#because we live in a boring dystopia now
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How Capitalism turned AI into something bad
AI "Art" sucks. AI "writing" sucks. Chat GPT sucks. All those fancy versions of "fancy predictive text" and "fancy predictive image generation" actually do suck a lot. Because they are bad at what they do - and they take jobs away from people, who would actually be good at them.
But at the same time I am also thinking about what kind of fucking dystopia we live in, that this had to turn out that way.
You know... I am an autistic guy, who has studied computer science for quite a while now. I have read a lot of papers and essays in my day about the development of AI and deep learning and what not. And I can tell you: There is stuff that AI is really good and helpful for.
Currently I am working a lot with the evaluation of satellite imagery and I can tell you: AI is making my job a ton easier. Sure, I could do that stuff manually, but it would be very boring and mind numbing. So, yeah, preprocessing the images with AI so that I just gotta look over the results the AI put out and confirm them? Much easier. Even though at times it means that my workday looks like this: I get to work, start the process on 50GB worth of satellite data, and then go look at tumblr for the rest of the day or do university stuff.
But the thing is that... You know. Creative stuff is actually not boring, manial stuff where folks are happy to have the work taken off their hands. Creative work is among those jobs that a lot of people find fulfilling. But from the feeling of fulfillment you cannot eat. But now AI is being used to push down the money folks in creative jobs can make.
I think movie and TV writing is a great example. When AI puts out a script, that script is barely sensible. Yet, the folks who actually make something useful out of it get paid less than they would, if they did it on their own.
Sure, in the US the WGA made it clear that they would not work with studios doing something like that - but the US is not the whole world. And in other countries it will definitely happen.
And that... kinda sucks.
And of course even outside of creative fields... There is definitely jobs that are going to get replaced by automation and artificial intelligence.
The irony is that once upon a time folks like Keynes were like: "OMG, we will get there one day and it is going to be great, because a machine is going to do your work, and you are gonna get paid for it." But the reality obviously is that: "A machine is going to do the work and the CEO is going to get an even bigger bonus, while you sleep on the streets, where police will then violate you for being homeless."
You know, looking at this from the point of view of Solarpunk: I absolutely think that there is a place in a Solarpunk future for AI. Even for some creative AI. But all under the assumption that first we are going to erradicate fucking capitalism. Because this does not work together with capitalism. We need to get rid of capitalism first. And no, I do not know how to start.
#artificial intelligence#fuck ai art#fuck ai writing#fuck chatgpt#fuck midjourney#fuck capitalism#anti capitalism#solarpunk#lunarpunk#capitalism sucks#late stage capitalism
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No. 40 - Southwest Airlines
One of my most requested posts, it's time to cover a carrier anyone who's flown in the US is probably very familiar with. After all, Southwest has for decades been the largest low-cost carrier in the world by both revenue and fleet size (though IndiGo is coming for that title).
Southwest's history is longer and more substantial than many may think, a central figure in the genesis of what we now know as the low-cost carrier. But one thing I think a lot of people know is their livery.
A common theme on this blog is trends in airline liveries - in particular, the modern trend towards the minimalist, sterile, underdesigned, and above all generic. As an anecdotal example, someone who lives near Boston's Logan Airport, the 16th-busiest airport in the US and 30th-busiest in the world, served by every major US airline and every major international carrier from countries within 787 range, were they to watch the takeoffs and landings, would be treated to the following...menagerie.
Can you believe these planes fly for different and indeed unrelated airlines?
Safe to say from 5,000 feet below it's a challenge to tell these planes apart. Even taxiing past them you'd need to pay attention. If I forced someone to squint I'm not sure they could identify them properly. How about Southwest?
Bam.
Southwest Airlines was founded in an era that borders on incomprehensible to those of my age bracket. The United States is a nation united in grumbling about Spirit Airlines, and most of Europe is constantly cursing Ryanair under their breath, but it wasn't always like that. The fact of a united enemy at all is new in the US. Back before the 1978 Deregulation Act, it was so prohibitively expensive to operate interstate flights that most airlines just didn't. Interstate flights were left to giant full-service airlines like Delta and Eastern, while international flights were the domain of an even more elite few - Pan Am, TWA, Braniff, and National (no, not that National, the other one) while the scrappier little companies flew short hops for commuters.
One airline which emerged in this pre-deregulation era was Pacific Southwest Airlines, commonly abbreviated to PSA, an initially tiny airline operating in California. You may recognize them from my icon! PSA is one of the single most important airlines in history because it all but invented the idea of the low-cost carrier. Beyond that, they were a Fun Airline. And while they were flying their grinningbirds all over California something else brewed in the background.
image: SouthwestArchive
I have never before in my life seen such a profound pairing of undereye bags with the slicked-back hair and piercing blue eyes of a YA dystopia novel film adaptation villain, darting around to lock onto any sources of potential wealth ripe for acquisition.
In 1971 Southwest Airlines began operating flights. The company was actually incorporated in 1967 (as Air Southwest), the brainchild of then-lawyer Herb Kelleher (and two other people who nobody ever talks about because they're boring). They saw what PSA was doing and saw potential for the massive profits that could be gained from avoiding fees from operating interstate and charging drastically lower fees than the larger carriers. Unfortunately for them the larger carriers also realized this, and they were trapped for three years in lawsuit purgatory, with Braniff, Continental, and Trans-Texas Airways taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, who apparently declined to review it, recognizing that 'they have come up with an idea that will make them make more money and us make less money' is not a particularly powerful legal argument.
And with that little hurdle over Southwest was open for business! Though they weren't quite starting out as a single rented DC-3 Kelleher very closely modeled the airline after PSA, who seemed to be okay enough with it if them helping to train mechanics at the nascent airline was any indication. After all, at this point they were both intrastate airlines fundamentally unable to compete with each other - Southwest was staying put in Texas with no reason to think this would change anytime soon. They brought a bit of PSA to the state, like the low fares and the stewardesses in hot pants and go-go boots.
So what was their answer to the grinningbird?
The rare and deeply cursed Southwest 727.
The mustard rocket. It was called "desert gold" but I think we all know that this is mustard. At this point in history brightly colored airplanes weren't even unusual either, so it would have just been regular ugly instead of ostentatious. (I mean...I like this shade of mustard yellow, honest, but I recognize that most people think this is hideous.)
Southwest kept on Southwesting from there. These days, they're massive, and the most common response on my questionnaire for best airline experiences. No comment, as I've never flown with them. Highlights of their journey there include getting a federal amendment passed because they didn't want to relocate their hub from Love Field to Dallas-Fort Worth, getting sued for only hiring female flight attendants, having the first Black chief pilot of any major airline in the US, technically legal tax evasion measures, having to invent elaborate work-arounds for the restrictions placed on them which could have been avoided by just relocating to Fort Worth, absorbing a bunch of other airlines, being the launch customer for both the -300 and MAX 8 models of the Boeing 737, and making approximately a zillion dollars. In 1990 they absorbed Morris Air, a vacation charter airline which developed innovative cost-cutting measures like e-ticketing, including high-up positions on the Southwest corporate ladder for the founders...
image: conde nast traveller
Strange millionaires lurking in woods distributing model airplanes is no basis for an airline industry! ...scratch that, it does appear to be working.
...oh, for heaven's sake, there he is again. Yes, David Neeleman's cost-cutting acumen was indeed put to use at Southwest, meaning that between this and founding jetBlue he basically created low-cost carriers. I reluctantly tip my hat to the man. I would not be able to afford airline tickets without him. But he's just everywhere.
Here is my handwritten faMintly tree. Southwest is jetBlue's cousin once removed, do with that what you will. Anyway, let's hope I never have to add to this. (Not least because I already binned the piece of paper I wrote this out on.)
The turn of the century brought new things for Southwest! In 2000 they had their first major accident (a nonfatal runway overrun resulting in loss of the aircraft). Unrelatedly, in 2001 they released a new color scheme for their fleet, now several hundred strong and entirely composed of assorted models of Boeing 737.
The era of Canyon Blue had begun.
I mean, it's a statement. At this point a plane painted to look like a poisonous frog was in fact a pretty major statement. They were setting out to be an eyesore and I'm sure people were upset about this one, but to the modern eye it looks muted and unfinished. Still bluer than anything David Neeleman had made at that point, but not quite what we know today.
