ms-demeanor

[ms-demeanor]

The whole Roko's Basilisk thing happened in fucking 2010. At this point the fact that it's people's go-to absurdity to mock rationalists with has looped around to being a point in their favor - has your weird vaguely cult-adjacent socio-political tendency gone fifteen years without doing anything embarrassing?

[ms-demeanor]

Poppies, by Ed Perkins.

[ms-demeanor]

[ms-demeanor]

♱ MISCELLANEOUS WHIMSIGOTH PNGS ♱

[ms-demeanor]

Prev - Ragnar is married to Kay Ludlow, who is in Galt's Gulch when Dagny crashes the gate, so it's reasonable to assume he ends up there at least occasionally. I think he is both straight and monogamous (he's the only one of our protagonists straight and monogamous enough to be married and stay that way), but I do agree that he'd at least pull Francisco aside and say something about the Eddie mess.

John's take on that is "he's a grown man, he can make his own choices, if people make bad choices that hurt them that is not my problem. He's mentally competent enough to have kept the trains running a little while after Dagny left and he earns his keep around the house."

Dagny's take is "this is just how Eddie has always been but more so" and Francisco's PoV is "Eddie always helped Dagny, now it's time for us to help Eddie." Hank's perspective is "there, but for the grace of John, go I."

Ragnar, who is less obsessively self-focused than John and more distant from the situation than the rest of them, is able to more clearly see that Eddie is in a cult of one and Dagny is his god).

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Like, the problem with Hank and Francisco is that in the logic of Atlas Shrugged Dagny can't really want either of them because love is the pursuit of greatness and she will never find a greater pinnacle of masculinity than John.

This is why she finds Hank comforting (he recognized John's greatness and gave up his claim, she and Hank can appreciate John together. This makes Hank a good person for her to love with less intensity than John, and makes him a safe person for John to be vulnerable around) and Francisco contemptible. Francisco gave her up for John, but he didn't share John with her for *years.* she is always going to believe in the back of her mind that Francisco was keeping John a secret because he knew that Dagny would see that John was better than him and would abandon him. This is both an insult to Dagny (she can share, look at Hank) and an admission of weakness in Francisco's part.

She still knows that Francisco is brilliant and generous and strong, but she also knows that Francisco was afraid to stand in the bright light of John's greatness because of how that would put his own flaws in display. He wanted to keep his weakness, and John's strength, a secret from Dagny so that he could keep her to himself just a little longer.

So when she sits in her armchair and hikes up her skirt and lets Eddie - caged, dependent, and broken but *loyal* - eat her out while Francisco putters around the kitchen and tries to pretend he isn't watching, Dagny is saying "this pathetic, needy little man, our pet, my dog, can have more of me than you. He earned it by always following me, you lost it by trying to lead *and failing.*"

They're still friends, of course, but with all the in-universe psychodrama that allows.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Under no circumstances should you read atlas shrugged.

I have read atlas shrugged enough for the both of us, trust me, I've got this.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Usually when John and Dagny invite a third it's Eddie or Hank and John orders them through fucking Dagny, giving meticulous, specific instructions on how they should touch her and how she should touch them, orchestrating the act like a conductor until they are moving with the precision and momentum of an engine. When it's just the two of them again, John is aggressive and abrupt, staking a claim and reasserting that Dagny belongs to him, that she may like the others, may want them, but he is what drives her to become the truest, fullest, most vital version of herself.

But sometimes they ask Hank in and John is on the bed, trembling and facedown, and Dagny lights a cigarette to watch as Hank holds him down and makes use of what's on offer. Dagny smokes until Hank finishes, then walks to the bed and crushes out the cigarette on John's shoulder, over a scar there that's much too big to be a cigarette burn. That's Hank's cue to grab her arm and not let go, wrestling with her until both her thin wrists are trapped in his hand and he's pulling her hair so hard that he neck is arched back and her pale throat is bared. He keeps her pinned in place while John turns on her, wild and haunted, and opens her up like Hank opened him, biting her throat and squeezing her hips hard enough to bruise under his callused, workingman's hands.

When nobody is crying anymore, they make Hank dinner and play Halley records and for once nobody smokes at the meal and they talk about pulleys and forges and generators and pulling miles and miles of wire until it's late enough that it's getting early, and Dagny goes to bed and John walks Hank out to his car and quietly, clearly says "Thank you," before patting Hank firmly on the shoulder exactly one time and walking back inside.

There's smoke in the cabin and John follows it to his bed, where Dagny is smoking and soft and holds his head to the cushioned safety of her chest and strokes his hair with slim strong fingers until he falls asleep. She wakes up in the morning and he's already at the power station, whistling while he works when she brings him a thermos of coffee.

When she stays with Hank, they talk about almost everything, but never about that.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

John Galt/Dagny Taggart = Taggalt OR Jagney OR Gear/Train (geartrain obvi)

Hank Reardon/Dagny Taggart = Dank OR Haggart OR Reardagny (I prefer Dank)

Francisco d'Anconia/Hank Reardon = Frank OR Reard'anconia OR Hisco OR Copper/Alloy (I prefer Frank)

Francisco d'Anconia/Eddie Willers = Freddie OR Frillers OR Wilconia (Frillers)

Dagny Taggart/Eddie Willers = Teddie OR Dillers OR Taggart Transcontinental (Teddie)

Francisco d'Anconia/John Galt = Falt OR d'Anconialt OR Johncisco OR Copper/Wire (these are all terrible, Johncisco is the least terrible)

John Galt/Hank Reardon = Geardon OR Halt OR Jank (Jank)

Francisco d'Anconia/Dagny Taggart = Fraggart OR Dancisco OR Fragney (Fragney)

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Dank/Frank moodboard my beloved.

