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caltropspress · 6 months ago

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RAPS + CRAFTS #26: Nakama.

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

Peace to all the cognitive conduits out there, I’m Nakama. (yes with the period). NY born and bred artist of varying media and sectors. Word to my loves near and far, visible and not. I’m always making things, sometimes purposeful, sometimes superfluous. I also make the beats for said things, like, 94% of the time. So unless otherwise stated, it’s me on everything.

Lots of past projects: (bodies of work under various pseudonyms, I used to go by the name ENxVE The Nameless Vagrant many moons ago, so there’s some remnants from that person on the internet somewhere, haha; two EPs, All Water and On Deck, with jazz/hip-hop septet Poetic Thrust; solo endeavors as Nakama. include Hohenheim’s Burden Pt. 1 - 9, human_error, [morning meditations], Free Up Space, etc.)

Did a collaborative album with the good homie Midi Neutron and many other amazing musicians, called ikeru, that dropped in March 2024. King Vision Ultra’s SHOOK WORLD still going dumb, peace to the PTP family.

Current solo project slate is the EVERYTHING BURNS! arc. Harkening to a collapsing dystopian playhouse for any enterprising soul who dares to be in entertainment at this moment in time. Really it’s a series of projects connected through an in-universe rapper eponymously named Nakama., and his relationship to a sentient AI he modeled to get rich off of ghost writing. (I’m big on lore, but I dare not say more.)

The arc started with KINDLING_ in August of 2023, and I just dropped the next installment of the series, EMBERGO_, this month [May, 2024]. Slide on that expeditiously, there’s more en route.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I usually write at home, or in transit. But the world is so wild and synchronous that I could write anywhere, off the strength of observation and some pattern recognition.

Definitely find myself writing in the laaaateeee night/early mornings. Somewhere between being so mentally cooked that the words are a babbling river, and being actually sufficiently rested enough to form coherent, complete sentences. Depends on the day. I do discipline myself to a certain extent, as far as putting hard expectations on what I want a particular cadence to do, or how I want to tackle a topic. So I’ll do mad premeditation if it’s serious for me like that.

But recently (the past year or so), I’ve been really enjoying finding a phrase or a prompt that I can reverse engineer into a full thought. Or sometimes, me or someone else will be talking and say something wild that I have to flip into a verse. On KINDLING_, the opening line of "lights out" (The goons misinterpreted the meaning of the booster shot…), was one such instance. It started as a joke at the expense of folks who were not jacking being vaccinated for absurd reasons, and I just wrote that down with no context. Then it started to grow bit by bit and I saw a larger idea to tend to, off that one little quip. Those instances happen more fluidly, as I’m listening and conversing, so that’s like, letting the words come when they will.

I do try to write every day. Not raps necessarily, but informal thoughts that could turn into raps if I like them enough. And journaling for when I gotta get in my therapy bag.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

I do all of them, though phone is preferred at this point. I need that ability to move phrases and lines around quickly to test them as I write, so I usually reserve pen and paper for when a song is finalized and recorded, and I want a hard-copy to refer to in the future.

And I did have a phase where I was just dumping any and every thought into the Notes app on my computer, but that was too chaotic – I’d come back days after like, “What the actual fuck am I talking about?”

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

It depends on the instrumental I’m working with and the first few lines I think of. I’ll go into more contemporary beats super measured and metronomic, to the point where I can’t avoid writing in bars. But when I’m working on more sparse, open arrangements or weird time signatures, I’ll lean into purposeful disorganization. Playing with end rhyme expectations, running a line way past the 4 then snap-correcting with a punctuated phrase of just a few words, etc. Various techniques at play, it really just falls down to what the song needs by my estimation.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

NEVER TRASH IT. The amount of times I’ve reworked songs and beat sketches from YEARS prior that ended up becoming really important pieces to the narrative later, is innumerable. Being in the act of writing is different though. If something is actually ass I will definitely step away after a solid 30 minutes. If I don’t have a reasonable foundation, a topic, and at least one bar that makes me go “oooh that’s hard!” after 30 minutes, I know I’m forcing it and need to re-strategize. But I won’t just toss it, 'cause something was calling me to those terms in the way I chose to express them. So I just resign myself to try something else or give it a rest and step away from writing for a bit to re-center.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

I’ve certainly dabbled. Poetry is sort of inexorable from the process, as I mentioned, based on how I start pieces. But I used to write a lot of “proper” poetry in my youth, as well as some experiments in short stories. Most recently, I wrote and directed a piece called PLACES! (I clearly love all caps and exclamation points, haha), which was a combination of live music, scripted acting, improvisation and dance choreography presented as anti-hierarchical theater. It began as a short form poem I wrote for the Indypendent in 2023, called by an imperative I spoke of/speak with friends about, which invites reading as an activity to become increasingly communal. Where something that is considered uniquely personal and private can then be an invitation to read with friends and play the parts out actively, there was a power I became aware of in facilitating the internal and external views of shared space, specifically in a place like New York. Also the flex is that every line delivered by the actors employed rhyme, to the point where the entire 12-minute piece could be interpreted as an extended poem. It was a one-time experience but I’m cooking up another iteration of the work, so that’s pretty exciting. And overall, these dips I’ve taken into other formats just remind me of showmanship and conveyance as tools for relating to your audience. I think the enunciation and delivery of someone who’s technically trained in acting opens a whole world of possibilities for a rap performance, the way we consider battle rappers and their expression being like jagged monologues. Or with poetry, remembering that urgency and truth are quintessential tools to jar the audience and subvert expectations. So many ways to piece together a creative philosophy by amalgamating all these techniques and modalities.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

This goes back to content and topical efficacy for me. I’ve always written pretty fast as far as getting an idea down and thinking about angles. But when the piece is either emotionally intensive for me, or coming from a place that requires research, I could be working and re-working the same ideas for months. I tend NOT to do that now, as I’ve gotten to a comfortable place mechanically, where if I can think of a rhyme scheme and the thesis of the piece, I’ll play it like a madlib. Write a line relevant to the topic, mumble through the cadence I wanna hit, think of interesting phrases I’ve never heard in a song before, jot those down, and keep repeating the cycle until the whole thing comes together. I take pride in not being one of those, “YO I WROTE THIS IN 4 MINUTES ON A BOX OF FRUITY PEBBLES!” guys, 'cause sometimes that does happen, but I also believe the word and its power supersedes the rate at which the word is produced. Infusing intention into the realest shit, to make it hit harder for who needs it. (Also no disrespect to Raekwon - haha, I just feel like every rapper right now tries to jack that inhuman writing time as a stamp on their report card. Which, when it actually took you four minutes to write…it probably shows.)

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

Both! One thing I love considering is how I can butcher prepositional phrases to make a bar I really like fit in time, while still getting across the meaning. Which actually opens up a whole other avenue for wordplay and entendre. I think Valee is one cat that does that really well, saying these seemingly disparate, borderline abstract things, then connecting them through extremely legible situations that continue the “story” of the song.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

Again, all of it. I do squarely start from a topic most often, followed by fleshing out the structure with stream-of-consciousness and real time editing.

The rhyme constraint thing is funny, cause how many great emcees can we think of who do the same three rhyme schemes their whole career? Or alternatively, how many do we know for consistently changing their style up in iterations? The constraint really becomes a style thing after you’ve been making music for a while. You know what sounds good coming from your voice, what might not land based on your speech patterns, which ways to bend pronunciation, all that. So I think of that as a byproduct of saying what you gotta say, less as a limitation to abide by when creating.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

Always experimenting. I never wanna write the same thing twice (from an intent perspective), so thinking of unique ways of pointing to worldly truths is a great exercise for staying sharp. Free and flexible bars can (and do) appear in my discography, but the goal is to keep everyone on their toes, including me.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

So this one is a deep cut, but the verse on "garden." from Hohenheim’s Burden Pt. 3. The topic was actually the last line of the verse, “There’s no discernible principle, you pick and you choose.” But the way I approached it, and why I’m proud of it, is cause of a few moments where that idea of picking and choosing, in life, becomes the soil for one’s proverbial garden. Two sections come to mind that make me happy. The first is: “Flight or fight response unconsidered, the cicadas scream while the cadence quiver, / Qualified not by the impatiens hanging off the window sill but by the impatience incubated through the growth in self.” It’s just embodying the naturally dualistic but coexisting sensory experiences of the garden. A quiet, wavering voice somewhere in the distance slipping through the hiss of the cicadas (noise of the outside world). The impatiens as indicative of growth versus the impatience as indicative of how frustrating it can be watching yourself grow. The fight or flight being our usual binary for handling conflict, and affirming that in the garden no one is thinking of that, because nothing will grow through either of those modes alone. The second section I love is: “Toes exposed to the oscillations of LFOs, / Dropback turns higher than the sun go and gunsmoke reach, / You can’t kill me if I’m infinite, that’s what the drumroll teach.” That one hits crazy cause, for all my anime fans out there, I’m referring to Eureka 7 a few times (Dropback turns; Higher Than The Sun; LFOs, in the show meaning Light Finding Operation). But situating it in this context of the garden, when you watch the show and see the motifs of what building a home in a violent world means, or learning to nurture yourself and others, the references take on a whole other meaning. Also, “You can’t kill me if I’m infinite, that’s what the drumroll teach” is just hard.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

One that always goes under the radar but I think is mad fun is off of "menacing." on Hohenheim’s Burden Pt. 7: “Like two boroughs claim to the genesis, / Same Queen’s broken English, the bridge was over heads like bats in the belfry.”

It’s an extended acknowledgment of the BDP vs Juice Crew beef around the origins of hip-hop culture regionally, but also referring to the Queen’s broken English as what many Afro-Caribbean kids heard about the way they speak in school/formal spaces. Unified in this art that was still being actively derided for anti-intellectualism. So that reflects the outward perception, which often overshadows the nuance and politics of the communities actually involved in the thing, hence, “the bridge was over heads like bats in the belfry.” The means by which people travel and connect to us have tended to be from this top-down view, very removed and out of the light of what’s really happening with this art.

It goes by pretty quick but it’s so loaded as a bar, I always like breaking that one down to people.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I actually hate punch-ins 'cause I can’t punch-in during a live set, and my view is if I can’t do it live with my singular voice, it shouldn’t be like that on record either. But I recently recorded an album’s worth of material doing EXCLUSIVELY punch-ins, for every bar on every song. I wanted to break away from that stigma I set around it, and it’s actually really fun to play with creatively. However, that album is never coming out and I’m still doing every verse straight through. But it was a fun experiment!

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

So many things. Anime, video games, books, other music genres, conversations with friends, literally any and all stimuli are viable for inspiration in my creative universe. I probably look like a crazy person, for real. I’m like reading Jung’s writings on Archetypal psychology and watching two-hour breakdowns of the meta-narrative of Metal Gear Solid 2. Musically I just went back to The Mars Volta after having not listened to them for years, so that’s been fun and informing some textural things I’d like to try my hand at in the future. Also on a huge Metalheadz revisit too. I wanna do a song with Cleveland Watkiss, bro - that would be so fire. And just for vibes, been bumping a lot of Kaidi Tatham, Kerri Chandler, KUMO 99, mad other stuff. I’m literally open to anything if it’s grounded in a defined creative philosophy.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

I don’t struggle really 'cause I’m acutely aware that nothing is gonna be as exciting as that new thing sitting on your computer that three people have heard. So when my work goes out into the world, I rest knowing I did my best and the next thing will be even better. And the emotional connection to the work brings out an appreciation that few would ever really understand outside of like, my closest friends and loved ones and me, so that’s a dimension where I don’t even care to critique the work, cause I know exactly where in my heart it came from, and when, and why.

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

That’s actually a hard-ass question; I think there’s an aspect of time spent with an artist that contributes to my internalizing of their techniques. So like, I spent a lot of time analyzing DOOM’s style (long live the GOAT), and I overtly attempted things I heard on his records. Then as I acclimated more to his style, I veered away from emulating it because I learned the mechanics behind what he was doing. Instead of making 1:1 recreations of his schemes, I employed the tools behind them in my own way. So with expectation, and subverting the end rhyme, I picked that up from "Great Day" off Madvillainy: “Last wish, I wish I had two more wishes, / And I wish they fixed the door to the Matrix, it’s mad glitches / Spit so many verses sometime my jaw twitches / One thing this party could use is more [beat - clears throat] booze.” Such an expert move in creating a moment that, either when recited to oneself, with friends, or performed in front of a crowd, there’s this inside joke and “Aha! Gotcha!” that’s always palpable. I live for that shit, where the audience can be in on the process of the writing almost, if not in, real time. So I guess my answer is DOOM, because I spent so much time trying to figure it out, that once I did, I made myself use the toolkit and not the products.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

My agenda is: do right by your people and connect worlds. That’s what the whole cognitive conduit thing is about, for real. We all occupy space and experiences that could theoretically never overlap if we didn’t actively seek and nurture the connection we have to other people and places. So when your cognition of the external becomes a conduit point, for energy to travel through and relay information/feelings/experiences to another person, or people, you persist in forming those bridges to greater understanding of the external and your own place in it. As someone who has dealt with a lot of grief, and loss, and isolation, I resolved to make more meaningful connections in my life. And over the years, in embodying that, I’ve seen myself grow a lot, and seen other people be affected by my growth in positive ways. That cascade of experience into the lives of those you hold space with is beautiful, and scary, and global. So I put that bridge-building ethos at the forefront of my work because I’ve seen what community oriented work does for everyone. And it’s incredible. Other than that, it’s free the Global South (not underdeveloped, under-respected) and fuck 12 🏁.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

Photo credit: Nakama.

#underground hip hop #zines #nakama #shookworld #ptp

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 years ago

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By: Michael Shermer

Published: Mar 22, 2016

The French political journalist and supporter of the Royalist cause in the French Revolution, Jacques Mallet du Pan, famously summarized what often happens to extremists: “the Revolution devours its children.” I was thinking about this idiom—and its doppelgänger “what goes around comes around”—while writing a lecture for a talk I was invited to give at my alma mater California State University, Fullerton on the topic: “Is freedom of speech harmful for college students?” The short answer is an unflinching and unequivocal “No.”

Why is this question even being asked? When I was in college free speech was the sine qua non of the academy. It is what tenure was designed to protect! The answer may be found in the recent eruptions of student protests at numerous American colleges and universities, including Amherst, Brandeis, Brown, Claremont McKenna, Oberlin, Occidental, Princeton, Rutgers, University of California, University of Missouri, Williams, Yale, and others. Most of these paroxysms were under the guise of protecting students from allegedly offensive speech and disagreeable ideas—defined differently by different interest groups—with demands for everything from trigger warnings and safe spaces to microaggressions and speaker disinvitations.

