#Construction Agenc

[wordsinhaled]

Charles loves Edwin’s little lopsided grin and the flash of his teeth because it means he’s truly relaxed.

He loves the sharp arch of Edwin’s eyebrows and the way Edwin slants his eyes at him in fond exasperation.

He loves getting Edwin to scoff at him, cares gone until all he can focus on is holding in the undignified snort Charles is about to coax out.

He loves how each time he darts to touch Edwin with his fingertips, to just barely graze him, he gets a different little bit of him, there and gone again.

There and gone, the slope of one shoulder. A patch of Edwin’s bare arm, a little shock of warmth like nothing else Charles ever feels anymore. The wool of his blue slipover, which Charles can’t really know the texture of, but it looks soft and worn-in and cherished. Charles lets his imagination run away with him sometimes, thinks about curling his fingers in that soft-looking fabric and tugging Edwin flush against him, close, close, closer, as close as Edwin would allow.

How close would he allow?

He has to know, doesn’t he, at this point? He has to, he has to, he has to. Edwin’s not much for boxing, Charles is well aware. But he doesn’t get better no matter how often they spar, though he ought to be at least as good as Charles, by now. Charles has to wonder: is this more than just indulgence, to him?

Because Edwin is patient, so patient and only a bit incredulous, as each time Charles has got a new story, a new and ever-flimsier excuse. The mad driller, the brassed-off poltergeist, the reanimated pugilist.

C’mon, Edwin, he says, every time, in the end. And somehow, that always seems to do it.

Edwin stands there in his boxing gloves time and again, still as a stone at first and then pulled into reluctant, tentative, elegant movement by Charles’ glancing touch. He lets Charles have this, brilliant, generous friend that he is. Lets Charles circle him, goad him, skirt the shape of him, lets Charles look at him, look and look and look and—

It would be worse, Charles thinks, without the gloves. More pretty pieces of Edwin to spin Charles in circles round. Still, sometimes he imagines unlacing the gloves. He’d let them fall to the floor. He’d catch hold of Edwin and never let him go, catch the impact of Edwin’s bare hands against his own—each of his half-hearted strikes landing because Charles wants them to.

Sometimes Charles thinks Edwin might let him do more than other times, when they’re like this. And he doesn’t want for much. Just to kiss him once would be enough. To press their mouths together and take into himself Edwin’s surprised gasp, his sardonic laugh, his muffled noise of assent.

It crashes through him, the want, sometimes, like waves against a shore, so strong this is the only way to dull it. He wants so badly he jitters, and darts from foot to foot, and can only take in Edwin in fragments—each one settling inside him to form an echo of an ache called—

Love.

[alexiethymia]

Boiling Hot Iron vs Lukewarm Water

Maomao's Way of Affection Part 2

[LN 12 spoilers]

I AM ACTUALLY FOAMING AT THE MOUTH. I mean I read it somewhere, but apparently yes, Maomao does initiate the kiss in the light novel. Even if she did accept his feelings, I always thought that it might have been too fast the way she was ready for a night visit already, but I always chalked it up to her upbringing in the pleasure district and her being fifty-fifty that Jinshi wouldn't actually try anything. But the fact that she is the one to actually instigate a kiss, and quite a sweet one at that, while Jinshi was sleeping. This scene in LN 12 really is in contrast to the scene in LN 5 where it was Jinshi who forced the kiss, and even to later on when Maomao ends up falling asleep and Jinshi restrains himself to a kiss on the forehead for replenishment.

It's hard to be coherent with my ramblings but one of the reasons why I love this series is the slow burn on Maomao's part which is really fulfilling, and the slight angst we get because of that, and not just on Jinshi's part.

Below is a translation from the Spanish translation of LN 12:

She just doesn't get it. He wants to step down from his position near the top of the country for a purpose. If that purpose was MaoMao himself, he would definitely have gone mad.

It's as hot as cast iron.

Maomao is not interested in such blazing heat. The only thing she can give back is a warm temperature.

Slowly puts his hand on Mr. Jinshi's cheek and feels his body temperature, which is the same as warm water. Her cheek was slightly colder. His eyelids were completely closed and he rubbed his cheek against my hand like a kitten to be pet. Looks like he sleeps, like he feels safe.

