Truth, Politics, Artwork.

Vasesh, Blue with very green hobbies, Ceredan, 5.

[thestarsarepurple-deactivated20]

Space Trains

If we’re going to go the Planets! route we need better ways to get into space.

Actually we need better ways to get into space, period.

Modern rockets aren’t all that bad in terms of cost (making more than one at a time helps a lot), but they’re like aircraft of space. Important blues and their support teams use aircraft. Average oranges or purples or whatever don’t, they take the train. Same thing with rockets. They’re all operated the government or big-budget corporations.

I want a space train. Something anyone can buy a ticket for and get on and ride with no fuss and no special arrangements. I want everyone to be able to take vacation trips on the LAO (Low Amentan Orbit) express to orbit and back, to be able to travel to space for business and open a cafe at L1.

And the only way to get a space equivalent to our (really quite excellent) train systems is with some kind of giant infrastructure project. No way around it. There’s a few options rolling around. Space elevators are the most popular one - too bad they’re actually pretty much impossible unless material science greens manage a few dozen miracles.

My personal favorite is the launch loop. I don’t actually have the engineering chops to even begin to design one but I’ve read the designs of someone who did and at least I can give the concept some exposure.

The key concept is that the launch loop is an ‘actively supported rail’. You know how you can float a piece of paper over an air vent? If you have really good aim, you can scale that up to a garden hose holding up a metal pan. If you have a lot of dedicated yellows and greens and purples and blues and a huge budget, you can scale that up to a stream of semi-solid iron being propelled up a giant looping tube thousands of kilometers long by giant power plants at either end, all supporting a magnetic-levitation train track at the top edge of the atmosphere. 

Trains can just accelerate along the track constantly until they’re at orbital speeds. Carriages can go up the loop every few minutes like clockwork. No need for special clearance and checking flight lanes. No need for huge, expensive rocket engines bigger than my parents’ house, or fuel tanks bigger than banks’ headquarters.

Space train.

Here’s a video that explains the concept pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1MAg0UAAHg

Here’s a legitimate technical document proposing a well-researched actual plan to build such a thing: http://slides.launchloop.com//launchloop.pdf

(Space trains are a terrible terrible way too expensive idea if there’s not enough demand to get into space. Like building a massive four-platform high speed rail station in a podunk farming village with just 20 purples and one lonely orange or something. But we have moon bases already, I think there could be a market for it if space travel was suddenly much cheaper.)

[light-up-the-stones]

SPACE TRAINS

this is the most awesome thing i have read in like a while

[industrialbruise]

i am way too purple to get this shit but

fuckin space trains

[getmeoffthisrock]

SPACE TRAINS!!!

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

This added a wonderful break from the whole 'constant sobbing' hobby I've taken up. It's nice to have something hopeful in my day- thank you.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

I haven’t used tumblr for the last couple of days- could barely even stand to open it- even right now I’m crying as I type this, isn’t that just great-

My boyfriend is dead.

He- he found out where the hotel I was staying was somehow, it probably wouldn’t have been hard- and he was in the lobby and the security person there had been informed- so he told Tevar that he had to leave- and of course he didn’t- that was just like his usual self- so they struggled- and just as I was coming down from my room to go to dinner he- he- the security guard drew his gun and- saw his eyes dim from within like a cloud blocking out the sun-

My boyfriend is dead because of me, because I- he’s gone, he’s never going to smile or sing or walk or talk or laugh or- he never cried anyways- because I’m just such an oversensitive little-

I went back to my family and told them what had happened- it took hours, I was sobbing so much between words- and my brother was very upset about me keeping secrets from him and there were repercussions from that- and everyone couldn’t keep themselves from chiming in that Tevar’d gotten his just deserts and whenever I tried to show them the- the loss- there were placating smiles and an undertone of ‘oh, that’s Vasesh, he’s so easily manipulated’- and them trying to convince me that he’d deserved it and I’m bad at being unconvinced of things so now- my brain feels conflicted and my heart is screaming-

-I killed him I killed him I killed him it’s all my fault-

[openamenta]

@inertmatter said

PC CASTES: Blue, Green

NPC CASTES: Yellow, Orange, Gray, Purple, Red

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

One has to imagine that this would be untrue in any sort of online shooter.

