The writer is trying to accomplish WRITING A STORY, if nothing else.
And whether or not the name is meant to be a political commentary... that's how people will take it. And the next thing you know, you're off to the races with ten thousand people screaming at each other.
Never never never never use a real life politician's name. For anything. In fact, you're probably treading on thin ice using a DEAD politician's name. It's just not worth it.
EDIT: I'm not kidding. You can light off a political hissyfit using ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Good luck. I know of at least two cases on AH.com when an author tried to use a fictional name, and was told that there was an actual real politician with that name that actually kind of made sense for the position...
(The case I recall better was a story set in the then-far-future year of 2017, with one "Damian Green" as UK Prime Minister.)
This looks like you'll be finishing soon. It's been an interesting read, though I have to wonder when the pun on Abyddon occurred to you. I've spun an entire fic from a single typo leading to a bad joke, so I'm wondering if that's where this idea may have started.
This looks like you'll be finishing soon. It's been an interesting read, though I have to wonder when the pun on Abyddon occurred to you. I've spun an entire fic from a single typo leading to a bad joke, so I'm wondering if that's where this idea may have started.
There was probably more there that got clipped. Been seeing that a bit from Google Docs when internet is spotty. Seems to work without so I didn't try to add more now.
Abaddon/"A Bed On" is one of the first items on the pun list and I almost spilled it far earlier on when she met Cauldron. And when you consider the Cauldron as an early washing machine in a fic about clothing, you are getting closer to falling down the rabbit hole that started this.
Bedbugs. As in, I once considered what canon Taylor could do with bedbugs.
It goes downhill from there:
She's a Bad MuFo, Shut Your Mouth
Abaddon -> A Bed On
Holy Sheet Batman
Poncho Villa
Nappy Time
Carpet Bombing
Flag
Dry Clean only
Permanent Press
Blanket Fort
Lycrathrope
Being Taylor is Stuffering / Being Taylor is Suffering
Wereweave
Bedcast / Broadcast
Bedford Falls
Living as a Material Girl
There were plenty that weren't in the initial list that got in as I went. Quilts as Tapestries and lies as embroidery, that sort of thing.
It is <ahem> nearing the final stages. Not a lot of tension left on the skein of things. Just a few tassels and knotting things --unless there really is more to unfold. 🙀
There was probably more there that got clipped. Been seeing that a bit from Google Docs when internet is spotty. Seems to work without so I didn't try to add more now.
Abaddon/"A Bed On" is one of the first items on the pun list and I almost spilled it far earlier on when she met Cauldron. And when you consider the Cauldron as an early washing machine in a fic about clothing, you are getting closer to falling down the rabbit hole that started this.
Bedbugs. As in, I once considered what canon Taylor could do with bedbugs.
It goes downhill from there:
She's a Bad MuFo, Shut Your Mouth
Abaddon -> A Bed On
Holy Sheet Batman
Poncho Villa
Nappy Time
Carpet Bombing
Flag
Dry Clean only
Permanent Press
Blanket Fort
Lycrathrope
Being Taylor is Stuffering / Being Taylor is Suffering
Wereweave
Bedcast / Broadcast
Bedford Falls
Living as a Material Girl
There were plenty that weren't in the initial list that got in as I went. Quilts as Tapestries and lies as embroidery, that sort of thing.
It is <ahem> nearing the final stages. Not a lot of tension left on the skein of things. Just a few tassels and knotting things --unless there really is more to unfold. 🙀
the doctor, the aid and the trigger happy guard
the President nods at his aid.
It wasn't until several hours later they found the missing aid, duct taped to a wall
That was the only way I could describe it. I was seeing space, deep space like between galaxies with only distant spirals as a background. In the foreground there were two immense forms, miles long if anything. They were like gigantic stalactites of crystalline material, tapered at both ends and twisting --spiraling around each in slow motion.
No, not solid and unmoving but changing on a scale beyond my comprehension as they slowly moved through the universe.
In my mindscape they appeared to be tinged with gold on the one, silver on the other.
Looking back along their path I could see their history leading back to a huge explosion like a phantom zig zag, with smaller explosion nodes along the way.
By all appearances, they had entered the Milky Way galaxy and crossed into the arm of our spiral that included Earth --a tiny fucking target if aimed but much more likely to have been accidental in nature.
As they approach our arm, another great rocky thing approaches at an angle, almost coming into being rather than traveling. This has the feel of memory and present time all at once.
