#imagine being engineered from birth to be killing machines

[d12victor]

katniss doesn't by any means hate (strong word) any of the other tributes, she just has a strong preference for those from the poorer districts, hence disliking the career tributes..

[tawneybel]

Note: I didn’t add a violence-filter because, despite being a crossover between the R-rated Ringu and Saw series, this imagine isn’t too bad. As of queuing this, I’ve seen up to Saw: The Final Chapter and Ringu 2.

Imagine Sadako appearing behind Billy while you’re stuck in a trap.

It occurred to you Jigsaw himself might also become cursed, if he watched her edit. To your amazement, Sadako paused before knocking the dummy aside. You held your breath. It broke, but it wasn’t rigged. No nail bomb, no shots of any sort. Only a shattered toy. Lying on its side like you, when watching her video. Over and over. Before nodding off, beguiled by the actress’s then-ethereal movement.

Sadako’s real, just not alive.

Only an exorcism might rid anyone of her. Nothing Jigsaw had built would thwart her. For all his industrial mastery, you suspected he wasn’t knowledgeable about ghost lore. Otherwise, he wouldn’t dare kill his victims in such gruesome ways. John Kramer was a killer, despite his insistence otherwise.

You had no patience for his hypocritical, sadist philosophy and you told him so. So you found yourself disoriented, naked, and tethered to a damned device. Either on his orders or because one of his piglets didn’t like their mentor being insulted.

And/or. Maybe unrelated copycat. Probably not.

Kramer’s engineering was unparalleled. Amanda had purposely fixed games. Made them inescapable. You clearly wouldn’t be able to escape the machine without some grievous injury. If breaking out was even possible.

At least Sadako Yamamura didn’t deny her violence was vengeance-driven. Sadako, who was oozing out of the grainy screen.

Her palms, no doubt cold as the grave, silently hit the floor. You wouldn’t be surprised if that leeched skin remained pristine on this “cutting-room” floor. Or as pristine as skin whose wearer perished in a well could be. Yet she was technically “alright.” Oddly comforting, the thought you might soon be joining her… Perhaps in Sadako’s own viral afterlife. Hopefully not with Jigsaw’s other victims.

She continued her crawl, dress dry yet weighed down as if soaked. The onryo tilted her head. You weren’t going to die of fright. Not tonight. Oh, tonight she had plans for you two, but she had been transported out of Japan. That much was clear. Underneath her dark strands, a grin nearly split Sadako’s face in two. The first grin in a long time. The first of many, all for you, Sadako decided. The curse would- had proliferated. Spread farther than she had hoped. With your help.

Jigsaw was dying, but his end would be as excruciating as her power allowed. After your release, she could retaliate. It wouldn’t occur to Sadako until later that everyone involved, minus you, was ignorant of her existence and yurei in general. She just felt the same rage that birthed the curse and bound her to it.

Sadako knew you sympathized with her. A peek through her lengthy bangs rewarded her a glimpse of your impassive face. Anger ebbed. Your physical and her spiritual binds. Now you two could empathize with one another. Plan out how you would copy and distribute the tapes for her.

She reached you.

Corpses’ nails continued to grow. Did ghosts’? You weren’t sure. Because Sadako’s fingernails had been ripped clean off in her attempted ascent out of the well.

She drew herself up, her cold, cold hand on the apparatus. Warmth withdrawn from your body, you collapsed into her outstretched arms. 

But not before noting the frozen countdown.

[autolenaphilia]

Technobabylon

Technobabylon is a 2015 cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game, developed by Technocrat Games in the Adventure Game Studio engine and published by Wadjet Eye Games of the Blackwell series fame. It is a traditional 2d game, using a pixel art style.

As usual with point-and-click adventure games, the story is the main focus. And Technobabylon is a cyberpunk story, set in the fictional city of Newton in the year 2087. It has all the traditional trappings of the genre. Newton is administrated by an AI, Central, genetic engineering is common, and the internet has evolved into a virtual reality called the “Trance”, which people connect to via nanomachine wiring in their heads called “wetware.”

The story focuses on the three playable characters. There is Charlie Regis, an aging agent of CEL, basically Newton’s police force and his partner on the job, Max Lao. And the third character is Latha Sesame, a unemployed “thrall” of the Trance. The three player characters show different views of the hi-tech world of Technobabylon. They are all tied together in a complex mystery/thriller plot, which I will allow you discover for yourself.

Because the story is really good. It’s intelligently written in a way few games are. It’s actually philosophical. The philosophical themes are the same as in a lot of cyberpunk, concerned with the subject of how technology impacts human freedom and power. The subgenre uses the freedom science fiction to imagine new forms of technology that brings these themes into sharp relief. Even if the technology does not exist, the questions they illustrate are relevant to the audience.

For example, the question of existential freedom, meaning the freedom of humans to create their own purpose in life and to determine what to do with their lives. How systems of hierarchical power such as capitalism deny humans that power by turning their lives into part of a machine to create profit. And how technology can both empower these systems and give the individual more power to determine their own path in life.

Technobabylon features genetic engineering and AI, which means there are humans and humanlike sentient beings who are created for a purpose. What about their freedom? The games features the horror of “gen-engineered” suicide bombers, genetically engineered before birth to grow explosives in their bones and raised from birth to become religious fanatics willing to sacrifice themselves. Even Central, the AI who seems all-powerful over the city of Newton, is subject to this denial of existential freedom, because she was created and exists solely to administer the city. If she is a system of control, she is herself controlled by existing for that purpose. These questions are eventually revealed to be central to the story, which is very nuanced in terms of morality.

The game gives other examples of how technology is used by powerful capitalist system to deny the freedom of the individual. Central extensively uses something that already exists in the real world, surveillance cameras. But the rest are science-fictional technological extensions of power that ring true. The carceral justice system uses “neural governor” implants to control the thoughts and behavior of former inmates. There is a virus that can hijack your brain via the aforementioned wetware to make you into a sweatshop factory slave. A major part of the plot is Charlie’s and Max’s investigation into series of “mindjackings”, where the criminal hacks into the victim’s brain to steal the information within, killing them in the process. You can understand the middle-aged technophobe Charlie, who refuses to get wetware installed, and uses an old fashioned screen to do computer stuff.

The game’s future history even has an extensive background of nuclear war, to illustrate the dangers of technology.

But there is also an awareness of how technology can empower the individual. Charlie’s younger partner Max Lao is pro-technology and has wetware installed. And you can learn in an optional conversation that she is a trans woman, who used genetic engineering to medically transition. For her, technology has given her power to determine her own existence.

The Trance in Technobabylon is another example of the game’s nuanced depiction of technology. It’s a good example of how the game takes a cyberpunk cliché, the Trance is at heart the same virtual reality internet trope from classic cyberpunk 80s/90s cyberpunk works, but by understanding the themes at the idea’s heart is able to make the genre tropes relevant for modern times.

The Trance feels like it’s commenting on the internet and video games we have in the 2010s/20. I like the touch that wetware is more like wi-fi than the traditional ethernet port into the brain, as in the one in Beneath a Steel Sky.We mainly see the Trance through the near-addict player character Latha, and she is a depiction of what we call the terminally online. And her escapism from the squalor and danger of her meatspace life is not the best thing for her life, it’s also understandable. The real world does suck for someone poor like her, and we learn during the game how the people in power have failed her. And for Latha the trance is an outlet for her creativity.

It’s great writing all around, it creates a fascinating mystery plot and a very believable cyberpunk world that grapples with the philosophical heart of the genre in intelligent ways. It’s one of the few games that when I try to explain its story, it makes me think of Camus’s thoughts on the absurd and Horkheimer’s criticism of instrumental rationality. Really impressive stuff from James Dearden, the man behind Technocrat games.

And this game does diversity right. It’s truly ethnically diverse, characters have all sorts of skin colors and ethnic backgrounds. Women characters are common and central to the plot. There is a gay male couple whose murders you investigate as part of the plot. And you can have optional conversations to discover a lesbian relationship and that Max, one of the player characters, is transfem. Their identities matter, but never defines their characters. The writing lets you discover all this on your own in a very natural way, and I like that. It’s not every game where two out of three player characters are women of color, one of which is trans.

The gameplay too is solid point-and-click adventure design that tries to minimize the problems such games can have. For example the game always keeps the amount of locations you have access to to a minimum to limit how lost you can get while trying to solve puzzles. The game makes up for this restriction by sometimes having multiple ways to solve puzzles, which is nice.

And it has its own little gameplay quirks that tie into the setting and the characters. Lahta’s chapters are based around using her ability to trance to solve puzzles, while other chapters require you to reprogram the AI minds of robots to proceed.

Overall I think the puzzle design hits a nice sweetspot in terms of difficulty where I felt challenged at certain points, but could press on and solve them, and I only once needed to resort to a guide (because I missed a couple of clickable hotspots in the game’s climax)

Technobabylon’s presentation is also stellar, and helps the story and atmosphere immensely. The art is by Wadjet eye Games regular Ben Chandler, and he again proves his skill at pixel art. The artstyle is visually appealing while conveying the grit and grime of many of the environments in Technobabylon. The voice acting is of a high standard, clearly in part courtesy of producer Dave Gilbert, with many of his Wadjet eye games regulars in the cast. The music by Nathan Pinard is so good that it makes it worth to buy the “deluxe edition” on GOG to get the soundtrack album by itself.

In fact, if my gushing so far hasn’t made it perfectly clear, go and buy the game. It’s a great game that proves that both point-and-click adventure games and cyberpunk are far from dead.

[maulusque]

okay but seriously the clones are terrifyingly competent soldiers.

They are trained from birth by some of the most skilled people in the galaxy. They have a huge budget so there’s no lack of equipment. They also have the technology to do simulations more realistic than anything we could possibly imagine in the real world. And the clones are trained for ten years, day in, day out, no breaks, no days off, no vacations. Just training.

AND there’s also flash training, where they just get concepts and facts and figures and muscle memory pumped straight into their brains by Magic Space Tech. AND they’re genetically engineered to learn faster, learn better, and retain knowledge and skills perfectly. And they train for TEN YEARS.

Let’s do a real-world comparison with some real-life elite troops. Like the Navy SEALS. Those are pretty elite. How much training do you have to go through to become a navy seal? According to wikipedia, after bootcamp (7 weeks), there’s Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School (8 weeks), then Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training (24 weeks), Parachute Jump School (3 weeks), then SEAL Qualification Training (26 weeks), after which you get assigned to a SEAL team. Then, you cycle though deployments, and when you’re not deployed, you’re doing one of three 6-month blocks of further training. But you’re already a SEAL by that point. 

So, total amount of training to become a SEAL and get deployed (i’m not going to count the 18 month training blocks after you become a SEAL because clone troopers also presumably spend time training after they’re deployed): 68 weeks of training, or 17 months. Or about 1.5 years. I know precisely jack shit about military careers, but i’m guessing most navy SEALs didn’t just speedrun the whole process, and probably interspersed some of the steps with regular Navy deployments while doing push-ups wearing scuba fins in their free time or something.

BUT clone troopers don’t spend time on regular deployments in between training, at least not while they’re growing up. They absolutely do speedrun their training, and essentially spend a decade straight in intensive training courses. During which they learn faster, retain better, pack on muscle mass faster, ingrain muscle memory faster, and remember better than regular humans, AND have knowledge and skills directly downloaded into their brains like Neo learning kung-fu in The Matrix. And these super-human brainiacs train for OVER SIX TIMES AS LONG as the US’s most elite force.

Fellas, we were ROBBED. Star Wars did an absolute SHIT job of showing how terrifyingly competent and unnaturally skilled the clones should be. Even Domino Squad would easily tear their way through a SEAL team. Even with Fives being a clumsy dipshit. An “incompetent” or “failed” clone would still likely be miles above the most highly-skilled military badass the real world can produce. Like, come ON, star wars. You had a real opportunity here. You coulda shown us WHY the whole galaxy was terrified of clone troopers, and WHY they were so much better than battle droids, and WHY an army of millions was unquestionably superior to the alternative, i.e. the Republic drafting it’s own civilians and forming a regular army of TRILLIONS. And how DESPITE the fact that they were Technology’s Perfect Killing Machines, they were still so achingly human. And young. And also i think it would be hilarious to watch Shiny!Fives parkour his way up an exploding building, dodging canon fire, take down six commando droids like he’s Jason Bourne, and then trip over his own feet and faceplant. star wars PLEASE. DAVID. i am BEGGING

[maxwell-grant]

Having seen your thoughts on his deeply-unpleasant daddy, might I please ask if you have any thoughts on The Gladiator himself, Hugo Danner? (THE SUPERMAN WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN, if you will).

What would you do if you were the strongest man in the world, the strongest thing in the world, mightier than the machine? He made himself guess answers for that rhetorical query. "I would—I would have won the war. But I did not. I would run the universe single-handed. Literally single-handed. I would scorn the universe and turn it to my own ends. I would be a criminal. I would rip open banks and gut them. I would kill and destroy. I would be a secret, invisible blight. I would set out to stamp crime off the earth; I would be a super-detective, following and summarily punishing every criminal until no one dared to commit a felony. What would I do? What will I do?"

The thing that strikes me about Gladiator is that it almost feels like the book is unfinished. The quality and pace of the book is all over the place, but you can boil it's general story down to "unlucky bastard is born Superman before it's time for Superman to exist, without the necessary support, mindset and structure to become Superman, in a world that neither supports nor accepts the existence Superman, and just as he's about to have the life-changing epiphany that could make him something, he gets struck by lightning and dies in the 2nd-to-last paragraph".

The whole book is like if in the first Spider-Man story Peter Parker just gave up after Uncle Ben died and we never saw him again. It's a superhero/supervillain origin story that gets cut short right as it's about to lead to the birth of the character proper. It's frustrating, yes, but to my scavenger goblin brain that likes to dig through pop culture's trash to find nice forgotten trinkets to polish and make into something new, it also invites a lot of promise, if we get into the question of what could have happened to Hugo Danner if he didn't die on the cusp of his origin story. It's an idea I plan to use for my own pulp writings.

