johnconstantinesdick

[johnconstantinesdick]

I’ve been tinkering with the idea of an urban fantasy “All Fairy Tales Are True” setting where some fairy tale characters are mortals who reincarnate and live through their story again and again with no memory of their past lives, but other characters are immortal, carrying over biases and grudges and regrets from the last time they went through this.

Snow White’s dwarves keep her room exactly as she left it, and keep a wary eye on the horizon for the day she returns. When she does they treat her like a beloved daughter come home, cook her favourite meals, warn her to stay away from apples this time, and keep calling her the wrong name.

Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother found her a touch ungrateful last time, and has decided not to appear to her this time around to teach her a lesson in gratitude. This Cinderella, without the memory of the last time, is still a terrified, miserable woman desperate to escape her awful situation.

The Witch in the gingerbread house has developed a thousand traps to eat those goddamned kids. She’s failed every time. She lives a life of Sisyphean torment previously known only to cartoon coyotes.

[johnconstantinesdick]

I think one of the Worst Things about wanting to find period clothing from other cultures, is trying to find fucking casual/work clothes. Like no, I do not want to see all these fancy intricate kimonos, I want to see jinbei, and field work outfits so I don't put a damn obi on this poor boy so he has a belt to hang his knife from.

[johnconstantinesdick]

[Image Description: a photo of a butterball turkey being placed in a fridge with a text overlay reading “I don’t know who needs to hear this but it’s time to move the frozen taxes to the IRS”. “Taxes” and “IRS” have clearly been pasted over different words. End ID.]

[johnconstantinesdick]

I know for a fact that my stepmother loves me.

I know it for a fact because the vaccine for the sleeping sickness came out when I was ten, and she cried. When she was a kid, parents would have Sleep Overs whenever someone caught it, in the hopes of spread it around - children were statistically more likely to be woken up by "True Love's Kiss" from a parent or family member, after all, whereas if you caught it when you were older, things got more complicated and if you were old, you might be the last one in your family left.

(There’s more to it than that, I know, I've tried reading the papers, but I barely passed biocurse with a C+, and don't even get me started on organic curses. Those two classes were enough to kill any hope I had of becoming a fairy godperson.)

So, when the vaccine against the sleeping sickness came out, my stepmother cried, and my father got me on the list right away; I wasn't high priority, after all; I was young, there wasn't an active outbreak in my school district, and I was otherwise healthy. But they put me on the backup list anyway, so if there was one, just one available, I could get it.

When the fairy godperson's office called, my dad was at work, but my stepmother bundled me up and drove there so fast I thought we were going to be pulled over. (Later, I found out that she'd gotten an automated ticket from one of the red light cameras, a fact that she hid from both me and my dad.) They called my dad, of course, and he left work, but he also gave the okay for my stepmother to be my medical proxy in case he was delayed.

Vaccines don't last forever, and it was decided that I would be given it without him there. At 100 minutes, my stepmother would try kissing my forehead, and if it didn't work, the office would set me up for the 100 hours it would take before my dad could try.

Magic can't be ignored, but it can be tricked.

It didn't matter. At 100 minutes post-vaccine, my stepmother kissed my forehead and I woke up.

So. I know she loves me.

My mom would have been there, if she could, but she died when I was five. She'd gotten Rapunzelean cancer in high school, but she'd beaten it! She was one of the successes!

...Until it came back.

I don't remember much about her, but I remember that she loved me. Even as the golden tumors grew from her bare scalp and sucked the life out of her, she would sing to me, and she wrote me a series of letters for me as I grew up, just in case.

My stepmother took me to her grave sometimes. My dad does too, but it's nice that my stepmother is willing, you know? I had a breakdown one year when I couldn't find my mom's favorite flowers to take to her burial site, and my stepmom drove me all over town until we found one store that had them in the right color. (My dad was at the fairy godperson's office to get some pre-wards before we went to the cemetery. I found out later that his father had caught a curse shortly after my grandmother passed away, specifically geriatric onset donkeyskin, and my father was paranoid of following in his footsteps.)

