Reds fanfic

The Corner Store

Created By Nicostratus Eligia Paulis, Rajnesha Tamboli, Niketa Mhasalkar,

Starring Bipin Chaudhari, Samira Jain, Mahendra Ravi Patel, Pravenna Singh, Shakuntala Singh, Timothy Len William, Theodore Loman

Country of Origin Franco-British Union

Original Language English, Hindi

Number of series 4

Number of Episodes 32 and 2 shorts


Following the success of Lord of the Manor, writer Nico Paulis was contacted by the EBC and STAR Television networks regarding a possible spin-off from the series. Paulis was already working on a possible series starring Manor regulars Bipin Chaudhari and Samira Jain reprising their roles as Suresh and Archana Kumar. STAR networks wanted to broaden the appeal of the series to non-European audiences so Paulis was joined by writers Rajnesha Tamboli and Niketa Mhasalkar. Like Lord of the Manor, the series would deal with issues such as racism, infidelity, women's liberation, rape, and religion but would also deal with spousal abuse and dowry. The series would only last from January 1980 to January 1984 but would become a classic in India and a standard for evening serials.

Like Lord of the Manor the series would center on Suresh and Archana Kumar, the owners of a small convenience store located in a British city. The store set would be the main location of the series with various rooms in the Kumar’s home being the second location. Archana would be the main narrator of the series with her mother in law Hema (Pravenna Singh) narrating several episodes.

Season 1: The Corner Store starts several months after the end of Lord of the Manor. Archana is now visibly pregnant and Suresh is dealing with the graduation of James (Timothy Len William) and Michael (Theodore Loman), who now are starting new careers. Needing help and out of family responsibility he contacts his parents Vivek (Mahenra Ravi Patel) and Hema (Pravenna Singh), a retired couple living in the Greater Indian Commonwealth. Vivek is a retired railroad engineer and Hema a housewife who spend a first few episodes arriving and getting used to life in England. In real life, Samira Jain was pregnant at the time and it was incorporated into the program. Hema and Vivek are unsure about James and Michael until Suresh and Archana defend them after Hema makes several racist comments. The Season ends with Archana giving birth to Ankita and James and Michael being made ‘Honorary Uncles’.

Season 2: Vivek and Hema have slowly adjusted to life in England but communications between them and the ‘locals’ remain a source of humor and frustration. Suresh tries to help but is overruled by his parents repeatedly. Hema catches a young woman by the name of Manju (Shakuntala Singh) trying to steal from the shop. Pleading not to be turned over to the police she explains that she ran away from her husband’s home after being abused by her husband’s family over a small dowry from her parents. Being a fluent speaker of English and Hindi and needing help, Hema and Vivek convince Suresh and Archana to hire Manju.

Season 3: Manju has become more open and finds a small apartment near the shop and is helping Hema with her English. The neighborhood is becoming more diverse as people like the Emersons retire and younger people move in. Manju is attacked on her way home by her husband who discovers where she is, she manages to wound him with a knife hidden on her. She presses charges on him and has him arrested at the hospital. The Kumar's take care of her legal expenses. At the end of the Season Manju’s husband is sent to prison for Assault and Manju files for divorce. The story of Manju is written about by Renae Rawlins and printed by The Lightning with Manju’s name changed to protect her identity.

Season 4: Manju has been ostracized from her community and relies on the Kumar’s for support. Both Hema and Archana encourage her to enroll in University and become a Counselor for victims of spousal abuse. Manju decides to move to another city to begin a fresh start. Both Vivek and Suresh cry over the loss of their ‘daughter and sister’ along with Hema and Archana.

Notes:

The Corner Store set would have small touches that reference Lord of the Manor. The outside of the store features posters for The Daily Sentinel and The Lightning newspapers being sold there. Artwork and murals located in the store are signed James Shelton and featured in several shots. A Sloss Steelworks sign is located near the front door of the shop. Songs from Hindi films and jokes told by Hema and Vivek would be featured in the series with English subtitles.


Welcome to TV Land 1950-2000, Jubilee Productions (2017)
 
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Parecon will become hegemonic and the gift economy and central planning will grow while the market will shrink further in size as the information revolution leads to further explosion of computing power. Social and cultural conservatism does not exist. Free market believers are socialist followers of Proudhon and advocates of traditional norms are in the margins of society.
 
