Poogona

(This was fun to write, leave a comment if you liked it so I can get some of that precious dopamine)

Briston Smokehouse, sipping his morning coffee, offered his wife the expression he had developed over his many years of highly functional marriage. His eyebrows both sloped upwards towards the middle, suggesting the Peak of Concern. His mouth curled downwards at the edges, forming the Empathy Crescent. And on this particular morning, Briston had deemed it necessary to call across the topography of his expression with the Song of Sympathy, a short sliding note that starts high and ends low. Thus was Mrs. Smokehouse assured that she had not just splashed her worries futilely against the mind of her husband like an ocean wave against a boulder.

Briston had honed this expression over many mornings just like this one. It was a masterful technique of the conversational arts, a frictionless touch that could placate his opponent while slipping past without losing precious momentum. Briston did not consider himself to be an unkind man, but mornings were times for preparation. The psychic accumulations of sleep needed to be wiped away, and there could be no unnecessary weight taken on.

Once he had finished his coffee, the first of his body's many potential distractions had been addressed. Soon, he would need sustained focus, and each of these was a danger to it. Having placated his stomach with food and stretched out the kinks from his muscles, he dressed himself in clothes that had no itchy seams and no tight corners. A short spark of terror erupted within him when he couldn't find his sunglasses, but this was quickly soothed when he recognized their blue-gold shine sticking out from under the couch. He was ready.

Briston kissed his wife, walked out the door and began. He took his place in line. He was more experienced than some, and so he didn't press against the people in front like others did. He didn't tap his foot or let his eyes wander. Consistency was everything.

The line faced the monster, the killer. Everyone in line looked at it, one by one, in their own way, as they passed. It could, in an instant, grab someone, twist them and pulverize them before they could realize what had happened. Some people had said to Briston that there was really no way to manage it, that the monster was too quick to react to, too inscrutable to be predicted. Briston hated those people, more than anyone else in the world, more than even the monster that he was rapidly approaching. Until there was proof, he would leave nothing to chance.

Some of them were distracted, and Briston pitied them. After passing the monster a hundred times without danger, their eyes wandered, and so they wouldn't see the pounce coming. But he would, he was no sucker.

It was Briston's turn. The monster ignored him. It would get someone else today.

I'm the fucking master, he said to himself, and the evidence was behind him.

(can't sleep, here's some writing. CW: death)

I got to go home early today. They do that when someone dies at work. It doesn't happen often. Well it does happen often, but not where I work, which is why they just sent us all home. It seemed like they were just confused. Most of us would have kept working if the security guard hadn't come around to our stations and told us the news. He was shrugging, everyone was. Someone upstairs was angry, but it was that bewildered kind of anger you hear from someone whose dog just walked across the tiles after rolling in shit.

Her name was Letitia, I think. I don't know what her job was, but she wasn't one of the sitting people like me. She had to walk from station to station, but not the way people in charge do. She looked backwards too much for that. I don't want to think about her any more, but maybe I'm supposed to? I hope not.

Someone from my station got interviewed by the news. I think his name is Reginald. His friend always says "Ready, Reginald?" when they meet up to leave, but that's also a line from a TV show. His friend always says it in this sing-song voice, and they don't say it that way on TV, so that's why I think it's really his name. TV is so shit now, I think.

The news guy was asking the guy I think is called Reginald (can I call him Reg?) about the woman who I think is called Letitia. Well, not really about her, the reporter was doing some kind of segment about safety, and I'm guessing it's yet another piece about Legitimate Steel. It gets a lot of bad press.

Not everyone is using Legitimate Steel yet, so I should probably explain. Legitimate Steel is unbreakable, right? Regular steel is pretty strong already, but sometimes it breaks and bends and stuff falls down. The way they explained it to me was that regular steel is always getting tested and scrutinized before it breaks apart, so they made Legitimate Steel, which is unbreakable because nobody looks at it.

You have to pass a few little tests before you get to work in my building, since it's the first workplace constructed entirely out of Legitimate Steel. They have to make sure you can walk on it without looking at it first, but that's not too hard. The one most people fail is the second test, where they hold up a plate of it in front of you and you have to be able to not see it. It's not too hard to do, but that's just my experience. The younger hires don't always pass that one.

Some people, like the reporter who was interviewing Reg (I think?), really just don't get it. He kept asking how we can work in a "place like this." Like I said, he just didn't get it. It would have been worth a laugh if someone hadn't just died.

Again, I think her name was Letitia. I really shouldn't be thinking about her this much. I definitely should not be thinking about how she was getting phone calls a lot over the last week, or how pale she looked when she was on the phone for the fifth time today. And I really fucking don't need to be thinking about that moment when I saw her looking down, right through six floors of pure Legitimate Steel, before she dropped.

Title is a relationship I see brought up a lot when people are trying to figure out what individual compulsions or tendencies might be at the root of fascism, conservatism, etc. I remember Matt Christman bringing up the trauma of WW1 when describing the rise of European fascism and also describing Glenn Beck's awful Xmas special coming from a trauma-inspired hyper-sentimentality. (The state of Israel seems relevant here too but it feels super obvious and uninteresting to add it)

It makes a kind of intuitive sense to me, this idea that wounded people who lack the emotional vocabulary understand how they are hurt would propagate their trauma onto others and let this drive their politics. But I'm also annoying and therefore cautious of things that make intuitive sense, and this feels a little too "just-so."