Okay. Yes. There we go.
This livery is meant to be the heart from their logo, the same one worn where the plane's heart might be if planes had hearts instead of air-conditioning systems, the colors unwrapped and deconstructed. And boy, is it almost violently colorful! It goes so far that it takes a minute to notice only three colors, plus white, are used in the entire livery. It's almost eyestraining, and I did have to turn the contrast down on my monitor while writing this because I'm fairly photosensitive. It's...less painful when pixels aren't involved.
So this is definitely one-of-a-kind. Well, it was. jetBlue has made choices recently. But this livery is definitely not one that gets lost in the crowd.
There's very little white or even silver on this airframe, in sharp contrast with...basically every airline. The rest of the livery is vivid and searing yellow and red, unusual shades in airlines, which tend to stick to slightly more muted schemes. And if you couldn't tell who they were by that, the big white billboard wordmark would let you know real quick. I think the white is a bit less legible than I'd like, but I'm not sure how to improve that without making it genuinely eyestrainy. At least it's large and visible, which is crucial for a low-cost carrier, instead of subtle and out of the way on the tail. That might work for an airline with a prestigious air, but that's not Southwest. Southwest is blue and yellow and red.
The main differences between the modern livery and Canyon Blue are in the placement of the logo and the colors used. Each shade is brightened significantly, which is why the once-garish Canyon Blue now looks pretty dusty in comparison. They entirely removed the blue from the tail, making it the airframe feel a little less like it's blue with accents and a little more like it's a circus tent. I do wish the yellow and red covered a bit more of the belly, but still...wow.
Some uses of Southwest Sans demonstrated.
The success of this design isn't by accident. Apparently, Southwest consulted no fewer than five design firms, and the font used for the livery and all their material (which I think looks totally fine) was actually commissioned from iconic foundry Monotype. A lot of airline liveries are designed in-house, and that can turn out fine, but Southwest clearly pulled out all the stops and it shows.
Southwest is a low-cost carrier, and this does affect the standards by which I judge their livery. They aren't here to be guided by legacy or decorum the way a flag carrier is - they're here to sell you a cheap ticket on an airline with funny cabin announcements. Circus tent with big lettering in a sea of Eurowhite? Nice, clean execution - I'd call that a job well done.
Grade: B
#tarmac fashion week#era: 2010s#era: 2020s#grade: b#region: north america#region: united states#low cost carriers#requests#southwest airlines#neelemanverse
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We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.
Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)
Ella Enchanted:
Literally just They Would Not Fucking Say That the whole time. Also wtf is up with the holding hands and singing with the ogres??? BOOK ELLA HELPED GET THEM KILLED
The movie completely missed the point of the book. The characters were changed, the plot was changed, the message was changed!! The book is a coming of age story that expands upon Cinderella, explaining all bizarre set ups on the story. Ella's autonomy is taken away from her constantly and it is a horrible struggle for her! In the movie, it is mostly treated as a joke. And we don't see Ella come up with creative ways to defy her curse, like she does in the book. The romance in the movie is a strange "not like other girls" story we see over and over again in movies. In the book, it is a friendship formed by two people who have a lack of control in their lives and become close friends who then fall in love after years of knowing each other. There are more reasons it was a bad adaptation but those are my main points of contention as of right now.
The book was subtle, witty and generally amazing. Ella is a strong character, the exploration of her grief over losing her mother takes up a good 1/3 of the book, all the characters are complex and interesting, and she and Prince Charmont are a romantic couple who actually like each other. Its messaging is about autonomy and strength of will, and its world is rich and interesting and well-built with all its magical creatures. Meanwhile, the movie strips out all of the complexities, completely changes the plot from Cinderella to Hamlet, makes Ella and Char a standard Bickering Romcom Couple, and makes its message more about "we all need to get along!" by making all the fantasy races boring and one-note. As a movie, it's...meh, but as an adaptation, THEY MURDERED MY GIRL!
Fahrenheit 451:
The attempt to modernize the story to include the internet really didn’t work. Neither did replacing the book people painstakingly preserving knowledge with dumb technobabble about rewriting a bird’s DNA to include the text of every book ever written. Worst of all was what they did to Clarisse McClellan; turning her from a blithe spirit who inspires Montag to be a better person into a traitor selling out the book people. They also aged her up to make her a love interest for Montag because of course they did.
Okay so I don't remember the plots that well since I only watched the movie once in middle school BUT I do remember how VISCERALLY ANGRY the movie made me feel. For one, they didn't stick to the plot of the book AT ALL. The movie killed the protag, Guy Montag, at the end, when he got to live and rebuild society in the book. In addition, there was a character, Clarisse McClellan, who was a teenage girl (and possibly a daughter figure to Montag) in the books, but then was aged up to be Montag's LOVE INTEREST in the movie, which felt incredibly gross to me. There are probably other things that I'm missing, but these are the two that I remember.
The original book is a perfect example of what happens when you suppress the written word. It focused less on the relationship with humans and technology and more on the freedom of press access. In a world only a few books are allowed, that would also mean only a few ideas would be.
Now I’m talking about the modern movie by HBO. The wife is gone, who stood as an amazing parallel to Guy Montag’s thoughts of her just being okay with living in her dystopia while Guy questioned it. The girl is now a love interested, while in the book she was there to help Montag explore his worldview more. Also, books was more about censorship than human’s relationship with technology. Yes there are themes of it. But the movie makes Montag into a social media star.
Speaking of Clarisse (the girl), she’s a traitor to the resistance in the movie, she tells Montag where the books of the old lady are. It’s the resistance against a world where free speech is limited. And the old lady goes “heres the code word” *sets herself on fire* while in the book after the books are set ablaze she just burns with them.
the books are also in the DNA of a bird.
Like what the fuck is this movie Fahrenheit 451 is an A-B type of story! If it ain’t broke. Don’t fix it
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So I saw Wish today and … Encanto is going to stay my favourite Disney movie for the foreseeable future.
But I want to talk about the wishes, because I've seen people on here saying that they're lame or vague or just silly. And I kind of agree with that, but I also think it's part of the point.
Take Sabino's wish. He wished to inspire people, apparently with his mandolin playing. We don't know if he wished this when he was 18 or whether he arrived in Rosas later in life and gave up his wish then. But given Magnifico and Amaya don't look very old, I'm guessing they are both older than they look thanks to sorcery, so they could have been ruling since before Sabino was 18. So for the rest of this post I'm going to assume that's the case.
So when Sabino was 18 the dearest wish of his heart was to inspire people with his mandolin playing. And then he gave this wish to Magnifico for safe keeping and forgot all about it. His mandolin's probably been gathering dust for the last 82 years.
Yes, this is an excessively vague wish. But the movie knows that. Magnifico says it: inspire them to do what? And although you can argue he shouldn't use this as a reason not to grant the wish, he's also not wrong.
And this kind of wish? It's the kind I think the creative team would have made themselves. Think about it: they work for Walt Disney Animation Studios, that world-renowned dream factory. I assume they're happy to be there and have passion for the work they do. If you'd asked them at age 18 what they wanted out of life, they'd probably have told you they wanted to be artists, animators, writers, composers ... that they wanted to make art (of some kind, maybe movies, maybe not) that entertained and inspired people. Now imagine someone taking those ambitions away from them, so that they forgot what they even wanted. Would they be making Disney movies now? No, they wouldn't have bothered going to film school or learning animation or whatever they did to get to where they are today. They'd be doing something far less interesting, probably. I imagine them imagining that kind of alternate life and seeing it as a nightmare.
The tragedy of the situation is not that Sabino never had his wish granted. (He still doesn't have it granted in the movie. He just gets to remember what it is.) The tragedy is that by giving it up and forgetting about it, he lost the chance to make it come true by his own efforts. He doesn't regain that chance for another 82 years. That's a long time to live directionless and lacking the drive to be what he once truly wanted. I wonder what he did in the meantime. We know very little about his life, and I do think that's a missed opportunity.
What we got instead was Simon. He's the only one of the teenage posse to be over 18. His friends know that giving his wish to Magnifico changed him, and not for the better. He's become boring (and perpetually sleepy, which might be a sign of depression stemming from his lack of direction in life). His friends don't seem to know what his wish was, but it's not clear whether he just never told them or whether Magnifico's magic made them forget as well. Simon is there to show us what it (theoretically) does to someone when they lose the memory of their wish. I say theoretically because the kingdom still seems to be functioning pretty well, and most people seem unaware of the negative side effects of forgetting one's wish ... but I suppose these things are necessary for the story to work.
