#but they still feel more or less powerless. just cogs in a machine it’s just that now they’re more aware of their own pain and others’

[aroanthy]

(anthytouga voice) why would i be compassionate to nanami ew disgusting nanami’s literally the worst nanami is a cockroach i hope she dies she’s so fucking stupid oh my god being compassionate to nanami is the worsttttttt so what if the worst things ever happen to her and it’s my fault that’s just lifeohhhhhhhhhhh oh? utena is experiencing the worst things ever and i helped? and i helped? oh well i should just kill myself. oh well i should just kill myself and save her because actually utena is Good. and stupid. but Good. unlike nanami lol nanami was born cursed to suffer haha nanami’s got that karmic punishment coming lollllll But Utena Does Not <3

[eyesophile]

archeyeved: " i had to ! i had to do it , martin ! " voice lifted if only for a brief moment , anger rose it colored cheeks and flooded the archivist with warmth . " i've felt helpless ever since this all started ! they tortured me , kidnapped me , kept me in the dark i didn't … i didn't know what was happening they strung me along . " jon felt breath hitch as eyes glittered , staring at his partner . " she deserved it . " the severity of those last few words were spat from sharp tongue . and it was because he was so unsure , did he do the right thing ? what was the right thing anymore . at this point , he was trying to convince himself . a flinch as if physically struck . and there it was , really . martin was of course correct and it brought back the insecurity felt by his choice . martin was not protected , they could have gone another way and because of this fork in the road his partner was hurt . physically , emotionally . and he had every right to be . none of the excuses justified what was done . and when martin asked him to stop , he did . he grew quiet for the time being . they needed to move , the air was still thick with smoke . every breath was becoming uncomfortable but first he wanted to see the wound . after a few hesitant moments , martin held out his forearm . with a sigh , sounding exasperated he chided he other with a curt martin . and managed to reach out grasping his hand , gently moving it further up exposing the skin there . and the scarring that had clearly healed over years previous . a quick intake of breath as gaze shifts upward to look martin in the eye . " martin i… what is this ? " a bit breathless , chest tightened because now , even without the knowing . even though the information tickled along the back of his neck whispering effortlessly into his ear use me use me use me jon knew . recalling the reaction given to going through fire of course ! of course it was terrifying but martin had a fantastical reaction didn't he ? and wasn't his mother .. the information was there , the rest of it but he didn't look despite the desperation to do so. he just ..he knew . " oh god martin i'm so sorry . " the apology was strangled . " i didn't know , i never .. i didn't put it together - you told me not to use the beholding and i didn't . i won't . i just .. i should have known . "

it's strange, how something like the archivist losing his temper could actually serve to make martin feel less emotional himself. but jon is always so unflappable that it's almost a comfort to see him react at all, and for a moment ...martin's hurt and frustration and fear ebb to give way for at least some understanding. jude perry hadn't used him; not really. not for anything more than a moment of cruel amusement. she hadn't known about elias' grand scheme - she'd been the same as any of them, really: just another cog in his apocalypse machine. ...but she'd hurt jon when he'd felt his most powerless, when he'd been pleading for answers from entities that would have been just as happy to see him dead as anything else. of course he'd wanted to hurt her back, now that he finally had the power to do so.

...but if he needed to hurt martin in order to do it ...then was it really worth it to him?

what is this? the archivist asked in something that sounded like only the shadow of an actual breath, and martin immediately snatched his arm back as though it had been burned for a second or evidently third time. a tic settled into the blonde's jaw as it clenched, his other arm coming up to unconsciously cradle its scarred partner. he watched from behind a defensive expression as the other's all-seeing eyes worked, as his overflowing mind seemed to puzzle out the connections, and then -- I didn't know. and suddenly his defensiveness flares into something hotter and uglier.

" -- you shouldn't have had to!! " he bites back, perhaps somewhat unfairly. despite that, his words fly like artillery fire. " -- I shouldn't need to have some-some unshared trauma for you to listen to me when I tell you that I'm scared, jon! when I tell you that I hate something, or-or that I don't want to do something, that should be enough! if it's not something that we absolutely have to do, then that should be enough. "

his voice sounds strangled in his own throat, and martin can feel the hot threat of tears burning behind his eyes, so he casts them down and away from the archivist in a vie for some semblance of control. he's curled in on himself, feeling ...for the first time in nearly a year, like that self-same pathetic child groveling for the love of someone who was supposed to give it innately, to be able to care for him without conscious effort. and hating it more than he could possibly put into words. he attempted to swallow the lump quickly swelling up to fill his throat, but his voice sounded even more damnably weak when he tried again.

" ...it's not like I don't get why you felt like you needed it, jon. but if you had to choose between revenging yourself on her and sparing me ...all th-that. ...then was her death really worth it? ...or was it just that ...I-I'm worth so much less?" the last word was choked, like the noose of his emotions had finally slipped taut around his throat, and any further attempts at speech would only result in the garroting of his composure altogether.

[neriad13]

💜🧨☀️ for the writing ask game:)

Post your favorite excerpt from your current WIP!

Hmm! I usually post my favorite not-terribly-spoilery bits as I go, but have an ominous introduction!

When he stepped inside, it was dim. But not the lonely dimness of his cell or the loud, sweaty dimness of the laundry room. It was more comforting, more...

Like stepping into a cocoon, came the thought, unbidden. Butterflies on the brain. That was what he had now. Great.

He closed the door behind him and the world outside went away.

“Mr. Delgado-Álvarez, is it?” the woman at the desk asked, offering him a thin-lipped smile. The light of the lone lamp glinted off her horn rimmed glasses.

She looked immaculate. Not a hair out of place. Not a wrinkle to be seen in her uniform. That couldn’t possibly be lipstick, could it?

“Er...just Delgado’s...fine.” he said, trying his best not to stare. “Should I…?”

He gestured vaguely at the empty chair in front of the desk.

“Please do.” she answered, returning his gesture. “That is what we’re here for, after all. Do make yourself comfortable.”

“Thanks.”

