Oneshot A slightly morbid box (Mature/Adult)

Discussion in 'Community Fictions' started by lychee, Nov 17, 2019.

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Would you send Marie to heaven or hell?

  1. Heaven

    2 vote(s)
    22.2%
  2. Hell

    2 vote(s)
    22.2%
  3. I do not wish to answer

    5 vote(s)
    55.6%
  1. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    Author's Note: This is a slightly morbid story that came to me while I was lying in bed last night. It contains extremely mature and triggering themes, so viewer discretion is advised. The poll was retroactively added to this thread, and it has nothing to contribute to the story so you can completely discount it when reading.

    + + +

    A slightly morbid box
    An original story by a slightly morbid fruit

    My name is Marie Marionette, and I am an employee in the Office of Penalties and Corrections in the Department of Justice of a certain large country in the world. I have been employed here for seven years, and generally speaking I have been relatively satisfied with my job.

    In the capital city of my country, the Supreme Court produces verdicts on various wrongdoers and criminals. I can't claim to know exactly how the verdict is reached, since I'm not a lawyer and do not study law, but generally speaking I agree that it is good to imprison bad people and teach them lessons so they behave better in the future.

    Well, in honesty, it keeps my job, so that's good too.

    Anyhow, I don't really do anything that fancy. I'm just a regular person.

    On a typical day at work, I sign in and sit at my desk. The Office of Penalties and Corrections is responsible for supplying the materials that are used at federal prisons, so mostly I receive shipments and take inventory of the items that we get. I'm an accountant by training, and most of the day I walk around the warehouse counting supplies and enumerating equipment.

    Occasionally, someone drops by to sign out equipment or ship something off to a remote prison somewhere in the country, but generally it is quite quiet. We are located in the basement of the federal warehouse, and we are somewhat understaffed so I frequently stay overtime.

    As for the equipment that I deal with — well, it's nothing that you wouldn't expect.

    We deal with prison uniforms, cleaning supplies, meal kits, utensils, lightbulbs, blankets, handcuffs, laundry detergent... it's nothing surprising. My job is pretty boring in this regard.

    However, everything that is sent to the Federal Prison Program is distributed through us, so I do sometimes find myself handling somewhat freakier things.

    In particular, the death penalty is legal in my country, so I also ship all three most common chemicals used for lethal injection — Pancuronium bromide (Pavulon), Potassium Chloride, and Sodium Thiopental. Our office also ships electric chairs, toxic gases, bullets (and guns), and conventional rope. We do not ship axes, guillotines, or large stones, so I presume that our Supreme Court determined at some point that those methods of execution are too unethical to employ.

    The following information is 100% classified ("top secret"), but my office also ships implements of torture. An Executive Order issued by the leader of our country mandated the creation of a torture program in the interests of national security. I only heard a brief summary of the memo from my supervisor, but the world is a dangerous place, and my country is involved with rigorous counterterrorism operations around the planet. The Executive Office and the Military Branch unanimously agrees that torturing terrorists is justified to protect civilians and people around the world.

    I'm not very smart (didn't get good grades in school), but there are a lot of smart people in the government, so I guess they must be right if that's what they say.

    + + +​

    A couple months ago, our office started receiving a new device that I had never seen or heard of before.

    It was part of the top secret program, so I wasn't at liberty to discuss it.

    In either case, the device was a Little Black Box called a "CODENAME: NIGHTMARE" on my accounting sheet. Its description was completely redacted. The device came with an instruction and user manual, which I completely ignored at first. We have a workplace policy that we are not supposed to open the plastic wrap that covers the supplies, and we can get in a lot of trouble for destroying or damaging the packaging material.

    I think we shipped those Little Black Boxes all over the world for at least a few months. However, my coworkers and myself I had no idea exactly what the Little Black Box was (or did), and we couldn't be bothered to nose our way into top secret information.

    After all, I sort of valued keeping my job; my apartment rent is rather expensive in the capital city, and I still need to eat food.