My dad and my stepmom shuffled their shifts, so that one of them was with me in the morning before school, and one of them was there after, and then both were home for dinner. When I told them I wanted to study to be a fairy godperson, they took me seriously, even though I had wanted to be a pilot and a vet, and and a lawyer and and and - they always supported me, and soon I was being gifted books on the history of magicomedicine and cursebreaking. Some of them gave me nightmares - siren's disease freaked me out for a long time; something about the tongue swelling so much you would suffocate, and the agonizing images of ancient "cures" where the victim had to get their tongue cut out so they could breathe. I don't even know why! There were much worse ones! But something about that was so visceral to me. For the next month, any time my feet hurt even a little was convinced I was coming down with siren's disease.

I worried my parent's so much that they took me to Fairy Elena, my PCFP, and asked if she would be willing to go over how siren's is treated now. She gave me a quick rundown on intubation, pain medication, and told me about Prince's Blood Donations.

It was the first time I learned that magic can be tricked; according to legend, siren's disease could be cured by killing someone's true love and smearing their blood over the patient's legs. At least, that was one line of thought; another line of thought argued that it had to be the blood of royalty. Some fairy godpersons and magicoresearchers got together in the '80s and decided to research it methodically, going through every known case of siren's disease & what worked and what didn't. It turned out royalty was the key, but then it became a question of ethics. I didn't care too much at the time, that was all boring, grown-up stuff, but finally one researcher decided to just make a blood bank company, call it Prince's and see if that worked.    

And it did.

Magic can be tricked, and my mind was blown.

I also asked my dad if we could put that book away for a little, because it was too scary. He agreed, and we put it on the top shelf, where all the scary books went. I reread it recently, and honestly? I don't remember what I was so afraid of.

Things started changing when I turned 16.

For one, my hair, which had always been brown, started darkening to black. For another, I stopped being able to tan. It was like a light switch went off; magic was determined to turn me into something, and I hated it. My PCFP really went to bat for me, getting insurance to cover the cost of cosmetic glamours and professional tanning sprays. She wanted me to tell my parents, but I didn't want to, not yet, and she was bound by her oath to protect my privacy.   

She was right. But... I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to pretend everything was fine.

I didn't want to lose another mom.

And it worked for a while; managed to get to my senior year of high school before the world broke.

Stepmothers don't have the best reputation.

It fucking sucks, and it's not fair, but enough stories have been told about them that magic took an interest, and began manifesting curses that warp stepmothers until they follow the story.

We thought we were safe. My stepmother didn't bring any children into the marriage, so she was safe from the ash-girl curse variant, and I was a tanned brunette, so we were safe from the snow-daughter variant.

And she loved me.

She hid it too, I think. Not intentionally, but some of the symptoms are paranoia and anxiety.

I've done a lot of research. I don't think I'll ever be able to be a fairy godperson, but that doesn't mean I had to stop caring. I swapped my focus to researching curses from the history and literature side of things. I still work with researchers, we just come from different angles now.

Anyway, no one realized anything was wrong until she was french braiding my hair and the next thing I knew, she had locked herself in the bathroom sobbing while EMTs took me to the hospital for overnight observation. I don't actually know what happened. She turned herself over to the cops as soon I was loaded onto the ambulance, and she was taken to a hospital herself. She was sedated at first, as she was so wound up that she was hurting herself, and the hospital couldn't scan her for curses. Once she came out of sedation, she immediately called my dad and offered a divorce, he could take everything, she would leave immediately.

But we'd gotten the results of the scans, and I was fine. As best that the fairy godperson's could tell, the magic was frustrated that we didn't want to go down the snow-daughter route, and had lashed out in an attempt to force it. That was apparently what knocked me unconscious; magic poisoned the comb my stepmother was using in my hair.

That didn't mean she didn't feel guilty - but so did I. If I had told them earlier, would things have changed? If I hadn't tried to hide the signs that magic was fucking with us?

