#Dystopias

[elfminstersfromagerie]

“The whole world opened up to me when I learned to read” - Mary McCleod Bethune

[stoicmike]

Why create fictional dystopias when we are all living in the ones we have created? -- Michael Lipsey

[shinobicyrus]

I can’t explain this very well but I think one of the reasons I can’t stand watching the MCU anymore is that at some point that world became a dystopia and now its shows and movies feel like I’m watching propaganda for it.

[conradforrest]

The four dystopias exist because of Mankind, but Mankind is "controlled" by the dystopias, although he rarely appears with them

I'm honestly not that proud of the result of this-

[thinkingimages]

Aapo Huhta: Block (Hardcover – August 30, 2015)

Block is a photographic essay, amassed as a set of visions, offering hints for storylines in a murky, dystopic scene of the city witnessed by a stranger. Focusing on gray, concrete features with some people as spectators, narrowing down the elements in the frame, driven most often by the observation of the shapes the light creates, it alludes to a mute perspective toward contemporary city life and the people's role in it. Simultaneously it is a story where the photographer plays the role of a protagonist in the big city that throws a newcomer into its infinite whirl of new people and peculiar surroundings. Photographs for the series were shot in New York between 2014 and 2015.

[awidevastdominion]

[adastra-sf]

MAD MAX: OUT OF GAS

It's Mad Max on tricycles! Or, what happens in the world of Mad Max when they inevitably run out of gas.

On YouTube here: X

[devoutjunk]

there are my ever present obsessions: myth & folklore, fairytales, antigone, the gothic, retellings, ghosts/hauntings, Places that are Alive and Want something, the sea, the mountains etc.

and then there are my Current Weird New Things, the obsessions/interests that come into my life like lightning strikes and light everything up. Right now, for some reason, it’s fiction set in medieval Europe, particularly stories that deal w/ shifting currents of faith and allegiance, and paired w/ that, oddly stories set in space, usually futuristic, often dystopian. The two seem superficially so different, and often can be when it comes to genre and style, but I keep finding so many common or mirrored resonances there as well: the sense of living on the limits of “civilization,” always aware of how that natural world could, if it wished, swallow you whole; the interrogation of what it means to be human & who gets to be human & what happens when you’re forced to confront the interiority and complexity of someone you’d designated as “alien;” crises of faith, of language, of definition; an obsession with the apocalyptic: a constant preparing or mourning for/resurrecting from the end; the beauty and terror of the things humans make: spaceships, cathedrals, the written word, the science to save or take a life. The way we think we own what we make. That it’s stable, unchanging, ours. But we don’t. The things we make take on lives of their own. A man preaches earthly poverty and self-denial and several decades later another man burns at the stake for echoing his words. Everyone is alien & heretic to someone, somewhere; the kings and commanders do not have our best interests at heart, they want more land, more stars, flags planted in palaces and on planets. In historical fiction, like in sci-fi, the world is often changing too fast for people to keep up.

A girl in an England-before-it-is-England climbs over Roman ruins, wonders what other wonders those long-gone strangers built. People tell her the world was greater then. The countryside recovers from their greatness; new growth creeps over the old roads. In her lifetime the girl will worship one god, then another. Speak several languages, and never be sure, not entirely, which one she thinks of as hers. They say there was an Eden once. Maybe there was, but she doesn’t mourn it. She’s only ever know the world as it is—

An astronaut hovers high above a ruined earth, examines a sunken city through a telescope. Algae slicks the crumbled skyscrapers, and slowly stunted trees begin to grow, splitting up through dirt and concrete. The astronaut has never climbed a tree. Once, whole swathes of country were swallowed in forest. People tell her the world was greater then. But she has only ever known ship & station; brief trips planetside for yearly vaccinations. She’s not sure the old world was greater, or better, or pure. She thinks maybe it was only ever the world, torn up by the bitter feuds of kings, ending and beginning over and over, one after the other, an endless orbit she cannot help but love, even as its gravity grinds down her bones. Death not now or soon but one day & sure. But oh, she thinks, what cities, what forests will grow from her grave—

[innytoes]

“You got me a stocking?” - “Of course, you’re family.” For either Reggie & Ray or an AU where the Molina family adopts Reggie, please!

For my fourth and final version of this prompt, I decided to go full sci-fi dystopian AU because of course I did.

"Reassignment assessment, Reginald Peters, written portion." The computer said as he sat down at the terminal. He'd just finished the physical scan, and from the way some of the squares had coloured orange, it wasn't going great. Probably his weight and blood work, if he had to guess.