[sacrificecode]

i get why purples and greens would be in favor of raising the out of caste income cap (or even just getting rid of it) since competing for credits with people who make ten times their seasonal salary is already a fact of life for them, so any additional caste freedom would from their perspective only generate marginal improvements

but you still have to understand that some of us want to avoid that first part if at all possible

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

I just think the out of caste income cap out to be based on percentage-of-average-caste-income, rather than percentage-of-your-income, I don’t particularly think it needs to be raised (though I'm blue, not green).

[sacrificecode]

lot of people talking now about how ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it because look at savo and we need to get rid of all those protections if we have any so that nothing like that can happen here or aren’t we glad our country never had that in the first place etc etc and so on

some of those people are of the mind so it makes sense that they’d say that since when have they ever had trouble understanding what the law was

some of those people are of the body and are just a lot smarter than me and have no problem either

but everyone else i think should think twice before they insist that memorizing the entire legal history of your country should be a prerequisite for existing

i know everyone thinks now that those laws are just there to protect rich well connected blues but try and remember what we all knew before this voa food shit started up: blues don’t need laws to protect them.  nothing would have gone differently if voa had different laws because influence mongering and wheeling and dealing work the same no matter what the law actually says

those laws are here to protect us

we’re the ones who work 16 hour shifts and don’t have time to read every word demopol puts out or hire a yellow to explain it to us

we’re the ones who need to be protected from the state when it tries to destroy us because no matter what we do something is always technically illegal and all they have to do is examine your actions closely enough to find something wrong that fits the penalty they have in mind

we’ve all heard the story of the king who wrote the laws so high nobody could read them but in actuality it should have been the king who covered every goddamn physical surface with laws and then told you that it was all there in black and white and if you hadn’t mastered it by now it was your own fault because you’d been given every opportunity to succeed

demanding that every person be intimately familiar with every law that could potentially apply to them or suffer the consequences doesn’t get you justice

it gets you fucking yvalta

[oceansinteacups-blog]

Um I’m not gonna pretend I know a lot about this because I don’t, but I’ve gotten the strong impression that something would have gone differently if voa had different laws, Savo would be dead. He still could have done the thing, probably, but laws do have some effect even on blues. He would be dead and maybe the war would still have happened but maybe it wouldn’t, I dunno, but that’s less directly law-ish?

But it does seem like an important idea that it’s bad when there are laws with a million details and you’re supposed to know all of them.

[trashrightsactivist]

Thing is, there actually isn’t a country that I know of where the law properly applies to everyone anyway. 

I mean, aside from the fact that there are usually actual legally-defined ways in which law and sentencing just straight-up applies differently by caste, the law only consistently applies to like the middle 90-95% of people (at best, some countries are worse). 

At the top, breaking the law isn’t enough to actually get prosecuted.

At the bottom, following the law isn’t enough to not get prosecuted.

If what happens to you isn’t all that correlated with whether you actually follow the rules, what is your motivation to follow the rules?

As an example, lots of people are altering their online activity in accordance with their country’s rules during wartime.

I won’t be telling anyone where I am, so I can’t confirm whether or not I’m somewhere where any such rules apply. But if I was, I would not alter my online activities whatsoever in accordance with those rules.

Why? Because if someone with the motivation to do so were to find out who I am IRL, I’d already expect to be in enough danger that the wartime-communication-rules thing just wouldn’t make any real difference to me. 