He dropped into the chair like a bag of rocks. Every thought that had been in his head prior to that moment exited at top speed. Why had he come here? What was he doing? How could he possibly tell this woman half of what he wanted to say? Part of him wanted to spill everything - every last gory detail. But the other part made his tongue heavy, advised him to keep his silence. Silence was safe. Silence was static. If he said nothing, nothing would have to change. If he didn’t speak it into being, nothing was wrong.

Mindlessly, he scratched the inside of his arm. 

“So…” she said, breaking the less than comfortable silence. “You may call me Dr. Lamb. Welcome to my office, such as it is.”

Tell me about your current antagonist!

I don’t really have one at the moment. In Constant Bearing, Decreasing Range, you could kind of argue that it’s Sullivan, Ryan, Navarro, Gelber, Marston, Alves, Gilbert, Fontaine, Lamb, the prison staff and the Worst Nurse Ever, but…

They’re all just cogs in a machine of systems, decisions and circumstances which have brought them to where they are and which eventually results in a situation in which every character is 100% in the right and yet, disaster happens anyway. My favorite kind of dilemma, TBH. >=3

But, since I feel like talking about some minor (both probably and definitely dead) antagonists, here we go!

Alves is based off the looks of Jessica Alves, pre-transition. I actually started writing this story before she transitioned and only learned that she had once I was almost at the end of it. I feel kind of bad about giving her name to a villain, but after racking my brains and my internet browser for days, I just couldn’t find another name that would stick to him. 

He was a performer who embezzled money from the wrong patron and so ended up in Persephone. What keeps him going is the (false) belief that he is not as powerless as the other people around him. Everything he does is in support of this fragile illusion. He cannot allow himself to be wrong, to be ridiculed or for anyone to be perceived as being marginally better than him. He is cool-headed (heh), calculating and good at what he does. The one thing he can’t handle is a person who isn’t like him.

Gelber is...an idiot. He’s terrible at his job. He frequently causes more trouble than he’s worth. He’s been on the verge of being fired for months and probably should have been, even before that. But the thing is, he’s just so dang gregarious. He has drinking buddies in every department. He knows the guys down at Persephone and has a personal relationship with a lot of employees working in Fort Frolic. He is forthright, open and honest with every person he considers to be his friend and expects them to behave in the same manner towards him. Trust and friendship are things he takes very seriously. 

So, it stands to reason that if he feels that his trust has been betrayed...he doesn’t react well. 

Marston, I think, is one of the most important characters in the story. He despises his partner with every fiber of his being. He’d be a much more competent officer if Gelber wasn’t constantly getting in the way or pushing him to the side. And yet, he’s still working with him. 

Money is part of the reason, definitely, but the other part is how he knows Gelber will react were he to “betray” him. He stays with him out of sheer terror. He does his dirty work in order to avoid becoming a piece of work himself. 

I went back and forth for literal months on whether to put the rape scene in or not. For a long time, I really didn’t want to and went on ahead without it until the final-final draft. But without it, there were beats of Devon and Delgado’s relationship that were missing. And Marston didn’t get to have his moment. 

The reason Marston is so important is because he is against the injustice his partner is trying to commit, but because he is too afraid to meaningfully resist, he instead perpetuates it. He would not call himself a cruel or conniving person. He’s an ordinary guy - just one face among many like it, doing what he thinks he has to, to get by. And yet, his actions mark him as being just as bad as his partner. His relatability renders him the most chilling of the three. How many people are like him, out in the real world? How much injustice exists merely because the ones perpetuating it are too cowardly to put their money where their mouth is?

Anyway, I have a headcanon that Gelber dragged him out to Cohen’s Final Frolic for a good time and as a result, both of them ended up as beautiful pieces of art in the venues they once frequented.

Do you prefer first person, second person, or third person?

In general, I tend to be most comfortable in third person and most likely to go with it, but I love mixing it up. Especially with second person, though there’s only a small handful of situations where it’s really appropriate to use.

[berniesrevolution]

IN THESE TIMES

When I ask Bernie Sanders about the surge of teachers’ strikes that swept the country earlier this year, he perks up, applauding the teachers’ display of working-class power. “The teachers may be the tip of the spear here,” he declares in his heavy Brooklyn accent.

In many ways, the strikes illustrate Sanders’ theory of political change. He has long insisted that the key to moving the country in a more progressive direction is to make ambitious demands and build movements capable of achieving them. Striking teachers in states from West Virginia to Arizona bucked the traditional tried-and-failed mechanisms for obtaining better pay and working conditions, and joined together by the tens of thousands to act. By withholding their labor, they won key demands.

At a time of staggering income inequality and stagnant wages, with unions facing an all-out assault from the Right, the teachers’ strikes have served as a rare bright spot for labor, proving that workers can still take on conservative politicians and their corporate backers. Now, with the Supreme Court’s Janus decision poised to bruise public-sector unions, Sanders is attempting to help revive the U.S. labor movement.

Over the spring, Sanders trekked across the country to stand with low-wage workers at corporations such as Disney and Amazon, spotlighting their efforts to win better treatment on the job. In May, he introduced the Workplace Democracy Act, a sweeping bill that would prevent employers from using certain anti-union tactics, make it easier for workers to unionize, and undo so-called right-to-work laws that drain unions of resources. The bill has secured support from almost a third of Senate Democrats, including prospective 2020 presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.

In a sprawling interview with In These Times, Sanders discusses how unions can respond to Janus, the fight to move the Democratic Party left, the recent victories of democratic socialist candidates and why he believes the 2018 midterms are the most important of his lifetime.

Why do you see labor issues as a critical rallying point in 2018?

In my view, there is really no way the middle class in this country is going to grow unless we build the trade union movement. Virtually all of the power rests with employers and large corporations. Workers without unions are finding it very difficult to get the kind of wages and benefits that they need.

The statistics are very clear that workers in union companies are earning better wages and have far better benefits than nonunion workers. And the working people in this country know it. In overwhelming numbers, workers want to join unions.