Maomao seems to struggle with the inequality of Jinshi's feelings and hers. She compares Jinshi's feelings to hot cast iron, and hers to warm water. And no wonder, to her, Jinshi willing to give up everything, including his position, for her, seems to be such a passionate love. As much as she snarks and would rather say that she could just do without all of Jinshi's gestures (*cough branding himself for example, this damn masochist cough*), she recognizes how much Jinshi has given up and is willing to give up for her, not to mention all that he has in fact given her.

She even goes to say, "I don't even have anything in return for you." When she says this line, I think that she isn't just referring to being unable to return the depth of Jinshi's feelings, but even their difference in position. As Suiren observes, despite Maomao's forthrightness, perhaps because of the environment they're in, she is very much aware of her station.

It's such a melancholic line coming from her. It seems to me as if she really is afraid of hurting Jinshi. She already doesn't like the thought of Jinshi being hurt like Luomen, but now she also doesn't want to be the one to hurt him. On top of that, for the normally aloof Maomao, it may be that she's starting to feel unconfident precisely because of the difference in position.

Maomao strikes me as a person who wants to be used. Even when she wasn't in love with Jinshi yet, she always seemed to want to be praised for doing a good job. So for her to think that it's just her who keeps receiving and receiving, while not being able to give anything back, the inequality (this time going in the reverse direction) must bother her a lot. She never used to care so for her to feel different from how she usually does because of Jinshi - caring about him, being unsure of herself because of him - oh she must hate how that feels so no wonder she wants to remove herself from the equation. But alas, it's too late.

Unlike Maomao though, I don't think that there's such a disparity between her feelings and Jinshi's despite that she describes his feelings as boiling hot and hers as warm. Yes definitely I feel that Jinshi's feelings may be stronger, but I feel that Maomao's is actually closer to his than she thinks. I think it may be because the nature of their feelings may be strongly influenced by their past.

Jinshi has always had the things he's loved taken from him. He wasn't allowed to prioritize a single thing or a single person because of the responsibilities he's had to assume from such a young age. Sure he's childish now but that may be because he had to grow up fast. Of course he would be desperate and slightly bit manic when it comes finally falling in love. He'll always feel that Maomao will be taken away from him unless he does something about it with his own hands.

Meanwhile, because of Maomao's complicated past with her birth parents, it's no wonder that Jinshi's passion unnerves her. Remember it was that same passion that caused her mother to hurt her. No wonder she doesn't want it. But when it comes to that feeling called love, that's the only version she recognizes because that's what she's been surrounded with in the pleasure district and even in the rear palace - lust imitating love, or even if it was love, a passionate and all-consuming love that destroys everything in its path.

But what does Jinshi make her feel? Trust. Safety. Even if her rational mind tells her that people's feelings change, Jinshi's constant proclamations that he will make everything be ok so that the both of them can be together may in fact actually reassure her. Heck, perhaps that was why Maomao goaded him to make that verbal confession a while back, precisely so she could have that assurance. She doesn't recognize it because she's never seen or had it, but perhaps this stability is something she's wanted her whole life. And I would say her feelings for Jinshi are nearly as strong as his for her, precisely because she feels for him the same way he makes her feel. Nothing passionate but also uncertain. But rather something warm and can be relied on. It's a feeling that pushes her to want to see him safe and healthy. It's a comforting and homey feeling that allows her to relax. And for Maomao who's always considered herself frigid, for her frozen heart to feel that warmth is also a tiny miracle in a way.

Jinshi is childish. Maomao is weird. But apart from their extremes, they're actually a lot alike - engrossed in their work, willful, but ultimately just. Apart from anything else, they're at ease when they can talk to each other. It's actually interesting for me to see how those emotions develop from Maomao's side since Jinshi is giving her space to take things at her own pace, another slow burn in a way. But while Jinshi's love is loud, Maomao's love is quiet. Even before this admission, it was always there, in the soft touches to the hair or cheeks, in being a refuge for rest and sleep, in her worry when he was overworking himself. The moment I would pinpoint that Maomao had actually already fallen in love with Jinshi was when she was contemplating Enen and Yao's relationship. She thinks to herself, "the more you cared for someone, the more you wanted a say in how they behaved - especially if that behavior involved hurting themselves." Now doesn't that sound familiar?

*Note - because I loved it and I'm impatient I'll share the translations for that particular scene in LN 12 in the comments section. One is translated from the Spanish version, while the other is translated from the Korean version. I got all of this from facebook. I'm quite interested to see how it'll come out in the English version.

