Hell Yes
FInally a good post. Big thanks to AKAM80 for their wonderful crit.
I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust
Why He Did It / Discussion
Forum
» Per Page Discussion / Per page discussions
» Why He Did It
This is the discussion related to the wiki page Why He Did It.
Well, this entry joins the ranks of those seeking to make perfectly clear that human life is worth nothing in this world. I thought this wouldn't bother me anymore by now, but I do see aspects here that haven't yet come up in other posts.
Here at home, it is a well-known occurrence that my generation often wonders how our ancestors were able to take part in the Nazi era, often connected with the question "What did you do back then", in the sense of "Why didn't you do anything?". I mention that because this text - even beyond the title - describes quite vividly how such things can happen, here adequately paraphrased with 'the hole' and inner pain that makes one numb to the pain of others. Authoritarian bliss is what remains: "The armor plating cracks, a camera zoom, a pornographic angle of the violence broadcast to millions." & "Loving Blooscourge gave their life meaning."
In other entries, we've had horrific conditions for humans, but I think we're reaching a new height in this one by - pardon - literally shitting on human life:
"Only now have we come to what makes this system unique. Bloodscourge has a cannon of waste in its tail. Deployed rarely in combat, it blasts out heat-hardened waste products into its targets, ripping them apart via a mechanical firing mechanism, operated neurally, located within the tail. A simple burst of neurons firing, and a line of ten men can be annihilated and turned into pink mist by a single blast."
This is horribly good.
The protagonist's end fits in quite well with the narrative. Already at "Death, violence, doom. Stevenson desires something similar, unto themselves." I felt he would be about to perform a terrorist attack. But you still managed to surprise me. It certainly doesn't look like he intended to become an idol, but - as humans are - they make him one regardless. He probably just wanted to die. At least, if I got that right.
What I didn't quite get was what was going on on the field. Did he shut the Kaiju down with the MEP too? Or was that some kind of malfunction? I had played with the idea of doing something like that as a statement of some partisan group but it seems you came first XD
Besides that, I think we also have some good, innovative prose here: "For the first time, Bloodscourge cowers, blood dripping from many stumps, its several hearts screaming blood along the arterial motorways of its body." or "Dust to dust, ashes to ashes, oil to oil", too sharp to be poetic and too unforgiving to not stumble over. I also like the idea of adrenaline being used as a drug in the stadium. Haven't seen that before.
By the way: Sometimes the name of the prota is written with an accent aigu "Stévenson" and sometimes just "Stevenson". And I feel there belongs a comma somewhere in "Stevenson's last act as a man as a human".
+1
All the best
- Nylo
Heh, if you notive Stevenson only has the diacritical mark in the beginning and when he regains his identity- The start at the beginning for informational purposes, and at the end after recclaiming their identity, even in a terrible way.
And if you couldn't tell this story comes from a very personal and political place. I credit the abortive intro to the draft of Marx's Alienated Labor for the subject of this piece, and informing how I wrote it. It began as a way to incorporate some awful feelings I've been having into a con piece, then as I began reading more theory I began to integrate Marx's idea of the "man" and "man-species' into the piece, two separate halves of a whole. The idea is that by working a job that doesn't serve any social value to the community as a whole- an insurance adjustor- man becomes alienated from the species of man, the collective social consciousness, and becomes dead inside. Thus Anderson's disconnect from reality and escape into another, less real one- the Titan fights. Thus, when Bloodscourge dies, their false reality is shattered, leaving them to attempt to find meaning in a broken world. They find that meaning through suicide.
Thank you for listening to my TedTalk. I only wanted to make people think of the thousands of Anderson's that' run the world- and that we should be just a little bit nicer.
I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust
Just a very normal guy 🤠
I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust
I like this one. I think the way the character is written here is very compelling, while also being really… Constricting. There's a certain energy that the beginning offers that I really liked, going well into the death of the Kaiju. My one issue is that the overall scene at the end starts melting, the focus on the man sort of making things narratively degenerate, to the point I'm not quite sure what's happening, or what it exactly means. The way it emulates a certain panic, I really liked though, so I think it overall is a pretty good piece.
+1~
Sorry for the late response!
Yeah the ending kind of just happened as it did. I am still happy with the piece overall, but I definitely could have fixed that up a bit more. Thanks for your support nonetheless!
I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust
OOoooo OOOooooooo this is really good! There's a lot of great details here, the adrenaline in the food was a particularly spicy detail that I really liked - definitely incorporating that into my headcanon. I love the irony at the end, accidental legends and mythology in the normal is all up my alley, it offers this great importance to a person who's life seemingly didn't matter. I also didn't understand the Stévenson/Stevenson thing but seeing your comment really put that into perspective to me. I agree with Maxy that the end kinda jumps around to a lot of different perspectives, does give me that melty feeling of things maybe not mattering us much as other things, but the last paragraph really brought things back into focus. Good job!
Edit: I forgot that I wanted to say that the detail about kaiju killing deathrow inmates, while gruesome and a great detail, might not work for this story. It might be better if the idea of death by kaiju was completely original, something only Stevenson had thought up. It already existing kinda lessens the impact
Shit yeah you're right. That would've elevated the story a lot.
Well guess I'll badger you for crit on my next piece :D
Thank you for the lovely comment <3
I watch the yonder hills
See foodwrenches toil in dust
Let their cacophonous calls
Rend our bodies to rust
/forum/t-16229731/why-he-did-it#post-