This actually reminds me of Delirium by Lauren Oliver, a YA dystopia series where, on reaching adulthood, everyone has a surgical procedure that "cures" them of the ability to love. Afterwards they enter loveless arranged marriages, put in the work to bring up their children purely out of duty, and spend their working lives in jobs they have no passion for, assigned to them by the government. The only people who see anything wrong with this are those who haven't had the procedure yet, or on whom it didn't work. The protagonist is a girl who accepts the system until, not long before she's due to have the procedure, she falls in love. I never finished reading that series, but one thing I liked about it was how it made the effort to show what a society without love could look like and how it could work. Wish could have done with more of that sort of thing.
The woman who has her wish granted? She wants to make the finest clothes in all of Rosas. Since she's going to make them herself, I'm not sure what will make them the finest; does her talent get a magical boost? Isn't that cheating? What's the point of being the best at something if you're not the one doing it? So yeah, I think that wasn't particularly well thought out. They had to show it happening once so we could see what it looked like, but they probably could have picked a better example. (In Encanto, they similarly had to show what it looks like when a child gets a gift the way Mirabel didn't. But they picked a good example: Antonio, who gets the gift of speech with animals, plus a magical room that's a forest full of animals, and who loves this, and immediately makes friends with a bunch of animals who hang out with him for most of the rest of the movie, and spends his time trying to use his gift in ways that might help people, including in ways that affect the plot. For example, his gift is the reason why the rats can rat out Bruno.)
Remember, the wishes don't all get granted at the end. Mainly, people get their wishes returned to them, so they can remember what they were and do their best to make them come true, if they still want to and still can. The queen doesn't grant that woman's wish to fly, but she does introduce her to a man who dreams of building flying machines.
And so what if they're the dorky wishes of teenagers? That's also part of the point. Without their wishes, everyone's development is arrested.
I could complain about how someone really should have seen the problem with this before Asha did, but I need to get off the internet and have dinner. This post is already longer and ramblier than I intended, but never mind; right now I wish for some food, and I'd better make it happen and not forget about it.
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Castehate - By Natsuno Yuzo (7/10)
Omegaverse. It's a dirty word, but sometimes authors do get creative with it. This one is weird. It takes place is a world where everybody has animal ears! The carnivores are cannibals and polygamy is normal and classmates in school eat each other constantly. Yeah.
The author for sure has a fetish for cannibalism.
I'm serious if you can't handle graphic cannibalistic lust do not read this. One character almost eats a baby.
Rurikawa is a wolf alpha who thinks of Betas (weaker animal hybrids) as food. He literally eats a student in his "school" once every two months or so. He can eat regular food, but he actually genuinely has to eat people to live. All Alphas do. His "school" isn't really a school. Alphas live unnaturally long lives. It's more like a residence where they do take classes, learn new things, and find mates.
Rurikawa comes from an ancient wolf family. His father thinks the heir should have a mate from a rare species. "Rare species" hybrids can have lots of kids.
Rurikawa's best buddy, Tsukuyomi, is clearly a rare species. He thinks he's a alpha, for some reason, even though he doesn't behave like one. Tsukuyomi is a snake with actual hearts on his tail. Tsukuyomi has actually given birth to lots of kids already. He wants to find a fated partner, but his partners always leave him to raise the children. Here's where it gets confusing. Lower ranked children age faster. That's another reason why Alphas see them as animals. There's a side chapter that shows Tsukuyomi has grandkids, and he has outlived several generations of children. He has never found love....but he's been living with Rurikawa for most of his life. Rurikawa is obviously his true love, but Rurikawa's true love is a terrifying monster.
Kyogo was born an ugly monster, but he managed to eat a dying alpha. That trigged an evolution. Now he's insanely attractive to Alphas, which is convenient because he needs to eat them to live. Rurikawa immediately falls in love with him.
Kyogo loves Tsukuyomi though. Plot twist. Yeah. Kyogo is the only monster around who isn't a moron. He knows Tsukuyomi is a rare species. He tracked Tsukuyomi's scent, and came for him specifically. He also catches feelings for Rurikawa, and they kinda become a polygamous couple....
Kinda...
Rurikawa is romantically in love with Kyogo. Tsukuyomi loves Rurikawa, but they're all attracted to each other. Their society is poly anyway there's no real problem here.
Kyogo tests Rurikawa. He says he'll have a baby with him...if he brings Tsukuyomi. He says he's going to eat Tsukuyomi. Rurikawa protects Tsukuyomi instead. He also says he will willingly feed Kyogo any other Alpha, just not Tsukuyomi. Anyway, Kyogo gets jealous. This is when he catches feelings for Rurikawa. He wants Tsukuyomi, but Rurikawa isn't afraid of his true form. By volume two Kyogo likes both of them.
Tsukuyomi is basically willing to put up with anything for Rurikawa so... hooray?
The sex parts of this are so rough that they kinda just look like more cannibalism. Why am I reading this? Well, the author tried. I respect the hustle. I do. The art is good, and you can't find anything else like this. All of the toxic feelings! The blatantly evil cannibal Alphas? The possessive love connected to eating?! The tragic lack of humanity the characters have because of their long lives and instincts?! This world kinda feels like a dystopia...ding ding we have a winner. It is! Everybody is obsessed with breeding because humanity died off. The only survivors are the most violent human/animal hybrids. Crazy stuff. Kyogo and Rurikawa aren't just boring possessive dudes. They're being controlled by their DNA and an alien society that no regular human could hope to survive in.
Ok.
Duh.
The rare species reveal was kinda funny. Like it's obvious. Kyogo confesses to Tsukuyomi again, and Tsukuyomi kinda warms up to him, but he so clearly just loves Rurikawa. Kyogo is a hungry monster. Rurikawa is a dutiful but DENSE Alpha who loves that monster. Being Tsukuyomi sucks, but he's safe. In this violent world he has two protectors. Kyogo is freakishly powerful, but he needs alot of live meat. Tsukuyomi and Rurikawa start feeding him normal food. It's implied that Kyogo is willing to settle down with them and give up some of his monster powers.
Yay?
Kyogo claims that his mutated body will die without Alpha meat, but it kinda gets glossed over. I know this is yaoi. I know I'm kinda not supposed to care, but I care more about the hybrid apocalypse setting. The poly romance is ok, ok? It's not that bad. Rurikawa and Kyogo both have sincere moments with Tsukuyomi. Kyogo is most definitely Tsukuyomi's stalker though. Also he might only love Tsukuyomi because of his smell...no...when they start interacting Kyogo thinks he's sweet. Maybe I just don't like Kyogo haha...
When the story begins we think Kyogo is the rare one. That was an ok plot twist. When Kyogo started eating Alphas it was genuinely shocking. All of the text about inheritance, breeding, stalking, cannibalism, death and the apocalypse is nearly impossible to follow. Read this if you want to see how weird Omegaverse can get. Is it good? No.
Is it boring?
No.
#yandere#male yandere#yandere male#yandere boy#recommendations#recs#rec#recommended#yaoi#Castehate#body horror#werewolves#monster guy
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Tell me about security, Makoto. This is going to be useful information, I'm sure.
Right, you were telling me that before. This is the front chamber. We can just sorta walk in, and from here we can use this intercom to buzz Huesca, for business purposes or to irritate him for fun.
Fascinated by the couches on either side of the room. What possible function could this room serve that necessitates cushy reclining opportunities? If anything, I'd think they make it easier to hang out for a bit and wait for Huesca to come out so you can harass him in person.
Is that why he stopped leaving the lab?
Okay, but why tho.
No, I get that. You go through the door and the deadly killing machines turn you into swiss cheese. Huesca was clear on that point.
But. Like. Why not lock it anyway? What's being accomplished by not locking it? You said Huesca hasn't left the lab in months so it's not like it'd inconvenience him to lock the door. What's the purpose of leaving it unlocked?
Did your evil lab architect accidentally forget to put a lock on this door? So now the deadly trap chambers are the Villain Lair Design equivalent of brushing yourself off from a faceplant and going, "I, uh, I meant to do that."