[akascow]

“homosexuality is against nature >:((( “ okay then explain Monty Finch the former crow turned human and his immediate attraction towards edwin payne the dead edwardian ghost boy🤨🤨

[crimeronan]

i think there's something really beautiful about carpenter distancing herself from the trawler man every chance she gets and still getting showered by miracles while faulker, oh he of strong convictions, gets to bring the miracle of the trawler man to everyone around him but never quite gets to ascend to glory himself. i just love that they're both perfectly poised to stare at each other and each think "your goals are backwards and your methodology is dumb and possibly sacrilegious" and then still end up as something close to friends

also let's talk about how, despite these dynamics, at the end of the day, the trawler man is really just trying to give each of them what they want from him.

MMM YEAH. carpenter being beloved by multiple gods despite being such an ornery bitch who wants NOTHING to do with their sacrificial bullshit..... it really gets me. as does faulkner's ongoing crisis of faith and spiral into Faithless Cult Leader (TM). SO GOOD.

perhaps only tangentially related, but.

i've been thinking a lot about faulkner killing roemont lately. i was surprised that roemont's death ended up Breaking My Fucking Heart -- a real testament to his voice actor!! the whole pathetic old man losing everything he's worked for really.... Got To Me. ough. "don't you recognize me?" OUGH.

but i've been thinking about it in the context of faulkner's crisis of faith, too. because like. faulkner Knows that roemont is faithful. he considers roemont a heretic for trying to legalize the worship of the trawler-man, but it's like....

i feel like. killing roemont was a test of the trawler-man that faulkner devised on purpose. because if roemont dies due to the prayer marks that faulkner scrawled, then there are two possibilities:

1. the trawler-man really IS furious that the high katabasians want to legitimize the faith; the trawler-man really IS on faulkner's side; this schism really IS necessary to keep the faith "pure," and faulkner has never done anything wrong;

OR

2. the trawler-man really IS nothing but a mouth. this isn't a god with a plan or with sentience or with feelings, this is just a living river that chews things up and spits them out, and it doesn't care for its followers at all. and if that's the case, then faulkner is betraying nothing by being a faithless cult leader lying repeatedly to his people.

faulkner is devastatingly clever and constantly being underestimated. but he's also completely alone in the world. and he's Desperate for any sign that the choices he's making are the right ones. and he can't find that sign in anybody close to him, because he keeps destroying the lives of those close to him. so he has to devise his own trials....

hrugh. my boy. my boy my boy my boy.

[lunarsolar1]

If there IS a season 2, what do y’all want to see? Like what are y’all dream/wishlist episodes/content?

For example: I wish to see Edwin getting a new love interest that he ALSO likes back and learn how to love and how to be LOVED by that new person. And I also hope they give crystal a NEW love interest as well that’s human and is also a nice person (a new friend NOT FOE) and I also hope Niko becomes a sprite [???? Idk if that’s how it’s called idk English]

[mamawasatesttube]

honestly. i Really don't understand why fandom loves the combo of homophobia/misogyny that is "character who is a father threatens his children's male love interests" in 2024 but it's kind of funny that batgirl (2000) literally HAD bruce do this wrt kon and cass's friendship, only for both kon himself AND clark to tell him to stop being a little bitch. like you guys are being more regressive than something written 20 years ago and its a little cringe

anyway um. au where cass found out bruce was trying to deprive her of one of her only friends and beat him up about it. the end

[awkward-teabag]

Love (cannot emphasis how much sarcasm there is in that word) that an official Canadian government response to high cellphone rates is to switch carriers.

Switch it to what? We basically have three companies since one was allowed to eat the forth (with the government saying it wasn't anti-competition and the company eating the other pinky promising they wouldn't jack rates up). Even the smaller companies have to rent infrastructure from the Big Three so there's only so much they can do if that rent costs an arm and a leg.

And that's not touching on how many "small companies" are actually just subsidiaries of the Big Three. You may save $5 but you're still with Telus/Rogers/Bell.

Or that the actual small companies tend to have shit coverage because they don't have the infrastructure available to them and are prevented from getting it. Or their traffic is throttled in favour of the Big Three's customers. Or both.

Or that they're extremely regional thus aren't an option for a huge chunk of Canada's population.