Between the 1960s and the 2010s, what went wrong?

[ Students at Rutgers University protest a talk by Milo Yiannopoulos by smearing red on their faces and shouting “hate” when he challenged them to hear other points of view. ]

The Problem

Trigger warnings are supposed to be issued to students before readings, classroom lectures, film screenings, or public speeches on such topics as sex, addiction, bullying, suicide, eating disorders, and the like, involving such supposed prejudices as ableism, homophobia, sizeism, slut shaming, transphobia, victim-blaming, and who-knows-what-else, thereby infantilizing students instead of preparing them for the real world where they most assuredly will not be so shielded. At Oberlin College, for example, students leveled accusations against the administration of imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, and the ne plus ultra in gender politics, cissexist heteropatriarchy, the enforcement of “gender binary and gender essentialism” against those who are “gender variant (non-binary) and trans identities.” The number of such categories has expanded into an alphabet string, LGBTQIA, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual and any other underrepresented sexual, gender, and/or romantic identities.1 This is not your parents’ protest against Victorian sexual mores, and the list of demands by Oberlin students would be unrecognizable to even the most radical 60’s hippies:

The creation of a school busing system for Oberlin, Ohio’s K–12 schools, paid for by the college.

The establishment of special, segregated black-only “safe spaces” across campus.

A more inclusive audition process in the Conservatory that does not privilege Western European theoretical knowledge over playing ability.

The creation of a bridge program that will recruit recently-released prisoners to enroll at Oberlin for undergraduate courses.

The most audacious demand was “an $8.20/hour stipend for black student leaders who are organizing protest efforts.” These students wanted to be paid for protesting!

As often happens in moral movements, a reasonable idea with some evidentiary backing gets carried to extremes by engaged moralists eager for attention, sympathy, and the social standing that being a victim or victim sympathizer can bring. Soldiers suffering from PTSD, for example, may be “triggered” by the backfire of a nearby automobile, but no one has proposed that automobile manufacturers put “trigger warnings” on cars to accommodate soldiers. As well, the Harvard psychologist Richard McNally points out that trigger warnings may have the opposite effect for which they are intended, because “systematic exposure to triggers and the memories they provoke is the most effective means of overcoming the disorder.” McNally sites an analysis by the Institute of Medicine, which found that “exposure therapy is the most efficacious treatment for PTSD, especially in civilians who have suffered trauma such as sexual assault.” In other words, face your problems head-on and deal with them. An additional problem with trigger warnings is that the number of triggers has expanded to the point where nearly every speech and lecture could contain triggering words, turning communication into a moral hazard. Finally, who determines what is “triggering” anyway? The very concept is a recipe for censorship.

Safe space, according to the organization Advocates for Youth, is “A place where anyone can relax and be fully self-expressed, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome or challenged on account of biological sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, age, or physical or mental ability; a place where the rules guard each person’s self-respect, dignity and feelings and strongly encourage everyone to respect others.” Some such places even contain pillows, soothing music, milk and cookies, and videos of puppies.

In addition to infantilizing adults, this practice often means protecting students from opinions that they don’t happen to agree with, or shielding them from ideas that challenge their beliefs, which has always been one of the most valuable benefits of a college education. In any case, college campuses, along with the cities and states they’re in, are already designed to be safe from violence and discrimination based on the rule of law enforced by the police and courts. In point of fact, most of these colleges nestled in American cities are among the safest places on earth. If you want to build a safe space for people who really need it, go to Syria or Somalia. And if this opinion triggers you or makes you feel unsafe then you haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on in the world.

Microaggressions are comments or questions that slight, snub, or insult someone, intentionally or unintentionally, in anything from casual conversation to formal discourse. According to the University of California publication Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send, examples include:

Asking, “Where are you from or where were you born?” or “What are you?” This implies someone is not a true American.

Inquiring, “How did you become so good in math?” (to people of color) or suggesting “You must be good in math” (to an Asian), which is stereotyping.

Proclaiming, “There is only one race, the human race” or “I don’t believe in race.” This denies the significance of a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience and history.

Opining, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” or “America is the land of opportunity.” This suggests that the playing field is level, so if women or people of color do not fill all jobs and careers in precise proportion to their population percentages, it must mean that the problem is with them, or that they are lazy or incompetent and just need to work harder.

[ Tool: Recognizing Microaggressions and the Messages They Send (click image to enlarge) ]

Yes, language matters, and some comments that people make are cringe worthy (e.g., saying “you people” to a group of African Americans, or “you’re a girl, you don’t have to be good at math”). But do we really need a list of DOs and DON’Ts handed out to students and reviewed like they were five-year olds being taught how to play nice with the other kids in the sandbox? Can’t adults work out these issues themselves without administrators stepping in as surrogate parents? And who determines what constitutes “hate,” “racist” or “sexist” speech? Who it happens to bother or offend? Students? Faculty? Administration? And as with the problem of trigger words, the list of microaggressions grows, turning normal conversation into a cauldron of potential violations that further restricts speech, encourages divisiveness rather than inclusiveness, and forces people to censor themselves, dissemble, withhold opinion, or outright lie about what they believe.

An incident at Brandeis University in 2015 is instructive: when Asian American students installed an exhibition on microaggressions, other Asian American students claimed that the exhibit was itself a microaggression that triggered negative feelings, leading the president to issue an apology to anyone “triggered or hurt by the content of the microaggressions.” Agreed, blurting out “Why do you Asians always hang out together” is lame, but at this point in history it just makes the communicant sound more like a bore than a bigot, and more deserving of eye rolls than public humiliation.

[ Brandeis University microagression display, later declared a microagression (click image to enlarge) ]

Speaker disinvitations—cancellations of invited speakers—have been accelerating over the past decade. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), 257 such incidents have occurred since 2000, 111 of which were successful in preventing the invited guests from giving their talks. In 2014, for example, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was invited to give the commencement speech at Brandies University, where she was to also receive an honorary doctorate. After students protested, citing her criticism of Islam for its mistreatment of women, the administration caved into their demands and Ali was no-platformed (as it is called in England). Worse, in this theater of the absurd, students from U.C. Berkeley attempted to no-platform the comedian and social commentator Bill Maher for his alleged “Islamophobia,” code for anyone who criticizes Islam for any reason. Maher delivered his commencement oration nonetheless, telling the very liberal student body that “Liberals should own the First Amendment the way conservatives own the Second Amendment,” pointing out that apparently irony is no longer taught at this birthplace of the 1960’s free speech movement. This was topped by students at Williams College who, in October 2015, succeeded in disinviting Suzanne Venker, author of The Flipside of Feminism. Venker was invited to participate in the college’s “Uncomfortable Learning” lecture series but, well, she made some students feel too uncomfortable. “When you bring a misogynistic, white supremacist men’s rights activist to campus in the name of ��dialogue’ and ‘the other side,’” whined one student on Facebook, it causes “actual mental, social, psychological, and physical harm to students.” Physically harm?

[ Banner from the website of Ayaan Hirsi Ali ]

The effects of such protests are often the opposite of what the protesters sought. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s speech, for example, was printed in the Wall Street Journal where it was seen by that paper’s 2.37 million readers, many orders of magnitude more than would have heard it on campus. Bill Maher turned his Berkeley brouhaha into a bit for his HBO television show Real Time, which carries over four million viewers. More irony.

What may have started out as well intentioned actions at curbing prejudices and attenuating bigotry with the goal of making people more tolerant, has now metamorphosed into thought police attempting to impose totalitarian measures that result in silencing dissent of any kind. The result is the very opposite of what free speech and a college education is all about.

Why such unrest in the academy—among the most liberal institutions in the country—surrounded as these students are by so many liberal professors and administrators? Here I will offer five proximate (immediate) causes, one ultimate (deeper) cause, and some solutions.

Proximate Causes

1. Moral Progress

As I document in The Moral Arc, we have made so much moral progress since the Enlightenment—particularly since the civil rights and women’s rights movements that launched the modern campus protest movement in the first place—that our standards of what is tolerable have been ratcheted ever upward to the point where students are hypersensitive to things that, by comparison, didn’t even appear on the cultural radar half a century ago. This progress has happened gradually enough on the news cycle measure of days and weeks to be beneath the awareness of most observers, but fast enough that it can be tracked on time scales ranging from years to decades. For example, remember when interracial marriage was a divisive debate? Me neither. But recall the now-jarring words of the trial judge Leon M. Bazile, who convicted Richard and Mildred Loving in the case (Loving v. Virginia) that ultimately made its way to the Supreme Court in 1967 and overturned laws banning interracial marriage: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” Same-sex marriage went through a similar evolution as interracial marriage, culminating in the 5–4 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2015 to make same-sex marriage the law of the land, another data point in the long-term trend toward granting more rights to more people.

Interracial marriage and same-sex marriage are themselves the legacy of the rights revolutions that first took off in the late 1700s when the idea of rights was invented and then demanded, first in the American Revolution (starting with the Declaration of Independence in 1776), then in the French Revolution (with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789), inspiring subsequent rights revolutions and documents (for example, Declaration of the Rights of Woman in 1791). The result, two and a half centuries later, has been the abolition of slavery, the eradication of torture, the elimination of the death penalty in all modern democracies save America, the franchise for all adult citizens, children’s rights, women’s rights, gay rights, animal rights, and even the rights of future generations to inhabit a livable planet. Who knows, perhaps one day soon we’ll even grant rights to Artificially Intelligent robots. In other words, most of the big moral movements have been fought and won, leaving today’s students with comparatively smaller causes to promote and evils to protest, but with moral emotions just as powerful as those of previous generations, so their outrage seems disproportionate.

2. Transition from a Culture of Honor to a Culture of Victimhood

In a culture of honor one settles minor disputes oneself and leaves the big crimes to the criminal justice system. Over the past two decades this has been eroded and is being replaced by a culture of victimhood in which one turns to parent-like authorities (faculty and college administrators, but not the law) to settle minor disputes over insults and slights.2 The culture of honor leads to autonomy, independence, self-reliance, and self-esteem, whereas the culture of victimhood leads to dependence and puerile reliance on parental figures to solve ones’ problems. In this victimhood culture the primary way to gain status is to either be a victim or to condemn alleged perpetrators against victims, leading to an accelerating search for both.3 A student at the University of Oxford named Eleanor Sharman explained how it happened to her after she joined a campus feminist group named Cuntry Living and started reading their literature on misogyny and patriarchy:

Along with all of this, my view of women changed. I stopped thinking about empowerment and started to see women as vulnerable, mistreated victims. I came to see women as physically fragile, delicate, butterfly-like creatures struggling in the cruel net of patriarchy. I began to see male entitlement everywhere.

As a result she became fearful and timid, afraid even to go out to socialize:

Feminism had not empowered me to take on the world—it had not made me stronger, fiercer or tougher. Even leaving the house became a minefield. What if a man whistled at me? What if someone looked me up and down? How was I supposed to deal with that? This fearmongering had turned me into a timid, stay-at-home, emotionally fragile bore.

It is not that there are no longer real victims of actual crimes, but it is a disservice to them to equate the trivial peccadillos of microaggressions or triggering words with brutal rapes and murders. A feminist named Melody Hensley, for example, who was once the Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry in Washington DC. claims that years of online stalking and social media trolls gave her PTSD on par with that of combat soldiers, disabling her from being able to work. Not surprisingly, war vets were not sympathetic.

3. From Anti-Fragile to Fragile Children

One response to the 1970s and 1980s crime wave was a shift toward “helicopter parenting” in which children were no longer allowed to be, well, children. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains why through the concept of anti-fragility: “Bone is anti-fragile. If you treat it gently, it will get brittle and break. Bone actually needs to get banged around to toughen up. And so do children. I’m not saying they need to be spanked or beaten, but they need to have a lot of unsupervised time, to get in over their heads and get themselves out. And that greatly decreased in the 1980s. Anxiety, fragility and psychological weakness have skyrocketed in the last 15–20 years.” Those kids are today’s college students, and as a consequence they have brittle bones and thin skins. An example of an anti-fragile person with strong bones and thick skin is the model Isabelle Boemeke, who tweeted what she does when verbally harassed on the streets by ogling men:

Here’s what I do when catcalled: roll my eyes, if he’s Hispanic say “chinga tú madre!”, put earphones on, continue with life. — Isabelle Boemeke (@isaboemeke) February 10, 2016

4. Puritanical Purging

Social movements tend to turn on themselves in puritanical purging of anyone who falls short of moral perfection, leading to preemptive denunciations of others before one is so denounced. The witch crazes of the 17th century degenerated into such anticipatory condemnations, resulting in a veritable plethora of nonexistent sorceresses being strapped to faggots and torched. The 20th century witnessed Marxist and feminist groups undergoing similar purges as members competed for who was the purist and defenestrated those who fell below the unrealizable standard. On the other side of the political spectrum, Ayn Rand’s objectivist movement took off in a frenzied build up after the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1959, but by the time the philosopher-novelist died in 1982 most of the insider “collective” had been expunged for various sins against the philosophy, from listening to the wrong music to challenging the founder on any point of substance or minutia. Such purification purges are among the worst things that can happen to a social movement.

[ Pre-emptive denunciations lead to witch hunts. ]

5. Virtue Signaling

Related to puritanical purging is virtue signaling, in which members of a movement compete to signal who is the most righteous by (A) recounting all the moral acts one has performed and (B) identifying all the immoral acts others have committed. This leads to an arms-race to signal moral outrage over increasingly diminishing transgressions, such as unapproved Halloween costumes at Yale University, which led to a student paroxysm against a faculty member, a cell-phone video of which went viral and nearly brought the campus to a stand still. This is an example of what Maajid Nawaz means by “regressive liberalism,” where freedom of speech and expression are sacrificed in the name of tolerance, which is actually intolerance. One of the first acts of totalitarian regimes is to restrict dissent and free speech, so perhaps it should be called totalitarian liberalism.

[ Yale college master Nicholas Christakis (in blue shirt) is verbally assaulted by a student who accused him of not doing enough to censor the wearing of Halloween costumes that could be seen as offensive. “Who the fuck hired you?” the girl with the backpack screamed at the professor. ]

An Ultimate Cause

A deeper reason behind the campus problem is a lack of diversity. Not ethnic, race, or gender diversity, but viewpoint diversity, specifically, political viewpoint. The asymmetry is startling. A 2014 study conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute found that 59.8 percent of all undergraduate faculty nationwide identify as far left or liberal, compared with only 12.8 percent as far right or conservative. In a 2015 study published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences Arizona State University psychologist José Duarte and his colleagues reported that 58–66 percent of social science professors identify as liberals, compared to only 5-8 percent as conservatives. Given the power of beliefs to drive actions, college students today stand next to no chance of receiving a balanced education on the most important topics of our time and for which social science is best equipped to study.