    At best, we could only laugh and joke awkwardly with each other in the break room that some crazy scientist must have come up with a method to give people their nightmares.

    What was this? Harry Potter? Did they somehow manage to stuff a boggart into a box? If it was just a nightmare, shouldn't it be possible to just use Expecto Patronum?

    This seemed pretty tame for a presumed torture implement, at least compared to some of the other stuff we shipped out from our office.

    + + +​

    It was a late December evening (close to the holidays) when I received a return shipment in the mail from Somalia. Apparently, one of the international sites was shutting down due to restructuring and various other logistical reasons, and the equipment was being sent back to the federal warehouse.

    According to protocol, return shipments are to be treated as defective ("hazardous") equipment and placed in a special room in the warehouse for eventual destruction through an incinerator.

    In either case, I was surprised to discover upon opening the package that a Little Black Box was included among the shipment. It was returned fully intact along with its instruction manual, and the plastic wrap on the device was already opened.

    Of course, since I'm a pretty good employee (I think), I did what was expected of me and filled out the required paperwork and documentation, and then transferred the supplies to the special room.

    Then, I went home from work.

    + + +​

    Before I proceed any further with this story, I think it is necessary to pause for a moment to emphasize that I'm honestly just an average ordinary person.

    As an ordinary person, I have my own private circumstances, and well... stuff.

    Ordinary people have their own issues and problems — 44% of all adults take at least one prescription medication — and I really hate sharing my private personal circumstances with others. However, everybody has personal issues that that they're dealing with, so I hope you can understand that it is totally normal. It really is just perfectly normal. All human beings have their own personal problems, and you're extraordinarily fortunate if you're somebody who lacks any problems entirely.

    Nonetheless, I have my own problems — totally normal problems, of course.

    I don't really like being home alone all the time.

    It bothers me a lot when the apartment is quiet, and there is nobody to talk to, and thoughts end up crowding into my head, and I end up thinking in circles, and I start to ramble.

    Ah! But I'm totally normal.

    I'm a pretty good employee, and I work really hard at my job. Work is one of the few things I'm actually decent at in life, so you could say that work is what keeps me going day after day. If I didn't have work, I'm not exactly sure what I would do with my life.

    I'd probably be pretty useless.

    I don't like to think about some things at some times, so I hope you can respect my privacy in this regard.

    + + +​

    Over the holidays, I couldn't help but continue to think about the Little Black Box in the dark room.

    It continued to plague my mind, and I simply couldn't push the thoughts out.

    I still didn't know exactly what the Little Black Box did, and I couldn't rest easily not knowing.

    Consequently, on Christmas Eve (yes, we remain open on the holidays), I volunteered for a shift and went to work even though most of my office is on vacation. Since the workplace is extremely slow during the holiday season, I actually finished most of my duties within an hour of arriving. However, I had an entire shift left of just sitting around.

    "Idleness is a sin" — I believe this is an inherently Catholic teaching, and it's probably true to some degree.

    I was very idle on Christmas Eve, and consequently I went and did some things I probably wasn't supposed to do.

    We are expressly prohibited from tampering with supplies, and especially not "defective" (hazardous) supplies in the back room...

    However, I went ahead to the back room and sat down with the user manual to the Little Black Box.

    I sat there reading for probably a few hours (it was a very thick manual), and found myself sipping ginger tea in my thermos while reading the stoic and emotionless writing style of precisely how to operate the device. The instructions were extremely clear and methodological.

    To turn it on, you plug it into a power outlet.

    There is an attachable headset that looks like a pair of headphones.

    Finally, there is a simple LED monitor with two dials.

    The first dial adjusts the length of the "Nightmare Sequence" to administer. The number can range from a few seconds to many days/months/years. Furthermore, the time is subjective time — the amount of the time experienced by the user. Since dreams occur on a different timescale than the real world does, it is possible for for a person to have a long dream even though only minutes have passed in reality.