"Um, I can't... I can't write," he told the terminal. "Or read." Immediately, the keyboard disappeared, and a little speaker appeared next to the questions, with a microphone icon replacing the keyboard. He took a deep breath, and started the questionnaire.

After his dad had been caught stealing, he'd pretty much flushed away any credits their family unit had down the drain. Mom had managed to save herself by taking a blood alcohol test, proving she hadn't partaken in any of the stolen goods (though Reggie was pretty sure that was just dumb luck). She had managed to stay in her job in the kitchens, reassigned to the bunks there, instead of being sent to the jail like Dad.

But the lack of credits did mean there was no way she could keep Reggie on. And Reggie had been going to work with Dad, cleaning, since he was seven, so he couldn't be reassigned to the Kitchen bunks.

But all the credits he earned were transferred straight into the family account to pay for food and rent, so it wasn't like he had any credits of his own to rent out a room somewhere. Carl had kept him on until he was transferred to Reassessment, let him take over Dad's route as well as his own, so he'd managed to earn enough to keep himself fed while he stayed in the Cleaning bunks.

But now he had to prove he was worth keeping on permanently. Or get lucky enough that one of the better paying departments would take on a scrawny thirteen year old who couldn't read or write and wasn't deemed bright enough to get a scholarship for school when he was little.

He spoke as clearly as he could, knowing the voice-to-text AI wasn't perfect. He laid out his work history, his references (which was really only Carl). There were some weird questions at the end as well. Like his favourite colour, and his favourite class. Probably because he was a minor. He tried to keep the bitter upset tone out of his voice in case it messed with the AI when he answered. "I don't know." And: "I don't go to school."

The last question, the one about what he wanted for his future, he wasn't exactly sure how to answer. "I hope to stay on and work my way up at the Cleaning Department, or perhaps get transferred to the Kitchens," he said.

Except when he let go of the mic button to submit his answer, a flashing yellow warning came on the screen. Apparently the facial recognition had flagged the answer as dishonest, would he like to try again?

He tried again. And again. Finally, frustrated, he said: "I want to earn enough credits to be able to afford my own rooms, in whatever Department that will take me, and maybe even get enough to be able to afford a dog, or a hamster." He'd never told anyone about that dream, but it was at least flagged as truthful, and before he could edit or resubmit his answer, the test declared he was finished, and to please move on to the next room to wait for reassignment.

It was the first time he'd been alone, had his own rooms, since his dad was caught. Reggie reveled in the quiet, taking the standard issue meal from the Fabricator at set times, and catching up on some much needed sleep. After a few days, though, he got a little antsy, so when he computer terminal finally beeped that he'd been reassigned, he was thrilled. He quickly washed his face, tidying the bed and getting dressed, stepping out ready to meet Carl, or maybe even the head of the Kitchens.

Except it wasn't Carl. It was a family. A mom, a dad, a girl about his age, and a little boy. They looked like the kind of family that had enough credits to send their kids to school without scholarship credits, wearing non-standard-issue clothes and cool shoes and even jewelry.

Before he could tell them they probably had the wrong room, and that the orphanage was down the hall, the woman said: "Reginald? It's so nice to meet you!"

So it wasn't a mistake. Reggie stayed quiet as they lead him away from the Reassignment wing, up to levels and past parks where he'd only dreamed of being promoted to clean, until they arrived at their unit. Inside was big, but it still looked cozy, like a real home. The walls all had non-standard colours, there was art displayed, the furniture was non-standard issue.

"Come on, let me show you your room," the little boy, Carlos said, dragging him along. "You still have to pick your own colours and stuff, it'll be fun!"

So he got his own room. That he got to decorate. And he got to pick out non-standard-issue clothes, and they enrolled him in school, and every day Reggie was waiting for the Molinas to realise they'd made a mistake, to send him back to Reassignment, but it never came. Not even when he bombed his first pop quiz for his Writing class (the p and q were hard, okay?), or when he accidentally burned dinner helping Rose cook.

Three weeks in and they still hadn't sent him back. When he came home from school, thrilled to report that he'd actually passed a test for once (math was way easier than letters), the apartment looked... different. There were twinkly lights all around, and the furniture had been rearranged to make room for a tree, and oh. Christmas.

"Hey, mijo," Rose said, smiling from where she was hanging a garland up below the screen of the TV. It was playing a video of a fireplace, which just made the whole room feel even cozier. "How was school?"