Being a red with outspoken and controversial political opinions that you talk about online isn’t actually illegal in my country. But because the law does not in practice protect reds or prosecute people who hurt us, what is dangerous to do as a red has no logical relation to what is and isn’t legal. There’s also no motivation to follow the law purely for the benefit of society or out of patriotism - what loyalty can you have to a society of people who hate you? What loyalty can you have to leaders you can’t vote for?

As such, there is no motivation to follow the law.

When you’ll get away with it no matter what, rather than be punished no matter what, the same applies - there is no motivation to follow the law.

(Note: This does not imply that reds generally run around breaking the law in ways you will care about. The rules we do have a motivation to follow are ‘what is least likely to get you beaten or killed’ - and in practice, the category of ‘crimes a red can commit that you’d care about’ is almost wholly contained in the much, much wider category of ‘things that will get a red beaten possibly to death’, along with things like ‘looked at me funny’ and ‘was there when a cop was having a bad day.’

This is still a terrible substitute for the law because quite apart from the rules themselves being mostly bullshit, enforcement is arbitrary, there’s no due process, and no procedure for appeal when two rules such as ‘don’t commit pollution violations’ and ‘do what the guy with the stick says’ conflict with one another.)

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

Ceredan normally solves its 'the law doesn't apply equally to everyone' problems by explicitly writing it into law: E.G. there's a law on the books saying that freedom of speech is explicitly protected in greens and yellows and blues and oranges but if you're too mouthy as a purple or grey you might wind up with a fine for annoying people. The same thing happens in other countries, but it's all very under the table- here, blues don't end up executed for major nonviolent offenses because blues are explicitly granted a reduced sentence in those cases, not because they can pull strings. It makes the entire process much more transparent.

(We also have laws regarding red use of the internet to prevent 'this is the law in theory but it's applied inconsistently in practice' situations, which mostly consist of 'someone can file a formal complaint against a *particular* red and then that red gets it's home internet disconnected and their pocket everything gets a virus preventing them from using most social media.')

Our laws don't properly apply to everyone in the sense that we have caste inequalities explicitly built into them, but they don't have caste inequalities in the sense that they're unequally enforced and arbitrary in practice, though of course they're still a bit unequally enforced and arbitrary in practice.

We do have 'ignorance of the law is a defense', but it's mostly a sentence reducer, rather than a sentence remover.

[3cool-5u]

i wrote a fanfic!

allocator savo/oc. but not the kind of / where it means kissing. just like they are both in the story and they hang out.

684 words. rpf. reds but i dont warn for reds. dont like dont read!

I woke up in my bed because it was morning. I got up and looked in the mirror. I have red hair. [A/N i dont really but in this story i do!] I frowned because my blue roots were showing. The mirror showed the frown on my three-year-old face.

“AMINA! ” My mom yelled. [A/N thats not my real name so dont bother looking it up!!] I sighed. My mom is always yelling “AMINA!”! She is a very yelly person.

I sighed. “WHAT!” I yelled. “COME DOWNSTAIRS!” My mom yelled. “WHY!” I yelled. “ALLOCATOR SAVO IS HERE TO SEE YOU!” My mom yelled. Oh boy!

I put on my t-shirt with a salamander on it and my dark blue blue jeans with a flower embroidered on one back pocket and my leather sandals with thongs between the toes that buckle at the side. “COMING!!” I yelled.

I ran downstairs. Allocator Savo was there!! He smiled at me like a happy person. “Are you Amina”? He asked. “Yes. “ I said excitedly.

“I’ve heard about you from your friends.” He said. “My friends?” I asked excitedly. “Your friends.” He said. “My RED friends?” I asked nervously. “Your red friends.” He said. He looked happy, because he was smiling.

“Are they okay?” I asked. Yes Amina they are okay.” He said.

“But I want you to come help us take over Voa” He said.

“Okay.” I said excitedly. “NO AMINA YOU CAN’T!” My mom yelled. “I’m sorry Amina’s mom but there is a secret law that if you are unclean on purpose and you say yes when an Allocator asks you a question you can’t take it back.” Allocator Savo said. My mom looked very angry.Allocator Savo looked angry too but not at me at her.

