Tales From The Current Year
Today, we have a special surprise on Your Dungeon Is Racist... a guest post by SexyTeKuvMa69. What can I tell you about this piece? It's a vibe.
Tales From The Current Year
Summer beats down on
the grimy and dilapidated tapestry of urban decay with the force of a second
Hiroshima. Across the pot-holed streets an exhausted gay pride parade
tortuously waddles along to the ragged cheers of a starving audience, compelled
by the watchful eyes of heavily armed trust & safety storm troops in biker
leathers and animal costumes. Occluded by the smoke of fires that no one will
put out, great billboards display flashing montages of hard-core gay
pornography in reflex pantomime of the old commercials, now a mandatory part of
every news broadcast and primary schoolers’ education. In a thundering babel of
Swahili, Turkish, Han, Spanish, Hebrew and Esperanto, the news is blared across
the street by repurposed air-raid sirens, triumphantly announcing the
construction of three abortion clinics, a steep drop to the income of the
middle class, an increase in homosexuality (87% of the population), the
discovery of three new genders and the nationwide legalization of crystal meth
– with new rainbow flavors!
It is Seattle, Day 186 of Gay Pride, The Current Year.
Under the ruins of Hasbro HQ, a man is dragged through grimy tunnels. He is the
last remnant of the Old World, and the unwitting architect of the New Order. By
his death, they will attempt to ritualistically expel the myriad contradictions
that are devouring its entrails. Some of them have no hope it will succeed, but
disobedience no longer even occurs to them.
He is to be judged by The Council: The chimeric offspring of a dozen trust
& safety groups, social workers, NGO compliance boards, HR departments and
marketing agencies, each member of The Council represents a Lagrange point in
the heavens of intersectionality, a Keppler Rosette of all races, genders, body
types and fursonalities. The court is a repurposed storm drain, built with
ingenuity stolen from hard working sub-Saharan primitives during the Colonizer
Era, stifling now in this summer heat. They nervously check their phones, vape
weed, coom, fan themselves with pamphlets and eat bugs while they await the
coming of the prisoner.
As he is brought in, a beam of the searing Seattle sun falls through the
ceiling grate, illuminating a pugnacious chin, close-set Anglo-Saxon eyes,
symmetrical features and alabaster skin. He meets their spiteful, furtive
glances with the natural superiority of a captive tiger. They hiss and snarl,
averting their eyes, fearful even now to meet his gaze.
No. 2 is the boldest among them, hir .03% Uyghur DNA and many bio-degradable
facial piercings affording hir a slightly higher perch on the progressive
stack, at least for the time being.
“Identify the Prisoner,” hir commands, carefully controlling the speed of hir
inflection so it does not sound like hir habitual high-pitched nasal voice.
“I’m no prisoner, I’m a free man!” snarls the captive defiantly, drawing yet
more hisses from The Council. The elite furry death commandos of the Seattle
Board of Environmental Diversity ringing the chamber stiffen and growl in their
purple fox costumes, awaiting the signal to pounce on the hapless prisoner.
“You are a FUCKING HU-WHITE MALE PIECE OF SHIT COLONIZER,” rages No. 5, already
sweating in the sweltering dark, the magenta dye in xir wig falling in molten
droplets on xir rainbow colored toga. “THIS IS A SAFE SPACE. YOU WILL NOT SPEAK
UNTIL SPOKEN TO.”
For a moment, the court echoes only with xir exhausted panting. No.5
compulsively pats the X card in front of xir while No. 3 signals to an intern
that a group therapy session is to be scheduled after the trial has concluded.
“Identify the prisoner,” No. 2 continues serenely. No 3. reads off hir brand-new
Nokia 1984 in a bored voice “Name: Patrick Adolf Stuart. Gender: male. Hmn.
Sexuality: Hatero. Race.” Hir pauses a moment in disapproval. “Hu-white.”
“What am I being accused of?” asks Patrick Stuart with imperturbable calm,
again triggering the already distraught No. 5, who has to be carted off to an
emergency Safe Space. The trial pauses momentarily until order is restored.
No. 2 raises an eyebrow. “You are not permitted to speak but since your guilt
is beyond question, we shall indulge you.”
Stuart only waits until No. 3 continues. “Leaving aside the fact that your ingrained
and permanent status as hu-white male renders you automatically guilty of the
charges of Colonialism, Racism, Fascism, Transphobia, White Fragility and any
charges levelled against you by a Genderqueer POC, and taking into account it
is The Current Year, there are some additional charges to consider. After all,”
hir concludes, ”we want to avoid the appearance of racism.”
No. 2. watches the prisoner carefully to see how he responds to the
accusations. Stuart nods mournfully at the mention of his ancestral crimes,
barely restraining the urge to abase himself, the proper response, but there is
some fire in his eyes, some fundamental human quality that remains unquenched.
No. 2 shudders involuntarily but continues hir careful observation.
“You were a member of Zak’s elite cadre of harassers, the Zak SS, and complicit
in all manner of transphobic actions against such upstanding members of the
community as Fiona Geist, Daniel Sell and the Paimon Prowler.”
“THAT’S A LIE!” roars Patrick. “I HAVE TRANS FRIENDS!”
No. 3 flinches but counter-attacks with the ferocity of a cornered rat. “You
were seen making a tweet that could be considered transphobic and you refused
to apologize!”
