#i.e I don't think they went deep enough with the horror of feeling on this one

[mekanikaltrifle]

Unlife: once more, with feeling

Clan Brujah headcanon: their rage is alien. 

This is not to say that their anger is explicitly the work of outer beings or extraterrestrials (that has gone down badly in VtM lore before. Just check out the removed lore for Vicissitude and find that one out).

No, their rage is alien in that it is truly the works of inhumanity; this fury is as like that of a god, and something they could never have known in mortal life. It’s nothing like human anger, or even that of other vampires. Borderline uncontrollable, but seemingly bottomless, there is no way a mortal could know rage like this-- it would rip their muscles from the bone to ever attempt to live through it. Alien in that it has no source, at least not one an individual Brujah can really pinpoint with any degree of accuracy; it’s likely the Beast, and definitely the Curse of their blood, but beyond that? Even staring into it is enough to blind you. And it need not always be in the throes of Frenzy, though Frenzy they do. The rage is impossible to define because it does not feel like mortal anger, but the only framework they have is that of their former life. To an outsider, that is the only reference they can append to this unknowable deathly force. And it is always there even outside of Frenzy.

Consider delving deeper into the rage, the feeling. All Brujah feel, far deeper, far sharper than any other Kindred. Each of them may think they know feeling: melancholy, for instance, runs so deep in Kindred existence one could be forgiven for thinking it is what they are meant for, and the Brujah are no different. The image of the rough-and-ready street warrior is a perfect cover to obfuscate the misery, and the elation, the sheer staggering valley of raw emotion every Brujah has howling in the depths of their cracked-open soul. How could the other Kindred ever know how it feels to live an unlife with no protection from your own self? And this feeling, these raw emotions, they lie to you. 

Every memory of feeling from before the Embrace falls flat below the Curse-- gaslit by your own Beast-- and you steadily lose the ability to understand ‘moderation’ or how you could ever have felt so calm. Sure, you can act a certain way, you can mask what you’re feeling, but sooner or later it will rear its head again, it will demand you feel, at all costs and what a cost that will be.

The Malkavian Embrace is supposedly a mind-shattering experience that renders every single Malk irrevocably mad… and could the same not be true of the Brujah?

An Embrace so overpowering, so damning and paradoxically alive with emotion, fear, as well as bewilderment, the vertigo of having your life turned upside down and inside out… nobody could feel that and live. So, you die. And you come back an entity of feeling more embattled on all sides than anyone could ever know, because to feel so deep it kills… that’s a lonely way to exist. A heart that lies still under your cold ribs cannot break from the stress. And what is dead may never die. So they survive it, even when they shouldn’t. 

So the Brujah, they come up with causes and stories and political battles to direct this rage; what else can they do, under the weight of it all? Better to fight out the energy than to let it fester, or you’ll rot away from the inside-- forever, and ever, without end. 

The other Kindred, they hate you because they do not understand… even if they act like they do. You’re a street punk, one of the rabble. Reckless and meat-headed and vulgar so unlike the graceful, emotion-stunted beings of ages long passed. And so many of them have seen from the outside what a Frenzied Brujah looks like, and completely missed the true horror of it. To be so overwhelmed, never able to surface for more than a few days, in an endless sea of what the living enjoy so easily, so broadly, proudly even.

Poor lost souls.

[empressaraceli1992]

So, we've all read one-shots or parts of stories where Ghost reacts violently to a nightmare, and (depending on the writer) usually stops before any real damage is done. I.e. knife to the throat, punch to the face nothing broken or irreparable harm done. So what happens if Ghost DOES hurt the person? Badly.

You knew what it was like to have nightmares. You knew the horrors that you faced everyday did things to your mind. So when you heard the low keening of someone fighting a nightmare, you didn't think twice. Slipping out from beneath your warm blanket you padded over to the suffering party.

To your surprise - though it really shouldn't be considering the man went through the same hell you did day in and day out - it was Ghost who was keening. Ghost was not a fan of being touched when conscious, there was no telling how he would respond unconscious. But you knew, sap that you were, you could not let him suffer alone. Gently, oh so gently, you lay a hand on his back.

Three things happened in very quick succession.

Ghost whirled -

A flash of metal -

Pain, oh God the pain! -

Ghost buried at blade into your left shoulder between the bones. You gasped. You knew he didn't mean, knew he didn't want to do, but God it hurt. You could feel blood gushing down your arm. Ghost's wild eyes bore into you. You feel like you're going to puke, but you know if you move wrong he will kill you.

Breathing carefully through your nose you loft your right hand, slowly, to Ghosts. Wrapping your fingers around his wrist you speak to him in a soft voice.

"Simon, it's me. It's _____." You rub your thumb across his wrist. It takes a moment, several minutes in fact for Ghost to calm down enough to see you. When he does his dark eyes go wide in horror.

Shit, no he cannot panic right now.

"Simon, Simon look at me." He's shaking. "Simon, come on you've done training for this." You soothe him despite the growing dizziness. "Come on, access the damage. Is the wound life threatening?"

Ghost examines your injury, carefully letting go of the hilt of the blade he places his fingers on either side of your shoulders.

"N-No." He sucks in a deep breath through his mask. "It's clean, between the bone, no major arteries have been hit."

"Good." You run your tongue across your lips. Why were you so cold? "Is it safe to remove the blade?"

Ghost nodded, but he made no move to pull the knife out. "We need to get you to medical."

"Am I stable enough?" You argue, careful to keep your voice level.