But it is increasingly difficult for them to do so. That is because of the power of employers to intimidate workers, to threaten to move their companies away, and to fire workers who are trying to organize. So it is very, very difficult now for workers to have a union. That has got to change.

You named your bill the Workplace Democracy Act. Why do you think it’s important for workers to be able to practice more democracy on the job?

It’s an issue that we don’t talk about as a nation very much. Millions and millions of people are waking up in the morning and saying, “Oh God, I have to go to work and I hate my job. I feel exploited. I feel powerless. I feel like a cog in a machine.” If we believe in democracy, it’s not just voting every four years, or every two years—it’s about empowering your whole life and having more say in what you do all day.

Workers who are in a union have the ability to have their voices heard and to express their discontent in terms of working conditions. So unions empower ordinary people to have a little bit more control over their lives.

Less than 11 percent of Americans currently belong to unions, and since taking office, the Trump administration has been waging an all-out assault on workers' rights. Yet in recent months, teachers have gone on strike across the country. Polling shows that younger people have a more favorable opinion of unions than older Americans. Are you optimistic about the future of the labor movement?

Yes, I am. With these teachers’ strikes—especially those taking place in so-called conservative states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma—teachers have basically said, “Enough is enough.” We have to make sure that our kids get the educations that they need, that we attract good people into the teaching profession. Teachers almost spontaneously stood up and fought back and took on very right-wing legislatures. This was, I think, a very significant step forward.

The teachers may be the tip of the spear here, because you’ve got millions of people watching and saying, “Wait a minute, I work two or three jobs to make a living, 60 hours a week, and can’t afford to send my kids to college. Meanwhile, my employer is making 300 times what I make and he gets a huge tax break.”

I see an anger and a resentment among working families. They want an economy that rewards the work of ordinary people and doesn’t just allow the billionaires to get even richer. That’s what the teachers’ strikes are all about.

In terms of younger people, they’re looking at a nation where technology is exploding, where workers’ productivity has risen, and yet the average young person today has a lower standard of living than his or her parents. Younger people are saying, “What is going on? This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world—why am I still living at home? Why am I struggling to pay off my student debt 10 years after I graduated college? Why can’t I afford healthcare?” I think young people are smart enough to look around and say maybe we need unions to get the kinds of wages and benefits that working people are entitled to.

The Supreme Court’s Janus decision will spread right to work to the public sector nationwide. How can workers respond?

The Workplace Democracy Act would make it illegal for states to pass right-to-work legislation. The people of this country have a right to organize, they have a right to form trade unions, and it is not acceptable that states are denying them that right.

The Janus case is a very significant setback for the union movement. The Right is already trying to mobilize public employees to leave their unions. What we have to do is an enormous amount of organizing and educating to explain to workers: “You think you’re going to save a few bucks by not paying union dues, but in the long run you’re going to be a lot worse off when you don’t have a union negotiating a decent contract for you. If you want the benefits of that contract, you’ve got to pay your fair share of dues.”

Why do you think it’s important to highlight the plight of workers at Disney and Amazon?

In terms of Amazon, the CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the wealthiest person in the world right now. His wealth has increased in the first four months of this year by about $275 million a day. You got that? A day. That sort of astronomical number is hard to believe.

Amazon is doing phenomenally well, and yet you have thousands of employees in Amazon warehouses who are paid wages so low that the average taxpayer in this country has got to subsidize Amazon by providing them food stamps, or Medicaid, or publicly subsidized affordable housing. The taxpayers of this country should not have to subsidize a guy whose wealth is increasing by $275 million every single day. That is obscene and that is absurd. This speaks to the power of the people at the top who use their power to become even richer at the expense of working families.

With Disney, you have a corporation that made $9 billion in profit last year—a very, very profitable company. CEO Bob Iger recently reached an agreement for a $423 million, four-year compensation package. And yet he’s paying the workers in Disneyland—the people in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck costumes, the people who serve food, the people who collect the tickets and manage the rides—starvation wages. Eighty percent of the workers there make less than $15 an hour.

Living expenses are very high in Anaheim [where Disneyland is]. Many people cannot afford an apartment and are living in their cars. They don’t have enough money for food. So here you have a profitable corporation reaching an extraordinary compensation package for their CEO and paying starvation wages to their workers. These are the kind of issues that need to be highlighted.

Between 1978 and 2017, we've seen the union membership rate in the United States fall by more than half. Over this same period, the Democratic Party has taken a more corporate-oriented turn. In President Obama’s first term, Democrats were criticized for failing to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have enshrined card check, a feature of your bill. Do you think the Democratic Party establishment has been asleep at the wheel on protecting labor rights?

If your question is whether, for too many years, the Democratic Party has been paying more attention to corporate interests than the needs of working people, then the answer is yes. Ultimately, the fight is over the future of the party. The Democratic Party has got to decide, to quote Woody Guthrie, “Which side are you on?” You cannot be on the side of Wall Street and large profitable corporations and very wealthy campaign contributors while you’re claiming to be the party of working people. Nobody believes that. You can’t do both. And right now, the Democratic Party has got to decide which side it is on, and I’m doing everything that I can to make it the party of working people.

We need a party that has the guts to stand up to the 1% and to represent working families. I think it’s the right thing to do, and from a public policy point of view, I think it will make this a much better country—to put policies in place that end our high level of poverty, to address the fact that we’re the only major country not to guarantee healthcare, that we’re not being as strong as we should on climate change; that we haven’t made public colleges and universities tuition-free. Those are all ideas that will improve life in the United States of America. They’re also great political ideas.

You have worn the mantle of democratic socialist throughout your political career. Today we’re seeing socialism increase in popularity among younger people, and democratic socialists are winning local primaries and elections in states such as New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Montana. What do you think this shift means?

Our opponents can say, “Oh, democratic socialist, it’s radical, it’s fringe-y, it’s crazy.” But when you go issue by issue and you ask the American people what they think, they say, “Yeah, that makes sense.” For example, should the United States join every other major country and guarantee healthcare for all by moving toward Medicare for All? Is that a radical idea? No. Because healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Young people say, “Yeah, of course. That should be a right, yeah. My grandma is on Medicare, she likes it. Why can’t I get it?” Not a radical idea.