[ This graph captures the political bias problem well. From: Klein, Daniel B. and Charlotte Stern. “Professors and Their Politics: The Policy Views of Social Scientists.” Critical Review, 17, p. 264. (click image to enlarge) ]

What goes around comes around. Today’s liberal college professors were radical college students in the 1960s and 1970s, protesting “the man” and bucking authority. One reason faculty and administrators are failing to stand up to student demands today is that they once wore those shoes. Raising children and students to be dismissive of law and order and mores and manners leads to a crisis in consciousness and the rejection of the very freedoms so hard won by their parents and teachers. A generation in rebellion gave birth to a generation in crisis. Thus it is that the revolution devours its children.

Solutions

There is no magic bullet solution to the problems the academy faces today, but as liberals have known for some time it takes decades—even generations—to right the wrongs of the past, so solutions are likely to be incremental and gradual, which is almost always a good thing when it comes to social change, as it leads to less violent and more peaceful actions on the part of both activists and their opponents. Contra Barry Goldwater, extremism in the defense of liberty is no virtue; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no vice.4

Hiring practices fall under this rubric. If the academy is already comfortable with and active in seeking to diversify its faculty by ethnicity, race, and gender, why not viewpoint as well? Given the entrenchment of tenure this will take time, but as that scribe of moral progress Victor Hugo observed, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”5

In the meantime, viewpoint diversity can be increased almost overnight by inviting speakers from a wide range of perspectives—political, economic, and ideological—even if (or especially) if they are offensive to faculty and students. And no more disinvitations! If you invite someone to speak, honor your word, own your decision, and stand up to the cry bullies (as they’re called in this neologism). The assignment of books and papers for students to read—especially for courses in history, English literature, the humanities, and the social sciences—can and should include authors whose positions are at odds with those of most academicians and student bodies. And professors: in addition to assigning students articles and opinion editorials from the New York Times, give them a few from the Wall Street Journal. Balance The Nation magazine with Reason magazine, The American Prospect with The American Spectator, National Public Radio with Conservative Talk Radio, PBS with Fox News.

Viewpoint diversity, however, is subservient to the deeper principle of free speech, which should be applied indiscriminately across the academy, as it should across society and, ideally, the world. What does free speech mean? First, it does not mean that you can lie about someone. Libel laws are in place to protect people from defamation that causes reputational and financial harm. Second, free speech does not mean that the government, public institutions, or private persons, businesses, or publications are required to promote or publish the opinions of others. As the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, for example, it is not incumbent on me to publish articles or accept advertisements just because we’re in the business of publishing. Institutions should have the freedom to restrict the speech of anyone who utilizes resources within the jurisdiction of its own institution, such as a school newspaper. The government, however, cannot restrict citizens’ speech just because it finds their opinions distasteful, offensive, or critical of its policies. (Exceptions have been made for treason and the passing on of national secrets to enemies, but crying “fire” in a crowded theater was most likely an exception that proves the rule.)

Holocaust deniers, creationists, and 9/11 truthers, for example, should have the right to publish their own journals and books, and to attempt to have their views aired in other publications and media venues, as in college newspapers and web sites, but no one is obligated to publish them. Alex Grobman and I wrestled with the free speech issue in our 2004 book Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? As we opined: “Being in favor of someone’s right to freedom of speech is quite different from enabling that speech.” But we chose to write a book about their movement and arguments, quoting them extensively because, we believe, “In the bright light of open discussion the truth will emerge.”6 And although I declined to publish an ad submitted by a Holocaust denier in Skeptic (running an advertisement in our magazines carries the imprimatur of endorsement), I did debate Mark Weber, the director of the Institute for Historical Review (the leading Holocaust denier organization) in a public forum they hosted.

The freedom of speech has been one of the driving forces behind moral progress because it enables the search for truth. How? There are at least five reasons:7

We might be completely right but still learn something new.

We might be partially wrong and by listening to other viewpoints we might stand corrected and refine and improve our beliefs. No one is omniscient.

We might be completely wrong, so hearing criticism or counterpoint gives us the opportunity to change our minds and improve our thinking. No one is infallible. The only way to find out if you’ve gone off the rails is to get feedback on your beliefs, opinions, and even your facts.

Whether right or wrong, by listening to the opinions of others we have the opportunity to develop stronger arguments and build better facts for our positions. You know that the world is round and goes around the sun, that evolution is real, and that the Holocaust happened. But can you explain how you know these facts? What are the best arguments and evidences for these facts? Could you articulate them clearly and succinctly in a debate or conversation? As John Stuart Mill noted in his classic 1859 work On Liberty: “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.”

My freedom to speak and dissent is inextricably tied to your freedom to speak and dissent. Once customs and laws are in place to silence someone on one topic, what’s to stop people from silencing anyone on any topic that deviates from the accepted canon? The justification of censorship laws in the consequentialist argument that people might be incited to discrimination, hate, or violence if exposed to such ideas fails the moment you turn the argument around and ask: What happens when it is you and your ideas that are determined to be dangerous? It is the Principle of Interchangeable Perspectives that I introduced in The Moral Arc: For me to expect you to listen to me I must be willing to hear you. If I censor you, why shouldn’t you censor me? If you silence me, why shouldn’t I silence you?

This argument against censorship was well articulated in Robert Bolt’s 1960 play, A Man for All Seasons, based on the true story of the 16th century Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More, and his collision with King Henry VIII over the monarch’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. In the play a dialogue unfolds between More and his future son-in-law Roper, who urges him to arrest a man whose testimony could condemn More to death, even though no laws were broken. “And go he should, if he were the Devil himself, until he broke the law!” More entices.

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law! More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that. More: Oh? And when the law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast…and if you cut them down…do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.8

For our own safety’s sake we must grant our devils their due.

#Michael Shermer #academic corruption #student fragility #emotional fragility #censorship #trigger warnings #speech codes #academic freedom #freedom of speech #free speech #academic integrity #long post #religion is a mental illness

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survivingsusac · 10 months ago

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Andi Boudoir

Alright guys, come and buckle up because I'm going to start today off going full ADHD style, where I have 85,000,000 topics to cover and not enough focus to do it in a coherent fashion. Sorry, not sorry.

I have two things I have been considering blogging about and so I did something I don't usually do and I asked my ultra selective group of Facebook friends, “Which of these two topics do you guys want to read about?” And, of course, in typical Facebook fashion they said we want to hear it all. Extremely unhelpful right?

Side bar 1: Surviving Susac now is on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/survivingsusac/

So, this blog entry you guys get Boudoir Part I, next time you get work update, and the next next time you get Boudoir Part II, when I will likely have the final pictures.

Boudoir Part I story starts like this:

I hate my physical body.

I used to be cool with it up until like 2016, but then Susac came into the picture and the body is totally different now than I was used to it being. It is uncooperative. It is not flexible anymore. I can't even freaking jump or run. Don't count on me in an emergency, sorry. Just run away, save yourself; and if I live, I live.

Plus add on top of that a very complex and transactional relationship with my sexual self. I have no trust in my body that it's going to do what I need it to do. I don't trust that it functions in the way it's supposed to function. I mean it tried to unalive itself so that’s a whole *thing*. Then it stopped its regular functions, and they all became irregular functions. Some of them stopped altogether.

If we were to pull apart my mental self, from my emotional self from my physical self the three of us would have a very complicated love triangle. There'd probably be some triangulation, as well as some condescension and a very large dose of irritation.

Back to Boudoir topic

So I’m doom scrolling on Facebook a couple weeks ago, as per my usual habit.

DON’T SCROLL FACEBOOK WHEN YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO BED.

I came across an open casting call for Andi's boudoir in Roseville. So essentially, you pay about 600 bucks, and you get the full boudoir experience and then that payment goes toward whatever product you choose to purchase from your experience. You just pay the difference toward the total cost of the product you chose, and all the digitals of the photos become property of Andi for use in her publicity and marketing for her company. Cool man, I dig it!

My half asleep self goes, “Hey Aurora, you would totally never come up with this to do for yourself. Maybe Jesus is all up in your Facebook algorithm telling you to give it a shot or something.” My very sciencey, logical brain was thinking that the Boudoir experience could help me get over the fact that I hate my body and maybe learn to accept it a little bit.

Also, it might not hurt to feel a little feminine, right? I mean one of my personal goals for myself is to find a male life partner in the coming years. And I guess ought to realize my femininity as part of opening myself up to finding a partner. *shrugs*

Sidebar 2: Mental note to write a blog later about all the psychological crap I’ve been learning and unlearning to stop attracting and maintaining toxic relationships.

Getting to the point, I complete and submit an application to Andi to ask to participate in the open casting call. I finally expected all the slots to be filled already. But my application is submitted and then in about an hour—because yes I'm still up doom scrolling—I get an e-mail response from Andi telling me that she's really interested in what I say in my application and that she wants to help me with my goals because they're aligned with her visions for her business. I did my happy wiggle hearing that she was going to save space in her schedule for me.

https://www.andiboudoir.com/

I got a call about four days later from her scheduler and she says can you come to the studio in two days? “Heck yeah, let's do it!”

I then get a call from Andi and we talk about my comfort levels and personal vision for the shoot. I'm like, “Girl this is my first time ever embracing my femininity in this way. I’m doing this on whim and in an effort to get myself out of my comfort zone and fall back in love with my own body. I'll be your clay you be my sculptor; I will just follow your direction.” Being an artist she of course was so down for that level of artistic freedom and control.

I got to the studio and the whole experience was phenomenal. The three ladies worked so collaboratively as a team that there was absolutely no reason for me to not trust their process. It felt fantastic to get fawned over, to get my hair and makeup done, and play dress up in their wardrobe closet. Andi even got me a mocha, so she was definitely speaking my food love language. The process of taking the pictures was at times a bit awkward because the positions they put me in were strange. However, they ended up creating some really gorgeous photographs.

Of the over 100 photos we took together, I chose my 10 favorite photographs and got an extra of what they called an “After Glow” shot. The 10 photographs will become an album which I chose the binding to coordinate with the lingerie they put me in for the photographs. Any of you guys who know me personally know that I love a theme, so of course the outside wrapping of the album had to match the inside photos of the album! I get a few prints of two other photos and the After Glow shot. They’re totally going up in the apartment!

The whole experience with Andi and her team was so delightful that I want to go back again. The expense is astronomical compared to my income, so I need to find a way to become independently wealthy. That way I can support my new boudoir habit. That, and you know, pay medical bills for myself and my kid and buy food. All the critical things.

Financial independence is in the works, career growth is in the works, finding and maintaining healthy real love is in the works. I just never stop moving you know?

Surviving Susac,

Aurora

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xamaxenta · 2 years ago

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I just need you to know that your existence is good for my mental health. Thank you for being authentically you. Thank you for posting the "ultra bonkers shit." Whenever you warn your followers about the rest of the contents of a post, it's usually followed by the kind of things I want to see most.

I was feeling ashamed of myself and my place in fandom, because of my "weird interests" that "no one wants to see" and was fighting back against it and had a bunch of normal arguments like they tell you to make in therapy and then had the thought about the fact that my favorite tag of yours is the one for the stuff you consider most taboo. My own most taboo writing has the most hits of any of my stuff on AO3.

This shit is the backbone of fandom. If I want to read your words, even when you say they are ultra bonkers, someone wants to read mine. Shame has no place here. Thank you for being a good example of that.

This is legitimately one of the kindest things anyone has ever said about me and my online presence

Thank you to you too for being authentic to yourself anon

I get it, its hard to go balls to the walls about certain content because in the year 2k23 people —overgeneralisation here and i am not singling out/targeting any age group except maybe minors who should be very careful about the content and things they consume online that may or may not be tagged (hopefully they are, sincerely tumblr remains the best social media platform for this that ive been on that has such an extensive personalised tagging system) — uh back to year 2023 and people find faults in ALOT of things and disregard the tags

I find it unfortunate that authors on AO3 get the brunt of this a ton like ayo the tags? Exist? I know we dont like thesis length tagging but they are there for a reason I think its silly authors have to put additional disclaimers in the summary/chapter notes for extra coverage just in case someone doesn’t properly process their tags, a silly necessity

At first before i started the “xam screams about (ultra) bonkers stuff” tags i was also a little ashamed and definitely nervous like will people like this? Im not entirely sure so I will do my damn best to prevent upsetting anyone, but I cant cater to everyone who decides to follow me (thank you btw why but im grateful) and the exploration of taboo topics makes me happy if that makes sense

Does liking and wanting to discuss/explore/create content around subjects like this make me or you a bad person, no because content creation esp fan content is self indulgence, fanfiction and fanart of a prexisting piece of media is self indulgence and hedonism at its finest

Its why we even have arts and entertainment culture in the first place and should you so desire to attach your heart to a special little blorbo of your choosing, a lovely precious (pathetic) meowmeow if you will, then its not uncommon to want to put them through the wringer, why idk probably psychological reasoning jargon needs to be here but i just woke up and I can’t explain this part very well bc this is a personal experience im speaking from

This got really long but I agree with all your points, angst tropes that lead into dead dove trope etc are the backbone of fandom whether you like it or not, theyre just as present as fluff and everybody lives aus its just how it is

We’re all pretty similar when it comes to enjoying the same fandom spaces, people just dont wanna admit it haha

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limestoner · 1 year ago

Text

Threw up on my way to the car after work because the 88°F/31°C. Ultra pleasant. I tried to stop barfing just long enough to get into car and fringe home but like a video from Let’s Game It Out, my nausea would go down but it kept coming back.

So I’m doing little barfs in the grass by the cars and trying to hide it but fortunately it’s there aren’t many people on that side of the building area. Barfing my way along.

MADE IT TO THE CAR! I can sit in glorious air conditioning z . Improving but now from the bowels of hell I feel an MPP [massive projectile puke] coming on. I turn to open the door and get out of the car.

And it’s my BOSS’S BOSS. Walking her dog. I tried to make myself look pleasant in case she saw me because of she noticed me she would know who I am. I don’t think she saw me. She bundled up doggo into the car and drove away soon. I thought I had done well holding it in but I got out of the car, stood up, and immediately emitted a waterfall of chyme confetti. I wanted to find a better pun but:

That’s not what I meant! Anyway, I pivoted 90° and fell forwards into the grass, hidden by my car and hurled and spewed. Everything was fine I was nearing the end of the heaving when I hear a voice — one of our new people saw me and asked if I needed anything or if she could help.