I had a dream that the pastel fandom bloggers on Tumblr were becoming obsessed with Atlas Shrugged and my dash was full of uwu smol bean poor little meow meow Hank Reardon moodboards

[ms-demeanor]

This all takes place in Galt's Gulch in the wake of the strike.

They found Eddie in the desert sobbing in the cab of the broken-down Taggart engine and took him home like a stray dog.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

I just find the Dagny Taggart/John Galt pairing *so funny* because there's no way they aren't a terrifying echo chamber of self obsession and delusions of grandeur. They are such a burning dumpster that literally any other combination from the group has a healthier foundation.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

For his birthday, Dagny decides that Francisco can sleep with her while John watches.

Francisco jumps at the chance but leaves the encounter feeling more hollow and emasculated and useless than ever.

Dagny and John the proceed to have some kind of nightmare mantis sex where Dagny alternately rides and electrocutes John as he's strapped to a bench only to loosen the restraints and get pounded so hard against the cabin wall that she walks away with a concussion.

Hank makes cupcakes (with a lot of help from Eddie) and Francisco feels a little better.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Atlas Shrugged Polycule Breeding Kink Logic

John: I have found the greatest woman in the world and we can share our greatness with the world by making more, and greater humans. We are the Adam and Eve of a new kind of mind to walk the earth. We are remaking the world in our image, and the kid I'm fucking into you is my conviction that the future will be as I make it.

Hank: mommy milkers mommy milkers mommy milkers. God, think of how productive she could be. Think of how we could try to *increase* her production.

Eddie: Dagny once said something about studding him out while she was milking his prostate and he came so hard he blacked out.

Francisco: Sees pregnancy as degrading and while he appreciates that he and Dagny are equals he kind of wants to see her dragged down a little so that she could look up to him and want him again.

Dagny: howling void of vile ideas about gender and autonomy and consent and strength coalescing as "Do you really love me if you don't want me so badly that you'd try to make me mother your children regardless of my own desires?" (She knows that the actual answer to this question is "yes" but she gets off on the idea of being reduced to an incubator for a stronger person's intentions.)

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Every single one of them has a breeding kink and Dagny, in a feat of foresight unmatched at any other point in her life, secretly had her tubes tied in college.

She sees no need to tell any of them and is not sure which of them keeps replacing her birth control with sugar pills but is flattered by it.

(It's Francisco. His logic is that if he can't fuck her, he can still get her pregnant. They're *awful* people.)

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

Hank has the most stable relationships. Dagny is his girlfriend, Francisco is his boyfriend, and he is totally fine with both of them having relationships with John. Dagny finds him relaxing and easy to be with, they have an old married couple vibe when they're together. It's comfortable, they both bring a lot of the same things to the table. He and Francisco have a more energetic, experimental thing. Francisco is the only man he's had a relationship with and there's a kind of frat boy gay chicken romance dynamic. He's continually surprised in his relationship with Francisco and continually delighted. They are genuinely good friends as well, and Hank keeps getting flustered when he spends a great day designing mining equipment with Francisco and then realizes he gets to go to bed with this guy too.

Francisco and Dagny are a tire fire. He's still in love with her and he isn't precisely jealous of the rest, but he is frustrated that she respects him, works with him, treats him like an equal, but won't sleep with him. He doesn't want her other partners to stop being with her, he just also wants to be with her. She uses Eddie to taunt him, and Eddie is just happy to be used. In the bedroom, she treats Eddie like a toy and Francisco treats Eddie like a proxy. Outside of the bedroom, both of them genuinely love Eddie platonically and he is a combination of butler, friend, and pet to them, and he sees them as owners/protectors/friends/caregivers/decision-makers (and keyholders). The 24/7 dynamic feels good to them all but they're all in deep denial about Eddie's crushing mental health and abandonment issues and the selfishness that Dagny and Francisco are putting on display by allowing it to continue. (Dagny has a rabid need to be in control that she doesn't express with her other partners, Francisco feels cucked by all the other guys and can't express that to John and Hank so he takes it out on Eddie).

John and Francisco are very good friends and in the years before the world fell apart were often the only source of comfort for one another. They fuck each other less like romantic partners and more in the spirit of having a cold beer after a long day working in the sun.

Dagny and John are seventeen neurosis wrapped in eighteen kinks wrapped in a relationship that is approximately as stable as nitroglycerin. They are utterly incapable of being normal about each other because each reflects the other's ideals about the self and they are also utterly incapable of being normal about themselves.

There is an unspoken agreement that Eddie sleeps in a room next to theirs under the pretense of his relationship to Dagny but really to prevent some kind of gothic power fantasy ubermensch murder suicide pact between John and Dagny from coming to fruition.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.

[ms-demeanor]

The polycule is: Dagny, John, Hank, Francisco, and Eddie.

Dagny and John are a couple. Dagny and Hank are a couple. Hank and Francisco are a couple. Francisco and John are FWB. John and Hank are not in a relationship with or attracted to one another, but will scene together for Dagny.

Dagny and Francisco are not in a relationship with each other but have a 24/7 power exchange thing going with Eddie (Dagny is not attracted to either but will let Eddie get her off, Francisco is attracted to Dagny and Eddie is happy to be where Francisco buries those feelings).

None of it is healthy, all of it is toxic, and someday it's going to end badly because they're all terrible people, except for Eddie. Eddie isn't terrible, it's just that his love language is acts of service and he happens to be enmeshed with the greediest people on the planet.

My brain is so melted from 14 hour workdays that I'm perilously close to writing Atlas Shrugged polycule porn.