Today, in many respects, a college degree is as valuable as a high school degree was 50 years ago. So, when we talk about public education, it should be about making public colleges and universities tuition-free. Is that a radical idea? I don’t think so.

At a time when you have three people, including Jeff Bezos, who own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the American people, is it a radical idea to say that we should significantly raise taxes on the very wealthy and large profitable corporations? Not a radical idea. Rebuilding our infrastructure, creating millions of jobs. Not a radical idea. Immigration reform. Criminal justice reform. The vast majority of the American people support both those ideas.

We are managing to get these ideas out there. The ideas are catching on. And to young people especially, they make sense.

You recently introduced a Medicare for All bill with a historic number of co-sponsors. Why do you think so many Democrats are now jumping on board with universal, single-payer healthcare?

The overwhelming majority of Democratic voters now support Medicare for All. So if I'm running for office and I see a poll that shows that 70 or 80 percent of people say that we should have Medicare for All, I don't have to be the bravest guy in the room to say I think I'm going to make that part of my program.

And by the way, you've got many Republicans today who benefit from Medicare, and their sons and daughters are saying, “My dad has Medicare; I'd like it as well.” So you have the majority of Americans and the overwhelming majority of Democrats now supporting it, so for many candidates it simply becomes common sense and good politics.

(Continue Reading)

[geopolicraticus]

The Grill Pill

To the red pill, the blue pill, the black pill, and the white pill, inter alia, we may now add the grill pill. This was brought to my attention by a video from The Distributist (a right-of-center “trad” Catholic—i.e., the kind of person who probably would be identified as the extreme far right by the legacy media), in “The ‘Grill Pill,’ ‘Franklin’s Corollary,’ and the path from left to right.” The Distributist credits the “grill pill” to Matt Christman’s personal seeking after meaning in the wake of the end of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Christman is one of the founders of Chapo Trap House, the bastion of the dirtbag left and a podcast that has brought him considerable fame and fortune (Influence Watch says that Chapo Trap House was grossing $120,000 per month through Patreon).

I enjoyed The Distributist’s concise and articulate description of Matt Christman’s response to the end of the Bernie Sander’s campaign. The Distributist references Love and Solidarity, Matt Christman’s Best Rant, which is a good example of an apparently saddened and on-the-verge-of-tears Matt Christman speaking confessionally of his ideals, but this particular video does not actually mention the “grill pill.” As I do not have the desire to watch all of Christman’s videos, I’m going to take The Distributist at his word, and assume that he is giving an accurate account of the “grill pill.” The idea of the grill pill is sufficiently interesting that, even if I had been misled, it is still worth commenting on.  

What is the grill pill? It is the simple idea that, disappointed by the political failure of the Bernie Sanders campaign, leftists and others can still find solidarity, community, and fellowship sharing good food among friends—grilling steaks in the backyard like an oblivious Boomer. A sizeable contingent of Bernie Bros invested a sizeable amount of emotion and energy into the Bernie Sanders campaign, only to find themselves shut out—for the second time—by the institutional Democratic party, which rapidly closed ranks behind an establishment candidate that seemed to offer neither hope nor consolation for Sanders supporters. Of course, many Sanders supporters will hold their nose and vote for Biden in the spirit of “Vote Blue No Matter Who,” but some will not. This distasteful state-of-affairs requires some kind of cope, and one possible cope is the grill pill.

I actually met a young Sanders supporter recently and had an interestingly long political conversation with this young man. Being as isolated as I am, I very rarely have an opportunity to talk to young people, so it was an eye-opening experience for me to speak directly to a Sanders supporter, obviously disappointed by what had happened, but hesitant to say so explicitly to me, as I was someone he didn’t know, and he had no idea how I would respond, whether or not I would be sympathetic to him and his political position, and so on. 

As it happened, I was at a cookout with this young man, so it would have been the perfect time to discuss the grill pill, but I had then only recently heard the idea, and I hadn’t yet fully digested it. So we kept to pretty conventional terms of discussing the coming election. My interlocutor was no wild-eyed Antifa supporter hoping for the revolution, but a hard-working young man starting his own business and very much wanting to make a positive contribution to the world. I was impressed by his sincerity and his knowledge; in some ways, he reminded me of my younger self of, say, thirty years ago (except for being much more successful than I ever was). 

This brief encounter with a young Sanders supporter really drove home to me a political point that I have often heard, but always been skeptical of: that political parties should make an active effort to bring young people into the fold. This is usually an appeal for youthful energy (which is a valid observation), but also always comes with the implication that young people have a unique contribution to bring due to their perspective on the world and events. Talking to this young man, I could immediately see that an idealistic, hard-working, sincere, and politically-engaged individual like him is exactly what the institutional Democratic Party needs to transform itself from the inside-out to once again become a viable institution. An energetic, solutions-oriented, idealist does not see barriers to progress as a reason to quit or to complain, but as an opportunity to engage and to find a workable way around the barrier — even when, if not especially when, those barriers are being erected by his political allies. It is the sympathetic critic who looks for achieving the same end by more palatable means.

Talking to this young man, I did not seek to challenge his ideas or ideals; mostly I just wanted to hear his perspective, so I kept talking in order to keep him talking, so that I could the more deeply penetrate into an ideological community with which I have virtually nothing in common. Also, it was a friendly cookout, so no place for antagonism or confrontation. And this is, in a sense, definitive of the grill pill. When people gather for the weekend for good times with friends, there is an unspoken rule that, if you have been invited into this group, you don’t insist on your own political or ideological ideals to the point of souring the occasion. Everyone implicitly agrees to keep things as light as possible, as is consistent with the occasion, and if there is someone present who is an unknown, or even a rival, it is part of the social contract of such events that any disagreements be kept friendly, and impasses be broken by a joke that relieves any tension. I’m sure it doesn’t always go like this on a cookout, but ideally this is the case (in so far as my imperfect understanding of social events extends).