The Silver one of the pair angles off to pass closer and then breaks into a cloud of pieces which draw together with the cloud from the dark one. Dark and silver pieces swirl together and then return back to their original forms, speckled now with each other's hues.
The darker one seems to smear into nothingness to this perception.
As the remaining gold and silver with black speckles pair close in on a recognizable solar system, the silvery one falters on approach.
The images blur, like a suppressed memory.
The point of view shifts and I feel the transition like a rotation to the side. The dark crystalline thing is there. It isn't moving in the deeper darkness behind it. For the briefest of moments it flickers into a cloud of pieces, then reforms with silvery flecks.
And then a cloud of gold pieces comes into being next to it.
It coalesces into the golden one, matching the shape of the dark one to almost matching its bumps to the dark valleys. Two halves almost joined.
[TRAJECTORY?]
[UNNECESSARY]
[ENTROPY?]
[###########]
The three concepts had conveyed thousands of words of exposition in their blasting overtones and subtexts. The last hit like a wave of math theorems, conveying a description of a space outside of the dimension of time --or perhaps oriented in a way that time was a near constant, passage ignored.
Matter was conserved.
Energy was conserved.
A closed loop in a tangent of all things. A diagonal slice across time and space and all the change was in a wholly separate dimension.
"And that's about where my headache started and I woke up."
Emma and Sophia were kneeling side by side, dark next to light skin --holding hands.
"And you haven't healed yourself, why?" Emma asked.
Rolling my eyes I did so, and wondered what had started the headache. And why her lighter skin next to the darker skin of her girlfriend felt so … familiar.
****************
"You've sentenced millions to die!" the man fumed. "My daughter! What good does healing my granddaughter do if you open them up to the plague winds outside the city?!"
Dad was talking to the man over speaker phone as I walked up.
"Because there are no plagues, not anymore."
"Wh-what?" the voice lost all but a note of the anxiety before.
A woman holding a little girl in a party dress on her lap piped in. "It's true dad. They opened the walls to spread the cure out on the winds. Their AI subverted our gate technology to drop packets into all the domes, and many of the wild lands."
The man's voice again came out waveringly. "Packets?"
Dad cleared his voice. "Each packet dropped includes squares of cloth, or socks for some reason, soaked in our created viruses that destroy the plagues --correct the sickness. Anyone holding the clothing to their bodies will find themselves healing of the boils and deformities caused by them." He sighed. "It won't help those who've had their brains destroyed, but they won't continue to attack or try to break into doors etc. Eventually you will have to deal with those, but not as carriers of more disease."
The voice on the other end firms. Now I recognize the President of this world's United States, from the TV appearances playing in my incarceration. "And what do you want from this act of altruism?"
"I want to go home, with my daughter and all our people and pretend you didn't try to start a war when you should have been requesting help, you pompous asshat." Danny ground out.
Oh dad, never change.
If we hadn't punctured the domes, they might have just ignored the fact we'd cured the plagues and kept right on doing what they were doing. And what they were doing was sanitizing whole groups of people, swathes of land, of the plague ridden. Not all of those were sick people, but they were all carriers --sickos.
And the governing body couldn't hide the fact that by definition they were also 'sickos' now.
It almost led to a second, bloodier coup. But we managed to get the results to the scientists, independent scientists from multiple countries that had been fighting the plagues from island holdings or fleets of hidden submarines the size of cruise ships.
I pulled in an eye and looked around in Blanket Space. Glam had helped to shift most of our group back this way and they were all in the Hebert House, nervously watching the Endbringers visible on top of the rocky island that supported the 'yard'.
There was a pool there now.
Right.
And the Simurgh was floating in it on an inflated chair, shading her eyes as she waved at me with her off hand.
Sure thing.
"Blanket? This is Armsmaster. Several gates opened up over countries around the world --here on Bet-- and have not closed for almost three hours. The airflow has equalized, but there are worries that the plagues on the Aleph side will pass to our side."
I paused. "Didn't Panacea already give you samples of the cure?"
"Yes, but without your assistance, and that of Docker, we can't distribute the cure across those locations with efficiency." He was worried, but not overly so.
"Dad, how did we get so much material to distribute here anyway?"
Dad quirked an eyebrow at me. "It's your pocket universe kiddo, you tell me. I saw socks out there that looked to be from all periods of history, rags of any color and material just seemed to gather at the center because we needed it."