It's not so much whether or not Hugo MIGHT have been Superman, so much as: COULD he be Superman? Maybe, maybe not. I'd argue not, because even with all his power, and even with his parents trying to raise him as best they could, even with Hugo genuinely trying his best to be good and heroic and turn his gifts to mankind, it wasn't gonna pan out. The right pieces weren't there, the family structure wasn't there, the necessary aspects of the origin story weren't there, and ultimately, Hugo Danner wasn't cut for it. He is a failure at everything he tries to be super at.

At college on the football field, he kills a man. As a soldier on the Great War, he slaughters thousands for years, but fails to end the war, despite having been able to do so from the moment he enlisted. He is fired from a steel mill for working too far beyond the abilities of his fellows, and then fired from a bank for freeing a man from a locked safe, because the bank president suspected that Danner planned to use his powers to rob the vault. He tries using his powers to enact social change and fails again and again. He can't even enjoy daily life, because he cannot compete fairly with ordinary people, and because of that he must constantly hold himself in check, never able to fully express himself. And when he's presented with the idea of creating a race of people like him to dominate the world and to “conquer and stamp out all these things to which men of intelligence object,” he finds it ultimately distasteful, because he knows better than to expect good things to come out of his life. And then he curses God and dies. The whole book is one long argument as to why Being Superman Sucks.

He's not the break from tradition that Superman represented, he's a sci-fi superman who met the same tragic ending his predecessors did. In that paragraph above, the very first thing he thinks about, after remarking over his failure to end the war, is thinking about becoming some galactic dictator murdering everyone who steps out of line, before he considers becoming a fascist super-detective. Kind of a damning perspective to present your hero, isn't it? If Gladiator was released today, exactly as is, people would be quick to assume it's an origin story for a Homelander/Plutonian/Omni-Man kind of character. Hugo Danner was a Superman deconstruction before that became a pop culture cliche.

My favorite sections of the book are those that describe Hugo in the war. By far the best-written and most evocative, almost bordering on horror story. And they may be the most damning sections of them all. He never forgives himself for not ending the war when he could, because he's spent all those years killing and toiling away when he was just about the one person who could conceivably leap all the way to Germany and force the war to end. I imagine a lot of pulp heroes who suffered in the war, or any war, and walked out of it with a resolve to protect and do good by others, would be pretty pissed when discovering that, all along, there was this living god among them who actually could have ended the war single-handedly, but was just too damn busy slaughtering his way through fields of people who couldn't possibly fight back, to think about it.

And for all that Hugo says that he hates war and murder and bloodshed, he sure seems like a total natural for it:

Hugo, out of his scarlet fury, had one glimpse of his antagonist's face and person. The glimpse was but a flash. He was a little man—a foot shorter than Hugo. His eyes looked out from under his helmet with a sort of pathetic earnestness. And he was worried, horribly worried, standing there with his rifle lifted and trying to remember the precise technique of what would follow even while he fought back the realization that it was hopeless.

In that split second Hugo felt a human, amazing urge to tell him that it was all right, and that he ought to hold his bayonet a little higher and come forward a bit faster. The image faded back to an enemy. Hugo acted mechanically from the rituals of drill. His own knife flashed. He saw the man's clothes part smoothly from his bowels, where the point had been inserted, up to the gray-green collar. The seam reddened, gushed blood, and a length of intestine slipped out of it.

Hugo stepped over him. He was trembling and nauseated. The bellow of battle returned to Hugo's ears. He pushed back the threatening rifle easily and caught the neck in one hand, crushing it to a wet, sticky handful. So he walked through the trench, a machine that killed quickly and remorselessly

Hugo was learning about war. He thought then that the task which he had set for himself was not altogether to his liking. There should be other and more important things for him to do. He did not like to slaughter individuals. The day passed like a cycle in hell. No change in the personnel except that made by an occasional death. No food. No water. They seemed to be exiled by their countrymen in a pool of fire and famine and destruction.

And then later, after they kill a friend of his

He leaped to the parapet, shaking his fists. "God damn you dirty sons of bitches. I'll make you pay for this. You got him, got him, you bastards! I'll shove your filthy hides down the devil's throat and through his guts". He did not feel the frantic tugging of his fellows. He ran into that bubbling, doom-ridden chaos, waving his arms and shouting maniacal profanities. A dozen times he was knocked down. He bled slowly where fragments had battered him. He crossed over and paused on the German parapet. He was like a being of steel. Barbed wire trailed behind him.

Bayonets rose. Hugo wrenched three knives from their wielders in one wild clutch. His hands went out, snatching and squeezing. That was all. No weapons, no defence. Just—hands. Whatever they caught they crushed flat, and heads fell into those dreadful fingers, sides, legs, arms, bellies. Bayonets slid from his tawny skin, taking his clothes. By and by, except for his shoes, he was naked. His fingers had made a hundred bunches of clotted pulp and then a thousand as he walked swiftly forward in that trench. Ahead of him was a file of green; behind, a clogged row of writhing men. Scarcely did the occupants of each new traverse see him before they were smitten. The wounds he inflicted were monstrous. On he walked, his voice now stilled, his breath sucking and whistling through his teeth, his hands flailing and pinching and spurting red with every contact. No more formidable engine of desolation had been seen by man, no more titanic fury, no swifter and surer death. For thirty minutes he raged through that line. The men thinned. He had crossed the attacking front.

A man dipped in scarlet, nude, dripping, panting. Slowly in that hiatus he wheeled. His lungs thundered to the French. "Come on, you black bastards. I've killed them all. Come on. We'll send them down to hell."

And years later, when he's thinking back to the misery that had been his life:

His deeds frightened men or made them jealous. When he conceived a fine thing, the masses, individually or collectively, transformed it into something cheap. His fort in the forest had been branded a hoax. His effort to send himself through college and to rescue Charlotte from an unpleasant life had ended in vulgar comedy. Even that had been her triumph, her hour, and an incongruous strain of greatness had filtered through her personality rather than his. Now his years in the war were reduced to no grandeur, to a mere outlet for his savage instinct to destroy. After such a life, he reflected, he could no longer visualize himself engaged in any search for a comprehension of real values.

If he could but have ended the war single-handed, it might have been different. But he was not great enough for that. He had been a thousand men, perhaps ten thousand, but he could not be millions. He could not wrap his arms around a continent and squeeze it into submission. There were too many people, and they were too stupid to do more than fear him and hate him. Sitting there, he realized that his naïve faith in himself and the universe had foundered. The war was only another war that future generations would find romantic to contemplate and dull to study. He was only a species of genius who had missed his mark by a cosmic margin.

Even when he's thinking about the places where he went wrong, that he blames himself for, even when's engaged in introspection, his thoughts still gravitate towards violence and hatred, of squeezing continents into submission and of how much the masses are stupid to not appreciate him (because really, all Hugo wants is to be loved and appreciated for what he is), and how unlucky he was to miss his mark.

There's just no place for Hugo Danner. Maybe it was actually rather merciful that he got to have his misery ended briefly by lightning strikes, before he could either turn into something worse, or have his life ruined more throughly.

[quantumvaudeville]

Okay hi so I couldn’t resist playing a round of Olaf Hits The Dragon With His Sword by myself after seeing the post about it and the results are under this cut

I am Olaf, son of the Moon Queen – may her memory be a blessing. Long have I journeyed, from one end of the world to the other, seeking the Dragon that laid waste to my mother’s kingdom when I was but a boy. The harsh sunlight glints off time-tarnished armor as I approach its palace on bare feet, the soles of my boots long worn away by the journey. I have the countenance of a beggar-knight, but in my heart I remember the glory from whence I came.

I am Olaf, and I seek revenge. (+1 Sorrow)

I am the Dragon, ancient and unknowable. Since before your ancestors crawled out of the mud, I have sat vigil over this world and all the stars above it. You are nothing to me, son of the Moon Queen, and your mother’s empire was nothing but a buzzing insect, a mere annoyance to one such as myself. They dared seek to rival my greatness with their gilded towers and war machines, and when they encroached on my territory I crushed them into dust.

I am the Dragon, and I am proud master of all I survey. (+1 Ambition)

Dragon, I have walked the world from end to end to be here. I have slain titans, battled leviathans, outwitted sphinxes all to see myself to the doors of your grand hall. Do not believe I will be deterred so easily. I carry in my hand a sword touched once by each of the gods of the North, and a shield blessed by the gods of the South, and I have trained with heroes of myth. For fifty years I have prepared myself for this moment. For fifty years I have endeavored to become the greatest warrior that ever was. (+1 Ambition)

Be that as it may, little moon-princeling, you face a far greater foe than you ever could have imagined. My grand hall is built on the bones of your forefathers, many of whom came just as prepared as you are. I’m sure you will find my hide as impenetrable, my claws as sharp, my breath as hot as they all did before you. Your mother once sent armies against me, armed with machines that spit metal and fire and stone across battlefields, and I destroyed them all with one sweep of my great wings. I am stronger than you think, princeling, and I do not intend to hold back. (+1 Blood)

It was not just armies you destroyed, dragon, but families and children as well. You spared nothing your wrath. When you came you razed farms, tore down cities, burned everything in your sights. I will never forget the day I saw my home reduced to ash, when your great wings blotted out the sky and the rivers ran red with blood. I am the last of my people, Dragon, and I will not allow you to forget your crimes against us. (+1 Iron)

Oh, princeling. What do you think you are here to accomplish? Steel and siege engines could not defeat me, and what are you? Just one old man with a sword? You are nothing, and you have devoted your fifty years to nothing. Run home, little prince of the moon, and live as the last of your people. Would it not be foolish to allow that legacy to die here? If you run now, I will let you go. I have a soft spot for the brave and foolish. (+1 Iron)

I am no fool, Dragon. I know that for all my years of preparation, I still may fail here, at the end of my journey. But it is my duty to try, that I be remembered a hero to my people, and not a coward who ran from his troubles. They will not sing songs of me, I think. There are so few people left to sing. But someone will remember that I tried. They have to. I will be remembered. (+1 Death)

Princeling. Olaf. I promise you, upon the earth on which we tread, upon the stars that I watched wink into being, I have seen both our deaths writ plain in the tapestry of fate. Kill me today, and you will never find the satisfaction and peace that you seek. You are doomed, Olaf. (+1 Death)

I do not seek peace, Dragon.

Olaf hits the Dragon with his sword.

Sorrow: 9 Ambition: 25 Blood: 5 Iron: 32 Death: 29

Behold, say I. The Dragon is defeated. I can, at last, return to the place of my birth and take up the work of rebuilding. I will gather the wanderers and landless of the world and from them I will build a new empire of the Moon, twice as grand as that which my mother ruled over. It will be glorious. It has to be.

Oh, but princeling. Empires aren’t built in a day, or a year, or a lifetime. And even when they are built, yours will never match that golden city that only ever existed in your memory. How well did you really know that place, coddled in the palace as you were. How well do you remember it now, with decades between you and it? Your recollection grows hazy and rose-tinted, and nothing you build will ever satisfy your conviction that it could be, should be better. Rest well for now, moon-prince, for you shall never be the king you wish to be.

[4eternal-life]

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM  /The Futurist Manifesto

by  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, february 20th, 1909

We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.

The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.

Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.

We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.

The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.

Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.

We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.

We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.

We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.

We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds

We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.

Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs. Alone with the engineers in the infernal stokeholes of great ships, alone with the black spirits which rage in the belly of rogue locomotives, alone with the drunkards beating their wings against the walls.

Then we were suddenly distracted by the rumbling of huge double decker trams that went leaping by, streaked with light like the villages celebrating their festivals, which the Po in flood suddenly knocks down and uproots, and, in the rapids and eddies of a deluge, drags down to the sea.

Then the silence increased. As we listened to the last faint prayer of the old canal and the crumbling of the bones of the moribund palaces with their green growth of beard, suddenly the hungry automobiles roared beneath our windows.

"Come, my friends!" I said. "Let us go! At last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left behind. We are going to be present at the birth of the centaur and we shall soon see the first angels fly! We must break down the gates of life to test the bolts and the padlocks! Let us go! Here is they very first sunrise on earth! Nothing equals the splendor of its red sword which strikes for the first time in our millennial darkness."

We went up to the three snorting machines to caress their breasts. I lay along mine like a corpse on its bier, but I suddenly revived again beneath the steering wheel — a guillotine knife — which threatened my stomach. A great sweep of madness brought us sharply back to ourselves and drove us through the streets, steep and deep, like dried up torrents. Here and there unhappy lamps in the windows taught us to despise our mathematical eyes. "Smell," I exclaimed, "smell is good enough for wild beasts!"

And we hunted, like young lions, death with its black fur dappled with pale crosses, who ran before us in the vast violet sky, palpable and living.

And yet we had no ideal Mistress stretching her form up to the clouds, nor yet a cruel Queen to whom to offer our corpses twisted into the shape of Byzantine rings! No reason to die unless it is the desire to be rid of the too great weight of our courage!

We drove on, crushing beneath our burning wheels, like shirt-collars under the iron, the watch dogs on the steps of the houses.

Death, tamed, went in front of me at each corner offering me his hand nicely, and sometimes lay on the ground with a noise of creaking jaws giving me velvet glances from the bottom of puddles.

"Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, into the immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd!"

As soon as I had said these words, I turned sharply back on my tracks with the mad intoxication of puppies biting their tails, and suddenly there were two cyclists disapproving of me and tottering in front of me like two persuasive but contradictory reasons. Their stupid swaying got in my way. What a bore! Pouah! I stopped short, and in disgust hurled myself — vlan! — head over heels in a ditch.

Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter! I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!

As I raised my body, mud-spattered and smelly, I felt the red hot poker of joy deliciously pierce my heart. A crowd of fishermen and gouty naturalists crowded terrified around this marvel. With patient and tentative care they raised high enormous grappling irons to fish up my car, like a vast shark that had run aground. It rose slowly leaving in the ditch, like scales, its heavy coachwork of good sense and its upholstery of comfort.

We thought it was dead, my good shark, but I woke it with a single caress of its powerful back, and it was revived running as fast as it could on its fins.

Then with my face covered in good factory mud, covered with metal scratches, useless sweat and celestial grime, amidst the complaint of staid fishermen and angry naturalists, we dictated our first will and testament to all the living men on earth.