Went so hard on designing the three deadly trap rooms that one of them isn't actually a trap at all; It's just there to insulate the rest of the lab from the fucking traps.
Y'all know there are a copious amount of deadly traps that don't get bored and wander? This seems like an unnecessary risk to take.
Weird judgment call to make. Any intruder that manages to penetrate this deep into y'all's business is worth interrogating. Can't interrogate a corpse. Huesca seems more concerned with weird spite than his own self-interest.
...given our brief conversation with the man, that checks out.
So you'd need to go full scuba to get past the gas. Can't trust a filter; You need a fully-sealed oxygen supply.
And not just the mask; We're talking full diving suit. Big goofy helmet and everything.
*snaps fingers* I've got it. Shachi killed Dr. Huesca. Case solved. :P
So. It's. Like. Most gases, then. I guess that can be considered a failure, sure. Huesca's in there kicking himself for not managing to create gas that retains its shape indefinitely.
Which means a Person of Interest could be killed by this room but still go on to do things that will affect the case before they go. We need to keep that in mind.
The hell does that mean? What kind of offensive capabilities does a room full of death deep in your facility offer? Do you hand out invitations to political enemies like, "Hey, come get state secrets, they're in this one specific room! It's going to be left conspicuously unguarded because it's Yomi's birthday and everyone's off celebrating! Now's your chance!"
What kind of hideous Resident Evil dystopia is poor Fuckboy working in? Even though the lab is guarded by the ultra-deadly super-gas emitters, you still have to play laser Simon to even enter the lab.
Why is the keypad the floor? That's so obnoxious. This hallway was designed by rich assholes with no concern for the employees that would have to work here.
...so, Amaterasu, basically. That checks out.
Which means there's no password reset if he forgot it. Maybe that's why he never leaves the lab anymore. If he admits that he should have written it down somewhere, he'll lose the bet and have to pay Yomi 3,000 shien.
Definitely safer to stay in the lab forever and normalize shitting down the garbage chute. It goes straight to the incinerator; It's fine. Huesca lives here now.
He's lying to you. He wants to kill intruders for funsies. Severity of punishment doesn't act as a deterrent; Likelihood of getting caught does. As much as I hate to give Yomi credit for anything, the officers patrolling the halls are doing more to deter intrusion than a secret gas chamber they wouldn't even know about until it's too late.
Huesca is one of those guys who buys a semiautomatic rifle and the highest caliber ammunition he can find "for home defense", then gets excited and breaks out his gun every time the house creaks. He'll swear up and down that it's for self-defense, but the way he gets that gleam in his eye when he talks a little too-enthusiastically about the kind of damage his weapon can do is a bit unsettling, isn't it?
I just assumed. It'd be a pretty shitty deathtrap if the gas chamber's activation immediately flooded Huesca's lab and killed him dead on the spot.
Do you have to clear all nine? Like, step on every panel, but in a specific order? Because if so, there's a very finite number of combinations that are possible.
Oh my god he has a bathroom with a washing machine and everything. I thought I was joking but no, he really did move in permanently.
Well that's anticlimactic. So this lab is immensely lethally secure but only so long as there's someone in it. If the doc steps out for five minutes, you can walk right on in and wait for him.
Maybe that's why he stopped leaving. He realized that the security features only protect the lab when he's inside of it; A fatal error in its design that he doesn't want to own up to.
And there we have the answer to the mystery of the couches. They are, in fact, for lounging around and waiting for Huesca to come out so you can harass him with nonsense. A favored pastime of Makoto's.
Look at how this couch is perfectly sized to his exact proportions. This is Makoto's Harassing Couch.
So he was told to stop working on something, so naturally he sealed himself in his lab and worked tirelessly as you do when you quit a project. That's what you're going with, Makoto?
Come on, man. You're not this stupid. Well, at least we now have the full details, so we can--
Deal with whatever this asshole's on about now. What's up, man? Did you finally remember you were supposed to have me buried in the backlot behind the office? Too late now, I've already met your fancy researcher. We're friends now.
You can go ahead and ask him but you'll have to phrase it in ten words or less. Given how much you love the sound of your own voice, I'm not sure if that's something you're capable of.
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Where do you see the Cullens in one hundred years, assuming things continue to progress with social media, surveillance, etc.? What about vampire-kind in general? Will the Volturi try to enslave humanity or just go deeper underground?
They’re probably going to be forced to live in much more isolation, which is depressing to think about. I think Carlisle would make a miserable housemate if he can’t do meaningful work. I think the reason he comes off as so much more well-adjusted than Edward is because he does have his work and finds peace and purpose there. If he’s stuck living in some secluded house in the woods with minimal human contact and NO doctoring, he’s going to be bored and frustrated and probably annoying to be around. I don’t know if the others would care that much, tbh. It seems like the “be part of human society!!!!” stuff is mostly a Carlisle thing that they go along with but none of the rest of them put any actual effort into.
But maybe the Volturi do the math and realize that vampires can’t stay secret forever with this level of surveillance and everyone having a device in their pocket that can capture video and upload it to the internet in seconds, and decide that it’s better to control the story themselves. I imagine in the past they had alliances or at least agreements with human governments (”We’ll leave you alone if you leave us alone/don’t investigate disappearance/provide us prisoners to eat/whatever”) and they might do that again. Or they might just go public. Aro’s worried about nuclear weapons but they are just incredibly impractical for destroying a few hundred (a few thousand?) vampires who are scattered all over the world.
if Covid has taught me anything, it’s that humans get used to scary stuff pretty quickly and just want things to go back to ‘normal.’ 3 years ago this would have been impossible for me to imagine, but now I could see a world in which humans know vampires are out there and we’re horrified and terrified for like a month and then it’s just like “eh the odds of being killed by a vampire are pretty low, and I want my Starbucks” and we just accept it as a risk and go back to our daily lives. Once in while you hear about a friend of a friend being killed by a vampire and you just go, “aww man that sucks,” and go back to your day.
But that’s assuming that vampires don’t just take over all the governments of the world and start farming humans as a blood supply, which would be a whole different ball game and you’d have some GrimDark dystopia with Carlisle volunteering his medical services to the human resistance who are super skeptical of him and the rest of the Cullens being like “well I guess we’ll help the humans, too?” “It’s more fun than high school at least?”
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Ever start writing a thing and you realize you craft world building better then actually writing the like book of it all. Hi it’s me that’s me.
So uhhh have some of my weird vampire story world points. I have 2 chapters? Sure we’ll say 2 chapters. Written and I am just sort of messing with the story as I go.
Beyond vampire book I have a whole Dystopian world I mapped out with cities and a basic layout. A future dystopia world based in a color power system, that one isn’t as fleshed out beyond what the color system is. But uh here have the vampire hierarchy of the vampire world. With faces of celebrities that i feel fit the sort of look? Who i saw in my head? There’s more but like these are who I found first.
Im tagging Joseph Quinn and Jamie Campbell bower because they are face references for things so. It’s under a read more just scroll if ya don’t wanna be fucked with my stupid ass.
Also tagged my friendos and others who may enjoy this. :D
So the purgers are based on the vampires from 30 days of night meets the hydra super soldiers bucky talks about in civil war. Like the ones who can take our whole cities in a night. Yeah think them.
(The next are just job titles or hierarchy placements, mother and father hit the same in the ladder of the vampire world. Men can be ‘the mother’ women can be ‘the father’ NB are the same as ‘ya just end up in a job title’ and no one really calls themselves by there title it’s just a job name in the hierarchy)
The mothers: charismatic, very off putting caretakers of ‘the selected’ they have jobs in the other worlds of the vampires and men can be classified as ‘mothers’ just depends on how the vampire change hits them.
The fathers: same as the mothers but they tend to have jobs outside of the houses that the selected stay in. Some are allocators, some are food runners. And some work at those fun boring admin jobs. Again women can be fathers. It’s just a job title. Again depends on what happens when you finish the vampire change.
The leaders: you know the capitol from the hunger games? Yeah think that but vampire. The features are almost alien like, in a ‘did you have this face before you changed or did it happen after’ they are the leaders, the rulers, the ones who picked who is selected, the ones who control the purgers and the ones who you don’t wanna meet face to face cause you ain’t coming out of that meeting.