Allocator Savo and me took over Voa. Allocator Savo made me princess of Voa. I made one of my friends in charge of  research in Voa and one of my friends in charge of inviting all of the reds in the world to a big party in Voa and one of my friends in charge of other government stuff. We had a big party and there was cake and ice cream and popcorn and those rolls with the sticky topping you know the ones I mean.

- * . * -  - ONE SEASON LATER - - * . * -

One day my friend said “Guess what Amina.”

“What.” I said. I was happy because I was a princess.

“I’ve discovered a new kind o f space travel that will take us to planets there are no seasons.” She said. She was happy too because she had discovered a thing. She likes discovering things.

“Oh boy.” I said. It was very exciting. The space travel works by having a rocket and then exploding a lot of things behind it very fast. She likes exploding things too.

“Who should we take.” Allocator Savo said. He was my friend too. He always asked me important questions.

“We should take all the reds and all the kids who haven’t sprung yet but NO CLEAN GROWN-UPS.” I said. “Good plan Amina.” Savo said. My friends all agreed.

All the reds and all the kids got on the spaceship and I got to light the explosive. While the fuse was burning down everyone waved goodbye sadly. I wasn’t sad though. Allocator Savo was sad though. “Wait!” I said. “Allocator Savo YOU’RE a grown-up!”

“I know.” Allocator Savo said sadly. “Amina this is a voyage yuo must go on with out me. “

“But who will be in charge.” I said. I was a little bit sad now because Allocator Savo is my friend too.

“Dont you know Amina.” He said. “It was always supposed to be you.”

I didn’t feel so sad any more. Now that he said it I knew it was true I could feel it in my heart like a thing calling me in my heart. Allocator Savo waved goodbye and then the explosives exploded and we flew away to a new planet and none of us had to spring ever.

[alkatyn]

You should know I showed your Savo fanfic to the senator I work for and she laughed for the first time since the crisis started

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

This is horrible but it fills my heart with ebullience- in the same way a puggle is so ugly it's cute, this fanfic is so dreadful it's delightful.

[alkatyn]

We do not condone the actions of Allocator Savo and are deeply saddened by the harm he has caused both our own citizens and those of our friends and neighbours. But, Allocator Savo is a citizen of Voa and as such has the right to a fair trial in accordance with the laws and protections that are central to our nation.

The rule of law must continue to be applied in even the most extreme situations, and are deeply disappointed that the governments of other countries we had believed to be civilised members of the global community are so eager to overturn this vital principle for short term political gain.

I can think of no more noble a fight than a fight to maintain the principles our nation is founded upon. If we are not willing to defend them when they are costly then they are not principles, but self congratulatory delusions. 

[tidalwave-shiningsky]

Except you…haven’t even brought it to trial? He hasn’t even been interviewed? Look, if this had gone to trial and a judge had concluded he was in the clear and the principle you all had doubled down on was ‘we don’t kick it back to court for foreign policy reasons’ that’d be one thing. But you haven’t! Even! Tried! Him!

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

Goodness, you certainly have enough ability to make absolute, positive gibberish sound reasonable enough to the common Joe- speaking of principles is very well and good but it can hardly be compared to the cost of war, and to the cost of millions of people starving to death.

The rule of law is a fine thing, really, I’m perfectly fond of it- but there are prices and then there are prices, and the rule of law is bent so routinely in most countries I can hardly take the claim that you take it seriously at all seriously in the first place! To make one exception is a price- to slay hundred-thousands is a price. The rule of law is a screen, not a basket- one hole does not send the entire thing to ruin, it makes it a might easier to peer through.