I dunno, this site has a bunch of smarty pantses who have read about more things than funny-looking animals, which is all I know. Has anyone read anything or have anything to share about this relationship? I like a good narrative and it is a very compelling one

It is morning, and the sky is frozen. I began my waiting when the cold came, and now I must go to where I can become wholly living. I leave the downward dark where many others hide. I will go to a meeting which will make me all alive. I am bringing all of me, beneath every eye that is above me, to where life will meet me and all of me will be made living.

It is morning, and the sky is melting. The eyes above me are fleeing, because they will not live. A tiny life is touching me. I am carrying all of me, and it is a dead walking. I have always come to this meeting. Life is coming to meet me, life is coming to make so much of me into living things. I see it bleeding from the line across all things where I cannot reach. Life is coming! Life is coming for me to meet it!

It is morning, and the sky is stained. The eyes above me are washed away, and I am trying. I am squeezing, I am pushing, and I am falling between efforts. It is all of it heavy, and I am carrying some of me. The meeting will be above me, and this morning I will reach it. Life is erupting to me. I have so little left from our last meeting. All of me wants to live, and none of me will be beneath the rest.

It is morning, and the sky is fire! I am wide atop a thing more dead than any other, because it will be most alive in our meeting. I have come to the meeting, and all of me is waiting! Life is rising over me, life is here, life is striking all of me!

It is morning, and the sky is bulging. Where I was folded, I open. Where I was tightened, I loosen. Where I was sinking, I rise, and all of me is lightened, all of me is living! Life has come to meet me, life has come for me to steal away what it always gives! Now I am alive, now all of me is life-hungry, and I take enough for all of me! All things that are not me are taking life also, because life has come to meet me here on the rock which sits upon the death that reaches to the line across all things. With life I can see the rock that is pale, upon dust that is red, upon the safe dark that is beneath it where the cold hides from life's coming. I open myself, my teeth touch the life from above, and I balance it all, and this is the meeting that I came to.

It is morning, and the sky is touching me, and it comes with me. Now I do not carry me, and all of me is pulling itself. Life has come into where I am opened, because I came to this meeting.

Morning is ending, and I leave this living rock, and I am alive again!

I love garter snakes so much, this one was curious and friendly and slid right across my leg after telescoping a bit for me to take a photo.

So there's this documentary I saw many years ago called Onibus 147. Long story short, it's about a kid in Rio who held some people in a bus hostage. I think it was an incredible experience to watch it but it has been like a decade since I did. Still, for some reason it has never left my mind. I can't say it traumatized me or anything, but I was a different person after watching it. I'm not sure if I would have the political opinions I have today without watching this documentary.

Look, I just want to talk about this movie. If you are reading this thread and you've seen it jump in here and say something because it makes me really sad to think that the name Sandro Nascimento will someday be completely forgotten. Being exposed to the story of Nascimento and the way it ended was probably the first time I remember truly feeling anger at the good ol boys in blue, the first time I was able to truly conceive of what poverty means, the first sight I caught of the grinding, meat-splattered gears underneath the floorboards.

Maybe it's not even an amazing movie, maybe I shouldn't rewatch it and open that old wound, but right now it doesn't really matter because I can't find the god damn thing anywhere. If you know where it's uploaded or where it can be found let me know.

Context is that I am a 30 year old living in a rural area in the south, so my peers are mostly the offspring of HVAC-business-owning yeoman reactionaries or the mentally traumatized wastrels of declining capitalism. It's not a good environment tbh.

I have some irl friends, who are generally cool (by cool I mean a bunch of them are gay and/or trans people who are smart and funny) but they are also 30s range so most of them are just trying to white-knuckle their way through it right now. I feel for them, I do my best to always help and be available for them when they need someone to drive away the encroaching existential misery, but I'm a manchild pursuing the arts to secure a wealthy patron so my life is just so different from theirs and everyone is aware of it. I've fallen into a sort of "therapist" role among my friends, and it gets really exhausting even though I'd never hold it against them.

In the last few months I've noticed that I've been craving some more casual, friendly online interaction. I tried to thrust myself into some online communities on places like discord, and it worked a little, but it was pretty clear most of these places were full of people a decade younger than myself. Am I just gonna have to face the fact that I'm just an atomized mote of consciousness forever and just stop looking for new tribes to join entirely?

EDIT: Also, almost a different question entirely, but why does it seem like there are SO MANY gay Nazis on discord? Because I have a lot of experience being cool around LGBTQ, I have been invited into a few "secret clubs" and holy shit like 1 out of 3 times it's full of extremely gay Nazis practicing their mental gymnastics with each other

I can whip you up a hell of a fight scene and I won't need some fucking metaphor for that. Like sure I could start trying to impress you with my ability to make one thing seem like another but will you really care that I described the sun like it was a tangerine? If anything, you ought to be skeptical of my attempts to confuse the way you order your thoughts. It starts with street lights being will o' the wisps, and ends with you trying to eat your partner's lips because you heard me describe them as "ripe."

Instead, how about some cool fucking swords? Laser swords. Swords made of ice. How about a big ass sword with navigator stars all over it that you can shoot at anyone who manages to deflect the sword part, which is itself practically impossible because it's also an interdimensional sword that cuts only the flesh of narcissists? Writing is about coming up with the best swords, not prose. Publishers will be looking for your sword descriptions, so if you are serious about this whole writing thing you WILL cut it out with the prose and you WILL cut it IN with a cool angstrom-fiber blade.