Yes the face claims? Include Julia fox and Madonna (circa her now where her face is just her face now) because they have that capital leader look. And tilda swinton has the ‘oh you were a LOTR elf in another life’ and Lawrence fishbern has a voice that just ‘yeah vampire leader’ don’t ask me why.
The selected: the MC of the story and thousands of others chosen by the vampire leaders for one reason or another, they live in complete isolation in basements or similar dark, underground almost rooms, for the 6 month long change. In that time, your teeth rot and fall out of your head, they grow back to be strong enough to rip a throat out along with other things, your nails get real strong, and for those 6 months you basically are alone, secluded, and get a cup of blood a day. It’s not fun but it could be worse.
Also for those 6 months the fun vampire tropes we love, aka can’t see yourself in mirrors, silver burns you, garlic is bad, that kind of thing. Yeah that happens and it’s not bad it’s just ‘why is vampire biology so fucking weird’
Uhhhhh yeah. Idk if you want to ask me things on the world I will happily tell you. But also, it’s my brain goo coming out like ‘sup’ so ya know trademark don’t steal my idea yada yada.
@quinnsbower @furmicl @breanime @naturallytom @hotstuffhargrove @stranger-nightmare
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okay hear me out:
It was recently brought up between friends that dementors probably can’t destroy horcruxes (so they said), but I countered that they could possibly destroy a horcrux housed in a living being, right?
Except if the horcrux is bound to the container aka the body, the body would still be alive because the dementor’s kiss doesn’t kill people, yes?
So theoretically, the horcrux-soul might be able to take over with no native consciousness to oppose them
basically what I’m proposing is an au (most likely crack-y but maybe dystopia, idk) in which Harry’s soul is eaten circa PoA and the rest of the story is horcrux Voldemort trying to pretend he is Harry.
Of course Voldemort is kinda obsessed with himself, so Horcrux-Voldemort-Harry is probably obsessed with Prime Voldemort. Thus, we have a scenario where Horcrux-Voldemort-Harry tries to gain a following. Publicly, this is justified as “opposing Voldemort,” and privately Voldemort 2.0 is planning to hand over an army to Prime Voldemort, except Voldemort fundamentally cannot deal with anyone competing with him, so Voldy 2.0 can’t actually be loyal to Voldy Prime, and maybe is lying to himself and denying that he actually wants to beat Voldy Prime and win over his followers.
A few possible ways this might go: Serious dystopia that is interested in how the main characters may be corrupted: Voldy 2 is able to defeat Voldy Prime and maybe consume him, but in the process of winning over the “good” side, the defeat of actual Voldemort does nothing to salvage the messed-up society.
For a serious, non-cracky version that’s not a full-on dystopia, Voldy-as-Harry turns into a better person in the process of masquerading as Harry (because he’s cared for by others and maybe influenced by Harry’s goodness) and then has the whole “remorse” thing and is able to re-unite with Voldy-prime somehow (and then it turns out Harry’s soul wasn’t fully consumed by the dementor because it was anchored to the Horcrux, and so when Voldy reunites, Harry is back too. Happy ending!)
Crackfic version probably ends up with both Voldemorts developing distinct consciousnesses and then being re-combined (possibly into Harry, who is probably still in there and learning how to take control), and then possibly exorcised into a container together where they mostly yell at each other and maybe end up in therapy (the therapist specializes in ghosts and helping them move on. She’s considering expanding her clientele to include portraits). The exorcised Voldies are not ghosts but can be a really annoying object by bouncing around at odd hours and making weird noises. they end up in the troll’s leg umbrella stand, actually. There, they squabble pettily and reluctantly work out their issues with the ghost therapist because they’re bored and it’s nice to get dunked in a pensieve every now and then and get a break from the other. bonus points if she is a reformed poltergeist).
#au#crackfic#voldemort#dementors#look i'm never gonna write any of this but feel free if this inspires anyone
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2022/07/23 English
It was a very crisp morning today. Ah, though I always write this, such a crisp day brings me the memory of my young drunken days. I can't drive any cars, so at that time I could go nowhere even if it was a day off, and I just drank a lot of cheap liquors because I had no money and was bored. Yes, I just drank and slept all day... Ah, I even wished I could die by alcohol. Now I can live with a sober mind and Pat Metheny's music. This ordinary fact has certain happiness for me.
I read Yoko Tawada's "The Emissary". I can always feel from her works certainly funny and thrilling humor (or charm). But "The Emissary" brought me a nostalgic touch. I even thought that I had seen this scenery somewhere in Japan. I exactly watched a touch of 'now' at the scene elder people help young people's life paradoxically. This is the brief story of we Japanese, who had to experience 3.11 and corona. In this way, it might be one of the most 'vivid' novels now. Yes, this is exactly a dystopia.
At the closed group that I am a member of and talk about autism, a friend sent us a LINE message. She said that we are connected because we all are thinking 'we should support ourselves independently'. Exactly I might learn the principle of self-determination and self-responsibility. In the end, I should decide at the ultimate moment... The principle of self-help...caring for myself and deciding forward. But it is possible because true friendship or human relationship works as a safety net. This group is exactly such a great safety net. I'm feeling thankful for that.
Because of "The Emissary", I want to read her essay "Exophony". And also I want to write various memos of the notices I am getting by the process of expressing myself in English on Discord and WhatsApp. Once, a friend had said to me "Do you use any foreign language?" and I had said, "No way, I have never studied abroad". At that time, I couldn't imagine that I could express something in English like now. Ah, things change like this.
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Big Mouth S4E6: Nick Starr
#nick starr#nick birch#big mouth#big mouth season 4#opening credits#i love when they play with them#andrew glouberman#maya rudolph#jordan peele#did yall realize jordan peele voices luda and missy's dad?#i just found that out#also#chelsea peretti#plays monica missy's mom#but was it a#dystopia#or a#heterotopia#because we live in a boring dystopia now
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a thing about your headcanons that really intrigues me is that, much as Knuckles seems to have originally been done as a contrast or rival to Sonic back in the Genesis days, your take on them has a opposite approach to the responsibility they feel, but done in opposite ways. Sonic runs from responsibility and doesn't want to think about it, while Knuckles feels guilty about NOT being responsible to an extreme, and since people don't often deal with how they're similar, i really like this
Honestly, this is a thread that is not exclusive to Sonic and Knuckles, but actually ties in heavily to a major theme I'm considering and working in Worlds AU.
Basically, "freedom" has always at least nominally been a theme associated with Sonic. It's in his motifs, it's in his attitudes, it's the quality that people tend to envy when they compare themselves to him- whether that's Knuckles who feels bound by fate and obligation, Tails who feels like he might not be enough or can only keep up, Amy who dreads the drudgery of her ordinary life by comparison. Hell, one could say it's even in the many one-off characters who are introduced with Sonic blowing into their life, changing things, inspiring them to grow, and then leaving- Elise, Merlina, Chris Thorndyke, Chip, Shahra.
But it's a theme that's kind of been weakened in the direction that the games took.
In Sonic SatAM, the concept of freedom vs. tyranny was rife in the setting. Robotnik had his boot down on 90% of the world and the remaining pockets are either actively dwindling, or struggling along as best they can through limited resources. All characters are- at any time- in danger of losing specifically their freedom; not their minds, but control of their bodies. And it's a compelling hook.
But the gameverse has very long not been that, and since Sonic Adventure, the world of the games has been very metropolitan. There's a bunch of cities and countries and everybody's going about their daily lives and Eggman's still a wannabe conqueror but he's now become abstracted, a supervillain, who might have this big scheme or that, but- basically until Sonic Forces- we have never had Eggman really decisively in control. And in his absence, there are not really ever any consistent or clear threats to freedom except that, yeah, we guess if we let someone like Solaris or Perfect Chaos or Black Doom run wild long enough that would kill people and then nobody would be free, but... that's an abstract and inelegant way to speak to one of your main center themes.
(and I personally don't like Forces basically trying to reinstate- even if temporarily- the SatAM status quo, even if I think some people like the IDW comics have done interesting things with that, but that's my personal relationship with the character of gameverse Eggman and how I view him distinctly from SatAM Robotnik, as absolutely iconic as the latter is)
I don't think you need an encroaching dystopia per se to make a meaningful discussion out of freedom- I think using the modern gameverse's more colorful, populated world opens up a lot of possibilities for that. So, a major thematic thing I've landed on is that abject tyranny- while the easiest 'threat to freedom' to scan and oppose- and an important one!- is not remotely the only thing that challenges freedom.