Voa had a choice. Bend something ephemeral, abstract, idealized- just a little, the sort of bending that occurs there every day. Or provoke war, and senselessly end the lives of hundreds of thousands, and aid the starving of millions more. How noble one’s soul may seem, when one is merely provocateur and not murderer- but that seeming is semblance alone!

And, out of curiosity, do your laws consider other nations killing your greys in combat legal? Would you rather have one extrajudicial killing, or hundreds of thousands?

Turning off my politician voice, I am really really frustrated about how Voans are justifying not at least penalizing Savo. There is no moral or ethical system that I’d consider worth emulating that prioritizes the life of one blue over hundreds of thousands of grays, which is what this decision amounts to in practice (as opposed to lofty abstracts).

[getmeoffthisrock]

okay but like

you’re assuming that killing Savo would have stopped the war

why are you sure of this

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

An approximately 0.27% chance of Savo's death stopping the war would have been worth it, and I very much doubt that probability was that unlikely.

[alkatyn]

We do not condone the actions of Allocator Savo and are deeply saddened by the harm he has caused both our own citizens and those of our friends and neighbours. But, Allocator Savo is a citizen of Voa and as such has the right to a fair trial in accordance with the laws and protections that are central to our nation.

The rule of law must continue to be applied in even the most extreme situations, and are deeply disappointed that the governments of other countries we had believed to be civilised members of the global community are so eager to overturn this vital principle for short term political gain.

I can think of no more noble a fight than a fight to maintain the principles our nation is founded upon. If we are not willing to defend them when they are costly then they are not principles, but self congratulatory delusions. 

[tidalwave-shiningsky]

Except you…haven’t even brought it to trial? He hasn’t even been interviewed? Look, if this had gone to trial and a judge had concluded he was in the clear and the principle you all had doubled down on was ‘we don’t kick it back to court for foreign policy reasons’ that’d be one thing. But you haven’t! Even! Tried! Him!

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

Goodness, you certainly have enough ability to make absolute, positive gibberish sound reasonable enough to the common Joe- speaking of principles is very well and good but it can hardly be compared to the cost of war, and to the cost of millions of people starving to death.

The rule of law is a fine thing, really, I'm perfectly fond of it- but there are prices and then there are prices, and the rule of law is bent so routinely in most countries I can hardly take the claim that you take it seriously at all seriously in the first place! To make one exception is a price- to slay hundred-thousands is a price. The rule of law is a screen, not a basket- one hole does not send the entire thing to ruin, it makes it a might easier to peer through.

Voa had a choice. Bend something ephemeral, abstract, idealized- just a little, the sort of bending that occurs there every day. Or provoke war, and senselessly end the lives of hundreds of thousands, and aid the starving of millions more. How noble one's soul may seem, when one is merely provocateur and not murderer- but that seeming is semblance alone!

And, out of curiosity, do your laws consider other nations killing your greys in combat legal? Would you rather have one extrajudicial killing, or hundreds of thousands?

Turning off my politician voice, I am really really frustrated about how Voans are justifying not at least penalizing Savo. There is no moral or ethical system that I'd consider worth emulating that prioritizes the life of one blue over hundreds of thousands of grays, which is what this decision amounts to in practice (as opposed to lofty abstracts).

[ominousscribbler-blog]

@strifeoftruthwithfalsehood

good luck with the uh badminton and the hotel 

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

Thank you- the badminton is mostly going to consist of me sitting in a chair reading for a couple hours every month while periodically settling rules disputes- and the hotel is lovely- and those cats are adorable.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

I tried the whole suggested clear communication, yesterday- I told him 'I don't feel very safe around you right now' with added stammering and he was his regular charming self with the I'd-never-hurt-you-if-you-didn't-like-it and the I-love-you and Do-you-not-love-me- so of course I started stammering some more- and then he did the thing with the shushing and the commanding voice and then he- and then over the course of the day he was never farther than a couple yards away after that- and he started talking about how I didn't really need a safeword lots of couples went without one didn't I trust him- and it was too much I started planning on just sneaking out during the night- but he said he wanted to try something with me sleeping in restraints and I couldn't do more than stammer and then for most of the morning today he was still constantly at my side-

