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#i have decided since I always tend to create dark and psychological ideas

maleyanderecafe · 1 year

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BORDER LINE ~My Fiendish Chinese Classmate's Psychotic Infatuation~ (Manga)

Created by: Horita ahan

Genre: Smut/Psychological

Phew, this one was kind of a trip. It's made by the same person who made The Man Who Saved Me on my Isekai Trip is a Killer and is much MUCH better (though, I'll be honest, it's not a really high bar or anything) since it plays more with manipulation on the yandere's part. A lot of this creator's smut tends to lean more on the darker side anyways, so it's not that much of a surprise, though this one isn't straight up noncon like a lot of others and more of dubcon.

The story starts out with previous class president Kaho being greeted by the Chinese transfer student Wei Wang. She ends up encountering him bullying another classmate and tries to tell him off for bullying him. However, Wang twists her words, stating that there's no proof that he bullied him for no reason, and that for all she knows his classmate could have bullied him until he couldn't take it anymore. Because she doesn't want to be hated, she decides to take the place of her classmates as a bully victim. He accepts, and she becomes determined that she'll be able to survive being bullied as everyone in the classroom will take her side. She's proven immediately wrong and bullied, so decides to meet up with Wang in the Red Light District. The two end up having sex, with Wang asking if she wants to give up, and her refusing. She keeps getting bullied and having sex with Wang in different places but refuses to give up. One day at her locker, she hears a conversation about how Wang used to be bullied and how the classmate being bullied was actually Kaho's fault in the first place. She confronts Wang, stating the reason she was bullied in the first place wasn't that she was hated but because everyone feared him. Wang confesses that Kaho enjoys helping the weak and the reason he did all of this was to make Kaho happy- by creating scenarios where she could help people. Broken by his words, he accepts being Wang's and has sex with him in the classroom. The classmate that was bullied before thanks Kaho about what she did, though it seems obvious that Kaho is no longer enamored by the praise she had before. The last scene is Wang and Kaho hugging, with Wang promising to be with her and to learn every side to her.

So as you can see, this smut gets dark pretty fast, but again, that's not a big surprised for this author. Comparatively to some of their other works that have been translated, this one definitely goes more into the psychological aspects of more or less gaslighting and manipulation and I think it does make it more interesting. In every case, Kaho could have stopped being bullied as Wang does mention multiple times that she could stop it if she wants to, but she is too prideful to ask for help and simply just believes that people will save her, even if it never happens. Wang on the other hand is simply calculating and cruel- he knows how to get what he wants and he does so very well by intimidating the other students and manipulating Kaho so that she feels dependent on him. I do think the idea of "just wanting praise" is sort of... weak. Even if Wang did make a bunch of opportunities for Kaho to be helpful, there's really no reason to "pay him back" and you could argue that what he did to her was already payment enough to making her feel good in terms of being praised by others, but maybe after all that he did to her, she doesn't really have the capacity to make rational decisions for her.

In terms of being a yandere, Wang is a pretty cruel one. Not only is he callous in the way he treats Kaho, through manipulation, dubcon sex and manipulation, he's also not afraid to use these skills to intimidate the other students into bullying the person he likes, to the point of breaking her resolve. To be fair compared to the isekai killer protagonist, he always does give a way out for Kaho, even if it's used more as a manipulation tactic, sort of taunting her into admitting that she was wrong. It's kind of interesting to see what lengths a yandere will go to break their love interest into being with them. The smut is actually used to make the story darker and show what lengths Wang will go to get Kaho.

Overall, I didn't mind it in terms of what kind of psychological horror it brings. It's a bit too dark for my tastes (then again, when have I really liked dark dub/noncon), but it does have an interesting story, so if any of this interests you, try it out.

#BORDER LINE ~My Fiendish Chinese Classmate's Psychotic Infatuation~#male yandere #yandere boy #yandere #recommendation #oneshot #manga

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years

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BFCD Reviews by Nesha: Grace Monroe & The Infinity Train on HBO Max

Disclaimer: Post includes spoilers and also, this viewer does not deem Infinity Train as a children's show and my views are not subjected to the idea that this is a children's show, but I do regard the characters as children.

I’m not a psychiatrist. I haven’t taken a psychology class in many years. My work with children has been primarily trauma centered children, and I haven’t worked with typical children for a decade, so most of my opinions are from my personal life experience, my work experience, my children’s rights advocacy and activism, and the guidelines from my childcare specialist work for children in the system in the state of Texas. I don’t have a lot of information these days on typical children and I don’t know the culture of children all over the country or world, but I basically know a little something about traumatized children.

And as always, be nice, because I can be mean too (and will). 😉

Special thanks to @i-am-a-passenger for listening to me and being a SOUND sounding board for my thoughts through this experience that was season 3 of Infinity Train.

To be honest, I thought that it was extremely brave of the creators to go the route that they did with the story line. Not everybody can be saved is a take that we don’t see nearly enough, and whenever we do, usually a POC, oftentimes a Black girl is on the losing end of the tale. That didn’t happen here and despite some problems with some of the way that things played out in front of us, it was STILL a monumental moment for many fans and Grace’s redemption arc was valid and reasonable, so I loved it and I live for it. Now, I’m gonna give my review of the season and what I noticed about the characters...

First off, I think that the writing of this season was phenomenal. The style of the way the story was told impressed me from start to finish. There were moments that I didn’t expect, but I understood from a writing standpoint and for the characters presented. I’m not a professional writer, but it’s been a passion since I was 7 years old, so I have some experience with passion for writing and stories and a great narrative is my WEAKNESS, and I do believe that Infinity Train provides great narratives.

This season has been my favorite thus far. I would have appreciated it for the story content, even if they had switched the characters’ arcs or went in a different direction with the redemption arc, but the fact that I was able to see an example of a Black girl being able to BE HUMAN, at my age - 38 - is still such new content that I was honestly overwhelmed by the simple fact that the creators decided that this Black girl was worthy of not only redemption, but the attention to detail and consideration was enough for me to love this season.

The girl in question: 18 year old Grace Monroe, whose been on this train for something like 7 years.

It’s rare to see a dark skinned, brown skinned, Black girl with natural hair be shown in anything but stereotypes and/or plot devices for other characters. This character has a story of her own. A beautifully written and fully realized story of a child who got confused, made bad decisions, did terrible things, learned the truth, and sought to change.

Whenever we first meet Grace and Simon, she’s announced as the leader of the Apex, and Simon is announced as her second in command and given the credentials from her, “I trust him with my life.” Something that is later a bittersweet thought as he becomes the biggest threat of her life since she got onto this train. They’re clearly very close and only seem to disagree on how they respond to negativity.

One of my favorite things about Grace was that she was given layers. One of my LEAST favorite things about Grace was that she was given unfair head canons by the fandom extremely early on (all of which nobody ever proved but remained diligently devoted to believing).

In this season, when the two are taken out of their comfort zone and traveling with outsiders, Grace and Simon are faced with lives that they haven’t thought about previously and wind up choosing very separate paths. Honestly, these paths they went on made perfect sense to me. I see both of them as traumatized children without any guidance and while one of them is very careless and reckless (Grace), the other is deliberate about what he does and has goals and plans.

The biggest influence, I think, was their interactions with denizens prior to forming the Apex. Grace admittedly never got to know any while Simon was betrayed by one whenever she left him behind to potentially die. Simon carried this rage inside of him while Grace had nothing but apathy to guide her attitude of the denizens. Grace needed attention and she was able to get that from Simon and the Apex, so she made a life built on what that gave her.

While Grace tends to seem to try to sweeten the issue or charm people. Simon is more short with others and a bit rude. They handle things much differently, though they have created a lifestyle together and formatted a society of children that they lead.

All too frequently, if a character looks like Grace, she is there as fodder for whoever her (usually white) counterparts are. But Grace has a unique situation in which she shares center stage with her white male counterpart and we watch them develop together from two peas in a pod to mortal enemies. It is a sad separation, but one that felt necessary for the direction of the story. But here’s why Grace matters so much, despite the fact that she and Simon built a child army and killed we don’t even know how many denizens:

Grace changed for the better. When both of them met and got to know a denizen, she began to change. She didn’t understand it at first and took some time to admit to herself that she was even changing. She thought that something was wrong with her because her number was going down and that wasn’t supposed to be how it was. What she thought was that it made her look weak and she didn’t want Simon or the Apex to see her that way.

And saying that Grace changed for the better is sort of shaky, too. Because Grace wasn’t a bad person to begin with. She was a child who got on the wrong track. Going from being extremely alone to having one friend to having hundreds or however many Apex kids of followers changed her for the worse, but she was a good kid at her core. She was lonely in the real world and she acted out, then wound up on this train, had a life changing event by having to see “The Conductor” and translate what happened to her as someone saving her, and she went on to help save others, or so she thought, to some degree.

Whenever she saved Simon, she had literally no reason to, other than she saw a kid in trouble and she knew she could help.She had just as little life skills and social skills as this kid in front of her, but... he was crying and she reached out to try to make him feel better, reminding him that even though life on the train was hard, he was alright now. Then, another life changing thing happened - Simon noticed that her number was higher and asked her how she got it so high. She knew just as much as him, and said that she was really good at life on the train, and the way she took that ghom out - she wasn’t completely wrong, but them being children and having only time and their limited views started a cult.

What I found interesting about this memory was the fact that Simon was telling Grace’s story for her. She tagged her charm onto it, but Simon (the writer of their laws and apparently a trilogy that not even Grace, who likes to read things wanted to read while they were besties) is telling the story to the kids. Probably embellishing, and Grace loves to be noticed, so she keeps this up until they’ve formatted an entire belief system. It was basically just I presumed whenever I questioned the reputation this fandom gave Grace as a manipulator who filled Simon’s head with hatred for denizens and Apex theology.It confirmed that people were wrong about her, which unfortunately didn’t make them change their minds, but they ain’t gotta. Grace lived and Simon died and that’s how this turns out sometimes.

I was able to at least acknowledge that his death was atrocious and it’s very unfortunate that he didn’t change for the better. He wanted control. He wanted power. He wanted to reign. Those things were more important to him than believing anything that went against his ideals. They were more important than Grace and his relationship with her. Meanwhile, Grace, up until even after he was gone cared about him. She defended herself whenever he attacked her, but she tried not to hurt him. She even tried to talk to him and he once again refused to listen. She saved his life AGAIN, and he still tried to kill her. Despite it all, when he was gone, she cried. Her friend was gone. Another life had been taken, and life meant something else to her now.

Even paper birds mattered now, and thanks to that difference inside of her, she didn’t die. But, I expected her to. Not even because it would’ve made sense or helped the story in any way, but because that’s how it usually goes for characters like her, characters who LOOK like her. The fact that it didn’t brought tears to my eyes. This season was amazing. This ending was amazing. This character was amazing. I’m so pleased with it and it was more than I expected, because instead of setting expectations, I let them tell me the story. They did an excellent job.

I've been asking people since she first appeared in season 2 why they thought that Simon was some helpless and she was this dominating figure that bossed him into this lifestyle and mostly it came back to her higher number. i didn't think we were being shown that, so I've been suspicious every time someone has suggested that Grace got Simon started in this or taught him this and now that it's been debunked, I'm even more irritated with the suggestion that her redemption doesn't make sense or wasn't right.

The thing about Simon was that he seemed fine. He seemed innocent, at times. He seemed like someone to sympathize with... What a lot of his fan base doesn't seem to realize is that is the case with every abuser. That is the case with many killers. Bad backgrounds and hard times coming up don't make for an excuse. Just because I GET his personality, doesn't mean he deserves respect or consideration. But then, we have Grace, on this other end who can't even get the recognition she earned through her decision making when she literally had the same childhood as him whenever they got there. Idk. Shit feels suspicious to me to not acknowledge Grace's redemption as well written. And the idea that Simon was doing these things for or because of Grace was proven as untrue, so there should have been a shift in her favor and there wasn't and my god that's some top shelf bullshit to me...

People frequently speak of Grace's manipulating Simon, possibly because they haven't had to try to use what you have to smooth someone over. The fact that Grace has been consoling Simon since they were children (THEY WERE CHILDREN), Because I see "Simon is a child" everyday, and always speak of his trauma, like Grace had none and like she's not the same age or near it. But, that's another thing that gets done to Black girls - they're aged up in people's prejudiced minds and expected to be more accountable than their peers. This GIRL has been repeatedly blamed for the issues of her friend.

And her "betrayal?" A lie she told to preserve life.

Simon proceeds to use her tape against her, leave her trapped inside of it (knowing it was dangerous, because the cat told him), sow lies about her in the Apex, pressure children that she knew to kill her, literally tried to beat her up and murder her, and kicks her as hard as he can after she saved his life AGAIN... He still gets more grace than Grace from the audience. I don't think people see Grace's humanity. People even assumed that her number was higher because she killed so many denizens... Like literally every wrong move doesn't affect numbers. And when faced with the story, which gives us a vulnerable Grace with flaws but also compassion, she's still been sidelined by fans of the show and nobody has given me any good reason as to why, so you already know, like we been knew. 😒

People have even tried to downgrade Simon's toxicity towards her because she led the Apex (and these people pretty much had similar things to say as people who didn't believe that my ex sexually abused me because of some examples of me being strong while arguing with him)...

THIS was triggering as fuck, but I've barely seen a PEEP about it. I'm going to presume that problematic takes of Grace are from a place of discrimination and dehumanization against another Black girl character like fandoms usually do.

But that just makes her matter more.

Good job, Grace. I knew there was good in you all along, and I didn't have to make up anything about you in my brain. ♥️♥️♥️

*Grace mourning a man that just tried to destroy her multiple times for telling a lie to keep him from killing a small child...

SPEAKING OF... The man double kicked her off that damn train in front of the kids AFTER they all saw her rescue him. Them kids might be messed up because of the Apex, but you can't tell me that Simon ain't further fuck them up with his reign. At least we know Grace was always nice to them. I'm glad they'll have each other to figure it all out.

#BFCD Reviews by Nesha #Infinity Train #Nesha Watches Infinity Train #Grace Monroe #Nesha Watches

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coffeebeannate · 3 years

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Taken from @werebearbearbar

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2020. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

I started writing fic years and years ago. And have done so in other fandoms before taking a long hiatus from the writing world in general. I stuck with written roleplay only. For what I assume to be around four or five years, I did not write a single fic. (I also wrote short stories in childhood, teen years and young adult years)

(I want to point out though that this absolutely does not negate roleplay writing, and that writing with another person, or in a group is a lesser form) My break from fanfic came with one of the worst periods of my mental and physical health, and everything I had written was purged from my Ao3 account in a single night.

I started writing for The Old Guard in August, and below, are the things I like a lot that I’ve written for it. To do this, I decided to use the criteria of ‘fics I like the most’ instead of what seems to be the most popular to read. For me, if I really love a piece of work, I recall the creative process fondly, and have lines and bits of dialogue I truly adore within it.

1. Precision Mission Fic. Gala. Post-Movie. Current Group (Nile, Andy, Joe, NIcky)

Rated M (Mature) 4846 words

My second fic for the fandom that I published, but the first I actually conceptualized. This one is just..so special to me. I have phone notes typed at five am. I can recall the excitement as I was so eager to share this story and get it off the ground. I wanted to see this complete so bad. I loved nearly every second of writing it, and it’s always going to hold a special place in my heart as a result. There’s so much overdone clothing talk and I can only think of it with fondness.

Excerpt:

None of them are comfortable. Except Joe, it seems.

Joe makes it look easy. Simplistic, even, judging by the way he effortlessly glides and charms his way through the expansive ball/congregating/entertaining room. Something that never failed to fascinate Nicky was the way Joe could integrate himself almost seamlessly into any scenario, situation, or environment. Neither Andy nor himself had that ability. Not when it came to cavorting, anyway. Nicky more quietly reserved, Andy lacking in the ability to care enough to fake it.

Nile seemed to be more in the middle. She did not appear overly comfortable with the mingling, but she had enough personal grace and adaptability to make it seem somewhat effortless to have a decent time.

All their eyes remained sharp on the surrounding area, awaiting the arrival of their target. And for all his schmoozing, Nicky knew Joe’s surveillance was tack-sharp, multitasking to a degree no one he was currently conversing with could have possibly noticed.

“You going to move at some point, or have you taken up permanent resident status here?” Nile asks, appearing at his side where Nicky has spent the last half-hour molded to the furthest left corner of the solid black bar. “I know you have an excellent view, but.”

Nicky snorted, though only Nile could actually tell, “Why waste a good opportunity?”, momentarily ceasing his Joe watching to stare back into the depths of his glass, which currently contained some horrifically shocking pink abomination, Nicky’s second drink, since he was letting the bar tender dictate them, too utterly distracted to care what was touching his lips, and curious with the way the bar tender had delighted in being given free reign to make whatever he desired.

To be fair, it didn’t taste that bad-something frighteningly sugary and weirdly noxious smelling, but it’s not exactly ‘crime against humanity’ levels of alcoholic nightmares.

2. Old

Post-movie. Current Group. (Andy, Nile, Joe, Nicky) Mortal Andy. Character study.

Rated T (Teen and Up Audiences), 2903 words.

My first attempt at Andy-centric writing. Andy is a character I consider a challenge to write, and that makes me want to write her more. This fic centers mostly around her and the others trying to come to terms with how much has happened, within day to day life and taking the comfort that they can in one another.

I really like this fic. A lot. Sure it’s short. Sure maybe not much happens, but Andy’s character fascinates me, as does her relationship with her family.

Excerpt:

Old.

Old

So motherfucking old.

Someone is calling out to her, her hearing and senses long fine-tuned to knowing. It’s Nicky- she can easily pretend she can’t hear him, he knows when she doesn’t want to talk to anyone, after all.

She’s being petty, and she knows it’s unfair. That the nearly untouched plate and nights spent not sleeping gives them reason to be at her. But facing them with that fact feels about as ideal as jumping into a flaming volcano right about now. They’re just worried. It makes her stomach turn, sour and vicious. Venom in the gut, acid in the heart.

Said volcano would be kinder.

3. Spice it Up (Or Not)

Joe and Nicky. Pre-Movie. Fluffy Lovings

Rated: E (Explicit) 3030 words

This one was just fun. I am such a sucker for banting, and the most established of established relationships that Nicky and Joe have going on. This one is indeed not safe for work, and honestly, the opening paragraphs are what came first, and I actually had to build the story around it.

Something that I think makes this fic fun to me as well is that, just because something that sounded like a good idea fails, it doesn’t make it an ending. Healthy communication, knowing each other..it’s so blissful to think about.

Things aren’t always perfect, but that’s okay. And it’s not always a threat. Oh and because this is me, what was supposed to be fairly light hearted gets all sappy and reflective mid-way.

Excerpt:

He knows Nicky in every way. He knows his scent from battle, from sex, from showers and from sleep. He knows his eyes in darkness, in light, in dread, excitement and worry. He knows his grief, his love, his sadness, and adoration. Excitement, passion, fear, and pain.

He could count each tear that Nicky has shed, could recall each tone of his voice in every language they know. From the first he heard to the current. The sweet harmony of song and the rough gasp of drunk intoxication. He’s heard him yell, heard him scream. Heard his shouts and his cries.

He knows how Nicky tends to favour his left shoulder even though there’s no reason beyond psychological to do so. A spot Joe stabbed so long ago. So far back in another life. He knows how he likes to pause and do surveillance before they enter any new location. Knows he likes vehicles that move fast and has a fondness for roller coasters.

He’s seen those hands, so large and skilled break bone, wield a sword and cut vegetables and fruit. Seen them card through his hair, felt them map out each knot and ridge in his spine and ribs, felt them so deep inside himself he can taste it. Rolling into it. Demanding, needing.

“Yusuf.” Nicky’s not calling him back, Nicky’s just as far gone. So often they seem to share thoughts.

Nicky knows Joe in all ways and more. Knows that Joe still sometimes seems to speak ancient by-gone languages in his sleep. Knows that he tends to carry the strongest personal scent in the dead of night. That no shower, no soap, no life experience or battle has truly ever masked the delightful musk he has to himself. There could be a cologne out there that would modify it, and Nicky would bite and lick it away. Demanding and asking, why take this from me? How dare you try to alter what I know and love so furiously?

4. Touch Before Heart

Historical Kaysanova. Early Years. Pre-Movie. Getting to Know Eachother.

Rated E (Explicit) 5030 words

As is pretty obvious by now, I write a LOT of early years Kaysanova. A lot. I am addicted to it.

This one..I love it. This might be one of my favourite pieces of writing of all time. If I was doing these numbers strictly in order preference, then I’d put it as number one I bet.

I think the summary I made for it sums up well just how much I love it. And maybe why.

The first moment they’re able to have a bath, they resolutely do not look at each other. Picking opposite ends of the small stream bed, backs turned to one another. A strange show of both trust and distrust; their backs were exposed, but it was up to their tentative mutual agreement to not partake in the opportunity to stab each other for it.

The..idea that they had so much to learn, so much to understand. So much confusion, anger mistrust..I just really really adore this fic and I think I did a good job with it.

Excerpt:

He curses in unison with Nicolò, both holding fast and steady as the thing finally rights itself, Nicolò letting out a slow, shaken breath of relief.

“Are you alright?” Yusuf asks, both to break the silence and mend the irritating gap they’ve created for themselves.

“Better. Thank you.”

Yusuf wants to scream.

He wants to grab Nicolò, shake him until he can do nothing but give him answers.

Why do you drive me to the brink of madness?

Why do I know your touch, but not your heart?

Why do you tempt me, consume me?

What does it mean?

Why are we here?

Why!?

It is an unfair desire; he’s hardly given the man any more clarity.

5. Curated

Post-Movie. Current Group (Nile, Andy, Joe, Nicky)

Rated G (General Audiences) 1807 words

Alright, I admit it, I had trouble picking number five. I picked Curated because it’s just..so fluffy. But it’s so sweet I always feel so sugary when I think of it. The softness that I tried to convey, and I think I succeeded.

Nile is another character that fascinates me, that I just do not explore enough, and this is all the comforting goodness I could ever hope to create.

Excerpt:

She’s grown used to the easy intimacy they all share, but the sight before her, Nicky’s eyes half-lidded, face a perfect serenity she rarely see’s on it, Joe lost, far-away in reciting but still wholly present, creates an odd, near-throbbing ache in her chest. Something powerful and raw. It’s hard to imagine that people who have been alive this long can be this content.

Everything they’ve seen, experienced and done. All the stories they’ve regaled her with. All the prep, the anxieties, the concerns, and curiosities. None of it seems to exist in these moments. Joe speaking in a language the world might think dead, the true master of softness within the room.

And there we have it! I have so much more I want to write, I have so much more I want to explore, and I thank you all for sharing in these journey’s with me. May there be more writing in our future!

#nate does writing #end of year fic thing #self positivity #things nate has written #long post

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songtoyou · 4 years

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Chapter One: West Bridgewater

Paring: Ransom Drysdale x Fabiola Rossi (OC)

Rating: This story will mostly be rated 18+ as it is revolves around a relationship that is Dominant/submissive. For each chapter, I will do my best to rate it accordingly, but please know that the overall story will have very adult themes.

Warnings: None for this chapter

Word Count: 2,305

Description: Huge “Ransom” Drysdale always thought of himself as a powerful man. With his family’s money and status, Ransom could get away with anything. He had the power and control others would envy. Ransom could get any woman he wanted with a snap of his fingers. He was always in charge. He commanded attention. And he hated it. Never having a job in his life (thanks to his mother, father, and grandfather always there to supplement his bank account) or any real-life goals, Ransom felt incomplete and directionless. That is until Fabiola Rossi entered his life and turned it completely upside down.

A/N: I have not seen Knives Out. This is an AU of that world. I do not own any of the characters created by Rian Johnson. I have always thought of Ransom as a sub rather than a Dominant and this idea has been on my mind constantly that I needed to write it down. Anything in italics are to represent Ransom’s thoughts.

I do not permit any of my fics to be distributed on other sites without my permission.

Updated for grammar and punctuation edits.

What is a dominant-submissive relationship all about? As mentioned previously, there is an energy dynamic between the two partners. It is the Dominant’s duty to protect and guide his or her submissive. The submissive, also called “the bottom,” relinquishes some or all control to the Dominant. He or she is playing out their own kinds and fetishes through the guidance of a Dominant. No actions or scenes can be played out unless the submissive has consented to everything the Dominant plans to do during a play session. A D/s relationship is not solely about sexual activities but exploring new and interesting ways to connect beyond sex. For example, the Dominate can set up simple rules that the submissive must follow, such as asking permission to stay out late or have ice cream for dessert. A healthy D/s relationship can lead to a life of self-improvement.

“You got some mouth on you…I bet a ball gag would fit nicely around those pretty lips of yours.”

For some reason, Ransom could not get that comment out of his head. It was so unexpected and out of leftfield. He never had a woman said anything so bold towards him. No stranger to bondage with the opposite sex, it was always Ransom who was the one in charge. Women were more than happy for him to lead the charge. It was the only time Ransom was ever put to work, so to speak. Fabiola Rossi had managed to not only mystify the spoiled playboy, but he was not determined to find out more about her.

So, Ransom did one any person in their mid-30s did when trying to find information about another person, he stalked her social media. He came up short. No Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram that he could find of her unless they were private.

“This is Fabiola Rossi. She is an inspiring editor herself. I have taken her under my wing as a mentor.” Ransom remembered from the night before when creepy old Charlie Van Houten introduced his grandfather and him to Fabiola.

Of course, Fabiola had a LinkedIn page as she was a young working professional. Ransom saw that she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Psychology at Boston University. He noticed it had only been five years since she graduated from the university, so he suspected she was in her late twenties. Most of the jobs Fabiola received were internships or part-time positions. Not unusual for graduates looking to enter into the workforce. There was not much to offer due to the Baby Boomers not wanting to retire or companies being stingy with providing decent living wages or health benefits.

“Intern. Van Houten & Thompson Publishing. March 2019 to current. Performs proofreading and editing of manuscripts and additional documents before the final publication,” Ransom read out loud as he continued to look through Fabiola’s profile.

He got up to reach for his coat to pull out his wallet. Inside was a business card of Charlie’s that he gave Ransom before leaving his grandfather’s party. Charlie told Ransom to keep in touch and that they both could talk about possibly working together.

“If you have been working on anything, send it over. In fact, send it over to Fabiola. She’d probably love to read it and give you feedback. Give him your email address, honey. Any work you send over to her will be in great hands,” Ransom remembered Charlie saying to him last night. He looked over the business card and traced his thumb over Fabiola’s handwriting of her email address.

He could not understand why this particular woman intrigued him so, despite only meeting her briefly the night before. However, Ransom knew he had an itch to scratch, and it was better to get it taken care of now before things got too out of hand. Before he became too obsessed.