    The second dial adjusts the content of the "Nightmare Sequence" to administer. This is also an integer number which ranges from 0 to 9999. Each integer number corresponds to a different scenario in the user manual. It is possible to read the manual about each of the scenarios. For instance, 『 SEQUENCE 1542』 corresponds to being trapped in a pit of snakes while being constantly bitten.

    I spent at least a good hour perusing through the manual, feeling very sick to my stomach.

    I certainly will not describe everything that I read, but you should understand that human imagination is an inherently ugly thing, and the most horrific things that you could possibly imagine were included in the manual. Ordinarily, I would say that I have a strong stomach, and I believe that I tolerate dark and morbid things far better than the average person — but I genuinely felt queasy that day on Christmas Eve.

    I ended up going home and attending a Christmas Eve party with my friends(?), but it was entirely joyless.

    I actually vomited in the bathroom that day shortly after midnight. Then, I excused myself and went home early.

    + + +
    So... it is probably relevant information for you to know that I was feeling a certain amount of intrinsic existential despair on that particular week of the holidays.

    Even ignoring the Little Black Box entirely, a bunch of stuff was happening at home and you could say my mood wasn't that great to begin with (not that it is ever really "great" — maybe "bad" and "less bad"?).

    It was rather like the situation when you have a lot going on in your life at a certain time, and all of sudden you encounter something mundane that pushes you over the edge.

    For example, there was this one time when I was feeling particularly down and taking a walk in the neighborhood, when all of a sudden a car came racing down the street and flattened an unlucky squirrel on its tire. The image was pretty bloody and the squirrel's guts went flying everywhere, and overall I was pretty shocked because it literally happened right in front of me.

    Now, I'm not tree-hugger or PETA warrior or anything like that, but I immediately broke down and started sobbing in the middle of the street.

    I think on any other day, I probably could have kept a straight face if a reckless driver heartlessly ran over a squirrel, but it just happened to be on that particular day, I was feeling particularly emotionally fragile, and the brutal imagery itself must have tipped me over the edge.

    It kind of felt like the world was trying to speak to me or say something to me, because I was clearly missing something.

    Or maybe it was the mailmen getting angry because I didn't empty out my mail box for the past month.

    Or my step-mom for continuously ignoring her phone calls.

    Dunno. You kind of miss stuff when you're wrapped up in your own world.

    I was feeling something very close to that weird feeling on that special holiday evening after going home.

    + + +​

    I spent Christmas Day feeling pretty miserable and alone in my apartment.

    The next day, on December 26th, I texted my coworker who was supposed to have a shift on that day and I volunteered to take their shift. I explained that my holiday plans fell through (not that I had many to begin with), and I wanted to to go into work. To prevent them from feeling bad, I worded it as "trading" shifts — that I would take their holiday week shift in exchange for a random date I selected on my calendar next year.

    I can't explain to you why I did this, but I felt like I absolutely needed to go to work on December 26th.

    I took the subway to work and completed my regular affairs as usual. Again, since it was the holidays, the volume was extremely light and I was the only employee in the office.

    After completing my tasks, I did the extremely inexplicable thing of immediately going into the back room and sitting down beside the Little Black Box.

    I literally sat there in staring at the box for close to five hours, unmoving.

    Finally, the last five minutes of my shift, I turned the machine on, and put the headset on my head. Then I turned the dial to 『 15 MINUTES』 and 『 SEQUENCE 0001』, which is a continuous assault and battery sequence by random perpetrators.

    Probably against my better judgement, I pressed 『 START』.

    + + +​

    I went home that evening, immediately crawled into bed, and broke down crying.

    I probably cried the entire evening and didn't eat dinner. I was completely dysfunctional and a sobbing mess. I realized afterwards that my step-mom actually called me during the time I was "out of it", but I simply never even heard my phone ring.

    I was thoroughly and utterly shattered, broken, and miserable.

    Eventually, I fell asleep at some point (I have no idea when) with tears staining my face.