They don't blame me, and I don't blame her.  

She loves me. I know she does. We still talk, as best as we can. She can only hear my voice for ten minutes before the curse starts taking over. We can email, though, as long as the orderlies can prescreen the email for any curse triggers. She also can't hear about me directly, but my dad will go and visit her, and tell me how she's doing. He refused to divorce her. His insurance still covers her hospital stay. He says he's married, and wears his ring.

When I applied to college, I wrote about all three of my parents, and how much they had all taught me.

How much they all loved me.

Someday, my stepmother will get her curse lifted, I have to believe that. I've joined a multidisciplinary group of researchers based in the EU. Some of us are looking at ways to trick magic, some of us are looking at ways to rewrite the stories of the wicked stepmothers, and create a new path for the magic to follow. One group of researchers is looking into ways of simulating the punishments that stepmothers receive at the end of tales to see if "punishing" stepmothers would break the curse. Actually going through the punishments would cause any ethical review board to remove someone's license, and there's no way I would want my stepmom to dance in red hot metal shoes.

But lately she's been getting hot stone foot massages before I call her; that's how we got to ten minutes before the curse took hold, and next week we're going to see if holding her feet in a hot bath lets us video call. Maybe someday we'll be able to see each other in person again. Maybe I'll be able to take her home where dad and I can cook dinner for her, and we can be a family again. My family has an apple pie recipe, and we never made it - I understand why, now, but maybe someday we can laugh at this and all make it together. To make your own apple pie, you'll need...

[johnconstantinesdick]

HE BROKE THE RECORD

Senator Cory Booker just broke the all-time record for the longest Senate floor speech, speaking for over 24 hours without a pause (no food, no bathroom breaks, only water to drink) as a protest against Trump and Musk and what they're doing.

The previous record was set in 1957, when Strom Thurmond spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes protesting the Civil Rights Act.

Senator Booker has blown past that record, currently at 25 hours and still speaking as of 8 pm local time. Respect.

[johnconstantinesdick]

imagine you are a gay man in your 60s and you've been in the military most of your life so you've never been free to be yourself or to seek out people like you and as a result you're now elderly and alone and you've spent a lifetime betraying yourself and you've never been loved and you get experimental brain surgery to cope with this and then one day you learn that the innocent child version of yourself who knows nothing of your isolation or your sins fell in love with another man and the man he loved was killed for pursuing that relationship and then your other self is also killed presumably for the same reason but you meet the other version of the man he loved and he's married but he wants to get to know you and you don't know him but you have some inextricable connection, something is pulling you towards him and you know you shouldn't trust him but you do and you just don't want to be alone and his husband is kind of a dick so you follow that feeling and it leads you right into a trap he set for you and it turns out that he was just manipulating you all along, to make you let your guard down, and you fell for it because there's a part of you that wants to put your life in his hands and so you do and he takes you to a train station and tells you to get as far away from here as you possibly can, he's saving you perhaps even at the cost of his own life and you think maybe you weren't entirely wrong about trusting him so you tell him you want him and he doesn't deny he wants you back, you tell him you're ready to be loved by him and you don't even know what that means but you keep saying it over and over because it just feels right, like you've been waiting for this your whole life, and maybe you have, all you know is your life hangs in the balance but for the first time you're not afraid, and maybe his interest in you was under false pretenses but you don't care because there's a part of this that's real and you both know it, he doesn't let you kiss him but he lets you touch his face and stroke his cheek with your thumb and then you walk away and get on the train with your dog going to god knows where and as the tracks whisk you away into the great unknown and the dying light of a cold winter day paints your face you think maybe you have been loved all along. happened my friend irving bailiff

[johnconstantinesdick]

Improbable Fiction progress, feat. an Important Meeting

“It’s fine.” Agatha decides, feeling magnanimous. “New in town?”