We have no true options and the government has shown time and again that they're fine with monopolies, in multiple industries, and don't care when said monopolies jack up prices to make shareholders and the c-suite more money at the expense of everyone else. At most there will be a verbal slap on the wrist and a giftcard for $25 that people have to register for, for a decade and a half of price gouging.

It's not talked a whole lot about outside the country from what I've seen and heard but Canada is a country of monopolies. A handful of companies own nearly everything, every province has a family or two that owns a hell of a lot (Nova Scotia is basically owned by one family at this point), and our government ignores it. Even the branch that is supposed to be against monopolies is fine with mergers and takeovers in most cases.

Because, you know, the company said it totally wouldn't use consumers' lack of options to increase prices.

[rooksunday]

the first time a clone has to interview for a job they suddenly yearn for the clarity of purpose decanting brought

sure freedom of choice is great and all but at what cost

[captainjonnitkessler]

Average anarchist when asked if they actually have a plan to protect vulnerable people after they dismantle the state or if we just have to consider it an honor to die for the revolution

[kaurwreck]

you remind me of a time i wish i could go back to; a time in which i would obsessively read and keep reading about anything that interested me slightly. i would stumble into entirely new ways of thinking with all the delicacy of a bull in a china shop, and learn to engage with it on its own terms. the ability got lost somewhere in the haze that was school and uni and people and work and now i’ve… lost the ability to think on my own. it comes maybe twice a month, in random bursts, and i fucking hate that i don’t have access to it continuously anymore. i hate that now when i’m bored i can’t think up stories in my head and chew on ideas in my free time. i see you and i’m so happy and so envious; i wish for my thirst for life back. i’m so tired. i’m saying this to you because, of all people, might be able to see it clearly. i respect the fact that you managed to retain it to adulthood or beyond is so much. you don’t know how much that means to me, as a young adult.

If it helps, I don't read nearly as much as I did as a kiddo. Like, not even remotely close. Quite frankly, I've only recently gotten back into reading lit, after years of only reading comics and manga, and not nearly at the volume I did before.

But! There are all sorts of opportunities to engage with stories and ideas and reconnect the synapses that spit where they used to spark. Once, in the throes of a heavy and prolonged period of uncertainty, I was gripped by the color of spray paint on the sidewalk on the way to pick up an espresso while sleep deprived. I consciously chose to stop and appreciate it.

Which is to say, I also get exhausted and burnt out and go through periods where I wonder if I've lost some fundamental part of myself. But then I rest or I change my routine or I receive an affirmation I didn't realize I desperately needed, and my verve returns, as it does. I think having pediatric onset bipolar disorder has advantaged me in this regard because even when I feel like nothing, I know that the intensity will return, and that it will continue to ebb and flow like the tides. I used to dread the ebb, but the ebb has its own value, too; in the ebb is where I nurture roots.

But to my earlier point, there are lots of stories and ideas buried in all sorts of moments. We can imbue meaning in the things we do as an observed ritual until it becomes habit until it becomes sincere. And for the periods in which we can't, it's worth remembering that the winter solstice is the longest evening of the year, but the sun will come back because it always has. In the meantime, you can stoke a hearth and sip on coaxed together warmth while tucking into your memory this grief so that you will recognize what you've been missing when it returns, so that feeling excited is remarkable enough to cut the present ennui. In time, you'll start to feel substance in the contours of the grief, too, because to be exhausted and numb and tired means that you exist enough to be anything at all.

And, if you're too untethered from yourself for even that, find something mundane and look for a glimmer of anything worth observing. If you can't find anything, choose to give some facet of what you see meaning anyway.

(It's not that the sidewalk was purple. It's that I chose to see that it was that particular, beautiful shade of purple rather than remain adrift into my own ether and, in doing so, tethered my intangible enormity in something tangible enough for me to stoke while I weathered the season.)

If you practice enough, this becomes muscle memory. Same with thinking on your own. I don't think reading is ever enough on its own anyway; sometimes, we mirror ideas and mistake them for our own. Or we encounter ideas but don't allow ourselves to be changed by them.