    + + +​

    The next day, on December 27th, the first thing I did upon waking up was call all of my coworkers who were scheduled for the holiday week, and I asked to take their shifts.

    Shortly thereafter, I found myself taking the subway to work with my hands trembling in my lap.

    Just as I did the previous day, I completed all of the duties that were expected of me at work.

    I did this for every single day of the week, from December 27th, December 28th, December 29th, and December 30th — all without fail.

    I'm a pretty good employee (I think), so I take pride in my ability to do exactly what is expected of me.

    I would be absolutely nothing and worthless if I wasn't good at my job.

    However, on each day, at the very end of the day, I would go to the back room and hook myself up to the Little Black Box. Each time, I would chose a different scenario and increase the severity.

    Then, I would go home and cry all night in bed.

    I think I must have looked physically miserable by the end of the week, but fortunately the workplace was completely empty for the whole week, so there wasn't anyone to question what I was doing.

    + + +​

    Now, please do not misunderstand me. I am a totally normal person.

    I am not a masochistic.

    I did do a rape scenario, but I don't have any kind of rape fantasy. I haven't even had any kind of libido for years.

    I don't take any amount of pleasure from pain — and if I did, I would have never done such a thing.

    Rather, I think have a lot of heavy feelings bottled up in my chest, and I just needed to process them somehow.

    When I was in high school, my best friend was a cutter and she sliced up her arms bloody to the point that she could barely cover them up. I never understood her back then (why somebody would do such a thing), and I constantly worried over her and stressed over how I could make sure she was doing okay. However, I'm not sure if I ever made any significant impact.

    There were nine months in high school during which my best friend submitted herself to the hospital, and they kept her in a ward where she couldn't harm herself.

    At one point I visited her in the hospital and asked her why — why she wanted to cut herself?

    She explained to me that she was filled with a lot of pain.

    However, internal pain is incredibly difficult to rationalize and understand. It occurs, and you have no idea where it comes from. There is no cause-and-effect — no rationalization for the psychological pain or explanation for why it hurts so much.

    In contrast, physical pain is logical. There is a wound, therefore it hurts. Looking at the wound is very reassuring, because it is like saying that there is a purpose or rationalization for the pain. Understanding that the pain has a purpose gives you a sense of security — and anything is better than the despair of the meaninglessness of suffering.

    My friend lamented to me that she wasn't religious — because it would have been nice to justify the pain through a hack.

    After all, wouldn't it be nice to just say that it is all just retribution from God?

    It's just such a nice and easy thing to say, and then everything makes total sense.

    + + +​

    On December 31st, I went into work and I completed my affairs.

    Then I sat down at the Little Black Box, and for the heck of it, I turned the 『 TIME』 dial to the maximum value.

    The human body is a scary thing. It only takes a little slight twist of the wrist to turn the dial to 100% instead of 50%, and sometimes you'd wonder if a surgeon's hand accidentally twitched, it might cause somebody to literally die. Similarly speaking, I maintain with complete sincerity that it was a complete accident that I turned the dial all the way.

    I noticed my hand accidentally turned the dial to the maximum value, and afterwards I decided to roll with it.

    I mean, why the fuck not?

    I decided to turn the other dial randomly too.

    Fate is kind of a nice thing, and leaving things up to random fate would be a nice way to roll, right?

    At least you can't blame anybody if you leave things entirely up to random chance.

    + + +​

    A few hours of real-world time later, I disconnected myself from the Little Black Box.

    I have no memory of actually doing this, but apparently I've been told that I immediately walked over to the adjacent stock room, unlocked the bolted supply box, took out a syringe, and injected myself with a clear liquid.

    And at that point the story was pretty much over!

    You're thinking it's a bit messed up, isn't it?

    Though, I will swear to the ends of the earth that I am a totally normal and average person.

    Please, you have to believe me with this... I can't accept anything else.

    + + +​

    I hope you'll consider my personal statement favorably.

