A Lucky Penny (Chapter 10 5/29/22)

[justforfun]

On 5/16/2022 at 3:07 PM, WBDaddy said:

In retrospect, I feel I shouldn't have pointed out what was essentially a joke on my part that turned into this big fracas over me injecting "politics" into the thing.  It was an observation of current society that I tried to weave in here as a "nudge-nudge hahaha" thing and enhance people's understanding of the world I'm building with humor.  I would have been better off if no one had gotten the joke. 

I'll state what I think is obvious... having a touch of reality often makes a story far more compelling and interesting, as it makes it much easier to connect with the characters.  Given the nature of this story and it's connection to recent events (fiction in "Hand Maiden's Tale" and recent Supreme Court news), though, "nudge-nudge hahaha" becomes "nudge-nudge. um. gulp".  Perhaps things start to hit a little too close to home for some people...

I do very much .... well, not sure enjoy is the right word... appreciate?... the world you're building and the characters, and I'm very interested to see where you take this story over the arcs, and I hope you continue to update it here...

 

[Personalias]

1 hour ago, justforfun said:

I'll state what I think is obvious... having a touch of reality often makes a story far more compelling and interesting, as it makes it much easier to connect with the characters.  Given the nature of this story and it's connection to recent events (fiction in "Hand Maiden's Tale" and recent Supreme Court news), though, "nudge-nudge hahaha" becomes "nudge-nudge. um. gulp".  Perhaps things start to hit a little too close to home for some people...

I do very much .... well, not sure enjoy is the right word... appreciate?... the world you're building and the characters, and I'm very interested to see where you take this story over the arcs, and I hope you continue to update it here...

 

These are valid.  The world is getting rougher, and people have a right to put down a  freestory that they find unpleasant to read.  

I'm also going to vouch for the author here.  He's been plugging away at this for some time, now.  

With regards to Roe v. Wade, that's just a very sad coincidence.  I read this chapter in particular weeks to months before that development.  He's been tinkering with it for a while.

The bleak world of this story is WB taking certain elements from the real world and using it to be descriptive not prescriptive.  As in "if our timeline veered towards HandMaid's Tale, here's a way it could happen and what it might look like."   At no point have I interpreted this piece as to mean 'this is where we're headed unless..."

If I had to say there was a thesis to this awful fictional world, I'd say that it's that throughout history religion has been weaponized and mixed with government as a way to create and maintain control so that powerful can rule the weak, and that the words and deeds of dead people are often given new context and meaning and mythologies as a way to push an agenda in the present that the dead cannot refute.

But that's my personal take, I'll let the author speak to his beliefs himself.

More to the point, I will 100% vouch that @WBDaddy is writing his own story based on what he feels would be the most exciting twists and unpleasant dystopian turns and while he's working on putting it all together to make something that can be 'appreciated' in the same way that someone might appreciate a good horror story. 

And even though, artistically speaking, it would be okay to turn on the news every night, look at what's going in the world and be like "I'm stealing bits of this for my story," that's not what he's doing here.  He's not pulling a South Park and putting in the buzz words of the week to stay topical.

Anyways, that's just a thought.

[doogles]

If you build a world that makes people reel in disgust or sigh in euphoria by the nature of that reality, that's my very definition of art.

 

People are not complaining about trivial matters like grammar, flow, dialogue, or format. People aren't even complaining that @WBDaddyis plagiarizing The Handmaid's Tale (he isn't, and I could write a white paper on how he isn't). People ARE complaining that it's shoehorning politics into a fantasy story.

 

Three things:

• He's doing so because he's writing a story that benefits from a whole atmosphere permeating the choices and minds of the characters to *show* motivations without *telling* us via exhausting internal dialogue. This also gives him the opportunity to tie the reader to just the main character, isolating both. This is what's called "good writing"
• Creating a world is practical to justify themes and plot. It's one thing to be able to anticipate the motivations of characters, but they need impetus. None of the actions taken by Penny's captors are arbitrary or capricious. They all comport to the world, their roles, and personal motivations within their milieu. I know this is a fetish site, but damnit, we're gonna get some stories with some meat on the bones.
• @WBDaddy chooses to write in a certain style, as do all writers. His style is, with apologies: rich, rigorous, and slow. The first two require a certain amount of verisimilitude to logic and culture, which are relevant to the above. Other writers can choose to write stories that do not require the same features, and they do so admirably!