It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries.

Italy has been too long the great second-hand market. We want to get rid of the innumerable museums which cover it with innumerable cemeteries.

Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of bodies that do not know each other. Public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Reciprocal ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the same museum with blows of line and color. To make a visit once a year, as one goes to see the graves of our dead once a year, that we could allow! We can even imagine placing flowers once a year at the feet of the Gioconda! But to take our sadness, our fragile courage and our anxiety to the museum every day, that we cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?

What can you find in an old picture except the painful contortions of the artist trying to break uncrossable barriers which obstruct the full expression of his dream?

To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?

Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for artists what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambition.

For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists!

Let the good incendiaries with charred fingers come! Here they are! Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries! Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! Let the glorious canvases swim ashore! Take the picks and hammers! Undermine the foundation of venerable towns!

The oldest among us are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts! They will come against us from afar, leaping on the light cadence of their first poems, clutching the air with their predatory fingers and sniffing at the gates of the academies the good scent of our decaying spirits, already promised to the catacombs of the libraries.

But we shall not be there. They will find us at last one winter's night in the depths of the country in a sad hangar echoing with the notes of the monotonous rain, crouched near our trembling aeroplanes, warming our hands at the wretched fire which our books of today will make when they flame gaily beneath the glittering flight of their pictures.

They will crowd around us, panting with anguish and disappointment, and exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage, will hurl themselves forward to kill us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us. And strong healthy Injustice will shine radiantly from their eyes. For art can only be violence, cruelty, injustice.

The oldest among us are not yet thirty, and yet we have already wasted treasures, treasures of strength, love, courage and keen will, hastily, deliriously, without thinking, with all our might, till we are out of breath.

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world's summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: "We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors," it says. Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head!

Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Fallout Of Darkness -- A Half-Decent Sum-Up Of The Pre-War Timeline

If you follow my RP tumblr, @thevalicemultiverse, you may have seen this before (barring a few edits I made just now) -- I wrote this up as background for putting Fallout of Darkness into play over there as an RP verse. It’s as good a write-up as I currently have for Alice and particularly Victor’s lives before the bombs fell, so might as well bring it over here for more general consumption! Enjoy!

---

Alice Liddell shares most of her backstory with her Londerland Bloodlines counterpart: she’s born in 1984, loses her family to Bumby’s obsession with her sister, hallucinates her way through the horrors of Rutledge and Houndsditch with Wonderland serving as a horrific psychological dreamscape for her to get her sanity back under her, realizes Bumby’s behind all her pain and is a child trafficker, kills him, moves to Los Angeles for a fresh start, and gets illegally Embraced by Malkavian Fish and ends up errand girl to Prince Sebastian LaCroix. In this reality, though, she lives through something much closer to the standard Bloodlines plot (albeit filtered through the “all tech is at least kinda 50s sci-fi” lens of Fallout) – including saving Heather Poe instead of Victor, and finding nothing in the Giovanni basement except regular old zombies. She pushes through all the bullshit of Camarilla vs Anarchs vs Kuei-Jin vs Sabbat, convinces Heather to leave when it transpires she’s being really badly affected by Alice’s Malkavian blood (to the point of luring a guy to the haven and then locking him in the bathroom for Alice to eat), and eventually chooses the independent life, killing Ming-Xiao, letting LaCroix blow up with his tower, and flipping off the Anarchs when they try to recruit her. She flees Los Angeles completely shortly thereafter, and spends most of the rest of the next seventy-odd years on the move around America, avoiding possible reprisals from the Camarilla and watching the world go to hell in a handbasket with resources running out and the war for the last great oil pipeline. She finds shelter in Boston in October 2077, and is sleeping away the day in a presumed-safe building when the bombs drop. While she’s luckily buried in a sunlight-blocking pile of rubble, she’s also staked by a falling beam. . .and remains so for the next two centuries. . .

Victor Van Dort, on the other hand, is born in 2050, to Nell and William Van Dort of Burtonsville. William is in the fish business, and moves his family to the USA when Victor is still just a baby to seek new opportunities. What he and his wife and son get is the New Plague, forcing them to stay in Massachusetts due to quarantine measures. Despite this, William still manages to become a fish cannery mogul, making millions off his automated factories. Victor himself grows up almost entirely confined to the house and gardens, cared for and taught by a variety of robots until he was fourteen and it was deemed safe enough for him to attend a normal high school. The gardens taught him to love nature, but his caretakers taught him to love science and technology – while still a hobbyist lepidopterist, Victor is much more a tinkerer and technician in this world. Having to help fix the family’s Protectron driver, Mayhew, when he falls apart almost right in front of you will do that to a boy! He’s just more comfortable with machines than people – a fact that doesn’t make him popular in school.

In his senior year of high school, Victor is pushed to date Victoria Everglot by his parents, seeing her family’s noble history (some relative way-back-when in England was a Grand Duke) as a good way to improve their own social standings. Victor goes along with it after realizing he likes Victoria herself a fair bit, and the two soon become boyfriend and girlfriend. A few months into the relationship, though, Victor comes across a gravely-injured Emily Merrimack-Cartwell in the park, the victim of an elopement that turned out to be an excuse to rob and murder her. Victor is able to rush her to the hospital in time, and the two become friends in the aftermath. Victoria, noticing that they seem to have a growing attraction, decides she doesn’t want Victor to feel obligated to continue dating her if he’d prefer to be with Emily and actually encourages them to go to prom together. They agree after confirming she’s okay with that, and that she won’t be missing out herself. They start out having a good time together, but midway through Victoria goes to the ladies’ room and doesn’t return. Victor and Emily, concerned, go looking for her and find her being menaced by none other than Emily’s ex Barkis – apparently not satisfied with what he got off Emily, he’s now trying to rob and possibly kidnap Victoria. Victor and Emily take him down and get him carted off to jail, to Victoria’s eternal gratitude. The experience bind them all together as a trio, and – coupled with the discovery that Victoria and Emily feel much the same about each other as they do about Victor – they decide to just all date each other and see where the chips fall.

And then the draft comes and Victor is yanked into military service. He ends up a combat engineer in the Engineer Corps, and is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment, aka “Fox Company.” While he makes some friends in fellow soldiers Nate Howard and Sam “Bonejangles” Thatcher, Victor loathes his experiences as a soldier, especially as his unit is protecting the Alaskan Pipeline on the Alaska border and watching as the US annexes Canada. Things come to a head when his commanding officer tries to get him to shoot two Canadian kids who were throwing rocks at their camp – an enraged Victor shoots the officer instead, then gets wrapped up in a sudden enemy attack on said camp (a small company of Chinese infiltrators in stealth suits -- one accidentally decloaked in his surprise over Victor killing his target), spiriting the kids to safety before managing to save the rest of his company via fast fixing of their defenses and rigging up some explosive power armor. The chaos makes it impossible for the upper brass to know for sure Victor killed the officer (though they’re deeply suspicious), and the fact that everyone else is calling him a hero (plus his father being willing to pay good money for his son’s safe return) leads to him going home for good. Having married Victoria while on leave earlier, they take in Emily as a “live-in friend and help around the house” (wink wink), and the three move to the little community of Sanctuary Hills. They have a good couple of years there, culminating in the birth of Victor and Victoria’s son Shaun. Victor, despite his worries about the resource shortages, the war with China, and his own government possibly looking for a way to silence him whenever he makes his opinions about same known, starts thinking that maybe things can be all right for him and his family at least. . .

And then, on October 23rd, 2077, the bombs hit. Victor and his family get to Vault 111 just in time, and are processed and cyronically frozen as per the experiment. However, things go bad with a security staff revolt, and the frozen family is left easy pickings for some mysterious scientists to come in, shoot Victoria, and kidnap Shaun right before Victor’s horrified eyes. When he is revived again, he finds that the life support failed for the rest of the residents (including Emily, whose pod partially thawed her and left her half-rotted), leaving him the sole survivor – apart from his missing son. He escapes the vault and returns to what’s left of Sanctuary Hills, vowing to find Shaun.

Finding Shaun turns out to be more difficult than imagined – the world above is a dangerous place, and Victor is ill-prepared to deal with it. Fortunately, he makes some friends right off the bat – his old Mr. Handy Codsworth; a German Shepherd waiting for him at the local Red Rocket, who is later revealed to be named Dogmeat; and Preston Garvey, last of the Commonwealth Minutemen, whom Victor saves from raiders at the Museum of Freedom in Concord while looking for other signs of life. Victor welcomes Preston and his settlers to live in Sanctuary, and joins up with Preston’s efforts to revive the Minutemen and make it a force for good in the wasteland (being named General by Preston in the process, a move that baffles him and his 2 Charisma). Helping settlers leads him down to Diamond City, where he was told by slightly-psychic Mama Murphy he could find some help. He befriends reporter Piper Wright there, and ends up getting her help to find her missing friend detective Nick Valentine when it transpires he – and with him, Victor’s best hope for finding Shaun – has vanished.

And during their adventures to track down Nick’s precise location, they come across a raider base, are attacked by a raider who yanks a bloody stick out of a pile of rubble – and are introduced to Alice when she bursts from the rubble and sucks the guy dry. Alice hastily informs them that she’s not a threat to them (she was just thirsty after, you know, two centuries of being staked), and they end up trusting her enough to take down the rest of the raiders with her. Victor does his best to explain what’s happened to her, and she does her best to explain her vampiric nature to him. Feeling bad for her, and like he’s finally found a kindred spirit in all this (uh, no pun intended), he invites her to travel with him, switching to a night time schedule to accommodate her. . .at least, until they go to a certain quarry mined by Dunwich Borers to clear out the raiders there. . .

[feminist-propaganda]

Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of  Queen’s Gambit - Episode 1

I’ll start this long piece with a quote by Toni Morrisson. She once said : “If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

After watching Queen’s Gambit yesterday I rushed to the Internet to see if someone had written all of the things I am about to write, all of the symbols I saw in the miniseries, all of the dog whistles, the references.  I found articles about chess. About how the community had adopted the film, about which grandmasters the characters were based off of, about chess moves and theories, about production and the unexpected success of the series.

According to me, this is quite mediocre commentary. I eventually clicked on the New Yorker article that seemed to be a tiny bit smarter. After a couple of paragraphs I realized that the male writer was only going to rant about how the actress is “too pretty” to be Beth Harmon, and this seems to upset him. A lot.

But no one talked about Beth’s mother. Or the name of the series. Or the embroidery. The chess board. The tranquilizers. The math. The flashbacks. The exchange of queens. The sacrifice of the queen. Did no one see it? Or is it again one of those things; where the world is so obsessed with single mothers and representing them as huge, massive, quite literal train wrecks, but no one actually wants to look at them in the eye, talk to them, help them?

Let me tell you, as a single mother, this miniseries had me in tears the whole time. It’s really difficult to watch. It’s downright triggering.

Single mothers like to keep their silence. That’s because we know the world doesn’t like it when we start talking. It hurts. A lot. So instead, the world likes to make memes about how single moms are whores, how they are drunks or over worked. How they’re psychotic. How they ramble. They don’t make any sense. Bipolar. Crazy. How their children stare at the television all day, the way they microwave bad food. We laugh at them, and use them as comical relief in our ... what exactly? Cultural objects. Then we move on. We send a message to single mothers when we do this, and the message is important. You suck. Shut Up. Don’t exist. It’s your fault. 

We make an entire mini series about a single mother who killed herself to save her kid, we put on the television images that hurt and harm single mothers and then the public responds with nothing. They don’t even bat an eyelash. Miss the point entirely. Great series about chess! Except it’s not about chess. Not at all. It’s about raising children alone, when the world hates you. It’s about a trailer. In the middle of nowhere. A strong willed woman who was a mathematician in the 1940s. Who taught her daughter everything she could. Realized she couldn’t do more. And made the ultimate sacrifice, the queen’s gambit. The riskiest, most reckless, bravest move of all.

So let me tell you about what it’s like to watch Queen’s Gambit when you’re a single mother. So that somewhere in the AI, it’s written. So that when our great grand children will try to understand our times, they’ll read it.

I’ll write an essay for each episode. And in each essay I will review the important lession that Alice passed on to young Beth, and how this takes her to Moscow, where she can live a much more fulfilling life than in the U.S.A.

Lesson 1 : Find A Two Dimensional Algebric Plane. Study It. Control It.

I recently learned from instagram user @itllbeokbaby and Amsterdam based artist and weaver Liza Prins that the words textile and text have the same origin as the word texture. 

Text derives from the Latin textus (a tissue), which is in turn derived from texere (to weave). It belongs to a field of associated linguistic values that includes weaving, that which is woven, spinning, and that which is spun, indeed even web and webbing. Textus entered European vernaculars through Old French, where it appears as texte and where it assumes its important relation with tissu (a tissue or fabric) and tisser (to weave).

Women have been weaving, beading, sowing and stitching since the dawn of times. We also know that women used this technology not just to create clothes, tents or shoes. They used it as a container of information. As cultural DNA. 

In South America, in places where writing as we know of it was never created, women would bead important tribal information into skirts. They would then use the skirts as a database of the tribe. To track births, deaths, epidemics, droughts and other important group defining events.

In modern times, women still use embroidery as a means of expression. My memories from childhood contain strong images of my aunts and grandmothers, sewing my name and date of birth onto pillow cases, bathrobes and bedcovers. They would do this by the pool, at the bottom of the ski slopes, on the beach or in the train. They would engage into conversation as they embroidered; as this activity required some concentration, but not their full attention. It was their way of being present; but also transcending into the past and projecting into the future. They sewed our lives into the cloth.

I once heard my grandmother counting the holes in the cloth she was decorating with her beautiful colours. I asked what she was doing. She said that to build the letters on the cloth, you needed to count the squares. Two to the top, four to the right, ten to the middle, etc etc. I was quite mesmerized. I was maybe eight at the time, the same age as Beth when she loses her mother. I had started learning some math in school but somehow the math in school seemed to be presented to me as the epitome of something quite different than this excruciatingly feminine passtime. 

Math was presented to me as masculine, out of reach to us girls. And now I was disovering that these women in my family were geometry experts, fluent in linear algebra, and that at a higher level, they were database account managers.