It's why it's important to engage intentionally, and it doesn't have to be with text. It can be with movies, art, those around us, our environment, our own understanding of the world, the condensation on a window. Mindfulness helps, but so does adopting the mindset of a toddler and asking why? Constantly. Again, it may begin as a rote exercise, but the more you do it, the more it becomes muscle memory. If you think you know something, consciously stop and ask why? Where did you learn that? What assumptions does your conclusion rely on? Could there be another explanation? Pretend you're someone else for a moment, a favorite character or historical figure or loved one. What would they think given the same facts? Also important is saying, like a toddler, because I said so! as the only reason you need. Try things for the sake of having not tried them before. There's a reason why Lao Tzu advises being like a newborn baby, soft boned with a strong grip.

There's very little I do, read, watch, or consume that I don't think about applying elsewhere, too. This is sometimes exhausting. But it's also where I get my well of passion. Because there's always an opportunity for meaning, my life bursts with it.

This doesn't mean I don't still have rough weeks or months or years. I have bipolar, adhd, cptsd, and social phobia; I have frequent insomnia and sleep paralysis, etc. etc. But I look forward to what I might learn next, and there's purpose and intention to how I experience even my lows. The life I'm currently living is so unlike where I came from, in part because I decided I wanted meaning and purpose. Before I knew what that was supposed to look like, I picked a direction and strove for it, feeling out what I couldn't see. I still do, when necessary. It will always be necessary.

So, while I don't know if what works for me will work for you, I can promise that something will excite you again, eventually. Adulthood isn't a linear decline or a separation from yourself. It's variable and dynamic, and you have agency in what you do with that. There isn't any objective meaning or purpose to be assigned, so you get to choose it for yourself, and it can be as variable and dynamic as you need it to be. So, if you don't want to grow into someone who can't think on your own, you don't have to. If you don't like your current state of mind, you don't need to settle in it.

tl;dr: It's not what I've retained, it's that I've ebbed and flowed and changed, and given myself the space to clumsily stumble towards what I want and what I value, even if I'm not always sure what those are. I'm letting go of the construct that I have to be anything, and I emphatically choose not to be lots of things. It's a process, and it's nonlinear. But nothing is, and there's grace in the inevitably of ebb.

[mariocki]

The Naked Kiss (1964)

"You know what's different about the first night? Nothing. Nothing... except it lasts forever, that's all. You'll be sleeping on the skin of a nightmare for the rest of your life."

[kayvsworld]

tfatws would've been SO good if they had hired actually good writers 😭 forever mourning what could've been.....

the potential of fatws haunts me like a grim spectre of potential because some parts of it i LOVED (sam & karli, boat adventures, zemo & his thoughts & opinions, SARAH, Isaiah, sam being told he deserves the shield but having to think about whether or not the SHIELD deserves HIM) but like. oh my god

i learned very little new info about sam wilson As A Guy on the Sam Wilson (& Bucky Barnes) Show. i learned nothing new about bucky barnes on the Sam Wilson & Bucky Barnes Show. THEY PUT i gotta calm down give me a second hi. they put. the winter soldier (THE WINTER SOLIDER. BONKY BARN HIMSELF) in on-screen therapy........... & had him talking about how he needs 2 manfully make amends 4 his terrible hydra crimes like how do u fumble the ball this hard. cowardice it's cowardly behaviour

and like here's the thing. i did not actually need the writing to be Good i just needed it to commit to any kind of bit. like. serve a purpose. have intent. know what it is trying to say a little bit or at least have something that it would Like to say abt the characters etc

like i consider im2 to be a good iron man movie because despite being stupid (& clumsy in places) it knows what it is & what it's for & what it's doing and it executes most of it pretty decently. Also it is fun and we learn things in it. a low bar :)

who was fatws For (aside from me personally so that i can cheer when i see my best friend samuel in his party city captain america costume for one single episode). these same dudes are writing sam's movie now i am white knuckling it

[wowbright]

Like I really try not to get mad at customer service people on the phone but when this interaction happens:

Customer service person: are you ready to answer the questions?

Me: Ok

Customer service person: I need you to answer me in the affirmative. Are you ready to answer the questions?

Me: yeah.

Customer service person: I need you to answer in the affirmative or we cannot move forward. Are you ready to answer the questions?

Me: yeah okay sure

Customer service person: I need you to answer me in the affirmative.

Me: is there an issue with the connection? can you not hear me?

Customer service person: I need you to answer me in the affirmative.

Me: Ok. I've already done that three times. What do you need me to say?

Customer service person: I need you to answer me in the affirmative.

Well finally I figured out that she would not accept anything but the word "yes" but by then we were both annoyed so yeah fun times.