Patrick is dumbstruck, mute at the thought that somewhere, some action of him
could have caused invisible harm of such titanic magnitude.
“Also, when you were discussing gender in the OSR Discord you mentioned that
there were 66 different genders when in reality everyone knows there have
always been 67!” The council fell
abruptly silent. Just that morning, a particle acceleration experiment by the
brilliant physicist Dr. Ngumbe Wakanda, under the thoughtful guidance of Campus
Administrator Professor Electrumberg, had uncovered a 68th gender.
No. 3 had failed to read the update marked ‘High priority’ in hir feed and had
instead read fifteen articles on the upcoming new Marvel Blockbuster about the
new all trans Avengers. An understandable, but fatal, mistake. Gender law was
very clear on this particular point. No one moves until No. 2 reluctantly
motions to the Furry Death Commandos.
“NO NO NO I DIDN’T MEAN IT; DON’T CANCEL ME PLEASE. I WILL DO WHATEVER YOU ASK… PLEASE,” No. 3
begs as they drag hir through the tunnels to the empty canal beyond.
“ACTUALLY A LOT OF MY FRIENDS ARE LGBTQPRDNOS+ AND I VOLUNTEER AT THE LOCAL
HOMELESS SHELT-“ his voice is drowned out by the sharp staccato of machine gun
fire.
The furry death commandos return empty handed. “EAT THE RICH! DIE NAZI DIE!”
they chant.
“Eat the rich,” intones the Council, solemnly jazz-handing.
“Eat the rich,” concludes Patrick Stuart automatically before he can stop
himself.
No. 2 continues somewhat irked. “Listen, hu-white ma-, Patrick,” hir corrects
hirself, squeezing the bridge of hir nose. “I have already had to cancel one of
the people that was very important to me and I am having a really bad day and
you made a book with the guy so why don’t you just confess and save me a lot of
stress, okay? It’s what any decent person would do. We are the Experts at
Gender Law. You want to be a good boy, don’t you?”
“It’s me fookin’ livelihood, mate,” pleads Patrick.
No. 2 is getting irritated. “You should have thought about that before you
committed acts that would later be considered crimes. I’ve had enough of this.
We care about the Community. Don’t you see how toxic this is?” Hir sighs with
irritation. “If you will not confess your guilt we will have no choice but to
declare you guilty of being a Nazi. The sentence is Cancellation. Take him to
the Nazi Termination Chamber.”
At last the realization strikes Patrick Stuart. He will not go free. They will
not be swayed. He will be led out into that concrete gully and cancelled like
all the pleading, equivocating, well-behaving hu-white men before him. He looks
around the room desperately, into the watery, shifty, empty prey animal eyes of
every council member, searching in vain for some glimmer of recognition, some
basis of mutual respect, some basic acknowledgement of their shared humanity.
There is none. Already their minds are drifting beyond the uncomfortable
reality of the moment to new esoteric topics; the next Star Wars cartoon, how
to emit less CO2, why there aren’t more midgets in computer science.
He does not scream as he too is dragged through the tunnels and out into the
daylight but instead ruminates on his predicament with mute horror. In this
empty concrete canal are the cancelled remains of his predecessors, some of them
still frozen in positions of helpless pleading or desperate flight, others
holed through, transfixed in mid-leap, a last defiant hurrah against
overwhelming odds. He feels the sun on his face again and experiences suddenly,
the revelation of who he truly is.
He turns to face his executioners. Behind their purple fur and cartoon animal
masks, he cannot see their faces, cannot fathom their experience of this event.
Are they eager, or bored, or do they weep for his fate behind those gigantic
cartoon eyes?
He sees the sun descend beyond the sheer concrete bulwark of the canal sides
and above a puddle of gasoline a tiny true rainbow, not the one on the flags,
and he smiles and he cries as he suddenly realizes the beauty, the
significance, of these final moments.
He raises his hand in what is sort of like a high-five (google it). He opens
his British mouth in a gigantic British roar, spraying spittle and chunks of
undigested fish and chips, revealing buck teeth, pledging devotion to that
venerable ideological boogeyman in the most direct and unmistakable manner
imaginable to his ancient race.
“TEN POINTS FOR GRIFFINDOR.“ He keeps up the roar as the bullets pass
through his body, drowning out the noise of the gunshots and the shattering of
the concrete behind him. His body jerks and twists like a marionette to the
white hot rhythm of the Styr AUG. The pain is searing ripping knives, worse
then any could imagine.
He falls to his knees as he steals a new breath while one of the Death Commandos frantically reloads, cursing in Esperanto. His companion looks on in silence, his rifle dangling slackly from his hands. His high-five quivers but he does not lower it. “TEN POINTS FOR GRIFFINDOOOOOO-“.
The rest is silence, riven by machinegun fire.
______________________
Any relation to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
This entertaining guest post is sponsored by Venger Satanis' latest Kickstarter campaign Cha'alt: Chartreuse Shadows. Show him some rainbow love while getting yourself some eldritch, gonzo, science-fantasy, post-apocalypse!
Comments
It's a hir!
Good reading. I'm tempted to steal this and modify it via what my players do as they fight for liberty in this land that opposes them. The voices of the 0.000001 straight dudes left must ring out!