#whereas at least i fuckin know nyc

[emersonfreepress]

y'all wtf — I think I might actually be done with worldbuilding. like... anything else added at this point are essentially secondary and surface details... goddamn

[jupiterjunebug]

heyyyyyy you said to ask you bout them hcs about the councils war crimes.... and this is me..... asking away.... blease give me the hcs.... blease...

i was going to write like 200 words but here I am. here i am with a 1.5k word fuckin. Essay with multiple citations. Under cut because I Apologize For Being Like This.

Alright buckle in motherfuckers it’s time for my long andprobably fuckin’ stupid waxing poetic abt the political ramifications ofsylvains current…everything.

“But the worse that things got in Sylvain, because of thehumans, the stricter their laws got. And today they got some pretty draconianlaws in effect governing who can and can’t live there. And the outcasts, wellthey don’t really got anywhere to go.” That’s Mama, in the third episode ofAmnesty, talking about how sylphs ended up at Amnesty in the first place.

We never get an answer as to what EXACTLY “draconian” means. @transagentstern theorizes it’s in the form of a one child policy (hence whydani’s on earth, she has a brother), someone else said it might be a form ofsubspecies racism, my person hc both joking and serious is everyone got ousted forshit like jaywalking and littering. Either way, we���re first introduced to thelaws of sylvain as “they’ll take any opportunity to throw someone off the boatif it means it sinks slower.”

Then we meet Janelle and Vincent, who are NICE, and we meetwoodbridge who’s an ass, and we meet Alexandra who thinks Aubrey should go die.Woodbridge and Alexandra both Don’t Like Humans, but Woodbridge is so goddamnforgettable I deadass forgot he was a character until I started reading ficwhere he got brought up, and Alexandra’s the “im eleven so shut the fuck up”meme and also never onscreen.

The ones onscreen are Janelle and Vincent! Who are nice!Janelle mentor-figures Aubrey despite not having time, and Vincent asks forDVDs of human shut cuz he likes them, and it’s all good. It’s all jokes.

They’ve got some pretty draconian laws in effect.

It would be easy to blame all those laws on Woodbridge, whohates humans, and whose title as “Minister of Preservation” could be taken as“guy in charge of this awful triage situation.” You could blame it on Alexandraor the past Interpreters, and say that whatever they’re interpreting boileddown to “tell all the people that snowboard without a license that they have toleave.” You could say that “today” doesn’t mean they passed the WORST of thelaws recently, but that 200 years ago the laws were shit and they just got MOREshit recently (I do say this, actually, more on that later). That would meanit’s not even the current ministers faults! I mean, except maybeeee Woodbridge cuzhe’s a ghost and his “business” to finish before passing on might deadass besitting at sylvains sickbed until it dies or a miracle cure comes in.

Even if they didn’t make all the laws, even if they didn’tmake ANY of the laws, they still enforce them. Vincent might have a good funconvo with Aubrey about Shrek, but he and Woodbridge and the Interpreter andHell probably Indrid when he was around to some degree, and Janelle who isn’tblameless even if she was too busy reading her books to really pay attention atthe trials. They all still enforce them.

Like I said, this is an awful triage situation. It’s hard,living on a planet that’s in its death throes. They have to do something to keep people alive as longas possible, even if they AND all of the people on sylvain KNOW that it’sfutile you can’t just give up. But, you know, establishing a dictatorship whereyou can get exiled for reasons Mama considers “draconian,” well that’s. That’skinda. It’s not QUITE a war crime, and I’m not sure how else they would’vesolved the issue, but that’s the backdrop of this situation. Sure, Janelle andVincent are nice, but they or one of vincent’s subordinates were probablypersonally responsible for jake coolice getting ousted from sylvain, or atleast they didn’t stop woodbridge from doing it.

OK so step one is “we’re kicking half of our population out,we need to do this, this is the lesser of two evils.” Step two is “where do wesend them?”

The only option other than Earth or execution that I canthink of would be The Corrupted Lands. Now, kneejerk reaction is Earth soundscomparatively awesome for the exiles, yeah? Death is death, and The CorruptedLands would be WORSE than death cuz you end up infected with the Quell and allthat junk. At least on Earth you don’t end up, like, losing your entirepersonality and goi-

Barclay: Anotherday or so and we’re gonna start losing the stuff that we know and love aboutour friends Dani and Jake and Moira and the whole team here. So, as quick aspossible would be better.

Ned: What do youmean “losing stuff”? Are they gonna start dyin’!?

Barclay:Eventually, but before that happens they’re gonna start going a little bit…well, I guess, feral is the word.