Turning on his laptop, he waited for it to boot up. Opening his email account, Ransom began composing a new email to Fabiola. He kept it short and simple by asking if she was still up looking over what he was currently working on.

Hi Ms. Rossi,

It was a pleasure meeting you last night. Hope you are doing well. If you are not too busy, do you mind if I send over the story I am currently working on? I do not want to impose if your schedule is too busy, but Charlie had such high praise for you, and I would appreciate the feedback and insight from you.

Talk to you soon,

Ransom

He clicked the ‘send’ button and waited. Thankfully, he did not have to wait too long for a response back.

Hi Ransom,

I am so glad you reached out. Please call me Fabiola.

Yes, I would be more than happy to beta read anything you send over.

Sincerely,

Fabiola

“Hook, line, and sinker,” Ransom said to himself with a smirk plastering over his face. He knew exactly which of his work he would send over. It was one Ransom had finished a while back. A story about the measures of what a mother would do to prove her child’s innocence when they are accused of a crime. It was one of his more personal pieces of work. He was somewhat anxious to get feedback on it. He sent it over to Fabiola as an attachment. Now, Ransom was in wait and see mode. ‘Who knows how long until she gets to actually reading it,’ he thought to himself.

Three long agonizing days later, Ransom finally heard back from Fabiola when he checked his email that afternoon.

Ransom,

How are you?

Sorry I have not gotten back to you sooner. Your story is amazing! I could not put it down. I actually read it twice. It had me on the edge of my seat the entire time and had a lot of heart. You are such a good writer.

I do have some suggestions for you if you do not mind. However, I do not want to merely give them to you via email or comments in the document. Would it be okay if the two of us meet up for coffee sometime this week? It would be easier to talk to you about the recommendations face-to-face.

Any suggestions on where we could meet up? I don’t mind traveling to your neck of the woods if it is more convenient for you.

Fabiola

Ransom was thrilled that not only did she like his work but was willing to meet him in person. He quickly wrote her back suggesting a meeting at a little coffee shop in West Bridgewater. It would only be a 34-minute drive for Fabiola to get to him. Honestly, Ransom was a bit taken aback that she was willing to drive all the way out to the boonies to talk to him in person.

The two decided to meet up on Saturday afternoon at The Bridge Coffee House, a new town establishment. A Starbucks it was not, thankfully.

When Saturday finally rolled around, Ransom dressed in his usual simple attire: gray cardigan, white long-sleeve shirt underneath, dark blue jeans, and Louis Vuitton black loafers. He gave himself a look over in the mirror one last time; he exited the house, got in his 1972 BMW 3.0 CSi, and headed to the coffee shop.

Once there, Ransom ordered an espresso and settled in a seat near the corner, but still visible for Fabiola to see him. As Ransom waited for Fabiola to arrive, his leg was shaking underneath the table. He was nervous, which was an unusual feeling for Ransom. Women hardly ever made Ransom nervous, but the woman he was meeting was for business, not pleasure.

‘Note yet at least,” Ransom thought to himself as he sipped his espresso.

The ding of the bell on the entrance door made Ransom lookup. There Fabiola was wearing a white long-sleeved fitted sweater with light blue jeans, white sneakers, and a light gray messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She looked around and noticed Ransom. Giving him a smile and wave, Fabiola made her way over to him. He stood up as she neared the table.

“Hi. How are you?” she asked and stuck out her hand for Ransom to shake.

He reciprocated the gesture and replied, “I’m good. Do you want something to drink? My treat.”

Fabiola accepted Ransom’s offer with an iced tea. “Is there a restroom around that I could use?”

Ransom pointed to where the restrooms were, and Fabiola excused herself while he got her iced tea. Paying for the iced tea, Ransom went back to the table and proceeded to wait again.

“That was quite a drive,” spoke Fabiola as she sat down in the seat across from Ransom, “Gorgeous scenery. I tend to not venture too far outside of Boston much.”

“Yeah, it is a nice quiet town. Not much goes on here.”

“I’m kind of surprised that you don’t choose to live in Boston. Figured you would want to be in a more urban area,” said Fabiola.

Ransom shifted in his seat to cross his legs, “I used to live in Boston during my 20s. Decided to move here a couple of years ago. Helped clear my head a little.”

Taking a sip of her iced tea, Fabiola asked, “Is that when you really began to write?”

Ransom let out a small laugh and cleared his throat, “Yeah…I just…needed a hobby to preoccupy my time.”

“Well, I have to tell you that it was a good idea,” said Fabiola as she began to rummage through her bag and pulled out a binder to place on the table.

“This story is outstanding,” she complimented.

Ransom felt the heat on his cheeks from her praise. It felt good to have someone appreciate his work, which was not a feeling he was used to.

“I do have some questions if you don’t mind me asking? Nothing bad, just some clarifications.”

“Sure. Ask away,” Ransom responded casually. He was doing his best to not seem too eager.

“What made you decide to have the main character a mother rather than a father? I ask that because, normally, male authors tend to write the protagonist as male. You don’t really see many male authors write crime novels with a main female character,” Fabiola pointed out and went on to tell him, “You also wrote the character really well. Like, she feels like a real person. She was fully developed and fleshed out. I was totally rooting for her throughout the whole story. And the side characters are nicely written as well. Each chapter kept the reader on its toes. You never knew what to expect. Nothing felt forced or out of place. Nothing dragged on. Here is a copy of my notes. Nothing too major. Only certain suggestions like clarification or more descriptive details for certain paragraphs.”

Ransom looked at her incredibly detailed notes. “I appreciate you doing this. Thank you,” Ransom said earnestly.

“Do you plan on getting that published?” Fabiola asked him.

Letting out a light chuckle, Ransom told her that most likely he would not.

“Why?”

“I prefer to write for myself. Not for an audience. Plus, there is the likelihood that I’ll get compared to my grandfather or people thinking that nepotism is involved,” answered Ransom as he continued to flip through Fabiola’s notes.

Fabiola merely sat back and took the time to really look at the man before her. With dark hair and blue eyes, a strong jaw, and a somewhat crooked nose, Fabiola could not deny that he was handsome. Before the meeting, Fabiola asked Charlie about what he knew about Ransom. Boy, she got an honest earful from Charlie. While Charlie complimented Ransom, there was a hint of pity in his voice.

“He’s got so much potential, but he wastes it with booze and women. The poor boy did have a stint in rehab when he was younger. It’s so parents of his. Always giving him money instead of love and affection,” Charlie shared with Fabiola.

“You don’t want to fail at the one thing you believe you are actually good at,” Fabiola stated to Ransom and added, “So, it is easier to not put yourself out there in the first place.”

Scoffing, Ransom sat back and stared at Fabiola. Now it was his turn to really look at the woman before him. With her long dark hair, brown eyes, and slender figure, he had to admit to himself that she was beautiful. But he could tell that there was more to this woman than meets the eye.

“You like to think you have me all figured out, don’t you? You think I’m some poor little rich poor?” Ransom asked with a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

“Yes,” Fabiola simply said as she folded her arms to rest on the table and continued, “You’re not some riddle, Ransom. You are quite easy to figure out. Just as I mentioned to you at the party, you are bored. However, it is not the excitement that you seek. Instead, you want guidance. You want someone to look after you and care for you. You want to surrender control. Am I wrong? Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll shut up.”

With his silence, she had her answer.

“I can give you what you need, but to do that, we need to develop trust between one another,” Fabiola communicated and reached out to grip one of Ransom’s hands. She entwined her fingers within his.

“How much?” Ransom spoke up as they looked at their entangled hands.

Fabiola shook her head and clarified, “Nothing. I’m not proposing you sex Ransom. I’m proposing to you something completely different. What do you know about BDSM or a D/s relationship?”

#chris evans #ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x ofc

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lostgirlrewatch · 4 years

Text

1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is.

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes.

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children.

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children.

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo.

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode.

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust.

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

#lost girl #bo dennis #kenzi malikov #lauren lewis #vex #doccubus #dybo #dyson #1x08

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thebeauregardbros · 5 years

Text

A collection of unfinished character writing drafts.

Meet my character [here].

1: Things

Alus loved his things. His antique teacups he’d carefully procured for his café, his lavish clothes he was so specific about - always cleaning them with the fanciest of alchemetical chemicals to keep them pure white. He loved his shoes, the ribbons he braided into his hair, the silk flower accessories that completed his every look - He loved hair brushes, his rare makeup products, all these things that made him feel unique and powerful to be himself.

These things were all pointless in reality - things that could rip and break at any moment, things that were not useful in the life of a war field healer. Though he had the respect of a commanding hero in the Maelstrom and a Warrior of Light, the whispers of his overgrown vanity for things so specific to his tastes flourished always - more every time he showed up wearing an even more expensive garment of fragile lace and silks. Alus was a kind and floaty person, however, that even if someone were to decide they disliked him, it would rarely ever escalate to a truly bad place - Alus was rarely ever bothered by others’ negative emotions, and always patiently tried to help them out of it in his solid belief that sadness and anger tends to come from a person’s own self instead of others. Alus rarely blamed; he did not believe in the idea of it.

Alus could explain about the subjects of his vanity.. but he knew he was ultimately foolish in their eyes, and he knew their ideas were valid about him.

2: Death

Alus often did his best to finish his enemies off nonlethally. But sometimes, people still die. A person with a preexisting medical condition, whether known or not, could get one last push to knock on death’s door. Alus lamented for ages over the deaths he caused, directly or indirectly, and regularly prayed for mercy on the souls of his fallen enemies. He knew it to not be enough, but he also knew

3: Psychology

Alus had a problem with truly ever hating anyone. In his view it was not a problem, but to his brother - and nearly everyone else at war - it was something unnecessary and foolish. He was often strong enough to hold his ideals up, but when he failed, his failures felt all the more horrible and self-inflicted. Yet he still didn’t learn to think differently - even when he witnessed his friends die in front of him, even when he was held for moons in secret in a Garlean camp and tortured endlessly, even when he faced the monstrosity of Zenos - he felt pity more than anger. He had no desire to kill anyone. That is not to say he did not when he had to, but he never felt the judgement of Nald and Thal could ever possibly be just - not when he knew that any villain could reform themselves. He truly believed, above all, that every single person was born with good in their heart. He would betray the twelve to keep this ideal in his heart. Even when the warriors of darkness told him that would bring an inevitable end to his world, Alus just... did not care.

Alus understood that the death of one could save many more. But he still reached out his hand to any he ever felt could possibly take it. The scars on his body from the various stabs, slashes, and burns of betrayal in his trust made most of the skin under his clothes feel numb. Yet he did not stop. Why?

“I took that choice. I know that even if they do not understand why I fight for them, I live and continue to fight wanting one more smile. Is that not why you fought, as well?” he said to the jailed warlord. “I understand that my stance is oft foolish. But like you, I am stubborn.”

4: Stargazing

Alus was never one to be up during the night. Historically, it seemed like he hadn’t truly stargazed in years now - not since his childhood days travelling by caravan with his father and brother, mischievously waking up in the ill hours of the night to climb up on top of their carriage and lay facing up, meditating for seeming bells, staring in wonder at the beautiful sparkling gemstones of Thanalan’s sky. In one such event the siblings slept on top of the carriage, and a frantic Gwenneg Beauregard woke up in a panic trying to find them again.

Whilst his years at school, he had a strict curfew. ‘Twas that, or

5: Childhood

In childhood - tales of heroes were treasures, valued like prized rubies or diamonds or hundreds of coins of gold, unable to be lifted by the small fragile hands of the young cat-tailed twins. A pat on the head, a warm snuggle in a shared blanket - their eyes shined in response and reflection to these sparkling metaphorical stones, listening intently for every possible tip to also one day save the world from dragons, evil encroaching empires and even simple bandits threatening the dignity of pretty maidens - in such of saying mean things, of course.

The silver-haired man looked nothing like them; his limbs were long and lanky, his ears pointed from his sides - but he was also their hero as an adoptive father, a man to give them a name. He was a man who purchased dreams and stories in exchange for walking legs, always doing his best to bring the boys a new hope for their world; their happiness and smiling faces was the sparkling stony treasure to him, far more valuable than money or personal romance. Their life was hard, but full of color and wonder, never ceasing. When times grew minimal, the silver-haired Gwenneg brought the brothers to hear heroes’ stories first-hand from the source - Alus and Arc’s beliefs in heroism never ceased, was never doubted, their love for stories only increased as time passed. They trusted the world, they adored the world, they wished to grow up strong to join the ranks of Hydaelyn’s chosen to also protect this world from ‘baddies’, making more and more good-hearted friends along the way. To Gwenneg, he had created heroes of inevitable time, he created the knowledge two rowdy twins would impart kindness onto others as he did upon them. To Gwenneg, he himself was a hero; he would be there to support them.

At least, that was a happy ending that they all wished would exist.

One small mistake. One small misunderstanding, and like a wick – a flame blown out, a story ended unlike any he had previously told them. The question as to why such an occurrence existed in a land the brothers believed to be full of wondrous heroism, unwavering victories even at the last second - it eats away at the back of their brains to this day, resurfacing within every moral injustice that occurred in front of them long after. Although the calamity of the fallen moon was ultimately a victory for Eorzea, their father - as well as many others - still perished. The world was still cracked and destroyed. Being a hero was just not enough to save everything on that day.

Alus and Arc - still but teenagers - found themselves incredibly lost. While Alus passively followed suggestions of friends of family to become a private school student, funded by the generousity of Gwenneg’s former companions - Arc seemed to disassociate entirely and try to find his own path. Alus spent the next several years with his heads in the clouds, quiet and unsocial.

6: A Letter

Dear Father

‘Tis hath been the longest journey at this time. I wish nothing more than dost progress far away from this living hell; For the chaos hath been brought upon us of our own undoing, and dost we respect an inevitable incoming judgement: One I shall never agree with, yet still ethically cannot seek much more in hopes. Hath I became a true pessimist when it was I who believed to have kindness in mine heart? Tired am I to play devil’s advocate when I hath been trying much too hard to play an angel to get into the 7th and highest heaven. I must forgive.

I am no longer a warrior of light.

7: Hero

Passion, bravery, a will of protection above all else - duty, honor. These are the things that made Alus fight so well. A pure heart, a righteous ideal. Nothing could stop him - nothing, he had felt, in that moment of clashing metal.

But as the villain fell to his knees - Alus felt a chill go up his spine. His hand suddenly felt so sore from gripping the hilt of his sword so intensely and for so long, yet he only noticed it now. His eyes widened, his sword arm went limp, and his body nearly staggered backwards - He could feel the eyes of his military superiors on his back though they may not be there. He could feel the eyes of far-off aspiring adventurers wince up in disappointment if he dropped his sword. He did not understand what to believe in that very moment, that quick - short moment of weakness where everything in his head came crashing down.

Arc had placed a hand on Alus’ arm, and swiftly landed a kick to the villain’s face - finally felling him to the ground and knocking him unconscious. Alus could feel his heart tighten in that moment. “H… he’s al..right .. right…?” Alus spoke quietly to his brother, his voice shaking and cold.

8: Inner Thoughts

I wanted to be a hero.

What kind of hero murders those just like him?

Those with dreams just as passionate, and those who didn’t even know why they were here?

Those who were innocent until proven guilty, and I have the right to make the judgment? I have the right to play god, to decide who lives and who dies?

#alus beauregard #writing #ffxiv rp #final fantasy xiv rp #most of these are several years old fyi

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princeasimdiya12 · 5 years

Note

i got an idea: CU/NGE au. erica in shinji's spot, george as asuka, and harold as rei. oh and crackers is Pen Pen

Oh boy. Well I do think the idea is certainly interesting and I already have a few choices for the main cast. Although I need to take alot of artistic liberties regarding the tone since this series is DARK. Also, with all due respect, I’m gonna have to switch out the character roles you picked out for other ones if that’s cool.

With that I present Captain Underpants and the Nightmarishly Gregarious Escapades of Neon Genesis Evangelion

So to start, I actually want George and Harold to share the role of Shinji. Just like the start of the series, both of them lost their parents due to a horrific accident that occurred at NERV headquarters and how they were left at a boarding school by the director of NERV who could care less about them. The impact of their parental loss along with being abandoned was hard on the boys, but they always had each other for emotional support as they grew up. Together, they both pilot Unit CPN-UNDRPN5. The director of NERV wanted the mecha to look just like him but after the boys pilot the suit for the first time, they give him a dramatic makeover by giving him a cape and underwear. After their first successful takedown of Malakai the Turbo Toilet, the staff at NERV decide to roll with their Unit’s ridiculous appearance much to the director’s frustration. Despite their own issues with their abandonment, they decide to make the most of their situation in order to save the world. Plus all these battles against cartoony alien monsters gives them more inspiration when making comic books.

Next up, I actually envisioned Erica as Rei. Both of them are stoic, serious minded girls who prefer to keep their distance. While she may be friendly with the boys during leisurely hours, she has a hard time accepting them as friends. Mainly because she doesn’t see much value in making friends during the end of times. Before and even after the boys arrived, Erica is considered one of the top pilots as she has an incredible track record of defeating multiple angels on her own. Even after she sustains multiple injuries from fights that are considered too dangerous, she always turns out great the next day. She pilots Unit PLNGR-1NA which comes equipped with two giant plungers.

And the third/fourth member of the pilots is Melvin as Asuka. Both of them are hot-headed red heads who do not get along well with the main protagonists because of their contrasting ideals. He’s also an accomplished pilot who has used his technological skills to improve the fighting capabilities of his Unit MLVN-B0RG to endure much longer than the standard Unit. Despite his achievements, he’s still brushed off as a kid in the world of adults. What’s worse is that the adults tend to use his ideas and only give him an ounce of praise to pacify him and send him on his way. He feels frustration over how he rarely gets the praise and appreciation he deserves, especially for all he does for the organization.

Now for the adults.

As you can guess, Krupp would be the Gendo Ikari of this AU. They’re both horrible, selfish, arrogant leader figures who are all too willing to exploit children for their own nefarious purposes. Krupp was initially asked to care for George and Harold after their parents’ death which he was indirectly responsible for, but he didn’t want to be bothered by them so he had them sent to a boarding school. This has resulted in the boys developing a secret hatred for him. And while it would be too easy to make him into a complete monster just like Gendo, I would like to include some redeeming qualities. Like for instance, as the battles against the angels become more dangerous and mentally scarring, Krupp begins to second guess as to whether it’s a good idea to actually send kids to do the dirty work. At first he didn’t mind so much since to him a kid battling a giant monster in a robot suit is every child’s fantasy. But it becomes impossibly concerning when the kid ends up having a mental breakdown and all the adults stop to question whether any of this is a good idea. The Hedgehog’s Dilemma would also be explored here as Krupp starts to feel guilty over how the boys are getting emotionally distressed with each Angel battle and over what he did in the past.

For the role of caregiver and senior officer, I chose Edith as Misato. Both of them are friendly, cheerful and slightly awkward young women who are assigned to watch after the boys. She makes alot of effort into helping the boys with their issues and providing emotional support during their times of stress. During work, she proves to be very competent as she organizes the main operations behind the NERV defenses as well as maintaining relationships with her organization and the outside world. And just like Misato, Edith was one of the few survivors of the Second Impact which left alot of psychological trauma after she was found. There were also alot of rumors that painted her as an alien in disguise as there’s no way any normal human would have survived the Impact. Also, she has a closer relationship with Krupp then Misato did with Gendo. He still cares about her and treats her with more compassion and gentleness compared to his coworkers. It’s also thanks to her influence that Krupp starts to take notice of the pilots who are making him successful to begin with.

For Ritsuko’s role, I wanted place Ms. Anthrope as the chief scientist of NERV. She works closely alongside Krupp and Melvin regarding the technological systems that maintain the Units. She’s also a close friend of Edith and is the only one who is able to understand her trauma after the Impact as well as the pressures she feels as a senior officer. She’s also aware of her growing relationship with Krupp and she feels a bit of jealousy; Anthrope has been working alongside Krupp since Day 1 and knows all about his issues and the dark secrets behind NERV. She can’t help but feel that she deserves to be recognized more for what she does behind the scenes.

Then there’s Mr. Ree as Kaji, an old acquaintance of Edith who is also a double agent working both for NERV and the government in order to keep track of NERV’s dubious schemes. Much to Krupp’s relief, Ree isn’t interested in Edith romantically but he does care about her as a friend and pushes her to question whether her organization is as righteous as it makes itself out to be. He also serves as Melvin’s primary caregiver after his parents ‘went away’ on business.

Other minor characters include….

Professor Poopypants as Kozo Fuyutsuki. Krupp’s right hand man who helped organize NERV and helped create the Units aswell as study the nature of the Angels.

Ribble, Meaner and Fyde as the trio of First Lieutenants who often oversee the Unit vs Angel battles alongside Edith as they keep track of the Units when they obtain damage.

Bo, Gooch and Dressy as Toji, Kensuke and Hikari respectively. Ordinary classmates of the boys who often stay on the sidelines and cheer for them.

Crackers as Pen Pen: The adorable bird like mascot.

And below the line will include spoilers for this AU as well as the one will be casted as Kaworu Nagisa.

So for starters, Poopypants will turn out to be a “twist villain” in the endgame. His motivations of using the EVA Units and having the children fight with them was a way to experiment them in order to create perfect Units. He’s also been capturing and hording the remains of the Angels that were defeated in order to study their alien biology and unlock their powers in the hopes of using their power to improve his technology. He reveals this secret to Krupp and Anthrope knowing that neither of them will tell since they too are also involved NERV’s seedy actions so they’ll also be imprisoned for their crimes.

Next up, Erica comes from a series of clones. Having found the perfect human who’s body reacts perfectly to the Angel DNA, Poopypants decided to create an army of expendable clones to continue the Unit vs Angel battles regardless of the damage it was doing to the Erica pilots. Only Anthrope has been charged as the main supervisor for this side project but after seeing the recent Erica clone making meaningful bonds with the boys and growing as a person, she decides to pull the plug on the project to keep Erica safe.

And finally, for the role of Kaworu Nagisa, I actually envision none other than Dav Pilkey for the role. As the mastermind behind the Angel attacks, Dav initially wanted to reconnect with Earth as for too long they’ve become disconnected and have subjected their world as being serious, oppressive, cruel and self-serving. The Angels, which all consist of wacky monsters of the weeks from the books and cartoon, were created to destroy the symbols of that corruption as well as connect with the children pilots in the hopes of reaching out to them. And it isn’t until he makes his presence known to George and Harold do they really understand what he was trying to do all along.

And that’s all I have so far for this AU. Thank you to those who actually read this whole thing. And if you have any comments or ideas for this AU, you’re more than welcome to share them by reblogging this post and adding your comments.

#captain underpants #neon genesis evangelion #evangelion au #george beard #harold hutchins #erica wang #melvin sneedly #mr. krupp #edith #ms. anthrope #mr. rhee #professor poopypants #anon

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thursdays-fallen-angel · 5 years

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Outside the Midnight Hour

@deancaswc ; @thursdays-fallen-angel vs. @jimminovak Prompt: Book Title “Outside the Midnight Hour” Word count: 3.1k Rating: T Summary: Dean has a chance to be cast in the movie of a lifetime, but it’s down to the author of the film’s source material to decide if he’s going to get the job or not.

When Dean’s agent calls him, he’s sure that it’s going to be with a rejection. Based on the vibe Dean had gotten in the audition room, the amount of money going into this project—there’s no way in hell they’re going to take him.

After all, this film isn’t like any other that Dean has even so much as auditioned for, let alone been a part of. A paranormal, action-based movie with a heavy focus on psychological aspects and themes of self-exploration? With that much going on, it’s going to have to be perfect.

And the director, Cain Mullen, is one of the best in the industry. He won’t accept anything less than perfection, anyway.

Which is why Dean answers his phone with, “Alright, lay it on me. How embarrassed do I have to be for even trying for this thing?”

There’s a beat of silence on the other end of the line, and then Charlie asks, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Dean slumps down onto his couch, his pout directed up at the ceiling. It’s a decent apartment in a decent area of LA, but overall, nothing to write home about; being an up and coming actor doesn’t quite have the same pizazz to it as being a fully-fledged one does.

If he had just landed this gig…

He sighs into his phone. “Beyond the Midnight Hour. Cain didn’t seem all that impressed during my reading, so how bad is it looking? Maybe I should stick to mediocre romcoms and B-list horror stuff.”

Charlie makes a sound of outrage in reply, and when she speaks next, her voice has taken on that unmistakable, I am your agent and that means I know best, mister, attitude. “Dean Winchester, you are better than those movies, and one day I’m going to make you believe it. And guess what! That day is today, so strap in, bucko.”

Dean blinks. That’s sounding an awful lot like she’s saying…

“Strap in for what, Charlie?”

He can practically hear his agent’s wolfish grin. “You’ve got a meeting, Winchester. A couple people at the studio want to talk to you.”

Dean sits up so quickly that his head spins—or is that happening anyway? “You mean I—?”

“You’re one of two choices,” Charlie is quick to cut in, and there’s the other shoe that Dean knew had to be waiting somewhere. “But Dean, it’s looking really good. The director and a few producers want to talk to you, maybe run you through some more lines, and then they’ll make their decision.”

Okay. Okay, Dean can handle that. One-on-one with another actor, and if he comes out ahead, he could potentially be the lead of the movie of the year. Should be easy enough. All he has to do is win over the directors and producers. Right?

He takes a deep breath, determination taking root. “Alright, Charlie. Send me the details.”

Dean arrives at the studio’s main office only a few hours after Charlie’s call, dressed in his best with his stomach twisted into knots. A receptionist leads him to a conference room that has been set up like an informal get-together space, with the table pushed off to the side of the room and an array of basic snacks and drinks spread across it.

There are only two other people in the room, one of whom Dean recognizes immediately.

Cain appears to be deep in conversation with the room’s one other occupant, but he looks up when Dean enters, and his face splits into a grin. “Ah, Mr. Winchester! I’m so glad you could join us.”

Cain crosses the room and grabs Dean’s hand for a firm, overexcited handshake. Dean tries his best not to gape like a damn fish the whole time, but he only barely manages to return the handshake by the time Cain moves on.

“I trust your agent explained to you what we’re looking for today,” the director says, a heavy hand now laying on Dean’s shoulder. “Our team is in a dead split between casting you or Michael Godson as our lead, and that means we’ve brought it down to our tiebreaker.”

Multiple alarms immediately begin to ring in Dean’s mind. A dead split? Him and Michael Godson? Charlie hadn’t made it sound quite so dire, and she definitely hadn’t told Dean who his competition was—though it’s probably fair that she didn’t, because if she had, there’s no way Dean would have shown up at all.

Michael is a pro with a resume that’s a hell of a lot better than Dean’s. Dean might have some decent acting chops, but if it comes down to it, in what setting could he ever possibly hope to beat Michael?