I said I wanted to go to the bathroom alone and he said beg and I did and he said- but I managed to go to the bathroom alone and then I crept out of the window and I walked to the police station and asked to see someone and tried to keep the conflicted screaming inside and out of my voice- and I told them about the origin of the bruise on my face and about the- event that I didn't safeword- and how I didn't want him within a hundred yards of me and how we could keep this nice and quiet and extrajudicial and oh look at that I'm thinking about joining this badminton board wouldn't it be just great if I had someone to give all of the resulting gray permissions to- and they told me that of course, I wouldn't have to worry about him again and he wouldn't come to any harm and also have this card with our name's on it in case you can't decide what to do with those permissions-

So I went back to Marek's for my stuff and I went back to the hotel I was staying at (they were a bit confused at why I was back so soon but I think they're used to eccentric blues) and I have several more bruises in less visible areas from yesterday and I'll probably never see Tevar again and I have been crying a lot and thank you everyone for the advice it's been really helpful.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

My private life is super not important given the whole 'suddenly: billions of people are at war' situation, but- my boyfriend, Tevar, went to my parent's and asked 'hey, where's Vasesh' and they told him that I was staying with Marek's, ha ha, it's so like him to forget to call you and say so, have fun you crazy kids- I think- so then he went to Marek's where I am and- he knocked on the door and started singing "I'm so so sorry, baby, that I gave you the blues, honey won't you please just let me give you the news, the news that I'm ho-pe-less-ly in love with you..." and-

He has a really good voice for a gray it was not helping my resolve- and I told him to go away through the door and he started saying things why is he so good at being persuasive and I stood there listening and it took like five minutes for me to open the door and throw myself at him and he was apparently shirtless- and I am not entrusting Marek with restraining-me-duties in the future he has very little aptitude for it- and Tevar carried me away bridal style- and then we had sex- and it was- I didn't say yes but I didn't safeword either because I was afraid he wouldn't stop-

So now I'm at his place and I'm considering leaving and calling the cops and telling them to keep him away from me but what if it gets out to someone and they kill him what if they kill him what if they kill him, he's said before that one of the local cops has it out for him. And if I can't listen to him talk for five minutes without wanting to throw myself into his arms and I can't call the police because what if he dies so maybe I should just- stay, I love him, he just has a temper- I can just stay with him for the next little while and figure something out and then everything'll be fine.

[openamenta]

This morning Tapa declared war on Voa.  See here for how to safely travel home if you are abroad.  They have announced that they are seeking the means to achieve domestic food security; until this is accomplished, Tapa is on rationing.  See here for ration protocol details if you live in Tapa or a protectorate.

Governor Avalor’s office released this statement:

Despite our endeavors to audit and assure the safety of our food supply as quickly as possible, our efforts to find a peaceful solution to Allocator Savo’s orchestration of disaster have failed.  Tapa has indicated that they will not settle for a restoration of the status quo, even if Allocator Savo were to be extrajudicially put to death or extradited.

Internal debate among the governors about whether to execute Allocator Savo regardless are ongoing.  But Tapa and their allies in this matter have made it known that their intended war of aggression is not about retaliation against the instigator of the hysteria.  It is about their belief that a war and, should they take territory, their own auditing process, will be a better path towards clean food for all than permitting Voa to internally address a problem which has hit our people harder than anyone.

I know our soldiers are ready to defend Voa against this invasion.  Civilian populations near the border will find increased train service available to take them west if they wish to travel.