Wow thanks for that reminder, this convo from Amnesty ep. 10that just started playing in the room all by itself. That’s right! Sylphs thatdon’t have crystals (like Indrid does, and Barclay is shown holding in thefirst ep, and we know do SOMETHING bc Indrid’s fine and Barclay doesn’t includehimself when talking about ppl going feral. So either that or somethingsomething Indrid and Barclay aren’t sylphs that’d be a whole ‘nother hc post imstopping that here) spend days slowly losing their will to live, then becomeuncontrollably violent, and then die!

But that won’t happen and the council knows that becauseAmnesty Lodge exi-

“-And the outcasts, well they don’t really got anywhere togo.” Thanks Mama. The Lodge wasn’t built on Sylvain’s orders. Every gateprobably DOESN’T have a convenient hotspring that prevents people from losingtheir goddamn minds, because look at that phrasing. They don’t have anywhere togo. The Council had no PLAN for where the exiles would end up, and in Kepler itjust so happens somebody else decided to MAKE a plan.

Techniiiically, before Kepler all the sylphs that weren’tgiven crystals could’ve been executed or sent to the CL. But I don’t think so.And the reasons why the councilmight’ve chosen to send people to earth instead of the other two optionsdepends on your interpretation.

It could be that they didn’t like the idea of having toactually square up and kill people like big kids, so they decided to exilethem. It could be that, while the thought of someone going feral on earth mightSUCK, there’s a CHANCE exiles might stumble on someplace like Amnesty, whereasthe CL WILL make you bonkers, and not the Dr. Harris kind, 100% of the time.More pragmatically, they might’ve been worried about executed people turning upas ghosts, and people in the CL coming to attack the wall.

Or it could be, yanno. War crimes.

Woodbridge hates humans. Granted, it seems like he hateseveryone. But his introduction to the show is literally him looking at the PGand saying ���Hi, yes. I ensure the survival of our kind in the wake of yourworld’s countless ruthless assaults.” Alexandra’s not fond either, as herthoughts say: “I wish [Aubrey] would stop coming here. It’s her world’s faultthat Sylvain is dying in the first place.”

How recently did they start exiling people? Was it less thanthirty years? More than thirty years? I like to think it was more. In episode6, Dani says that her type of sylph gets a bad rap because some of her kind hasdrunk peoples’ blood to get more energy. The perception that vampires drinkblood has been around……….a long time.

Sure, that idea could’ve been around during/before theassault on sylvain when some dipshit sylphs just left of their own accord andthen decided to drink people for yolos. Or it could mean that people have beenexiled for a WHILE, and the fact that the laws got more “draconian” just meansMORE people have been exiled now.

A lot of non-violent cryptid sightings happening a long timeago could be chalked down to sylph that WEREN’T exiled goin’ and doin’ stuff,but killing someone to feed smacks of desperation OR being the sort of personthat hated humans so much that the first solution to “im hungry” was “im goingto eat a person.”

Either way. Picture this. Thirty-five years ago, the gate toKepler isn’t open. The gate to NYC is open.A sylph gets pushed out of it. There’s no springs, or if there is there’s noMama to guide them there. No Mama to help them fit in. They go feral in the middle of New York, or in the middleof where the gate before New York was, or the gate before that, or the gatebefore-

You get stories about monsters like the Jersey Devil,monsters that kill midwives and children. La Llorona, who drowns little kids,might look like Dani up close.

Sylvain is dying, and they’re at the rationing stage. TheCouncil has to know what happens tosylphs that don’t eat. The Councilhas to know they’re pushing people that might try to murder and eat humans intoa populated space. The Council has to know that they’re pushing people thatmight try to murder and eat humans into a space populated by a race thatdestroyed their planet.

Killing two birds with one stone.

[gopunksphilly-blog]

Welcome to the punks nirvana, welcome to the Bowery

“OUR NEXT STOP WILL BE PENN STATION,”…….the buzzing speaker crackles for the last time before our departure.  It’s been quite a trip from Trenton, so needless to say, all of the ‘Misfits’ are psyched to hear some maddening, skull crushing, hardcore acts at CBGB’s.  There were a multitude of emotions spent on the ride up, so we’re quite ready to get the spirits heightened and make sure our newbie member, Sammi, is prepped, but nothing can truly ready her for the chaos of CBGB’s on a hardcore punk night.

           Snatching our meager belongings, hustling rapidly from the stopped train, keeping our brisk pace through Penn Station, you can’t help notice the same story being played out in the Big Apple as well, where homeless lay everywhere, while the smell of piss and shit permeate the senses.