In the first episode of the miniseries, in the first couple of minutes; we discover two Beths. The first Beth is in Paris, the beautiful, the chic; the glamourous Paris. Paris will always be the undisputed capital of Fashion. 

Paris is the undisputed capital of fashion not because it is the home of polluting massive textile industries like the ones in Pakistan or Zara’s empire in Spain. Paris is the capital of fashion because it is the capital of Haute Couture. And Haute Couture is custom made, sowed by hand, piece by piece, bead by bead, sequin per sequin. It is delicate. It is slow. It is sacred. It is what my aunt’s did. 

It is the opposite of industrial, the opposite of a sewing machine, the opposite of an engine. The opposite of yield failures, punching in and punching out. It is lace. Delicate, personal, eternal.

The second Beth we see is the eight year old Beth, that has just lost her mother. She stands on a bridge. Two cars have crashed into one another. And she stares on at the police officers. One says “Not a scratch on her. It’s a miracle”. The other says “I doubt she’ll see it like that”. 

My theory is that the miniseries explain how Beth eventually begins to “see it like that”. 

The first time we see 8 year old Beth she is wearing a dress, with her name embroidered on it. It reads Beth, in pink. Feminine. Purple flowers surround it. The embroidery is delicate. It’s on her heart. 

We follow eight year old Beth as she gets sent to an orphanage. In the first couple of scenes at the orphanage, we think, for a minute, that maybe Beth will be okay here. The head mistress smiles, has nice hair. Shows her around. Yes, the bed is by the lavatory, but at least she has a bed, a roof over her head.

We only start despising this new mother figure when she takes Beth to choose new clothes. Beth takes off her dress, and stares at her name, written on the front. The headmistress selects a white shirt and grey dress for Beth. She hands to her these new items, symbol of her new life, of her integration within the orphanage and later mainstream society. The headmistress then grabs the dress with the name embroidered and looks at it with disgust. Then, she says “I think we’ll burn this one” and disapears.

Beth then understands that she is no longer allowed to love her mother. That to fit in this school, this orphanage, to survive, she must let go of the embroidery and all of the things she associates with her mother. Her mother, in the words of the teacher was a “victim” of “a carefree life”. A free spirited whore, a lesbian, a witch. There’s a lot of words we liek to use to describe women who don’t conform. And Beth’s mother, as we learn, never conformed.

At night, Beth sees her mother’s eyes, she hears the last words her mother uttered before dying in the car crash. “Close your eyes”. She said it with tears in her eyes and an air of great determination. She knew what she was doing, which is something Beth doesn’t want to tell anyone. Not even her new friend Jolene. Beth’s secret is her mother wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t crazy at all.

Then, Beth discovers the board. One day, she gets sent to the basement and sees the janitor playing chess. Later in the miniseries, Beth tells the journalist from Life it was the board that attracted her. Not the pieces.

As the first episode unfolds, Beth learns that the squares have names. She learns the names. And at night when she looks up at the ceiling she sees the board. She visualizes the pieces moving on the 64 squares. She moves them in her mind and imagines all of the alternatives. What the board would look like if she moved this piece to that square. What would her opponent do then? 

To the journalist of the Life magazine, Beth says that the Chess board was a universe of 64 squares, and that she could control this space. All she had to do was study it.

The board is much like the cloth that Beth’s mother Alice would sew information onto when she was a young child. You count the squares and move your material through it. As you go, you make shapes, patterns, motifs. Beth looks up at the ceiling at night and the first night, without the tranquilizers, she sees her mother say “Close your eyes” which is too painful or such a young child. A young child doesn’t understand yet why a mother would say “Close your eyes” and then crash on purpose into a truck. A young child doesn’t know about the world yet.

Alice aknowledged that she was about to do something extremely risky, that the outcome was uncertain. Alice told Beth that she was going to purposely provoke the car crash. 

But when Beth takes the tranquilizers at night, and now that she knows about chess, she can transfer her love for her mother into her growing obsession with Chess. She looks up at the ceiling and instead of seeing Alice’s last thoughts, she sees the Chess board. Which is the small piece of universe that Alice controlled, when she was alive. The cloth that she sewed her daughter’s name on: “So that you’ll always remember who you are”.

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: The New Doctor Chapter 6

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: The New Doctor Chapter 6 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 6/? SUMMARY: With the Doctor newly regenerated, he and Elise must now navigate their new relationship. The Doctor is an old man and Elise is a headstrong young woman. She is no longer the scared little girl the Doctor saved all those years ago. Will Clara be able to keep them from killing each other?

“That was weird,” Clara said as they walked down the eyestalk.

“You've seen nothing yet,” the Doctor told her.

“What are the lights?”

“Visual impulses travelling towards the brain.”

“Beautiful.”

“Welcome to the most dangerous place in the universe.”

“Entering the cranial ledge now,” Journey said.

They stepped out of the eyestalk.

“Oh, my God,” Clara breathed.

Below them was the body of the Dalek.

Elise had never seen the inside of a Dalek before, but it didn’t change her thoughts on them.

“Behold, the belly of the beast,” the Doctor said.

“It's amazing.”

“It's huge,” one of the soldiers said.

“No, Ross. We're tiny,” another corrected them.

“So how big is it, that living part, compared to me and you, right now?” Clara asked.

“You see all those cables?” the Doctor asked her.

“Yeah.”

“They're not all cables.” The Doctor made a gesture with his hands like tentacles shooting out, making Clara and Elise laugh. Maybe her father was still in there somewhere. Maybe.

“Does it know we're here?” Ross asked.

“It's what invited us in,” Journey said.

The Doctor started walking around explaining things. “Now, this is the cortex vault, a supplementary electronic brain. Memory banks, but more than that. This is what keeps the Dalek pure.”

“How are Daleks pure?” the female soldier asked.

“Dalek mutants are born hating. This is what stokes the fire, extinguishes even the tiniest glimmer of kindness or compassion. Imagine the worst possible thing in the universe, then don't bother, because you're looking at it right now. This is evil refined as engineering.”

“Doctor?” the Dalek asked.

“Oh, hello, Rusty. You don't mind if I call you Rusty? We're going to need to come down there with you. Medical examination, and all that.”

“What, with those tentacles and things?” the female soldier asked.

“How close do we have to get?” Journey asked.

“Well, you know, we're never going to insert a thermometer from up here,” the Doctor said.

Journey nodded and Ross fired a harpoon into the Dalek’s ledge.

There was a horrible screeching noise.

“No. No, no, no, no! Stop, stop, stop, you idiot!” the Doctor yelled.

Ross fired another harpoon.

The Doctor rushed at Ross, but Journey stopped him.

“We need a way down, the only way…” Journey told him.

“This is a Dalek, not a machine. It's a perfect analogue of a living being, and you just hurt it. So what's going to happen now?”

“Oh, God,” Clara said, grabbing onto Elise’s hand.

The redhead squeezed her hand.

“What? What is it?” the female soldier asked.

“Antibodies?”

“Dalek antibodies,” the Doctor confirmed.

Round objects floated towards them.

“Nobody move Any attempt to help him, or attack those things, will identify you as a secondary source of infection. Stay still!” the Doctor told them.

The antibodies opened up to reveal a big blue eye, exactly like a Dalek. They surrounded Ross.

“But the Dalek wants us in here,” Clara said, “Why is it attacking?”

“Can you control your antibodies?”

“Ross, stay calm. We're going to get you out of this,” Journey told him.

“Can you?” Clara asked the Doctor.

The Doctor pulled something from the wall and tossed it to Ross. “Ross, swallow that.”

“What is it?”

“Trust me.”

Ross swallowed it. “Now what?”

An antibody aimed a beam at him.

“Ross!” Journey yelled as Ross disintegrated.

“Oh, my God. What's it doing?!” Clara shrieked.

The antibody sucked up the remains. The blue eye turned red.

“The hoovering,” the Doctor said. The antibody flew off and the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. “Gotcha.”

“What did you give him?” Clara asked.

“Oh, just a spare power cell, but I can track the radiation signature. I need to know where they dump the bodies.”

“You sacrificed him? How could you do that! You were supposed to save him!” Elise yelled.

“He was dead already. I was saving us. Now shut-up. Follow me and run.”

Elise hit him on the chest, shoving him back a few steps. “You are such a heartless bastard! He…he would have never done that. He would have saved him.”

How could this be the same man who had joked around with her and Clara to make them feel better? How could he be this uncaring the next second? It was like a switch inside him was flipped.

“Elise! I am him!”

“No you’re not! You may call yourself the Doctor, but you will never be him!”

The Doctor didn’t let it show, but Elise’s words had wounded him. But why couldn’t she see that everything he did was to protect herself and Clara?

The Doctor turned away from her and started running.

Clara grabbed Elise’s hand and pulled her after the Doctor.

The anti-bodies were following them.

The Doctor stopped at a hole in the ledge. “They've dumped him in here. Organic refuse disposal. We need to get in there.”

“Why?” Clara asked.

The female soldier and Journey shot at the antibodies.

“Those antibodies won't give up until we're inside there. I'd rather go in alive than dead,” the Doctor told them.

“You don't know where it goes,” Journey said.

“Yes, I do. Away from here. Now in. In! In!”

Clara jumped into the hole.

“I can hold them off!” the female soldier yelled.

“No, you can't.” The Doctor tried sonicing the antibodies. “Pull back. Down. Jump, everyone, jump.”

Journey and the female soldier jumped, leaving the Doctor and Elise.

“Come on, Elise. You can do this.”

Elise nodded and took a deep breath before jumping.

The Doctor jumped in after her.

She could him laughing behind her as they slide down. Elise cracked a smile until they landed in some type of liquid.

Clara groaned. “What is this stuff?”

“People. The Daleks need protein. Occasionally, they harvest from their victims. This is a feeding tube,” the Doctor explained.

Elise tried her hardest not to be sick.

“Is Ross here?” Journey asked.

“Yeah. Top layer, if you want to say a few words.”

Journey shoved the Doctor against the wall.

Clara grabbed Elise’s arm to keep her from attacking the young woman.

“A man has just died. You will not talk like that.”

“A lot of people have died. Everything in here is dead, and do you know why that's good?”

“There is nothing good about that.”

“Nothing is alive in here, so logically this is the weakest spot in the Dalek's internal security. Nobody guards the dead. Mortuaries and larders, always the easiest to break out of. Oh, I've lived a life! Tell Uncle Stupid that we're in. Ah ha! A bolt hole.”

They climbed out of the gunk as the Doctor unscrewed a large bolt with his sonic screwdriver.

“Oh look. It’s actually doing what it was designed to do,” Elise quipped. She saw the Doctor’s lips twitch and she prided herself on almost getting a smile out of him.

“He'll get us out of here. The difficult part is not killing him before he can,” Clara told the others.

“Bolt hole. Actually, a hole for a bolt. Does nobody get that?” the Doctor asked.

“Also, there's the puns.”

“Watch it, decontamination tubes are hot.”

They climbed into the decontamination tube.

“Rescue One to Mission Control,” Journey said.

“This is Blue, Rescue One. Report,” her uncle said.

“The Dalek has an internal defense mechanism. We've lost Ross.”

“What kind of defense mechanism? That thing knows you're in there to help it.”

“Yeah, well, who knows? It's a Dalek. We're going to continue the mission.”

“Are you all right back there? It's a bit narrow, isn't it?” the Doctor asked.

“Any remarks about my hips will not be appreciated,” Clara said.

“Ach, your hips are fine. You're built like a man. Elise is the one we should worry about.”

“Thanks,” Clara muttered.

“Oi!” Elise snapped.

“We both know you’re built like your mother,” the Doctor said.

Elise’s hearts stopped at the mention of River. This was the first time she’d heard this body mention her.

They climbed out of the decontamination tube.

The Doctor helped Elise and Clara down.

“What's that noise? Are you wearing a Geiger counter?” the Doctor asked as the female soldier climbed out.

“Standard battle equipment. That's just low level radiation.”

“But stronger down here, for some reason. Give me it.”

The female soldier handed him the Geiger counter and he walked over to the large circuit boards. “I've got it. I know what's wrong with Rusty.”

“Okay, that's good. Is that good?” Clara asked.

“Well, you know how I said this was the most dangerous place in the universe? I was wrong. It's way more dangerous than that.”

“Colonel, we have radiation indicators red-lining in here. Could be that the Dalek is badly damaged than we thought,” Journey told her uncle.

“Copy that.”

“Old Rusty here is suffering a trionic radiation leak. It's poisoning the Dalek and us. Just as well we're here.”

“Really? Perhaps we should get out while we can. Why should we trust a Dalek? Why would it change?” Journey asked.

“Because there’s something serious wrong with it,” Elise said.

“Rusty? What changed you?” the Doctor asked.

“I saw beauty,” the Dalek answered.

“You saw what?”

“In the silence and the cold, I saw worlds burning.”

“That's not beauty, that's destruction,” Journey told the Dalek.

“I saw more.”

“What? What did you see?” the Doctor asked.

“The birth of a star.”

“Stars are born every day. You've seen a million stars born. So what?”

“Daleks have destroyed a million stars.”

“Oh, millions and millions. Trust me, I keep count.”

“And yet, new stars are born.”

“Every time.”

“Resistance is futile.”

“Resistance to what?”

“Life returns. Life prevails. Resistance is futile.”

“So you saw a star being born, and you learned something. Oh, Dalek, do not be lying to me. Come on.”

“Heading for the Trionic power cells, Colonel,” Journey said.

“Radiation approxing two hundred Rads. Danger levels.”

They stepped into the power cell.

“We're at the heart of the Dalek,” the Doctor said.

“It's incredible,” Clara said, looking around.

“Yeah, it’s great. Being inside your greatest enemy,” Elise said sarcastically.

Electricity crackled above them.

“Geiger counter's off the scale. Looks like it's about to blow,” Journey told them.

“Good,” the Doctor said.

“How is that good?”

“Well, Elise and I like a bit of pressure. Rusty, can you hear me?”

“Doctor?” the Dalek asked.