[tractortracts]

fuck

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

Oh goodness oh goodness oh goodness- this was admittedly kind of predictable but I was hoping for something peaceable to be worked out- millions of people are probably going to die over something this stupid-

[purplenalafe]

(@birdband) I wrote up a how-to grow windowsill vegetables on my blog. Idk how practical this is for you but lettuce and radishes go from seed-to-harvest in just under a month, so that's some clean food, at least. And when this is all over you can have food that you know for *sure* is clean because you grew it and picked it yourself.

yeah i might try this, the main problem is that i dont have money, can this be done cheaply?

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

Gardening isn't one of my primary hobbies, but our house's gardener really likes monologging about what he's done today whenever he gets a chance and I sort of like making sweeping landscape decisions that require their maker to know a thing or two about growing seasons and shade tolerance and so forth. A seed packet of something small is going to cost one or two ni for dozens of seeds, and even if only a couple germinate you'll have those couple much cheaper that you could buy right now- I recommend it wholeheartedly.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

so everyone else is giving better advice than me but if you're still feeling like crap [[this]] is a link to an imgur full of baby momonga pictures

Aww. That is *very* helpful, thank you, looking at cute animal pictures is much better for my psyche than creating a ridiculous numbers of pinch pots and then hitting them with a hammer and creating mosaic pieces out of the shards and then hitting the mosaic with a hammer and aggressively stomping on the shards and crying, which is what I've done with my day since arriving at Marek's.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

What color is your boyfriend? Asking because what you can/should do depends on the answer.

He’s grey- god, I feel like such a cliche, I’m talking about my grey boyfriend hitting me on the internet- but it was just the one time he’s been great otherwise- my right cheek has transitioned from ‘swelling’ to ‘bruised’- and if I told my family about this he’d *die*- well maybe not literally but we’re a permissions system and I’m a blue and if my brother heard about this he’d tell a purple ‘shoot this man and you get a kid and enough money to feed him for a year’ and they’d *do it* and- and it wasn’t that bad really I’m just being overly sensitive.

[sidewalksprout]

As others have said - if you leave him and you need to conceal the reason from your family, you can do so. In the current atmosphere, there isn’t really any reason to be surprised that some relationships fall apart. You don’t owe your family the knowledge that he hit you.

You should consider what it means for you that he hit you, though. He blatantly ignored a safeguard against potentially harmful interactions that the two of you had agreed on, and that’s not something he gets a pass on because he’s grey. Greys are more physical than most people, but they’re as capable of respecting established boundaries as anyone.

He’s not surprised by your relative fragility and conflict avoidance, he was depending on it. And if you two are doing BDSM play, next time you might not be in a position to remove yourself from the situation. Please be safe.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

I don’t- I had a night to sleep on things and my head is much clearer now but I’m still not sure- I do love him, it’s just that he- he’s just not calibrated right for being in a relationship with someone who can’t fight back- I don’t think I want to keep seeing him, you’re right about the way he ignored my boundaries and the likelihood of reoccurrence but if he comes by and is himself I don’t think I’ll be capable of turning him away, it was hard enough saying no when he was being a jerk, if he’s at all charming I’ll probably melt into a puddle- so I have to be somewhere that he can’t go until I figure something out.

If I told my family that we broke up and I wanted to security to screen him out now they’d draw the connection between the whole ‘face is bruised’ thing and the break-up- and then he’d die and that is not an acceptable outcome- so I could go to a friend’s place- except most of my real life friends are also blues and also likely to react to this information by having him shot- except for Marek, he’s green and almost completely incapable of having people who annoy him assassinated- I can go over to his place for a while and invent some excuse for my family about why- ‘Oh, I just want to learn about ceramic work in a casual setting from a professional artist my age, mom, and also I tripped on the stairs and landed on my face so I want to be away from this devil house for a while’- that could work- all of his food is clean I gave him money to buy stuff-

But he’s so sweet when he wants to be, he’s just not used to being in a relationship with someone so fragile he won’t do it again- no- I’ll go over to Marek’s house and tell him what happened and that he has my formal permission to restrain me if my boyfriend comes by and I want to go with him, I don’t want a child of mine to grow up with a father that’d do that kind of thing.