I hope I looked sort of passable as I turns to her and I said, “No, no thanks you. I’m almost done here.” Almost done here? Seriously, WTF. She offered again and to stay with me but I held myself together to thank her again for being so nice but that I would be okay. She left, I did one last hurlah and was fine, drove home, and was finer after a shower, a food, and a lot of water.

I’m so glad that I work at a place that understands me. Not everyone can say that. But I still don’t want to barf on the boss’s boss’s dog or be known as a parking lot barber. I mean parking lot barfer. Puking lot.

Abrupt topic change because I didn’t want to deal with selecting and copying and making a new one.

Soundtracks of head music I made up as a kid:

Anemia the Horrible

Oh horrible cysts on my eyes

For constant waves of pain

For purple bruises on my knee

I’m walking with a cane!

Anemia Anemia

I skinned my other knee

I’m really beat with broken feet

And it burns when I pee

Hallway Chant

OoooooOOuuuuuu… etc. like the chanting in the beginning of this short film that is embedded so deep in my childhood that it’s like this movie was an historical event. I would hum it while walking in places like hallways and paths that have numbers on the doors or walls. Watching the numbers go up or down and my voice going up and down. Soothing. Like drifting along with numbers in space.

youtube

Florence Foster Jenkins

The sheaf song I mean head song no no I rhymed some words and cobbled them together over a tune I got somewhere. In this case, that kid jump rope playground tune.

Florence Foster Jenkins fell down the stairs

Florence Foster Jenkins’ head needs repairs

Her mama came home and gave her some spankin’s

How many whacks for Florence Foster Jenkins?

Etc. and maybe you whack the ground hard with the jump rope. Actually, no you don’t becsusr DO NOT gleefully count child abuse. But if you want to look at it like the Cinderella one and I think there’s another one that’s not so nice. So where do you draw the line. Where you draw the line. My line is I love the singer, hate the sin. The singer isn’t just me. It’s anyone who feels pure joy from it.

Lines and sings

Signs and rings

Spines and leads

Loons and sheds

Her husband brought some flowers.

Also, learn about Florence Foster Jenkins. Interesting story. It has been a long time since I heard one of her songs. I am not good with music. I don’t understand how it works. I barely get it enough to be able to have preferences. But. I can tell that something is amiss.

I need to stop this before

#Youtube #hemp #music #let’s game it out #LGIO #why #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #oh yeah #barf

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hellionhades814 · 2 years ago

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Complicated Love 1

{This is a fic I’ve been writing on AO3 that I thought I’d share. https://archiveofourown.org/works/31483490/chapters/77879180 } TW: SELF HARM AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS Rodimus Prime looked out onto the bridge that had a very comfortable-looking Megatron and Optimus. Megatron's arm was wrapped around the Prime's shoulders as they spoke to Ultra Magnus. Having reconnected recently after being apart for so long during the war. Love sparked from eons ago rekindled to the dismay of everyone and the spark break of a speedster. They had once been together long before the war began, and their love had reconnected after so long. Optimus had moved onto the Lost Light to be closer to Megatron, and Rodimus would see them constantly moving to one another's rooms and hearing them through the thin walls. The walls thin, and he could listen to all their little words of love.

Rodimus was not able to even look at them most of the time anymore. Just turning into a stuttering mess if either of them wanted to speak to him. He would make an excuse and high tail it out of there. However, they didn't try to either, which just made everything with them even harder to deal with. They barely talked to him unless it was a meeting or he had done something wrong, which happened often. His long-standing crush on the old Prime was still raging in his spark and loving him since even before he was a prime and just Hot Rod. But he knew he would never be thought of as anything but a disaster of a prime. He could barely do anything right in the optics of Optimus, no matter how hard he tried. Like, come on, he was gorgeous with his paint job and moving treads… He was getting off-topic right.

Megatron was in the same boat. His love for the mech was there when he started to get to know him better during their adventures on the Lost Light before Prime had joined them. Massive frame lurking in the halls as he walked with such elegance and pose. His poetry was even something he tried to read. Even though he hated reading anything about what Megatron wrote, he felt closer to the mech as he read. But he knew that Megatron just thought of him as just a sparkling who did not know what he was doing.

He looked down from where he had been staring to look at the work he had barely touched and knew Magnus would not be pleased with the lack thereof. He looked over to the place that Prime and Megatron previously occupied, but they had left to go somewhere while Rodimus had starred off into space. Getting up from his station, he made his way off the command deck and to his office. Picking at his wrists as he tried to think of going anywhere but his hub suit. He thought he could try and get some paperwork before making the trip back to his quarters. Just get the work done… right like that's a good excuse not to go to his hub suit even though you never get anything done and have to have Magnus force you to do work. With a sigh, he turned to instead go to his room. Knowing he did not have the focus to do anything like paperwork. He'll probably get a lecture from Magnus in the morning, but he did not care. All they ever seemed to do was give him lectures and punish him. His processor was lost in thought as he walked, and all his thoughts were surrounding the two mechs he was hopelessly in love with.

All the times he screwed up seemed to all play at once in his helm. Making everyone around him get hurt or some killed on other occasions. Why was he even thought of to be a prime? Hell, who gave him the right to be the captain of a fragging ship? They knew he was a disaster, yet here he was on the ship and the supposed captain. Yet every single fragging day, they loved to remind him of what an incompetent idiot he was. Though they never said it in those words. It was always the disappointed stares and little critiques that he could not stand. They echoed in his helm with every move he made.

He had not eaten or slept in a while. Really would anyone want to when the two bots you love will not even spare a glance your way unless you screw up? His frame was tired from all the sleepless nights, and when he did sleep, the nightmares would make it all the worse. It did not help that the walls of his room were thin, so he heard everything when Megatron and Optimus went at it. Though he wouldn't lie and say he hadn't been eavesdropping, and damn, did they have stamina. The cube of Energon on the table sat there before him, but he could not drink it. As much as he played the confident, cocky captain of the Lost Light, it was far from the truth. Hell, no one probably even believed that mask. They probably just thought he was on some idiotic suicide mission. He gave a dry chuckle at that. Oh, how close to the truth that was and yet wasn't. It was complicated. Sighing as he laid on his berth, he hears the door next to him open and shut. They were home, meaning he was going to listen to their fun time. Oh, a joy to him.

Like on cue, he heard a bang and a moan from the room over and sighed. They were getting straight into it then. It must have been a long day of teasing for them to be this riled up. Getting up, he moved to the wash racks and looked into the mirror. Geez, no wonder they don't find me attractive. I wouldn't find myself attractive, and with that thought, he splashed some water on his face as he still heard the moans and groans from the other room. He couldn't stand it anymore, but it just went on and on. He looked over at his desk and glimpsed at his knife. Was it a bad idea… yes. But it was an excellent way to feel something other than horrid self-loathing. He promised Drift he wouldn't but just ugh. How was he expected to go through this torture without having some fucking relief? Marching over to the knife, he picked it up and brought it to his wrist. Drift's voice in his processor made him freeze for just a moment.

With a shaky breath, he brought the knife to his sensitive protoform. Wincing as he drew it across his wrist. The energon beaded before spilling down his servo to the drain. Rodimus gave a dark chuckle as he was able to feel something other than what his processor was saying. The numb feeling was going down the drain with his energon as he watched. He knew it was not right, but it gave him relief, and the noise from the other room was drowned out by the alarms his frame was giving him. Fuel alarm, recharge alarm, and now he got to add injury alarm to his point rake. Placing a few more cuts to his protoform, he finally slid down the shower wall and fell unconscious.

--hours pass--

Waking the next cycle to a banging on his door was not precisely what Rodimus would call the best experience. "Rodimus, you're late to shift," came the gruff voice he knew all too well and wished would say something other than words of disdain. Getting up off the shower floor was a workout and a half, leaving him tired and breathless. Though somehow, he made his way over and opened the door to see a rather disappointed-looking Optimus. He adverted his optics to look at the corner. "Sorry, I overslept; I'll be out in a bit," he answered in short sentences as he held his arm behind his back. Though little did he know the Prime had seen the new cuts but didn't mention it. Raising an optic ridge and looked the young Prime over. He had to talk to Ratchet and Megatron before he did anything rash. The signs were there that something was wrong.

"Good" was all that Optimus answered in return as he turned and left. Rodimus exhaled a deep breath as he turned to look at his arm. It wasn't too bad and could easily be hidden by his armor. Which was good, at least he thought it was. It all just a big mistake, but hey, that was if life. He quickly got cleaned up, but he could already feel a processor ache coming on. Feeling like his helm was being crushed and not in a fun way between some thighs. Looking over his fuel count, he sighed at how low it was, but he couldn't find it in him to eat. He could go a few more hours, right. He began to make his way to the command deck when Ratchet stepped in front of him. He froze for a moment seeing the medic "Scrap," hissing under his breath as he put on one of his famous fake smiles "Ratchet, how ya doing," he asked as he stopped by him.

Ratchet looked over the young Prime with a slight frown. "I'm here because you missed your check-up exam a few cycles back, so I've come to collect you," he informed him and watched his faceplates. Optimus had come to him moments ago to speak his concerns, so he was going to bring him to the med bay. Whether he was going to go willingly was another question. Rung had already been called and was waiting at the med bay to see what they could get out of the young Prime.

Rodimus stilled as he heard that and began to sweat. "Well, I'm already late for my shift on deck, so maybe later when I get off," he chuckled awkwardly as he tried to get out of it. Knowing the state his frame was in and that Ratchet didn't miss anything, he didn't want to risk the medic finding him out. He glanced down the hallway to see if he could just run for it. His processor aches to get worse by the second as he quietly panicked on the inside. "No can do, Rodimus. I already talked to Optimus, and he said your all good to come with me" Ratchet pushed back as he looked at Rodimus. He could already tell what Optimus had told him was true and now just needed to get him to the med bay.

He began to panic now. Going to the med bay would lead to them finding out and asking questions. How was he supposed to answer those questions anyway? He was in love with Optimus and Megatron because he cannot lead to a mental breakdown. He couldn't do that. What if Megatron and Optimus found out what they would think. They would think he was worse than first thought. He felt his optics offline as he collapsed to the floor from his haze of panic. The last thing he saw was bright red and blue optics.

#fanfic #ao3 #transformers #transformers fanfiction #megatron #optimus #Rodimus Prime #angst #hurt #hurt/comfort #fanfiction

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alyssalikestoreadbooks · 3 months ago

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Forget Me Not - Alyson Derrick

"A romantic ode to the strength of love and the power of choosing each other, against odds and obstacles, again and again.

What would you do if you forgot the love of your life ever even existed?

Stevie and Nora had a love. A secret, epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. They also had a plan: to leave their small, ultra-conservative town and families behind after graduation and move to California, where they could finally stop hiding that love.

But then Stevie has a terrible fall. And when she comes to, she can remember nothing of the last two years—not California, not coming to terms with her sexuality, not even Nora. Suddenly, Stevie finds herself in a life she doesn’t quite understand, one where she’s estranged from her parents, drifting away from her friends, lying about the hours she works, dating a boy she can’t remember crushing on, and headed towards a future that isn’t at all what her fifteen-year-old self would have envisioned.

And Nora finds herself…forgotten. Can the two beat the odds a second time and find their way back together when “together” itself is just a lost memory?"

Read Date - October 2024

Length - 320 pages

Genre - Romance, LGBTQ+, Contemporary

Rating - 8/10

Stars - ★★★★☆

Notes - The start of this book laying out where the dynamic lies with everyone is so interesting. It starts out with Stevie being distant from her parents, and in turn, spending time with Nora. When she loses her memories, she works hard to get them back. I like the journal entries that Nora writes, as it brings a different format to the book. It’s really cool. Stevie going through the process of regaining her memories was so interesting, and seeing how she didnt regain them easily was so cool. Stevie's mom lying about her past is such a bittersweet moment. It makes sense that she wants to hold onto what small relationship she has left with her daughter now that her memories are gone. She just wants her back, and i can imagine she'd be accepting of her daughter one day no matter what. The relationship between Nora and her mom is really fascinating to me because it's not your happy go lucky, and it's not outright physical abuse until it is. It's cold, and neglectful, and demeaning, but still a parent. still providing. enough to make you think theres nothing wrong, while everything is obviously wrong. its amazingly played out, and shows why Nora originally wanted to run away with Stevie. The discussion of being Asian was a topic i wasn't expecting to be addressed in a book about amnesia, but i think it was beautifully addressed. I love subtle and loud representation, basically just representation of all forms. Seeing writers and artists in general get their voices out there and heard is so important to me, and i'm glad that Alyson was able to do so with her book. Stevie finding the shoebox and realizing she's gay, but not ACCEPTING that she's gay is such an interesting route to take. Nora wanted to tell her, but she was scared. It's understandable. Stevie on the other hand just can't accept it now that she's reconnected with her old life. The compulsory heterosexuality happening with Stevie is also beyond cool to me because not a lot of people address this in the discovery period of sexuality. It's hard to accept or even realize its happening, and forcing yourself into relationships only harms you further. Ryan being a sweet guy and accepting is the best outcome that couldve happened and i love and adore it so much. He's such a cutie pie and i love that he's just understanding of whats happening, and it gives Stevie a safe space to accept herself. She finally does, and the relationship between Nora and Stevie is so sweet! Theyre adorable with each other, and i love how theyre written. So cute, and pining, and just lovely. Mrs Martin catching then having sex was the craziest thing that could've happened because she's such an aggressive person, she's literally the worst person who couldve found out. Her attacking them is so insane and i feel so much remorse for Nora. The reveal that Stevie already told her mom that she's gay and that thats why they grew apart was expected but also a good reveal. The seeds were sown and it makes sense. Talking about the reality of abuse in this book was also a beautiful thread to sow throughout the novel. I loved how it was played out with Nora running away (getting kicked out really) and staying with Ryan. Stevie then makes the plan that, now knowing her mom doesn't accept her, that she DOES want to go to California with Nora. It's a sweet gesture, and it's the fact that they fell in love TWICE that does it for me. They were truly meant to be!! The last day of the family being together and the note she left her parents was so emotional, it made me cry. I can't believe this is how Stevie wanted it to end. The reveal that her parents show up at the airport and support her is so sweet. Its different when it affects you personally, when its a family member who's gay. it changes things. sometimes for the better, in Stevies case, or for the worse, in Nora's case. Nora has a new safe space with Stevie's family and i think that is beautiful. They go off to UCLA, and Stevie's parents support them. It's so sweet, and i loved the ending so much

#Books #Book #Reading #Reader #Books And Reading #Bookworm #Bookblr #Book Reviews #Review #Book Blog #Book Lover #Bookish #Book Community #Bookstagram #Booktok

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sara-scribbles · 2 years ago

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hi! i know its way off but would you write idia sharing a new year kiss with his crush?