[ereborne]

please please please, did the space-monk keep his armies up his sleevies??

Of course he did! 

This is an exceptionally silly title, but in my defense, it’s a nonsense file full of contradictory timeline schenanigans and snippets of a fic I am not writing.  The same fic I’m very very absolutely not writing that I mentioned in the seven-sentence post last Sunday, actually!  It has been plaguing me. 

The thing is, is that I am so sure there ought to be a way to make it work.  I haven’t found it so far, so far I have only found many ways not to make the metaphorical lightbulb, but I feel so strongly that it should work.  I will make it work eventually, and then I will be free. 

The ‘it’ (army up our sleevey) in question:  the Mandalorian Empire!  I am so sure that there should be a way to rewrite these wholeass war stars so that the Mandalorian Excision is a turning point in the history of the Jedi Order, but in the opposite direction from canon.  Have it be the first time the Jedi were commanded to go commit large-scale violence against a sovereign system just because the Republic said to, and so the first time the Jedi found themselves truly pushed to a point where they cannot do as ordered without wholly breaking the tenets of their Order but cannot disobey and keep themselves safe and in a position to fulfil the objectives of their Order—and have them turn to the Force for a third option. 

It's a pretty radical third option, because I want to play with the timeline and also because the one scene makes me so so so happy, but—instead of killing off the Mandalorians, they meet with them, make a deal with them, pack them up on ships, and slide them into a pocket in the Unifying Force to be retrieved (much) later, when it’s safe.  Fast forward all the way to AotC, once the Jedi have discovered the clone army prepped for them on Kamino and received that implicit authorization to hire what amounts to a mercenary army, they can do a fine magician’s flourish and pull the better part of the Mandalorian Empire out of their sleeves!  What a scene that would be, I want it so badly. 

And all the fun of the set-up, too!  Imagine it, right, the Jedi have elevated ‘from a certain point of view’ to a zen art and have a now long-running history of taking creative options to do the most good possible regardless of Republic guidelines, but keeping it all on the down-low has given the Jedi chronically poor PR (essentially the same as they have in canon) and the truth of many things has passed out of memory and into the keeping of the Force.  Then the tragedy at Galidraan happens, Dooku’s faith wavers, and the Force returns one secret to them—Dooku’s good friend Sifo-Dyas gets him together with Master Archivist Jocasta Nu and the three of them learn about the pocket Mandos waiting to be pulled, the absolute proof of how far the Jedi will go (and how much the Force will support them) in order to preserve life.  And then immediately after that revelation is when Sidious comes to whisper in Dooku’s ear, all his manipulations, how the Republic is corrupt and the Jedi are useless and if Dooku wants power enough to make a difference he’ll need to do something radical—and Dooku is playing him the entire time. 

And thematically, it could be so good!  Revisiting the original Star Wars question of are the Jedi knights following lords or monks serving a higher purpose!  The distinction between lying to gain the freedom to do good (Jedi mind-trick) and manipulations to gain power to do evil (Sith compulsion)!  Once-and-future Mandos who are both the kings waiting to return to their people and the sword waiting to be drawn!  The Clone Wars are still fought, kind of!  An Empire still rises, kind of!  The clones who were chattel, produced and sold by a failed Mand’alor, denied any culture or history, destined to fight and die unacknowledged in someone else’s war; now being adopted wholesale by the returned Mandalorian people, hailed as a gift from the Force itself, sharing their knowledge of modern times and being taught all the cultural traditions of Mandalore’s heyday, being treated as beloved children and kept as safe as any Mando’ad could be!  Anakin, fatherless child of the Force, as the prophesied Chosen One, found by the will of the Living Force, trained by a sleight-of-hand master with a powerful connection to the Unifying Force, strong enough to bring balance to the Force not through massacre but instead by bringing back an entire people!  Renewal, healing, proof that good will always ultimately triumph over evil but that you have to get it there through a balanced combination of faith and hard work! So fun!!!!

Exactly how and when all this happens and what the hell all the fallout is, though, all that stuff still escapes me.  This file is an absolute nightmare bog of snippets and bullet-point ranting. 