A big thing is responsibility.
Responsibility is the thing that most of us sacrifice our freedom to on a daily basis. That may sound dramatic, but it's true; we may have other reasons for it, but we don't just run off somewhere else or go have an adventure or leave our job because we feel responsible to things. And responsibility isn't a bad thing- it's good to feel reliable or trustworthy. If you enjoy your job or your coworkers, you want to do well at it. Having a house is a responsibility, we take care of them. Having a relationship of any kind is a responsibility; so is having kids. If none of us were ever responsible, society would fall apart and we'd all live lonely lives. Moreover, we'd have very little power- ironically a lack of responsibility can lead to a lack of freedom in some regards.
But also, it's very easy to give too much of yourself away and not have any left. I mentioned before that many characters are consistently depicted, across many continuities, idealizing Sonic- because Sonic's free! Sonic doesn't buy groceries or pay taxes or do boring stuff, he certainly isn't stuck in a frustrating or isolating situation, and this can even tie into one of Sonic's major themes- he refuses to be talked into accepting lesser evils.
In Sonic and the Black Knight, Merlina tries to explain to him why she's using Excalibur's scabbard- why she's doing bad things, trying to justify it that she can't just let the kingdom end, even if that means needing to twist it into a horrible place to live- to which she at one point, in frustration, asks if Sonic understands, to which he responds, "No, and I don't want to."
While it's not exactly a perfect moral stance (those don't exist), there is something to be said powerfully for the idea that Sonic as a person has a certain rejection of responsibility as a chain to let bad things happen. He rejects loyalty to a thing that drives you into cruelty.
And this is really interesting, when we consider- specifically in the very first game that featured Shadow and featured him explicitly as a dark antithesis to Sonic- that is exactly what happens to Shadow.
Shadow is not, by default, an amoral person. Pre-trauma, we see that he doesn't want to hurt others, and frankly, as much as "ow the edge" circles (and is somewhat warranted), we can often see that he's standoffish but fairly civil; someone who is dealing with a lot of stresses and problems, but doesn't often relish hurting others unless he's already desperate, frustrated, or looking for an outlet or solution. And in adventure 2, Shadow is led into nearly ending the planet on account of loyalty; to the idea of Maria, to what he believes she asked him to do (and what he believes is owed to the people who killed her)
It's kind of conspicuous that if you think about it, most of Shadow's arcs in various games that focused on him are about questions of what's owed- to him, or to the world. Does he owe a debt to Eggman? Rouge? Black Doom? Gerald? Maria? Does the world owe him a debt of anger and pain to be paid back in vengeance, or, is he the one who owes the world a chance? Does he owe himself a chance? These are questions of Responsibility.
So to bring this back to Sonic and Knuckles, I think that's an interesting context to set them apart, because both of those two definitely have a special relationship with the Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles is the guardian of the shrine that doesn't just have positions for the Master Emerald, but all seven smaller ones as well; and Sonic... well, Sonic consistently and regularly does stuff with the chaos emeralds nobody else does. He transfers super forms to other people, or even awakens them in people who haven't done it before (as implied with Burning Blaze in Sonic Rush). And at least according to Sonic 3&K, his arrival (?) was foretold.
But Sonic... does not feel responsible about the chaos emeralds. If something's happening with them he wants to know but it's about curiosity. When the chaos emeralds are corrupted, tarnished, and lose power, Sonic... juggles them, while he's confused about his own (related) corruption. It's weird, it's concerning, but it's not an obligation. He gets distracted buying ice cream in the same scene.
By contrast, the only time Knuckles feels confident shattering the Master Emerald, it's as an obligation- he has to protect it from Eggman even if it creates more work for himself, and he later freaks out and nearly crashes the shuttle he and others are on when a near-miss scatters the master emerald pieces he's collected across the ARK. I can only imagine half of the plot of Sonic Unleashed would've given Knuckles an ulcer if he'd been around for it. You did what to the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic????
Basically, I think while freedom vs. tyranny is definitely Sonic's brand, you can have a lot more fun and shore up the thematic strength by also factoring in "responsibility" as a secondary theme and this strengthens or illuminates many characters and their arcs.
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Dystopian Larry Fic Rec
Inspired by some of the lovely people and fic recers on here, I’ve decided to start making my own fic recs. If you’d like, you can request recs in my inbox and I’ll see what I can do <3!
Please read the ratings and tags to these fics (because some of them are dark or have dark themes) and enjoy!
You Try To Be Everything (I Need) by lululawrence - @lululawrence (NR, 36k)
Wars, and rumours of wars, were nothing new for the world in the twenty-fourth century. The fighting had evolved over the years, and rarely did it involve traditional weapons. A group most widely known as the Southern Powers gained strength amongst portions of the western European continent and spread quickly.
There was a fight the Southern Powers didn’t expect coming from the north of England, though. Resistance came in the form of an organised underground; a group comprised of people with the Touch that did the best they could to enforce a line that would not be crossed. Slowly, that line was moved from the Channel to boundaries further and further north. It seemed only a matter of time before the Southern Powers took over everywhere.
Until that time, people did the best they could to live their lives in some semblance of normality. For Louis Tomlinson, that sense of normality was about to change when his best friend, Harry Styles, goes missing.
Louis embarks on the journey of a lifetime where he uses his newly developed abilities to search for his friend, even when it takes him to places he never thought he would see while surmounting trials he never could have imagined.
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I loved the way the magic and technology in this fic intersected in such a unique way and the way the world was built was extraordinary!
red hands by reveries_passions - @dystopianharry (T, 132k)
I’ve never told anyone,” Harry murmurs, voice so soft no one else would be able to hear, if it wasn’t just the two of them.
“But you’ve told someone,” Louis says firmly. “And that’s not gonna fucking happen around here. You don’t speak a word of it, or someone’s going to kill you, and we can’t let that happen.”
*
a dystopian au in which harry, an ex-soldier who’s escaped from his government run camp, accidentally stumbles across the biggest rebel movement in the country, and louis, one of the rebellion’s mysterious leaders who appears to hate him, seems to simultaneously have an obsession with keeping him alive. or: harry is wanted for treason, niall hasn’t changed in four years, liam is always smiling, and louis is angry. like, really angry.
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The plot of this is just *chef’s kiss* in so many ways! I love the way the characters interact with each other and I’m weak for Niall and Harry’s friendship in this.
Love After the End of the World by writing_practice - @mercurial-madhouse (E 158k)
“Wait. Just so I’m clear in me fucking noggin,” Niall says. “An international worldwide takeover is well under way and the only thing standing between having hot showers and a second end of the world is us five fuckers?”
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Society shattered when all electricity suddenly cut off across the globe, plunging the world into darkness. Now, Prometheus Industries is the sole remaining supply of power, a saving grace to those who survived Lights Out. As fugitives in no-man’s land struggling to break into Prometheus HQ, death lurks around every corner for Louis and Zayn. Things get complicated when a routine recon falls apart and Louis collides with Harry and his mates Niall and Liam, survivors with their own agenda.
When staying alive is already a constant battle, the deadliest weakness is to be in love. For Harry and Louis, finding each other sits on top of the endless list of What Else Could Go Wrong.
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This just came out in the most recent Big Bang (that’s still on going so you should definitely check that out) and this fic is so amazing! I think it does a great job of just really immersing you in the world the characters exist in. Love After the End of the World is also a Soulmate AU and I love the way those parts come together. It also has an amazing prologue called PROMETHEUS RISING (M 5k) that I enjoyed immensely set in the same world!
at last, at last by suspendrs - @suspendrs (NR 41k) Locked
“Come with us,” Tommo says, stopping at the other end of the gymnasium, near the doors. “Don’t let them make you suffer any longer. Come with us, and be human.”
Before Harry has even finished thinking it through, he’s on his feet, gaining the attention of every single person in the gymnasium. What has he got to lose, anyway?
Or, Harry is born into a cult in a post-apocalyptic world, and Louis is the leader of the rebel group tasked with the mission of shutting them down. Together, they make a rather effective team.