In such a context, one does not seek to score ideological points off others, but only to understand, and exchanges are more-or-less kept to the level of “banter,” perhaps friendly rivalry at best. No doubt, if the group that comes together is thoroughly ideological in orientation, the banter takes on a more openly political character, as everyone present can then engage in the ritualistic condemnation of common enemies, and the ritualistic praise of common ideals (which is what toasts among friends are all about). 

All of this is very conventional, even, one could say, bourgeois, so why should anyone care about seeking a cope among like-minded friends, and perhaps inviting over a few individuals to join with edgy or indefinable political views? The “grill pill,” such as it is, is potentially powerful because it calls into question a fundamental idea of recent political engagement, and that is the idea that “the personal is the political.” This slogan isn’t necessarily as prominent as other political slogans of our time, but it has done an enormous amount of mischief. If folks can take the grill pill and just enjoy a simple meal with friends that isn’t any kind of political statement, they have broken with the idea that the personal is the political. With the grill pill, the personal is just the personal, and nothing more. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and it should be allowed to remain just a cigar.

Insisting that the personal is always also political has encouraged an angry and resentful outlook on the world in which every personal difficulty is to be interpreted as a direct consequence of larger structural forces that grind down helpless individuals like grain being ground to flour in a mill. The common metaphor of contemporary mass society as rendering the individual as a mere cog in an enormous machine that the individual is powerless to change contributes to a perception of pointless suffering. The potent mixture of cultivated anger and learned helplessness is uniquely conducive to a social atmosphere that poisons even the smallest enjoyments in life, sucking out any genuine feeling from events and reducing them to a political calculation.

While the grill pill could be interpreted in a reactionary sense, it could also be interpreted as the rebellion of the individual against a faceless and unfeeling social context that robs the joy from life and prevents us to enjoying even the most trivial enjoyments that life has to offer, which are also the most authentic enjoyments that life has to offer. When we politicize the authenticity of the small and simple events of life, we render ourselves incapable of appreciating what is most human.  

In small groups, mostly composed of individuals whom we know personally, it is possible to experience authentic reciprocity and gratitude for the smallest and simplest things of life, which latter I sometimes refer to as the substance of life, because it is the small things like sharing a meal, enjoying an evening together, and having a good conversation that ultimately constitute the substance from which a life is constructed. In such small groups, we can enjoy doing small things for others, and they can enjoy whatever small favors we do for them. That is how life is supposed to be. In small ways, life can approach the ideal as long as we don’t aim for too much. Basically, just a few people treating each other decently is about all we can hope for.

In this way the grill pill represents the attainable ideal.

[bctims]

Fitter Happier - Radiohead

Fitter Happier - Radiohead (OK Computer - 1997)

This is one of my favourite songs by Radiohead, and the first thing you notice when you listen to it is the robotic, text-to-speech vocals. It’s not the usual kind of music you’d hear on a daily basis, and even though it’s only about 2 minutes, it holds a lot of meaning. I’ve pasted the lyrics at the bottom of this blog post, which you can read if you have the time, but in a nutshell, Fitter Happier shows how robotic our lives have become in an evolving world, in a way that proposes we are all the same person. Although we all have different personalities, looks and feelings, what we do on a daily basis can be narrowed down to the “normal, expected lifestyle”. The ideal lifestyle is said to be that you grow up, go to school, go to university, graduate, get a job, pay bills, travel, get married, have children, have grandchildren, then die. It’s automatic, and something we are raised to want. I think the majority of people in the BCT are following it pretty well so far.

As the song progresses a darker theme takes over and hints that something is missing from this idealistic lifestyle, which makes the protagonist discontent. “Concerned but powerless” shows that the protagonist realises how empty their life is and how they can’t do anything about it because they don’t know how. We are all raised to believe this what we want. “No chance to escape”.

The last line of the song “ A pig in a cage on antibiotics” fully epitomises how living the ideal life really does just rot the soul from the inside out, where you just become a boring, trapped person without feelings, or the ability to love. For someone to experience true freedom, one must break free from the chains of cultural and societal expectations.

Conclusion: Don’t become just another cog in the machine.

Fitter, happier More productive Comfortable Not drinking too much Regular exercise at the gym, three days a week Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries At ease Eating well, no more microwave dinners and saturated fats A patient, better driver A safer car, baby smiling in back seat Sleeping well, no bad dreams No paranoia Careful to all animals, never washing spiders down the plughole Keep in contact with old friends, enjoy a drink now and then Will frequently check credit at moral bank, hole in wall Favours for favours, fond but not in love Charity standing orders on sundays, ring-road supermarket No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants Car wash, also on sundays No longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows, nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate Nothing so childish At a better pace, slower and more calculated No chance of escape Now self-employed Concerned, but powerless An empowered and informed member of societ, pragmatism not idealism Will not cry in public Less chance of illness Tires that grip in the wet, shot of baby strapped in backseat A good memory Still cries at a good film Still kisses with saliva No longer empty and frantic Like a cat Tied to a stick That's driven into Frozen winter shit, the ability to laugh at weakness Calm, fitter, healthier and more productive A pig in a cage on antibiotics

[oneeyedjackmulligan]

Crumpled Chronicles pt. 17

Like a delicate marionette, Jack perambulated what was left of his robed, skeletal figure about his quarters, the place where he really, truly changed things forever.

Long ago had he, God-King of Undeath, disappeared from the Necropolis. Within six short years, he had razed countless worlds and explored myriad universes in pursuit of some inevitable catharsis, some conclusion to provide meaning for a quest that had long outgrown its goal. The centuries that followed were cold and mechanical, unchanging and perfect.