To Start the Year Off

Fandom: Twisted Wonderland Idia Shroud/GN!Reader Word Count: 1,267 Notes: Just something quick and simple. Ortho being a good wing-man ;D Hope everyone has a great 2023! Warnings: Idia being self-deprecating

Idia nervously paces his room while biting on the nail of his thumb. He isn’t sure why he even went through with asking you to spend New Year’s Eve with him. Well, actually he knows why, and that reason is happily pinning up decorations around his room.

Ortho had needled Idia into asking you to join in on a very small celebration. Literally so small it’s only the two of them; and now you. How could he say no to his cute little brother? And, if Idia is honest with himself, he wants to spend more time with you.

You’re what he would consider an extrovert. And oh does he hate socializing with extroverts! Yet, you’re not as draining as the other extroverts at NRC. You seem to understand when to step back and give him space. You’re patient with him and don’t mind when he would rather stay in his room while you talk to his tablet. You’ll listen to his tirades on the latest anime, game, or his favorite idol group.

How could he not develop a major crush on you?

Unfortunately for him, you’re also pretty popular. Somehow you’ve amassed a gaggle of friends. Some are just normies, like the two knuckleheads from Heartslabyul. But when he found out you managed to snag the ultra rare UR Malleus Draconia, he nearly fainted. Of course you of all people would befriend one of the most powerful beings in Twisted Wonderland!

With all these better people around you, Idia can’t help but think you’re only friends with him out of pity. He can’t offer you much beyond new gadgets or superior wifi. Hell, he can’t even go outside like everyone else. That usually isn’t an issue for him, but ever since you arrived, he kinda wants to do normie things with you. Not like you’d ever want to do anything with him.

“Big brother, stop overthinking,” Ortho orders, his voice breaking Idia out of his mental anguish.

Realizing he’s gnawed off the nail on his thumb, he stuffs his hands in his sweatshirt. “What if they don’t come? What if they’ve been invited to a party and decided they'd rather go. Someone like that is bound to be invited to multiple events and w-”

There’s three rapid knocks that interrupt his spiraling. “Idia? Ortho?”

“(Y/N), is here!” Ortho eagerly opens the door. “You made it!”

You’re grinning ear from ear. “Of course! I wouldn’t want to miss starting the new year with the opening of the newest MMO game server.”

Idia inwardly cringes as he remembers the reason he gave for throwing the impromptu New Year’s Eve celebration. He had hastily told you to arrive ten minutes before midnight if you wanted to get all the new login bonuses. Could he be any more lame?

Ortho hands you a silver party hat, which you gladly put on. Despite how goofy most people would look, you manage to pull it off. Now that all three of you are wearing party hats, you settle on the floor. From your backpack, you pull out a handful of snacks.

Thankfully Ortho had convinced Idia to clean up a bit. Most of the things were thrown in his closet or stuffed in the boxes that were now neatly stacked. His computer screens had been rearranged to accommodate the extra person.

“D-do you want a pillow?” He holds a cushion out.

Leaning against the frame of his bed, you accept the offered cushion. “I bought a few things. I wasn’t sure what would be fitting for a New Year’s Eve party, but I made sure to grab your favorites!”

As Idia sinks down near you, he hands a controller over. “T-thanks…” The intro screen to the new game lights up the room.

You hum along to the music as you both wait for the server to open. “So, what class do you plan to go for?”

A safe topic to discuss, Idia lets out a sigh. “Probably a mage reaper. Distant combat but also close combat just in case to cover your bases. Being able to heal yourself was life changing in the previous games. Plus, you can iframe attacks using reaper specials.”

“Hmm, good choice. I might go for paladin gunner. Plenty of defense while fighting midrange sounds sweet.” You happily munch on some cookies. “Ortho, are you joining us?”

Idia realizes his brother had been hovering the entire time. The younger Shroud smiles. “Actually, I need to make a quick stop at Sam’s. I forgot to prepare the necessary refreshments.”

Eyes widening, Idia can only manage to sputter out a few crumbs before Ortho leaves. The door closes with an ominous click. Suddenly, he feels like he’s too close to you. Every time you’ve hung out with him, Ortho has been there. Or you’re in a public place. Idia has never been alone with you.

Until now.

Eyes darting around the room, he wonders if he can spontaneously combust. It would be better than facing his very real feelings for you. Feelings that will definitely not be reciprocated. From the corner of his vision, he can see that you’re unfazed. You’re busy fiddling with the control settings. His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth.

The silence seems to drag on forever as Idia can’t seem to unfreeze himself. You set down the controller, before turning to him. “You can use your tablet if you want.”

He blinks slowly. You turn back to the screen. “Or if you want, I can go back to my dorm, and we can do this through chat.”

Ah, you’re trying to make him feel more comfortable. Always the accommodating one. You never seem bothered by it either. Most people would get annoyed or exasperated over his reactions. But you understand.

Slowly relaxing, Idia picks up his own controller. “N-no. I’m okay.”

Focusing on the screen, there’s a minute before midnight. “Hey, Idia?”

“Yeah?”

There’s a pause before you speak again. “Would you mind if I gave you a kiss for the new year?”

He swears he hears something crack. He’s suddenly very aware of you once more. “I-I…k-kiss? M-me?”

“There’s a tradition to ring in the new year by kissing someone. I just thought it might be something nice to do with you,” you explain, keeping your tone even and calm. “It’s okay if you’re not comfortable with that.”

Thirty seconds.

He can’t believe his ears. You want to kiss him? Of all people? Really???

Twenty-five.

Swallowing nervously, Idia decides to gather all his courage. This is a once and a lifetime special event. Who knows when he’ll ever get the chance. “Y-yes, I’d like that!” he manages to squeak out.

Eighteen.

He keeps his gaze glued to the screen, afraid he might pass out if he even looks at you. He can hear you shuffling. From the corner of his vision, he can make out your hand. You shift closer to him without a word.

Seven.

Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe!

One.

“Happy New Year, Idia. I like you alot,” you whisper in his ear. He instinctively squeezes his eyes shut at the last second.

You press a gentle, warm kiss to his cheek; you linger before moving away. Eyes popping open as the game music opens, he turns to you. The tips of his hair have turned a shade of light pink. His mouth opens and closes like a fish as you smile back at him. Your eyes glimmer brightly with such emotion, it’s almost too much for his poor heart.

What a way to start the year!

#twisted wonderland #twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #idia shroud #twst idia #idia shroud x reader #idia x reader #reader insert #scenario

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reidsnose · 4 years ago

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doodles

overview: reader doodles on her hands a lot and spencer has to give into the temptation of coloring it in

genre: flufffffff

a/n: sorry ive havent posted a fic in like a week, ive been in quite a slump but i had this idea well after midnight but i just had to write it so lmk what u guys think of this one :)

masterlist

doodling on your hands: a once nervous habit that had seeped into your everyday life and now is just a regular habit. nearly everyday you would come to work with clean hands and get home with a mini art gallery on your non dominant one.

Spencer admired this from the moment he noticed it. at first he thought you had a tattoo but when you came back the next day with it completely gone, he was a tad confused, only to catch you doodling on that very same hand a couple hours later on the jet. he thought maybe it was an occasional thing, a habit you'd quit once you got better situated into the team, but after nearly a year you still left work almost everyday with some cutesy sketches drawn on your hand.

Spencer found himself looking forward to your doodles, imagining in his head what you might draw each day, and thinking of all the colors you would add if you had the time. being the great profiler that he is, he noticed a pattern: you subconsciously correlated your doodles with your mood.

after especially hard cases or just bad days you always drew roses.

when you were very happy you drew all sorts of fruits.

anxiousness bore little swampy creatures and lily pads.

tired days filled your hands with random, intricate designs that you didn't even have to try hard to make.

and content was anything else.

he was so impressed and absolutely adored your little coping mechanism. watching you concentrate on making those teeny pieces of art simply for your own pleasure was definitely a sight to see. the way your eyebrows furrowed and tongue poked out a bit was absolutely positively adorable. and soon he had noticed that he was looking forward less to the doodles and more to watching you draw them. and after that he began looking forward to just you.

you were sat on the jet with your back to the corner of the last seat on the plane, creating a pattern of roses on the back of your hand. Spencer plopped down in the seat next to you, growing tired of watching from so far away.

"that bad, huh?" he asked, noticing the type of flower you were gracing your hand with.

"hm?" you looked up, confused.

"you only doodle roses on bad days." he explained, pointing to your hand.

"what? no i don't!" you defended, " i just think roses are neat."

to be fair, you were having a bad day but he could've profiled that without the doodle. he cant be right, can he? there was no way you had a mood system for your doodles! unless there was.

"repetitive strokes are therapeutic, so roses being rough days make sense. the spiral in the middle followed by however many layered petals you want is a perfectly repetitive while still interesting enough to doodle."

"if i didn't know any better i'd say you've been spying on me, Dr. Reid," you teased, enjoying the slight rouge that appeared on his cheeks.

"what! no! i'm- i'm a profiler i notice patterns! i just- spying sounds creepy." he stammered.

"ok. how about admiring." you jabbed, turning a little red yourself.

"fine. but you know coloring helps too." he flipped back to the old topic of conversation.

"unfortunately i only have the standard blue, black and red ink."

"roses are red." he chuckled.

"interesting point," you bent down and reached into your bag, pulling out a red pen and handing it to him, "knock yourself out."

"what?" he looked at you slightly bewildered.

"coloring is therapeutic, you said it yourself. and you and i both know that you need something to relax you after a case like that. we all do." you explained, trying to be as nonchalant as you could knowing his skin would touch yours.

he grabbed the pen and clicked it open, coloring smoothly and slowly inside the lines you had already made in black, careful not to go over them and smudge the ink. you and him both tried your best to ignore the warmth shooting through your bodies from every place your hands touched. his fingertips lightly grazing your knuckles as he worked.you worked your way up your arm, giving you both space to work and by the time you landed, you had a half sleeve garden of surprisingly well colored (and somehow shaded) red roses.

you went home that night and bought a pack of colorful (washable) pens, hoping this little rose garden with him wasn't a one time thing. and even if it was, you would want to add your own pop of color to your doodles.

thankfully it wasn't.

you and Spencer found yourselves drawing and coloring on your hand a lot. he would catch you doing it and pop in over your shoulder just to add a touch of color where he thought it fit. and you began to feel sad washing off what the two of you had created that day, feeling nostalgic for time that has hardly passed.

and sometimes on the jet you would get tired of your own skin, so you would draw little doodles on his hand, often times leaving a little heart at the base of his thumb. these little hearts he avoided washing off for as long as he possibly could because they felt like a part of you was always with him. he started doing the same thing to your hand, a sort of signature the two of you shared.

most days, the doodles on your hands were pretty much fully colored in.

but now Spencer began to worry. what if you get ink poisoning because of his coloring? sure, the risk was statistically low, improbable even; but never zero. so one night after work he went out and bought a little sketchbook and on the front he scrawled,

"y/n's super duper special sketchbook"

upon receiving it, after giving him a hug he never wanted to let go of, you took a sharpie and started editing the title he had given it. so it now read:

"y/n and Spencer's super duper special sketchbook"

the two of you used up a whole page that day, front and back filled with all types of fruits. Spencer smiled to himself, knowing this had made you very happy. you took a second to take a step back and admire him doing the very thing he admired you for. and you understood why; he just looked so precious and you suddenly realized you craved the feeling of his hand touching yours. so you leaned over and drew a little black heart at the base of his thumb. he looked up at you, smiling widely before returning a red heart to the base of your thumb.

and you guys tore through that book, using a page a day and filling it cover to cover in no time. your own personal handmade coloring book. it turned out to be both of your most prized possessions, a pang of sadness filling your chests as you finished the last page.

you felt bad taking it home with you that night, wondering if maybe Spencer wanted to keep it. maybe you should keep it at work so you can both have it. thats the fair thing to do. you looked down, smiling sadly at the little red heart on your hand.

he did want to keep it. but he had a better idea in mind. he looked down, smiling excitedly at the little black heart on his hand.

the next day when you arrived to work all your worries were solved. on your desk laid a new sketch book entitled:

"y/n and Spencer's super duper special sketchbook: volume ii"

you laughed as you read a small lilac post it note that said, "i want to keep this one please" signed with a little red heart in the corner.

ultra mega super cool taglist:

@mac99martin @imhreid @spencersmagic @hollydaisy23 @raelady1184 @a-broken-pact @padfootswife @hey-there-angels @star-stuff-in-the-cosmos @sonnydoesrandomshit @coffeereid-deactivated20210303 @averyhotchner @laurakirsten0502 @reidyoulikeabook @rem-ariiana @spencerreid9 @vampire-overlord @takeyourleap-of-faith @s1utformgg @violetspoetic

#criminal minds #spencer reid #reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader fluff #dr spencer reid #derek morgan #emily prentiss #penelope garcia #aaron hotchner #david rossi #luke alvez #tara lewis #matt simmons #bau #bau x reader #criminal minds fanfiction

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justiceleaque · 4 years ago

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Hey Leaque! I know you watched the new Justice League movie and I was around when you were doing the very first DC movie reviews back in the day. I would absolutely love a review of this one if you have the time :)

i've been a fan of Snyder's universe from day 1 so i understand this might be considered an off-balance review already, but i want to note that i didn't come in wanting the film to be good or willing to see it as good despite actual impressions. i wanted to watch it as the Justice League movie i was supposed to get back in 2017, the same one i was willing to not watch for years if it meant Zack Snyder got to finish his vision even later down the line

i was actually as neutral as i could possibly get because at this point i don't have any real emotional involvement in whether this version of the DCEU continues or not. WB execs have done some fucked up things with the treatment of the cast/ray fisher, so i take this as Snyder's DC trilogy and nothing more (which makes it bittersweet for me but that's a different topic)

heavy spoilers follow

it's incredibly comic book-like. i remember typing the exact same words back in the Dawn of Justice days: it doesn't read as a superhero film a la Marvel but as a comic book film. each frame could be a realistically painted comic book frame; the dialogues would fit freakishly well if they had to fit speech bubbles. the damn scene overlaps and changes are heavily reminiscent of a comic book. better yet: of a Justice League comic book. if you’re familiar with comic book events where big things happen and it affects everyone, this is how this reads

it’s a heavy film but it’s not hopeless. i’ve been seeing reviews pop-up already: “ZS’s Justice League film is twice as longe and twice as hopeless” is the maybe verbatim title of most articles. the one thing i kept thinking throughout these four hours is how much hope this is filled with. we’re dealing with a post-superman world that was shaken by the loss of a beloved superhero and you see batman, the #1 comic book superhero known for brooding and darkness and all things sad and bad, be the loudest, most hopeful person in the film, trying to get a team together to save the world, and later on being two steps from literally screaming that bringing back superman is what should happen no matter the cost because of his faith and hope in winning. did we watch the same film?