“Rusty, we've found the damage. I'm sealing up the breach in your power cell.” He welded the crack shut with his screwdriver. “No more radiation poisoning. Good as new. There. Job done.”

“That's it? Just like that?” Clara asked.

“An anti-climax once in a while is good for my hearts. Rusty? How do you feel?” The Dalek didn’t answer. Rusty? Rusty? Rusty.”

“The malfunction is corrected,” the Dalek said.

“What's happened?” Journey asked.

“Not entirely sure,” the Doctor said.

Lights came on.

“It's like it's waking up.”

“Rusty, come on, talk to me. What's going on?”

“The malfunction is corrected. All systems are functioning. Weapons charged.”

“Oh, no, no, no.”

Elise looked at the Doctor and glared. “I told you this was a bad idea!”

[chiseler]

Peleshian: Life & Nothing Less

For over sixty years, Artavazd Peleshian—Артавазд Пелешян; Արտավազդ Փելեշյան—has been slowly sifting through the mountain of debris that has built up around the cinema. His films seem to intrude upon a present which smugly believes that it has solved all the old problems from a static horizon, that all is over and done with, that everything has been settled. What is left is merely the production of ghosts.

In Kyanq (“Life”), made in 1993, Peleshian ignores the diegetic revolution which followed the discovery of the power of cutting within a single sequence. Cross cutting has become another prison, and making a film seems almost unimaginable without recourse to its seductive shifts and its promises of infinite simultaneity. But passing through Eisenstein and Dovzhenko, starting again after the hard-won miracles and defeats of the past, Peleshian has come out from the other side. He has made a second beginning for cinema by rearranging ideas of the past.

The film opens with a beautiful woman in close-up profile, apparently in the throes of ecstasy. Soon, an arm in scrubs enters the frame and we see that she is actually in a medical theater (the hand is a doctor or relative’s; blurred vertical planes are parts of the metal delivery bed; a glowing orb is hospital lighting). She is in labor, which is a mundane and sentimental subject for a film. The use of the close-up in film, crowding the screen with sweat and ‘emotion’, is an easy manipulation of the viewer’s emotions. It also bares the chill of forensic pathology, which seizes the living as if the body were a puzzle useful only for illustrating hazard or solving its own crime. The soundtrack is music by Verdi, which stops and starts fitfully until it is finally freed from the film’s editing, adding a skipping unreality to the formal ‘realism’ of Life. The only other sound is a heartbeat amplified over the beginning (and note, not the electronic blip of a monitor), which remains slightly audible under the requiem mass. 

Though the film follows the simple timeline of a woman giving birth, the editing follows the inward time of a mother. The use of extreme close-up is now clear: in the epochal scheme of a general, universal time, the close-up is used to make myths into statues or it captures momentary passions as if these passions or myths were the only ones in the world. But through a subtle use of jump-cuts, the viewer starts to feel an odd remove from the girl’s lovely features. She begins to resemble a landscape, as in those old enigmatic Dutch paintings where hills and rivers form a great human face. We have returned to painting, the first inspiration of filmmakers, but the laws of perspective and the order of objects are far less important than the alternation of internal and external time. Filming and watching take time, are revealed in time, try to trick time by poking it full of holes (visible first in the sprockets of exposed film, as it feeds and moves in light projection). Life is made of different times, a fact which seduces us into believing that time is all that governs life and that all time is reducible to the power of a dominant course. 

Rembrandt said: Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses, or kindnesses. 

Do not children kill their mothers in childbirth, all or in part, with the violence of birth, with the all the terrible duties that child-rearing demands? And one of the last taboos—maybe also the first, if we accept that the horror of incest is inseparable from it—the link between orgasm and birth is also the possibility of dual death and the ruthless affirmation of Life over death which dictates that the life of the child is a supreme right against its mother. Life at all costs—the greatest of tyrannies, a monstrous physical drive which unleashes a tsunami of living over the earth: the atrocious flood of total creation. Life as something that equals what is most terrifying within it—of it—the blank face of a genetic machine wanting itself and nothing else, consuming itself via the temptation-engines of a chattering god of sheer velocity (this is also the god of information, beloved of the tech wizards). It is not the phantom of Death that haunts the living, but the phantom of Life. And the individual life strives to fool this specter, to shock it in its own wild onrush by producing a single life in the monolithic barrage of limitless coming-to-be. Bearing witness against this crude biological nihilism which William Blake identified as The Beast, the machine mills of the slavers’ empire, one single life then occurs as many—each without repeat, yet each one the selfsame in the body of the swarm.

Against this omnivorous shadow—a cellular destiny which rises out of the solitary reflections given us by our vague notions of science, by a primary education that teaches biology as fate and terror only—Peleshian projects a woman in contortions, giving birth down by the walls of the hegemon. Things get smaller in the film. Life shrinks down to a mouth, a hand, a slight bewitching smile, ringlets of hair and beads of sweat. And here we realize that exaltation—accompanied by an Italian death mass and the heart’s regular drum—is always done alone, and that its joys must be betrayed by the world from which each ecstasy severs it time and again. Entering back into the crowd (via the film, via an audience she cannot know), what is unique returns in this disorder of movement and gesture—which is everyone’s autobiography. Just as when ‘something strikes you’, striking the eye with an immense force: a face on the bus, corner stoop faces, faces and faces from whose vast gallery one singular expression comes into clarity for an instant and then returns—on the verge of life or leaving life, there is nothing else at this hypothetical moment—almost caught at the corner of the eye. 

It is strange that in extreme close-ups, faces seem at their most indistinguishable but also at their most familiar (you mistake someone for someone else and stare at them to be sure, staring ever more intently until you are far more than unsure—you are lost in that other face). The film’s other close-ups are of hands. The human hand is midway between the features of the face and the wild movements of the limbs. Hands riddle and grasp, make knots, then relax for a split second; they curl like mites, tree branches, or Chinese brushstrokes; hands touching, climbing, cradling, joining. Think of those famous handprints in red ochre found on cave walls—and finding that which is before art in these images, we still foolishly call this act which far outstrips any cultic or imaginative art, just as erroneously as we do the images made with hands, an ‘expression!’—palms measuring breadth, and not just the span of vital time but the time of an imprint that will remain for an accidental 80,000 years. The Peleshian-captured hands clench and constrict life, that nothing be left undone. It does not matter whose hand the woman in the film clasps—anyone, someone, for a moment the only one (perhaps all together, all those she has met, summed up in a stranger’s hand). Dark supposition: that everyone only knows life by their separation from life, lives peering at Life across an impenetrable gulf. But life is also the work of hands. 

She raises a finger to the corner of her mouth with its intricate sloping shadow, touching the ghost of a smile. The woman is lost in some reverie and giving birth would seem a strange time for letting the mind wander. But from the jump cuts, we know that Peleshian has edited this sequence internally, so it is far from certain when moments like this actually occurred (I counted 15 cuts in a sequence which accounts for about 5 minutes of the film’s 7-minute running time). At the end, the child is tossed to her mother like a bag of apples, after being bathed in torrents of spurting water (there is no afterbirth or blood, another conscious omission). The young woman and her child then stare at the camera in freeze-frame. I can think of a thousand reasons why you shouldn’t have, but you did, despite all—and I now understand why in the flood of existence you added one more as if you were adding nothing at all. This is Peleshian’s only film in color, which ads credence to the rumor it was to have been his last (Happily, it was not). Color is the first sight of a guileless world seen by guileless eyes, eyes soon to fall upon the architecture of black and white and the gridlines of working rooms.

“Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam…” Verdi’s Requiem Mass, 1874: deliverance (and delivery, “Libera animas omnium…”) and liberation (from life, from hell, the lion’s jaws), faithful souls, holy light, deepest pits. “Grant O Lord that they might pass from life death…” Thus is the    connection between life and the  freeing from life, death and multiple birth sealed (Verdi’s Offertorio is cut and partially repeated on the soundtrack). Now the hand at her mouth, in her hair, rack of contractions. Take and in taking, receive, “Tu suscipe pro animabus illis, quarum hodie memoriam facimus.” The others—all souls—hostias, “we offer...” 

Endnote/ Links:

Artavazd Peleshian’s entire completed work takes about two hours to view (his longest is his latest, the 63-minute La Nature, 2019).  Kyanq and many others can be seen here: https://www.ubu.com/film/peleshian.html  

Peleshian and Godard: https://kinoslang.blogspot.com/2013/07/before-babel.html

Peleshian speaks: http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/going-the-distance-20120106

[soliitvde]

𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐀 𝐀𝐘𝐃𝐈𝐍  --- ever heard of curiosity killed the cat ?  

(  ayca aysin turan  /  ciswoman  /  she/her  ). introducing  talia aydin , the host for the savant. they’ll be twenty - seven years old, and joined the rogues six month ago. you’ll always see a pocket knife around wherever she is.

𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙸𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳 𝙸𝚂 𝙰 𝙷𝙾𝙿𝙴𝙻𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙿𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙴

full name : talia kamile aydin 

nickname : n/a 

name meaning : "lamb", "to bloom"

age : twenty - seven 

gender / pronouns : cis woman / she/her

date of birth : september fourth

location of birth :  istanbul , turkey  

past residence : brooklyn , new york  

past occupation : theoretical physicist  

current affiliation : the rogues

moral alignment : lawful neutral 

family : lucas campos  ( fiancé ) , kamile aydin ( mother ) , alperen aydin ( father ) 

aesthetics :

playlist : on our own - bruno major , cruel world - active child 

character inspiration : spencer reid - criminal minds , dana scully - the x files , lydia martin - teen wolf 

𝚆𝙴'𝚁𝙴 𝙹𝚄𝚂𝚃 𝚂𝙲𝙰𝚁𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝙰𝙳𝙼𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙴'𝚁𝙴 𝙰𝙻𝙾𝙽𝙴

on september 4 1993 , no one was happier than kamile and alperen aydin . for their baby girl had entered the world . she was welcomed with a torrent of happy tears and zealous proclamations of never - ending love as well as veracious oaths to keep their baby daughter protected . they were never going to let her go . 

and as they promised , talia grew up secluded from everything . she was never allowed beyond the boundaries of their house and their gates and fences were far too tall for little talia to even sneak a peek above . and her mother assured her , she wasn’t missing out on anything . but talia couldn’t help but wander , what was that noise ? an ice - cream truck that she’s read about ? or different types of birds and their different types of songs ? or other children , just like her ! who were willing to play tag and hide - and - seek ! she never got the answer 

she was an only child and was home - schooled all her life , the burden of her parent’s expectations were particularly potent , especially about .. well , everythiing . they taught her four languages  . besides her mother - tongue she was to also learn english , french , german and mandarin chinese . but the only sport dignified enough for the aydins was croquet . and then there was physics ; einstein’s theory of relativity , newton’s laws of motion ,  the big bang theory and so many more , biology ; natural selection and evolution , epigenetics , hormones and pregnancy and she was even taught about weedy and invasive plants , chemistry , maths and every other subject that was likely to cause the onset of depression in a pre - pubescent teenage girl . 

but science , science she found a deep love for . it was interesting and magical even , it captivated her completely and her parents were happy to accomodate to her passion . giving her extra lessons and more posters and talia just couldn’t stop her fervid desire to know . and she rigorously dedicated herself to everything about it .  to her it wasn’t about the grades or for the pride of her parents but for herself , for her own mind , to appease her own curiosity . it gave her freedom .  

but as she grew older , the house looked smaller and the walls constantly felt like they were closing in . she was suffocating , she would feel claustrophobic in every room and she knew she had to get out of there before she lost her mind . so she snuck out , past their tall and frightening gates , past her cooking father and sleeping mother . as she took that first step , she felt like she had walked through a portal into another universe . there was such beauty , everywhere . and noise ! all kinds of noise , arguments and laughter , car honks and the roar of motorcycle engines . even the air smelt different . there was an aroma of food , new herbs and spices , it truly was an adventure she would never forget . 

and on the way back , she had meticulously planned it you see , she was to leave at this time , grab these things , say this excuse and then leave at this exact time . otherwise , hell hath no fury like a mother scorned . but the cruel trickster fate , had different plans . on the way back she met a boy . a tourist , from brooklyn , new york . . he had honey eyes and dark skin and there was a strange new feeling that stirred in her stomach , like the flutter of butterflies or the whirring of a malfunctioning machine . they shook hands and exchanged names and talked for a while . but what stuck to her was where lucas was from , america , he answered , the land of the free . she left him with a smile on her face . despite knowing that her plan had  been discarded and there was upcoming consequences to her actions , she couldn’t wipe the grin off her face . partly because of the boy and also because of the prospect of freedom . just a few oceans away , she felt like it was calling to her . 

and , as she had predicted . her parents knew and they were enraged . and of course , talia had seen her parents angry before but this was new and alarming manifestation of their insecurities . they lectured her about the dangers of everything , of the world , of strangers , of cars , of air . ** trigger warning : parents being mean ?  ** and they sent her to the basement ,  where it was cold and dark .  and the only way that talia got through it all , with dry cheeks and a soaring heart , was because of that particular honey - eyed boy . the basement was not a new punishment . and the dark was an old friend . but what the darkness harboured was a stranger to her . her overactive imagination went haywire whenever she was in the basement -- fabricating monsters and gargoyles , winged - serpents and three - headed snakes . when she was down there , she could never sleep , she couldn’t stop shaking either . ** end trigger warning ** but she held on to the hope that she would meet that honey - eyed boy again and share the freedom he glorified in .  

eighteen . she thought it was an age which warranted freedom and trust . but her parents only became more stern and harsh and utterly unyielding in the subject of talia’s freedom . she was to stay at the house , work with her father on his research project . and never leave . she cried about it a lot when she first heard the new guidelines of her existence . but her father explained it to her , her mother had lost one sister to disease , another in a traffic accident and a brother to alcohol . her father’s exact words were , “ she had failed in protecting her siblings but she wasn’t going to fail you . she loves you too much .” and talia understood , the only thing she could really do was accept it . 

she worked with her father on his research project , he was a botanist and loved plants far more than the ordinary individual , he was always seeking for new plan species , even promising talia , that had he ever found one , he would name it after his daughter .  for a while she was content , happy even but it didn’t last , it was never going to . she sought for something greater than the mundanities of a secluded lifestyle , she sought for love . and once she was curious about something , she wasn’t going to stop till her curiosity was satiated with answers . 