"Oh, right, bullshit." I ignored him waggling a finger under my nose. "Armsmaster, give me the coordi…"
I stopped as the local Collin Wallis brought me a printout.
"These are the gate coords we were using." He seemed sheepish around me.
"That IS convenient." I note.
"Efficient" Armsmaster added.
Rolling my eyes. "And why haven't we turned those off yet?"
Now the Aleph Collin reddened. "Your, ah, AI was taking over our systems and the controls were smashed. The current gates are locked into a self sustaining loop. If we remove power without those controls they might do anything up to slicing a tube through both planets while depositing the materials in the upper atmosphere of the other of the pair."
"I'm going to take a wild guess that it was your order to smash the controls." I deadpan.
He rubs his neck. "No. It was a lower rank, a captain who's name you might recognize." He puts his hand down and turns his palm up. "Geoff Pellick."
"Saint." Armsmaster and half a dozen others say at once.
"In our defense we had not considered his latent paranoia that a Bet based AI might take over Aleph systems…" He tried, but withered under my death bear look. Eyebrows at maximum strength.
"Panacea, did you make up enough 'cure' to also distribute to Bet?" I ask over the comm.
The relay to Bet phone system, and Dragon's systems to route such, was a noticeable lag. Or maybe she was just daunted by the idea.
"Of course I didn't!" She huffed at me. "But it is self replicating for another ten thousand generations or so. Dump the samples left over into the pool in your Blanket Space and put your cloth bits through that." She seemed tired. "And let me get some sleep. It is night here after all."
I glanced around the room we were in, not a window in sight that didn't show light. My questioning look got the Aleph Collin to answer me.
"These are the bunkers under the capital. The windows are just --ah-- window dressing, LCD displays and curtains."
***************
On Bet, in China, a quiet base in the south, the mountains a backdrop to modular buildings and scurrying bodies in hazmat gear.
"Sir! The opening has changed again. There is now a sort of pink fog coming through along with fluttering pieces of cloth." The hazmat suited soldier did not enter the clear cube of the room within a room. The man in the chair had many medals on his coat, but the white boils forming on his face looked painful.
The other figure on the bed was worse off, having gotten the infection earlier than he. Light cloth covered the bursting pustules on her face and neck.
"Did you examine the samples?" He asked tersely.
"There are many sir, but I brought you an example expecting you would want to see it. There is writing on it in several languages."
He passed a sealed plastic packet into the quarantine airlock that was used to bring food trays in. After closing his side and triggering the spray of steam to kill anything on the outside, the older man took out the packet.
"This appears to claim to be the cure to the diseases previously passed through the portals with the wind. It mentions the cape known as Blanket." The man quietly unzipped the seal.
"Sir!"
"Stand quiet and observe. My wife and I have only hours left based on patient zero. If this has the cure, it would be best for all to know truly." He took out the two squares inside, passing one to his wife's chest and wiping his brow with the other.
Her breathing relaxed almost immediately.
The burning from the sores on his face eased as well.
He turned. "Have all the samples distributed to the affected but maintain quarantine on the unexposed for twenty four hours. We do not know if this is a cape power at work or a real cure."
The young man saluted and left at a trot.
"It is perhaps only a little undignified that she chose to use this image. It is far better than the nuclear destruction we first feared."
He flipped the cloth over, the text down, showing the imagery he'd seen after wiping. It was a colorful image of a group of stuffed animals consistent to the American story --well, Canadian in origin but popular there-- of the yellow bear with the red shirt, rabbit, donkey, pig, tiger and owl. The resemblance was not as strong as some might claim.
And there was little chance this particular cloth was aimed at him specifically.
************
Bet Louisiana, a hidden inlet from the north edge of Lake Pontchartrain.
"Mam, did you see the news?"
The older woman was rocking on the porch, the only unusual thing of the idyllic setting of the wooden porch and building being the rocking chair being made of heavy grade steel and groaning with her movement. "What is it chile?"
Even her voice jarred like it was full of rocks breaking on each other. The reinforced boards under the chair creaked as the rocking stopped.
"The TV, they was showing something going on up north, something related to the lady and that cape Blanket."
Old eyes burned red with power flickering as the gaze narrowed. "Do tell. Don't make mama mad at you girl."
Stammering a little. "They done showed vid taken inside that there Blanket Space." The girl kneeled and bent her head, worried the slap she was earning might take her head clean off. "It showed the lady AND the other two. All three of the Bringers are in there, trapped by the raggedy girl."
The expected slap didn't come.