in the same vein, the 4 hours seem like a stretch until you realize each part has an actual purpose that introduces or ties in important aspects related to the film’s one purpose: take down Steppenwolf and Darkseid. i don’t believe any scene was wasted on useless information. it can get tiring in the way watching a shot tv series gets tiring: it does NOT get boring at any point

such wonderful character arcs. seeing each of the team’s personalities and quirks, the way they clash with each other, the way it makes it all work so goddamn beautifully. the way they click because they just keep interacting so much? Whedon’s cut didn’t give me a team, it gave me five different people in costume that were forced to sort of work in the same vicinity as each other. Snyder’s cut gave me a version of the Justice League that worked so flawlessly together by the end of the film it felt like a dance. felt like comic book page spreads

right before the epilogue they all pose together in the rising dawn, clark included, having won. super reminiscent of the JL cartoon intro. i cried a bit

J’ONN J’ONZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO YOU KNOW THE AMOUNT OF SPECULATION ABOUT GENERAL SWANWICK BEING THE MARTIAN MANHUNTER BACK WHEN MAN OF STEEL WAS RELEASED???? VINDICATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

listen to me. i need to make this clear. listen. j’onn. j’onny boy. the way he’s designed and cgi’d..........the adorable frown............the kind smile......................his obvious need to make others feel better and to simply help......................i love him

his interaction with bruce only comes in the end and it’s super brief but seeing those two still not know how the hell each other works even in film format is hilarious. bruce having accepted aliens and magic and shit is the new norm after like 20 years of only having to deal with the joker attempting to rob neon green hair dyes or some shit is so much bigger of a character development than i ever expected, especially coming from BvS where he’s just a stupid fat-bat-carrying onion

i wasn’t a big fan of Suicide Squad’s joker portrayal but we get to see him at the end of the film while we’re seeing a possible future where lois lane has died and superman is best friends with darkseid playing tic-tac-antilife equation. Snyder somehow managed to turn jared leto into a disgustingly legit comic-faithful joker. dont’ ask me how

in the same scene they mention jason and his death

: - (

we see a few bits of some green lanterns in some scenes, one from the past and one from a possible ultra dark and edgy darkseid future. still convinced bruce simply willingly did not go looking for hal, which, fair

they cut out the fish joke bruce tells arthur when they first meet which immediately turns the whole film into a 1/10 for me

ben affleck’s bruce wayne and batman continue being my favorite on-screen batman iteration to date. we finally move from the usual dark lone soldier version Hollywood is relentlessly giving us into one that belongs with the Justice League. incredibly heartwarming to see

there’s a scene when the JL are first assaulting Steppenwolf’s base and they’re all fighting parademons and shit and there’s a moment where you see batman fighting the Space SWAT From Hell alone and the way he moves? the way he flows from one position to another and another like i’m watching a damn comic book animation????????? sir????????????????????

barry allen saved them

like, literally, barry allen saved them. superman was back and everyone was ready to dance one final time and they were all going ‘steppenwolf fucking SUCKS’ and steppenwolf was crying to darkseid and then the motherboxes did their thing and they all were obliterated into star dust and then barry allen was like ‘bitch i told you i need FRIENDS’ and turned back time and now they’re all okay again :o)

darkseid @ batman through his magic spacetime portal: i’m gonna get your ass one day soon and take you back in time and you’re gonna eventually bring about the end of the world by having every dark twisted batman invade your universe because you inspired them

batman:

batman: i haven’t read Rebirth bro

i know i’m forgetting stuff but that’s the gist. hands down one of the best comic book film experiences i’ve ever had. with an aside to barry allen being more of a mix of barry and wally, everyone feels incredibly faithful to the source material. also batman definitely killed like, at least 400 parademons in one night, but pest control doesn’t count

(like. he straight up obliterates them)

(pulls out a batbazuka on them)

(amazing)

#Anonymous #asks #zack snyder's justice league #zack snyder's justice league spoilers #JL spoilers #justice league spoilers #/ long post

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davidmann95 · 3 years ago

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Sooo… Superman and the Authority?

magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol

Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.

Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?

This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:

* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.

* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.

* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.

* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.

* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.

* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.

Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.

* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.

* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.

* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.

* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.

* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.

* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.

* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.

* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile

@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”

* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.

* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!

* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:

"Now it's your turn, Superman."

* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!

* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.

* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.

* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.

* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.

* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.

* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:

"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"

"...fuck you."

* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.

* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:

Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.

* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)

Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*

* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.

#Superman and The Authority #Superman #The Authority #Manchester Black #Grant Morrison #Mikel Janin #Jordie Bellaire #Steve Wands #Opinion

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tuber-culosis · 4 years ago

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I've been reading through a lot of radfem blogs and posts lately. and gotta say, i'm leaning a lot towards radical feminism. And im definitely gender critical.

but one topic I want to talk about in particular is the criticism of Islam.

Which I feel is totally valid considering the current state of mainstream islam and Muslims.

Mainstream Islam (is what you see on all social media, seemingly practised by a lot of Muslims) IS sexist. And homophobic. There's no use denying it, neither do I think I'm a bad Muslim for not supposedly defending my own religion. You have to recognise the flaws in your own system to improve and progress.

Then arises the question why am I still Muslim then/ why do I still practise Islam? If I recognise the way it is practised is sexist and homophobic, which are things I'm against?

The difference lies in my belief that "mainstream Islam" is much different from the root of Islam.

Many (read: a LOT, not all) modern Muslims have been influenced by ultra conservative movements that want to return Islam to the way they believe was practised during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), ie; some centuries back. This is propagated by the ideas of Salafism and Wahhabism that frankly, prevent progress, reform or any sort of growth in Muslim communities.

I personally have witnessed this in my own country, India, where women are increasingly wearing the hijab and even full body covering purdahs, not talking to the opposite gender, men not looking a woman other than their wives in the eye, etc compared to when my mother was a child, when almost all Muslim women dressed in normal comfortable clothes and there were no much gender segregations. (Gender segregation still existed to a certain degree due to conservative Indian culture ofc)

This radicalisation led to the development of ultra conservative Muslims who enforce sexist, homophobic and separatist policies in the name of God.

They claim to want to return to "true Islam" but they add so many unnecessary rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be a "true Muslim" that are almost so impossible to follow I can vouch I have unconciously broken like 50 of them in one day maybe. These "laws" are derived from:

1. The hadith

2. Arab culture

3. Poor translation of the Quran to fit these radical ideals.

Explaining each of these in a little more detail,

1. A lot of practising Muslims might come at me for this one, but I feel that considering the hadith to be a holy source of guidance and believing everything in the Hadith when there are so many contradictions and logical fallacies, is foolish.

For those who have no clue what the hadith is, Islam basically has the Qur'an, which is, as we believe, a holy book revealed by God to the Prophet (pbuh), which acts as divine guidance on how to live life as a good person. It has rules, suggestions, and guidance to take desicions on a lot of everyday matters we face. It was a godsend (hehe pun fully intended) to women, who weren't even allowed to own property back then. Muslims believe that the Quran is guaranteed againt corruption by God, as revealed in one of the verses. Therefore, to a believer, it is THE book to consult, and the verses will never change, no matter how many years pass. There's actually a really interesting way the Quran is coded, so people can know if it has been tampered with or not, if anyone is interested. But the bottom line is, for a Muslim, the verses of Quran cannot be challenged. There are various INTERPRETATIONS of said verses, but the core Arabic text is the same.

Now there is a secondary source of guidance in the form of Hadith, which is literature that claims to record things the Prophet (pbuh) has said in his lifetime. The problem I find, along with other hadith critics, is that it was compiled much later after the death of the Prophet. Muslims argue that these hadiths were passed down in a proper recorded chain of transmitters that can assure the message hasn't been altered or tampered with. The problem is, that the standard used then was just how reliable was a person's memory and how trustworthy they were, and they did not actually judge the actual content of the hadith. So even if a hadith hypothetically said "Kill all the disbelievers", (which, fyi, it does NOT) and it had a reliable chain of recorders, it would be accepted as "sahih" (trustworthy) hadith, even though it clearly goes against the guidelines of the Quran, where it says there shall be no compulsion in religion (which implies you cannot just murder anyone who refuses to believe/ believes another religion). If one actually examined the content of this imaginary hadith, it would be easy to see it's tampered with by people with or without malicious intent (for eg, it might've actually been "You can kill the disbelievers ONLY if they attack you and will not leave you and your family alone") or some may not even remotely be the words of the Prophet, as he only followed the Quran.

Also, the integrity of the Hadith isn't guaranteed by God anywhere in the Quran. To know more about this, I suggest you read this link , and this one.

So yeah, I take hadith with a (large) grain of salt. So I will not be including them in my discussion obviously.

Now a lot of these hadith have been fabricated, as established, or reflect something that was applicable specifically in that time and setting, seeing that the Prophet was an ordinary man who couldn't predict the future or know about all the different cultures of the world.

So even if the headscarf was a part of Arabian attire, that doesn't mean it has to be assimilated into our cultures now. Just because prostitutes used to pluck all their eyebrows out to signify that they are prostitutes (sex work is forbidden in Islam, because of the negative impact on women and society), doesn't mean that women are not allowed to pluck their eyebrows now.

Following these hadith blindly without considering for a moment that hey, these might be outdated, seeing it isn't meant for all time periods like the Quran, and half of these contradict themselves, maybe we shouldn't consider this as an authority on rules in Islam. Personally, I don't believe anything is forbidden that is mentioned as such solely in the Hadith, and not in the Quran.

But the staunch belief in all of these Hadith leads to micromanaging of women, and literally everyone else. Few ridiculous examples include:

women can't pluck their eyebrows

men can't wear silk or gold, and they need to grow beards

music and dance is forbidden (seriously???)

the Prophet married a literal child of nine years (no do not try to justify it as "it was acceptable back then". According to the Qur'an it wasn't. Girls had to be mature enough to reject or agree to marriages and literal children can't do that. There is plenty of research to prove that Aisha (ra), his wife, was at the very least 19 or 20. Again a case of unreliable and maybe purposefully manipulated Hadith. Scholars and people who uphold the theory that Aisha was 9, and hence, child marriage is legal are pedophiles through and through)

I feel that if anything, hadith should be considered with the authority of historical commentary, giving us more context to the times, and should never be blindly trusted just because a lot of scholars say it is a "sahih" (trusted) hadith.

Also a main feature of Islam is that you don't need an extra priest (no offence to religions who have priests) or a scholar to tell you things and intervene with God for you. You have a holy book, your own common sense and humanity, and you pray to establish a connection with God. Scholars are secondary OPINIONS who can provide insight from their knowledge and research to people who want it, but by no means any authority on things, just like hadith.

2. Arab culture and society, especially back the times that radicals want to emulate, was heavily patriarchal. Islam gave women rights and protection, but they were still limited by the cultural norms of that era.

What these people actually want is to return society to Arabic culture in that time period. (Exhibit A: the abaya/purdah for women and khandoorah for men. exhibit B: sex-segregated spaces)

Back then, women were expected to be caretakers and mothers, and men were expected to be the strong masculine protector.

Enforcing said cultural norms into modern day Islam is ridiculous. Saying that women rarely left the house back then, hence women shouldn't leave their houses now is the same as saying there weren't phones back then, so I shouldn't use one now. Would you ever give up your phones? So how about we do the same to women's autonomy and freedom? Adapt to modern times like regular humans?

If women were meant to stay at home, and meant to just rear children, and never meant to be seen in public, and never meant to be seen by the opposite sex, as extremists say "is God's will", then why is none of this found in the Quran? Do you seriously believe that God, describe multiple times as All-forgiving and generous and kind, would ever persecute women to such a fate? If you do believe that, then maybe you need to re-examine in the nature of God that you believe in. Also if you tell me the "it's for their safety" gimmick, I will flip out. It has been proved multiple times that a woman's dressing has nothing whatsoever to do with why men rape.

Sure, Islam advocates for modesty in dressing, for both sexes. Both are called to not stare rudely (many Muslim men seem to forget that part of the verse, strangely), both are advised to dress in modest, comfortable, clean and practical attire. Never once is anything remotely like "YOU'LL GO TO HELL IF YOU EXPOSE YOUR ELBOW, WOMAN". But the way modern Muslims enforce the dress code (some even going to the lengths of saying women shouldn't wear BRIGHT COLOURED CLOTHES, so as to not attract attention!!! I'm looking at you, Mufti Menk), you'd think that God says something much worse than that. Infact God pulls out Uno reverse, and encourages us to dress as beautifully as we want, especially when visiting the mosque.

3. A lot of English translations of the Quran come from Saudi Arabia. A country famous for its conservative practise of Islam. While the original Arabic text cannot be changed, a lot of these translations include information in parantheses that add "rules" based on the above mentioned factors, that a casual reader or a new Muslim who doesn't know Arabic will consider to be authentic rules of the Quran, extrapolated from the verse, and not extra additions that are often derived from hadith. A very good example of this is the headcover verse, which you can see in this link.

Even all the hostility surrounding homosexual people has been derived from cultural influences and one set of verses. From around 6000 verses, just a single set passingly mention homosexuality. Don't you think that if it truly were such a great sin, God would have explicitly forbidden it? Also why would he create such a natural variation in sexuality and then forbid it? Why isn't it forbidden for animals then? Is all-loving God that cruel to create this natural and healthy attraction in them and then explicitly forbid it when straight people get to marry and live life in bliss? (Please don't say that "God also created pedophilia, and that's natural, so by this logic shouldn't we allow that too?" because pedophilia IS NOT HEALTHY, AT ALL. IT'S IS A DISORDER. Unlike homosexuality) I'm also not picking and choosing things to fit my lifestyle, as some might say, as I am straight, and the only reason I support the LGBT community because I have basic humanity?? And they're humans who deserve rights and joy and freedom and acceptance just like the rest of us.

There have been reformed translations of Quran which examine the verse without prior bias against LGBT people, and they have presented an alternate translation, that the verse condemns sexual assault, which happened to be homosexual in the particular story. Check out this link too, which explains how closely examining the words used could change the meaning from one thing to another.

What I attempted to prove in this extremely long post is that the practise of a religion isn't necessarily the reflection of its true nature.

There are progressive open-minded people who believe in Islam because it gives them hope and solace. People who believe because core beliefs of Islam aligned with their own views and simple logic.