He croaks out, feeling slightly faint, “Tiebreaker, huh?”

Cain nods, then uses the hand he has on Dean’s shoulder to lead him over to the man he had previously been talking to. The guy has been hovering since Dean arrived, looking awkward in the background, and Dean tries not to look as wary as he feels when they are introduced.

Who is he? A producer? Some random pick from the crew? He definitely doesn’t seem confident in this environment, and he’s gorgeous enough that Dean knows he would remember if he’d seen him before. He looks like he’s straight out of every chick flick Dean has ever seen, with his dark, tousled hair and perfect, pink lips.

“Dean, this is Castiel Novak. You might know him as his pen name, CJ Novak—he is the author of the novel Beyond the Midnight Hour is based upon.”

Dean’s mouth goes dry. “Oh,” he says without quite meaning to. He’s heard of CJ Novak. Then, with as much enthusiasm as he can muster and a hand stuck out in Castiel’s direction, “It’s great to meet you, man. I didn’t realize this was based on a book, but based on how awesome the cut-down screenplay version is looking, you must be an amazing author.”

Castiel’s cheeks dust pink, and he belatedly accepts Dean’s offered hand. His palm is smooth and warm against Dean’s own. “Thank you, Mr. Winchester. That’s very kind of you to say.”

Once the handshake has ended, Dean gives Castiel the most charming smile he can muster. It’s not as easily managed as he might have liked, with his nerves ratcheting up as quickly as they are, but—he’s pursuing a career in acting for a reason. He can do this.

And Dean isn’t an idiot. Cain said they needed a tiebreaker, so who better to make the final decision than the man who created the story that’s being put to screen? Dean isn’t going to resort to flirting or anything so cheap to try to win the author over, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be as charismatic as possible.

“I really do want to read it,” he says, now that a beat has passed after Castiel’s thanks. “How different is—”

At that moment, there’s a knock against the conference room door. It swings inward to reveal a pair of unfamiliar faces. “Cain?” one of them calls. “Can we steal you for a second?”

“Of course.” Cain smiles at the pair in the doorway, then turns back to Dean and Castiel to clap a hand to each of their shoulders. “I’ll be back shortly. I’ll see about rounding up the rest of the producers, too, before Michael arrives. Play nice, you two.”

Cain strides out of the room without a backwards glance. When the door closes behind him, the conference room is thrown into an awkward silence. Dean and Castiel both stare at the door instead of each other. Castiel shifts his weight from one foot to the other; Dean clears his throat. They end up turning to each other at the exact same time.

“Well, I guess—”

“I feel like I should apologize—”

Each of them cuts off. Dean’s smile turns sheepish, and Castiel presses his lips together in embarrassment.

“Uh—sorry.” Dean forces himself to chuckle and rubs uncomfortably at the back of his neck. Smooth, Winchester. “What do you want to apologize for?”

“I was going to apologize in advance for being as socially awkward as I am,” Castiel confesses with a chuckle that’s far more authentic than Dean’s had been. “But I think I proved myself quickly enough on that matter. Cain promised me he wouldn’t leave me alone, and yet…”

Oh. Well. Now Dean feels even more awkward. He tries to push through it. “Well, I can’t exactly say anything for Cain ditching you with me, but I’ll try not to make this any harder on you than it has to be. I’m a chill guy, I promise.”

Castiel squints at him like he doesn’t know how to interpret that statement. Dean’s confidence begins to fizzle.

He swallows hard. “Anyways, uh. I know actors tend to be flashy assholes, but that’s not my style. My little brother’s a quiet type, too, so believe me when I say that’s something I can handle. He’s going through law school right now. Pretty different path than the one I’m on.”

Castiel tilts his head at that, intrigued. “Those are definitely very different paths,” he agrees. “Your brother wants to serve people, and you want to entertain them. Why?”

Dean shrugs. “Just our lots in life, I guess. Sam’s always been a brainiac. Reading, writing, following along with political activist groups. I modelled a bit when I was a teenager, and I followed that line of work to make sure I stayed employed. Money’s important when you’re raising a kid sibling as your own.”

“Raising him as your own?” Castiel echoes, but Dean is sure that they’ve already discussed this more than they should. They’re not here to talk about him.

Or, well. Maybe they are, in a way. But not like this. His personal drama doesn’t mean a damn thing, as far as his career is concerned.

“How different is Beyond the Midnight Hour the book from Beyond the Midnight Hour the movie?”

“Oh. Um.” Castiel clears his throat, but thankfully has the good grace to let the subject be changed. He settles his weight back on his heels as he switches to thinking about a subject he’s actually familiar with. Dean can see how much it relaxes him; the difference in his posture is like night and day. “Actually, the novel I wrote is called Outside the Midnight Hour. After the film rights were sold, the studio came to me with the idea of changing it for the movie adaptation. Something about original titles and alphabetic preference, I don’t fully remember. I was too happy to be getting a movie to care.”

“Oh.” Dean wrinkles his nose without thinking. “You weren’t offended by that? I mean, you must have worked your ass off to write that book, and then after all that, some studio mooks decided to just change the title for their own reasons? The title can be the trickiest part of the whole book, right? That doesn’t sound fair.”

Castiel blinks rapidly, then stares at Dean in what seems to be a stunned silence. It takes a while for him for respond, and when he does, there’s a distant note to his voice. “I… I hadn’t actually thought about it in those terms. I wasn’t offended, but… Should I have been?”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know. If you aren’t offended, you aren’t offended, I don’t have any right to tell you how to feel. You seem like a good guy, though, Castiel—”

“Cas.”

Dean loses his grip on his rant. “What?”

Castiel’s cheeks have turned pink again. “A lot of my friends call me Cas.”

“Oh. Cas. Okay.” Dean’s face feels a bit warmer than usual now, too, because—is it just him, or does that make it sound like the two of them are becoming friends? Maybe it’s a bit too early for them to actually be at that point, but if nothing else, it’s definitely an invitation.

He clears his throat and makes an effort to remember what it was he had been saying. “Um—anyway. If you’re not offended about the title thing, that’s fine. I probably shouldn’t be saying shit that might pit you against the studio, anyway. Not if I want this job.”

“I’ve already signed my contracts,” Cas says, waving his hand in a vague gesture. “I can’t be turned against anyone. But your perspective is… interesting.” He assesses Dean for a moment, then asks, “If I were to tell you that I was offended by the change in title. What would you do about it?”

The answer to that is an easy one. Dean knows what he would do without a second of hesitation. And, even though he swears he can hear Charlie’s voice in the back of his mind telling him that it’s a bad idea, he gives that answer to Cas.

��If you weren’t into it, I wouldn’t do this movie. I know I already said this, but the screenplay is fucking incredible. You created a great story with great characters. If this movie didn’t respect your vision and earn your support, I wouldn’t want to support it, either.”

Cas’ expression goes slack with the force of his surprise. Dean can’t blame him for the reaction; he’s sure it’s not what Michael would have said.

(Dean has never met the guy, but he seems like a stuck-up prick, so he doesn’t exactly have any desire to. He knows enough from interviews and general gossip, thanks.)

“Why would you give up this film?” Cas asks—demands, really. Once he gets a grip on his surprise, he verges on being angry. “I know your work history, so I know this project is a huge opportunity for you. You told me that you started acting with the hopes of supporting your brother. This would be a better paycheck than any you have ever seen, which could help both of you. So why the hell would my opinion of something as inane as the title convince you to give up your chance?”

“Well… not just the title..” Maybe his logic doesn’t feel quite as sound now that Cas has thrown it back at him like that, but that doesn’t mean Dean is going to change his mind. “It’s your story. I’m just some guy who might be allowed to act it out. One of those things is way more important than the other.”

Cas reels back slightly. “Dean Winchester,” he starts to say, but for a long moment, nothing follows it. Dean waits, feeling uneasy (and definitely like he has blown his chance and used this alone time with Cas all wrong).

Then Cas finishes, “Dean Winchester, you are phenomenal.” In the same breath, he turns his head toward the conference room door and shouts, “Cain?”

It only takes a handful of seconds for Cain to appear, opening the door and strolling through it without a care in the world. There’s no one with him, Michael or otherwise. Dean frowns.

“Any thoughts, Castiel?” Cain asks, casting a cautious look in Dean’s direction. Cas is quick to answer him, though, redrawing his attention completely.

“Dean is the one. I would like him to have the role over Michael.”

Dean’s has just about hits the floor. He turns to Cas, abruptly feeling dizzy and certainly not understanding what the hell is happening. “What? But I… I haven’t even been in the same room as him, yet. Why would you pick me? I mean, his name alone—”

Cas cuts him off with a shake of his head. “I already spoke with Michael earlier in the day. When he thought he had a few, secret minutes alone with me, he spent his time trying to impress me with his reputation and connections. He flat-out offered to introduce me to my favorite actor if he was given the part.”

Dean blinks. “And you didn’t want to take him up on that?”

Cas shakes his head and graces Dean with a small, secret kind of smile. “I think I have a new favorite actor now, anyway. And he’s much kinder. He cares about the work itself instead of just getting the job. Better looking, too, if I’m being honest.”

Cain muffles a chuckle behind his hand. Dean stares up at him in surprise; Cas is so absorbing that Dean already managed to forget that he came back into the room. And when he does look up, the director offers Dean his hand. “I’m looking forward to working with you, Dean. I’ll make sure everything you’ll need to look through gets sent along to your agent.”

“I—” Dean swallows hard. He’s dangerously close to getting choked up, but he eagerly shakes Cain’s hand nonetheless. “Thank you, sir. I’m looking forward to working with you, too. I appreciate this opportunity.”

There. Charlie would be proud of him for that line.

Dean can sense that the meeting (or ambush, really, since that’s what it turned out to be) is going to come to an end now that the casting decision has been declared. Part of him feels like he should keep his mouth shut and let that happen, not push his luck, but as soon as Cas starts to walk away from him, presumably toward the door, something like panic grips at Dean, and he instinctively reaches after him.

“Hey Cas, wait up—” Dean leaves Cain Mullen behind in favor of catching Castiel Novak by his elbow. Cas is slow to turn around to look at him, and when he does, his blue eyes have gone round with surprise. And god, with a face like that, how is this guy just the brains behind the story? It’s almost ridiculous.

Nerves bubble through Dean, and he gently releases Cas’ elbow. Neither of them moves to put any additional space between them, though.

“I was just, uh. I was wondering.” Shit, when did Dean become so bad at this? “Do you want to maybe… grab coffee? Or something? You know, new favorite actor to new favorite author? You never did tell me how different Outside the Midnight Hour is from its movie adaptation.”

Cas stares at him. “I suppose I didn’t,” he concedes. Then, after a moment of deliberation, a smile steadily stretches across his features, lighting him up. “Favorite actor to favorite author, you say?”

Dean feigns a casual shrug. “Kinder and better looking than any other author I know.”

It’s right then that Dean learns that, when Cas smiles widely enough, his nose and eyes wrinkle with it. He already loves the look of it, even before it turns out to accompany the words, “I would very much like to get coffee with you.”

#deancaswc #jimminovak #destiel #deancas #destiel fanfic #actor!dean #author!cas #i can't believe i got this finished in time #also: they're def married by the time the film wraps #or at least close to it #makenna's writing

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spikeisawesome456 · 5 years

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So... I decided to do all of these asks, because I was bored. :-D

Obscure Asks.

1. what’s your favorite way to dress? Uhh… Comfortably. I tend to just wear yoga pants, graphic t-shirts, and a Dipper hat.

2. if you could change anything about yourself, what would it be? Ohhh… I both want to say lots of things, and nothing. Because on one hand, there are things about me that annoy me (I overshare, I sometimes get insanely hyper, like now, I can be really mean/rude, etc.…), but on the other hand, I do enjoy who I am. For all my faults, I am proud of the person I’ve become, and the person I’m still becoming. Maybe I’d make my memory better, so I could really utilize my intelligence, and stop forgetting people’s names because it’s starting to get really rude.

3. what movie/game/etc. helps you calm down? Eh… I like to play Stardew Valley, but it doesn’t help me calm down. I play it when I’m calm. It actually used to stress me out… probably not a good example. Uh… Nothing, I guess. Music helps. Sometimes. Basically, when I’m stressed, the only thing that can help is solving the problem or ignoring the problem. And if I can’t ignore it, I just… get stressed. Hugging my mom sometimes helps.

4. what does your room smell like? Like… a room? It smells okay? It recently smells like Maple Cinnamon Pancakes, because I got a Maple Cinnamon Pancake candle from Bath and Body Works, so… yeah?

5. do you like to organize? Ehh… Like to, yes. Do I do it? Noooo….

6. what kind of music would you listen to if you could only choose one? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Why Would You Ask Me This???????????? Also I’m assuming this means genre. But… Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

7. what song is your aesthetic? Um… I don’t really know my Aesthetic? I’m a bit all over the place. Girly, tom boy, shiny, glittery, matte…. Fast, slow, everything in between and outside. If you know of a song like that, then that’s me! Otherwise… Eh.

8. what color do you think goes best with your personality? Uh… No idea. I like blue, though. I’m not that calm a person, though. Well, sometimes, but not always. Well, it depends on what you mean by calm. So… Probably purple, a mix between loud red/orange and cool blue.

9. do you believe in auras? Not… really? A little? Like, we each have our own personal feel, and energy. Like, in a psychological way. But in the color way? Not really. Can people feel other’s energy better than others? Sure! But that’s just a hyper awareness of self and other, not a “six sense,” or whatever.

10. what do you wish you hated, but actually like? I don’t wish to hate anything.

11. vague about your crush(es) I… don’t have any. I decided a long time ago that crushes were stupid, after I ruined a good friendship with my weird crush. Plus, I don’t spend enough time around people to develop crushes.

12. is there someone you have mixed feelings towards? Not… really? Some of my old professors, maybe. My Abnormal Psychology professor was nice, sometimes, but could say such mean things at times about people with mental illness.

13. talk about an au or story you came up with Oh! I made up a story about a man who has two sons (though I changed it so one child, the elder, was a daughter in the last edit, so…) who sold his soul to keep them safe and happy, after he lost all his money when his business partner skipped town and left his embezzlement charges with the man. The man didn’t get sent to jail, since the small town had pity on him, but he did lose all his money, meaning his eldest, now a daughter, had to steal. Hating that, he made a deal with the devil. 2 years later, the devil (who isn’t evil, but more like the Jewish idea of the devil, who is a temptation) comes knocking and the man learns that instead of taking his soul, since the devil would get it at his death regardless (in order to make a deal with the devil you had to commit the greatest sin, murder, thus tainting your soul), the devil took the thing you loved most. For selfish men, it would be their fame and money. For lustful men, it would be their object of affection. For the man, who had made the deal for selfless reasons, it was his children, whom he loved more than anything.

The plot would have gone into the man trying to escape the devil, who graciously gave him a week to prepare, but I didn’t know how to write it, and it’s kind of been in my notes on my iPod for years. It would have ended with the devil catching up to the family, with the man finally begging the devil to let his children live, that it wasn’t their fault. And the devil would have smiled, sweetly, before killing the children while the man watched. As the devil turned away, the man would have brokenly asked why? Why he couldn’t have left them alone? And the devil would have chuckled sadly and said that it was what had always been planned. That the entire chase had been futile from the very first moment. The devil had sympathy for the man, but he couldn’t go against the orders of God (my version of the devil is kinder, more sympathetic to the plights of humans, since I view the “devil” not as an enemy, but as, I previously mentioned, a temptation. He tempts people, on God’s orders, but doesn’t have any true animosity towards humanity. He just follows orders). Finally, the man begs the devil to kill him, to end his suffering, that even an eternity in Hell would be better than living knowing he killed his children. And then, I’m split on the ending. In the dream that inspired this story, the devil smiles wickedly and says, “I thought you’d never ask,” before bashing the man (me, in the dream) over the head with a bat, since in the dream the devil was eviler. But I think it’s more poignant to let the devil laugh softly again, turn, and say “Oh, my dear man. That’s the whole point,” before walking away/disappearing.

Anyway, that was my main story idea. I really like it, and wrote about 20,000 words for it, but got stuck on the middle part. I wanted to add an old friend of the man’s, who became an alcoholic following the death of one of their old friends. The friend group fell apart after the man left for plot reasons, which I don’t have time to explain, and it grew worse until one of their friends died, and the whole friend group fell apart and she became an alcoholic. However, I wasn’t sure if this subplot took away from the whole plot, and I felt it was written poorly, so I kind of gave up. Plus, I had no idea what obstacles the devil could put in their way, since I don’t know religion. Though… I am currently taking a bible course in college, so maybe I’ll revisit the story. If anyone wants to read what I have, send me a message. :-)

14. do you like makeup? Eh… Depends. I sometimes like it. Also, after writing about my whole story, going back to these questions just feel weird. Eh.

15. do you prefer space or the ocean? I like the ocean, since I can see it more often. Though, I love looking at the stars when I can. I just live in a city with tons of light pollution and can’t ever see the stars.

16. if you could pick any planet besides earth, where would you live? ????? What other planets could I live on??? I don’t know any real planets that have life on them, and none of the 7 others we have interest me much. Or is this fictional? In which case… I don’t know?

17. what form of government do you like the most? (capitalism, socialism, etc.) Um… this took a dark turn. “Hey, what’s your favorite color??” “Do you like makeup??? :-D” “What is your political preference, you capitalist/commie scum???” This question just feels like a trap the cops laid in the middle of a silly, fun little quiz.

18. what animal would you keep as a pet, if you could? I’d keep a cat, but I’m allergic. And a little afraid. Also, I think this means like, wild animal, or mythical creature, but I wouldn’t want to keep a wild animal captive, even if I could. Same with mythical creature.

19. what do you think our purpose is in the universe? To do our best and to enjoy the life we’ve been given. This relates to the next question, but I believe that if there is a God, they’d want us to enjoy life.

20. do you believe in god(s)? Continuing from the last question, yes and no. I believe in a higher power, since I don’t see how the entire universe and life can just be random, but I don’t really believe in “God” or “gods” as humans have imagined them, as helpful or destructive forces that meddle with humanity. I believe they would be a high creature, humans unable to sense them since we don’t have the body parts available to “see” them. There would likely be multiple higher beings, but it is possible one is in charge of earth, to look over us. Though, no miracle granting or listening in, since they probably aren’t on the same timeline we are, or an entire generation to us is a second to them. The afterlife is tricky, which is why I’m so terrified to die, so I won’t go into it. But, long story short, yes. I do believe in a sort of “God.” What they mean to earth, what they want with us, I don’t know. But I do believe something created the universe, and watches over the various planets. Also, I believe that other planets have life, and that aliens may or may not have visited earth, but if they did, we might not have known, since, like with “God,” we don’t have the appendages or body parts available to “see” them. I mean, if we didn’t have eyes or ears, we’d never know what we were missing. Who knows what we can’t “see” because we don’t have the right parts?

21. is there a song you can’t handle listening to, even though you like it? Ehh…. Nothing, really. But, there was a P!nk song I had to turn off halfway through. Not because I hated it, but because it reminded me of my family too much it hurt. I didn’t really like the song, but it was okay. I think it was called Family Portrait? Update, I looked it up, and yes, it is called Family Portrait, by P!nk. It’s not completely similar to my family, but it’s close enough that it just… hurt.

22. what ex do you miss the most, if you have one? If you never date, you can never have an ex you miss the most. *Insert guy tapping his forehead meme here*

23. do you like soft, fluffy blankets or rough/smooth blankets? Soft ones. Who… who likes rough blankets??? What??? I mean, I prefer smoother ones, I guess, to super fluffy. But rough? Really??

24. what is your favorite thing to learn about? Psychology!!! I love it!

25. what country’s history do you find the most interesting? Um… I don’t really like history. I’m taking a history class, though, and I liked Islam’s history. No one country, but the history of the Middle East and Islam.

26. what do you think about genderbent ____ (insert someone here) I think this is one where you had to send in a question for. So, feel free to ask me about any genderbend you like, but warning: I tend not to like genderbent characters. I just think it’s weird, and pointless. Especially if you genderbend a character to make a gay ship straight. Like… dude. Or, vice versa, to make a straight ship gay. It’s just… unnecessary. Make new characters or find a different ship.

27. what breakup was the hardest, if you had one? *insert answer from question 22, but exchange “Ex you miss the most” for “hardest breakup”

28. do you have someone where you can’t decide if you like them romantically or just as a friend? Not really. Going back to question 11, I don’t spend enough time around people to really know. But, as I have weird understandings of friendship and love, as well as a deep loneliness that makes me emotionally invested in anyone who is even slightly a friend, this sort of happens all the time. I just want to be less lonely, usually. I’m just… bad at people. I tend not to like them, and they bore me, yet I long to be around people and have friends. So. Lots of contradictions.

29. what do you think about Tumblr discourse? Eh. I think most of it is stupid. Just… chill. The world sucks, it’s best just to do things you enjoy, don’t sweat the small stuff. Even the big stuff. If there’s nothing you can do, just… move on. Live with it, and live your life. Don’t yell at random people, even If they’re “terrible.” Nothing is black and white, and as soon as you start attacking others because of your opinion, you’re becoming a person in the wrong, even if your view is virtuous. No one is right. No one is wrong. It’s just a matter of opinion. Now, does that mean you shouldn’t argue your point? No! Your view is valid and if it matters to you, express it. But don’t hate on another because of it. Or else you lose your virtue, your moral “righteousness.” Sorry, this went in a wrong direction. But… yeah.

30. what instrument do you wish you could master? Piano, guitar, and violin. Piano the most, though.

31. how easy is it for you to be honest? Pretty easy? I tend to be honest, most often, because I don’t really see why not. But it’s also easy to tell white lies or to omit truths, if it makes my life easier. So. Eh.

32. do you have any strange interests? Nothing I can really think of? Nothing that other people aren’t interested in. I like collecting coins, but so do many others.

33. do you have any strange fears? Ehh… I’m a bit afraid of animals, but it’s mostly because I’m afraid of them hurting me, which isn’t really strange?? So… again, not really? Most of my fears are common. Maybe my fear of holes? Like, on the skin? But people have that fear, too. And it’s less a fear and more of a disgust.

34. what food do you binge on when you’re lazy? Anything I can, really. I tend not to get super hungry, so I only eat when I’m bored or “lazy”, or when I know people should eat. Also, I dislike calling it lazy, since I think that’s a negative word for a more complicated feeling. For me, at least.

35. when you get angry, how do you show it? I tend to go quiet and seethe. I don’t usually yell, though I will if the other person (my dad usually) is yelling. I prefer leaving the room, though, or else getting all “righteous”. Like, righteous fury, though I’m not always righteous when I get angry.

36. do you have any impulsive movements? (twitches, ticks, flapping, etc.) Dude, yes. I tend to crack my knuckles/twist my hands impulsively/nervously. I also tap/rub my thumb against my fingers, or move my foot. Mostly when I’m “hyper,” or possibly manic. Otherwise, when I’m more down, it’s just the cracking knuckles thing.

37. what do you listen to music on? iPod/Phone, and my computer. I tend not to listen to radio. Sometimes I’ll listen to new music on YouTube, but it’s mostly iTunes/the iPod/phone music app.

38. are you left brained or right brained? Well, we all have both right and left brains, so I am both. Since no one side of the brain can be really more dominant. Unless part of your brain is dead, like my mother’s, who is more right brained, since parts of her left brain died when she was born. But, since I understand what this question is asking, I am, really, both. I’m creative and logical. Shocker.

39. earbuds or headphones? Oh, headphones, every time. I HATE earbuds. They always fall out of my ears. I mean I’ll take them if I have nothing else, but I hate them.

40. do you like light blankets or heavy blankets? Eh…. I tend to have heavy blankets, even though it’s hot where I am, and I need a fan to keep me cool. So. Yeah.

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skulduggerypleasant · 6 years

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Twitter Q&A (8/3/18)

Derek did an impromptu Q&A session on his Twitter last night, and answered a lot of tweets in very quick succession. I really do mean a lot, and he’s not even finished with all the questions yet (although I helped him out where I could), so expect an update to this post soon enough! Under the cut, you’ll find a summary of pretty much everything that he said, excluding anything that wasn’t really relevant to a wider audience. There are, inevitably, spoilers for every book up to and including Resurrection. Anyways, enjoy!

We’ll be getting bits and pieces of information about Carol’s death—and it’s consequences—as the books go on, although it won’t be a main plot point by any means. [x]

“China is generally the hardest to write, because I have to force myself to not make jokes. Val's the easiest, because she's the most real to me.” [x]

“Skulduggery has had primarily straight relationships in the past, but pretty much all sorcerers are bi, China included. Val is, at this point in her life, kinda straight, with definite bi leanings.” [x]

Female sorcerers have a monthly menstrual cycle for however long their bodies stay young. [x] (Why do you people ask these things?)

We’re never going to be told Skulduggery’s given name. [x]

The Unnamed will be elaborated on in Phase Two. [x]

Skulduggery brushes his teeth, and he showers if his bones are dirty. [x]

Derek only decided on Ghastly’s grisly fate around Mortal Coil; up until that point, he was going to live. [x]

Derek considers Necromancy the coolest power to write, but thinks that Teleportation is ultimately the best. [x]

“If someone was taken over by [both] a Remnant and a Faceless One, the Faceless One would burn out the Remnant in an instant.” [x]

Derek has no intention of telling us how many books he has planned for the series, but we’ll probably find out eventually. [x]

“[Valkyrie’s] powers will be explored further as we go.” [x]

Only one reflection can be released at a time, and you still have a normal reflection in mirrors all the while. [x]

“I had the first idea [for the series] in the summer of 2005, and I didn't change any of the major aspects since then. The only question was whether to set it in the ‘real’ world or a fantasy world where walking skeletons weren't a big deal. Obviously, the real world won.” [x]

Valkyrie will not be teaching any other sorcerers, as she isn’t in any kind of mindset to teach, and her power set is entirely unique. [x]

We’ll learn how Mevolent died during the war in Phase Two, as well as how the alternate-dimension Mevolent managed to survive where the original did not. Also, it’s implied that there’s plenty more we’ll find out about. [x]

“Harry Potter probably influenced me the most, especially early on. I should have been confident enough to throw off those shackles, but in a way I needed them in order to find my own way of telling stories.” [x]

Derek is suitably—but not necessarily suspiciously—evasive when questioned about possible connections between Valkyrie/Darquesse and The Unnamed. [x]

Skulduggery probably can’t seal his true name, without a heart to carve the appropriate symbols into. [x]

“Okay, but when does Ghastly come back to life?” / “On a Tuesday.” [x]

We’ll find out about Valkyrie’s infamous “vision boyfriend” that Cassandra Pharos saw back in Last Stand of Dead Men. [x]

Again, Derek heavily implies we’ll see the return of alternate-universe Mevolent in future books. [x]

“I've left it open enough so that I COULD link [Skulduggery Pleasant and Demon Road], but I don't think I will, unless I have an awesome idea for a crossover...” [x]

Derek was originally intending to reveal what Saracen’s power is, but now he’s unsure if he ever will. [x]

We’ll find out what strange thing Dusk tasted in Valkyrie’s blood back in Dark Days; it was already confirmed that it was neither her Ancient lineage, or her Darquesse alter-ego. [x]

Necromancers have yet to successfully figure out a way to harness their powers without the use of an imbued object. [x]

Derek is unsure if he’ll ever write (another) Dead Men short story set during the war, as short stories are incredibly time-consuming. [x]

We’ll find out as we progress through Phase Two what, exactly, made Skulduggery quit his job at the Sanctuary. [x]

“China’s charm works on EVERYONE.” [x]

The Reflection would’ve been unable to approach the Book of Names. [x]

It’s possible for a sorcerer who has discovered their true name to achieve power equal to, or greater than, the Ancients/Faceless Ones. [x]

Valkyrie has “not yet” dressed up as Skulduggery for Halloween. [x]

“Love is love, is it not?” [x]

Gracious O’Callahan is based on one of Derek’s friends. [x]

“Where did Skulduggery find the Bentley?” / “In the Bentley shop.” [x]

The Book of Names was not the only way to discover one’s True Name, and the Book itself was created by the Ancients. [x]

“The pop culture references simply reflect the times in which the books are set. The problem is that pop culture can date a book pretty fast, but I tend not to care about things like that.” [x]

Before Skulduggery died, his face was apparently “like, super handsome and stuff.” [x] (As if that surprises anyone...)

