru: Yes, go on.
DARIL is silent for a moment, staring down at his feet.
Daril: I don’t think I’m anybody’s asset. Yes. Yes, it’s time to end this charade, though. I don’t mean anybody any harm. Dru, could you please hand me that knife? Don’t worry. I won’t hurt either of you. I couldn’t, I would never do that to a friend. But I have something to show you.
ALESANDRU raises his eyebrows and reaches for the knife from DARIL’s place setting. It is clean, shining and unbesmirched, a simple steak knife. JASON frowns, grips the table, looking from one to the other, fretful and alarmed.
Alesandru: We’ll humor you. Twenty years we’ve known each other, if not the thirty we’d’ve liked to know Daril.
ALESANDRU hands DARIL the knife, handle first. DARIL raises his shirt and tucks it under his chin. JASON cries out in distress; slightly muffled, DARIL holds out his off hand to halt JASON.
DARIL: It’s all right. I said I wouldn’t hurt anyone, that includes myself.
Cut to a closeup of a bare, hairless torso, the shirt bunched up at the top, the waist of the pants below. DARIL’s hand cuts from the middle down with barely a trickle of dark blood, and then reaches into the cavity and pulls the skin easily apart, exposing inhuman organs and unusual bones.
Daril: As you can see, I’m not what I seem.
Alesandru: What– what is that? What are you?
DARIL closes the cavity again, setting the nearly bloodless knife aside with a soft clatter. Cut to him wiping his hands absent-mindedly on a cloth napkin ALESANDRU has just handed him, letting his shirt fall over a line drawn down his stomach. DARIL wipes the knife clean and sets it and the stained napkin aside.
Daril: I knew you wouldn’t take what I say at face value. It’s too unbelievable on its own. I had to show you first so that you’d have an open mind. But I’m no professional. If what you say is true, I’m no more a professional spy than you are. We’re all three just old college buddies.
DARIL pauses, still looking very downcast, his elbows on his knees and his hands listlessly hanging between his legs.
Daril: Twenty years ago, I was abducted. I didn’t remember what happened at the time. You’ll recall my mother asked after me, and all campus was abuzz. When I returned on Tuesday, I was changed. I didn’t even know what day it was. Classes I had been good at, I was failing, and classes I had been barely passing I was now catching up in with ease. You’ll recall I’d always been good at math, but I switched majors to business. Everybody could tell something was very, very wrong, but I tried to just blunder through it as if nothing had happened.
By the year’s end, I’d long since noticed I wasn’t able to feel pain. I’d forgotten your birthday, and then nearly missed by own; they’re so close together, we used to celebrate them with a single party. But I didn’t remember that. And, of course, I didn’t bleed. Not really.
I haven’t been to a doctor since January of 1998. I’d scheduled a check-up. The doctor said he couldn’t find my pulse. I got out as fast as I could.
Slowly the weekend started to come back to me, usually in dreams. I remember the aliens, if that’s what they were. They took me into their ship. It was like I was in a trance. I was put to sleep, and when I woke up, without a word they dropped me back on the side of the road, in the middle of the night, in the same clothes I’d left the house in.
Since then, I’ve gone about my life as best I could. Every night I wonder, is this the night something will happen? Sometimes I think it all must be just some horrible dream, or that I’m going mad. I keep a needle in my pocket to prick myself to remind myself that it’s all true.
DARIL reaches into his pocket as he says this and draws out a small pin in a tiny plastic case. The end of the pin is dark with ichor.
Daril: Day after day. I’ve been waiting for twenty years for something to come of it. I can’t help but think, now that I’ve finally told someone, maybe it will all be over.
I’m sorry.
DARIL puts the pin back in his pocket and buries his face in his hands, exhausted. The camera zooms out to include ALESANDRU and JASON. ALESANDRU and JASON exchange worried glances, but look compassionately on DARIL, who speaks through his hands, muffled.
Daril: I really am sorry, Dru. I don’t know what happened to your Daril. I remember so much. I remembered you, and Jason and Signe and Korvus. They’ve become quite a couple, too. I’ve watched my friends grow up, get married, move on with their lives, while every day and night I just waited, wondering if this is the day my purpose will come to light, if this will be the day something terrible happens. I’ve learned how to lie, how to steal, how to run. I’ve learned so much about how to pretend to be somebody I am not. And now that I’ve said it, now that the game is up between us, I don’t know what will happen. Maybe tonight will be the night. Maybe I am an asset, but not for some government. Something very strange happened to me, and I don’t know if it’s ever happened to anybody else ever. I don’t know how many of us there are, or if there’s only me; I don’t know what happened to Daril, and I don’t know who I am anymore.
I’m sorry.
JASON comes slowly around the table and puts his hand on DARIL’s shoulder.
Jason: Dru, it sounds like we’ve put everybody here in a dreadfully awkward situation. Daril… We’re sorry, too. We had no idea you were going through all this.
Alesandru: I’ll go get the cordial. I think we’ve got a long night of waiting ahead of us. Daril… Do you still drink?
The episode ends. ALESANDRU’s words echo and the screen fades to the sorrowful Angel. 'Remember, this is but a memory. His suffering in life is over. But to what world does he depart?’
The camera pans a bit to the right, and an effects error makes the split screen obvious. ‘And from what world do you hail, stranger?’ The Angel walks onto the scene, speaking to the first, bewildered Angel, who sets the glass globe aside and peels back his robes to show ticking clockwork.
‘Why, I’m as surprised as you are.’
The second Angel peels back his robes to show a bare, hairless midriff, and both look up at the camera, surprised.
The end credits roll.
ANGEL ….. LOURDEN DEVONI
minor edits 10-12-18
women be crawling frantically on all fours around the perimeter of their room peeling off the wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Trigger warning: Gaslighting, cruelty to women, mental illness, mania, misogyny AND I WILL BE FRANK I haven’t read this since college so I don’t remember the others, and I am NOT in a position to change that just now, this has been a hell of a week.
Content warning: Old. Old is not bad, but old has baggage. Nonfiction.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1952/1952-h/1952-h.htm
This is the second time this week Gilman has come up in conversation, and the second time “The Yellow Wallpaper” has come up as a result, but last time we instead were speaking about Herland.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32/32-h/32-h.htm
Content warning: Misogyny, old
“Protofeminist utopia taking place before World War I. If you like steampunk and feminism, you might appreciate this. If you ever liked reading David Brin’s Glory Season, you should probably read this. That’s where the Perkinites come from.”
I’m doubling down on the Glory Season reference. Herland is to Glory Season as inverse to Brave New World is to Cyteen; Cyteen is the utopic version of Brave New World, and Glory Season is a rather complex not-actually-dystopia to Herland.