"Yes...if I hurry." Ghost scooped you up, apologizing when you hiss in pain, and sprints to the infirmary. "Stay with me___. No don't close your eyes."

You wake up, alone, three days later. The doctors inform you that you almost bled out on the way there despite no major arteries being hit - your attempt to soothe Ghost nearly cost you your life.

Not that you minded. You you would do it again. If it meant saving him, and ultimately someone else from him. Price had his hands full trying to avoid disciplinary action for Ghost.

You tell him there will be none, you're fine, and Ghost didn't mean it. Ghost, who sat in Price's office pale, and obviously exhausted looked at you funny. You pat his shoulder and ask him to come speak to you later.

When he arrives in your room sometime later you tell him to lay down. He does, confused, wondering if this is his punishment. You curl up next to him, your left arm draped carefully over him.

"Sleep, you need it."

"I don't want to hur-"

"You won't." You assure him. "You didn't before."

He snorts angrily gesturing at your bandaged shoulder.

"You want to make it up to me?" He nods. "Shut up and sleep. You need it, I need it, we'll deal with the rest later."

[bobbyfiend]

Boycott the system vs Change from within

First, I generally don't judge people for saying "fuck it" and resigning or boycotting in protest of a corrupt or ineffective system. That's a choice. Another choice is to continue working within the system, pushing for change.

I have a very close friend who works in the government of a state. She's on important (though generally invisible to the public) committees dealing with juvenile justice, racial disparities, treatment of marginalized populations, and intersections of those. She cares very much about what she does, she has deep education (and constant self-motivated ongoing education) about these issues, and she even has the education to do committee/community/systemic work well. Frankly, she's pretty fucking awesome.

And she kind of wants to tear her hair out on a regular basis because she frequently feels like she's the only person who cares enough about the things the committees were formed for to seriously work for those things. She finds herself being scoffed at when she suggests reasonable things to reduce burdens on marginalized youth, increase social justice, or even just reduce state costs by way of making things better for vulnerable people. She has found reasonable social justice measures blocked by committee members and sometimes her superiors (though other superiors seem supportive, TBF). The appointed leaders of one or two of her committees seem so completely uninterested in achieving the committees' goals that they become the major impediments to accomplishing anything--e.g., by not showing up for meetings, consistently failing to do any prep or follow through on action items, etc.

One reason I'm not going to give more information about this friend--maybe I'll call her Petra--is that she's an anarchist. Like, serious, dyed-in-the-wool, fuck-the-system anarchist. She's not an anarchist because she likes chaos (because that's not anarchism, ofc); she's an anarchist because she doesn't believe our current systems--or governments in general--can solve our problems. She's a realist, as well, though, and a "hopeless hoper." She believes it's not a zero-sum situation; she believes positive change can still happen. Usually she believes this.

I think the most head-to-desk story I have from Petra is from a year or two ago, when she was in a group tasked with increasing social justice and reducing racial and ethnic disparities in youth contact with law enforcement. In other words, they were supposed to come up with policy recommendations to reduce the disproportionate number of nonwhite kids who get arrested. In one of the committee's meetings things went to a weird place, after months of very little being accomplished: Petra described a sense of horror as the conversation shifted--with thoughtful "wise nods" and "serious" supporting comments--toward a perfectly insane proposal: creating programs to train Black and other nonwhite youth to speak "more respectfully" to police officers. To reduce disparities. To promote social justice. This was the solution: to blame kids. Nobody listened as she explained that this didn't really address the problem in any meaningful way, amounted to victim blaming, etc. My face when she told me probably looked like hers, when it happened. What. The. Fuck. Yeah, this is why we can't have nice things.

So what is Petra doing in state government? Holding the damn line is what. But seriously, why? My answers, after knowing her a while, are (a) she had a very difficult adolescence, young adulthood, and later early adulthood in which state employment played a huge part (i.e., in paying rent and later tuition), (b) because she is good at it and she has the skills, and (c) because she sees opportunities to help.

About once every couple of weeks she says she's sick of this shit and she's moving to Europe. This is a 100% credible threat: she has made huge, life-changing decisions many times in the past and followed through on them. Plus, she knows people in Europe who would put her up for a few months. I feel her frustration. I also feel it when she says she can't call herself a true anarchist (I think she's calling herself a hypocrite) because she works for the government. I understand those points. I really do. I also don't want her to fuck off to Europe, because she's awesome and she'd be across the world from me. Who would tell me of the petty insanity of state government work? And I don't want her to, because I think she is doing excellent, necessary work, and I shudder to think of who would take her place.

Would her replacement spend hours of their free time on a regular basis reading up on research and current events so they could make the most informed decisions possible? Would they spend days or weeks or months cultivating relationships in government and community agencies so that positive change was more likely when it was proposed? Would they actually fucking care about anything beyond angling for a promotion or reducing their workload?

I will 100% respect her decision if she rage-quits her job. But I will be really sad if that happens, and I am convinced there are a lot of people whose lives will be worse for it, in the years to come.

In my experience (limited) and reports from people I know (less limited), state governments in the US are not just a bunch of zombie drones, status-hungry climbers, etc. There are many people in these governments doing earnest, sincere work for principles they believe in. Hell, I think the only reason we have even a semi-functioning democracy (or federal government at all) after four years of Trump is because the "bureaucats" held the line in whatever ways they could. I also believe there are enough soul-dead, cynical, or status-hungry people in state governments to fuck things up. I think state governments can probably be seen as a constant, slowly-churning fight between these kinds of elements. I think we need people like Petra, and we'll be worse off if they get so sick of the shit that they leave.