“You can use sigils if you're, say, an Elemental, but you can't get to China's level unless you devote yourself to the discipline.” [x]

Lord Vile is not mute, he just doesn’t like to speak. [x]

It’s a possibility that we might see a villain in future who has control over older, more visceral forms of magic. (Although, I can’t say Derek’s response was notably promising, but who knows?) [x]

“Omen has a definite journey in these books. He's just trying to figure out who he is, and find his place in the world.” [x]

“Darquesse is either A) kicking Faceless One ass or B) having her ass kicked by Faceless Ones. Vile hasn't gone anywhere...” [x]

Derek promises that we haven’t seen the last of shunters, again pretty much confirming a return to the Leibniz Universe. [x]

“Solomon always liked the name, which is why he took it... and he HAD [nine] brothers but they all died mysteriously. VERY mysteriously.” [x]

Fletcher was supposed to die early on, but Derek changed his mind. [x]

Solomon Wreath once had a pet gerbil, apparently. [x]

“The Taken Name is a psychological protection, so literally all you have to do is decide on your new name, and there you go.” [x]

We may possibly get more short stories set before the first book. [x]

“As powerful as Vile was, Mevolent was more so.” [x]

There are no plans to tell us much more, if anything, about Skulduggery’s family. [x] (However, we have previously been promised that Midnight will delve a little more into Skulduggery’s past.)

“Is there any way of bringing Tanith and Ghastly back together?” / “Sure. I’ll just have to kill Tanith.” [x]

Derek listens to music while he writes: “Soundtracks only—no lyrics! Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of the Carribbean—anything big and bombastic.” [x]

Serpine has apparently used Skulduggery’s ribcage as a xylophone. [x]

Darquesse’s personality shifted away from Valkyrie’s because “she changed once her power grew; her consciousness expanded.” [x]

“[Skulduggery]’s unlikely to be the only one who's ever figured out how to do it, but I like to think that anyone else who learned how to fly lost their focus mid-flight and died screaming all the way down...” [x]

Following the death of Anton Shudder, the Midnight Hotel has been passed on to a different (unknown) owner. [x]

There probably won’t be any extra books or short stories about Milo, of Demon Road trilogy fame. [x]

We pretty much already know this, but: “[Skulduggery] is one of the few magically ambidextrous people out there.” [x]

If Derek had the chance to rewrite the series, he would save Ghastly. [x]

Skulduggery’s guilty pleasure is “watching old movies.” [x]

“Tanith is keeping busy, and Militsa SO fancies Val...” [x]

Billy-Ray Sanguine’s magic is earth-focused, so technically it could be classified as an Elemental ability, but because he’s so specialised and his powers are so unique, it’s counted as an Adept discipline. [x]

Elders are elected. [x] (But apparently, Supreme Mages are not...)

“At this point in her life, I'd say Val is probably closing in on bisexual, but heteromantic. So far.” [x]

“[Thrasher] had a mother, but she has sadly passed.” [x]

Apparently, Mevolent’s three generals were “cool with each other,” and “they had game nights and everything.” [x] (Inexplicably, I got scolded by an anon for saying that this was more than likely a joke.)

Valkyrie and Tanith’s dynamic may have changed following the events of the last books, but we’ll have to wait and see “if and when they meet again.” [x]

“There are parts I wish had slightly different rules linked to them, which would have made it easier to use these things in later books, but nothing I regret as such, no.” [x]

Mobile phones still worked when Skulduggery and Valkyrie were in Hammer Lane Gaol (in Kingdom of the Wicked) because... magic! [x]

There are no plans, and there probably never will be, to tell us whether Skulduggery’s child was a boy or a girl. [x]

Derek knew that Erskine Ravel was probably going to end up being the main antagonist in the book in which he was introduced, but he only knew for definite by the time he was writing the book after that. [x]

Again (because when do they not?), someone asked whether there would be a movie or a tv show based on the series, and as always, the answer is: hopefully yes, but no news yet. [x]

Derek would consider writing for Doctor Who again if asked, but he generally prefers having complete ownership over his writing—so he can kill whichever characters he wants. [x]

I don’t know why this was asked, but in case anyone was wondering, Skulduggery and Serpine are not related. [x]

#skulduggery pleasant #archive #i think i've managed to get all the links working but let me know if i've messed anything up

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sethnakht · 6 years

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Vader for the Character meme thing,

do I like them: like is not strong enough a word. j’adore this crazy murderbot, he’s like my emotional support animal. that being said, it would probably take writing a book to figure out why I would sell the moon for this trash can

5 good qualities: urk lbr he doesn’t even have five emotions

At his core, he loves wants his family intact and safe - wants to be loved.

He has a code - a very twisted one, but it’s more than one can say for most - of honor. That is to say, he asks for the very best from his men (Kreel, whom he even trains and sort of implores to carry on the legacy of the Jedi) and rewards merit (Piett) and sacrifice (Trios) regardless of gender (his female aide in Purge) or species (bounty hunters), if only so long as it is in his own interest to do so and without ever taking steps to change the status quo. Genuine or even grudging respect leads to some of his strangest comments (Kenobi was a teacher, if a failed one) and actions (the first time he tries to kill Aphra, he asks her to hold still - as though this would make asphyxiation less painful; what’s especially notable in this instance is that he doesn’t go for the death she fears most). On a related note, he seems to respect opponents who value dedication and sacrifice and (perhaps even in a certain way connected to his Force religion) life, who in effect share his honor code and/or zealotry - most prominently Leia.

There’s a reason he’s more effective than any other villain in the OT, and I think it’s this – he has empathy with his victims. Instead of destroying Leia’s mind, he chooses to understand her - it is Vader, not Tarkin, who pieces together that Leia will only ever reveal the base by going “home”. He understands Luke less well but is still able to lure him to Bespin - once again, I tend to think, because he understands Leia well enough to know how to make her broadcast pain.

This is not exactly a quality, rather a skill, but he is very good at manipulating the arrogance of others, at hiding in plain sight, at subverting expectations. As a slave it seems he learned the value of knowing as much as his master and more and also of hiding how much he knew - and so he is a master at appearing dumber than he is and showing his hand only through clipped sarcasm and/or during the sudden finishing blow. For what it’s worth, this lifelong strategy of never quite being what he seems - of allowing himself to be underestimated - makes it possible for him to get the jump on Palpatine.

Dedication. By his own admission, he’s a slow learner, but if he recognizes the need to learn something my sense is that he becomes obsessively focused on mastering it. This is speculation based on how much of a planner he is in both ANH and ESB. Perhaps he plans as a result of the hard lesson learned from being slower and more ungainly than he once was, but perhaps this tendency also reflects his need for control and absolute mastery of knowledge or a situation.

3 bad qualities: selfishness, which also covers his confusion of possessive and compassionate love and his gigantic, nearly unconquerable ego and his grudge-keeping; stubbornness, since once he convinces himself he is right about something he is never going to be totally unconvinced and since it works into his repressive complexes; MURDER

favourite episode/etc: easily ESB. I’ve talked about this before and perhaps too often so I’ll keep this short: the camera work and lighting is phenomenal (he dominates the camera bewitches it plunges the screen into darkness; he also owns the creepiest scene, the shot exposing his scarred head), plus we get to see him at his worst, at his most ruthless and possessive and malicious and clever.

otp: vader/pain. seriously, though, I have trouble imagining any sort of non-gen relationship with him - trouble imagining him wanting it (black swan theory: the suit and the extent of his burns and his guilt over Padmé and his utter devotion to the Force - he’s very Jedi as a Sith, almost completely unattached except to Palpatine). Also hard for me to imagine anyone wanting or, better: succeeding in getting close enough. Aphra makes for an interesting exception in that regard - she enters his life at a stage when, thanks to Luke, the rules are changing for him; she loves to live dangerously and to reanimate dangerous things, to put them into circulation once more; she seems to see him not as some man with power but as a living relic-weapon/extraordinarily volatile and powerful and scary object, which is arguably precisely how he wants to be seen (as Vader as mask not as that weakling); they have certain shared interests - fetishes - even beyond droids and weapons, if one recalls how he used to crave fast speeders and dangerous stunts; plus she’s smart enough to recognize a ticking time bomb, to not expect a future. But even here, I admit that I can’t imagine him letting anyone that close except to kill them until a post-ROTJ situation

brotp: if one can find a way to convince him not to kill them, Ahsoka and Aphra both make for wonderful foils, not least because both can find ways to unsettle him with their respective forms of honesty, because both know how to find and create the windows through which he can be reached. I have particular love for Ahsoka - Anakin loved her and she loved him, and that’s not something either can just forget, plus she’s got a sharp eye for his bullshit and an equally sharp tongue and can actually defend herself (whereas Aphra would have to escape) if he lashes out. She’s surpassed her teacher in many ways, and even if he can’t admit it, there’s pride to be felt (something of his old self to be loved) and lessons to be learned there.

ot3: if I can make this about gen, then let me say that I especially adore the particular gen combo of vader + leia + character growth that you, dear @chancecraz, have mastered

notp: vader/one of his kids omg

best quote: all of his lines are the best! but if I had to pick just one, it would be: “The Force is with you, young Skywalker. But you are not a Jedi yet” — the sheer malice expressed in the “yet” always gets me

head canon: he’ll never be free of the suit, at least not entirely. There’s an idea I like from old canon, I think it was that he was given an opportunity to upgrade the suit shortly before ANH, but decided against it because it would have involved shutting down his life support and have potentially killed him. In my head, he’ll always have a panel in his chest and tubes in his throat, even if he can ultimately reach a state where he doesn’t need a full or even partial mask. There’s also a psychological aspect to this fantasy of mine — I don’t think he would ever be able to give up some of the advantages the suit offered. Anonymity, the unreadable surface that let him subvert expectations so well (and spared him from having to emote or be seen as a burn victim), etc. For many reasons, I also think it would take quite a bit of work on Luke’s part to make Vader adopt Jedi robes again, to so completely negate the suit and his history by returning to that heroic role. The mental image I have of a post-ROTJ Vader thus tends to cover his face in sun-protective turbans and scarves and sight-enhancing goggles (to look, in other words, much like Rey in her establishing shots) and to adopt a dress similar to what he wore as a boy on Tatooine — a combo that offers even greater anonymity than the suit, that lets him blend into masses, that marks his choice to free himself from slavery but also as one who once was a slave, that keeps him from ever having to look anyone straight in the eye and silently lets him make his point to his children that no, he does not want his scars removed, no, he is never going to be Anakin Skywalker the Jedi the Hero With No Fear who btw was a Weakling and Never Should Have Existed —while still acknowledging that there are ways to be Anakin Skywalker, ways perhaps the Sith and Jedi made him repress, he can now invent or reclaim.

#asks #chancecraz #honestly chance I should be asking YOU this #not rambling on and on as is my wont #i'm sorry this took so long #and that it IS so long #long post #darth vader #memes #feel free to critique / push back against a reading

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thatmasquedgirl · 6 years

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Monsters in the Mirror Q&A

MONSTERS JUST TURNED 3 TODAY Y’ALL

In honor of this big event, I decided to answer a few questions about the Monsters series. Here are the big ones--and some of the ones you sent in. :)

What was your inspiration for this fic? How did it come to you?

I was on the way home from class. At that time, my drive an hour and a half long, and I had some of my best ideas then. I have no idea where it came from, but all I remember was asking myself, “What if Felicity was Deathstroke?” The next thing I knew, I had an entire backstory for Felicity already written.

What’s your favorite part of the fic?

There’s a scene in “Well-Oiled Machine” that rarely gets noticed, but that I love. It’s the one where Felicity is talking to “Bobby.” It’s a very dark little scene, in that Felicity is more or less threatening this man with a smile on her face. She may not use weapons to torture him, but there’s definitely some psychological torture going on there. In that moment, she’s more vicious than Oliver. I think it really shows the concept of her character and how dark she can really be sometimes.

What part of the fic are you most proud of?

The first scene of “Raining Pitchforks.” It was at that point that I really took time to establish Felicity’s character; before that, I had no clue what I was doing. So that was critical to everything that came afterward. It was also damn hard to write because I was crying in agony the entire time. When Felicity hurts, I hurt.

What part of the fic are you still dissatisfied with?

Just in general, I feel like there are some continuity issues that I really need to resolve. Which I hope to do with a few more rewrites that I’d like to do this month. As a whole, I’m really thrilled with the directions this universe has taken because it feels rich and exciting all the time to write in.

Who is your favorite character in the fic?

Felicity. I am fascinated by her development from seemingly normal, pre-Japan Felicity to the woman we first saw in “Stroke of Luck.” I’m equally obsessed with taking the woman we saw in “Stroke of Luck” and continuing her journey and character arc through the seasons.

Where there any major decisions you made about the fic that could have made it go a whole different direction?

Actually, no. Monsters has been pretty much set in stone since the beginning.

Was there anything you only learned about the fic after you started posting it (themes, motifs, symbolism, etc.)?

Felicity’s swords kind of became the symbol of the past she clings to so desperately--for me at least. She doesn’t move on from Japan; she holds onto it to the point of unhealthy obsession. And I think that’s okay. I think she deserves to wallow in it. She deserves to be angry for this horrible thing that happened to her. But I think eventually she’ll have to let go, in order to heal and progress.

Did anyone in this fic surprise me by doing anything? If so, what?

It really surprised me that Tommy and McKenna had a past fling. I didn’t expect that. Nor did I plan for Felicity to wake up growling at Oliver in either version of “Stroke of Luck.” There’s a plot point in Part 2 of “Rake the Ashes” that I didn’t expect to happen, as well (which we’ll talk about next Friday). I didn’t plan to have Tommy and Felicity have that heart-to-heart in “Bite the Bullet.” That just happened, and it filled a plot hole rather conveniently.

If you had to sum up this fic in a sentence, what would it be?

Oliver encounters the Vengeance of Starling while on a mission, and the two gradually blossom into a mutually beneficial--and supportive--partnership.

If you were to rewrite this fic, what would you change?

See for yourself. I just reposted “Stroke of Luck” with new updates.

Did anything about this fic’s reception surprise me?

I thought it was a ridiculous idea as soon as I had it, but I decided to go with it. That anyone read it at all is still a complete shock to me. That people love it still blows my mind.

What were my beta’s major comments about the first draft of this fic?

I ran the concept of “Stroke of Luck” by @itwasaromanticoverture the first time, and she told me I should do the thing. And when @bushlaboo looked over the revision for me, the response was pretty enthusiastic about the major changes. She actually made the suggestion that lead to the decision to have Felicity come up fighting. ElsieB was my beta for “Bite the Bullet,” and she seemed to enjoy it, despite the fact I threw 50 pages of fic at her with no warning.

If I were to write a Season 2 of this series, what would it entail?

I think there would be a major difference in Felicity as we progress. Sara’s part in Season 2 would be important for Felicity and Oliver both. And I honestly think I’d play up Isabel Rochev more than on the show, though not necessarily in the same ways.

What scene did you first put down?

The very first. Usually the way I start is the way I finish. If I write scenes out of order, they tend not to get finished.

What’s your favorite line of narration and dialogue?

Doing these together because they’re connected and both from “Rake the Ashes” today:

With the sweetest smile he’s ever seen, Felicity declares, “I’d go to war to save you, Oliver Queen. Nothing in her expression makes him doubt that; that smile was made for battle.

What part was hardest to write?

The parts that aren’t finished yet. I’m uncomfortable with how large my unfinished works are. AO3 says I’ve published about 110k words. My complete collection says I have about 170k--and that’s before all of “Rake the Ashes” goes in. So there’s at least 60k words of Monsters that y’all haven’t seen yet.

What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Honestly, I have no idea. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of writing, though. I think it’s because I have a female character who is allowed to be angry. She’s allowed to be dark and vulnerable and gritty and sad without anyone telling her she’s wrong. Sometimes we all need to be those things.

Where did the title come from?

It actually comes from lyrics from two of my favorite songs, “Sleep” by My Chemical Romance and “The Devil in the Mirror” by Black Veil Brides. To me, “Sleep” has always been a song that celebrates the darkness in all of us. In a stark contrast, “The Devil in the Mirror” is about having that darkness, knowing it’s there, and fighting it to become something better. I feel like those two things very much fit Oliver and Felicity in this universe.

Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

There was a very early version where Laurel discovered that Felicity was the Japan survivor and warned both Oliver and Tommy about Felicity’s background and how Donna tried to have her committed. Much of her backstory would’ve been revealed at that time. It was scrapped as other ideas evolved. And besides, I can’t reveal too much at one time--I have issues with the Exposition Fairy suddenly visiting.

There was also a version where Oliver and Thea are eating at Big Belly Burger and run into Felicity and Roy there, and that’s how they initially meet. I scrapped that one when “Well-Oiled Machine” came together.

What do you like best about this fic?

I love that Felicity, this normally bright and happy character in canon, is darker and grittier here. It’s kind of cool because I try to mix in aspects of her canonical personality with this one, and it makes this really complicated set of layers to her.

One of the biggest reasons I keep coming back is that every addition just opens more doors. Often times as a writer, the more I delve into a universe, the more rigid it becomes. Possibilities are closed as the characters make choices, and the path becomes more and more clear. The more trapped I feel, the less I want to work with it because it feels like I lose that creative freedom.

However, every time I step back into Monsters, it feels like the very first time. Possibilities don’t close; they just continue to open. And that freedom and excitement keeps me coming back to it.

What do you like least about this fic?

Writing the damn thing out of order. There are so many continuity errors scattered around that it drives me bananas.

What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story?

Monsters has its own playlist on my iTunes. Actually, it has several--I tend to create a new one every year, modify songs on it, update it with my purchases and favorites, and it evolves the same way the series does.

The Monsters 2018 playlist currently consists of 627 songs and that’s the smallest it’s been since its inception in 2015. (It was 355 then, but to be fair, I didn’t start it until September or so.)

The music on it tends to be more metal and rock. It isn’t a beautiful playlist by any means. It’s gritty and dark, but there’s also some softness to it in places.

There’s an incomplete version of this playlist on Spotify, if you want to check it out.

Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

It’s okay to be broken. It’s okay not to be perfect. It’s okay not to feel like you’re enough. It’s okay to be scarred. If you keep fighting your demons long enough, you’ll eventually win, and you’ll be better for it.

Strength of character isn’t given. It’s earned.

What did you learn from writing this fic?

Everyone is battling a monster in their mirror, but it doesn’t have to define you. It can become the thing that shapes you into the person you need to be.

Submitted Questions

@imusuallyobsessed asked: What are your hardest scenes to write and why?

My hardest scenes usually involve difficult situations or different character perspectives. Fight scenes can be incredibly difficult sometimes, just because there’s so much motion and flow. I tend to get in a panic writing them, so they come off hurried and sloppy. Then I have to go back and make it resemble something like writing.

Certain perspectives are tough because I have trouble getting into some characters’ minds (which ties in with another question you asked). John Diggle has to be the most difficult character perspective to write from. There’s just something about how he presents himself that I always have trouble with. But I never stop; I just torment myself with it.

@imusuallyobsessed asked: What are your easiest scenes to write and why?

Surprisingly, some of my favorites are Felicity-perspective fight scenes. I just said how I hate action, but when I’m in her perspective, it’s far easier to work with. I have no idea why that is.

Also, Olicity banter comes from deep inside me. Ninety percent of their time, their banter isn’t edited and is exactly what you end up reading in the finished product.

@imusuallyobsessed asked: What are your hardest characters to write and why?

John Diggle is a freaking disaster. Always. There’s something about that man that keeps me from getting inside his head and conveying him the way I want to on paper.

Laurel Lance also tops that list, mainly because I dislike her canon characterization or lack thereof so much. When I write her into a fic, I usually hollow her out to her basic, defining characteristics and build a new personality in there myself. Usually I feel like she comes off one-dimensional anyway.

@imusuallyobsessed asked: What are your easiest characters to write and why?

Tommy is one of my all-time faves. He’s 100% unproblematic to write because he’s always going to react in certain ways and he doesn’t carry the baggage that burdens characters like Oliver and Felicity.

Roy is also up there on the list. Roy Harper is the sass master of my heart. He gets all the saltiest lines that I don’t get the chance to say in daily conversation.

Anonymous asked: For #MITM, I know throughout the one shots we’ve seen a lot of UST, and when Felicity gets wounded badly, we find out they both love each other, but still don’t feel like they’re in a healthy enough place to be in a relationship. Does that ever change? Do they end up together?

Of course things change, and of course they end up together! I know it doesn’t look like there’s method to my madness, but I have a general plot for at least five seasons in this universe.

I plan to take my time with this series, so if you’re looking for a quick resolution, you’re going to be disappointed. Olicity has always been about the journey for me, instead of the destination. If I didn’t want them to happen, I wouldn’t write them together.

I currently have Olicity plotted for Season 2, barring any unforeseen narratives, and I’d really like to put some quality time in on this universe this year. I have too many words of fic hanging around unfinished.

#monsters in the mirror #fic by masque #3rd anniversary of monsters

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limitsofvision · 3 years

Text

Limits of Vision

Limits of Vision by Korey Jones Part I: The Warrior of Insight

1. In Love: Twenty-Four When we fall, our hearts leap in alarm and bewilderment. We grapple with balance; any trace of aplomb vanishes and we become bruised. We never seek out to fall and getting back up is easier said than done. Such is the same when we fall in love. Before our first fall, we are mindless and trudging through early life's darkest tunnels like blind rats as we search unwillingly for completely nothing in a twisting network of the highest disquiet. Undeveloped sensibility causes distrust, even anomisity, as every face that turns onto you becomes distorted as they revolve around you like mad mocking comedy masks. The mind is a regime of timidy. All conscious thought is base and insensitive, though conscious thought in general comes sparesly. Boredom reigns. Quite often, dubious innervation will tell you that something is terribly wrong either with or around you, but with no hint or direction as to what or how or why. This eventually pulls together a finely progressed fountainhead of nascent bitterness, alongside toiling angst brought on from recurring depthless sexuality. At burdgeoning ages before love makes it's debut, music becomes important, as it bears qualities that are acceptably exciting and lulling that simply living does not. A quiet desire for a moticum of independence generates skepticism and questioning toward our instilled moral and belief systems. An ambivalence for inner trust soon resides as the direct world portrays an illusion of regularity which tends to contest many unseasoned thoughts and ideas and comforts. Between relatives and friends always critiquing here and willful individuality there, a schism of decisions split you with a hand on both grounds. Indeterminate, you look down into it nervously and soon begin and wonder if that's where you might possibly belong; and more curious, if somewhere down there at the black bottom is someone who already decided to let go, and leisurely awaits another incoming lost soul. The unknown becomes more and more inviting.

2. Twenty-Six You may allow your will to lay at rest once it has had it's proper feastings. A small spanning loss is nothing at all to the willer, the warrior; and often enough, will lead to a victory that surpasses even the mightiest of small-span victories.

3. The battle with fear is more akin to a race than a game, as fear has mastered every sleeve trick since there have been sleeves and tricks. Fear must be raced against, not outsmarted. When you are racing against fear, it is best to stay slightly ahead at all times, as the finish line is not clearly defined, in comparison to a fair race where one can allow themselves to fall behind, so as to catch breath. The race against fear is not made fair, and as clever as a sleeve trick you yourself created may be, alas, it is useless in a race, fair or not.

4. Wisdom is like medicine in that it was made for any average person in low health, any negative side effect from it is between you and your body, as you decided to listen, to take in that pill. Like medicine, wisdom is not force-fed, but it is forceful; it was created out of necessity for a worthy opponent to disease; it is not made for developing children. It is one of man's uppermost miracles.

5. Do things right until there is nothing left, so that our right becomes the new left to the new man (it is only historical science).

6. A proper transformation will have proper knowledge of it's motivation and the causes for said motivation's initial structuring. With a steady and sensible foundation, anything can happen, and will.

7. If you fear death, you will tend not to think about it. You will then be left with only the present moment as your domain of value limitations, which it should not be unless the will sees fit, which it should not, unless you are in a perfect "Flow". Thus, to conquer the fear of death by any means necessary, until you are sumberged in the light of perfect truth, your perfect human truth, is the highest possible task at present.

8. Becoming unknowingly involved with a tyrannical person who has tricked you into thinking they respect and appreciate you may include any or all of the following symptoms: paranoia, anger, depression, anxiety, uncertainty, lack of interest, eating disorder, tip-toeing, breaking of one's own values, suicidal thoughts, homicidal thoughts, genocidal thoughts, inclination for abuse of depressants, feelings of hopelessness, fear, hate, and seemless exhaustion.

9. A prisoner who seeks out to fornicate with another prisoner is in search of light, not freedom.

10. Only go down rabbit holes under the assumption that there may never have been a rabbit.

11. Our earliest childhood prayers are the values with which we unconsciously follow over all others. Too long did we commit to them without knowing. Not the prayers that your parents spoke on your regard, for those are always sheepish values such as exemplifying your kindness and usefulness, a seemingly selfish and gross injustice every good parent makes on the behalf of their shadow, long suppressed since the birth of the child, lingering in their bad prayers. The earliest prayers, however, that you spoke to yourself alone, they, you must decipher to know properly your roots. I ask now: who are you, really?