All of this is to point out that this story carefully selected this world, built it into an atmosphere, and we are seeing the logical progression (with the slightest illogical infusion of our fetish). Any complaint around using this specific kind of theonomic, misogynistic world isn't because of fatigue from having to reread Margaret Atwood. It's a paucity of outrage for the realistic trends mirrored. It isn't trite writing that offends the detractors, it's speaking truth to those who refuse to acknowledge reality. This is also "good writing".

[WBDaddy]

5 hours ago, justforfun said:

I'll state what I think is obvious... having a touch of reality often makes a story far more compelling and interesting, as it makes it much easier to connect with the characters. 

Precisely why I inserted those little tidbits.  Subtle, relatable contributions via taking little pieces of right now and presenting them as part of the past of the story's world.  

5 hours ago, justforfun said:

Perhaps things start to hit a little too close to home for some people.

I'm no stranger to people being offended at the mere mention of a certain person's name if they perceive it to be in jest or otherwise unfavorably.  Same with the mention of a certain religion.  It was a calculated risk.  I just questioned the wisdom of me pointing it out rather than let the more observant spot it on their own. 

5 hours ago, justforfun said:

I do very much .... well, not sure enjoy is the right word... appreciate?... the world you're building and the characters, and I'm very interested to see where you take this story over the arcs, and I hope you continue to update it here...

 "Enjoy" is a valid response to a good horror novel/film.  But thanks for hanging in there with me, and yes, this and my Patreon (which is still one chapter ahead, trying to improve that ratio a little) will be the exclusive outlets for it until it is completed. 

[WBDaddy]

6 hours ago, Personalias said:

But that's my personal take, I'll let the author speak to his beliefs himself.

You give me more credit than I deserve.  Religion was more or less a vehicle to deliver the plot @dooglesand I cooked up together.  We knew we wanted a future dystopia, one with strong misogynistic components, and bringing in that Handmaid's Tale style hyper-religious concept, with a strict adherence to actual scripture as a prescriptive roadmap for the system of laws instead of whatever the hell those crazy people were believing, felt like the right move.  

There were no philosophical motivations.  It fit together nicely with what we wanted to do.  Made sense.  So I ran with it, leaning on my own history in the Christian faith and extensive study of the bible to help me along.  

But you're, current events were never a driver of the plot, just something I tried to leverage to add flavor and color to the world we were building. 

5 hours ago, doogles said:

All of this is to point out that this story carefully selected this world, built it into an atmosphere, and we are seeing the logical progression (with the slightest illogical infusion of our fetish). Any complaint around using this specific kind of theonomic, misogynistic world isn't because of fatigue from having to reread Margaret Atwood. It's a paucity of outrage for the realistic trends mirrored. It isn't trite writing that offends the detractors, it's speaking truth to those who refuse to acknowledge reality. This is also "good writing".

I can't thank you enough for your support, even when it got rough, my friend. 

[snowwhite]

On 5/19/2022 at 8:10 PM, doogles said:

If you build a world that makes people reel in disgust or sigh in euphoria by the nature of that reality, that's my very definition of art.

 

People are not complaining about trivial matters like grammar, flow, dialogue, or format. People aren't even complaining that @WBDaddyis plagiarizing The Handmaid's Tale (he isn't, and I could write a white paper on how he isn't). People ARE complaining that it's shoehorning politics into a fantasy story.