Triple Entente - What if the FBU, UASR, and USSR United?
Based on Triple Entente, an in-universe novel from the world of Undying Sun, so I'm ripping myself off here. Also, obviously, I'm ripping off what I know of CoDominium, so...
Triple Entente is a dystopian science fiction novel taking place in the year 2560, focusing on the so-called Triple Entente, an arrangement formed out of the brutal capitalist Franco-British Union, the libertarian and socialist but uncanny and inhuman Federation of Socialist Republics, and the Cluster of Soviets, a grouping of authoritarian and socialist countries that have regained the brutality of the pre-reforms Soviet era. The FBU has several space colonies, most notably on Mars, the FSR is based around the UASR on Earth, and it currently rules the entire Western Hemisphere and most of the Moon, and the Cluster happens to control the vast majority of Mars but is a decaying yet massive beast.

This world was created during the formation of the Triple Entente, an agreement in the name of ending the Cold War to produce a League of Nations between the three superpowers. The Cold War had dragged on long enough that such an act to end the war was eventually chosen to finally solidify an end to the Cold War and the dawn of a new, prosperous age. The UASR delved deep into hedonism and virtual-reality pleasure, splicing genes and eventually, over time, the Federation of Socialist Republics has become home to a new kind of humanity, the so-called Homo Liber, the Free Human.

Homo Liber is free of unnecessary guilt, debilitating fear, depression, most mental illnesses, and almost all disease, and the people of the FSR can change their physical bodies using advanced technology to appear however they wish. The FSR, however, is largely uncaring about the outside world. It's perfect socialism, in isolation and without challenge from the capitalists, conflict within the Triple Entente ceasing largely over time due to the Entente growing more and more powerful.

The FBU, of course, is the same as it always was, and distrusts the totalitarians who've long since run the show in the Cluster of Soviets, a super-state of super-states run out of the Soviet Union, as well as the hedonistic elf-people of the FSR. The people of the FBU, the heroes of this tale, are simple but intelligent people, rugged and hardened men and women from an earlier, simpler time, before this dark world, who know that they are the weakest part of the Entente.

They are depicted in the novel as reasonable, intelligent, competent, and generally able to see through the bullshit of the FSR and able to hit the Cluster's spies and political officers with a good punch to the gut. In a dictatorial future, the oligarchical FBU is still depicted as the best option available. Finally, there is, of course, the Cluster of Soviets, a dark state ruled with an iron fist by the General Secretary, and the Cluster of Soviets is poorly-defined in the story and generally considered to be the least well-written portion of Triple Entente.
 
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I made a stylized version of the UASR's emblem as described:

yDll20R.png
 

BP Booker

Banned
I had this idea that fantasy and magic were not very popular in the UASR and instead fiction was more inclined for science fiction (utopian and dystopian kind), and the opposite being true in the FBU because of this belief that fantasy - especially medival type fantasy was very traditional (althou I know that they are real writters that try to be progressive like Tamora Pierce) while SciFi tends to be very "foward looking" and "progressive" (I dont think I need to make examples, but Star Trek is literally all about that)- Same goes for Historical Dramas that focus on Kings and Nobles. I wanted to writte a "Worlds of Fiction Collide Across the Atlantic" type of in-universe article
 
I had this idea that fantasy and magic were not very popular in the UASR and instead fiction was more inclined for science fiction (utopian and dystopian kind), and the opposite being true in the FBU because of this belief that fantasy - especially medival type fantasy was very traditional (althou I know that they are real writters that try to be progressive like Tamora Pierce) while SciFi tends to be very "foward looking" and "progressive" (I dont think I need to make examples, but Star Trek is literally all about that)- Same goes for Historical Dramas that focus on Kings and Nobles. I wanted to writte a "Worlds of Fiction Collide Across the Atlantic" type of in-universe article
This isn't actually particularly true.

Horror in particular is inclined towards the supernatural in the red bloc because of the breach in normalcy and reality.

Soft scifi and fantasy are also still quite popular for the sheer escapism or because they're most interested in the themes to tell rather than the physics of the setting, and some fantasy is in its own way, a sort of science fiction in that sometimes it examines a world with very different laws of reality that allow for things like magic and dragons. Urban fantasy like Percy Jackson is also still quite popular.