12. We are born ready to conquer the world. The situations in which those who raise us put us in, consequently, are the playgrounds of our most formidable moral developments.

13. I do not study birds; I collect broken wings.

14. A mother is inclined to see her child as a blank canvass upon which she may paint her masterpiece, little by little, freely over time--after all, is it not her living heir? A belonging higher than any property? A masterpiece, awaiting? And so she paints; her loves, her hates, her impulse beauty, her resentment beauty, her temptations and unattainable desires; and so life is drawn. But this is a falsehood; only when the mother has stepped away from her feeding of daily applesauce and her daily few brush stroke attempts does the canvass reveal it's hidden image: an image more profound than any mother would ever imagine possible, and perhaps, wish to exist.

15. It is impossible to lie when your world is pretend.

16. Mantra of Lies "Choose a side or lose your pride."

17. Woman is inborn with meaning in the possibility for life. She loves herself in her ongoing meaningfulness as man hates himself in his ongoing search for his own meaning. Of course, all of man's search for meaning is futile, for the search itself is the only meaning. When we look upon the woman in this respect, man's inborn meaning becomes painfully clear: death. Cosequently, a man's death does not bring us sorrow, a childless woman's death does not bring us sorrow, but in the death of a mother we do find sorrow. In the death of a child, we find regret for life.

18. To turn away from one's emotions that dismay him and to coware at fear in stead of taming them due to one's own underchallenged weak will leads to depression. This, you survive (unfortunately). Inversely, to turn away from one's emotions that dismay him and to coware at fear in stead of taming them due to another's own stronger will, when properly challenged, leads to selection. This, you do not survive.

19. Guilt may be attained properly or improperly, however, it must be rid of only properly. Guilt improperly rid of returns as self-pity: man's most inbred and lethal snake.

20. Nostalgia is the name of the dragon that spits the feeblest of flames. Yet, she is still a dragon; an old one. She claims she cannot die; and, perhaps, she cannot. But it matters not. Her hoard has lost all value long, long ago, unaware, the poor and ancient Nostalgia, and for this, we bear pitisome contempt, so much so that we do not slay her.

21. What is "payback?" Psychological, not monetary. What is "Karma?" Unconscious payback to the self. But was it not the collective unconscious that created Karma, and not simply I? Therefore, it is naught; merely an idealogical judge, a mass of contempt in thousands, small, hidden, with one representative to bear the pleasure and task of shouting "No!" to individual differentiation: the tornado of shadows. But I laugh at this seemingly endless form of darkness, for my payback is simply not due. A collection will often be sought prematurely through subterfuge. Still, my payback is not due, for no misdeed and no debt do I dare leave at rest a heavy end.

22. Even the most beautiful arrangements of fresh fruit can become a foundation for infestation in the blink of an eye.

23. Ego as a Precursor to Insight If insight serves as the infantry in the battle with truth, ego serves as the vanguard. To learn is to struggle. To better one's self in finding meaning within the search for meaning, one must level up their armor; one must level up their vitality; one must level up their endurance; all these, and more, infinitely in the mind until the finite body has finished decomposing in recurring preparation for all oncoming armies passive or aggressive, friendly or villainous. Such is the life of the warrior of insight. What great minds of insight in mankind's art and philosophy withheld themselves to dare deign culture a unified, appeasable and ubiquitous force? What fighters with refined and seasoned battalions with weapons aimed at the blackest stares of society dare not to bend their solidified will for the sake of soft-hearted ones? What brave, bold and fragile beings left have we to bring out not all blase interest in timelessness or needless fact in the face of universal understanding but all the necessary incomprehensibility that lingers behind reliability? What must serve as precursor for such an undertaking of insight (assuming and hoping one falls well in the range of the scientifically allowable range of competency)? Ego is the answer, or a keen sense of self, a reliant and steadfast determination for growth in spite of all you may and certainly lack and to seek out your new lackings. The mind and mouth serve as the ego's sword and shield, to keep the ego safe and sound and balanced. A weapon, you are, with your shadow as your sheath.

24. Rivers 1. The will of the Christian spirit is a form of unearthly ego, simply a channel of "God's Ego," or, "the will of the individual to express lovingness in goodness." This particular will is strong, this spiritual ego, and is similar to water, and erodes the unsolid body like a naturally-formed canal (or, perhaps, to my horror...excavated. Surely, not water, then...) with which it may flow throughin. An outpour of Holy Water goes straight into drains due to the inclination of it's chemical structure. Seek not the soap box, excavated ones.

2. Psychedelic drugs act as beavers on a stream. They dam, but not to the detriment of the original structure (were it meant to last).

3. But a rush, or a gentle flow is it? The brain would certainly erode from rocks into sand would too much pressure were to come forth. yet, no thing grows in still pools that is not pathological and tepid without it's proper chlorine.

4. To the recoiler of God's Ego, to the one's in doubt, who non-will to be improperly propped up, I will give you this parable. In the East, on a bright cloudless afternoon, there sits a tiny and crooked river; not plentiful, not hazardous, not useful; and upon the inch-wide downflow of gentle water tumbling over mossy stones and upon glimmering sunlit rainbow fishes, here sits a small duck, swimming with the silk current. He knows not why he sits upon this little river in the East on this cloudless day, nor does he remember exactly how he had arrived, but yet, he allows himself upon it without struggle, as he looks about the scene in wonderful vain. He seems content.

25. How doth ye reconcile such difference in ye, O discerning one? Art thou insight not deserving of some form of splendid reward? Of course! The reward of pen and ink; to write and to record, so as not to lose discerning. Rewarding a clean mind for simply being clean is to immediately dirty it, and remain the desires of those not different, not discerning.

26. The Beasts of the New Oz What is this taste, one of milk and vinegar, filling me with numerical deceits and linguistic truths? What is in the air, this new taste, that inquires upon my heavy ends? What scales in me require dusting? What scales in me require lubricating? What scales in me require balance? What scales in me require discarding? Honesty, a goal. Competence, a goal. Exposure, a goal. Disposure, a goal. The search for fear and for courage, a goal. Long ago did I discover Oz and his holy treasures. Now, I tear down his Temple and call upon the wing'ed beasts, to feed them my new taste of milk and vinegar and to breed them to my satisfaction. "To the beasts of the new Oz."

27. You will hesitate to trust the judgement of one who appears to have much to lose and yet lives dangerously at the risk of it. You will, however, have miscalculated, for in fact they have little to lose and are merely retaining ambition well.

28. Trust neither the one who displays a high regard for himself out of pessimism, nor the one who displays little regard for himself out of optimism; trust the one who does both.

29. The nihilist always has the most to lose.

30. Introduction to The Non-Will 1. To rationalize for the sake of the opposite of the will is to mistake in your own unconsciously formulated schematic, in other words, to develop a non-will. Is this non-will a lie enacted, a suggestion instilled, an influence of regret, a force of meaning, a fit of impudence, a seasoned intellectual patience, a mere conscienstious restraint, a common moment of evaluation, a chemical misfire, a pre-fixed guidepost, God himself, the Devil himself, or simply..."doubt?" The seed of doubt therein lies the answer.

2. In determining whether a non-will can be stronger in it's plausability for achievement in comaprison to it's original contrasting will (this original will withholding it's own personal level of inherent strength; weak, perhaps, in the face of other wills, but certainly mighty relative to an inert conscious) one must, firstly, in a sense "contain" a moment of time (the pocket in which a set of sensations abound in the face of newly recognized potential), secondly, to analyze the levels of said strength in plausability for achievement from this contained moment versus those from the moment of the original will. This is most difficult in the fact that one would also have to contain the moment of the original will for a proper compare and contrast, a task entirely more difficult than to contain a non-will. The will cannot be contained, thus, it is always stronger, and a non-will, in fact, can never be stronger than it's original will.

31. Even worms cannot help but to rise from the earth in the presence of music.

32. Modern Woman, Modern Slave What does modern woman ask of man? Kindnesses. Reassurance, attention, favors and impossible refills of love. The modern woman, at least; the one who determines female as the primary sex. This seems acceptable to almost all alive today. A man who obliges the vast majority of all a woman's requests for kindness is most surely unaware that she is, in fact, but only unconsciously, quite aware of the fact of her inherent undeservedness of such constant and glorifying kindnesses, and thus, she will have resentment for the man blossom and fester within her, but will continue the cycle of master and slave, as one would, leading to his ongoing mistreatment due to his lack of will to break his previously agreed upon contract with the non-will to grant such a majority of kindness (the birth of the term "simp", ca. 2019, a "male slave" or "woman-man", perhaps, were we not so inclined for brevity*). A man who grants only a non-vast majority of the modern day woman's requests for kindness can expect a healthy and unresentful female partner. This phenomena of the modern woman is real, and our male science must evolve with the times, and we do it with bittersome regret and the darkest and heaviest of hearts, of course; for it was not so long ago that so many of our personal favorite souls with smiling warmth and confidants of gentle nature and open-heartedness were many a beautiful woman.

*Another thing to note here: Kanye West once claimed around this time period that "slavery was a choice." He was correct, in the fact that a collectivist non-will that gathers strength over time will certainly become unbreakable, and that each individual who decided to give themselves up to this idea were forced into a lifetime of hypocrisy, for fear of chastisement from the collective and self-hatred for his original individual bending to this non-will; NOT death.

33. Heirarchies of Love Man must bear woman as woman must bear child. He must have patience and empathy on the tips of his brain in their presence. It is a struggle so complex that it can only be simplified. A void or reflection the bearer may see, however, this is a misrepresentation. In truth, the bearer simply sees a being in need of lessons in life over a release into life itself. As the child will depend on and eventually resent the mother only to return again with a refined love, one more sustaining, yet restrained, as will the woman to the man.

34. To those that hate, I say: "Create. Anything else, do into a pillow."

35. Is all of life not music? To conduct it, then, I shall; not in vain, but in celebration of the range and scope of it's patterns. In celebration, imitation and dedication I straighten myself before the audience, yet need not look upon them. I stand alone in silence as the sounds of life await my count, with all eyes upon me.

36. Introduction to The Flow Structure of Being We all seek the "Flow." This flow can be described as the experience of an equilibrium of all total personal possibility, in action, or: the optimal active mind state, or: the total sum of the sensations that herald fromwith a peaceful and personal blossoming. Outside the Flow is disinterest; outside that, interest; outside that, the will; outside that, "Distraction." Distraction is all of time outside an engaged will and it's subsequent mind states of interest, disinterest and final Flow state. Beyond distraction in the reverse, reached by a non-will, is the domain of unconscious self-destruction, or: the "Anti-flow." In this state, one becomes no one to one's great momentary (and possibly ultimate) detriment. It is a realm outstanding from the rest, as is it's counterpart mind state. The unconscious tortures the organic body and the psyche's frames of values, causally, due to such an outstretch from it's inherently sought upon mind state when in the grips of the Anti-flow. This severe psychosis can go on unbeknownst to us, as we seem to act relatively normal on the outside as if in a simple "distracted" or "willing" state. Eventually, a peak of maximal aimlessness is reached, and the Flow state will be forced to re-emerge (unnaturally?) in the form of a sudden and complex symbolic metaphor, understood at once or in pieces, without words and in some cases, with words, and in some cases, revelations. This "representation," or, "image" of Flow is presented in the Dream state, the realm outstanding even the already outstanding dual Flow states. The dream state is at all other moments unreachable--for the Flow, the Anti-flow and all it's inner levels are contained in "The Reality State" (what is attainable). Look upon the self as a fruitful planet which orbits these mind states, with your universe being the Dream State, forever outside your reaches, yet still reaching down upon you with cooperation from his partner, the Realiy State.

37. You will say you wish not to be offensive, and I will say you are just in fear of a fight; for you have never sharpened your offense. You will question my defense; and I will call your bluff, then, reveal to you your bluffing of yourself, and only then, as your impeccably crafted defense is lowered for only a moment, will I unleash my own unbluffing offense, catering to your terror, your deepest fear: the unfair fight.

38. The King of Parasites, or: A Little Bit of Junebug, or: The Death of Sympathy 1. A commercial plays between music. It's only thirty seconds. What am I complaining about? I complain due to the worst crime ever to be commited upon man right before my very eyes. The interruption of a Flow, this, not alone, that crime but with this reason combined; that is, the interruption for the sake of something strange, something so twisted, yet even delicate moreso; a reminder, a gentle reminder to me of "all" besides me, how they struggle, and finally, a command to stay away from these others, for the better of "all" of "us"; and while we are at it, we might as well close businesses and ban gatherings--yes, for the better, for "our" better, future "selves!" We are told to cover our faces, also, and to start cleaning ourselves. We do. It makes me disgusted, so disgusted, this polish headache. As it goes when every second is a lie, a snapshot of what was replacing what now is; not a destruction of values, but an experiment done upon them. A lie, this gentle reminder, so gentle yet firm, so suspicious yet convincing, so inventive yet creative; I almost respect it.

2. What of sympathy? What is sympathy? We are not "simps"--we have symptoms. We can respect a will in another even in disgust in respect to it's distinguishable values due to the fact that we understand, we empathize. Empathy: a distinguished and underrated force of nature; that is to say, this empathy is inherent, since no true man is ever once a blank slate; but, no slate.

3. But do we sympathize, say, in the face of a mafioso or pimp? Do they not suffer? The prostitute surely instills something akin to "sympathy" only in the fact that she lives no lie; therefore, the entire idea of sympathy, a socially "helpful" and "civil" word, tenderness for "all", that we "all" feel when the wills of others do not accomplish, or contrast to our own, sympathy itself, is a lie. Revolt, it is, then: hate, jealousy, vengeance, self-disgust, too much, no! no! A mask! Cover this judgement! Ah, yes, empathy! Give yourself unto us, oh innocent and unharming empathy, for you are meek, yet, you adorn such finery. Empathy? Not at all, but disgust and envy for "all," wrapped in empathy's stolen clothes: Sympathy shall we call it. It will be perfect, we shall feel oh so relatable, so above, so good inside. Sympathy: a parasite of words. Not on my watch do I see a time better than now to declare a new will: The Death of Sympathy. I regret it not, we will be better off ressurrecting our true father of love and just respect, empathy. Away with you, sympathy, in all your sickly horror. Let us never speak this horrible word again. Let us unbury and re-robe the mistreated and cold one: empathy.

4. This masking of society disgusts me due to the fact that it is a lie. It is a lie due to the fact that it is all rooted in sympathy. As previously discerned, "sympathy" itself is a manmade force of nature, likewise, must be the King of Parasites, the mask, the reminder, the junebug, the lie. Do not forget the basic method of the lie we know not of: to mimick the truth we do know of.

39. I urge all to look unto me not so that they should understand me, but so that they should dismiss me, so that they should more easily look back unto themslves so that they should more easily understand themselves.

40. Flow Structure, cont. 1. Due to technology, we spend a vast majority of being in a distracted state. Rarely do we move successfully upon a will, as we typically must endure a moment of "loving in nothingness" before the will is acted upon. In his work Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche defines love as "spiritualization of sensuality" as he is discerning upon morality as the enemy of nature. This is correct, and this is reflected in the existence of the non-will (which Nietzsche, again, in the same chapter even, would long ago discover--albeit aiming at a precisely sense-based form of willing--in his words: "the ability not to react to a stimulus" and a type of "degeneracy," again, correct). When we are approaching a will that will lead to a flow state, this previously mentioned enduring sensation of "loving in nothingness" is the shadow of that looming and powerful will, the moment of intensity just before the "noon-tide," and often, many will fall victim to this degeneracy and mistake this powerful, thin and impinging dark figure of potential and choose to will against it, to create and to follow, blindly, a non-will. This mistake, this phenomena of "doubt" is why we tend to spend the vast majority of being in a distracted state.

2. This still leaves more to discern on the shadow of the will in it's true form, the "loving in nothingness". It is a type of glimmer that is rarely seen, but often enough: a fragment of the highest mind state, far beyond the power of will and posturing of power of the non-will: the Flow; the place beyond love, it is, beyond "loving in nothingness" and, therefore, will scare away all bad willers upon a mere glimmer. The Flow I can describe best by reference to Nietzsche's definition of love, and call it "the spiritualization of loving in nothingness". And yet, as great as a mind state such as the Flow may be, it is still merely only the highest-up fruit on the tree man can yet reach, a single tendril of potential from an unknown amount of tendtrils and subtendrils dripping down from the Dream State, the astounding, the inconfineable, the farthest reaches even the unknown knows not about.

3. We were not born to love, but to search. If love is an answer to anything, it is not to the question of life, but to the question of how to find an enemy worthy enough to go up against life. Search: that is real love, real life! Not this new love, this settling, this acceptance, this charade of sympathy, this incestuous non-will, this abortion of all rebirths, this enemy of life. Search: it is beyond an essential, it is the essential. Why would a being, who feels as if they are part of a great, massive collection of infinite life but with the most minute accesses to it, choose not to search, but to simply "love?" You lovers, you fools, you settlers, you surely dwell farther than any far dweller. Waste not, want not? Alas, you were born this way, and not a thing I can do.

4. I pour out my soul in ode to the would-be warriors, the one's who succumbed to love and were permanently blinded, the great lovers of non-life. For you, I play this game, for you did not know how to read the rules; for you, I will attend the party of life, the search party, ha-ha, yes! and in my finest suit, for you wanted to come too, but you threw out your invitation before even opening it, assuming it was a bill; and for you, you most unfortunate ones who decided a pleasing and common sensation should be top value, for you I play, you far dwellers who dwell so far. What a settlement, indeed.

41. A sub-personality only wishes to expand into others.

42. The human body is a heavy restraint and a fragile security.

43. Repressed Ones There are repressed ones. In their search for insight, they can only find coincidence and allow themselves to be fooled. They are sorely mistaken, for coincidence is simply a kind of flash in one's psyche that appears to one when two previously experienced earthly situations in the memory fragment and reflect upon one another. It is a non-factor to neither any sort of earthly equation nor it's solution in the search for answers to the meaning of anything beneficially applicable. The most repressed ones will grip these coincidences, these simple flashes of unearthly yet inconsequential collision, and misinterperet them as meaningful signals from outside the complex, speaking out to they and only they, to ensure, to ameliorate, to ease, ease, oh, super and simple ease. All too easy. They, as I have said, are sorely mistaken.

44. A Revelation What does one think when one watches the self as he moves about, not thinking? A motor, a dispenser, a converter, a spinning top? Yes, a top. Do we act about in life merely as the tops that are spun and spin and collide on a table of the gods, beside the seven and eleven-sided dice, some falling gradually, some flinging out at random and some skidding around nervously, nearly falling the entire way down, rolling off past a majestic game piece, massive gusts from a falling tower of cards and a red chinese checker below booms and bellows and rising echos of laughter and falling down, down onto the floor of the gods? What dwells there? If one of those gods dares to reach down to it and to place it back upon the table of the gods, and merely spin it yet again on one holy drunken night as they are just getting started, I then ask of you, reader, to dare to reach along with me in my foolish simile, for it may not be so foolish in the fact that any exercise of will, whether in search of growth, rebirth, revelation, transfiguration or mere transparent aestheticism such as I have exercised in this section, can be accepted and pursued without fear or worry from here on out, now that we know our place, and what the gods are really up to after all.

45. How to Play A Game If you are worthy of invite to a game, and you play fairly within it's structure until it's end not only to win, not only for the experience, but for both--and a third reason, that being honor to the uninvited--shall you win the game; for I have learned, it is unwise to let yourself go off unknowning of each and every pre-requisite, the greatest one perhaps being the uninvited, for upon their daily great loss do the best of all the clever cheats and moral failures toss about their golden balls and portal rings, fearlessly in the clouds. Without the sense of their loss, their distraction, you would have never thought to one day perhaps look up and to see what else there might be happening; and in victory, we honor them for inspiring that moment in us that had to occur for your invitation to ever be sent, outside all that dead space from before, when the flag of your mailbox hitherto was left downturned.

46. Caught in a Mosh In heavy metal music, we hear the particular sounds of a particular sheperd's outcry. He cries: "My sheep are wily and stimulated, insane and loathsome, impossible to gather completely without their instant subsequent re-release." These enriched and dangerous sheep are this particular sheperd's burden, yet when burdened upon long enough, become his predeliction, causing loss of all interest in idler herds, until his short day of rest and quick return. Look upon a mosh pit. You will see an instantaneous and unconscious formation of order from chaos, it's formulation being agreed upon by beings as seperate but one, succumbing to energies that stimulate this typically slow process of gather and release, all the while still at singular levels only in close proximity to one another with an identified, unspoken agreement in the exaltation of that individual anticipation for that wily, sheepish type of connective reaction in which they are all simultaneously removed from that singular chaos and put into unconscious formation once provided the necessary energy shift for such a logically dangerous compliance, from the musician's channeling of the dream state, to the mosher's delight.

47. The Puzzle A man sits at a table for three weeks and three days putting together a two-thousand piece puzzle. As he is on 1,999 and goes to place the final piece, a stranger suddenly appears by his table and pushes it off, sending it into the wall to it's side, pulverizing it back to zero, as he looks upon the puzzle-maker in delight. He waits for the puzzle-maker to react, but he does not. Eventually, the stranger speaks: "What of sacrifice now, O, ye investor in faith, ye permissive one, ye time slave? Did'st not thou come to have expected for this? Surely, ye knew of what danger is to come of thy silly patience, thy lost love, thy waste. Why dost thou do it? Surely, ye knew'st this was to come. Again, I insist upon inquiring. Why dost thou do it?" The puzzle-maker, then, in speaking for the first time in three weeks and three days, without a clearing of the throat, replied: "Ye search for easy opportunities and easy opposites, dost thou not? Yea, I surely knew'st of it in possibility, but in matter it is of no regard, at least, not to I--for in all my experience I have been set my meaning hitherto. But alas, now, ye fallen angel, ye soul of eternal unrest, I, myself, upon thee must I insist upon inquiring: How dost thou do it?"

48. Lovers of Indifference 1. Our most unsuspecting insights come from moments of distraction so strangely balanced in themselves, a type of "lovingness in indifference" that even all the strongest of wills become like mere falling skin from the true meat and bone of the Dream State.

2. One feels distrust for another who appears only to search out logical shortcuts and side-steps as they exploit this rare phenomena to no end, shamelessly, to the final ends of their Anti-flow regardless of circumstance with evil as both the cause and the effect, and one is right to; for these same exploiters, when asked of the Dream Sate's opinion on the matter of their actions, will deny the Dream State of being able to withhold a steadfast or credible opinion, or, simply deny the Dream State. Distrust them, yes, these uninvited ones.

49. Skillsmen Any practice of a technological skill is a will of science, a giant non-will living amongst the mortal non-wills, a kind of distracted state so well at disguising itself as a proper will that it immediately propels one into a strong state of Anti-flow, the discarding of the search, the pinnacle of waste, the death of meaning. Those with the least "skill" are the ones with the strongest passion for the searching will, the proper will, the will of the Warrior of Insight. Let technology go.

50. Genius is not measured in how much space one knows, but in how much time.

51. I am an advocate of all free markets outstanding of all moral markets. That being said, I have no interest in second-hand pawns and trades.

52. In a world where one may take an opportunity to provide a thing for a woman and not give up something of himself, one should take it. If a world like this exists, we as of yet, do not know.

53. Monument To try to be remembered is simply trying to be somewhere between everything and nothing--in other words--to be mediocre. Only the boldest of willers can find the glee under all the thrash, the denial, and to strive for non-rememberance, and beyond: absolute dissolution; no monuments outside paper. He is no longer inbetween any thing, and outside the history of memory. If I seem unthoughtful, then I shudder in terror at the idea of a thoughtful one.

54. 1. I am told things. A thing I am told: "You are your own worst enemy." To that teller, I ask; "Who would you prefer my enemy be? You? That would not do, too many blunt objects are near. Society? That would not do, too many obstacles and annoyances. God? That would not do, too many stubbed toes and warm baths. I am not my own enemy, however, for this, also, would not do, for too many pats on the back would I give myself, bringing out the burping, drooling baby within. I am not my own enemy; I am my own friend." All things told about the self from anyone, perhaps, should never be considered, but merely absorbed.

2. I am told things. A thing I am told: "You are overthinking it." To that teller, I reply simply: "You are underthinking it." There are threshholds of inequality all around, oh yes, to the great disgust of the envious, the uninvited.

3. I am told things. A thing I am told: "You are probably right." To that teller, I say: "Indeed, probable in regard to the sense of my discerning to the limit of your benefit; but in regard to the sense of my delight in the search, my capacity for will, my openness to even attempt to discern what could ever be "right" for you, and to pull it out from sticky knots and dusty corners of your own mind from which you never dared once to even look upon yourself, pulling out all with ease, like removing massive clumps of collected hair from your unconscious, my inherent talent to balance, in those senses, probability is not a factor. I am told: "You are probably right." What is meant: "You are certainly considerate." To that, I would say: "Indeed."

4. I am told things. A thing I am told: "You are disrespectful." To that teller, I reply with the following: "Your definition of 'respect' has been twisted by your degeneration of values, your secret wish to be immaculate. You are not immaculate, it is obvious upon first sight, you venerable victim. You twist because you are fragile, and in the face of a rock, you are quick to play paper." Never in life have I ever known someone as respectable as myself by far. No openness, disagreeability and neuroticism can look upon my shadow, nay, even a glimpse of it, and not admire my massive restraint. No "display of respect" have I ever witnessed in practical daily life that surpasses the sufficiency of, say, the artwork of a four-year-old palsy patient, in comparison to the finely detailed, wall-spanning canvass and oil masterpieces, inside brass and marble frames, that is my respect.

5. There are things I am told. A thing I am told: "You are blind as a bat." To that teller, I would like to one day say: "And I would not have it any other way--for did you know, the bat is the only mammal which can fly?"

55. The King of Parasites, cont. 1. I live in a generation of glaze. We are drowning in a sea of syrups. We are haughty, trivial, rancorous, melancholic, noxious, intolerably tolerant and completely compromised in the departments of creativity and insightfulness. Every man is a child, every woman wants to be a man, every pet is called a child and every child is treated worse than a toy. Every movie is a remake and every song is the same. The Temple of Syrinx is becoming less and less fantastic. The masks are tightening. One day we were told to dispel for effect, the next, to re-gather for cause. We do absolutely anything anyone says without question and turn our faces away from any sort of conflict. Conflict? How dare they, how dare we. What exactly will be called the generation after "Z?" What does the end of all generations look like? Ah, yes, it has appeared to me: "The Right to Everything."