    I'm not really used to this Heaven and Hell afterlife business, and apparently we are not afforded a lawyer when presenting our case files to you for divine judgment — but I mean, I'm just a regular person so what can I say? Am I allowed to submit an appeal? Or will it get overruled because I know that you have a lot of case files to get through...

    ...My deep condolences, I am sure you must be very busy. I will stop rambling and wasting your time.

    I know that suicide is a sin and all, but I'd appreciate it greatly if you could overlook one or two faults here and there in my file.

    You know, because I'd prefer to avoid spending the rest of eternity in Hell and stuff.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Marie Marionette
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019
  2. grandurr

    grandurr [Daisy's Peony] [Negiomi's Nectar]

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    whew that was quite something
     
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  3. 0000000

    0000000 I B SMILING!

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    ... cool oneshot...
     
  4. Melodious Nocturne

    Melodious Nocturne [Dance, water, dance!] [My name is Demyx!]

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    Frightening...
    ( ・᷄ὢ・᷅ )
     
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  5. trannon1

    trannon1 Well-Known Member

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    It had an interesting premise. Unfortunately, this sort of premise can't really go far with just one character, we would need a different character experiencing the box per chapter/few chapters if it became a series.
     
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  6. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    Thanks for your feedback!

    I feel like it would lose impact if it was anything longer than a oneshot.

    There isn't that much that I wanted to convey (only a handful of abstract feelings) -- and I think I would struggle figuring out what I wanted the "point" of the series of the be if I wrote anything more than a single chapter.
     
  7. Nightow1

    Nightow1 Well-Known Member

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    *shrug*
    Good one shots require what is called a "twist in the tale", this was pretty much linear narration. Not fantastic but could be a lot worse.
     
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  8. Arcturus

    Arcturus Cat, Hidden Sith Lord

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    It felt like someone was posing a thought experiment to me rather than conveying an actual narrative. It was too linear and dry and there wasn't a lot of emotion. It almost felt like a report. So it was interesting, but not much more.
     
    Last edited: Nov 17, 2019
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  9. Anra7777

    Anra7777 All powerful magic grammar hamster queen pirate.

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    I disagree. Personally, I think it works better as a one shot.
    I also disagree with this. One shots don’t require twists. I write plenty of one shots without twists.
     
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  10. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    Hmm, I think one-shots convey a message. If it has a message and it conveys the entirety of it within the span of the story, then you have a one-shot.

    :bloblove: This was actually originally meant to be a poll, but as I was thinking it, literally nobody would use such a box on themselves.

    It ended up being an opportunity to explore some of the darker sides of myself and express those things.

    Practically, it's written in this fashion because it's the fastest way for me to write (a descriptive linear pumping of ideas -- sort of the way I would write any draft -- because I wasn't going to spend more than two or three hours on this), although there is some intentional avoidance of emotion as well. Emotion is a terrifying thing (I don't want to write a realistic reaction to torture, and I doubt I could do it well :notlikeblob:), and you could argue the effect would be completely different if the work focused on expressing the protagonist's feelings. Rather, the suppression of feelings or a person's inability to identify the source of their conflicted feelings is one of the primary themes of the work -- and the mystery of why we inexplicably hurt ourselves (or seek these strange dark things to put ourselves through).

    In fact, the way that the story ends with the protagonist's optimistic embracement of the Heaven/Hell judgement alludes to a pessimistic suggestion that the narrator hasn't grown at all. On Earth, she embraced a morally questionable system (and was unwittingly driven to suicide because of it), but in the afterlife is she eagerly rushing into and embracing the binary system that judges souls for being "good" or "bad" -- although clearly she is neither of those two things -- and is once again automatically accepting a flawed system even though it mostly likely doesn't function in her best interests.

    - - -

    Some additional post-writing comments.

    Little black box is inspired by @girisuherman's Endlessly Reincarnated poll.

    The overwhelming focus on morality is due to the recent conversations with @bf @kkgoh and @Arcturus in the Could you abandon a dying person? poll.

    The self-harming friend is a real person -- they truly are the closest friend I had in high school (although he was male and did not cut, but he was admitted to the hospital for 9 months).