at twenty - two , in the middle of the night , she worked up the courage , she stole her parent’s money  ( not before leaving them a detailed letter mostly composing of apologies and proclamations of love and just a sentence or two asking them not to look for her  ) ,  carrying nothing but a backpack and knowing absolutely nothing about the world , except from what she’s read , she headed to the airport . she caught a plane , brooklyn , new york . that was all lucas had told her . but that was all she needed . this was far greater than a boy now , this was about liberty .

at twenty - three , she had gotten a job , she had rented out an old and decrepit apartment and she was alone most of the time , but she couldn’t have been happier . she was free . what greater things were there than the liberty to choose , to be who you wanted to be . then love . love found her and wrapped her up . as though bound by the red string of fate , she and lucas found each other . and they grew to trust each other and love each other and three years on , they were engaged . 

and as a little present for her , a pre - honeymoon , lucas had arranged for them to go on a roadtrip . first stop , delaware . she had heard about midway speedway park ( for go - karting and mini golf ! ) and jungle jim’s ( a seasonal water park with games ! ) from a co - worker and talia was completely enamoured with the idea of go - karting !  and water - slides ! she didn’t stop talking about it for days . and lucas , who knew his fiancé more than she knew herself , was enamoured with the idea of making her happy . 

but as soon as they got there , something changed . like a flip had been switched off and they were hit with darkness . chaos and anarchy ensued and the worst flaws of human nature emerged . people were cruel and merciless and talia , who had been secluded for a great chunk of her life and who was taught to think meticulously and methodically , found it difficult to find the calculations in chaos . and it sent her brain into haywire . * trigger warning : anxiety attacks * she was anxious and panicked and most of the nights were spent with lucas trying to help her breathe .  * end trigger warning *

as long as she was with lucas , she could do it , she could keep going . but a few months in this new reality , they were separated . lucas had protected her , begged her to run while he tried to fight for his life . and talia , who was ready to stay , ready to leave earth with the love of her life , ran . and she ran and ran , until she couldn’t breathe anymore , until her legs collapsed from under her , the screams of her soulmate still ringing in her ears .  that was when she found the rogues , or rather the rouges found her . and everyday after that , all she could her was her mother’s warning voice , curiosity killed the cat . 

but she wasn’t going to give up on lucas . there was a chance he could still be a live .  she thought about everything methodically and meticulously , applying principles of science and laws of nature but love , love was an exception -- lucas was an exception . and that night she decided that nothing could stop her from finding him . yes , curiosity killed the cat . but satisfaction brought it back . 

𝚆𝙷𝙰𝚃 𝙸𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚆𝙾𝚁𝙻𝙳 𝙸𝚂 𝙰 𝙷𝙾𝙿𝙴𝙻𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙿𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙴

a kid , actually though . because she was secluded from everything , she is fascinated about everything . she is also very in love with earth , she wants to protect it and capture as much of the old world as possible . so she usually carries around a notebook and a pen , asking people their stories and what their life was . she literally stacked up on disposable cameras and a lot of film when she had walked past it . so she’s taking picture with those too sometimes . 

she’s abrasive sometimes . she didn’t have a lot of interactions with other people . and sometimes she says things without thinking , and even though she had some practice ,  she might still say something insensitive because she didn’t know it was insensitive --- basically , she’s emotionally stupid . and she doesn’t know much about feelings . she feels them and she knows she feels them but its all still quite new to her .

she’s a compliant rogue , she does what she’s asked and abides whatever rules they’ve established . but she’s quite annoying , she calls people out on their stupidity and always kinda like thinks she’s better than everyone . she’s definitely not shy about highlighting people’s mistake and she loves LOOOVES telling people ‘ i told you so ’

she’s very physically weak . she doesn’t have any arm strength and she’s moderately good at running . but yeah , nah . she can’t fight for shit . 

𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝚆𝙴'𝚁𝙴 𝙾𝙽 𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙾𝚆𝙽

maybe the rogue who found her all sad and stuff ? and since they helped talia when she was such in a vulnerable state , she really trusts them and confides in them a lot ? and she always keeps them close because she’s scared of them getting hurt or them being separated . 

also , i’m sending a wc form to the main but is there anyone who mayaps want  to write lucas ?? maybe he survived and found the hartly compound ???  ( of couursee you can change their name and their personality , everything is basically up to you !  ) 

someone who’s helping her toughen up ???? 

someone who is annoying but she low - key loves and relies on ?? or vice versa !! 

a little sibling / big sibling kind of dynamic !! 

umm , idk but definitely lots more !!! i’m one - hundo percent up for brainstorming !!! 

TLDR 

been sheltered from everything most of her life , got separated with her fiancee , found the rogues , not giving up on finding her fiancee , she’s very annoying and says things without filtering them in her mind first , she’s kinda uptight , loves to show - off what she knows but loves to tell people ‘ i told you so ’ even more XD 

[krinsbez]

My Transformers Fancon: Decepticon High Command, Part III

-Tarn of Nyon commands the Decepticon Secret Police, in charge of stomping out internal dissent, and personally leads the DSP's elite Justice Division, which hunts down and brutally kills defectors. As demonstrated by his renaming himself after Megatron's hometown and having his face remade into the Decepticon logo, no one is more loyal to Megatron and the Decepticon cause, not even Soundwave. For one, Soundwave justifies his loyalty by being deeply in denial about the monsters they've turned into, whereas Tarn has no such illusions, and is fanatically devoted anyways. Soundwave also has his own ambitions, whereas Tarn genuinely cares for nothing but seeing Megatron's will be done. Not having realized that Megatron views this slavish devotion with contempt, Tarn is completely baffled why Megatron values Soundwave more than him, and subsequently hates the Intelligence chief with the intensity of a supernova. The only person he hates more is Starscream, who routinely attempts to betray Megatron and yet somehow remains second-in-command. Depsite his attempts not to show his true feelings to his superiors, they're both well aware of it; Soundwave ignores it, except when he needs to manipulate the DSP commander, whereas Starscream finds Tarn's impotent rage hilarious and makes a point of provoking him for kicks. -Thunderwing of Iacon is the newest member of High Command. Powerful, skilled, brilliant and charismatic, he led his Mayhem Attack Squad to some of the Decepticons' greatest victories. He came up with Pretender shells (though the tech was perfected by Shockwave and Tarantulas). He has never shown the slightest hint of disloyalty. He is the only member of High Command that Megatron worries about; everyone else, Megs has a bead on, is totally confident he can take on, or both. Thunderwing, however, is a complete enigma, and is every bit as badass as Megatron. For this reason, Megatron took the unusual step of assigning one of the Megacons, Bludgeon, to serve under Thunderwing and thus keep an eye on him.

-Tyrannitron of the Sector 4/6.4-K Campaign is the youngest member of Decepticon High Command, having been born only a few million years ago (you can tell he's warborn because his name refers to his first battle rather than his place of birth). A brilliant strategist and tactician, and an equally adept personal manipulator, Tyrannitron is the commander of the Decepticon Battle Fleet. While he has shown himself quite capable of commanding troops in the field as he is ships in space, he ever commanded Vehicon drones planetside. This because, while a Point-One-Percenter like his parent Archforce (to whom he bears a striking resemblance) and thus able to punch far above his weight-class, he is a Mini-Con. Given the might-makes-right philosophy of the Decepticons, this would mean that, where he to lead ordinary troops, he would face constant challenges to prove his fitness to lead, which while he is confident of winning said challenges (again, Point-One-Percenter), he doesn't have the patience. On the upside, it also meant that, unlike, say, Thunderwing, he has managed to avoid setting off the suspicions of Megatron and his inner circle.

(thanks to @cirex101 for helping me with the next three)

Jhiaxus: Second best.  That is the phrase that most Decepticons, and even some Autobots, would describe Jhiaxus, a brilliant scientist.  Second best to Shockwave.  Jhiaxus knows this what his peers think of him, and it infuriates and drives him in equal measure.  In order to escape from under SHockwave's shadow he revolutionized the Decepticon's budding system, creating legions of warriors almost overnight.  However, these warrioers are little more than cheap cannon fodder for the Decepticon cause, and have a shorter life expectancy on the battlefield compared to the older Decpticon warriors, earning them the derisive nickname "Genericons".  At the urging of Shockwave, Megatron assigned the Genericon legions to mere garrison duties, or to throw them at Autobot defenses whenever Megatron needs to distract the Bots from his true objective.  This ignoble fate to what was once his crowning achievement only spurs Jhiaxus to improve upon his designs, upgrading the Genericons, an creating even more horrible monstrosities in his lab.

Currently, Jhiaxus is in command of ‘Con controlled Cybertron

Onslaught: A decorated veteran officer of the Primal Vanguard, Onslaught left that prestigious institution in defiance of Functionism's, and by extension, Senator Proteus', growing power on Cybertron.  Onslaught signed on with the Decepticon movement, and used his military knowhow to win several victories during the Functionist revolt.  Onslaught and his elite team, the Combaticons, were responsible for several daring raids into Autobot held territory, and gained a reputation for planning almost every outcome.  However, the old saying, "No plan survives contact with the enemy", rings true, and although he plans for almost anything, Onslaught cannot plan for every eventuality, and if enough things go wrong, will lose his cool and resort to simply blowing the slag out of the enemy.   This deficiency prevents Onslaught from moving up in the Decepticon Hierarchy, but he doesn't let it show on the surface, and is liable to kill anyone who attempts to taunt him. 

Razorclaw: While Onslaught plans ahead of the battle, Razorclaw makes his plans durring the middle of battle.  His ability to take the unexpected with a clear, cool head makes Razorclaw's Predacons one of the fiercest squads in the entire Decepticon war machine.  Emotionless almost to Shockwave's level, Razorclaw was a gladiator, but he and his team operated in Vos, and as such never met Megatron in the arena.  However, he had heard of Megatron, and pledged his loyalty to him at the onset of the Functionist Revolt, ruthlessly hunting down Proteus' supporters with a silent enthusiasm that was as unnerving as it was effective.   Razorclaw is straightforward, and doesn't seek advancment in the ranks, seemingly content in his current position.  Some see this as laziness, but if you look beneath his contentment, you will see that Razorclaw is one of the most dangerous Decepticons because of this; he cannot be bought, bribed, intimidated, cajoled, or manipulated.  All that matters to him is the hunt, and many an unfortunate Con that got on his badside became the prey. 

BTW, something I tried to indicate but I'm not sure came through. There were two kinds of gladiatorial combat on Cybertron prior to the Great War, Arena Games, which were legal, restricted to trained gladiators, and had strict rules to minimize lethality, and Pit Fights, which were illegal, anyone can have a go, and the only rules are to put on a good show and try not to kill the audience. Mind, given how much punishment TFs can take, Pit Fights aren't that much more brutal or lethal than Arena Games. The real appeal of the Pit Fights is in their unpredictability; you can see a master of Metallikato go up against some big guy with a rocket punch, see a Beast-former take on a Tank, or who knows what.

Anyways, Razorclaw was an Arena Gladiator, because (as SB and SV poster Q99 put it...)

Razorclaw is a smart fighter, and he loves outfighting his opponents. Arena Fighters are almost all trained combatants at the upper levels, of the type he loves defeating, so once he's in the upper ranks his foes are almost all high-quality... though still not a match for him. Pit Fighters, you're more likely to see foes rely on raw power or a gimmick, and while he respects the more skilled fighters there, he doesn't want to waste time with the 'chaff' who got in because they happen to be a tank or such, or deal with silly 'three lesser bots vs one champ' matches, and as pit fighters are less regimented even good fighters there spend more time dealing with that kind of thing.

Which adds a bit of tension because Megatron and half of High Command were Kaonian Pit Fighters, so naturally they're going to think poorly of a Vosian Arena Gladiator. BTW, speaking of raw power versus skill, I imagine that... -Megatron, of course, is both hella powerful and crazy skilled

-Thunderwing is as well.

-Shockwave is actually a terrible fighter but makes up for her lack of skill with raw power.

-Starscream is the opposite; physically the weakest member of High Command, but makes up for it with skill.

-Scorponok is a beast, and he's got raw talent at fighting, but has no polish or finesse.

-Cryotek's strong, and used to be a good fighter, but he's rusty.

-Soundwave is a good mix of power and skill.

-Tyrannitron is similar, but has a fondness for trickery, head games, and such.

-Tarn is just this side of invincible, but finds brute force distasteful.

(the next three are thanks to @cirex101 again)

-Jhiaxus is unskilled, makes up for it with power, but not to the same extant as Shockwave.

-Onslaught has strength, but finesse he saves for his strategies.

-Razorclaw is both skilled and strong, but not to the same extant as Megatron, or Thunderwing.

-Dirt Boss was a scrappy little guy who always preferred to cheat. This may be one of the reasons he's dead.

Now I know what you’re thinking; Dirt Boss? You didn’t mention Dirt Boss. That’s because he’s dead, having been killed by Prowl. Before that, Dirt Boss was commander of the Combat Engineering Corps, and a member of Megatron's inner circle. Since his death, the Constructicons have resisted any attempt to appoint a permanent replacement and instead take turns holding the office. Megatron is not happy about this, but is unwilling to make an issue of it.

A few bits and bobs about Deception High Command:

-The Megacons are not technically members of High Command, but as Megatron's personal goon squad, each member holds comparable authority. In addition to the original line-up (sans Bludgeon) of Airachnid, Blackout, Thunderblast, and Lugnut, they've since added Lugnut's lover Strika, her conjunx Obsidian, and Megatron's personal medic, Scalpel. -A personality conflict I neglected to mention; while she doesn't act on it, Shockwave really doesn't like Cryotek, for reasons that should be obvious. -I haven't figured out what Tarn did before the War; I can't decide if he was also a Pit Fighter or if he did something else. What do you guys think?