 

Three things:

• He's doing so because he's writing a story that benefits from a whole atmosphere permeating the choices and minds of the characters to *show* motivations without *telling* us via exhausting internal dialogue. This also gives him the opportunity to tie the reader to just the main character, isolating both. This is what's called "good writing"
• Creating a world is practical to justify themes and plot. It's one thing to be able to anticipate the motivations of characters, but they need impetus. None of the actions taken by Penny's captors are arbitrary or capricious. They all comport to the world, their roles, and personal motivations within their milieu. I know this is a fetish site, but damnit, we're gonna get some stories with some meat on the bones.
• @WBDaddy chooses to write in a certain style, as do all writers. His style is, with apologies: rich, rigorous, and slow. The first two require a certain amount of verisimilitude to logic and culture, which are relevant to the above. Other writers can choose to write stories that do not require the same features, and they do so admirably!

All of this is to point out that this story carefully selected this world, built it into an atmosphere, and we are seeing the logical progression (with the slightest illogical infusion of our fetish). Any complaint around using this specific kind of theonomic, misogynistic world isn't because of fatigue from having to reread Margaret Atwood. It's a paucity of outrage for the realistic trends mirrored. It isn't trite writing that offends the detractors, it's speaking truth to those who refuse to acknowledge reality. This is also "good writing".

 

@doogles ... I hope times very much that you have not meant me!

Because, I am the very latest, to criticize his writing style, his narrative and his content!
With one exception, his pace was way too fast for a brief moment, why he did it, he portrayed it very believably for me!

I am here to be entertained and not to read inappropriate comments about politics!

Of course he has to do that, a political story set, in to a timeline, that politically also allows women to be discriminated against and mistreated accordingly!
So if you take to go back a few pages, you will inevitably find that you 100% agree with me, only in different words ...

If they didn't mean me by that, then I say sorry!
Sometimes I have a very thin skin and just because English is not my first language, I could easily get something wrong.

I know I reflect strongly because most can't handle BDSM and diapers and like to try to deny the sexual aspect.

That's a fact, nowhere are people as quick to hostile as in the AB/DL scene and gender doesn't matter!

 

 

@WebDaddy
Once again, for you and the co author all alone, I love your´s "dystopian world" your comparison to "the handmaids tale" came from yourself! (from the beginning).
I have never seen this series, until today, but what I have seen is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" !
The whole last chapter rams this comparison almost perfectly and why that is ... I could write a whole treatise about that as well!

I am a fan of Jack Nicholson and there is both "shining" and "one flew over the cuckoo´s nest" duty.
And despite being almost 50 years old now, this movie is still pretty relevant.

But since, I think you're a great storyteller, I'm also absolutely sure, that's exactly what you intended!

About the third point you brought into play, I could speculate now and would probably be right, but I have no interest in spoiling in any way!

So you have continued to captivate me.

Thanks for your work and for sharing this with us readers.

best wish from bad mad snowwhite

 

 

[Marcorpsdoc]

Dystopian future is probably my favorite genre of all entertainment media.  Being a Christian and a conservative doesn’t inhibit the enjoyment of this story.  I think it’s valuable to be able to see the dangers of extremism on all sides, including my own.

[WBDaddy]

55 minutes ago, snowwhite said:

With one exception, his pace was way too fast for a brief moment, why he did it, he portrayed it very believably for me!

Because this was actually a commission, I've been balancing the need for word economy with the need to flesh out the story.  And yes, at times I've pushed the pace to try and accomplish the first of those objectives.  I have some extensive work I need to do on later passages because I pushed it way too fast in sections.  

19 minutes ago, Marcorpsdoc said:

Dystopian future is probably my favorite genre of all entertainment media.  Being a Christian and a conservative doesn’t inhibit the enjoyment of this story.  I think it’s valuable to be able to see the dangers of extremism on all sides, including my own.

Thank you for your feedback.  I'm trying to keep the references to present/recent past as light and humorous as possible, because I don't want anyone thinking this is mean-spirited or hostile towards mainstream Christianity or conservatives. I'm glad I was able to accomplish that with you, at least. 