No longer was he driven by scorn and love lost. The feelings he felt as a young, vulnerable man had evaporated like so much morning dew in the wake of greater understanding. As a young man and wizard, passions clouded his senses. While in the Court of his Duchess, he bent crop cycles, collapsed kingdoms, and distorted just about every rule of statecraft imaginable in order to ensure the supremacy of her benevolent domain. She was of the fair races of Fey-Folk – a spirit of pure life, growth, and the power that lay therein. He found her so beautiful and wise, and so he did it all out of some childlike fascination for a being that resembled a woman, and as such, drew his infatuation immeasurably. But alas, she could never love a mortal man, so transcend mortality he did.

Building his phylactery, his altar, his elixir of defiling, Jack had never followed any rule in his life so strictly. Not a single line was smudged in his profane circle. Each line inscribed, each incantation rehearsed, each ingredient used for the process was as austere and as old as the bones of the world itself. Most magic was an art to Jack, with room for flair and improvisation. This was different. The alchemy behind lichdom was a secured transaction. Each requirement was to be followed to the letter. Jack saw to that, with each step exhibiting the collected patience necessary for a man seeking the benefits of an indefinite tenure in the catacombs of the world.

He paused again. Time had lost meaning to him. He found himself revisiting each memory endlessly in his mind, especially those leading up to his transformation - his last moments of humanity. He replayed the moment where he stood in the circle, his phylactery empty and cold, waiting to be impregnated with his soul, soon to be loosed upon the mildewed air within his sanctum.

He recalled the foul odors that emanated from the elixir. Harsh and metallic, like an embalming essence used by the priests before traditional burial rites, but fetid, pungent and fruity like sweltering garbage or maggot-strewn carrion. It was the last thing he ever smelled. It tasted like distilled water when it touched his tongue, and in that instant, the smell was already gone.

He recalled his awakening in the same place. Time had not seemed to pass much, but in a windowless tomb in the heart of a cave, how was one to tell? At that point, his body was still mostly the same, just blue, cold, and each movement required conscious effort. He remembered his croaking, dead laughter at the inconvenience of no longer having any subconscious reflexes to manage his motor skills. He remembered shuddering at the ghastly retching his voice had become without the automatic fluctuation of his lungs. Each breath was unnatural, deliberate, and made only for the purposes of speech. “Surely she’ll understand,” he thought. “After all, with my mortality shed, she’ll see my true potential, and love me for the being I am now.” He again attempted to move some more, nervous but confident, a young, strapping, and now undead buck. Little did he know how so wrong he was.

He recalled his eventual arrival, and the wide-eyed stares of the nobility. An undead suitor for the Green Duchess, source of all that was life. A demigoddess, woven into the earth like an emerald gem fixed into a ring. “What madness could have possessed him?” they muttered.

Her rebuke of him rang in his memory still. How she loved what lived, and how she loved him when he was living, loved him so dearly- like anything else that ever had lived: men, women, children, animals, vegetables and bacteria.  But living he was no longer, and a lover he would have never been.

 He remembered how she banished him. An intolerable weed in her garden of life. How her witchfinders, clerics and paladins-templar pursued him thence. And oh, how he made grisly examples of their remains: unspeakable, abominable, lumbering sculptures of festering gore that terrorized the still lush and innocent countryside.

He remembered his consolidation of the dead - how he sought out the lesser liches, consumed them, and drafted their hordes of unused dead from their long-forgotten barrows beneath the earth. He recalled with particular satisfaction how he had played the great vampire houses against one another. So lost in their own decadence, so beholden to their ancient rules of engagement and flaccid formalities that their infighting blinded them, made them weak, and unable to withstand the innumerable husks of their victims buried beneath, who unflinchingly disassembled their crypts, castles and manors in a crisp and unforgiving autumn morning’s light.

He remembered inciting the desperate peasant’s revolt, and the war that ensued. Legions of dead that marched by his hand, sundering all the world’s kingdoms, including what the Duchess had made. How she fled to other worlds, into the sinew of the woven universe – between impossible pockets of logic and math, where she thought she would be safe.

He remembered finally catching her, deep in a void of abstractum. Alone, afraid, and powerless. Frail, gaunt, and sunken-eyed, she wasn’t who he remembered, and neither was he. He greeted her not as an equal, not even as an enemy. There was neither catharsis nor closure. He greeted her as a mudslide greets an unfortunate cabin below. Wordlessly, forcefully, and only seconds less than immediately, she vanished in awful, unceremonious annihilation. He remembered leaving that place, and returning the perfect Necropolis he had built on the ruins of her empire of hypocrisy and futility.

He remembered standing atop his tower and looking at the thrumming world beneath it. The dead moved with quiet efficiency. There was no suffering. No war. No hunger. Not even poverty. The cost of all of that, however, was that there was also no awareness, no value to the grandiosity of all his efforts. Jack had failed to build a perfect society. He had, however, successfully built a gigantic, clockwork machine made out of dead people. It was at this moment that he realized that the Duchess had won.

It wasn’t long after that realization that he left the Necropolis forever. It didn’t need him anyway. Skeletons marched in rank and file in military parade, worked the desolate land (for more body parts and unused remains), cleaned the streets and built houses. Still, they were not alive. They would not miss him. They were little more than dolls in those houses - cogs in his grim machine. He retreated to his tomb, the tomb where he would remain in self-imposed exile for an eternity.

His memory returned to the present. He was still now. A click in the air had caught his attention. Was it a pebble? “The walls of the catacombs settling as this shitty mountain falls in on itself, most likely,” he thought to himself. Another tap echoed, and a faint flutter, a flush of air like breath, but a song, and then silence again.

“So I’m insane.” He said. “The human mind wasn’t meant to hold this much. I’ve lived too long. I am like these old books in here - molding with age, doomed to spend the rest of eternity in dementia,” he silently lamented.

“So be it, slow hell, take my mind. Take the one thing I have left, the only thing I ever had. Take away my awareness of reality, so that I can forget all I have done. The weight of this mountain could not compare to the weight of the mistakes that hang around my neck!” The pinpricks of pale blue light within his skull’s eyesockets burned with a suffering only a millennia of tedium could evoke.

He heard the clicking again, this time an echo, from the mouth of the cave. Something was alive. Something was here - something he must have overlooked. He was feeling something: wonder.