NOT to say there aren't religious bigots who will totally use religion to manipulate people into oppressing themselves or other people. There are, there are a LOT of people like that who call themselves "scholars". And there are a lot of people who follow these extremely harmful regressive version of Islam without critically thinking about what they are following.

I've seen a post discussing the meaning of the word Islam, which means submission to God. It said that it implies total submission, without questioning what we believe.

That is an argument used by both religious extremists to further their beliefs, and by the opposite side, who say the religion is oppressive.

I wish to present a view that Islam itself tells us to think critically, to use our brains to question everything and anything we believe. And then to arrive at our own conclusions. And if you're a decent, kind human, those beliefs maybe align with Islam (not saying that if you're not Muslim, you're horrible, that is not what I meant at all). And if the opinion between people differs, there's always logic and reasoning behind every rule that is presented in the Quran. Don't believe me? Here's the verse that tells people not to blindly follow their parents' religion. And here's a list of verses about critical thinking.

The reason we (atleast reformist Muslims) submit to God is because we questioned it, we came to the conclusion that Hey! This is right. I can submit to my Creator by, who is basically the consciousness that created everything and is the source of all goodness, love and strength, because the rules mentioned here make sense and they privde a moral framework for me to base important desicions on. They feel right. And there is logic behind everything written in this.

I don't mean to present Islam as an all-perfect amazing religion everyone should believe and that I'm right, everyone else, especially those liberal atheists who criticise my religion are wrong and WILL BURN IN HELL. I consider Islam a perfect moral framework, and that's my business only. Anyone can follow what they want and it's none of my business. In fact there is no compulsion in religion at all, and people who say Muslim or go to hell are wrong imo.

What I intended was to paint a picture of reformist Muslims who are still out there, who follow the religion because they questioned it. And not the religion as this stringent rule book we all have to follow down to a t, micromanaging every aspect of our lives and living in perpetual fear of hell, but rather this basic moral guide that teaches us tact, compassion and justice, to bring us closer to God spiritually. I wanted to show that the majority isn't always reflective of what I think is the true core of Islam.

I feel that many practises in the name of Islam are highly questionable and should be criticized, but I also want people to know that the people who seemingly represent the religion, are not representative of the entire mass of believers. That sometimes the practises you might criticize might have nothing to do with the actual religion, atleast according to some of us. It was also for fellow Muslims who might be in the same place I was a few years ago, questioning everything I had learnt was part of my religion.

This is also NOT to undermine struggles of people forced to follow Islam and its seeming requirements like hijab. This is not to claim that nope, every Muslim is fine and ok, and we're all peaceful progressive people. In fact I wish to do the exact opposite, to show that people who enforce oppressive policies in the name of Islam aren't actually backed by the religion and neither should they be backed by other Muslims. I'm also not trying to say no one should criticize Islam. Criticism helps us grow. Criticism is necessary to uncover oppression and eradicate it. So by all means, criticize.

I'm so glad I found the subreddit r/progressive_Islam when I did because it helped me a lot, and opened me to other like-minded progressive Muslims, who actively hope to counter the negative effects of Salafism and conservatism that is overtaking Islam.

So yeah, I think I covered almost everything I wanted to talk about and here's a final link that pretty much just states my position on things.

PS idk why this thingy is in different colours it just seemed cooler and less boring to read

#religion #islamicpost #radfem #gender critical #muslim #progressive #change #critical thinking #sexism #feminism #feminist #allies #humanity #extremism #womenempowerment #freewomen #headcovering #mine

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my-writings-and-musings · 4 years ago

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I got a wonderful commission to share here today. I hope you're all ready for some ADORABLE shenanigans!!

MTMTE/Brave Police Crossover

The bots rescue an unusual group out in space, and make some unexpected friends.

"So, how are our new arrivals doing?"

Ratchet kept his voice rather low, but had little need to do so with the bots in question chatting away too eagerly to overhear him.

"Good, as far as they've told us." First Aid replied, looking over the notes on his data pad with an expression of still overwhelmed awe. These "Brave Police" truly were a marvel; earth made bots just as capable as any Cybertronian, complete with the ability to transform! Casting a glance back to the group, he had to pause at the sight of Drift chatting happily with them all, feeling as left out as everyone else did for the moment. Being the only one who had their particular earth language in his files, the ninjabot had been their translator from the moment of their unexpected arrival, though had quickly become amicable enough with the gathered group to start chatting away even when there was nothing to interpret. Noting that he technically had yet to speak to any of the new arrivals directly, First Aid amended his statement. "Well, as far as they've told Drift, anyway."

"We'll have a language download primed in just a few minutes, conversing will be far easier in short order." Ultra Magnus reassured the gathered bots from his monitor, finishing up the unexpected language program they had so sorely been needing. Despite the copious quantities of data they had on alien languages, not a single file on earth languages had been ready to go... Rodimus had been less than happy at the news. "A few minutes after that, the whole ship will have access, eliminating further language barriers."

"A few slow minutes!" the captain remarked in a huff, tapping his pede as he watched the loading bar crawl to completion. Casting a longing glance at Drift, he made no effort to hide the source of his impatience. "I should have been able to welcome these bots on board, I'm already late to the job!"

"Complaining will not make this go any faster-"

Even Ratchet had to chuckle at Ultra Magnus's expense when the monitor suddenly pinged to notify them it was finished, but Rodimus wasted no time rubbing it in, practically fist pumping only for a moment before diving in. Downloading the program at impressive speed even for him, the captain booted up the new language straight away, leaving everyone else to catch up as he hurried over to their guests.

"Hey everyone!" he greeted happily, loving the thrill of a whole new manner of speaking. The Brave Police perked up at the sound of their primary language, which Drift had referred to as "Japanese", with the aforementioned bot looking especially pleased. Smirking at his friend in particular, Rodimus addressed the whole group as the bots behind him finished up installing the program. "Am I coming through loud and clear?"

Drift smiled, but looked to the blue mech that had identified himself as the head of their team. Even if he hadn't, however, Rodimus could tell by the way he jumped up and saluted that the bot in question was a natural leader. "Very clear!" he said enthusiastically, offering a hand to shake with impeccable manners that almost seemed to be made all the more charming by his boundless enthusiasm. "Though we've already met, I would like to personally introduce myself and thank you for the rescue."

"Not a problem! We were in the neighborhood, you know?" Rodimus replied, finding things infinitely easier now that the two could talk directly. As the rest of his own team caught up behind him, with Magnus giving him a pointed look of disapproval, he allowed the earth based bots to speak freely at last.

"I'm Deckerd, and these are the other members of the Brave Police." said the police bot, looking to his assorted friends and opening the floor for them.

"I am McCrane." a reserved but friendly mech said, giving a very polite nod of his helm as a greeting. "It is a pleasure to meet you all."

A far more brightly colored mech, of a similarly solid build, gestured eagerly to himself. "I'm PowerJoe."

"Call me Dumpson!" a bright red mech announced, flexing an arm to show off his impressive strength. Rodimus had no doubt the bot would be very popular at Swerve's, and almost didn't notice the source of the next introduction from a sparsely lit corner.

"Shadow Maru."

Drift looked immediately impressed at the stealthy mech's skills, but before he could say a word the next member was speaking up quite emphatically

"I'm Drill Boy!" he said from atop a medical berth, kicking his legs eagerly and bursting with so much energy one might actually miss the soccer ball positioned in his chassis. Every bot present mutually wondered if it was a design or an actual functional ball, especially Rodimus, but the topic was minor enough to be filed away for the moment. A red and white mech spoke up next, his tone so flat Rodimus immediately knew Magnus would have a new friend by the end of the day.

"Duke."

At last, a lightly colored bot chilling on an open chair spoke up, lazily offering a playful salute as he introduced himself. "I'm Gunmax, baby."

Rodimus knew, straight away, he had found his own favorite amongst the group. At least, this bot would undoubtedly be the one he related to most. Behind him, a grumpy presence cleared his vents and spoke up.

"I'm Ultra Magnus. Now that we are all acquainted, I believe it is time for some more in depth explanations-"

"Come on, Mags! These bots have been through enough!" Rodimus said, patting the much larger mech on the arm and ignoring the look of frustration it got him. Perhaps there was residual impatience from the language delay, but he had no intention of sitting through anything he didn't feel like. "Besides, I think we established the basics well enough. You guys are from earth, right? Human constructed?"

"Yes. We were in space to foil a criminals plot. We were successful, but had it not been for your rescue, I fear we would not have made it home." Deckerd replied, calling back to the shell of a space station they'd been rescued from. Evidently some human had invented a kind of interstellar travel for nefarious purposes, been stopped by the Brave Police, but not before managing to get them all incredibly lost. Looking to the floor, the police cruiser continued a little awkwardly. His request was wrapped up as a tentative statement. "That is... we are still hoping to return home."

Rodimus smiled, hoping to get the group comfortable eventually by being as welcoming and laid back as possible. Clearly they weren't accustomed to calling their own shots. "To earth? Hey, not a problem! It's a stone's throw from here... on a cosmic scale."

There was a small groan of exasperation, and Drill Boy hopped off the table, pouting like a sparkling. "Aww, do we have to go back right away?"

"Drill Boy-" Deckerd admonished, turning on the spot to face the younger mech but never getting a chance to finish.

"I agree with him, boss!" Dumpson affirmed, making their poor leader's face turn to mortification as he was quickly outnumbered. Power Joe affirmed the sentiment, gesturing to the medical bay that had awed them when they'd first arrived.

"Yeah! We've only heard rumors of beings like us, yet now look where we are!" he said, recalling their impossible wonder at furniture their own size being *everywhere*. The Cybertronian presence on earth had never been especially heavy in their home country, and with official information at a minimum, their rescue had been a discovery for both sides.

"We certainly can't overstay our welcome!" Deckerd countered, blushing as he tried to compel his fellow officers to comply. Far too polite to share his own desire to stay, the police bot flinched as Gunmax piped up, offering his usual level of laidback snark in a single retort.

"Then let's just stay until we're no longer welcome!"

"Everyone-"

"Hey, no worries!" Rodimus said, stepping in to rescue the poor leader before an argument could break out. Endlessly amused by what he was seeing, the captain was quite confident he spoke for everyone when he offered an extended stay. A quick glance along mostly affirming looks told him as much. "You guys are welcome on the ship while we chart a relaxed course for the blue marble, sound good?"

Deckerd flushed again, looking down and kneading his hands together as he replied. "We wouldn't want to impose-"

"No imposing here. Magnus, Drift, can you relay a message to earth so these bots can call home? Ratchet, any chance you can synthesize some fuel for them out of what's in stock?" Rodimus said, putting an arm around Deckerd and speaking quickly so there'd be no time to argue. There was thankfully no resistance, as Magnus appeared too resigned to offer any. Ratchet, however, had a quick request to make before anything else could proceed.

"I'll need access to... diagnostics. Our anatomies differ quite considerably, so if I'm going to offer care, I'm going to need more information." he said, likely recalling how shocked he'd been upon first scanning them and discovering no sparks. Not to mention their use of earth fuel over energon, or how they lacked transformation cogs, and that was to say nothing of their unfathomable processor design... It had been the first time he'd experienced surprise in the medical bay in a long time.

Deckerd nodded politely, gesturing helpfully to himself as he did so. "I can share my own, doctor. Theirs are based on mine."

"There, we all good?" Rodimus said, guiding the group of new arrivals to follow him out the door. He could tell these poor bots were unaccustomed to a world designed around beings like them, and thus he wanted very much to show them what they were missing out on. Plus, they deserved a bit of fun after everything they'd been through. "In the meantime, how about a tour?"

"Yes! Yes please!" Drill Boy replied, hopping right beside Rodimus and nearly bouncing on his spot. The enthusiasm was almost infectious, and the captain couldn't help but puff up as he pinged the doors to open.

"Alright, let's go!"

The entire group followed in short order, even the most reserved of them looking curious as to what awaited them. While the antics reminded him of sparklings, Rodimus had to remind himself they were incredibly young, so the comparison technically wasn't too far off. Considering that, he felt he owed them a good time. Drill Boy made that easy, at least, hurrying beside him with wide and amazed optics.

"Is the whole ship this big?!" he asked as they stepped into the hallway, turning in circles as he tried to absorb the entire space at once. Deckerd stepped forth to explain the actions of his teammate, though he was clearly quite impressed himself judging by the delighted smile on his face.

"Only our office is built to accompany beings of our size." he said, giving the Cybertronian pause as he considered living in a world designed for much tinier beings. Earth had seemed okay while visiting, but suddenly the thought of living there seemed... cramped. Judging by how these bots were marveling at a mere hallway, he wasn't wrong. Did the humans just expect them to squeeze through everything all the time?

Gunmax joined Drill Boy in appreciating the change of stretching out his arms high above his helm and looking quite pleased at how he didn't even come close to the ceiling. "This is way better! There's elbow room to spare!"

"Look! We can fit through all the doors!" Dumpson announced, standing beside a random doorway to emphasize how his bulky frame could easily slip inside. Rodimus had to fight the urge to chuckle at the sight, especially with how delighted every one of his charges appeared at the idea. Several even tried the comparison for themselves with multiple individuals beside a single frame. When they finally did go back home, he'd have to leave them with a parting gift of Cybertronian door technology. Perhaps even some blueprints for a building in their size were due.

"Hold up!"

A familiar voice made him stop and turn on the spot with a delighted grin.

"Drift!" he called out as his friend hurried up behind them, looking just as excited as Rodimus felt. The Brave Police looked equally delighted by the return of their initial interpreter, especially when he was offered a spot on the group. "Wanna help me show these bots around?"

"I'd love to! Magnus is handling the transmission message." he said, looking to their guests with a helpful smile as he explained what that meant. Not that he wanted to assume anything, but interstellar communication didn't seem to be amongst their skills. "You guys will be able to call home when we're done."

"Boss will certainly be relieved to hear we're all safe." Deckerd said, looking like the news had taken more than a little weight off his own shoulders. Exactly who their "Boss" was hadn't been specified, but from the sound of things they did admire and care for whoever it was. Which was good, because if there was even an inkling the humans weren't treating them well... Rodimus had his thoughts cut off by a polite question. "If I may ask, where did you learn to speak Japanese?"

"When I was on earth I spent some time in Japan." Drift replied happily, recalling how he'd explored the country and added the native language to his database to better understand what was going on around him. Thankfully he had kept it despite leaving earth behind, or these bots wouldn't have had a way to communicate their medical needs. Considering how flabbergasted the medics had been... that was an immeasurable blessing. "I've still got a number of other languages saved up, more for the memories."

"Can you speak English?" Duke said, surprising even his cohorts with the question. Looking a little flustered at the attention, the surprisingly shy bot quickly clarified with an addendum under his breath. "It was... the first language I was programmed for..."