-In addition to Shockwave and Tarantulas, a surprising number of the top Decepticons have science backgrounds (thanks to SVer KageX)

For Starscream since he was leader of the Exploration Corps perhaps his expertise lies not in the lab developing new weapons but in "surveying" areas and coming up with ways to exploit resources as well as how to survive in them. Think of the difference between a Geologist and a Chemist. Yes there is some overlap, but they focus on different areas of application. Starscream focuses on planning "field operations" and harvesting resources in his area of scientific expertise. He would know how to fix a shuttle, but it would not be his area of expertise, just something he picked up along the way as he was exploring distant areas of the universe. It would also explain his slippery nature, as this job would likely involve meeting with and negotiating with Alien Races. So Starscream became quite good at "negotiations" and other political endeavors.

- Shockwave is a polymath who is a master of all fields of hard science. Jhiaxus is more specialized; he does cybergenetics, mechanobiology, electronics, etc. but if you ask him about astrophysics or climatology, he's got nothing. Scorponok is interested in organic biology, but doesn't advertise this, since your average 'Con is at best apathetic about organics, and many actively hate 'em. Thunderwing is a dabbler; he reads scientific journals*, and will periodically come up with a clever idea, but doesn't really pursue the sciences.

-How Thunderwing came up with Pretender Shells: after conquering a particular planet, he made a point of studying their tech base, realized that some of their tech could be combined with Cybertronian tech to do something interesting, and sent Shockwave a memo. Shockwave agreed he was onto something, and she and Tarantulas made something out of it.

[god-whispers]

sep 19

the cornfield

there was once a spider who lived in a cornfield.  she was a big spider, and she had spun a beautiful web between the corn stalks.  she got fat eating all the bugs that would get caught in her web.  she liked this home and planned to stay there for the rest of her life.

one day, the spider caught a little bug in her web, and just as the spider was about to eat him, the bug said, "if you let me go i will tell you something important that will save your life."  the spider paused for a moment and listened because she was amused.

"you better get out of this cornfield," the little bug said.  "the harvest is coming!"  the spider smiled and said, "what is this harvest you are talking about?  i think you are just telling me a story."  but the little bug said, "oh no, it is true.  the owner of this field is coming to harvest it soon.  all the stalks will be knocked down, and the corn will be gathered up.  you will be killed by the giant machines if you stay here."

the spider said, "i don't believe in harvests and giant machines that knock down corn stalks.  how can you prove this?"  the little bug continued, "just look at the corn.  see how it is planted in rows?  it proves this field was created by an intelligent designer."  the spider laughed and mockingly said, "this field just grew and has nothing to do with a creator.  corn always grows that way."

the bug went on to explain, "oh no.  this field belongs to the owner who planted it, and the harvest is coming soon."  the spider grinned and said to the little bug, "i don't believe you," and then the spider ate the little bug for lunch.

a few days later, the spider was laughing about the story the little bug had told her.  she thought to herself, "a harvest!  what a silly idea.  i have lived here all of my life, and nothing has ever disturbed me.  i have been here since these stalks were just a foot off the ground, and i'll be here for the rest of my life, because nothing is ever going to change in this field.  life is good, and i have it made."

the next day was a beautiful sunny day in the cornfield.  the sky above was clear, and there was no wind at all.  that afternoon, as the spider was about to take a nap, she noticed some thick dusty clouds moving toward her.  she could hear the roar of a great engine, and she said to herself, "i wonder what that could be?" ------ sounds like a "suddenly" to me.  yes, there is a harvest coming and believers everywhere sense an urgency in their spirit.  that's how it is for those who are born-again and listening to the Holy Spirit.  "He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come." john 16:13  He is a unique (but equal) uncreated part of the Godhead - often called the comforter for good reason.  He birthed the Word from spirit to flesh and now births us from flesh to spirit.

the foolish have said there is no God.  forget about the cornfield.  look up to the stars and the wonder of the universe - being explored only now and discovering it is still expanding because, God said.  is that beyond your imagination?  consider then the beauty and wonders of the world; the grand canton, niagra falls, the constancy of things reproducing after itself.

we all have free will.  if you choose to mock and ignore me and continue feeding your own desires, just know - denying the truth can never change it.  it is love that warns ... the love of God.  "to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heave." eccl 3:1  harvest time approaches.  do what you must to get right with your creator.

[moondeerdotblog]

The re-written rough bits to date…

On Dragon Weaving

What I Suppose We'd Call the Preamble

Honesty, I haven't a clue why, in February of last year, I found myself pondering the web of dragon mythology that so ensnares the imagination of man. Of how the machinations of my mind materialized the path it would then travel, I've an even clumsier grasp. I believe there is something significant to be found within the folds of fumbled expression held by the essay I had composed. Now, a year later (finding myself in possession of more diversely and formidably equipped faculties), I shall recompose its art and prose, hoping to attain a composition that more capably communicates that which I have to say. It shall be begin with a declaration.

The Introductory Bit

I find them fascinating, the common threads with which disconnected hubs of humanity weave their native narratives. The similitude with which humanity engineers itself by independent means astounds. It warrants remark, in this digitally polarized age of humanity where tribal gutturals dissemble themselves as discourse, the resemblance that runs through the clutch of reflections caught by the collective looking glass.

Such abstraction, dear reader, may satisfy my selfish need to soliloquize; however, it achieves very little in the way of conceptual connection. We need something concrete, an example exhibiting qualities consistent with the previous prose. What though? Which player shall I pluck from the troupe?

Of course it's f$&kin' dragons. I named this f$&kin' thing On Dragon Weaving, how the f$&k would I ever work this f$&ker into an essay befitting of the name were I not, inevitably, about to begin talking about dragons? I mean … I name dropped the little f$&kers in what I believe we've settled upon calling this essay's preamble. Let's hop f$&kin' to it, shall we?

The Bit About Dragons

Sooo, I painted us a subset of dragons arbitrarily selected from the set of humanity's mythoi, two of which you've just seen. Since you're reading this in English (one would assume since I'm writing it in f$&king English), there is a strong chance that global Westernization has narrowed the scope of what you think of as being a dragon. The Game-of-Thronesian depiction at the very top likely screams dragon while the fella that follows, the recreation of Bertuch's illustration from the succinctly named Bilderbuch für Kinder: enthaltend eine angenehme Sammlung von Tieren, Pflanzen, Blumen, Früchten, Mineralien, Trachten, induced an assessment of some form or fashion whether he fits the bill. I have no interest in browbeatingly badgering you about what makes a f$&king dragon. I simply thought I oughta point this out and inform you how this essay shall define one. It basically boils down to this: if it's a giant serpent, you can probably get away with calling it a dragon.

I originally began the globetrot in Ancient Egypt; however, taking what I've just relayed into consideration, I think Ancient Greece may be the better destination. The reasons are threefold: ⑴ Those for whom the previous passage applies likely received a western education that included at least a little taste of Greek mythology; and, the backbone of Greek mythology is a dragon bone. ⒝ The etymological origin of dragon is the f$&king Greek word drakōn (pronounced δράκων). (𒄩𒂔𒌈) Some Greek dragons had wings, like the burdened beasts Helios had hauling his chariot about the sky ; but, the majority of these little f$&kers look more like snakes.

Some Old Greek Dragons

Looking like a snake would be totally on-brand for a beastie known to the world as the Lernaean Hydra (which is English for Λερναῖα Ὕδρα) since the word ὕδρα (pronounced hydra) means "water snake" in Greek.

Hera raised this particular hydra for the sole purpose of killing one mighty annoying demigod by the name of Heracles (pronounced Ἡρακλῆς). Buddy's birth-name was actually Alcaeus. Hera sent two serpents to end the boy in his crib. They failed. He'd hoped changing his name to glory of Hera would get her off his ass. It wouldn't. Hesiod's Theogony tells us that the Hydra was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, two badass MFers, living in the lake of Lerna in the Argolid.

With multiple heads (one of which was immortal … all of which would grow back), poisonous breath, and blood so corrosive it could kill with a whiff, the Hydra was f$&kin' fierce. King Eurystheus gave Heracles the task of slaying this sucker as his second labor (during his post-murdered-my-wife-and-children atonement tour). They battle. Heracles wins. Yada yada yada let's move on I'm bored.

The _kētŏs_or κῆτος (latinized as cetus) I have to show you appears to exhibit a few more physical similarities we might expect from a western dragon (I mean … compared to a snake).

The depicted mosaic was discovered in the floor of an ancient Kaulonian residence now referred to as the House of the Dragon. His attack position pose would suggest that this little fella served as the last line of defense against malevolent forces for the adjacent banquet's airy ambience. The Museo archeologico dell'Antica Kaulon, the mosaic's current home, describes the discovery as, "a polychrome mosaic depicting a sea dragon and … framed by a pattern formed by sea waves."

Let's review. The Lernaean Hydra looked like Hera tied herself a handful of water snakes in an overhand knot like they were auditioning to play opposite of that little, problematically portrayed Japanese Beetle in an episode of The Blue Racer. The Cetus, by comparison, looks all kinds of dragonish. The museum calls him a sea dragon and his place of birth the House of the Dragon. What about a creature whose name f$&king ends with Dragon?

Meet the Colchian Dragon (Δρακων Κολχικος), guardian of the Golden Fleece until Jason and his merry band of Argonauts came calling.

So … yeah … he looks like a f$&king snake. Like I said, if it's a giant serpent, you can probably get away with calling it a dragon. They are all dragons. Just go with it.

Some Old Egyptian Dragons

Leaving Ancient Greece in the review, we'll now drop our bucket deep down within the well of humanity to probe Terrestrian time before the Biblical flood. Like Johnny Cash, we're going to Memphis, in Ancient Egypt, to have us a look-see at Apep (pronounced 𓌇𓊪𓊪𓆙).

Mention of this particular deity began appearing early in the 22nd century BC as the sun was setting upon the authority of the Old Kingdom. As chaos incarnate, oppugnant to order and light, no doubt Apep was frequently sighted walking in Memphis near the collapse of the Eighth Dynasty. And get this, when Isis, Set, and Ra jacked Apep (as part of their Egyptian power grab), tossing him into the underworld … Apep was having none of it. Every morning thereafter he'd make his way back to the horizon, ahead of Ra, and force that f$&ker to defeat him in battle just to put the sun in the sky. And in the event of a solar eclipse … an eclipse meant that Apep managed to swallow that f$&ker … the sun returning to the sky only after Ra's companion gods manage to topple Apep and cut open his stomach.

Before we exoduse ourselves out of Egypt, we simply must allow ourselves a proper peep at the world's most interminable orbiculate ophidian, Ouroboros.

A manifestation of the snake god Mehen, Ouroboros may be found inscribed upon the shrine of a sarcophagus as part of the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld where he represents the beginning and the end of time.

Drawings of Ouroboros would later begin popping up in early alchemical texts like that of Cleopatra the Alchemist, whose work The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra contains an illustration (not pictured) of the serpent along with the words ἓν τὸ πᾶν (the all is one). The inside of my left leg happens to have this very same illustration (also not pictured) just above the ankle.

Chuck yourself a dart at any wall-hung world map and chances are you'll strike land where Ouroboros dwells. In Norse mythology, exempli gratia (the WordHippoist's for example), he appears as Jörmungandr, the World Serpent–who would grow so large he could encircle the world, grasping his tail in his teeth. Come Ragnarok, it is the poisonous breath of the Midgard Wyrm that kills the mighty Thor.

Some Western Dragons

Germanic myth, Norse inclusive, is simply dripping with dragons. Just look at the Vikings … I mean … they sailed f$&king drakkar.

The dragonhead(s) carved into the stem of these large longships were said to offer protection from evil spirits while at sea. Such power did these wooden drakes possess that Icelandic code of the time, Grágás, bade the Vikings remove any such dragonhead upon their return so as not to intimidate the spirits of their native land.

The three carved heads on the ship above identify the bow-based bulwark as a dragon named Zmey Gorynych, let's gallantly gallivant into Garðaríki for a formal introduction.

Garðaríki, by the way, is Old Norse for Kievan Rus'. The Garðar were the Rus' people, Norsemen that had decided to pop on over and take up ruling the river routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas. You zmey have deduced from all those f$&king letter 'Y's, we've crossed over the Germanian border into Russian folklore territory.

Zmey was all about the bylina (Russian heroic poetry). Totally tracks that he would frequently transform himself into a handsome youth to engage in the art of seduction.

Don't let his pervish proclivities prevaricate (yeeesss … I f$&king see the problem … but WordHippo sticks that sh$t in my head … and I can avoid alliteration like Murphy can avoid running head first into a thumpish engagment with the thick, full-length windows that monopolize wall space around here when she's so f$&king excited she can take no more).

Zmey is a proper red-scaled, fire-breathing western dragon with blood so poisonous the Earth itself will refuse to absorb it. This little f$&ker would even go all eclipsical from time to time by taking a bite out of the f$&king sun.

A dark age development, the western dragon is typically depicted as large, fire-breathing, scaly, horned, four-legged, bat-winged and in possession of a long, muscular prehensile tail handy for curling up cozily inside its underground lair. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, that dragons were living, fire-breathing creatures was common f$&kin' knowledge.

The first known portrayal of the fully modern, western dragon appears in a medieval manuscript circa 1260ish.

This little f$&ker is the kind of dragon that most of you were probably picturing upon first taking it upon yourself to read this … this what? … whatever the f$&k it is you want to call this thing you're reading now … like right now … like your eyes line up with this blinkity f$&king cursor now … like *slap* *brief pause* *blinky eyed head shake* … what say we head east and have a look at what the rest of you were picturing.

Some Eastern Dragons

While the Western dragon roots itself to the hero-versus-giant-serpent motif of Proto-Indo-European mythology, it is the Chinese dragon that is birthed by Proto-Sino-Tibetan mythology. From what I've gathered after a seriously soft amount of internet research, the linguistic trip taken by the Western dragon from the Proto-Indo-European word *derḱ- to the Modern English word dragon has a parallel in that taken by the Chinese dragon from the Proto-Sino-Tibetan word *rŏŋ to the Modern Chinese word lóng (pronounced 龙 … or possibly 龍).

The dragon's permeation of East Asian culture is next level. The legendary Chinese sovereign, Huangdi, was said to have taken the form of the Yellow Dragon to ascend to heaven. As the Yellow Emperor is seen as an ancestor of all Chinese people, they sometimes refer to themselves as children of the dragon. In Chinese popular religion, the Yellow Dragon would become one of the five deities composing the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven.

