thinking about the elections tonight... bad, cellbit, baghera, and forever are four candidates who are devoted to the island- more specifically, to the residents of the island. They care for the eggs, and they care for each other, and the way they exhibit that care through their primary presidential strategies is fucking fascinating.
Bad is who I watch the most, so I know him best. He's a classic mother hen. He doesn't like to take risks with the eggs, and he likes to prepare. If there's any sort of variable that could hurt an egg then he wants to control it. They have a stable relationship with the federation right now- it's not great, but they know the parameters. Don't trust cucurucho. don't follow cucurucho. send the eggs to NINHO every time there's a threat. the time of day changing means you need to run. Other than that they're p okay and roughly safe. But adding a president could potentially change everything. What if the president makes a rule that makes it easier to kill the eggs? And what about the way a president could cause tensions between the players to rise even higher? The dynamics of the island could change drastically. It's safer to neutralize that threat before it ever becomes a threat. It's easier to stop a war before it can start.
Baghera's primary concern is the way the election is designed to pit the residents against each other. All of them know that the Federation is a threat and she, like Bad, is focused on not letting them hurt more people. But, unlike Bad, she's less resistant to change. If the power is spread to multiple players rather than just one, it will be harder for the Federation to corrupt any one of them. Each time before the Federation has gotten to someone it's done so by isolating them. Felps, Cellbit, Jaiden- they've all spent a lot of alone time with Cucurucho. A council isn't just to consolidate the ideals of the island; a council would protect the players themselves. Sure, there might be disagreements and arguments, but they've had those before (and they're having them now!) and there's no reason to think they wouldn't be able to get through them again.
I hit a bit of a wall with Forever and Cellbit's pov here. Everything I know about their plans are from the debates and paraphrased discussions that have been translated here on tumblr, I'm going to talk less about their explicit plan and more about what the result will entail- a single president who takes responsibility for the island. It seems to me like they've recognized the presidential seat as the powerful opportunity that it is, and they want to take advantage of it. Here's some extra personal speculation but, adding rules, adding or removing mods, proposing public works, enforcing laws- those are just the abilities that are listed. Those are incredible opportunities to make the Federation take action, which is more than they've had before. We've seen before that the Federation isn't perfect; the Federation makes mistakes.
By working with the Federation, by making them take action (in a semi-controlled, semi-predictable way) you open them up to more opportunities for them to fuck up (while benefiting you). And, maybe, one of those fuck ups will be the key to taking them down. Maybe they could reopen ender chests. Maybe they could open the nether. Maybe they could learn why the Federation is holding an election in the first place. It's possible to do all these things with Baghera's plan, sure, but that's not a guarantee and, if someone like Bad is on the council, there's absolutely no way to be sure it would get done. And, if there's a council, then that opens up everyone on the council to the Federation's wiles. If there's just one president, then that's where the Federation's focus will be. By using a single person to build a relationship with the Federation, they only risk that single person. By electing ministers instead of a council, they can ensure that the island residents' needs are being heard while placing the federation's focus on that one person. A point can be made that they've done that before- with varying results. like kidnapping. selling your soul. etc. But! overall, I think they've gained more than they've lost by singling out one person. Because of them, we know that Cucurucho can't be trusted. We know that the Federation has a series of tunnels underneath the island. We know that the Federation not only has some sort of cryo technology, but had some unknown reason to use it. We know that there was another person working with Cellbit to take care of Felps (theorized to be ElQuackity), so we know there's at least one more Fed that isn't Cucurucho + blank-faced workers. There's been risk, but there's absolutely been rewards. This is just a very long meandering way to say that their plan to sacrifice Forever to the presidential seat reminds me very much of Cellbit's plan to sacrifice himself to the federation. They're saving their friends by potentially damning themselves and I, for one, think that is cool as hell.
they all care about each other so much. bad's plan means taking on no more risk. baghera's plan means spreading that risk evenly to stand strong together. and cellbit and forever's plan means taking the risk onto themselves so they can reap the rewards for others. am i reading too much into things? no this is tumblr and this smp is about LOVE and i really genuinely think that their election plans are a fantastic example of just how much they love each other
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if you're doing prompts this week too I might send in one or two more!
with that said, how about some angst, C1 For mintharaheart perhaps? I imagine minthara is used to her lovers dying, just not of old age.
You're so real for this one. Thanks for requesting it! 💜
Also, I apologize in advance.
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C1. Lifespan differences
It is the weakness of surface-dwellers in her, thought Minthara as she helped Shadowheart from the bed to the small washroom nearby.