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This fic does a great job of making you feel like you’re experiencing with the characters, like I could practically smell what the characters were smelling! The world it’s set in is so cool and the entire fic feels so well thought out and everything is so consistent!
my love will never leave you by we_are_the_same @so-why-let-your-voice-be-tamed (T 10k)
In a world where memories are used as currency, Louis will do anything it takes for Harry to get better.
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I loved the idea behind this. Like the entire world is so brilliantly done! And it was all based on ONE word (because of the wordplay challenge). Even though it’s set in a different world everything feels so grounded and realistic and I really really like that about it.
a prayer for which no words exist by Eliane (M 34k) Locked
"Louis is a few seconds away from blowing up a rather important section of the New York subway when he sees Harry for the first time."
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In this fic the characters motivations are so clear (to the reader) and I love how it goes from Louis accidentally sort of, kind of, kidnapping Harry to them becoming friends then more. I also love how no matter where they are the fic has a real sense of place. This is part 1 of landscapes of war. The entire series is really good!
Who Painted the Moon Black by throughthedark (E 95k) Locked
“People died,” Harry whispers so quietly Louis strains to hear. “People died, and I killed some of them. How does life just go on after something like that?”
Louis shakes his head. “I don't know. It just does.”
Hunger Games AU where Louis Tomlinson is district six's victor from the 69th Hunger Games and Harry Styles is district seven's victor from the 72nd Hunger Games.
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This fic is a hunger games AU that both people who have and haven't read/watched the Hunger Games can enjoy. I like how it explores the world of the Hunger Games in a way that isn’t explored in the Hunger Games canon. It’s really intense (like the E is for the darker themes and violence) and I enjoy it a lot. There is a happy ending (as the author assures in the tags) and I really enjoy all the struggles that the characters go through.
Nobody Marks You by graceling_in_a_suit @graceling-in-a-suit (T 33k)
“The plan is: we’re gonna put on a play. Now, I see some doubtful faces–” Louis looked around and found zero doubtful faces. Liam looked intrigued, Zayn looked bored, and Harry looked scarily blank. “But this is what’s happening. We’re gonna do some fucking acting, we’re gonna perform our hearts out, and we’re not going to think about anything else. The past, the future; none of it. All we’re going to think about is... “ Niall trailed off, eyeing the bookshelf to his left. He closed his eyes and reached a hand out towards it, running his fingers over the covers before pulling a book out at random. “William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.”
AU: Five assholes stuck in a bunker put on a play.
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This is one of my absolute favorite fics. I just love the way the characters interact and they way the story is told. It’s nonlinear so you jump around in time and it shows the way the character's relationships change throughout. I’m a sucker for Much Ado About Nothing and though you don’t need to read it to fully appreciate the fic I think the use of the play throughout is genius.
@1dfanfictionbookcovers has a really cool cover for the fic as well HERE
With a whimper by kitundercover @kitundercover (M 132k)
Dystopian AU. Louis has been alone for too long to remember how not to be, and Harry has too much to worry about to deal with a scrawny, wild, stranger.
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The man grips his arm tightly. “You’re not going to say anything.” It’s not a question.
Louis shakes his head, his body twitching.
“Fine.” Large green eyes survey him before letting go. “It’s cold. Take this. Wear it.”
Louis can’t help another flinch as the man’s long scarf is wrapped around his tender neck, it’s still warm. He touches the soft material. “Thank you.”
The man bears his teeth. “Don’t thank me. Don’t ever thank me.”
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The thing this fic does really does is showing emotional reactions. Louis’ inner monologue is so well done and I really like the plot of the story.
these bountiful silences by tommoandbambi (T 123k)
they live in a world where they can only say four words per day. harry meets some people that don't want to live that way.
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I really, really, really, like this plot and the story! The world that the characters exist in is so interesting and I just love the way in which it is a dystopia.
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Following the HP/TR-question - what would have happened if Dumbledore was never born? Since he was the one who found out about the horcruxes
Well, that's an interesting situation isn't it?
I think the world might very well have changed drastically by that point.
No Albus Dumbledore means no duel with Gellert Grindelwald. Gellert Grindelwald, until dueled and defeated by Albus, was presumed near unstoppable and on the cusp of invading Britain and conquering Western Europe.
Had Albus never existed, I imagine Gellert Grindelwald would become the dark lord/emperor of Western Europe. He'd enact his policies and break the statute of secrecy to make muggles his serfs.
Given this happened in 1945, the bomb has been built and developed, and no matter what Crimes of Grindelwald tries to tell me there is no way he was paying enough attention to know that was coming/even understand the threat and science of nukes... They probably get nuked.
Grindelwald goes to war with the muggles, it quickly turns nasty on both sides, and given Grindelwald's lust for power and tactics as well as muggle actions in WWII Western Europe, if not the world, probably becomes a toxic wasteland.
(We're going full dark on this one folks, this is the war to end all wars.)
And that's how WWIII begins and ends.
As for Tom Riddle, he remains a troubled orphan. It's true he's not introduced to the Wizarding World by an antagonistic Dumbledore, but he's still a very angry orphan petrified of dying. The Blitz still happens, Hogwarts still doesn't care.
The difference being, as he exits Hogwarts, the world ends. Tom survives, thanks to his horcruxes (though very well could lose his body), and probably ends up in this Mad Max style wasteland.
Muggles, those who survived, are indeed enslaved by the wizards that survived. Society collapses. Tom likely goes on a quest to murder Grindelwald and succeeds, because he's Tom Riddle.
Tom Riddle tries to make an empire in this dystopia, but he's living in the world of A Boy and His Dog, so it doesn't really work out. There's no point in being a dark lord of nothing.
Now, that said, this is all very dramatic and the muggles could very well lose. If they don't take the wizarding threat seriously enough Grindelwald will easily infiltrate their ranks, mind control their leaders, and start massacring them by the thousands.
In that case, we have Grindelwald the emperor of the world, who has thinned out the population of muggles substantially and has made them into mind controlled slaves. They live short, brutal, miserable lives.
Tom likely still assassinates him, only here, he takes Grindelwald's place in a coup.
Whether anyone finds his horcruxes and tries to assassinate him is anyone's guess. Tom Riddle's immortal, he'll be in power a long time, and as time ticks onwards so does his past disappear. Still, that's a long time, and it's entirely possible.
Though it's also possible he'll somehow lose power first, become bored with power, or the Sun will expand.
TL;DR Dumbledore may be a bastard, but it's probably a good thing he was around
#harry potter#harry potter headcanon#harry potter opinion#world war three#gellert grindelwald#tom riddle#albus dumbledore#harry potter meta#meta#headcanon#opinion
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City of the Dead - Annotations
I had a lot of notes on this one, and I always enjoy posting them, so here ya go: my page by page reactions to this book.
(Warning for spoilers below the cut, obviously.)
OK, let’s see if this train wreck is any more interesting than the last one.
1 - yes Hawk you sure are an idiot lmao. Also, why is “flock” suddenly capitalized?
2 - how tf is Ridley “trained”? that still bugs me
4 - it’s still so wild that everyone acts like Max is some legendary hero. She didn’t even save the world, for fuck’s sake. She’s an incompetent dumbass (affectionate). [I can’t help feeling like Max is a little less fun in this series because she’s no longer an incompetent dumbass. I miss that about her.]
7 - OK so where did all these civilized, bureaucratic people who don’t know how to fight even come from? I was under the impression that everywhere is an apocalyptic wasteland, more or less. [But not if you’re rich. Which would explain where these people came from.]
10 - oh yeah like Max is so fucking diplomatic
16 - how is Hawk not getting a condescending vibe from Langford rn? I sure am. I don’t trust Langford.
26 - I’d say kissing someone doesn’t automatically negate a “friend” status. But Pietro is a dick, which does negate a friend status. [Edit: he didn’t act like as much of a dick in this one, for what little we saw of him.]
34 - wait so are Moke and Calypso living at the Children’s Home by themselves? Where’s Rain?
41 - yeah I still don’t trust Langford.
43 - OK so if people hate hybrids, how did Hawk not notice before? (Or: why were people being nicer before, and why aren’t they now?) Like, if there’s animosity towards hybrids, you’d think it would’ve stayed consistent over the years. [Edit: turns out there’s a pretty decent explanation for this, but I still feel like the switchover happened pretty fast.]