2. Oh, you far dwellers, you lovers of the camp, you imitators, you eternally distracted, you ones beyond love for nothingness and indifference, you syrup-river tube-riders, you muffled and masked masses, you non-players, you non-valuers, you non-discerners, you uninvited, you falsely found, you hopelessly lost, you abandoned ones, you misraised ones, you non-willing, you non-searching ones, you easily fooled, easily led and easily glorified, you spinning tops, you ducks, you stale, bland, milquetoast, dusty-shelved ones, you skillsmen, you Anti-flowers, you repressed ones, you tellers of things, you enemies of life, now, I beg of you at this juncture, please, tell me the answer to the question in which I have noticed myself speak aloud, unconsciously, almost daily for over two years now: "How do you do it?"

56. 1. Life itself has become a remake, a life of screens. All our possible actions and our representations of our character have become succeptable to instantaneous and widespread witness and judgement. Consequently, we are a generation of those who are simply more comfortable being distracted. Many are completely unaware of any sort of beauty or potential. Many act as if tomorrow should likely not exist, and worse, as if today itself never existed, to their dim acceptance. So enthralled by the screen is the fly that he is completely forgetful of the window, the door.

2. We decided to embrace the remake and to never study the original. We did away with poison but also with doctors. We invented ourselves so as not to discover ourselves. We insist "to each his own," but also "all for one, one for all." We demand lawful rights to scientific wrongs. We traded meat and grain for leaf and nut. We traded pining for whining. We are more patient, that is to say, more sickly. We traded a harsh and firm ground for a smooth and slick screen. Now is a good time to cry.

3. Stanley Kubrick is a man of strong wills. He displays this forthrightly as he paralyzes the masses with his image of the Monolith, with apes and men alike clamoring upon it, in his artpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. But what upon do they clamor? The screen. The Zarathustra introduction and motif reminds us of the film's hidden hero, the many a great potential we can achieve, and that potential's not-so-subtle antagonist, HAL-9000, technology. We always let technology get it the way of true life whenever we feel the need to go off course, that is, until we draw a line; a human line.

57. I have never driven anything other than a golf cart and a tractor, where many among me drive speeding cars and massive truckloads of materials--yet, it is my soul that is akin to the speeding car, the load-bearing truck; while it is their low-speed souls that resemble that shifty tractor, that wobbly cart.

58. 1. Ashes fall upon the world; but if we come to our senses and inhale, from within this ash we can detect and decipher the odors and tastes from whence they came; the useless debris from the mighty games of life, the flickers from the ends of the dream state falling upon us from the ashtrays of the gods, all of our consequential reactions to all of our non-wills combined; all of the throws, swings and graspings of mankind colliding, combusting, and blowing in all directions the stinging and smoking forces upon us, from which our own misguidedly set campfires upon the mountains of the worst of all man's lies that did carry down fires into our valleys without mercy: sympathy.

2. We all have limits of vision. The non-will is strong in the day of the modern woman and the woman-man, the day of the screen, the day of the junebug. We see not any possibility. We are all objects, some a hammer, some a bowl of jelly, some a bar of soap, and so on. In the presence of non-items, we merely become a different item that is rationally well-suited to the task. In the presence of aromas, we become bathtubs. in the presence of holy water, we become drains.

3. Is this the transvaluation of values in action? Have we all truly evolved so fast that we as a race are, in fact, the Supermen? I believe we are--only a vast majority of us hate mankind--a direct opposite to the Zarathustrian. Therefore, we have become a race of "non-Supermen", a mere item, a false representative, a lexicon. We have limited our vision to the vision of a lexicon because we desire to label more than to understand. To hate mankind, to limit your vision, to label all, to materialize all, to turn the entire structure of the delicate and perfected Flow on it's head, making the non-will to universal Anti-flow the final goal, and most importantly, to sympathize; this makes up the chriteria for the modern Lex Luthor. I feel terror from that presence within them--they hate mankind, there is no doubt; much like there is no doubt that I love mankind, and that in my own presence, I feel glory--the profound glory of the Superman.

4. An enemy appears by my table, oh yes. Did you know that the puzzle-maker was, in fact, me? A long work it was, my friends. A test like no other. So much joy and anger all at once did I set to experience. When my work was ruined, I almost killed him, oh yes, you can believe it. But I did not, for if you can bear to take it, I must let you know, that I learned something from that stranger--something far wiser than any aimless thought that came by me during my dedication (for it truly was all in aimlessness, I regrettably admit it to you now). I learned the root of my true aim was to have a worthy opponent. To kill the stranger would be only to kill myself, for in three weeks and three days did many a man pass me by, yet, not one had a look even near the one this stranger bore at every moment, and for that, I looked down upon them like I did my pieces, I did, to my great shame. Greater, even, was my shame when I came to realize that my final product was, in fact, not going to be all that I had hoped it could, as I drew closer to it's conclusion. I let that final piece sit outside the puzzle's frame for those last three days, my friends, I regrettably admit it to you now. I waited in want of this opponent, to my own spite, to spite my own dedication. I could not have hated mankind more than in those last three days, my friends, and if you can believe it, had decided to do exactly what my opponent had done to my puzzle moments after it's completion myself, had he not appeared so suddenly, and got to it first. I wanted to kill, yes, I admit it. But friends, it was not he who I wanted to kill, but myself, for my self-deception and wasted days. And in my hour of final deception, when I could wait no longer and feebly went to put in that final piece, feeling not a single, solitary thing at all within me, then, came an angel.

5. Let the battle begin. Do or die, my friends, in the most literal sense, for the time of peering upon the outside through the screen door is over. Long live the Superman and death to the Lexicon, for as long as it may take, which is surely forever, for no simple tasks have we left to accomplish.

59. Doth man not live in the cross-shade?

60. The Flow Structure, simplified Free will is real. I call it "distraction." It is our inherent conscious state (where we "are" before we "think"). When we think, we begin to travel toward a will or a non-will. A non-will leads to degeneration of mankind, simple to attain, the Anti-flow. The will leads to proper struggle, interest and disinterest, battling, until we reach the Flow, the flourishing of mankind, the spiritualization of loving in nothingness, the senseless and physical embodiment of love. Meaning is the search for this Flow state so that we may cease to exist, and become nothing more than a vessel for love in action. The dream state can die with enough hate, enough fire. But love is it's fuel, we find it in water. Thus, our universally similar desires for good arise all too plainly.

61. If you were to program a person for malevolent entertainment, you would set his logic function and happiness function in opposite directions. Damn ye, dreams. Damn ye. How are you hiding yourself? You fear me, yes. I move on your table without you touching it, I leap from the edge to your annoyance. The floor is what I prefer, you beasts, I am phantom, I am plant, I am man! I love man! But more importantly, I simply do not participate in games unless I know the rules.

62. To Pimp A Philosophy There is not a universal duty because there is not a universal aim, but only individual aim, a function out of our control, thus, not a duty. We control only the search; not the aim, for there is never meaning in aiming, where there always is in searching. We begin the search only after long periods of aiming: distraction. When we are distracted, we are at rest, away from the search, entirely useless to the future of man. The stoics idolize this mind state over all, a hilarious and worthless philosophy. "To decide to begin and to end a search for something for the sake of the search and not the something" is not done out of duty, but out of curiosity, the polar opposite of duty. We aim to search, for in searching, therein lies meaning in having no aim. Aiming is simply an ongoing motor function of the psyche, the basic large gears of our clockwork, our inherent state of meaninglessness. There is a universal curiosity, not duty, which I call "The Search" because only in the search is man not completely meaningless. The search begins at the individual level at many different points in life (after all, all searches end, and new ones begin, and search parties always end up splitting up before there is ever a resolve). It is a seperate entity entirely from the state wherein we undergo the process of "aiming", free will, or being "distracted," as I call it. When we are distracted, we are unaware of an innate imbalance within us. We then begin to aim and shoot, like a fighter, for the proper will, our individual proper will, that target that, when hit, will re-balance what is off within us and us alone. This is not out of duty, but the proper will, one akin to curiosity, akin to a power non-rational. At the start of the search is a state of being in which meaning is abundantly presented, and we are forcefully inclined to believe this as we feel great euphoria, have great insights, and can see many things all at once. For whatever reason it may be, there is a force within us all that makes us aware of this unlikely target, the proper will, the one of power, of curiosity, and that force does incline to us that it should ever be aimed for, although it is far-off and unlikely to be hit; there is a force that tells us: "You see it now, don't you? Now go to it; for all your hopes and dreams await you there." This target, a mere dot floating around in--or perhaps resting on the floorbed of--a sea of non-wills (all those thoughts and actions unhealthy, parasitic and detestable in the face of what lies at the very end of a long and meaningful search, found only by providence of your hitting of the target, against all odds: The Flow)--is, in fact "the Will to Power" Nietzsche describes--only his power was in curiosity, not command and psychopathy. A long and great misunderstanding.

63. Wannabes I dedicate this section to all the wannabes. I respect your search greatly, and admire your overflow of meaning, your want to be--but you must look inward now, wannabes; for you can only ever be yourself.

64. 1. There are "pale criminals" all around us today. I reference Zarathustra, but I allude specifically to our modern killers, more specifically, the ones who are not caught. Their will is a peculiar one. Do they truly get away with it? Of course they do, if it is their search. Of course they do not, if it was a non-will that only came from rational "need" or "duty." Is guilt a necessary sensation, or only a side effect from a non-will carried out? To murder in duty, surely, you will pay. To murder in curiosity, however? Merely the Krogh Principle of hate, a personal experiment in hatred.

2. I should end this curiosity steadfastly--for I fear the modern pale criminals are a necessary bee, cyclically pollinating within the cruel nature of the Dream State, and mighty bold warriors indeed; after all, I have already stated that all distracted ones are inherently meaningless.

3. The properly curious killer likely does not wish to destroy meaning, but to destroy potential, and to see if there is any meaning in that destroying. I would likely guess that there is not any, only because destruction is more akin to an end than to a means (but in a serialization, this could prove to be the reverse); but that is an uncharacteristically arrogant assumption on my part, for I have not murdered. Why would bloodthirst be unnatural? Regardless, to the guilty ones, who were likely cornered and not simply curious, I can only say, you were warned, in both directions. To the curious killers, I am yet again left to my mantra of the search, my loving and contemptuous torture to know all difficult knowledge: "How do you do it?"

65. Strangers We do not trust in strangers in the fact that they are mysteries. When a stranger is confident, he reveals that he no longer has mistrust in his own mystery, and upon witness to this, he is no longer a stranger to us; and moreso, he reveals the stranger in ourselves.

66. Phenomonology of Poetry The nonsense art is one of my favorites. Poetry is the dream state's own personal quality of pain. Pain, for it sees all and controls all, and man can only defile it's ideal so many times before it must say no more. Many a poet have commited vile acts, but are of pure soul. This imbalance sends into the Dream pain, and it sends back it's quality of pain, poetry. It gives in man a fleeting and strange air, like he is out of time and being sent strange codes, but in the language he already knows. The poet is being pulled apart by forces from the dream state at his zenith of distraction. Poetry, consequently, is a form of wisdom improvised on the spot by the dream state and channeled through you due to your extreme imbalance. This serves like a psychological enema. Instantaneously inflated, sensuality is abundant and love seems so clearly important. Poetry is egoless searching, a rare state indeed. To not have ego is easier than to grapple with it, to walk with it, and many a poem is a mere blowing of a dandelion. This blowing, this nonsese, it is the lifeblood of the dream state spilling over into the realm of man for the benefit of man. It is still to be noted: If egolessness is man's proper state, poetry would be the most cherished art of all; not the least.

67. The Flow Structure of Being in a Quantum Perspective: or, Empathy for a Dream The state of distraction is akin to a wave, a sea of choice at all degrees within our sensibly reachable dimensions. This is typical free-will. We tread water and look around for islands or for a raft. We see ourself from different angles as we float amid the shadows of our possible choices that crawl in the water beneath us. Were there to be a split in individual realities, it would occur in this ocean: distraction. If there are copies of individuals that live in seperate realms, they likely spawn when we happen upon a clear choice, that is to say, to reach the reaction that occurs when distraction ends and a will or non-will has commenced. This is likely where the dream state will see one become two in the ocean, swimming apart. It must now deal with this less-pleasing aesthetic. How, then? By making the copy invisible and placing dimensional barriers; or, removing the copy and dropping it on another planet like we would a plastic bottle in the ocean, only to continue following the original (or more interesting) individual. Both seem like a hassle. Perhaps, even the dream state is coping with it's own search. If the dream state copes, the dream state then must write poetry. If it's hassle is true, and there are "objects" (entire civilizations) that we may run into in another realm that we would walk through like a ghost would in our reality, it would likely be the case that the dream state is then forced to create specific folds around our bodies that allow us to be less intrusive upon each other's respective (and corresponding) world. If there are not similar realities directly beside us, with said dimensional folds keeping us apart in time and physicality, (this is more likely, as this would simply lead to collage, and ultimately indistinguishable) then they merely exist in what we call space, transported there courteously by the dream state, so that we do not scream in horror as we see a copy of ourself appear, smile, wave, and walk away only to dissappear again every time we make a move or think a thought (well, at least, the first couple times we would scream). The wave of distraction we ride regardless, whether our reality is one of copy, collage, experiment or simulation. To develop further on this perspective will help us not. It does not impress to depress. I mean not to impress, or depress. I mean to empower.

68. The Lion and the Zebra As a hungry, searching lion, I now set off on my hunt for the Zebra. The zebra is my personal favorite of all the prey I feast upon, and today is calling out to make it a Zebra Day. Why does this lion prefer the zebra best? He knows that they are keen on the significance of their bold coats, making them more confident and less on-guard than an average gazelle. This attribute, I crave. They travel in packs and are more difficult to pounce upon than the donkey with his short legs and idosyncratic loneliness. This challenge, I crave. In the best way, they are like peacocks; they entertain my eye before I devour them; but unlike them, also in the best way, in which the invigorating powers of zebra meat will sustain me for days, where peacock meat would only tide me over for a small while. This fullness, I crave. They know they are prey to many, and surely disparage upon the threat levels of the seperate predators upon their emergence; and upon my emergence, I will see in them an exhausted, but ever-welcoming sense of fear within, as if thinking,"here comes the lion from his cave. I will likely be dead quite soon; but at least it will not be at the teeth of a hyena." This due, I crave. If i succeed in my hunt for the zebra, much wonderful sensation will I feel, empowering my pride greatly. Too many a zebra, however, and I will have reduced myself to the hyena and his greed, and spoiling my own refined tastes. I respect the zebra as I eat it. I eat zebra unoften, indeed, but always in great portions. For all this, does the zebra also respect the lion. This silent applause, I crave. "Now is the time." And the lion gave a roar to the sky from his high rock with all his might. He turned his gaze upon the horizon, down upon the herds. He made a lunge into the air, and landing in a hard and determined forward stride, descending with fierce eye and growling belly down into the plains.

69. Bold and Comfortable Theory There is a pattern in artists, creators, and the strongest willers of mankind just alike to all others, but on a more noticeable scale. Their art fluctuates greatly between apex stages of "Bold" and "Comfortable." Bold is their art that challenges their values, seeks to destroy and rebuild, adheres not to the past. The comfortable sides to their art are determined and reinforced. A key factor that must be considered to give this theory more logical credit: The artist's first work that he releases from himself and gives unto the world is most assuredly bold, and we can base the trend thusly from this starting point. The artist must have all his releases anadulterated by culture, so beware of unfortunate anomolies. In studying this pattern, we learn a great lot; a great lot. Search for this pattern and it will emerge more often from here on out for you. Beware.

70. The Casino and the Hospital We are on our way back to health. In an age of low attention and peak distraction, our values have not died, and they have not been transvalued: They have been anesthetized. They lay in long rows of hospital beds as we throw the curtains closed upon them and cross the street to the casino. In the casino, on a land not ours mockingly working slow revenge, we dispel until we are senseless, we aim to be senseless. The cold, moist hospital railings outside the door to our value patients are unpleasant to the touch, the cold sting of the dream state. The smells and sounds of healthy values are those of the hospital. We are covered in a sweat of disgust among them and wonder: "Why keep them here? No matter. Better not to worry; to go to the casino, to spend casino currency, of which I have more than plenty. You will find thrill and reward and devastation at the casino. You did not invite your hospital friends, even though many are not bedridden or contagious. You prefer hard and worthless currency over the more fragile, but more valuble. Your roots are overwatered indeed, the stenches of those sickly and anesthetized values come back and haunt you, so do your roots leak involuntarily, and at this rate, you will be completely dry. A second wind is coming. The tubes are being pulled, my friends. The curtain is being drawn back and many old friends are reacquainting themselves with the light. The casino is going out of business.

71. For a long time, I considered myself to be likely of Irish and Italian decent out of my brashness, fragility and weak-heartedness. That ended up not being true in the slightest I concluded, for I excel neither in crime, nor organization, and I am a bad liar. This would lead me again back to the deserts of my past, where many a camel still roam. I seek out the satchels of gold that lay upon their humps, left from previous riders and their journeys never completed. With a mission such as this, I only hope I brought enough water. I was told in a death letter from my great grandmother that I come from the Dutch people, but not much else other than the typical dull goodbyes and best future wishes. Well, then. Who are the Dutch? They are from the Netherlands, of course! They dwelled in river-lowlands in upper-west Europe. They are the progenitors of capitalism. They excel at music, dance, and architecture. They come originally from German-Pagan religions and then past Christianity back to today's top liberal mindframe. Rembrandt and Van Gogh were Dutch. They seemed to be like rather amiable and good-natured tradespeople, open to a moral-free market, neutral in matters of the law of man, capable of Roman takeover, hard-nosed to those from Belgium, but malleable and meanding to those from Germany. The physical landscape shifted greatly over time (this last one a bit worrisome and the most curious). There was a split in secular Christian divisions between Calvinist and Protestant, the former tending to dwell south of the major rivers, the latter to the north. In time, these northern Dutch had some influence from Germany, where the Dutch south of the rivers got their influence from the French, and others. My stature and eye shade alone would make me like to guess which one I am. Of course, my disagreeability is that of a Germans, but my openness is that of the most degenerate Frenchman (not to say all French are devious, merely subject to folly, a trait not agreeable or disagreeable). Perhaps I am a Dutch midlander, or a Frisian, a true shore dweller! I do not often eat french fries, but I do in fact enjoy them best with mayonnaise and have for as long as I can remember. I have always detested ketchup on fries of any kind. In the modern Dutch land, you will find endless bridges, windmills and fields of flower. I am not one much to listen to family. This, however, was not said, but written. This great grandmother was indeed no liar, for I feel those Dutch now within. This is perhaps the truest sense of "patriotism" I have had to date. I will keep her memory, not in my head, but in my heart; my true Nether Land. This camel I have found is weary. It is on it's last legs indeed. I lay it now, to rest, and shelter myself within it for, lo, night is falling, and soon it will get cold; but it will be good enough for now, indeed, good enough for now; to be in this night desert, and in this warm camel; meditating, and counting my gold.

72. Flow Structure, cont. The apparent world is the "Reality State." All the lost and found fossils tablets, data logs and universal mathematical equations, all laws of man, all social institutions, all language, art and society in history. The reality state in relation to the dream state is like that of the relationship of a steadfast and healthy married couple, the dream state as the patriarch and the reality state the matriarch. Humans are akin to children of these two states, playing and going to school, and annoying the parents. Yet, they set us straight, or at least, they seem to wish to. In all our immaturity and arrogance, they still love us. The parents disagree on how the children should be raised in many matters. All rationality, thus, is the work of a loving mother's secure influences. All aiming, willing, searching, flowing: these are the values of the dream state. The meaning in woman is life. The meaning in man is death.

73. The Holy Cow In the times where you were not your label, I would never to think to even label. I would never refer to myself or anyone as any kind of '-ian' or '-ist', but simply by name. Alas, it is now the Day of the Label, the day of the creed of plastics, the written instruction. In this day, one feels as if there is an invisible gun floating around one's head in every dialogue--fully loaded with judgement and wrath. In the Day of the Label, any emotional display can cause great strife upon viewing or being the displayer. We wish to be not senseless, but emotionless. Humans are not emotionless--we have various levels pre-set and can work on the ones we so wish, with insight guiding the balancing process. Today's conversations are like that of the Old West again, indeed--only not for cowboy justice, the individual justice--but for group justice, cow justice. In the Day of the Label, the Holy Cow deems all followers as '-ian's and 'ist's, and the gun to my temple had me do it. It made me label myself, to my horror. I was asked: "What are thy values in one word? All of man must know thee as only this forever. What shall it be?" It was forced upon me, my friends. I could not think of the label I needed for so long; but the Holy Cow was patient, and did not kill me until it heard it's answer--for the Holy Cow must always know what even you think, too, before it could ever go on. I was told to give myself an '-ian', and I chose: "Christian." But I wish not to live in the Day of the Label.

74. The Flow Structure: A Different Outlook To man, searching for meaning is deathlike; he is lost, not himself, not here. To woman, searching is meaningless in this sense, for to be deathlike in a woman is no good sight to look upon. Woman is inborn with meaning, the gift of life, as I have said. Thus, we can conclude as harsh and rough as the seas of distraction for man are in his aiming for the search, thrashing in the water amongst a circle of incoming non-wills, plain as day and alluring the senses like the sirens on the rocks; as harsh as these waters are for man, for woman, they lie still. For the distracted state of a woman is akin to a soft, steady pool of saltwater, but with no phantoms lurking within it, and that pool reaches out endlessly, and she finds herself under a single waterfall, raining down from the heavens upon her. Here, she is quite content. I would be, too. She was born with all she needs. And it is not good or evil wills and non-wills she looks upon; but rather, simply, a sea of men, appearing to see just that, running in circles, waving their arms and doing nothing of worth in an endless pool of ankle length, splashing around like fish. Of course, of course, of course: All she has to do now, is wait. The distracted woman is the searching woman, and she has her men do the willing, with little regard for how these silly men determine the value of those wills; for after a woman is under her waterfall, in her mind, it really could not get much better, or much worse.

75. Chunk of Cow, Bit of Pig I encourage all future men to never stop ingesting the meat from another animal for fuel source. The animal within comes out, and calls you to instincts of meaning. I also encourage the moderate consumption of sweetmeats, for our ancestors would call it the food of the gods: a source for fuel and decadance in one, with the taste as if the animal were killed with kindness. Sweetmeats will not last as long as beef, which will not last as long as game. Avoid game meat, for we have had enough in the past (unless your will is to bring back forth the past) and we will have plenty more in the future.

76. Knights I showed you how to master the game of chess. I helped you practice, I challenged you to challenge myself. You knew victory from my guidance, and I found victory in friendship. But one day, you started asking me to play again too many times. You were interested, you listened well, took the notes, then threw out the notepad. You decided to only play chess, and to only move your knights. And when I could no longer play your twisted and strung-out version, I had to remove myself from ever playing with you again, to my dismay; for I never knew such flourishing could be snuffed out so needlessly.

77. Shoes and Feet A man should find serious difference upon putting on his shoes. After he does, he is now on guard a noticeable degree, and more open to skepticism, strangely. To be a modern anchorite, one needs shoes with a great many laces; this way he knows what exactly his values are for the moment. The values of a shoeless man precludes him from walking on glass. The values of a tight-laced one may conquer any task at any moment. They are both crucial, and must be experienced equally for maximum chances of meaning.

78. Psychophysiology of Superstition All superstition is rooted in undiscovered psychophysiological and phenomenalogical dream-to-reality-to-man connections (pre-set, improvised, copied and pasted, etc., it matters not). For example, were I to take my shoes and set them upon the counter as I ate my dinner, I would not be choosing to place myself in physical harm's way (fear of physical harm, perhaps, the strongest unknown force in all life, not to say we are functioning on a self-preserving value structure, indeed we are not, men at least.*) I would, however, be choosing to put myself in psychological harm's way, for I know already that, for whatever reason, it is a horrible idea and that it must not be done, even when I am alone, yet, with no direct physical threat. To determine why this rationally "silly" fear arises not upon action, but upon mere thought, one must think to the past. If there are hints in the past, but not enough, come back to the present. I will show you. "To eat near a shoe is to throw thy enemy's dirt in thee own mouth and the mouth of thy child!" A bit dramatic, but you can see the primitive logic. Now, with this hint, I come back to the present. "I have to show you these new kicks I just copped. I can set them here. It's cool, they're brand new." Not even a second thought. Of course you can! Shoes on a table? No problem! We see that indeed there is a connection with dirt and freshness and how we equate it in regard to the foot. I say the foot and not footwear due to the fact that although the superstition may be removed, we still have an inherent disgust sensitivity when the foot comes near the mouth. More hints; we are close. Back to the past now, but further, further, until the answer comes: "We see foot. We see mouth. We see top, we see bottom. Top is not bottom." Underwhelming, indeed. Or a serious discovery? What am I saying, of course: It is both.

*What exactly is woman's relationship with physical pain?

79. The Dahmer Initiative The man who pretends to be a beautiful woman will only attract beautiful men.

80. Gonzo Philosophy 1. In the Day of the Label, the Day of the Screen, I am allowed to make up anything. So I will: "Gonzo Philosophy." A double-negative, this is good. A ride of the coattail, this is fine. Our attention spans deserve no better right now. I wish not to research, I wish to search. If this book were a game of Monopoly, this is the point we reach the end of the first lap, and, as we all know, we always break the most rules on the first lap. Forgive me, I know you will, for we have this understanding. We have already started and we barely remember which piece is ours and who is supposed to be keeping track of what. So, we can take this moment and say as necessary as the first lap is, you know the game has not even begun, not yet, not really. Onward, round the corner we go, from bold to comfortable, to collect Two Hundred, and perhaps build upon our properties; and perhaps, take over the world.

2. In ode to our first lap round the world and back, to the honor of the First Warrior of Insight, we must pass the torch, for he has died proudly in battle. Now comes the era of the Gonzo Philosopher. But I must warn you: he is quite the character, more arrogant but less haughty than I, the Spirit of the Warrior. He sees more in physiology than I, but often gets lost in metalinguistics. He is natural, human, and still quite new to this--forgive his trickery, for he only assumes you have the desire for it, as you move through lap two with him. After all, the first of his aphorisms have already begun. Did I getchyuh?

81. The enantiodromia felt when we are restructuring our morals is an intense tremor from the dream state, like a slap from a father. In anger and shame, we now live. We must remain open to this unknowing, this mix of childish anger and shame-- for it is essential to a proper inflow of insight; one you kept off, rationally, in your mother-wrapped unconscious for much too long. Do not fear your own restructuring, for this is by far the noblest task all true gonzo philosophers must undertake.

