justice_turtle (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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rainbowfic2013-01-04 02:59 pm
justice_turtle) wrote in rainbowfic2013-01-04 02:59 pm
Fog Grey 10: Winter Chill
Hi, I'm back!
I'm trying something a little different this time. I want to practice my writing more consistently, so I'll be posting random little stories and oddments under the tag "story: jt's mixed bag". (Mods, if I could get that tag made, please? Thanks! :D) Nothing on this tag will be in either of my established 'verses, but that's about all the various snippets will have to do with each other, at least for a while.
Name: JT
Story: JT's Mixed Bag
Colors: Fog Grey #10 (Winter Chill)
Supplies and Styles: Photography, Acrylic (#907: Being followed), Stain, Modeling Clay (Restless), Charcoal, Chalk (#8), Glitter ("Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.")
Word Count: 376
Rating: PG for darkfic?
Warnings: Thinly veiled real-world politics; cynicism.
Contrary to the predictions of sci-fi writers, a world where everyone fears everything works perfectly well.
Nobody bakes fresh cookies when a new neighbor moves in; it's only polite, because if you were the new neighbor you certainly wouldn't accept cookies from a stranger. They might be poisoned or drug-filled.
Nobody trusts the police. They rely instead on their personal armories, their strong fortified houses, the self-interest and mutual suspicion of the neighborhood watch; after all, the police might take Notions into their heads and come arrest you for some made-up reason. That's what the law is about, isn't it? Making up reasons to take away people's personal property, to take away their rights?
(They aren't wrong about the law, or at least, about lawyers. Lawyers are unassailable - they know exactly how far they can go before anyone can touch them - so they're the biggest bullies on the block. The police, on the other hand, make exactly enough easy and quiet arrests to keep their paychecks rolling in, and spend the rest of their time carefully patrolling areas that don't have any of those scary criminals in them.)
The government can't get anything done at all; it's a figurehead, the least scary form of government possible. (It's always comforting to know that big powerful groups can't do anything to you without your say-so. Especially when you're totally confident that your interests are the nation's interests... when you're sure that letting the government do anything means they're doing it to you personally.) Even if somebody wanted to give it real power, there'd always be a politician on the other side to say no. Politicians are the people who are a little less scared than everyone else - or possibly a little more scared, it's hard to tell - and they've played up their differences until they're certain nothing will ever get done.
Because everything is scary, and everyone is scared, but people who don't agree with you are the scariest of all. You can't even rely on them to have enlightened self-interest you can predict; to be manipulated by the same fears and motivations you're manipulated by; you can't even count on them to live in your world.
And that's the scariest thing of all.
I'm trying something a little different this time. I want to practice my writing more consistently, so I'll be posting random little stories and oddments under the tag "story: jt's mixed bag". (Mods, if I could get that tag made, please? Thanks! :D) Nothing on this tag will be in either of my established 'verses, but that's about all the various snippets will have to do with each other, at least for a while.
Name: JT
Story: JT's Mixed Bag
Colors: Fog Grey #10 (Winter Chill)
Supplies and Styles: Photography, Acrylic (#907: Being followed), Stain, Modeling Clay (Restless), Charcoal, Chalk (#8), Glitter ("Together in our house, in the firelight, we are the world made small.")
Word Count: 376
Rating: PG for darkfic?
Warnings: Thinly veiled real-world politics; cynicism.
Contrary to the predictions of sci-fi writers, a world where everyone fears everything works perfectly well.
Nobody bakes fresh cookies when a new neighbor moves in; it's only polite, because if you were the new neighbor you certainly wouldn't accept cookies from a stranger. They might be poisoned or drug-filled.
Nobody trusts the police. They rely instead on their personal armories, their strong fortified houses, the self-interest and mutual suspicion of the neighborhood watch; after all, the police might take Notions into their heads and come arrest you for some made-up reason. That's what the law is about, isn't it? Making up reasons to take away people's personal property, to take away their rights?
(They aren't wrong about the law, or at least, about lawyers. Lawyers are unassailable - they know exactly how far they can go before anyone can touch them - so they're the biggest bullies on the block. The police, on the other hand, make exactly enough easy and quiet arrests to keep their paychecks rolling in, and spend the rest of their time carefully patrolling areas that don't have any of those scary criminals in them.)
The government can't get anything done at all; it's a figurehead, the least scary form of government possible. (It's always comforting to know that big powerful groups can't do anything to you without your say-so. Especially when you're totally confident that your interests are the nation's interests... when you're sure that letting the government do anything means they're doing it to you personally.) Even if somebody wanted to give it real power, there'd always be a politician on the other side to say no. Politicians are the people who are a little less scared than everyone else - or possibly a little more scared, it's hard to tell - and they've played up their differences until they're certain nothing will ever get done.
Because everything is scary, and everyone is scared, but people who don't agree with you are the scariest of all. You can't even rely on them to have enlightened self-interest you can predict; to be manipulated by the same fears and motivations you're manipulated by; you can't even count on them to live in your world.
And that's the scariest thing of all.