Trying to remember people to tag is a nightmare and a half so uhhh if anyone in the October Daye server sees this I am talking to you directly!!!

Tagged by @basalting! 💕

writing game: post the last line that you wrote and tag someone for every word in the line.

"Not that I don't appreciate the thought, but we're in a situation here."

(Hard at work on a Superbat fic 🫡)

Thirteen words 😅 I'll tag a couple people: @dinohunter5904 @buds-and-baubles @beeceit @lena-thinks-too-much if you feel like it! Anyone else who wants to 😊

[johnconstantinesdick]

I have a wacky idea for an entry in The Murderbot Diaries. It's basically the plot of a heist movie. (No really, I swear it would be good. Please keep reading!) It goes like this:

Murderbot keeps having emergency shutdowns. ART's Medsys finally figures out the problem - a critical piece of hardware is failing. Unfortunately, it is proprietary tech.

"Even if we had it," Murderbot despairs, "we would need a company cubicle to install it."

"Then we go to the Corporation Rim and the company headquarters to steal one," says ART.

And so the caper ensues with all the heist movie tropes:

A scheme is hatched using all the skills of Perihelion's crew (now including Amena)

There are disguises (someone has to put on SecUnit armour)

A last minute change screws up the plan (Murderbot shuts down again)

They get help from an unlikely source (a company SecUnit)

Someone is caught but no one gets left behind

There's even a car chase (ART has to outrun a company gunship)

Everything works out and Murderbot is saved

But what makes the story interesting (and not just silly) is that because Murderbot keeps passing out it doesn't know everything that's happening. So ART has to write large portions of the diary. Because it's ART, it writes in the third person (so it can refer to itself that way).

I really just want a reason for ART to write one of The Murderbot Diaries...

[johnconstantinesdick]

survived a dentist appt by imagining a klapollo marriage of convenience au where in exchange for apollo getting to use klav's really fucking good insurance, klav gets apollo making him actually set up & go to appointments. (set in a japanifornia with us healthcare bs)

PLUS Klav makes Apollo his emergency contact and gives him medical power of attorney. In light of recent events which tossed out his 2 original picks, gave him massive trust issues, and proved how easy it is to get poisoned. And unlike others, Apollo has proven he's reliable enough for Klavier to feel relatively assured Apollo would make calls in Klavier's best interest were he unable to speak for himself. After much deliberation (and Clay), Apollo does the same.

RE the appointments, Klavier is fastidious enough in taking care of himself (and also he's an active dude in his 20s) that he is able to convince himself he doesn't need the typical recommended checkups. Despite how strongly he'll defend their importance, Klavier has always felt on edge in healthcare facilities.

He's made it a habit to keep both personas as unclinical– as bright and personal and musical– as possible for a reason. The cleanliness, terse professionalism, and casual dismissal of his input hits too close to home, as ironic as that turn of phrase may be.

Meanwhile, Apollo couldn't imagine having insurance that good and not using it. Or any insurance AT ALL, MR WRIGHT. Apollo is very well aquainted with Sam Vimes' Boots Theory, as first a kid in an orphanage then a law student then a pro bono defense attorney.

He'd rather have cyclical checkups to catch problems early than be unaware of something until it kicks his ass, takes his sick days, and leaves him with an ocean of medical debt that he really truly cannot afford. Which makes it unfortunate that he has to pay out of pocket for those checkups (in addition to rent, bills, groceries, student loans, mikeko's necessities, rainy day jar, trucy treating jar, and swear jar).

Especially since he has no fucking clue what his family's medical history is. He could be at an increased risk of some serious shit that he doesn't even know to look for. And whoops, without good insurance he'd have to sell a few organs if he wanted to afford genetic testing!

Thus,

"Prosecutor Gavin, will you marry me (for insurance purposes)?"

"Herr Forehead, such a passionate proposal leaves me wondering how you're not already taken! You even won me the prettiest ring in the entire gachapon <3"

"...Trucy wouldn't let me borrow any of her costume jewelry."