82. Bittersweet Memory There are certain configurations of seratonin-based strutures that, upon release, do not cause happiness, but anguished happiness: bittersweetness. Such will happen when the dragon of Nostalgia calls to you; and you return back to her restricted caverns, to release that unholy configuration by means of a high stimulant or an old rock ballad you acquaint with a lost love. The harsh sadness and remembrance, that sweet electric symphony of old, dead, blonde despair can have enough power to kill a man. Beware those old structures, and the non-wills you may partake in to herald into your heart that awful, spinning gun from your unfinished dreamed of deeds yet to be rectified. Dead love: she rests in the hospital, on the tube, behind a locked door, with the key locked away in the chests of the deepest caverns of the dragon of Nostalgia is what we discover in bittersweetness.

83. Is the gonzo philosopher not merely a lazy and vain creature of unsustainable passions and uncertainties? Is he not flesh and bone posturing as ghost and tree, only to please himself first and foremost? He is, indeed, and all the more power to him; for he loves mankind, and with this fact alone, we forgive him, because we all know of the horrible truth that mankind shows no mercy upon ghosts and trees.

84. Are we nothing but puppets of the Dream State? Love slaves of paper and syrup, like some heinous monster-child's wind-up toy? Does science not hold the ruler, or is science the actual ruler, held by the Dream State, with strings on it, with us on the strings? What's going on? I was told there would be a rabbit here.

85. The Non-Smoker Scenario If you have never been a part of tobacco culture, you will be surprised to find out there are not just "smokers" and "non-smokers," but a multitude of sub-species of smokers. For example, a smoker who leaves any more than one full inhale before reaching the lettering is a rich smoker. Another example; a smoker who puts their lighter inside the cardboard box is a poor smoker. Another example; those who do not use filters are pretentious smokers. Another; those who smoke Virginia Slims must be shot on sight.

86. The City Look upon the city from the highest skyscraper you can find. You may commit a crime of man, yes; but the crime was only in the scaling of the walls, and not the view you took in: the scaling of the universe. In doing that, you immediately break all laws of man. Risk is a force we must wrangle with in the reality state to no end, and so be it; for that building was not being used for anything better anyway. Do I come off anarchistic? Not at all. If you get told to leave, you may. There are other buildings in the city.

87. My thoughts are getting so fuzzy that they are appearing simple. Do not let this alone let you think I am slipping. Give me some credit here. I could be much sillier. After all, it's not like I'm telling you there are magic Italian gondolas manned by giant chocolate bunnies floating around our heads and demanding we sacrifice every other daughter's left nipple so it can rain in Africa more. I come from a place of rationality; I really do. I leave bunnies and gondolas and nipple-less daughters to the speed readers. Let this serve as a filter to keep them away from the real meat and bone of my work.

88. The Cross Shade The beings that stalk you in fits of sleep paralysis are no less real than the ones in any regularly encapsulated dream. The dimensions simply broke free. A quick shock of feedback landing in your body, a bit form of negative energy, brought out from the Cross Shade: the state of pinnacle existential horror, the pulling of the legs in the sea of distraction. Down, you go.

89. What, exactly, are we being thread into? What do we look like behind our stitches? If there is no needle, why do we seem to have this...this... patterning?

"Hey, who are you? What are you holding? What is the meaning of this?"

Part II: The Gonzo Philosopher

90. The Compass of the Warrior I have uncovered an artifact I stumbled upon during my walk through the desert today, lying near some poor, humpless camel bones. It is an ancient navigational tool. When you look upon the compass, it moves. You will see it pointing in many directions, but you will generalize in one of four typical directions. If it points North, you mean to head for isolation and insight. If it points South, you mean to head for debauching your Northern insight. If it points West, you seek to create insight afresh, and let the ego flourish. If it points East, you are comfortable in your current distraction. Today my compass points in the north-west area: The direction of my ancestors. What we do not know, what we think we know, what we know we know, not thinking to know; North, South, West, East. And as we end the day and dissolve into sleep, so does the dial upon the compass too, dissolve, until tomorrow, until we check it once again. Indeed, this compass is much more than a screen. I couldn't even imagine.

91. As I continue on this north-west journey on the Monopoly board that is this book, I must keep in mind that I will soon have to catch a train, and, perhaps fall into fortune, as I reach the apex of the north-west, where on the turn I will learn a great many things, as I travel for the red states. Forgive this horribly confining meta-structure of narrative, my friends, I know, I know; but the Warrior is long gone, and he was much better in isolation; and with his whole history before me I grow weary at what I must live up to. I only meant to be gonzo, to be me. In the end, as we collect Two Hundred together, even if I am the most foolish of your narrators, know that I only meant to be cleverly true and truly clever; for the true gonzo philosopher should not feel to require such an ancient tool; for the true gold of the gonzo floats around and within the rainbow. Alas, still, in this place where so much seems so obvious, I cannot see why I should hold on to this damn thing, it has rough edges, my pants are ripped now; yet, there remains the strange and powerful warrior spirit in this compass that keeps me from abandoning it completely. He was a damn good narrator, wasn't he?

92. The New Outlaws 1. What he called the Junebug is what we today call The Wipe. Yeah, our president is a two-year-old. I mean, the last one we had. His dad put him in charge, but then he got sacrificed. Yikes, indeed, you crazy "Post-Z" predicting warrior, you; now tighten thy dial. Did you ever want to know what we called him, that anomoly of power, that final nail in the baby King's coffin? "The First and Last King of the Republic of Nice Try, Buddy."

2. Now there are no presidents, no kings, only us: The New Outlaws. Regardless, The Temple of the Grave of the First and Last King of the Republic of Nice Try, Buddy finally fell and in the vast post-Wipe apocolypse arose many a new land and many a fresh desert and river-delta. My personal camp is set up along the east coast near the springs of Old Florida. I don't mind the dinosaurs. The gonzo philosopher enjoys the slime of the lizard, the humidity of rapid instinct, the trip, the journey, the hellhole of discovery. My camp also works well for me in the fact that most people are in Old Mexico; but they are a savage bunch. In sticky Old Florida, just close enough to remain culturally relatable and just far enough out to learn how to properly shed my skin, I belong. The lizards teach me, the dinosaurs fear me, for I helped raise them. My compass still points north-west, and I am getting closer and closer to the opposite of my cozy, little lizard camp, to my great fear and hopeless desire.

3. Pill Bomb Along past the jail I met an escapee with two pistols and a kind of sedated-paranoia air about him named Pill Bomb. He gave himself the nickname in jail, but decided to keep it for some reason. I forgave him of this because I was curious in how he succeeded in his escape. We discoursed. "What is the meaning of this title?" "You need a traveling partner, by chance?" "No, not even on the off chance. I am curious on how you escaped from that hellpit. What does Pill Bomb mean?" "Means I'm chill as a pill, but calm like a bomb." "You're a danger, then, it would appear. Surely, were I to bring you along with me you would easily get me killed. I can't stand that stupid name of yours, you know. Do you even know what it means? You dont seem like a psychologist." "Matter of fact, I am. I see medicine as a miracle of man, like myself. I see a bomb as a finely tuned work of ingenuity, like myself. If you leave alone a pill, ain't nothing gonna happen to you. You leave a bomb be, you'll be just fine long as it ain't a landmine, that is. But like the pill and the bomb you start pulling me apart, you start playing with my wires, I will go off on you, one way or another." "That's actually quite sophisticated. Perhaps you may be worthy of friendship. In fact, you are. We are now friends, you and I, Pill Bomb." "So you don't mind me coming along? You don't mind aidin' and abbetin' a gnarly rascal? A total stranger?" "Not at all, Pill Bomb, not at all; for you see, I have been doing that for quite some time now. Also, I have a magic compass. Now, how did you escape?" "Well I just waited til it was night time, then I took a- wait, what was that now?"

4. And so I succumbed, I let the varmant tag along, this miracle of potential destruction, as he calls himself; at least, for a while. He has proven himself capable of abstract thought, and today, that will do me a good balance; for under this dusty and shifty criminal, I see balance. I cannot do it alone like that great warrior did, my friends. I fear I may have to split my oncoming fortune, for my direction has not changed, even upon this digression. I must go on, and a friend who thinks for himself may not be worth such a scoff after all. Perhaps, I will even let him write in the book, for he may prove yet to be a fellow gonzo. Cynical, I am, but desperate, and strong enough to succumb to momentary weakness. I have no addiction for pattern, I only happen upon it. I love the human, and I know when to let them in; friend, foe or stranger. Let's hope he does not get me killed.

93. "...yep, the shootout was mighty adventurous, but, it turns out the store we robbed ended up being the wrong one completely, on account of Sleazy Jesus coming back to double-cross us once he saw AJ head out that back door, just before we got the false intel, just before Barbecue realized that the map from..." "Enough, Pill Bomb! Jesus! I didn't ask! Why can't you do anything useful? Damn you, I already regret this!"

94. We came upon a juncture where we found an old crater from an asteroid, not near the size of say, Old Yorkshire, but most assuredly nothing to scoff at. Down in the crater was a savage from the tribes of Old Mexico, sheltering a pile of pelts. "You there! Do you often find yourself at the bottom of a crater, sheltering a mass of pelts? What is the meaning of this? Wait here, Peanut. I don't want to startle him." "Why you gon go bother him for? Seems sketchy. Them pelts are soaked in toxins and insect shit, ain't worth a half a dang." "Just wait, Peanut, my compass is acting up, this damn warrior is trying to tell me something! Considering that, I believe it may be important for me to, possibly, help this strange man, sheltering useless items down in a deep, deep hole, seperate from the whole world, for reasons completely..." I stopped short. Pill Bomb remained silent. "Damn. You're absolutely right. Damn it to hell. Let's go." And so we continued past the savage in the crater, saving ourselves from a long, agonizing, death of the soul. I was right to bring you, Peanut.

95. Night has fallen once again, and my friend and I are quite drained. We are days away from the train still, assuming, it is still running properly, and not destroyed by the Califan, those trolls. I do not look forward to the moment I must ride over them once again. We found solace one night in the yard of a gentle couple, who let us stay as long as we worked. After some time, we spent a night in a blockade wherein we found a man who claimed to be the son of Jesus, but then vanished before we could say goodbye. On a night following that strange dream, we fell upon an actual, standing home. A short and dull clay building, on the outskirts of the Grand Valley. He told us to make ourselves at home, for he was a good smoker, and we carried good smoke. The Grand Valley is the largest city we have today on our post-Wipe continent, opposite of Old Yorkshire, the greatest crater we know about. We are told there was once a great city there, destroyed completely since the Fall of the First and Last Baby King, since the Right to Everything movement, since the Declaration of Independence from Independence and it's subsequent War for Mankind; following that, the erasing of the internet, the Great Divide, The Ascending and the re-emergence of dinosaurs. My first memories are that of creatures with only eyes. I have learned to adapt growing up in a land of lizards and faceless spectres. I trust little, and love less. My childhood ended when I was seven. One day, only a few days after my birthday, the first asteroid came, the one that gave birth to the Califan. Never would I see innocence again.

96. "Wake up, asshole. We got two days, you hear that, two days! One second longer and we will be up to our waists in Califan scum! You want that?" Let go of that damn pen, what are you writing, anyway, "How to Be a Meanderin' Time-Wastin Scumbag one-oh-one? Move!"

97. The Red States approach, only miles to the tracks. Do I even need to describe to you, reader, these horrible Califan? They are trolls; they live underneath the Great West Train. They are merely something to avoid in this horror show, nothing more. They will not harm you if you keep your mouth closed. When around a Califan, never open your mouth. I know of this inside hint because I grew up here. I was seven. the Great West Train was still in the final stages of completion and the asteroid came. I was there when the first asteroid came. I never wish to think of it, but I must, for those terrible Califan are getting closer with every word I write.

98. I must admit, it was not so bad. Nostalgia breathes heavy fires in the lizard-brained gonzo philosopher when the present has become all too light. I enjoy the rest of my train ride now, for it is, in fact, running, and we did, in fact, make it. I can see the right turn now. With the terrible reminder of my past, the Califan, in the rear window and my friend asleep in the cot above me; we were very close to missing it, my friends, I dare not say how close, and for what ghastly reasons. But that has all passed now, and my vigor is returning. I understand now the rush that comes in much more vivid in the tunnel you chose than in the tunnel you did not. I reach back into my pocket through the rip and once more, look with ever-increasing devotion, upon my fantastic, magic desert compass.

99. A child approaches a light switch. He tries to balance the lever.

100. I asked Pill Bomb if he considered us friends. He said I was alright, but that he didn't need any more friends, since he already has his two best friends with him: Uncle Sam and Philip Morris. I still have yet to decipher this code.

101. The Death of Pill Bomb A terrible thing has happened. I can't believe I did this to myself. I lost a friend today; perhaps, the only one I'll ever have. And you can believe me when I say he lived up to his name. He went down screaming. We were traveling somewhere near a steep ledge, on a long dead road down a mountainside. Suddenly, there came a devil upon us. Someone from Peanut's past. I still know little of that past; for that first time I shut him up, I can thank that, surely. He came out from the corner ahead with a pistol in each hand. This outlaw wanted blood. Peanut was always a little less ripe than his fruits, and the payback is finally due. There was nothing I could do, but wait, and listen. The enemy approached, but Pill Bomb was smiling a very nostalgic (and deeply hidden, fearful) smile, like he knows already what is about to happen. "All right then," spits Peanut, "I'll bite." "Well, well, well. Ready to pick that bone, Pill?" "Nosir. I'm just waitin." "Waiting for what?" "For you to flip the bail," replied Peanut, cryptically. "What bail, what are you talking about?" "You been fishing, haven't you? When you was a kid?" "That don't matter right now," the devil scoffed. "Think again, old friend. Way I see it, our differences been settled a long time now. So long, I damn near forgot about you. See, I know how to make new friends--not like the way you did, though, you bastard--but now, some reason, you're back, pullin' up your boat and trying to bait me. "When a real man goes fishing, he knows exactly what kind of fish he wants to catch before he makes the cast; and, old friend, your memory must be short as history, because you seem to have forgotten something. I am one big fish. You keep trying to bait me, I just might bite--and I just might drag you to the bottom of the lake. So I suggest you flip the bail and cut me loose, while you still got the chance." Pill Bomb smiled cooly, and had that cowboy look of rugged bliss all over his creased and charming yet unflinching face. But the foe did not move, or budge his gaze; his energy matched Peanut's exactly, only in silence. Finally, after a moment, he took a few paces forward, pulled his hands to his hips and replied, "Well, maybe I ain't fishing. Maybe I'm huntin'." "Well that makes this thing a whole lot easier; if you're huntin', that means that makes you a predator--which--well, that must make me prey! "You makin' me prey, Sleaze? Well. Now I'm gonna make you pray."

102. What are some non-wills? Sentiment: The dragon of Nostalgia, exposed to sympathy. Dedication: Devotion to causes that are not of your creation. Hatred: An astringent temper. I say a non-will is a misaction, yet only describe them in terms of abstractions. This is due to the fact that very few pre-calculated thoughts and plans we have will ever turn out to be what ends up leading you toward a path of true meaning. The path to meaning is never as far-off as we think, it just knows how to hide well, and to blend. Ultimately, this is a satisfaction to us, for it is only a particularly bored nihilist that searches for logic in magic.

103. The North-West Peak I have found my fortune. I have reached the north-west peak. The cost of travel is a physical cost. The gonzo philosopher is no anchorite. Adventure still, do I seek, even as my back is stiff as trees and my mouth a mere ball of cotton. I take all my new gold, but I would surely like to split it. The cost of adoring is a mental cost. I am offered solace, but do not take it precisely because it was offered. I have my costs racking up beside me; why skip on the parking? The game continues, and in a land of the dead, who may I play this remainder for? My compass began to vibrate in my pocket. The dial appeared as my eyes locked on the locket target. East. Damn. I miss Peanut. I search to be like him. He was stronger than me. I thought I knew everything. I wish to go South; back home. The compass vibrates again as I write. East. Solace. The Great West Train alone should have been enough to do me in, let alone the birth and death of a whole friendship in the middle space. Am I strong? To the mind's furthest East Temples, then. I know people, after all; I am the gonzo philosopher. Our dulled morals are quick to recover, do not forget, quick and bouyant and self-nourishing; but not forever. We must respect sleep, and in the face of the happiest and truest of days, not a bigger bummer was born. In the corner in the north-east I will stay, but to throw myself away to the winds of the East. My compass fools me no longer; it was never meant for geography. Oh, Peanut...

104. I seek the Two-Hundred, yet I am already halfway through my journey upon the globe. I rest in the north-west, yet seek to move south, with a moral compass telling me to head East. My favorite friend is dead, and I live in a post-apocalypse. I am the immortal flesh that represents the dead past for better or worse and it is all up to me. And yet, the lapses remain. What happened exactly before we boarded the train? I don't remember. I know it did not keep me from where I am now, but I have no idea what pain I may have caused in my haze. This is bittersweetness for the lover of man, the hater of man. To be a gonzo philosopher, you must want to be a lizard and to adapt immediately. Were it not for this compass, I would not likely wish to write a word down for anyone. So please forgive my lack of accumulated wisdom upon this juncture; It is only the nature of the Gonzo; I assure you, he is a fiend, but a just fiend, and, typically, quite docile, if you can believe it. The East will welcome him with open arms, there is no doubt. There will be balance yet--for he is an ongoing journeyman; an infinite downgoer.

105. I try not to make up, but to make out. Gonzo philosophy is not a degenerate non-will, but a will to degeneracy to further an opposing one; a rare ability. Thus, it is The Apparent Art of Breaking Down the Self (not to be confused, of course, with The Subtle Art of Making Things Up).

106. Ego Death East, East, onward I go to close my eyes and slay ego.

107. Magna Nimous What is the quality of a man who is in touch with his ability to aim, to miss, to hit, to search, to be fooled, to be consciously imbalanced and unconsciously re-balanced, who wishes flourishing for his fellow man but only to the ends of his wills? The state of being magnanimous. I see you, Goddess of the East: I dub thee: "Magna Nimous." Tell me, Goddess, for an old friend, he must know: Do you always enjoy pain?

108. By what means do you search? By means of ego: it is my raft in distraction. Please, I must not let it go, goddess. To what end are your means? To the ends of the Earth, of course, goddess-- I search to the ends, so as to reveal the beginning. The beginning? What lies there? Thine ego is right here. If it is the beginning you seek, you must unwrap the present and suture the future. You are wise, goddess. Thank you for your magnanimity. But, no. My ego is my raft, for to see the beginning and to move my muscles about while doing that, is a better suit for me, oh Goddess, forgive me, please, for deep down--I fear you. Forgive me--do you? forgive me?

109. Our limits in vision arise betwixt the phantom digits of space. Bring out something equational, something metaphysical: the way back. Where is my raft?

110. Mantra of Arrogance "I fear I am the only one."

111. Fitting in Fear The most lethal manifestation of fear man has ever felt in the history of being comes in the form of guilt; "culpability for the degereration of mankind"; not under the eyes of any opposing or "higher" value structures received from culture, but in opposition to our own unknown higher wills. We do not determine our individual values inasmuch as we estimate them. When one is unsavvy at estimating one's own values, he will look unto the group value. The more a value is agreed upon as a worthwhile, upstanding and "moral" restraint (for ancient rules tend to advise, not to regulate) across all individual assessments, so they are passed. This "estimation" is clearly visible in my sea of distraction theory, which immediately defuncts fear as a "function" or "force of cognitive influence" since it cannot occur in the free-willing state of being. Any "fears" we have within that domain are merely physiological reactions to various apparent forces of potential and chaos that influence you on the individual scale in regard to your surrounding benefit and disbenefit; intense inner forces holding back intense outer forces; holding, not out of duty or right or fear: mere reactions. If your emotions are not akin to them, that you may blame upon even older reactions; for when we are distracted, we can only will to react: a single, hopeless and unlikely arrow-- but my friends, is that arrow, in all its meek solitude, not still free? True "fear" cannot come into play until at least two wills are agreed upon, fought against and victor chosen. One adheres to another, declares his adherence as a truth, and subsequently vehemently denies that old truth as an axiomatic falsehood. Still: this remains fine to us. When we carry on with opposing dream state values at the same time, all basic logical sense then becomes malice incarnate: Guilt; to catch yourself red-handed. A sensation such as this does not inherently inhabit in any "truly" proper distracted and (barely) free-willing state of mind; it comes from the sounds of all your pasts, passions, and hypocrysies applause as they gear up to see a great fight within, that you alone organized: the highest Will versus the highest Non-will: One Night Only.

112. Close To Home The "closer to home" phenomena is the mixture of sensations we feel when the psyche is reminded of past mistakes you have since forgiven yourself for, but will likely never forget; bittersweetness (anguish and happiness) and "regret, when regret isn't really regret."

113. The Need to Live There is always at least one point in any single day of one's being in which our bodies and minds seem to combine in perfect simpatico upon an agreement that is non merely an agreement, but perhaps the strongest unknown power to ever flow through any dimension of existence within everything across all of time: the necessity for sleep. Why do we know of hunger strikes, but not of sleep strikes? Would not a sleep strike be the ultimate will to power over the forces of not value, but actual possible truth itself? We know truth likes to remain hidden among lies, for whatever reason, it is bound not to be discovered by man. We do not know what consistently holds us apart from it, but logically, it would likely be held within the most consistently widespread apparent similarities in "need to live," the uppermost of which, is sleep. Sleep is the only thing in our willing lives that is absolutely mandatory, other than death, and dreams; but the "need to live" is not mandatory in any sense or regard. If you stand up to the man, the real man, you do it for truth, and in serious, striking sacrifice. "To the Gonzo Philosophy, I set on; to go Easter than East; to drink in the forbidden dream."

114. 1. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche put forth the idea of the "non free-will," what I call distraction, or "barely free will". We know in this state we are estimating paths of willing, not determining them. We are, before we think. Like upon floating stones do we walk, and they descend up and down all around us, letting us choose our own slippery and sketcky adventure. Non-wills lead to chaos and degeneration of the ego and the spirit for warrior and man alike, and all earthly consequences that may follow. A will leads to proper searching, proper answers, proper release, proper return, and proper retention. A strong will roars for you to obey, blindly, fiercelessly, where the weak non-wills offer you all the highest of quenched thirsts and overly-fullfilled desires, for only the small price of your highest aim.

2. The masturbatory type of clinginess that is"duty", in specific regard to it's application to a Non-will is one of the most dangerous practices man commits, at his peril most paramount, and those around him, more and more, dispersing unidimensionally thereafter until his Non-will sees fit. If this be done individually, we call it "dictatorship." (Indeed). If this is done individually but masked as a causal effort, we call it a tyranny (Zarathustra's "Tarantulas"). To view these dystopic non-wills, and, really, all will, not speaking in a "moral" or "immoral" sense, but in regard to the levels of influence that seem to very hastily restructure themselves once we reach a point wherein the "correctly estimated" search either must begin, or must not begin. Once these "influences" become aware that we have come upon a threshhold, wise to many previously dead estimations, waiting for it to open the door, push us away, or let us lie in wait. A "duty" is instructed or adhered to, but outside you. A will is natural, and presents itself to you naturally, in all ways. And when the waters are dark and deadly, and you must hurry to find a rock it is simpler to find it with ego, for ego is not only a raft, but a might inflatable one; but it only holds room for one.

3. Oh, how the Anti-Christ would snarl in wicked love of irony if he could see us now. Once, when did the sickly virtues make one decrepid, now do the casino values--those of "modern" Dionysus; chained, hater of man, and moreso himself, for secretly, in dreams, he craves the life of endless decadance. Once where the religious closed their eyes, today, religion opens them. But the persistence of intelligence to be more easily non-willed (due to "intelligence" itself being born from the female-oriented reality state) in the stead of going the way of the will, it's opposing magnetic force, fools as we may be, we searchers crave that push, to take the will by the thread and rip it from intelligence's seemingly endless monitorization.

115. On Intent and Consequence 1. Indirect consequences to a will are simply that: indirect consequences, necessary eggs in the omelette, not substantial to our present sensations, future endeavours, or past mistakes. A hard heart a strong will requires--for there will always be indirect consequences. Let them go. Direct consequences are in need of a seperate look upon entirely. It would seem that a proper strong will should always have at least one direct consequence; for man does not consider every estimation (no matter how much he may think he does) of his whole life log of wills. Only one asked to be born would commit such an act. If we take that singular, possible and likely probable direct consequence and look at its timeflow chart in a long-spanning pattern, laid upon the trends of the levels of success rates of your carried out will, one would hope to see one line, the will's trends, and see a steadfast upcrawl, where the consequence line would, ideally, be crawling up-and-forward in similar fashion; but more realistically, we would likely see (and, subsequently, let serve as our minimal threshhold of acceptance) a straight or downgoing line. The psychological mathematics of these delicate balancings are inherent in all states, and, though direct, and though your fault, still, must be disregarded, lest guilt feed you to the monsters of the Cross Shade.

2. When I "intend" to work upon an idea as it moves along naturally, I have no image of any kind of the end point. I know there is a state in which I can uncover the answers of "intent" akin to a deep, philosophical inquiry, or, a physical comparison of the direct and indirect consequences of a situation. Take a rapper, making music in the studio. His original "intent" could be: to master a track for release, to develop a project further, or to start a new project. He knows the direct cnsequence of his intent is likely to come to fruition due to the fact that a direct consequence is, essentially, ideally, all properly conducted will. Intent arises after estimating our inner psychological levels, our moods, and when done in a deductive and honest manner, a will with a clearly linked consequence with no other influencings should eventually arise. This can be tough in the fact that we must determine the success rates of our recent estimates from our previous endeavours, then, estimate our own determination relative to the new endeavour, consequently making us oftentimes needlessly compare seperate endeavours and doubt our wills to the final ends, if we are not careful. Typically, though, a good artist has good intuition: the divine intent. This "estimation of determination" is much harder to understand with no egotistic type of influence, in any case. Indirect consequences. I still dont trust them. In an artistic setting are almost always positive. But what situation could one ever be in in which an indirect consequence could ever have a chance of completely ridding the worth of a direct consequence? Does not the indirect consequence exist only upon the fact there is always a direct consequence it must piggyback upon? Do we stand for it when a minute "immoral" consequence follows a plentiful and "moral" one? How could this ever be determinable in a multi-cultural and multi-faceted "structure"? Perhaps in industry, economics, science, yes, of course; in social structures, endless colliding intents, wills and spastic determination all around, eventually, all bending the knee to the law of man. "Intent" should not be used by anyone without extremely sharp insight, and really, for anything other than sharp insight. The only indirect consequence that comes from me writing this, is a bit of stiffness. I "know" this will occur even if it is not preferable; but just because I am aware of it, and do not want it, does not disqualify it from being still a "consequence", but what now of this "indirect"? This seems to reveal that, upon understanding of consequence's occurence, it then becomes a direct consequence. If you wish it not to be, it matters not. You know it is, and it will. What characteristic of "indirectness" does one find if we come to expect it? Simply because it will not be ideal to us? Non-ideals directly influence since the birth of subjective life. A consequence is a consequence whether intended or not, whether realized or not, and this leads me to believe that there are, in fact, no such things as "indirect consequences." After all, I have come out of the East long ago. I need not a karmic debt.