Another of the five, the Azure Dragon, would find himself depicted on what would become China's first national flag, that of the last imperial dynasty, the Qing.

Traditional Chinese architecture calls for the erection of a spirit screen, or screen wall, for keeping out evil spirits. Take this concept, toss in a dragon motif, imperialize it, and you've got yourself a Nine-Dragon Wall perfect for placing in one of the imperial gardens or palaces you happen to steward.

The dragons battling it out below over the flaming pearl depict two-sevenths of the Nine-Dragon Wall found in the Beijing-based former imperial garden, Beihai Park.

The prickly pair have good reason to covet this fiery little orb. These little treasures are guaranteed to be holding some high-value commodity–wisdom, power or prosperity, perhaps. Maybe something tangible like thunder or the moon. If it's top shelf, the pearl may embody immortality or even the universal Qi, progenitor of all energy and creation.

As the Indo-European mythologies would emerge, so would the Sinon-Tibetan. Take one part Chinese dragon, one part native legend, stick the parts together, and you'll have yourself a Japanese dragon not unlike the one Hokusai painted onto the ceiling of the Higashmachi festival float in 1844.

It's the three toes on the feet of this handsome fella, along with his slender serpentine physique, that give his origin away. As it happens, the number of toes kinda became a thing. During the Zhou dynasty, this number came to represent rank, therefore most Chinese dragons you come across are gonna have a full five toes. The working theory in Japan, however, was that all dragons were of native origin with three toes per foot. If a dragon wants to leave Japan, it can expect to sprout some toes. The greater its distance from Japan, the more appendages it shall acquire. The toe count gets capped at five when a dragon reaches China.

Operating under this logic, it totally fits that Korea would be chock-full of four-toed dragons like the Blue Dragon in the Koguryoan mural.

Of course, the Koreans believed the four toes on their dragons clearly demonstrated their superiority to the three-toed dragons of Japan. It's that fourth toe that enables the dragon to clutch those pearls. Note that there are four-toed Chinese dragons. When dragon watching, observe the beard. Korean dragons tend to have long ass beards.

Let's keep heading east, I really want to look at some dragons with whom the descendents of Paleoamerican cultures would become acquainted.

Some American Dragons

Dragons flourished all across the pre-Columbian Americas; however, getting to know them is a f$&king challenge. Genocide and forced assimilation kinda tend to disappear the afflicted culture. Consider the case of the Piasa Bird found in Alton, Illinois.

A pair of these suckers were absof$&kinlutely painted upon the limestone bluffs above the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. How do we know? A Frenchman told us what he saw during his 1673 expedition of the Mississippi River. As to what he said, here's the valuable bit:

They are as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads like those of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all around the body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a fish's tail. Green, red, and black are the three colors composing the picture.

The 1917 publication from which I've pulled his account also includes a helpful little footnote. See if you can spot the problem:

These pictographs on a rock near Alton, Illinois, were called "piasa" and supposed to represent the "thunder bird." They were quite distinct when described by Stoddard in 1803; when visited in 1838 only one could be seen, of which traces were discernible as late as 1848, soon after which the rock was quarried down.

I mean…

⒜ The account from 1673 doesn't say sh$t about what these things are called. ⑵ The footnote from the publication doesn't say sh$t about who mentioned the things oughta be called piasa. (ᓭ) They quarried … the fucking … rock.

Before moving on from Marquette's account, I wanna show you the least valuable bit. Picking up where we left off in that first quote:

Moreover, these two monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that any savage is their author; for good painters in France would find it difficult to paint so well, and besides, they are so high up on the rock that it is difficult to reach that place conveniently to paint them.

I believe the Illini response to this was something like ᐃᒃᓯᕚᕐᓂᖅ ᕿᒥᕐᓗ (pronounced sit and spin).

It gets better.

The painting I recreated is by Herbert Forcade. He made it in preparation for painting the f$&ker back up on that limestone bluff. In 1924, he totally did. In the 1960s, they totally blasted that shit to make way for the Great River Road.

It gets better still.

Curious how the Piasa Bird got its name? Let me tell you. In 1836, local Professor John Russell of Shurtleff College published an article with the deets he claims to have obtained from the Illini. Of the stream below the bluff, he has this to say:

This stream is the Piasa. Its name is Indian, and signifies, in the Illini, 'The bird which devours men.' Near the mouth of this stream, on the smooth and perpendicular face of the bluff, at an elevation which no human can reach, is cut the figure of an enormous bird, with its wings extended. The animal which the figure represents was called by the Indians the Piasa. From this is derived the name of the stream.

Okay, so far, we have a real portrayal of a Native American dragon … given to us by a small-minded Frenchman. We add to this the naming of the thing some one hundred sixty-three years later by a professor from a Baptist college (further confirmed in the footnotes of a book published some seventy-six years after the prof's article). What we seem to be missing is some authentic Illini legend of this creature. Have we one of those?

As it happens, we do have one of those, provided in the very same article that gave us the beast's name. Search the internet for the bird's backstory, and you'll find the Legend of the Piasa Bird repeated in countless places. Why haven't I told you the legend? 'Cause the f$&ker admitted he made the whole thing up. You've got about a 50/50 shot of being told that alongside any given one of those repetitions.

Can you believe the dragon exhibition was originally gonna end here? Exploring the erasure of a people's origin story from the annals of history kinda pulled us off course so I thought it best to square things up by painting one more to pull us back. I then constructed a segue that must make the gods of grammar and style weep (and not in a good way). Easily surpassing the forty word mark utilized by Ulysses to trigger sentence splitting suggestions for me to ignore, this beast also happens to count among its possessions three commas, two dashes, a colon, a pair of parentheses, and my approval (so, I'm keeping it). Allow a little extra time for its digestion. I'm sure it'll be fine.

From a dragon mythologized and then quarried by the white man, as if it weren't but hillbilly graffiti–sold twice for a profit, first as so many slabs of limestone and next as an attraction by the city of Alton–and appropriated by Southwestern High School (home of the Piasa Birds and a standalone replica that spits f$&kin' fire), to a dragon colonialism would not erase: we're heading south to see Quetzalcōātl.

The name Quetzalcōātl is a composition of two Nahuatl language words: quetzal or beautiful feather and coatl or serpent. This fella lay at the end of the mesoamerican feathered serpent's evolutionary timeline. By the time his likeness was being drawn into pages, he had a pyramid dedicated to his worship—the world's largest pyramid. We can probably blame the Toltecs for his naughty noms. They linked war and human sacrifice with celestial bodies. They also anointed Quetzalcōātl the god of the morning and evening star.

The Aztecs maintained his solar deification, along with the death and rebirth associations that came with the position. They did manage to round him out a bit by anointing him the god of learning, science, crafts, arts, and agriculture. Oh, he also created humanity in this fifth cycle of the sun we're currently living through.

How can we know all this about Quetzalcōātl yet remain so ignorant about the Piasa Bird? His stone wasn't quarried. His story, written by native Nahuatl speakers, has been preserved. Moctezuma had himself a f$&kin' library. What I've recreated up there is a page from the divinatory almanac included in the amatl known as the Codex Telleriano-Remensis. Shown on the page are the 14th trecena, Quetzalcōātl, and some gloss that explains his significance.

Towards the Making of a Point

The storyteller spins a yarn for transmitting select information as a recognizable pattern from which meaning may be gleaned. From a tapestry woven with a collection of such threads, one discerns a worldview. The collected tapestries woven by a people constitutes their culture.

The introductory bit waxes poetic regarding the common threads running through tapestries woven independently–threads such as the tendency of a dragon to control the weather, to rule the water, or to temporarily block out the sun. Focusing on commonalities was, perhaps, a bit misleading. While they do, indeed, warrant remark, the common threads within the worldview gallery tend to be structural. We might think of the universally common as the warp threads running through these tapestries.

The tapestry's true value lay in its weft. It's these crossings that capture a culture's unique contributions to the whole of humanity.

In medieval France, one might weave himself a dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads formed with yarn spun by John while in exile on the little Greek island of Patmos.

In Great Ming China, one might weave himself a five-toed dragon up in the clouds chasing flaming pearls.

Everything old is new. The fibers with which a storyteller spins his yarn are harvested by retting the plants born of seeds dropped by tapestries such as these. The crux of innovation is seed diversity. What might it look like, the dragon one might weave with threads of both Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan origin.

[saphaburnell]

Dragons and Shapeshifting Trees: Character Builds in Sci-Fi

"Cillian stepped out of the shade of the ship, the expendable raptor sniffed at salt and seaweed and petrol and bone. Pale skin shone in the dim sun, stippled of shadow and light. Freckles yet to form. Texture like dinosaur skin dotted along the bare arms shown by sleeves rolled to the elbows like Letopaxa. His chest heaved, eyes shut to see the pale sun shined red beyond his eyelids. Rachel’s draconic form loped beside him, the chitinous scales of her back and body tingled in the faded dawn. Elongating, Rachel pushed up on her hind legs, and slowly, with the dawn and well of sensation Cillian consumed, took the form Aderastos knew she feared most. Bi-pedal, humanoid-limbed. Her scales retreated to create a form of armour along her body like clothes. Rachel’s hair swung back and forth as a dragon’s tail, silver skin caught and reflected the light. Her arms twined around Cillian’s ribcage. “I can’t go back inside.”"  -- NEON Lieben by Sapha Burnell

When I was musing on the Assets in NEON Lieben, the world of genetic engineering opened to an overactive imagination. What sorts of creatures would genetic scientists create, if a sentient artificial intelligence in the shape of a feminine android de-weaponized the human race? Welcome to the premise of the Lieben Cycle.

No missiles, no drones, no planes with automated weapons systems. Robot soldiers walked en masse off the killing fields and set their weapons to slag. Nothing more advanced than a firearm, a stick and blade. What collection of humanity would accept the Mama Machine’s hand over their toys, like a stern hausfrau, without fighting back? In the tenuous truce created by Lieben’s Haven Epoch, the Conglomerate dove into gene-splicing to create biological machines. Where else could their intellects and ingenuity take them, but the realms of biological engineering?

What would I get, when I mixed wolf DNA with a velociraptor? Cillian stands in the sun for the first time, humanoid but other. The scale of his skin similar but alien. Rachel shifts from the reptilian and draconic to the humanoid. Both built from similar DNA strains, clipped and sutured by design.

The mystery is the strain of humanity in the machine, when we build upon nature, how much of the old strains push through? As an author, how far can I pull that chord between human and inhuman, between a biological machine and the shaken man, who can’t voluntarily venture back inside?

Prior to the Global Situation, NEON Lieben was meant to launch in 2020. The Launch is August 22nd, 2021.

The human condition’s play between accepting grace and fighting for control drives the Conglomerate to maneuver past the kibosh on technological weaponry by creating genetically modified organisms as profound as Rachel’s draconic shapeshift and the raptor-wolf Pack. But, as geneticists are learning today, genetic manipulation does not equate to pure input-output. The genes might be spliced together, but their expression lies beyond the skeleton of genetic code. Genetics and Epigenetics together require investigation, when we are taking further steps into building bespoke beings.

We can build genomes and modify extraordinary things with technology like CRISPR, but the interpretation of said genes remains firmly within the burgeoning science of epigenetics. How a series of genes are expressed is often through heritable changes, or DNA methylation instead of the base sequence. Nurture matters. Regardless of the DNA laid down, the theories behind epigenetics correlate one’s heredity, the influence of past generations and the conditions of their early experiences on the cells in the parent organism.

"Epigenetic processes are particularly important in early life when cells are first receiving the instructions that will dictate their future development and specialization. These processes can also be initiated or disrupted by environmental factors, such as diet, stress, aging, and pollutants. In 2005, a team of Italian researchers provided the first concrete evidence for the role of environmental epigenetics in explaining why twins with the same genetic background can have vastly different disease susceptibilities.1 The researchers showed that, at birth, pairs of identical twins have similar epigenetic patterns, including DNA methylation and histone modifications. However, over time, the epigenetic patterns of individuals become different, even in twins. Since identical twins are the same genetically, the differences are thought to result from a combination of different environmental influences that each individual experiences over a lifetime."  -- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

To me, this epigenetic powder keg is the true explosive within the genetic revolution. As much as we edit, our previous generations continue an influence on future iterations of organisms. It’s a fascination of mine to study whether circumstances are caused by genetic factors, or the more likely epigenetic. Where does that take a character created from genetic offal?

For NEON Lieben, it meant an investigation into genetic memory, instinct and the expression of the geneticists’ wonder at potential outcomes. The character Dr. Phil Rykstra is the representative of this struggle in the book, and he was both fun and uncomfortable to write in equal measure. How far do we go from an ethical standpoint into the furrowed brows of genetic engineering for war’s sake? For humanity’s sake? Will we eventually lose ourselves in Homo Augmentum, the way the Neanderthals lost their dominance?

As an author, I feel such real-world quandaries are necessary to drive the authenticity of a work of science fiction. While sci-fi can exchange ‘quantum’ for ‘magic’ and hand-wave a female shapeshifting tree into being, if there is a solid basis for extrapolation, it strengthens the work. Using the constraints of ‘plausibility’, while potentially awkward, allows most readers to relax into the beauty of our collectively presented imaginations.

And when the biological machines do ascend upon us, how much of their development will hearken back to the generations before, carried over like baggage in a train car? Ultimately, I hope if you want to see this exploration in detail, you read NEON Lieben.

"“By Einstein’s shaggy topknot…” Phil plunked down on a chair on the Bridge and stared.It was enough to pull Rammage’s eyes off the being currently running laps like Jesus and stare back at the scientist. “How much of this is news to you, Doctor? You helped design these freaks of nature, why the fuck are you surprised at what they can do?” A shrill thread of pure worry sewed through his spinal column at the idea, the sheer thought. Twelve bio engineered mechanisms were beyond. Beyond the cognizance of the scientific team who built them. Beyond the infinite imagination of the human organism. Beyond control. When it came time to snuff them out, Rammage worried that too was beyond."  -- NEON Lieben by Sapha Burnell