The webbed halls of the new House Baenre were not to Shadowheart's liking at first. She struggled to see the beauty in Qu'ellarz'orl as well, the view of the mushroom forest lost to her. That was decades ago by then, though to Minthara that still felt as if it were yesterday.
It is the weakness she's instilled in me that doesn't call on our servants to aid her, Minthara told herself as she gently pulled the shift from Shadowheart's body.
Her hair, once black, now matched Minthara's silver, though its pallor was joined by new wrinkles and lines on Shadowheart's face. Beautiful all of them, like a suit of armor wearing the proud signs of battle.
"Will you warm the water for me?" asked Shadowheart in perfect drowic. She'd learned the tongue easily, and she used it more than any other language now.
"Of course," Minthara said softly, matching Shadowheart's weak grip on her hand.
The clawed tub next to them, its curling edges mimicking a spider's legs, had already been filled with water. Minthara trusted the servants of her House enough to do that much. Even still, she knelt before the bath and dipped a finger into the murky water.
No heat nor acid scorched her skin.
None were so ambitious — so foolish — as to target the Matron Mother's consort, at least. It had happened once, long ago. A failed attempt and a bad one at that. What Matron Mother wasn't accustomed to having her consort's food taste-tested?
Pieces of that traitor's skull still adorned one of Minthara's favorite spider-silk dresses.
With a word of power and flick of her wrist, the heating element underneath the tub lit with gentle flames. While the water heated, Minthara collected the surface soaps and shampoos that Shadowheart preferred without a word.
I should not be the one waiting on her. She is my consort, and I am her Matron Mother. Her superior in all things.
Minthara thought it all to herself as she turned to the sitting Shadowheart next to her. She slipped the sandals from Shadowheart's feet, saying not a word. Gray-green eyes stared down at her, the wrinkles around Shadowheart's mouth more pronounced as she smiled.
"My weakness," Minthara said, the pet name effortlessly flowing off her tongue, "is the water to your liking?"
Shadowheart dipped her fingers in the water. "It's perfect."
"Then allow me to help you in."
It is this weakness, her, that has infected me so.
Nevertheless, Minthara helped Shadowheart into her bath without even a grunt of exertion or a word.
She never called for her servants when it came time to help Shadowheart with the soap. Her fingers fumbled with it so often these days.
It is this infection that will kill me when she leaves me, isn't it?
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When I was a young excited physics student I went down to my advisor and asked for a job in a lab. Those of you who are in the sciences may recognize this as exceedingly common, most schools with science departments will hire undergrads for their labs both to give the undergrads experience and to have someone comparatively cheap to do the least skilled labor in those labs.
For me, the lab I was sent to was one doing cool photonics projects and I was assigned to a guy who was doing the theoretical modeling for them and I got put on a side project for them to develop a method to double check their results using Monte Carlo simulations.
Put bluntly, I toiled away in the little cubicle they had me in for about half a year before I transferred to a different school without ever having produced anything of any particular value other than a Monte Carlo simulation whose temperature readings were not taking into account the existence of a heat sink and therefore got overwhelmed by thermal photons in a completely inaccurate and unhelpful way.
Ultimately, many tasks, farmed out like this in a speculative way to undergrads, fail, certainly it's not exceptional that mine did and I learned a lot about the process in the process, so it wasn't wasted time for me, but it produced absolutely nothing the lab could use to further its results.
This is where it turns from a little anecdote about my work history into a morality tale, because what I have thus far deliberately failed to tell you is that the lab I was assigned to is a provider of radar services to the US Military. Had I produced anything of any value whatsoever the work I did would have been used by the US military to help with its capacity to deliver bombs. This is, unfortunately, as those of you who are in the sciences may recognize, also exceedingly common. Luckily, and through no foresight or moral thinking of my own, simply the inexperience of youth, I produced nothing of value but view the path they tried to set me down as a grim warning of what might have been.
I'm not asking for forgiveness, the harm I might have done was not done by me, although I'm also sure was done without my help. They didn't need it to be me they just needed someone with basic calculus knowledge who wouldn't think too hard about the connection between the work and the world, and they were happy enough that particular warm body was me.
So this is my plea, if you're young and getting involved in the sciences because you're passionate about knowledge and understanding our place in the universe. When you go to get that job in that lab that's such a good stepping stone to the next thing you want to do, take a second and look into where that lab's funding is coming from. If it turns out it's the military, maybe then take another second and really deeply consider what kind of thing your work can be used to do and if you would like some of the most bloodthirsty people on the planet to be able to do that thing because of your help.