The boards creaked as the old woman stood. Despite the waves of power coming off her, she picked up a cane and took a step toward the door.
The girl jumped to open the door polite like.
"It may be time for Mama Mathers to go set eyes on this raggedy girl herself. In person like." The door handle bent in her grip, the latch of it breaking the wood of the jam. "And get someone to fix that damn door, girlie."
"Yes ma'am. The vid is up on the TV, from the internets if you want to watch."
The hand caught her under the chin. "You are a sweet child, Franny. And I am not angry with you. Yet. Now get!"
Mama Mathers was set on going to Brockton Bay.
Hey, I bet you thought this thing was over and done. Kaput. Nuh-uh. Tried to tie it off and found there was more lurking under the couch. Slower to come, yes, it is taking time away from my --oh what the hell was I doing anyway. Oh, yeah, watching the horror fest of 2020 unfold. Seriously: Near war, pandemic, giant hornets, riots, counter protests, political infighting. It isn't the TP that is running out here, but the popcorn.
Ya know, Mama Mathers is showing up in a lot of stories all of a sudden.
Should we be worried?
It is both amusing and sad that you have to force-feed a cure to a planet.
I do wonder what genius had that thought 'Well we interacted with one alternate, clearly that must be as far as it goes.'
SERIOUSLY!? If at this point, we suddenly found our selves connected to an alternate Earth, I may invest in a bat just I can inscribe 'multiverse theory' on the side of it just to hit people who likely would do the same thing...
Sigh
Then again we still have 'Flat Earth' People.
So yeah, question. How high does Mathers rank on the Pain in the ass scale? Didn't even know about her till recent stories mentioned her and the brief description on what she does makes me think she is a stupidly strong memetic hazard of some sort.
I guess we now have confirmation on where all those lost socks went. A place outside of time capable of taking things from the present and the past... Does this mean that such disappearances will cease, or at least be reduced, from now on?
...Abbaddon committed cyberwarfare against Eden, and now has tricked Scion into entering Blanket Space AKA Abbadon Space, and pacified Scion by sharing the cure to entropy, with a cyberwarfare package hidden inside.
Ya know, Mama Mathers is showing up in a lot of stories all of a sudden.
Should we be worried?
It is both amusing and sad that you have to force-feed a cure to a planet.
I do wonder what genius had that thought 'Well we interacted with one alternate, clearly that must be as far as it goes.'
SERIOUSLY!? If at this point, we suddenly found our selves connected to an alternate Earth, I may invest in a bat just I can inscribe 'multiverse theory' on the side of it just to hit people who likely would do the same thing...
Sigh
Then again we still have 'Flat Earth' People.
So yeah, question. How high does Mathers rank on the Pain in the ass scale? Didn't even know about her till recent stories mentioned her and the brief description on what she does makes me think she is a stupidly strong memetic hazard of some sort.
About an 8 because of her memetic power. Where she gets into your head and forces you to see what she wants you to and can see through you. But besides that, she's got no real defenses besides her group of cult crazies.
About an 8 because of her memetic power. Where she gets into your head and forces you to see what she wants you to and can see through you. But besides that, she's got no real defenses besides her group of cult crazies.
This isn't canon Mama, closer to how I portrayed her in Maincraft. The PRT uses a rating similar to the news: A brute that is meaner the more riled she is --or so it appears. There is a condition and some behind the scenes stuff going on, but that is a good place to start. She isn't immune to Thinkers, but they have a hard time keeping on her or predicting her power level today. She has been known to be in two different locations nearly at the same time.
Ya know, Mama Mathers is showing up in a lot of stories all of a sudden.
Should we be worried?
It is both amusing and sad that you have to force-feed a cure to a planet.
I do wonder what genius had that thought 'Well we interacted with one alternate, clearly that must be as far as it goes.'
SERIOUSLY!? If at this point, we suddenly found our selves connected to an alternate Earth, I may invest in a bat just I can inscribe 'multiverse theory' on the side of it just to hit people who likely would do the same thing...
Sigh
Then again we still have 'Flat Earth' People.
So yeah, question. How high does Mathers rank on the Pain in the ass scale? Didn't even know about her till recent stories mentioned her and the brief description on what she does makes me think she is a stupidly strong memetic hazard of some sort.
I guess we now have confirmation on where all those lost socks went. A place outside of time capable of taking things from the present and the past... Does this mean that such disappearances will cease, or at least be reduced, from now on?