He shyly showed her his Pad, with the bright red 100% at the top of the page on his math test. "I got my math test back," he said. He glowed with pride and maybe something else when she caught him in a hug, telling him how proud she was. She even insisted on wasting using credits to print out a copy to hang on the fridge.

"Do you want to help me decorate a little before you start your homework?" she asked. He usually waited until Ray was home, because Ray always looked over his letters and helped him sound out the really long words for his reading. He was really nice about it, too, and never got frustrated when Reggie made a mistake.

"Okay," he agreed happily, helping de-tangle even more lights, and hang pretty baubles in the tree. Ray came home from his shift, smiling and jumping right into helping decorate.

Together, they finished up the tree, except for the star. That would be put on when Julie and Carlos got home. They were in school longer than Reggie, because Rose and Ray hadn't wanted to overwhelm him. He had Writing and Reading and Math, and because Rose insisted school should be fun as well, once a week he also got to go to Music. They’d let him pick whatever he wanted, from art to sports to flight school.

Finally, Ray made him stand back and decide how high the stockings would go. He could read the names on them now. Rose and Ray both had fuzzy-looking stockings with a faux fur trim on it. Julie's was purple, of course, and shimmered in the light. Carlos' had a fabric that changed colours when you ran your finger over it, so you could draw little doodles on it.

And then Rose handed Ray the last one. It was red (he had a favourite colour now), and it looked very soft. And on it, in shimmering letters, it read Reggie.

"You got me a stocking?" he asked, startled, eyes flitting over the name again and again, just in case he misread. R-E-G-G-I-E. Reggie.

"Of course," Ray said. "You're family."

Maybe it was time to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, Reggie thought, even as his face crumbled. Rose pulled him into a hug, Ray wrapping both his arms around him. Maybe this could be home.

[catflowerqueen]

I had a dream last night where soulmates were a known thing and the first meeting between them manifested as a person getting a symbol/scar emblazoned on their skin. Unusually, however (at least from how I generally see them depicted), the symbol didnt actually stand for the soulmate, but instead represented something intrinsic for the person manifesting it.

Anyway, in the dream a bunch of middle school aged children were gathered in a room that I thought was just the top of a tall building, but i think might have actually been some form of blimp considering that they travelled within to another location later.

On the surface it seemed like this was just some sort of typical class/traditional milestone event to teach kids about soul mates and the symbols and then go to some sort of gigantic meet and greet where they could hopefully meet their soulmate... But I remember feeling some genuinely sinister undertones in the dream. Like I could tell this was one of the opening scenes of a dystopian novel.

Mainly because of the presence of two of my oldest and most beloved OCs--who aren’t exactly soulmates but might as well be--and the things they represent and the fact that they have powers and seemed to imply that they manifested those powers with the marks.

Which might imply that the marks are supposed to give everyone powers except for the fact that the two of them seemed to be hiding the fact that they did have powers from everyone else (though very very badly considering how loud and cryptic they were being about the whole thing. Even though it seemed to be enough for anyone but me), and the authorities in charge of the group only seemed to have brought them along so they could use them as examples to the other kids about what would happen at manifest.

My OCs also seemed to imply that getting their marks also made them technically adults in terms of some of the laws of the land--mostly in terms of information spread, I think--so the sinister vibe might just have been from the fact that the kids seemed too young for "adulthood" or from how forced the whole thing seemed, but I still cant help but feel like something more sinister was afoot than I was privy to.

Maybe it was just the fact that the "scene" before that was some sort of generic "escape from the observation tower ride before it completely malfunctions and overheats and literally crashes to the ground" dream starring Tommy Pickles from Rugrats: All Grown Up that seemed completely unrelated other than the fact that the inside of the observation tower looked like the inside of the room the kids were in and was also technically a ride even though they werent actually the same ride. So the soulmate part was still running partially off the part fuelled by terror and the need to escape?

It was just weird, in any case.

[hellsgate-roadhouse]

📺 📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺📺

[mysharona1987]

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

Take your mind off your troubles by exploring our latest DYSTOPIAN WORLDS display, featuring:

Matched by Ally Condie

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Brave New Girl by Rachel Vincent

The Selection by Kiera Cass

[notanotherbookreview]

With election chaos, I sought incite from these two books, Lewis' dystopia that won Noble Prize in 1930s and Ways and Means, brilliant look at how the Civil War was won with Financial battles possibly more important than the bloody battlefields. Leave your reaction, if so moved.

[awidevastdominion]

[nando161mando]

If you want to know why people have lost faith in capitalism, this might help