[megasilverfist]

That sounds like a good plan A, or better yet don’t visit your family until your face is healed.  Can you hand out grey credits or just purple?  I may have a plan B.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

good idea, I stayed in a hotel tonight and right now I'm in a cafe, I can just call and say I'm staying with Marek for the above reasons for the next while and not mention the bruising. Right now I can only give out purple permissions, but I could join the board of some badminton tournament and get 'hand out a gray credit once every four years' privileges within a month if that seemed like it would be helpful, those sorts of things don't have high entry requirements.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

What color is your boyfriend? Asking because what you can/should do depends on the answer.

He’s grey- god, I feel like such a cliche, I’m talking about my grey boyfriend hitting me on the internet- but it was just the one time he’s been great otherwise- my right cheek has transitioned from ‘swelling’ to ‘bruised’- and if I told my family about this he’d *die*- well maybe not literally but we’re a permissions system and I’m a blue and if my brother heard about this he’d tell a purple 'shoot this man and you get a kid and enough money to feed him for a year’ and they’d *do it* and- and it wasn’t that bad really I’m just being overly sensitive.

[sidewalksprout]

As others have said - if you leave him and you need to conceal the reason from your family, you can do so. In the current atmosphere, there isn’t really any reason to be surprised that some relationships fall apart. You don’t owe your family the knowledge that he hit you.

You should consider what it means for you that he hit you, though. He blatantly ignored a safeguard against potentially harmful interactions that the two of you had agreed on, and that’s not something he gets a pass on because he’s grey. Greys are more physical than most people, but they’re as capable of respecting established boundaries as anyone.

He’s not surprised by your relative fragility and conflict avoidance, he was depending on it. And if you two are doing BDSM play, next time you might not be in a position to remove yourself from the situation. Please be safe.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

I don't- I had a night to sleep on things and my head is much clearer now but I'm still not sure- I do love him, it's just that he- he's just not calibrated right for being in a relationship with someone who can't fight back- I don't think I want to keep seeing him, you're right about the way he ignored my boundaries and the likelihood of reoccurrence but if he comes by and is himself I don't think I'll be capable of turning him away, it was hard enough saying no when he was being a jerk, if he's at all charming I'll probably melt into a puddle- so I have to be somewhere that he can't go until I figure something out.

If I told my family that we broke up and I wanted to security to screen him out now they'd draw the connection between the whole 'face is bruised' thing and the break-up- and then he'd die and that is not an acceptable outcome- so I could go to a friend's place- except most of my real life friends are also blues and also likely to react to this information by having him shot- except for Marek, he's green and almost completely incapable of having people who annoy him assassinated- I can go over to his place for a while and invent some excuse for my family about why- 'Oh, I just want to learn about ceramic work in a casual setting from a professional artist my age, mom, and also I tripped on the stairs and landed on my face so I want to be away from this devil house for a while'- that could work- all of his food is clean I gave him money to buy stuff-

But he's so sweet when he wants to be, he's just not used to being in a relationship with someone so fragile he won't do it again- no- I'll go over to Marek's house and tell him what happened and that he has my formal permission to restrain me if my boyfriend comes by and I want to go with him, I don't want a child of mine to grow up with a father that'd do that kind of thing.

[strifeoftruthwithfalsehood]

What color is your boyfriend? Asking because what you can/should do depends on the answer.

He's grey- god, I feel like such a cliche, I'm talking about my grey boyfriend hitting me on the internet- but it was just the one time he's been great otherwise- my right cheek has transitioned from 'swelling' to 'bruised'- and if I told my family about this he'd *die*- well maybe not literally but we're a permissions system and I'm a blue and if my brother heard about this he'd tell a purple 'shoot this man and you get a kid and enough money to feed him for a year' and they'd *do it* and- and it wasn't that bad really I'm just being overly sensitive.