• ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    6 months ago

    A faceless red spirit that can posess anyone at any time as a metaphor for sudden class consciousness, it does all it can in each body but many are inevitably killed. Each time, another red spirit is born, and the neighborhoods of the people begin to resemble great red kelp forests, with ghostly vines and outgrowths stretching between the buildings, slowly repairing the cracks of decay and neglect like crimson kintsugi. Ghostly red tendrils begin to stretch too from person to person, and when one is in trouble everyone feels the pull.

    Eventually, the cops/military are called in to put down the 'strangeness', and their brutal crackdown unleashes the wrath of the kindly red spirit. Soldiers gun down unarmed protestors, only for their spectres to step out of the falling bodies and into theirs, making them turn their guns on their squadmates and themselves. The red web of connection between the people lights up as if with fire, and through the squad cars radios and comms networks there is a mounting howling, everywhere and nowhere, growing so loud and inescapable that they throw off their helmets, but it's already taken root inside their heads.

    Finally, with both a grand seismic and psychic shockwave, the full mass of the red flora that had lovingly blanketed the neighborhood tears itself up by the roots and flails blindly upward, weaving itself into the rough approximation of a giant human figure- the Big Communism Builder is born. With a triumphant cry of rage it sweeps aside tanks and APCs with all the accumulated violence of centuries of oppression, incinerating jet fighters in midair with it's merciless gaze. The people march behind and around it, feeling the warmth of the love that is it's lifeblood. Their love, their lifeblood. The dead and wounded begin to rise again, their wounds filling in with that same red kintsugi. Death no longer holds any fear for them. They arm themselves with looted guns and improvised weapons, and they and their spectre begin the long walk towards downtown. A red fog heralds them, and laughter, and achingly beautiful music.