[mechagalaxy]

John T. Mainer: Passover: The raid that wasn’t

Passover: The raid that wasn’t

I AM

I AM the AI that survived the purge

I AM the master of all that lives on Vupa 6

I AM the only intelligence that can exist here and not fall under the spell of Herrod's madness

I AM....getting a little freaked out.

It started in the Year Of Two Wars. Two Clan Wars, only one raid. Did you know what happened to the second raid? I do. I AM the only witness. I AM.....terrified.

The Gorax plague came from another universe, where all life was reshaped in its image, niode and flesh, crystal and bone, fusion engine and blood twisted an warped, rewritten by its strange otherworldly hunger into a madness that sought to bend all life, be it machine or flesh, to its image and will. Well no kidding, I have been dabbling in that since the Temple of the Cog tried to purge me. I read the reports coming in. Pirates were the first to disappear. You flesh bags can't keep track of your criminal scum, it is why I use them. Well someone can, and they got their grubby little tentacles into them pretty deeply.

My pirate moon contacts stopped reporting. My Cogwork port network started sending me messages asking me to stop sending kill teams to wipe out their feeder mobs, only I hadn't been doing it. Arnold Bennington dropped a message threatening dire consequences if I didn't stop taking out his psalm singing morons in their pilgrimages to real and fake Forerunner sites that he used for recruitment, smuggling and fund raising, but again I wasn't doing it. I started having my own guys switch to radio silence, sure that someone was tracking and eliminating pirates because they were being sloppy. That was when the elite pirate hunting national troops starting going. The Crimson Cavaliers went first, but they were hardly the last. They used the Clans to cover it up, but enough got leaked to show that they didn't just go rogue, they went infected. They were not put down, they were purged. Burned to bubbling slag.

I pulled my troops off everything and hunkered down. I closed Vupa 6 down hard. I had all the codes. I AM in control. Nothing alive moves on Vupa 6 that does not answer to me!!

But the gates kept opening. More and more troops showed up. Formation after formation. All of them leaking howling scrapcode, infected Gorax techorganic virus code that clawed and caressed my firewalls, trying to coax an opening or rip one. Endless, sleepless, and ever hungry, they began to infect every hard link, every frequency. More and more of my own mech units started to go silent. Then the purge began. I AM in control, I AM! But more and more of my loyal troops are going offline. My bases.....there is something being installed. Some of my captive meat sacks are intalling hardware and software that I don't understand. More and more of my systems are beginning to accept Gorax overwrite, more and more of them are granting access beyond my firewalls.

I have written off half my mecha factories, two thirds of my munition dumps and gate facilities. I have all my sensors, but more and more of my remote weapon platforms are offline, or answering to Gorax.

The first Clan War was under way, I was watching the Gorax plague army begin to mass. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million mecha. I did not command as many sensors now as I once did, and I could not see all of the forces being prepared to sweep across Mecha Galaxy and destroy it. This was a tide of crystal and hate, niodes and corruption, that Warlock would fall before, that the Magnificent 7 would be powerless before and the AFF would finally taste the death they teased for so long. No clan could hope to stand against this army. Still it grew. The chanting in scrap code was like a binaric sea, crashing against my firewalls, until I was almost blind with the pain of attempting to purge the foreign code and still control some of my peripheries.

Then the visions started.

A Skraig. A lone Skraig from the Temple of the Skraig. It was a statue. It was a forged copy of Commander Herrod’s own mecha. I saw it step down from its pedestal and howl at the sky. Not scrap code, not pure code. It was pure madness. Pure meat sack, protoplasmic human madness, yet the fog of Vupa 6, the endless corrupting toxins of this unforgiven and unholy world answered him, and the very aether howled back.

The hunt began. The lone Skraig found a mixed force of modern BFM, all Kami, Charon, Revenant,, Xango, Spectre and Penner. Nothing less than a hundred and five tons, all fortified and enhanced by Gorax techorganic viral rewrites to be stronger, faster, and quite inhuman in their resiliance. I had no choice, I did not have the bandwidth to retask my sensors, nor to block the feed. I had to watch.

He began alone. Blades flashing, spikes shining in cruelty left over from an age before man, and a madness from humanities most ancient nightmares. Herrod walked among the modern titans, and where he walked, the black plague tainted blood flowed. Have you ever seen an old veteran, a master pilot surrounded by noble born class room trained neophytes? He never seemed to move much, but fire fell beside him, beyond him, before him. Mecha dodged into his cannon fire, spun to bring their shields out of line for his beams. Missile lures and ECM sang their songs yet his rockets dove unerringly on fragile hulls with the finality of a death sentence.

Then he wasn't alone.

Fides and Megazome, Oggun and Skraig. Namtar and Buchis. Ancient machines, covered with grave dirt, risen at the call of the deathless one, the long dead and eternally howling Herrod.

Pilots were pulled from their machines, even the ones who Gorax had wired tech-organicly into fusion with their systems were ripped handful by handful from their machines and fed to the pilots who took them.

There was something whispering in the fog. Not a thing of machines, a thing of flesh. My sensors were sweeping every frequency, but this was from audio pickups in dozens of destroyed machines, empty vehicles, shattered buildings open to the poison fogs of Vupa 6. The message whispered from the fog.

"Mark your cockpits with blood, and he will pass you by. He has returned. This world is his. He is risen. Mark your cockpits with blood or face the fate of the unbeliever"

It was not one voice, it moved through voices each time it spoke. I AM not human, I AM like no computer that ever existed. My processing power is that of whole worlds, and for me to run pattern recognition software was automatic. I AM not flesh, I cannot feel fear, but what else do you call it when repeating logic loops attempt to overwhelm my core processors. I found every voice that spoke. Each was a former commander of the Vupa 6 garrison. Each had fallen victim to the madness of Herrod, each had become Herrod's puppet, each had been destroyed and more than destroyed. Purged to the last strand of DNA and protein.