[WBDaddy]

Author's note:  Sorry about the delay on this one, had a rough week at work and really didn't get a ton of time to write.  Hopefully this update makes it worthwhile.  Also, I finally started doing what good writers do and titling my chapters.  It really is a useful tool to keep you focused on the mission of the moment. 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

10 - Toiletries

Penny sat up and stretched, feeling actually good for the first time in what seemed like forever ago.  A good, long sleep in a bed that she wasn’t handcuffed to, not made out of rocks, felt like life itself had hit the reset button.  Through the fence on her window, she could see just a glimpse of the incredible foliage outside, and she wondered if the facility ever allowed the patients to go out there.  She made up her mind to raise that question today. 

To the side of her bed sat last night’s dinner tray, untouched.  She got up, used the bathroom, rinsed her hands off, bemoaning the lack of soap, and sat down on her bed again.  She lifted the plastic cloche and cringed at cold mashed potatoes, overcooked green beans, and a brick of salisbury steak with gravy.  As hungry as she was right now, she was glad she didn’t wake up to eat that nasty slop.  Though it didn’t bode well for the menus to come.  Screw it, go take a shower, see if she could find some coffee. 

Opening her door, she found a pile waiting for her on the other side.  Two towels, another gown, a plastic bag of what looked like underwear, and toiletries - soap, shampoo, toothbrush and toothpaste.  She scooped it all up and set it down on her bed.  She grabbed the toiletries and the towels, figuring she could change when she got back to the room.

Out of the room and up to the nurse’s stations she went, but when she got there, she recognized no one. 

“Good morning, uh, Penelope is it?” a heavy-set woman spoke from behind the counter. 

“Yeah, uh, it’s Penny, please.  Where’s Adweta?” 

“It’s five thirty, Penny.  The day nurses aren’t due in for another hour and a half.  Heck, you’re the first one up this morning!”

“Well, yeah, I guess I kinda went to bed early.  Anyway, I was hoping to get a shower…?”

“Of course, go right ahead.”  The woman waved her arm down the hall. “Make sure you leave your towels at your door so they get washed.”

Showering in what was essentially a girls’ locker room by herself was an eerie affair, no sound but the echoing of water raining down on her and dripping to the floor.  But the water was hot, and there was plenty of it, and after three days without one, she didn’t mind taking her time and languishing, especially without the self-consciousness of others being in the room with her. 

After her shower, she returned to her room.  The halls were still devoid of patients.  Those other girls, they were fucking mental cases.  They were “patients”.  Not her.  She closed her door, stripped yesterday’s gown off, and put a clean one on from the pile.  She opened the package of panties and cringed.  Cotton granny panties, with a high waist and actual leg cuffs, a far cry from the satin bikini bottoms she wore routinely.  With a sigh, she slid them up her legs, marveling at how they rode up over her bellybutton.  These were more like bike shorts than panties!  Still, they were clean, something else she hadn’t had in three days.  Well, let’s see about that coffee, then. 

She stepped back out into the hallway and up to the nurse’s station.  “Can I help you, Penny?” the same woman asked.  

“Um, I was wondering if I could get some coffee somewhere?”

The woman laughed.  “There hasn’t been coffee on this ward for staff or patients the entire time I’ve worked here.  I’ve got a pot of herbal tea over here I don’t mind sharing, if you’d like.”

Herbal tea?  Penny winced in spite of herself as she thought once more about Delia and felt a sense of loss flow through her.  

“It’s not that bad, really,” the lady laughed.

“No, just… my friend back in New Sodom used to make the best herbal tea from plants she grew in her rooftop garden.  I miss her.”  

“Well, I don’t grow my own herbs or anything, but it’s still pretty good tea.  I’ll pour you a cup.”  The lady stood and turned to the counter behind her, filling a small paper cup with dark green tea and bringing it back over to set it on the half-wall in front of Penny.  “My name’s Bernice, by the way.”

“Thank you, Bernice.” Penny took the cup and gently sipped at the steaming hot liquid.  It didn’t taste the same as Delia’s, but it wasn’t bad. Better than nothing, she supposed.

“Now, it’s still not quarter after six yet, so you can go back and hang out in your room, or you can watch TV for a while in the rec room.  I’ve got paperwork to do, so I need to get busy.”  