"Romance is truly in the air! Herr Forehead, catch me I think I might swoon–"

Klavier gives Apollo the best fitting ring he has on hand (ba dum tss) (he bought it for this express purpose) (he's resizing the gachapon ring and wearing it forever).

They are in the courtroom lobby. The bailiff is staring hard into the middle distance. This is the 3rd tropey attorney marriage he's seen this year.

So they start a marriage of convenience but oh no! They hadn't anticipated how being there for each other in times of need, practicing vulnerability by discussing medical history and POA scenarios, and forcing each other to take care of themselves... might lead to a shift in their dynamic. Oh gosh, their mutual trust on this topic might bleed over to other issues!!

Klavier learns that Apollo can see him at his worst without using it as ammunition or emotional blackmail. Apollo learns that Klavier taking care of him doesn't feel grate on his skin or stifle his autonomy. And they both come to find that they want their husband to lean on them (and they really really really don't mind being husbands).

[johnconstantinesdick]

Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select out, oh I don’t know, that gaslight gatekeep girlboss meme, for instance, because you’re trying to tell the world that you think modern feminism has been co-opted by corporations. But what you don’t know is that that meme is not from Instagram, it's not from Twitter, it's not from Tiktok, it’s actually from Tumblr. You’re also blithely unaware of the fact that in January 2021, Tumblr user missnumber1111 posted, "today's agenda: gaslight gatekeep and most importantly girlboss." And then I think it was a-m-e-t-h-y-s-t-r-o-s-e, wasn’t it, who reblogged it with an image of the phrase edited over a piece of "Live, Laugh, Love" wall art? And then gaslight gatekeep girlboss showed up in the feeds of eight different Twitter repost accounts. Then it filtered down through Instagram and then trickled on down into some tragic “alt side of Tiktok” where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that meme represents millions of notes and countless Tumblr users and so it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from Tumblr when, in fact, you’re wearing the meme that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of “stuff.”

[johnconstantinesdick]

going insane over the fact that helena's father never realised it was helly using the OTC until she literally stood on stage and screamed it out, but irving immediately knew something was up when helena came back pretending to be helly. the fact helena clearly studied helly's interactions with mark, recognised the significance of the attraction between them and tried to replicate it as well as she could, but she never managed to convincingly do the same with irving because she just couldn't recognise that kind of love as existing, let alone mattering- a familial bond, a relationship that rhymes with a father figure. she never expected it. why would irving pay attention to who helly is? why would he notice? why would he care? but of course he does. helly was never cruel. fetid moppet.

[johnconstantinesdick]

[me telling the story of how I survived an ORTBO and lived for two calendar days in a snowy forest] it was crazy

[my friend who once got a text from me saying my apartment has a night gardener] was the night gardener there?

[johnconstantinesdick]

the way that irving and helly's body language INSTANTLY switched from conflict to comfort as soon as helena switched out was INSANE. he cradled her so fiercely AND SHE CLUNG BACK. irving knew he wasnt going to come back from that, but helly was worth more to him than his life was at that point. all she knows is that she's cold and wet and that irving was there, and of course irving wouldnt hurt her, so she embraces him back! anyway they love each other theyre family and i need to bite something

[johnconstantinesdick]

[johnconstantinesdick]

actually the reveal that there was no timeskip at all is hysterical. milchick really spent that whole weekend going all over town firing people, hiring people, putting together insane fruit baskets, and serving cunt in his motorcycle helmet. then at the orders of the board he had to very quickly fire the people he hired, rehire the people he fired, commission an oil painting for the severed floor lobby, redecorate the break room, and put together an award-winning claymation corporate apology video designed to showcase the new innie perks and reforms that don't exist as well as that one time helena eagan's innie sucked face with the innie whose outie his ex-boss is obsessed with. where is HIS waffle party

[johnconstantinesdick]

i don't want her memory. i want my own.

[johnconstantinesdick]

Dylan and Mark having some very different innie/outie interactions today