           “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, this shithole smells worse than CBGB’s bathrooms,” Dust blurts out to no one in particular.  I toss a Red in my mouth, lighting it up quickly. “Smoke em’ up, Misfits, at least it’ll kill some of the odor!”  

           Bathroom humor was definitely going to happen during this trip, because anyone who’s been to CBGB’s knows what the bathroom situation is like.  The toilets have no enclosures, filth and graffiti scar and scab the walls and if you have a smart ass friend at the urinal, or some fuck ass, drunken dick who wants to make life miserable, you may just end up with your boots getting pissed on.  In other words, it made for a great, memorable night at the ‘Cathedral of Punk.’

           Gem and I take the lead, running the gauntlet of night crawlers, pimps, hustlers and pushers, only stopping long enough to absorb the grand view of the sparkling Empire State Building looming above us. Spotting the friendly glow of the green globe above the stairs for the 34th Street Herald Square subway, we roar downstairs over the filth and trash to snag some tokens, take care of all the ‘Misfits’ fares to save time, get through the turnstiles in order to catch the next train to Broadway-Lafayette Street Station and jump into the subway car, laughing our asses off about how a crew of batshit crazy punks from Philly, its burbs’ and Trenton navigated the city without a hitch once again.  We’re only riding for a few minutes, but if you’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing the NYC subway system, it could be quite traumatic for the weak of spirit or stomach.

           Whereas the ‘Misfits’ may be looked upon in the confines of a suburban Philly SEPTA rail car as a menacing presence or a nuisance, in a New York City subway car, we’re nothing more than street freaks inhabiting some space.  Our Thursday night ride has accumulated its fair share of earlier rush hour litter, while graffiti covers its walls and windows from one end to the other.  It is chaos, despair and decadence; all of the elements which have spawned the birth of the punk movement.  What is an annoyance to most, is a punks’ feel for the new reality under the not so incredible Reagan Administration, evoking a sense of where we feel the future is heading for many Americans; a future of good jobs being lost, immeasurable poverty and a post-apocalyptic feel in many cities and industrial towns.  Don’t get too haughty, suburban America, because if this cycle continues, your demise will soon follow.

            A growing number of punks have become savvy to the realpolitik being peddled in America and none of us are buying into the “Morning in America” line of shit that a second rate actor, a former CIA head, and a carnivorous Wall Street tyrant have sold to the gullible masses.  

           Gem and I are personally disgusted at the amount of people from the 60’s, Anti-War Movement, who said never to trust anyone over thirty, though growing amounts of their numbers have become the Conservative, modern day pimps and scum whose mergers and acquisitions are tearing the country apart.   And as far as the Democrats go, fuck them too, since these limousine liberals have moved so far away from being a party of the people, like in the days of FDR, they should honestly be ashamed of themselves.

           There are those in the punk ranks who believe the system should be totally overturned in an anarchistic fashion to bring about true democracy.  There is a true, Orwellian feel about the future of America and many in the punk movement need an avenue to display their vitriol against it. CBGB’s has stood as a shining beacon for most of us, because it has given punk music a platform to demonstrate its disgust at the system through music.  On a more generic level, it also gives us a place to find commonality; a place where we can blow off some steam, have some enjoyment and not feel like we are the freaks, misfits or the rabble.  The hippies had their Woodstock, the punks have our CBGB’s.

           The subway car comes to a thumping, screeching halt as we pull into Broadway-Lafayette Station to the acrid smell of burning brakes pouring inside while we make our escape.  Gem torches up a Newp, sniffing the putrid, fetid air encircling us.  “Rome is burning, Robbs,” she says with a smirk.  “Sure as hell is, Gem.  Well, if we’re going to witness the fall of the Empire, no better place to do it from than CBGB’s.”

            Tattered jackets and filthy blankets adorn the sleeping homeless everywhere but our gang of twelve marches up the steps like a victorious army laying claim to our spoils…a place of pure debauchery, disorder and desolation to most, is now our place of solace.  Gem can’t help but laugh as I blaze up a Red and grin from ear to ear, the Punk Prince and his Punk Princess, in their element and owning the night, as we walk down East Houston and after a few minutes, turn the corner, before I face the ‘Misfits’, raising my arms towards the night sky.  “Misfits, welcome to our nirvana.  Welcome to the Bowery!!!”

An excerpt from Rich Cucarese’s (that’s me!!) upcoming, literary fiction novel, ‘PUNKS’....Chapter 12, ‘All Hell’s Breaking Loose’

The sorrow of the 80′s in America...rampant homelessness....

Save CBGB’s ....one of the rare times, albeit unsuccessfully, that Americans protested to keep a music icon from closing....