“Sure, thanks.”  Hint taken. Penny made her way back to the group area and turned on the TV.  Televangelist.  She changed the channel.  Another televangelist.  She changed it again.  Morning news.  Well, that was better than being preached at.  It must have been some sort of local news, as most of what they talked about was events happening around the area.  A county fair - she had no idea what that was. They had street fairs in New Sodom, but Penny never had any money to spend, so she never went.  A church potluck, boring.  Did these people even talk about news going on elsewhere?  

“Hey there. You’re up early.”  Maribeth’s voice came from directly beside Penny, taking her by surprise.  She turned and… wow… Maribeth with her hair wrapped up in one towel and her torso in the other was… hot!  
“Oh… uh… hi!” Penny stumbled, kicking herself for her awkwardness.  “Already got my shower in, so I was just… uh… watching the news…”

“I can tell, your hair’s still damp.  Yeah, this news channel is the only one they let us watch.”  Maribeth rolled her eyes. 

“Don’t they like, talk about anything other than craft fairs and church services?”  Penny turned back to see a reporter standing in front of yet another church, interviewing what looked like a pastor’s wife.

“Nah.  Staff doesn’t think outside world news is good for our treatment, at least not without it being filtered through a TV pastor.”

“Wow.  So I gotta get my news about New Sodom from Jerry Falwell the fifth or something?”  Penny rolled her eyes.

“New Sodom, huh?  Is that where you’re from?”  Maribeth grinned like it was a dirty secret.

“Yeah, born and raised.  How about you?”

“I lived in Brunswick my whole life.  The idea of a girlfriend from the wrong side of the tracks is kinda hot, though.  What was it like living in Sin City East?”

Once again, the girl’s forwardness was flummoxing Penny.  “Uh… I don’t know.  I mean, I never saw real trees or grass before they sent me up here.  Do they ever let us go outside?”

“Sure, once you earn a certain privilege level.  I’m sure your primary nurse will go over it with you, probably this morning at check-in.  Didn’t they give you Adweta?”

“Yeah.  She’s nice enough I guess.”  

“Trust me, be grateful. Georgia’s a real battleaxe.  You get feisty with her, she drops you like that.” Maribeth snapped her fingers for emphasis.  “Jennifer just beats you over the head with a bible until you do what she says.  Sonja pretends to be nice, but she’s always recommending bad shit for you behind your back.  She dropped a girl from D-plus privileges - like total run of the campus unsupervised, the best you can do short of being discharged - all the way to where you are right now, R, without even telling her.  Just changed it on the board.  Kid flipped out when she saw it, wound up getting bagged and tagged.”

“Wait, bagged and tagged?”  Just the phrase sounded terrifying. 

“Yeah, the whole staff surrounds you and takes you into the safety room, then puts restraints on you and shoots you up with sedatives so you’ll calm down.”

“Maribeth, that is not appropriate dress for common areas, and you’re not respecting space,” a deep voice announced from the door.  Penny looked to find an enormous bald man occupying the doorway out to the main halls, his arms folded.

Maribeth rolled her eyes and whined, “Alright, alright George, I’m going.” She then quickly turned back to Penny.  “Hey, after I get dressed, wanna come outside for a smoke break with me? I’ll sign out the lighter.”

“Smoke break?  They let you do that here?”  Penny was baffled. She hadn’t had a cigarette since she was 16, after she got caught and suspended for the last week of school.  Her parents grounded her for the entire summer to make sure she didn’t get any more.  Not that she could have afforded a cigarette habit on her waitress’ salary anyway.  But it felt sort of naughty, and she liked how flirty Maribeth was being.

A hand swept down her shoulder.  “Figure it out while I’m gone, okay cutey?  I’ll be back!”  As if to hammer home that last thought about the flirting.  

Maribeth got up and left the room, and George spoke up.  “Careful how much you believe of what she says.  She loves to gossip about the staff and the other patients to new people.”