    The conversation for "why cutters cut" is lifted directly from the award-winning manga My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness: Nagata Kabi. Which I highly recommend, by the way, if you haven't read it. I have another Internet friend who has chronic pain syndrome, and the "I wish I was religious" statement was taken from them.

    The dark morbidity is obviously influenced by myself, as are the comments about emotional lability. That said -- the squirrel being run over did not actually happen -- although I felt like it was a suitable analogy.
     
  11. NamGi

    NamGi Well-Known Member

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    Man I forgot the person writing this was not a dude and so when she mentioned the rape part I thought some gay stuff was happening _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):_
     
  12. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    I added a poll for the fun of it :blobowoevil_horns::blobowoevil_horns::blobowoevil_horns:
     
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  13. A5G_Reaper

    A5G_Reaper [DCLXVI, sohyee, and iampsyx's cute imouto]

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  14. kkgoh

    kkgoh Well-Known Member

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    Firstly, we should acknowledge the first half of your story about torture as an interrogation technique. The analysts/psychologists/criminal investigators have unanimously agreed that torture is NOT an effective means of gaining information. Guantanamo Bay was a failed project that ended up creating more false positives than not, and the Americans were very new to torture as a means of interrogation at the time. Reminds you of the time when Americans experimented with LSD as a means of mind control (Project MKUltra) back in '60s ....

    Post 9/11 also brought a lot of focus on the subject of torture porn. I think a lot of horror movies (which tend to reflect whatever fears society has at the time) came up with the same themes around that time.
    https://www.salon.com/2010/06/08/philosophy_of_horror_movies/

    Next, I think it's "normal" for humans to desire a wide range of experiences, even what basically amounts to torture porn. So I guess this comment is a validation of sorts for what you're thinking.
    Sometimes we don't realize how wide the range of "normal" really is. And humans have always had a healthy appetite for morbid stuff. Think how many "death" films have propagated ("Faces of Death", all the broadcasts and rebroadcasts of human tragedy on official news channels for sensationalism, all of the sick crap that appears on Facebook and have to be moderated out, etc).

    Now, although we should acknowledge the fascination and provide avenues for help, whether we actively condone the spread of these ideas as entertainment is an entirely different subject matter. Much like child pornography, I'd argue some media themes need to be toned down and should not be sensationalized. A whole community being swept away by floodwater is not a time for news channels to engage in voyeuristic disaster porn.
     
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  15. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    Huh, it's strange to me that you interpreted this story as a narrative on torture-porn, because it absolutely wasn't intended to be structured (or written) in that way.

    Rather, for me it is predominantly a story about self-harming and the repressed feelings around this.

    I think it gets very toasty when self-harming is conflated with torture porn, because in one a person is legitimately hurting and trying to wrestle with their issues, and the other is pure entertainment from the perspective of a third party sitting happily in their living room.

    I think the idea of torture porn is just fundamentally bizarre to me because I sort of more-or-less grew up surrounded by "vent poetry" and various people who you might stereotypically might label as "cutters". There are a lot of people in our society who genuinely have things that weigh heavily on them emotionally, and the expression of those things can often be an enormous milestone in the processing of their own experiences and feelings.

    I would personally argue that my story takes no position on whether torture is effective or not. The message of the story is the same regardless if torture is "effective" or "ineffective". The protagonist explicitly does not pass judgement onto the practice, and it is sort of a critical component on her personality.

    Maybe other people can convey a more eloquent argument, but I would maintain that the morality of torture doesn't change regardless if it is effective or not -- as in, suppose a hypothetical world where torture is effective -- to me it still doesn't justify it.

    This story could have functioned perfectly fine if it was about drone strikes rather than torture. All of these things are interchangeable.

    The critical piece of the story is the subconscious perceived guilt (doesn't matter if it's "deserved" or not) that the protagonist develops... and how it compounds over a delicate repressed emotional state that ultimately leads to self-harming (that she fails to rationalize why she does it) and then culminates in a suicide that slips between the cracks of the system.
     