However, the traditional medieval european fantasy setting with its idyllic at best and just flat out horrifically wrong at worst ideas of feudal society brought about by liberal misunderstandings of it (either romanticised or demonised) is very rarely played as straight in TTL's America as it is in OTL's American fantasyscape.
 

BP Booker

Banned
However, the traditional medieval european fantasy setting with its idyllic at best and just flat out horrifically wrong at worst ideas of feudal society brought about by liberal misunderstandings of it (either romanticised or demonised) is very rarely played as straight in TTL's America as it is in OTL's American fantasyscape.

Yeah, those are the stories I dont think would be very hot amongst audiences
 
Yeah, those are the stories I dont think would be very hot amongst audiences

Instead, we would get dark medieval fantasy where the people with gifts (magic?) oppress the others, and the heroes kickstart a peasant rebellion turning into a proper revolution?

Med-fan French revolution when?
 
Instead, we would get dark medieval fantasy where the people with gifts (magic?) oppress the others, and the heroes kickstart a peasant rebellion turning into a proper revolution?

Med-fan French revolution when?
I kind of think that the whole trope of people with superior powers are the exploiter class tend to miss the point of how the dynamics of exploitation work and is in many ways a tacitly Randian worldview where the ruling classes are objectively superior in some respect and by extension those calling for equality are just trying to drag everyone down. The nobility did not rule because of their superior nature nor do the bourgeoisie rule because of their greater skill and intelligence. Their power is ultimately rooted in the exploitation of other people's skills and labour. Stories that present the ruling classes as having some sort of innate ability that sets them apart from ruled often come across as not rooted in reality and often tends to have some very confused political messages.

An example of a show that does this badly is Legend of Korra especially in the first season where the main villains, the Equalists, are opposed to the benders of reasons that are never adequately explained and create an equal society by taking away their powers. At no point is it really explained how or why benders are supposedly oppressing non-benders except possibly the insinuation that all of the government positions seem to filled by benders It's particularly jarring as the setting, Republic City, is an explicitly capitalist society, presumably with capitalistic exploitation, and one of the leaders of the Communist-coded Equalists is a non-bending industrial tycoon. It is frustratingly not well thought out.

A show that does it well, on the other hand, is Magi which has a strong focus on class and political economy throughout. Whilst there is a Magocracy that plays a big role in season 2 it's society comes across as grounded in a realistic sense of political economy and it came into existence as a result of the magicians rebelling against the exploitative non-magical aristocracy that used and discarded them for their own wealth and power.
 
This is true in the later stages of a society, definitely. But not necessarily in establishing it. Feudal exploitation was set up through conquest, force and the ability to defend what you got this way, rather than only economic pressure like later exploitation forms. Especially during the transition from conquering tribes to landed nobles.

Powers would be handy to the first generations of future nobles making a name for themselves. And if their powers are hereditary, they would stay in noble families because of intermarriage, even if they would stop being the core reason for their power over people, they would become an identification of noble blood.

But it's just as possible to imagine a fantasy world where the people with powers are the threat to the established ruling class rather than part of it because their innate power clashes with acquired power through exploitation.
 
I don't quite understand why - in my opinion, in the conditions of the triumph of Marxism, the supernatural becomes more and more an object for children's fairy tales and jokes.

Horror doesn't have to be surnatural. In fact, it is an often used trope to make it seem surnatural until the reveal, but then show it had perfectly explainable causes. I feel such a genre would be popular because it rationalize the surnatural.
 
Horror doesn't have to be surnatural. In fact, it is an often used trope to make it seem surnatural until the reveal, but then show it had perfectly explainable causes. I feel such a genre would be popular because it rationalize the surnatural.
Actually, it can be said the first popular forms of Horror Stories - remember Ms. Radcliffe.

Although personally I have a hypothesis that reading such stories, we are distracted from the horrors of our own existence.
 
Besides fiction has this thing called the suspension of disbelief. People are willing to entertain the irrational and non-existent so long as it follows a consistent internal logic.
That's exactly what I was going to say. Maybe belief in the supernatural will disappear, but fiction about it will still exist.
 
That's exactly what I was going to say. Maybe belief in the supernatural will disappear, but fiction about it will still exist.
Well ... there is still a difference between a vampire and a blue aliens. That is, fantastic creatures are not identical to each other. Some are able to exist, others are not.
 
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