"I'm pretty sure most bots who have been to earth can speak English, learning a language isn't too hard for us as long as we have a download pack for it." Drift explained helpfully, and Rodimus had to stifle a smile at how his friend appeared ready to take the bot under his nonexistent wings. Ultra Magnus might have some competition befriending this one, it seemed.

"Hey, what's a "Swerve's?" Drill Boy asked, pointing ahead and totally oblivious to the conversation they'd just been having. The bright neon lights on the wall and the bots hanging about gathered the attention of the entire Brave Police, and in an instant Rodimus and Drift shared a knowing look of anticipation. Hopefully, this would be the most fun their guests had ever had.

"The best place on the ship to unwind, make friends, and knock back a few drinks." Rodimus declared proudly, gaining the attention of the bots outside the bar as he did so. While the news of the "Earth made bots" had traversed the entire ship several times over, no one had seen them yet, and thus there was an immediate buzz of excitement. Rodimus hoped they were all ready to become very popular in a short stretch of time.

"Drinks? For real?" Gunmax said, quickly moving to the front at the mere mention of the word and looking absolutely ecstatic. "About time, I'm parched!"

"But we don't consume the same types of fuel!" Deckerd reminded them all, looking uncertain and perhaps, a little hopeful to be wrong. While he didn't actually know the ins and outs of their differences in fuel consumption, Rodimus knew there was a bot who would, and was banking on him to have already crafted something.

"Let's see about that." he said, somewhat obscure on purpose as he guided the group past Ten. Each one appeared to go through a cycle of intimidation to confusion when the big tough door guard said his single word and welcomed each of them with a wave. The inside of the bar was buzzing already as they squeezed inside, the newcomers optics going wide as they beheld the incredible activity thumping away to the music. Chatter only increased as their presence was noted, but Rodimus made it clear the group was with him and on a mission. He didn't want to unleash them to the chaos without loosening them up a bit.

"Hey Swerve!" he shouted over the noise, clearing enough space for everyone to gather beside the bar. The barkeep pretended to have just heard him, despite clearly having been watching them all from the moment they came in, and he stepped right up to the counter with a glowing visor. Clearly, he'd been waiting for this.

"Need something, Captain?" he greeted, still playing coy and acting as if he wasn't buzzing with excitement for the new arrivals.

Rodimus, ever the sport, happily played along. Having ensured the whole ship had access to the language file, and allowing everyone interested to download it at their convenience, he spoke so that their guests could easily overhear the conversation. "Not me, but do you have anything for some travelers from earth?"

Before Swerve could answer, Drill Boy secured a seat at the bar, grabbing an empty drink and holding it up as the most amazing thing he'd ever seen. By the sparkles in his optics it might have been.

"Deckerd, look!! Everything is our size, even the cups!" he exclaimed happily, sitting up haphazardly on the stool as if he'd never had a place to sit in his own size. Technically speaking, he'd only ever had the one, so this might as well have been life changing.

"I've got more than cups, I've got some mixes for you to drink out of them!' Swerve declared proudly, producing a bottle of oil based liquid that astounded the gathered bots. Having only ever had fuel for practical purposes, the very idea of consuming for fun was resulting in some beautiful expressions of surprise. Loving the reaction, Swerve explained his process with well deserved delight at the accomplishment. Dark, iridescent liquid that shimmered at the smallest movement was poured into waiting cups as he did so. "I looked at your usual fuel formula and made a few tweaks that should make it taste a lot better. What do you think?"

While each bot took their cup and drank with varying levels of bravery, there was still undeniable curiosity from every one of them, even the most cautious. Dumpson, Power Joe and Gunmax knocked theirs back like a shot while Duke, McCrane and Deckerd sipped politely, the rest falling somewhere in the middle as Swerve held his metaphorical breath. Thankfully, the results came in with incredible speed.

"Fuel can taste this good?!" Drill Boy shouted, finishing off his entire cup in a rush and leaning over the entire bar in a desperate search for more. "Please tell me you made enough for us to take home!"

"No wonder Gunmax always drinks it, this is amazing!"

"It never tastes like this, this is something else!"

"Is this why the Boss always drinks so much?! It can be this good?!"

Rodimus and Drift couldn't back some good natured laughs at the reactions, quite happy to have introduced the bots to some much needed fuel and a fun time at once. Swerve, looking like he was overwhelmed with pride and genuine emotion at the compliments, had to regain himself before opening another bottle.

"I made plenty! Plus, I can make more!" he said, pouring more glasses for his new group of fans as the rest of the bar quickly fed off the growing celebratory energy. "As much as you want while you're here!"

"Hear that, everybot?!" Rodimus said above the din, taking advantage of the segway to set the newcomers free to mingle and hopefully befriend a few more bots. He could already see a few potential takers now; Tailgate appeared to be bursting with questions, and First Aid had reappeared to do the same, not to mention Ultra Magnus and Ratchet were stepping inside... The whole ship had to be present, and thus he made sure to be audible by everyone as he issued a statement so informal it could hardly be called a command. "The Brave Police will only be with us until they have to return to earth. In the meantime, let's show them how to have fun, Cybertronian style!"

A hearty cheer rose up, and by the natural fusion and fission of social groups, the earth bots were soon surrounded by eager and curious Cybertronians acting like long lost siblings.

Rodimus was vaguely aware of a tap on his shoulder, and while he expected to turn and see Magnus, Deckerd appeared rather sheepish as he held a partially drunk cup in both hands. Speaking just loud enough to be heard, he asked a question the captain hadn't actually prepared for. "If I may ask, what is this "Cybertron" I've heard referenced so often?"

The query was unexpectedly heavy, but he answered regardless. "It's our home planet, and-"

Before he could finish, Deckerd appeared shocked by the mention of " planet", as if something had finally come together in ways he struggled to process. "There's truly a whole planet of beings like us-you?" he said, betraying the source of his wonder in a single misspoken word. Rodimus felt his spark, something he had to remind himself the other bot didn't share, ache a little in sympathy for the bot. One could hardly tell they were of different worlds, but for all the problems of Cybertron, it was clear to him who had the advantage. The Brave Police didn't have an entire species of their own, and their time here had undoubtedly made them a bit more aware of that. It only made Rodimus all the more determined to give them a good time.

"Yeah! It's a little rough right now, but once we clean up a bit you'll be welcome to visit." he said, noting that plenty of friendships would be made today to help that happen. Drill Boy was showing off tricks to a whole team of bots, Gunmax was competing with Dumpson and Power Joe to down shots, McCrane was having a conversation with Cyclonus as Tailgate watched with a glowing visor, Shadow Maru was actually chatting with Ravage, and Duke was indeed hitting it off with Ultra Magnus. There was no shortage of enthusiastic camaraderie to go around. Primus, he merely had to blink and there was a transformation speed contest, his shipmates awed at their shared ability to transform...

"I'm certain it will be fun." Deckerd said as he surveyed the minor chaos with a chuckle, optics warming with delight at his team having so much fun beside their newly discovered companions. Rodimus wanted to tell him that it would be more than fun. The Lost Light was wonderful, obviously, but there was a whole galaxy out there to explore! Hopefully he'd be able to convince them all to come on some future trips when they slung by earth again in the future. Maybe they weren't durable enough for meteor surfing, but they'd undoubtedly appreciate theme parks, virtual reality hubs, and the countless bars that lined the stars.

"I promise it!" he said enthusiastically, putting an arm around the other bot like an affectionate big brother. For all of his reserved traits, the police bot chuckled at the gesture. Beaming as a monitor and microphone in the corner caught his optic, Rodimus guided the other mech through the crowd, speaking over the noise as he gestured with excitement.

"Now, while we're still sober enough to appreciate it, let me introduce you to bot sized karaoke!"

#transformers #maccadam #mtmte #more than meets the eye #transformers lost light #lostlight #idw #tf #ll #my writing #kofi commission #commission #commisions open #brave police j decker #brave police #rodimus prime #deckerd

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years ago

Text

The Miys, Ch. 149

So, I was super busy on my normal queueing day and wasn’t able to set this up. And by ‘super busy’ I mean ‘doing laundry, weeding flower beds, and taking several naps’, bc I have upwards of 24 niblings and a super-full time job that make me exhausted.

I’m not kidding, I recently told @baelpenrose “I had a birthday party to go to, yes it’s the third Saturday in a row, don’t worry about keeping track because there are SO MANY”.

What doesn’t make me exhausted? Y’all. The likes, the comments, the reblogs, the ‘hey, this person reads my stuff AND Bael’s stuff’ ( @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @drbibliophile, looking at you in a very loving way). Also the speedrunners... all of you who have ever, at any point, found this fic and decided to read every single chapter as quickly as possible ( and have or haven’t shamed me for needing to update the masterpost or page links), you keep me going like nothing else. I, too, like a good binge read, so I know I’ve done something worth... something... when someone else binges like that.

“So the Ark is semi-organic?” I glanced over and resisted the urge to trail my fingers along the walls of the corridor.

“That would be the closest Terran approximation, yes,” they confirmed. “It is not sentient in any form, but all exposed surfaces, for example, are grown in-place of a material native to our home planet.”

“So cool,” I whispered. “Is there a benefit to that, aside from being more sustainable?”

Noah rubbed two liw alongside their sensory organs, and let out a soft buzz - essentially rubbing their face with a sigh. “It is very rare for any species that achieves sentience to reach a level of technology that allows for faster than light travel without what you refer to as sustainability being included in every aspect of their culture.”

“Oh.” I felt ashamed and focused on my feet for a few steps, paying close attention to the feeling of the deck plating through my soles, any uneven textures that I came across turning into canyons of perception.

“In the case of the material coating the surfaces of the Ark,” Noah continued, clearly picking up on my discomfort, “it serves a largely hygienic function, much as Else currently provides.”

“So, that’s what Xio was referring to when she said that Hujylsogox ships largely decontaminate themselves?”

“Indeed. Where my species absorbs impurities from the air and any surfaces we come in contact with, the lining of the corridors, rooms, and vents can purify the rest within a Galactic week.” That worked out to eleven and two-third days as we currently measured them on the Ark, or fourteen and a half days on Earth. “Biofiltration is a very common way to sanitize spaces that often house multiple species to avoid destructive interactions, although the coating we use is known to be the most efficient organic solution.”

Surrendering, I ran my fingers over the wall. Even knowing that it was grown, it still felt like sandstone under my touch. “If it is so efficient, why don’t the Ekomari use it on their ships?”

Their fingers on both vomu clacked as they tapped them together. “In absence of another organism to ingest the larger particulates, sypo is what you would consider to be too efficient.”

“Feathers clog it up?”

“Like you would not believe,” they hummed deeply - a groan, clear as day. “It actually ends up starving the sypo.”

Unbidden, my mind’s eye flashed back to the nightmares that Else had shown me early on: large flakes of the walls falling away and littering the corridor floors. “So, that was a very real thing?” There didn’t seem to be any reason to clarify, given how clearly the images had blared in my head.

“Correct. We believe that Else understood the nature of the material and was trying to show you what was happening in a way they thought you would understand.” A heavy liw gently patted my shoulder. “They meant well, even if they did not realize that it would backfire.”

I was about to ask what the Ekomari use in place of sypo as a biofilter, but my databand signaled me. Judging by the fact that it chimed, flashed, and vibrated against the bones in my wrist, this was incredibly urgent. “I’m sorry, Noah, one mom - ah, fuck…” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I mentally braced myself for what I knew would be coming in the next several days.

“Wisdom, you are distressed.”

“Departmental notification from Pranav and Zach that they will be doing system security testing over the next week. Which means Derek will be doing his best to hack into our systems and take them out, while Pranav and Zach take notes of vulnerabilities and then fix them afterward.”

The face-rubbing sigh was back. “They are not including basic ship functions in this testing, correct?”

I shook my head, relieved that I could at least provide that assurance. “Negative. Only the systems that humans will be replicating on our own once we are on Von.”

“This is still terribly inconvenient. These tests increase tension across the Ark to quite difficult levels to be around.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. It’s mostly from what happened Before, at least for the older members of the crew. I mean, we got a Global Parliament out of it, but… there were a scary few years before we got there. And then the End happened, and the hack felt like some kind of warning looking back.”

Noah buzzed thoughtfully. “You are speaking of the gap in data we found when we were trying to download your planetary database.”

A part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that Miys continued to refer to the internet as a ‘planetary database’, but the topic was so upsetting that any kind of joy felt obscene right then. “It was… another terrorist attack, honestly. They weren’t unusual, as terrifying as that is - I mean, you admitted yourself that not all of us were worth saving. There was a petrochemical hack maybe five years before this one, and the attacks had been ramping up slowly even before that. But this one.” I shook my head trying to clear the thoughts from my head. “What we were told is that this group knew we would never take action against climate change, something about how the rich corporate would never take it seriously until they had to actually live in the nature they were destroying.”

“You are doubtful of this.” Noah’s statement was far from being a question.

Couldn’t blame him, since I didn’t believe half of what we had been told, or maybe that it was only half the story. “I wasn’t old enough to remember, but it is a recorded fact that there were actual people on Earth who had more wealth than any single country on the planet, and one was particularly known for building his fortune on the backs of employees who were worked to death or nearly to death. It’s hard to believe that had nothing to do with it, you know.”

“If being reminded of this event causes such distress among your people, why run so many tests?”

“The hack killed people, Noah. It destroyed entire small countries, caused a lot of violence and wars. The ultra-rich may have been the targets, but the casualties were mostly people who never knew what was happening. We want to make sure it can’t happen again. That’s why we warn everyone what’s going on, so they know it’s not the same thing, but still do the testing.”

More clattering of vomu signaled Noah thinking again. “Your global economy depended strongly on the concept of wealth and the concept of money. But with the current economic model you exercise, such a data security breach would not impact it.”

I shrugged. “We still worry. Not to mention the fact that, at some point, someone may try. We can try all we want to avoid the catalyst of the original events, but some of our better qualities can be just as terrible with just a twist. Curiosity, confidence, and justice and easily turn into pride, vindictiveness, and prying. Which can lead to blackmail. And that’s just one example. Still sure we’re worth it?”

Another thoughtful buzz with some mild clicking. “I have seen your people endeavor to save a species that could have destroyed you. I have seen you, specifically, mourn someone who deliberately attempted to end not only your life but the lives of the entire Ark. There is much evidence to give us faith in your compassion.”

All I could do was shake my head. “I’ll try to have faith in your faith,” I murmured with a weak smile.

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#the miys #found family #humans are weird #science fiction #aliens #apocalypse #humans are space orcs #humans are space fae #earth is space australia #post apocalypse #post post apocalypse #original science fiction #original sci fi #original writing

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