  16. girisuherman

    girisuherman ∆ Hiki Bear ∆

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    That little dark story you got there... Every person has breaking point just like boiling water, when that point reached people start act funny or crazy. Remember my last poll "endlessly reincarnated" the 'demon king' ... Well I subtile convey the breaking point... But @lychee short story more focused on break point.

    Remember boredom is tool of evil god for make more evil peope... And boredom plus lot idle time was perfect combination for people start do something unsafe or crazy, good thing we have YouTube
     
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  17. girisuherman

    girisuherman ∆ Hiki Bear ∆

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    BTW that a good story....you seen same as me, random jumping gun of imagination... Well I try make long story but kinda awkward after 20 chapter
     
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  18. Innieminnie

    Innieminnie Secret Parrot, Hidden Dodo

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    Neither, recycle her soul and let her be reborn again.
     
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  19. kkgoh

    kkgoh Well-Known Member

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    Mmm ... not sure, the story didn't seem to follow a normal structure. Maybe I read it wrongly?

    The first half of the story started with a woman Marie in the procurement dept, then she came across a torture device. There were suspicions of use for torturing prisoners/captives/etc, but besides one line saying that the govt endorsed torture, there wasn't much else discussed.
    The second half of the story was Marie getting curious about the device and decided to use it herself, and seemingly got "addicted" to it (whether it's because of guilt, etc). No?

    A part of the story even mentioned Marie's friend being a cutter to cope (because she was already experiencing pain). So the sequence seemed a little different from Marie, who had no issues at first but then repeated used the device. There was no information that this was what prisoners might actually experience in full. Marie just kept dialing it up the intensity on her own to see how far it could go. I didn't recognize Marie was feeling guilt or imagined empathy for prisoners at that point ... felt like a leap of logic (for me) given the lack of confirmation.

    i.e. Her cutter friend sounded like a detached side story ... I actually didn't understand how it fit with Marie. I haven't read your manga, so I'm not sure what the myriad reasons are that cutters cut.

    If the story is really just about a woman turning to self-harm (for whatever reason), I think my previous message might still apply. Maybe just replace "torture porn" with "self-harm".

    From my previous poll, I guess everyone is sensitive to the word "porn" :censored: Apologies if any offense was taken.
    I was probably defining torture porn loosely as a fascination with the vulnerability of the human body.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019
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  20. lychee

    lychee [- slightly morbid fruit -] ❀[ 恋爱? ]❀

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    Many cutters cut as a coping mechanism, and coping mechanisms are very frequently subconscious.

    For example, binge/stress eating is a very common coping mechanism. People don't really think about it and they automatically go and do it. In some circumstances, people don't even recognize that they are binge/stress eating until someone else points it out to them -- and I think this is true for lots of coping mechanisms in general too. Many people don't recognize that their behavior constitutes "coping".

    Most people that I know who cut would really struggle to rationalize or answer for you "why they cut".

    Maybe it wasn't clear enough in my writing, but there are multiple suggestions that Marie isn't "healthy".

    There is a passage where she specifically talks about her problems, although she repeatedly insists (this is denial psychology) that she is "normal". Randomly bursting out crying upon seeing a squirrel hit by a car is not "normal", and she states that "I was feeling particularly emotionally fragile, and the brutal imagery itself must have tipped me over the edge. I was feeling something very close to that on that special holiday evening after going home."

    The intended narrative was the Marie was dealing with a lot of emotional turmoil that she didn't have words for (and didn't know how to process) -- which actually happens more often than you might expect in reality.

    This aspect of Marie's character is actually directly pulled from my own experiences.

    I can tell you with 100% certainty that getting home from work and immediately bursting out crying is not normal "healthy" behavior.

    Clearly there is something bothering her -- and for whatever reason -- she hasn't processed it yet or rationalized it or figured out what the identity of this "abstract bothersome thing" is.
     
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