I got lucky that I didn't help, but I'm hoping that with this warning you might be able to not help on purpose which is a greater moral good than what I managed.
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The Nordics as Taylor Swift songs
The UK & Ireland as Taylor Swift songs.
DENMARK: Castles Crumbling (feat. Hayley Williams) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)
“Once I had an empire, in the golden age. I was held up so high, I used to be great. They used to cheer when they saw my face, now I fear I have fallen from grace.
And I feel like my castle’s crumbling down, and I watched all my bridges burn to the ground, and you don’t want to know me, I will just let you down. You don’t wanna know me now.
(…)
Power went to my head, and I couldn’t stop: ones I loved tried to help, so I ran them off. And here I sit alone, behind walls of regret, falling down like promises that I never kept.
(…)
My foes and friends watched my reign end, I don’t know how it could’ve ended this way. Smoke billows from my ship to the harbour. People look at me like I’m a monster, now they’re screaming at the palace front gate, used to chant my name, now they’re screaming that they hate me. I never wanted you to hate me…”
FINLAND: the Lakes
“Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die. I don’t belong and, my beloved, neither do you. Those Windermere peaks look like the perfect place to cry. I’m setting off, but not without my muse.
What should be over burrowed under my skin in heart-stopping waves of hurt. I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze tell me what are my words worth.
(…)
I want auroras and sad prose, I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet, ‘cause I haven’t moved in years. And I want you right here. A red rose grew up out of ice frozen ground, with no one around to tweet it. While I bathe in cliffside pools, with my calamitous love and insurmountable grief.”
ICELAND: A Place in this World
“I don’t know what I want, so don’t ask me, ‘cause I’m still tryna figure it out. Don’t know what’s down this road, I’m just walking, tryna see through the rain coming down. Even though I’m not the only one, who feels the way I do.
(…)
Got the radio on, my old blue jeans and I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve. Feeling lucky today, could you tell me what more do I need? And tomorrow’s just a mystery, but that’s okay.
(…)
Maybe I’m just a girl on a mission, but I’m ready to fly!
I’m alone, on my own, and that’s all I know. I’ll be strong, I’ll be wrong, oh but life goes on. Oh, I’m alone, on my own, and that’s all I know. Oh, I’m just a girl, tryna find a place in this world.”
NORWAY: Evermore (feat. Bon Iver)
“I replay the footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong. Writing letters, addressed to the fire.
(…)
Hey December, guess I’m feeling unmoored. Can’t remember what I used to fight for.
(…)
And I was catching my breath, barefoot in the wildest winter, catching my death. And I couldn’t be sure, I had a feeling so peculiar, that this pain would be for evermore.
Can’t not think of all the cost, and the things that will be lost. Oh, can we just get a pause? To be certain we’ll be tall again. Whether weather be the frost, or the violence of the dog days. I’m on waves, out being tossed. Is there a line that I can just go cross?
And when I was shipwrecked, I thought of you. In the cracks of light, I dreamed of you, it was real enough to get me through. But I swear, you were there.
And I was catching my breath, floors of a cabin creaking under my step. And I couldn’t be sure, I had a feeling so peculiar, this pain wouldn’t be for evermore.”
SWEDEN: Foolish One (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)
“You know how to keep me waiting, I know how to act like I’m fine. Don’t know what to call this situation, but I know I can’t call you mine. And it’s delicate, but I will do my best to seem bulletproof. ‘Cause when my head is on your shoulder, it starts thinking you’ll come around. And maybe someday when we’re older, this is something we’ll laugh about over coffee every morning, while you’re watching the news.
But then the voices say, “you are not the exception. You will never learn your lesson.”
Foolish one, stop checking your mailbox for confessions of love that ain’t never gonna come. You will take the long way, you will take the long way down. Foolish one, stop checking your mailbox for confessions of love that ain’t never gonna come, you will learn the hard way, instead of just walking out.
Now I’m sliding down the walls with my head in hands, sayin’, “how could I not see the signs?” Oh, you haven’t written me or called, but goodbye screaming in the silence, and the voices in my head are telling me why.
(…)
Ain’t never gonna come, oh, you will learn the hard way now. Foolish one, sittin’ round waiting for your confessions of love, they ain’t never gonna come. And thinking he’s the one, you should’ve been walking out. Foolish one, the day is gonna come for your confessions of love, when all is said and done, he just wasn’t the one. No, he just wasn’t the one.”
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