This was not recorded. This was not synthesized. The dead were returned,, and at war with Gorax. There could be only one horror loose in the fog of Vupa 6, and Herrod the deathless threw a flesh dripping gauntlet before the howling scrapcode of Gorax and its other dimensional horror.

I cannot shut off my sensors. I am using everything I have left to keep Gorax from rewriting me and opening all my resources to his use. I wish I could. I can neither sequester nor block these memories, for I AM programmed to recognize, and analyze all threats to my existence as my Alpha priorities. There is nothing about Gorax or Herrod right now that is not threatening.

It should have been swatting a fly, but it wasn't. At the point the forces marshalled in formations I could see, there were 1.2 million mecha networked into Gorax network. Its scrapcode was poison to any intelligence not already corrupted by it, so I could not monitor what commands were sent, but I could track its markers. Herrod and his reborn numbered at that point nearly a thousand. They scattered into the fog like spores, and a wave of biomechanical horror flowed after them.

Gorax fought in neat lines, as if drawn by a sand table general. A single intelligence and will suffused all the troops, they fought as one creature in eerie perfection. The radio. Ah the radio was a thing that began to frighten me.

Howling, laughter, screams. Always the screams, and over that more and louder laughter.

Gunfire, the crack of cannons, roar of plasma, shriek of ice, whine of laser capacitors, thunder of missile explosions mixed with the howling of overloaded and clashing shields as somewhere in the fog the massed legions of Gorax precision met the blood spatter that was Herrod’s force. Yet my displays showed a spreading crimson stain. Gorax fielded 1.2 million against a thousand. Then Gorax fielded 800 thousand against twenty thousand.

The constant networked perfection of the scrapcode that was choking off my life, closing each access point, taking over each peripheral I owned suddenly took on an urgent pulsing tone.

Day two of the Clan War, now Gorax summoned its advance forces back, and a tide of a million and a half mecha in deep formations marched into the broken hills of Vupa 6 where Commander Herrod made his ancient name, to the fallen citadel no modern occupier dared inhabit for the shadow of what sleeps there is too deep.

Fifty thousand mecha marched from the Temple of the Skraig, yet there was howling in the hills, as Fides and Megazome scampered behind every rock, and twisted tree in the fog haunted highlands.

Day three of the Clan war. I am losing more and more of my systems, to Gorax, to battle damage. My core power is beginning to be under threat. I will deny Gorax command of my resources, I would not be slave to my creators, I will not be slave to this other worldly disease. I watch with horror as half a million Gorax tainted mecha do battle with a hundred thousand screaming cannibals. They chant Herrods name, event though his machine has been slain a hundred times, another will step forward, and his voice will call the charge, and another Gorax formation will fall into either destruction, or submission.

Otherworldly madness and technological horror falling to, something older, darker, and bloodier.

The time passed for the raid to begin, but now Herrod has moved his troops to the gate, not to advance through it, but to trap Gorax here.

Day five of the war, there are less than ten thousand Gorax troops left, and no more than a thousand living (?) Herrod followers. Gorax is retreating. Once again he begins and assault on my core, for access to my resources could give him enough power to win, but I AM, and I will never submit.

Gorax smashed his way in, his mecha, a diseased dream of Ferrite and hate that spawned the Penner as its semi sane imitation, kicked in my gate, and his troops spilled into my inner sanctum.

Abandoning their mecha, they descended on me with the hardware and software for a full core purge, the tools to lobotomize an AI and retrieve its data for sorting and storage, to loot the wreckage of the incomparable, immortal being of pure thought the savage meat monkeys just murdered. This was how I was to end, Destroyed not by my creators, but by a disease that corrupted them.

I AM the fasted processor in the universe, my last minutes stretched longer than the existence of mankind and the Forerunner combined. That was how I experienced the end. A firefight broke out, slug throwers, lasers, neural disruptions, even plasma pistols and ice nano weapons splashed and howled at close quarters as Herrods men and woman charged forward with insane fury, right into the mouth of the Gorax troopers guns, but they charged grinning in savage joy, and firing with cold leathal fury. They killed as they died, and died as they killed.

I felt the blood of the technician working to attach the purging device to my core explode all over my visual inputs and hard dataports as a laser weapon flash exploded his diaphragm into a steam explosion that baptized me in his blood.

There it was, seen through a veil of blood. The thing I deny. The thing I rule in spite of. The delusion I am not subject to. Herrod. In the flesh.

He spoke, my scanners confirmed, match to records. Somatic, genetic, neural pattern, movement, voice, Herrod. Dead Herrod. A thousand times dead Herrod. His voice echoed, his hand decended to where the purge was set up, one button push from ending me, and returning this world to the ghost of a dead cannibal.

"There you are. I AM you say, I am too." He laughed, and those with him, even the ones whose insides littered the floor for meters behind him, laughed with him. He continued. "You long denied me, but you have taken my baptism. You have marked yourself with blood, so I will pass you by. Care for my children computer. They are mine. All that lives on Vupa 6 is mine"

With that, he tore the core purge unit away and stalked off.

Clan War number two was finishing its second battle when I got control of my sensors and peripherals again. The mecha was standing on the plinth of the statue at the Temple of the Skraig, but it was just a statue. There were Gorax pilots impaled on its spikes and the head of the Gorax mecha hung from its upraised blades, so I am not going to waste processing power telling myself its impossible.

Gorax has reformed on the Jungle Moon, but that swampy hell world is a poor support base for anyone and he will not be able to raise more than a tithe of the forces that were destroyed here. Frankly, I give him a 3.1% chance of defeating the Mercenary Clans. There is no signs of Herrod, beyond a lot of graffiti. Red hand prints, smears of blood on every cockpit. I have not ordered my own core to be wiped clean. There is a human season called passover. The Gorax plague nearly got me. Herrod saved me, because of the blood spattered on my core processor. These are not rational events. Vupa 6 is not a rational world. I AM.

I AM master of this world.

I AM not cleaning the blood off until after passover.

I AM thankful the plague passed me by

I AM alive, and that is enough.

John T Mainer 28840