[thelongestway]

some very sudden and unoriginal Star Trek Prodigy thoughts

do we know from anywhere that the Living Construct was developed by the Vau N'Akat?

because I was just thinking on the thematic parallels of two civilizations suddenly tearing themselves apart. to a point, this could be a product of the Vau N'Akat sense of poetic justice. but I am suddenly not so sure it was. now, I might be deeply misremembering, but I woke at 1 AM to write this, so hear me out.

either the fault lines in Vau N'AKat society need to run deep enough that slight provocation could tear them wide open, or… the Living Construct is neither Vau N'Akat nor Starfleet. Instead, it's entirely its own. Perhaps something of an eldritch opposite to the Borg: an entity which tears apart social connections instead of forging them by force. Most obviously by messing up language; a living punishment for daring to build a Tower of Babel. But perhaps also in more subtle ways?

and who should be able to work on that ship if not people whose existence has hitherto been defined by profound, destructive loneliness? who are always resigned to the possibility that it could, in the end, be their fate?

there is nothing more the Construct can do to those who have lived and breathed loneliness and know it as the baseline norm of existence unless they do something about it with their own hands. Who would it attack? Dal, the only one of his kind, raised by a particularly ruthless Ferengi? Rok-Tahk, perceived as monstrous and dimwitted when she is curious, smart and kind? Zero, who has already lived through being torn away from their people and their link, and has been used as a weapon for who knows how long afterwards? Jankom Pog, alone on a Sleeper ship, with his bitter "if there's one more problem I can't fix, how can I call myself an engineer" and dreams of royalty? Murf, who is too alien to participate in most forms of communication the others form together? The only person who has had even shreds of recent belonging was Gwyndala, and that ended on-screen, with "You chose the ship."

and Janeway. the right way, the wrong way, and the Janeway way, as that recent post said on the insane, warping loneliness of command and loyalty when you're 70k light years away from home (or however long it was). and the Protostar Janeway cannot even rely on her experience being lived.

but the Construct knows Protostar Janeway, and it knows what she misses. so it stays dormant and infects an optimistic Starfleet, used to Community.

In this context, the Construct could easily be the first cause, and at the same time the Vau N'Akat could just as easily have thought it originated from Starfleet. Imagine if the Protostar came in with that weapon embedded in it (from Wormhole shenanigans*), and collectively Chakotay and the Vau N'Akat figured it out too late, at which point the Vau N'Akat decided it was Starfleet's plan all along. Chakotay crashing his ship Prophets knows where makes sense: isolate the isolator. In this case, the Borg being weird about the construct makes sense (need to rewatch), and also Zero being able to just walk out on them. Way less attack surface.

And another thing: the training the Diviner puts Gwyndala through is insane. he wasn't just preparing a wartime interpreter, that'd be a couple of languages plus a Drednok. Teaching a child… Dozens if not hundreds of languages? Why? What past war and experience was he preparing her for? Why make her learn ways of thinking until she could know most of the races in the galaxy blind? Was he ensuring that, no matter what, she could reach someone? Even if everyone else were to be affected - in the land of the blind, the one-eyed lady is queen.

I really, really want to see how season 2 will handle it. and I have faith that they will, and that they will find a new home. we need more linguistics in our science fiction, and even if this theory is totally bonkers, the themes of loneliness, understanding, and literally being able to speak to one another will be there. because the writers are good, and that's what they chose to explore, and showed it like 5 min in of episode 1.

I think Suzette Haden Elgin would've loved Star Trek Prodigy, and that it would be a high compliment.

*crack version: it's a stray Pah-wraith. Instead of "why do you exist here", it goes "you HAVE and WILL ALWAYS exist HERE". The Bajorans were mostly immune to them for the same reason the Prodigy crew is: there is a limit after which loneliness and uncertainty become the default, and then those beings lose their power (and the people thrown into it? die or have the kind of scars we're shown). And also this is how they get Kai Winn - after what, four decades including concentration camps and empty prayer? Took 'em a while EVEN WITH the seeds planted for them by Winn Adami herself!

[fideidefenswhore]

[Henry] had asked Lady Shelton whether Mary [was] persisting in her obstinancy. Hearing that she was, Henry became certain that she was being encouraged by secret communication from Katharine. Lady Shelton thought the only possible messenger was Mary's chamber woman. In this she was correct. The maid had been smuggling letters in and out. She was dismissed, as was Mary's confessor, to be replaced by one whom Chapuys characterised as 'Lutheran'.

The King’s Pearl: Henry VIII & His Daughter Mary, Melita Thomas