45 - you cannot just tuck a hot gun in your waistband, idiot.
51 - Why oh why does every author want to incorporate a pandemic into their dystopia? I’m bored of pandemics. I’ve got enough of that going on IRL.
54 - There’s a lot of mentions of bird shit in this one. Just something I noticed.
55 - Oh, yeah, I forgot. Rain is now the Token Blind Character :/ This book is just saturated with ableism (like most James Patterson books)
62 - Listen I don’t think they’re experimenting on hybrids in the infectious disease ward
67 - Goddamn there have to be better ways than just burning corpses in open air. Don’t they have crematoriums?
71 - How is being ashamed of her wings a new feeling?
93 - Wow all of these hybrids have the worst names lmao
97 - Well that escalated quickly
127 - If Rain has ~prophetic visions~ or whatever now that she’s blind I swear to god...
135 - oof yeah I knew Langford wasn’t being sincere about all that
137 - OK, that was a lot. Why did Moke ignore all those red flags? Langford is literally a fascist.
139 - OK admittedly, shaking someone’s hand while yours is covered in blood is kind of a power move.
143 - Oh my fucking god if you were gonna bring back the “mutants will continue humanity” thing you didn’t even have to come up with this new bitch, you could’ve used like 2-3 of the old bitches [as in, this actually could’ve been a cool place to bring back one of the villains from the OG series, especially since the evil plots line up almost exactly.]
147 - As we’ve discussed [as I’ve been saying in my head], hybrids can’t even reproduce. Also I’m sensing that the fucked up nature of the breeding program will probably get glossed over, since IMO, Hawk doesn’t seem sufficiently horrified at it.
[There are a lot of “eww gross” reactions to the breeding program thing, but not a lot of horror, as in “wow that’s so many crimes against humanity.”]
152 - This is pretty much all borrowed from the bad guys’ plots in the OG series. Like, this isn’t new, any of it.
153 - There’s no reason for them to want Max, she’s just going to fuck up all their shit lmao
154 - Okay I do appreciate the irony here, that’s pretty funny. [The irony being that Tanning is like “Imagine what kind of children a hybrid like Max would produce!” while standing directly in front of Hawk.]
174 - I’d think Max would be way more reluctant to offer to let Tanning continue his work, given her childhood trauma. Unless it’s just a bluff.
188 - They did not need to remove Rain’s eyes for that.
195 - “Oh, trust me. I’m gagging.” (insert keyboard smash here) [I was writing these notes on paper okay]
197 - Hawk is 15, how does her signature mean anything??
202 - Didn’t Hawk say last book that she doesn’t have childhood memories of her parents?
There’s been a lot going on here but it’s surprisingly almost cohesive.
283 - JP you can’t keep having Max save the day with inspiring speeches. She’s not that likeable.
305 - it’s so funny that they decided to end on chapter 69 instead of making it an epilogue. [There was a time skip, they totally could’ve made it an epilogue.]
I was... pleasantly surprised at the quality. Like, it wasn’t perfect, but it made sense, which is more than I can say for the last one. The writing itself was pretty decent, too.
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Fascism—a form of revolutionary conservation—gains force as a means to smash the workers movement, to crush communism. If today there is no fascism, it’s because there is also no communism. It’s for this basic reason that the analogies with Weimar are wide of the mark.
There are, of course, other authoritarian, conservative politics out there, but conservatism itself is historically weak. As Corey Robin has argued, the U.S. Republicans, for instance, only hold onto power through the Senate, Electoral College, and the courts—precisely those institutions that don’t rely on popular support. Liberalism is still majoritarian, and even as it has become more authoritarian. Populism is merely its ineffectual shadow.
So, why do we fantasize otherwise? The historian and author Barbara Tuchman coined an eponymous law that holds that “the fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold.” As Tuchman elaborates:
Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts…. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance…. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening—on a lucky day—without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena.
Perceptually ready to find disaster, we’ve been primed by cinema as much as history-writing and the news to expect emergencies to feel like, well, emergencies. The reality is that very serious and dangerous situations—war, for instance—are often boring for the participants. The much-prophesied global pandemic, now that it has arrived, hasn’t been permanent emergency but rather a lot of tedium and a steady wearing down of society. Nothing feels as real and immediate and urgent as we were told it would be. When does the real stuff start?
At a basic level, then, we should wonder if our favored fascist dystopia is not an attempt to make good on the projections of the culture industry, the reality of the contemporary emergency having failed to live up to its hyperreal expectations. The radical aspects of the Trump presidency were his tweeting and his grating bravado; the rest, continuity—the same deportations, tax cuts, and wars as before. To adapt our political views to Hollywood schemas, we choose to imagine that the mundane degradation of politics is actually fascism, or that the real fascism, the real disaster, the real dystopia, will emerge next time around.
However, it’s not simply that this fantasy is a function of the fact that we are all subjects of the culture industry; it’s also that the fantasy enables a certain kind of left cowardice in the guise of left bravery (antifascists out on the street punching Proud Boys). The leftist denunciation of the powers-that-be as “fascist” is ultimately complicit with the constitution of elite authority. When we rebel, we build up power as a substantial Other, and thereby infinitely postpone seizing authority for ourselves. As philosopher Todd McGowan has written, “rebels never have to see how their resistance manifests itself without what it resists. Rebellion provides the comfort of being on the outside while imagining that there is a substantial enemy on the other side.”
Fantasizing the fascist threat makes it feel like those in power are really wielding authority, rather than being the incompetent, self-contradictory forces they are. The reality of power today is a void of outsourced authority—outsourced to science, both physical and economic; to external enemies; to the objective necessities of globalization. Without our participation in sustaining the fantasy of substantial authority, we would all have to face the void: now what’s going to happen to us without the barbarians? The desired-for fascist dystopia is thus a kind of wish fulfillment: it allows us to imagine that someone might exercise a strong hand, that our world of drift and wearing-down will end, so that we can finally be confronted with our real reality—the naked exercise of power, not this simulacra.
The political right, it should be said, has its own versions of fascist fantasy. In the 2000s, it was “Islamofascism,” an idea as fraudulent as Trumpofascism. Today, the populist right conjures up “Cultural Marxism,” an unholy alliance of the Left and international capital. The “Great Reset”—an uninspired rebranding of “ethical capitalism” by the World Economic Forum, whose purpose is to provide legitimation for a stagnant capitalism—has been recast as a Bolshevik plot. Shit, they imagine, is getting real. The truth, of course, is that it’s all the same shit, just with different aesthetics. This is the secret of our contemporary political polarization: both populist reactionaries and liberal antifascists loudly shout about how everything is changing, when really we’re just getting the same slow decay.
Reaction has always thrived off lurid fantasies—this, for once, is a genuine continuity with fascism. But for the portion of the Left that participates in the fantasy of antifascism, it is self-sabotage. Elites are unfit to rule—we know this, and their response to the pandemic only confirms their incompetent authoritarianism—and yet we persist in imagining them to be domineering masters. In thinking of them as fascist strongmen rather than weak placeholders, the Left avoids its real task of filling the political void with a concrete, alternative program.
Rather than stoke fears about an imminent fascist takeover, we should accept that dystopia has already arrived. It is a low-intensity, mostly banal dystopia, but dystopia nonetheless. Images of emergency, immediacy, sudden action and tanks on the streets—these are fantasies used to cover over the much more mundane situation of diminished popular sovereignty. Worse, in fearing a fascism that doesn’t come, we make ourselves prey to other forces—both those that currently destitute democracy as well as those that may emerge.
When government becomes too intractable, when the continuing absence of popular sovereignty means that elite discipline and coherence ebbs away, the stage is set for a new character to bring order. This may be a sensible and self-composed figure who provides succor to all of those exhausted by an increasingly rancorous culture war. This non-partisan, charismatic figure would be parasitic on worn-down democratic institutions, on the feeling that, “if this is democracy, I don’t want it anymore.” For all of us accustomed to fantasizing about fascism—an act of abnegating our own authority—a 21st century Caesarism may prove seductive.
should be read in the context of AOC supporting pelosi against a candidate perceived to be worse, hakeem jeffries, and ending up with no committee posting as a result. would a progressive movement within the democratic party that championed hawkins over biden, ultimately causing biden to lose to trump, have more or less power than it does today?
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