She smiled back at him.  “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind.  Nice to meet you, George.”

“You too, Penny, was it?” 

“Yeah.”

“Gotta finish my rounds.  Shift’s almost over.  Have a good day, Penny.”  

And she was by herself again.  Six thirty.  Time seemed to crawl in this place.  The local news was still reporting mundane, uninteresting things like planned work on a traffic light, and a city council meeting about the upcoming parade.  Back home, if they didn’t report at least one death, either by execution or by crime, it was a shock.  This backwoods town’s biggest crime was probably some out-of-towner running a stop sign.  She finally gave up and shut the TV off.  Bernice’s tea may not have been the same as Delia’s, but it was still really tasty, and it made her feel warm inside, something she hadn’t since this whole nightmare began.  The staffers here seemed nice enough, and she definitely was warming up to Maribeth.  Maybe the rest of these kids weren’t so bad.  Maybe she could adjust to this place.  There was really nothing to do but find out…
 

[kerry]

Why do I expect that she is not going to like it when she finds out? ?

[WBDaddy]

On 5/23/2022 at 12:38 PM, snowwhite said:

So you have continued to captivate me.

Thanks for your work and for sharing this with us readers.

best wish from bad mad snowwhite

I apologize for not acknowledging you prior to this over the last several chapters.  I am appreciative of your feedback and your continued support.  I suspect that, the deeper we go into this, the more you specifically are going to enjoy it, especially as we move into the final arc.  

[WBDaddy]

22 hours ago, kerry said:

Why do I expect that she is not going to like it when she finds out? ?

Hey, it might turn out to be Club Med (compared to the jail, anyway)

[snowwhite]

15 hours ago, WBDaddy said:

I apologize for not acknowledging you prior to this over the last several chapters.  I am appreciative of your feedback and your continued support.  I suspect that, the deeper we go into this, the more you specifically are going to enjoy it, especially as we move into the final arc.  

 

There is no need to apologize!
Job is job!
You have captured me since the 1st chapter and you know what I like!
I has never covering it up and if other readers get out and I'm still in the story ... then is the storyboard also very good indeed!
Because it is not a uniform porridge that you served us.

###

Now let's move on to your 10th chapter "Toiletries".

I bet, everyone who read this will now have expected the diapers ... Well, not everyone ... I had to smile when I read that ... what it means should be obvious.

The chapter itself ...
The forecourt to hell ... big smile

I like how much depth you give the individual characters (bit-part player) and how you try to blur the track.

Maybe you have already described Penny's fate, with a name from all of this bit-part player ... but I do not think so!

Your pace is perfect for me!
You turn the tension screw very slowly, that is so good, that I can´t wait for more, much more please ...

 

[WBDaddy]

21 hours ago, snowwhite said:

Your pace is perfect for me!
You turn the tension screw very slowly, that is so good, that I can´t wait for more, much more please ...

I'm glad the pacing suits you.  There was a point early on where I felt like I needed to push more stuff into chapters in order to keep the cost down, but with all the delays, I finally decided enough is enough, I need to write my pace and give a great story more than I need to worry about word counts. 

[snowwhite]

huhuhu
How is one of my favorite authors doing?

I hope You are fine.

I am very sorry to hear about Queen Elizabeth but she was living to a very old age and more importantly she was fit enough under the circumstances.

I think 2021 broke them.
As queen, she was strong like no other person.

As a human, she was more human than most humans will ever be.

I will never forget how lonely and huddled together she sat on the bench at her husband's funeral.

If I had been in church, I would have shat at the etiquette and given the woman a much needed hug.
I was ashamed of Prince Charles, but I understand too why he diden´t can do it, but for me it was a fault, that no one sat an her side.

[WBDaddy]

7 hours ago, snowwhite said:

How is one of my favorite authors doing?

I hope You are fine.

I am. Work has demanded a lot of my time, and my hot sauce business has as well, but this story is still in my mind, and the next chapter is coming together, I'm just trying to make sure that it does what it's supposed to do in service of the plot.  I think you'll like it once it's done.