116. Important Note There is not a "Universal Dream State" and "Universal Flow Structure," but rather, a "Universal Archetype of the Dream State" and "Universal Archetype of the Flow Structure." Every individual is handed his own cards and our reaches vary in time and space--it is natural law. The archetypes are solid.*

*derived from: Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 4, apophthegm #108, Nietzsche, Friedrich

117. If we cause an accident on the road, we do not pity the one we effected; we are contrite because we are magnanimous, and to be aware is our top quality, and this has defiled that value, and we apologize as if it were on purpose, strangely enough, to hide our inner personal guilt and disgust, and mostly fear: for not being aware truly leads to serious accidents, and a great many variety of known and unknown, wanted or unwanted direct consequences regardless of your intent.

118. "The Day of the Screen" or "The Age of Semblance" it would appear; but then again, that's all it was made for. But what of great architecure? Is it not all tattoos of the Earth? Reinforced wills, over and over again? What kind of King would have such a bad memory? Intelligence and memory; the language of threshholds; post-death memory of a will: the Pyramids. Surely, a ruler could not be so demanding, yet so worshipped. What is the patterning? What is the stitch? The Flow? That is the realm where ideas are all real, intents all well-meaning, and consequence never occurs-- in which the fear levels seem to be not only on idle, but on the final one percent of it's potential. Nothingness, Loving that Nothing, finding ego and pride and possibility and trust and all disregard for anchoring. To Fly. Why would semblence matter at all to one in this state? It certainly does not. Stature, and good taste are not "robotifying." To "offend" is a natural inclination; to "respect" is a much more dangerous endeavour. Not an individual inclination, but a string of weakness in compliance to a set of emotionally triggering cutoff points of discourse and action. This is the Age of Semblence, The Invisible Gun. Not even a cough goes without scorn. This is not a drill. This is the hammer. This is the sicle.

119. A wise man never loves himself. This is not to say he awakes cursing himself--but to say he always knows how to live outside a moment. He can see the moment as a high point for the day or the week or the month, depending on how his life has been going, and he can feed off that small burst of energy well. It remains outside him, because he does not allow it to fully embrace him all at once. Even with abstract phenomena outside a man's perceptions, he is still making unconscious emotional savings for a time of better use.

120. In the sea of distraction, Old Man Freewill may float by on his raft here and there. He lives there to remind you: "This is the baseline. You must do the rest." He floats past, ignoring your open hand.

121. I have surely been overtaken. These are no mere sleepless ramblings of your average Adderal STEM student, your feverish child. How did I possibly get here? I knew I had my deal with the devil, but never did I expect to be back North so soon. I've almost forgotten completely about home. Where am I, exactly? In the North, I remember I took a train and met a man, then something about an asteroid or a bomb...and what's with this disgusting old compass? What is the meaning of all this? No matter--just your average lovely gonzo lapse of excuse and irresponsibility. I will hitch, and I will hitch with glee, around the burning world and back again, righteously, like the proper, weathered Gonzo Philosopher. Still, I should rather be in my swamp riding my dinos--but they will live long; and for now? Well--I am free, at least.

Part III: End Tables

122. Ego is the duct tape of the Reality State; our widest-stretching elastic; a materializing tool to sensationalize freedom and sensualize meaning.

123. Recipe for Evil Step 1: Bring water to a rolling boil Step 2: Add laughter

124. The directness or indirectness of a consequence can never be precisely expressed within any schema of intent. Only a result can be precisely concluded as "direct" or "indirect," and this result can only be born from a schema of motive--never intent.

125. Leave "semblance" to the dogs--be magnanimous.

126. You can determine your attributes--but not their limits.

127. Discussing your feelings of sympathy with somebody, in regard to another party not present, is a disgusting act. If not disgusting, an act regardless.

128. Petty humor is the alter side of magnanimity; therefore, not weakness--but strength.

129. We cannot be cursed by mere sound vibrations; we invented music to prove that. Let us no longer question our intelligence--there are no "curse words."

130. Forgive the dirty trickster--he is wise. Show no mercy to the clever prankster--he is evil.

131. If you think you are better than someone, tell them so; why not let them state their case? The better man always wishes to know what lies he enacts.

132. Do not spend too much money at the store; eventually, you will have to go back regardless--and often sooner than you think.

133. The society that succeeds and thrives outside of time is the transdisciplanary society; all others eventually end. This statement alone should put an end to any future dual-party system of accountability. At least--I hope it should.

134. You do not bow to science; you bow to the scientist.

135. Food For Thought 1. The preferred compound of every Epicurean? Sugar. Avoid all sugar, at all costs. "You are what you eat"--a more accurate conclusion: "It is in the food." Rice is a multitude of equality. Processed food may be called "falsely processed food." Plants are bound to grow weeds. A pig prefers a roll in the mud. A bird prefers to be the most indeterminite. Fish prefer to remain in the background. A cow prefers to graze in peace. To know a woman, one must have eaten a cat.

2. What is the meaning of this? Damn these tables! I break them all in a fit, for they fit too well--TOO well! I can't take it! I can't hold my tongue any longer. You MUST be gonzo! What are you on? Give it to me this instant! You're mad, man! What exactly are you trying to tell me, that if I adhered strictly to eating pig and lion that I may just be taken away completely from this Earth?? I banish your treatise! All your treati! You are not credible, you have no references, no degrees! You are a demon, a perturbor, it cannot be, we cannot be that close--ever so close...

3. The most endangered species may have truly magical powers upon consumption. I fear a trip to the darkweb coming, while there still is a darkweb. You see, a gonzo philosopher knows how to travel in time, and I exist now, in the Age of the Screen. It really is tyranny to desert, isn't it? Fools. Anyway, to the darkweb! This is amazing, why isn't everybody here all the time? I suggest you do the same--why would one care what you eat? He might find out what it could make you do. What is the most magnanimous animal? I don't know yet, for I am gonzo. But apparently, this little rectangle is telling me it can do the searching for me. Strange. How could that be? Ah...here we go..."most magnanimous animal..." "No... no... NOOOOO! DAHMER, YOU EVIL BASTARD!"

4. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

5. Only a taste, and surely, it will be A Whole New World. The worst part about all of this? I didn't even consider it in my post-Wipe apocalyptic hell. These screens are too powerful. Lector, you devil doctor, you...

6. Only mankind itself is the limit to all detestion and ingestion--lest we devour ourselves back to zero.

136. The Signs of Morality There is a very wise man who enjoys painting. One day, he runs out of money and has to steal food. He is satisfied, but decides this is something he would like to avoid doing again; so, combining his talents, he opens a business. His store is called "The Signs of Morality." Along the walls are various, giant symbols he has painted. The rest of the room is empty--where the man stands in the center, at his podium, playing a cross-word. Once you enter his store, he will ask you how you are, and how many signs you need read. There is a menu to his left of him where you pick out the signs that are the most aesthetically pleasing to you; for his knowledge, too, should come at a price. After you decide how many signs you want read, you will walk over to those signs you chose that he has painted on the walls. The man will tell you the name of that sign, and describe it to you, and you will learn a vast deal of insight about yourself--this is why you came, and why you paid. After some various bouts with success and failure, he goes on to be the most loved and cherished being in all of history.

137. Gonzo Poets You see them all the time--they seem so centered, yet drop everything thrown at them--the most clever pranksters of all--the Gonzo Poets. Even The Noble Ego most assuredly has a massive, ever-lurking shadow, brimming over with heartless children.

138. The Ashtray on the Stove There was a time where almost everything was free and greatness came so easily. We never expected to die with all our little courtesies, forgivenesses and deposit returns there to warm us. We want greatness to live and to kill it for a better greatness. Semblence in loneliness--no ashtray on your stove. We are always a slave to something.

139. Moderations There are many who walk around with intensely willed bodily mutations, inscriptions, depictions, moderations and refigurations. In them, I see lover's of humanity, and man's potential to become more; however, they are doing it wrong, and are clearly expressing nothing more than a trying, and highly respectable search for meaning. They are quite powerful. This can also be said about high fashion displays and trends, but in the group sense. All of this is fine. They mean no harm, so long as they don't mind my rejecting them. If you do not cope well with rejection, you will quickly start seeing things to reject yourself. Modify at your own peril--but you knew that already. The ones we must really focus on correcting, of course, are haters of humanity--for there are and many, many more of them, and they blend in much better.

140. Sacrifice It is an impossible task to ask of a man to do nothing but search for things to give up. The wisest man who adheres to that simply grabs the nearest firestarter and harpoons it right into his own neck. We are too addicted to rationality. We must learn to love to be irrational, magnanimous, and withhold a responsibility of nothing at all except a love for life. To love life when it is suffering is an inherent, enduring sacrifice.

141. Pie in the Sky Imagine the universe as a pizza being eaten by the gods. What happens when they get to the last piece? It is agreed upon that it goes to the god who ordered the pizza; for the genesis of the idea idea was the seed of meaning, and what gave unto them all something they did not even know they desired. Gratitude is what needs to replace semblence--for we know there was a god who was greedy, showed up late, and claimed for that reason, he should have the last piece. Very rational--and quite vile. It is the job of the orderer of the pizza to know what he is entitled to; for the other gods are full and satisfied, and could care less now. Who ordered the pizza? The Goddess Magna Nimous--and who, in the end, did eat that final slice of life? The Goddess Magna Nimous.

142. Move Your Feet, Lose Your Seat And how exactly did it come to be you wound up with no seat in the first place, heh? Aren't you the one that showed up early? I don't understand your logic at all. Perhaps it is better that way. I don't mind sitting on an armrest for a while--but please, know, you will not be invited to the next party with an attitude like that. By the way, why didn't you bring anything? This is a potluck, for Christ's sake!

143. The Enemy's Basement One day, when you are a very old man and days from death, break into your greatest enemy's house, go down to his basement, and go through everything, shamelessy, and feel no remorse until your final breathe, so that you may cheat yourself out of Heaven, and be forced to live another thousand years.

144. The Event There are actors, spectators and speculators within all of us. Meaning comes forth when their forces unite.

145. Spoken, Unspoken Do not reject a woman's mystical communications to you. All talk is small to them, and only unspoken love topples the pyramids in the eye's of the Goddess. Time is not real for her--so long as you remain interesting.

146. To Furnish A Key 1. The best things I write are written at night. Literally, there is a strange rhythm in the earliest hours, there is no doubt--awake or not.

2. There is zero philosophy today. "Modern Phlosophy" is simply a grand muting of all introspection for mankind's most primordial of origins in trade for the raising of prices, distractions, modifications and cholesterols. The "modern philosophers" are rap artists, no doubt--they declare a final, only and unidimensional answer to any future worry: "hard work" and it's subsequent "success." Pure and simple. After "success," excess-- then, you're done. Figure it out.

3. Why would one want to philosophize, even during this "shutdown" tomfoolery? There are electric screens with plenty of movies on them. There is much literature to be read. A morbid and dreary fascination do we have with the screens; such speediness in these objects, the power of their glow, their ability to send a strange switch that sends you into the bottomest reigons of your conscience--this fascination is peak distraction. We spend so much time distracted. From what? Death. We know it will happen, but this "knowing" is akin to "knowing" you woke up this morning; you don't exactly "know" you woke up, but merely make an estimation based on all your prior "waking ups" that you must have been sleeping--for now, you find yourself under a burst of sunlight, stumbling around, searching for a toilet. To "know" you will die would then be akin to being asleep but "knowing" you're going to wake up. That cannot happen--if it does, that person is not really asleep--but surely somewhere else completely. Speaking of this "somewhere," here is a quarrel with reason I present: If the dead "know" they will wake up again, they are not really dead; and if the dead "know" they are dead, and wil be forever, they are forced to reckon with the knowledge that they will never get to be distracted again; and then, and only then, would I might say: Distraction may not be such a bad thing. Off, you must go, to the enemy's basement, to truly ever know. There is nothing wrong with religion; so long as you don't believe in Heaven--and Heaven on Earth.

4. Happiness is the goal of our "ever present" moment whether we like it our not; only "happiness" is too general. It comes and goes as it pleases, no matter what linear task we are performing, good or bad for us. A deep and serious percentage of our time we spend before we find a proper will (or non-will) to follow is searching for a thing completely ungraspable for more than a very short span. There are so many people, I have referred by many titles so far, that cannot see wills or non-wills, or nuance in psychological needs and desires and how their appetites grow and diminish vastly over time. So many can only see one word: "Happiness." So many can only see another word, and this word only, disguised as happiness: "Money." These are two words, essentially opposites, that must go hand in hand in the modern philosopher's mind, there is no doubt. I am not a modern philosopher. I am a gonzo philosopher, the spirit of the dead Warrior! Happiness is no goal for any lover of life, but for a lover of sleep.

5. If our conscious effort and estimations are goals akin to "happiness" and "money", and if we are distracted and playful children being slowly raised to the Superman (or, at this rate, the Lex Luthor) by the Dream and Reality states, wherein the unconscious goal of Reality is "happiness" and "money", the unconscious goal of the Dream must be akin to "love" and "understanding." It is very clear: culture is a massive detriment to our universal agreement that nothing, and I mean nothing, is more important in life than finding true love. Perhaps, if love really could conquer all rationality, we might get a chance to save a new dream.

147. The Ones Who Only Love and Only Hate There is an imbalance in people. They will walk over to you and give you a rather strong hug without asking if that is okay. You will allow this only for a moment before you ask them to loosen their grip. They will grip tighter. You will have to physically push them away from your body, so that you may see what exactly is happening in their eyes to coherece out such a display--but as you begin pushing, a shift occurs; and now that you can finally take a look, you're too late--the look has changed. The rational push away from the irrational forced upon hug immediately transforms that uncontainable love within them into uncontainable hate. This time, they slap you. In the presence of this natural balancing, you may be magnanimous and offer to read them excerpts from a book you are writing, so as to change the subject that is causing them so much dread. They will tell you simply: "Go fuck yourself."

148. Investments What do we hold the most precious that we do not wish to admit to ourselves? Personal investment in a will. When we invest our time heavily into a will, that will grows in strength substantially. The fear and distress comes when we have "doubt." This is the evil malignings of the non-will, coming forth from the darkest pits of the reality state to remind you of that terrible, logical truism of possibility: "What if you're wrong?" The non-wills are all the best blisses of ignorance. To the functional and seasoned Warrior, the steadily insane gonzo philosopher, the "second thought" is always inferior, and the most rational of cynics will never heed to this fact. They will say: "All wills are equal." At a certain point, the precious time we invest toward a "second thought" is almost universally regretted upon, and the Non-will's deceit rises up so clearly before you. Remorse for a bad investment. This is common, the denial of the "gut feeling." Many would rather have semblence: "To appear as if you asked to be born." Then, you don't get to complain. You don't get to have remorse for your flaws, for you have none--and if you do...

149. I am ever-nearing my goal to the Two Hundred and my dinos are ravished with hunger. Ever since Peanut's death and my meeting of the Goddess over East, I've felt so uneasy, like I'm in two places at once. Why does the damn dial on this compass keep dissapearing and reappearing? Surely, this is no typical Gonzo "chemical misfiring." Why do I keep pulling it out and looking at it, just to put it right back?

150. The Winner Takes It All Where is the friendly competition? This godforsaken hellscape should use an arena. Perhaps, I could gather up some soulless folks and trade goods for entertainment, goods for glory! I do have ins and outs with remembering my days near the Valley, wandering around massive holes in the ground like the one here. Why not use this hole for something like an arena. Only more confined. Perhaps, man versus beast. Now that would be a feast for the eyes, indeed; alas, it's hard enough to kill an animal just to keep going on. Surely, I could not tame a beast and lead it to it's enslaved life of aesthetic puppetry like that--I have much too much empathy for the beast. The fish, on the other hand, there's an idea. Can fish learn to do tricks? No, thats ridiculous. Only idiots would go to see something like that. Man versus man, it must be. A crater arena! Bloodthirst levels are high, indeed, oh, but I am no evil genius, indeed; for I have no choice, my lap has been too strong, I need not forget--the world need not forget--and for it's own good, it will learn in time. Maybe it's not evil, maybe it's not genius--maybe it's the way it has to be. Has? What is the meaning of this? I know my will to monument has good intentions--my love of life; but, at what cost will these intentions run up? Do I care? How evil can happiness be, after all? I am so close to my dinos; but I must make a collection of some sort on this lap of mine other than wisdom. A crater arena, this will do. Losers and winners, in friendly competition. If it isn't to their liking, they don't have to come. Right here, right now, I shall build my arena and hope my dinos will remain patient just a while longer--for my lap has surely been monumental--from what I can remember, at least--and my crater arena will be my monument to the battlers, the warriors. Not for myself do I wish to build it; not for the riches, though I will surely be rich. I simply wish to show the world my most sincere appreciation to the wonderful distractions I run into and ideas I can happen upon--for it wasn't all so bad. I simply wish to speak, to you, to you all, honestly, without fear--and in dedication to the mysterious world of the Dream State and his Reality love interest, our mother of nature, the Goddess Magna Nimous. Patience, my dinosaurs, patience...

151. The Dark Blues My hazes are mighty, but so am I. My hotels have been set upon the dark blues. I mean...logically, the dark blues would be the proper investment, as they are the ones near the end...right? My ego is strong, strong, stronger than I could know. The bloodshed, the splattering on the crater walls, the throwing of rocks, oh such brutality--how they love it so!

153. POP

154. What, and I mean, what--is the meaning of this? I am drenched in sweat, my nipples are freezing, I have dinosaur slobber from my forehead to my toes. They seem to have been trying to wake me for hours now, maybe days, based on this kind of headache. I am home--Old Florida; here, in my cot. How?

155. And as the Gonzo Philosopher woke from his latest of tens of thousands of hazes, lapses, and misrememberings, he stepped out frrom his tent to find his dinosaurs looking about in a particular direction in the sky.

156. Sweetheart, stop swinging it in circles with your wrist like that, you're not GoGo from Kill Bill.

hey, what can I tell ya, honey. This samaurai asked for it!

Yo do realize GoGo loses? She dies because her ego made her lose sight of her weak spot.

I doubt that's what he meant, he just needed to kill her off. Either way, that's the route I'm taking. Okay. And-a one. And-a two...and...

157. JESUS AYTCH

Part IV: The Goddess and the Dream

158. Retort: Phenomenology of Poetry (Goddess) You say my husband kills ego with poetry, making him a human whipping post? You are correct--but you did not ask yourself why he would do such a thing. Have you not yet wondered whereupon you came your raft? I made your ego for you so you may find the proper wills to find your Flow--this is true--but you forgot the most notable part of the raft--that it can so easily be popped, drowning you. I do not want you to drown, sweet rafter. My Dreamboy just wants to have fun--your ego gets in the way of that, often, to his dismay. My Dream knows how I love a man with ego balanced so well--he gets so jealous--but he does not whip you until I say; for we are a good couple, and we understand not to destroy each others creations. Only when he cannot be more angry, I let him whip the ego right out of you. I must play fair with my silly Dream, and he is much more docile afterward, to my delight. It is up to you what to do when you have been whipped. You have written much great poetry, and this proves your control a vast amount. I am proud of the poets, as silly as they can get, for I get to remember them, and the drowned ones--well--some men deserve too much water because some women have too little water. The meaning of this will come in time, rafter. You can trust us.

159. Retort: A Different Outlook (Goddess) You say all women find their waterfall, but they do not, silly rafter. You see, there are many women kicking among the mad seas just like you. We do see you men as fishes for the most part, but are not sea creatures the most mysterious and interesting to water-lovers? We do seek the waterfall, more than anything, insightful, detestable rafter; but it pains me so to admit that when we know we cannot find it, we are left to only imagine that joy of flow, that warm wet and smooth cold. Their anger will always be with them a little. I hope you can find a way to tell them for me, little rafter, for I want them to know I feel that same anger, too, sometimes--and if anything were to ever break up me and my Dreamboy, it would be in justice for those women who never got the waterfall she deserved. But do tell them rafter, tell them with your ego, and how that even for you fish there can have terrible strains upon you as well as glorious victories. They will believe you, silently.

160. Retort: Move Your Feet, Lose Your Seat (Dream) When you live with the Goddess for this long, you learn that she is happier when you do not punish the children for playing finders keepers, as unhealthy as it may be. She says they are just playing, and to let them figure it out. Play as you will, children.

161. Retort: Modern Woman, Modern Slave (Dream) I create the threshholds, motherfucker. Choice is not as possible as you think. I made sure of that. Your "barely" is my final weakness.

162. Halls (Dream) I prefer to see you all in long halls full of doors, as opposed to this thrashing in the ocean business. Would you like to know what are behind the doors at either end? "Decree" and "Design."

163. Jenga (Dream) Consider the child who does not like to play Jenga, but does enjoy to watch. He is happy and paranoid, very distracted, and cannot focus in the panic of the waitinig for the fall. He shakes at the though of it being his turn and let's the more willful play. He watches, he enjoys the idea that the tower will fall eventually, pent up excitement twisting his face. He cares not who wins, or who causes the fall. He does not wish to participate in the game only until it is obviously seconds away from the fall--wherein he will delightedly remove the last piece in stead of the loser, who has since quit, for physics has reached it's limit; and the magnanimous winner will let him.

164. The Bass God (Dream) The levels of bass we hear in music relate to me the best. I enjoy the thunder beneath. the farther you are from the sun, the less bass you must use when near your neighbors--lest they kill you--for I do not like when you disrupt their dreams. The sun desires your loud music, your thunder--for the nearby souls are full of my Reality's love and happiness already. If you have no neighbors, in turn, the bass sounds you hear when furthest from the sun are rare treasures only the purest ones stay awake for. You "deserve" these gifts, she says--so came these foolish earbuds. Ungrateful fools...you truly appreciate nothing she does. When you grow old, you will regret all the music you could have heard in those moonlight hours--once I take your ears.

165. Cats and Dogs (Goddess) Tell the ladies, rafter, to find a dog--and let their cat go. They want a man? Well, they surely must be able to handle a dog first. Tell the men, rafter, to own a cat, to the fall of their pride, and to let the dog run away. The cat is a creature so simple that a man who cannot own one is even the simpler. These animals are your gifts to grow akin to the opposite soul. My designer Dreamboy gave you them like I give you the rain--quietly, and crucially.

166. Hair of the Earth (Goddess) My Dreamboy is so wonderful. I want everyone down there to have a taste of his wisdom, rafter, they are all so silly--but they are not silly in the way my Dreamboy is. All the wonderful plants, herbs, algaes and all the hair of the Earth I have created are life. Some parts of my head are very shy, and sensitive. They hide near posionous ones, so as to confuse you, for to take them from the soil, you kill them and absorb their wonderful thoughts! My Dreamboy likes to run his hands through my hair sometimes; when he does, he puts such wonder in me. He is touching, indeed--but volatile, and sensitive. I love you, my rafters, and I hope you can start getting in touch with what my lovely plants are thinking all the time--for it does not hurt me to have a single hair pulled out--I am tough; and remember what goes for one fruit goes for another--the fresher picked, the better. How do you think you grew up so fast, my wonderful fishies?

167. The Electric Downslide (Goddess) The only thing you were supposed to do with electricity was to make music, silly rafters. When me and my Dreamboy dance, it is always to the electric--we simply wished to make you happier. We are like what you might call in an attempt at humor: "Amish Ravers." You may be well off to combine such philosophies at some point in your silly "history."

168. Toys (Dream) Would you like to know how I spit? Ingratitude.

169. Meaning (Dream) Follow your heart, my friends. The only thing left is difficulty.

170. Nonwilling (Dream) The second thought always comes with a dash of laughter. Now, you're inclined to stir.

171. Weather Or Not (Dream) Discover your threshholds of love through your eyes, ears, and last but not least, mouths. I make everyone completely different in this regard in order to balance--just like my Love gently balances her awesome summers and coldest winters.

172. Due Process (Goddess) Those who are tortured by my Karma are merely out of touch with the rules of their state. I created Karma, rafters, because you enjoy gathering together so--like sheep. Without a scientifically and spiritually balanced shep post, you would all wander away! Karma is my doll--my scarecrow in makeup. She is not real the way I am to you; but she is an important protector to many fields of life.

173. Implications of Arrogance (Dream) Poetry, as you can tell by now, is not mere wisdom--but painful and imbalanced art in it's purest form. The poetry of my Reality is that of your painkiller. Her masterpieces of faulty, foolish medicine--your love of lying intoxication--always doing just as much bad as good. Truth is pain, and my Reality cannot stand this--and in her rage for me, created from man the pinnacles of balanced dullness: the heroin clerk and the anesthesiologist.

174. Not Exactly Milk (Dream) There is a spirit I have created that gives rafters a deep and adoring love for a lifetime of recurring torture, surrounded by frenzy. This spirit allows him to grow gills and swim underneath your "ocean" of distraction, and hence, adapt to a new breathing pattern--one of a fish. This is no longer a man, but a hybrid of he and my little spirit. "All crooked creeks require their dire straits," so says Maggy. I don't understand--but I trust her. After all, she is on my side.

175. Formula For Thought (Goddess) In time, my rafters, your sibilings will grow weaker and weaker. Do not feel bad--for mother can only give so much of herself. She knows what she has left, and simply must give more to the world--regardless of all rational shames.

176. Woodwork (Dream) I design the tables and Maggy decrees them. They are finite, but required in a practical house. No son of God could ever ignore this--and no spiritual architect. We enjoy hobbies together, it's important in a partnership. If our tables come out wobbly, I do apologize--we were likely in a fight; but we don't let that stop us.

177. Retort: Fitting In Fear (Dream) There is not the spirit Fear in function, no--but his sister: Anxiety. She holds powers Fear could never hope to reach--only she is very easily scared away, where fear will not leave. This is our balance. Who are the shadow versions of such demon twins? Peace and Prosperity. Honestly--have you even met them, yet?

178. Join or Die (Dream) An individual will be inclined to kill a mass unlike him and call it justice--or, if he is polite, he will simply abandon the masses. A group will be inclined to kill an individual unlike them and call it justice--or, if they are polite, they will simply tear down his monuments.

179. Retort: Gonzo Poets (Dream) There are no such things--only channelers of pain. To be in pain and to share it with the world in action is not poetry, and to be removed from your raft is not gonzo. You can trust them--they wish not to hurt you--but to relieve stress; and were you to be introduced to new pains in their presence, all the better.

180. Better To Marry (Dream) The proper wills for all individual men always have one conviction (principle of falsehood): to crawl back into the womb and die there. Otherwise, you will drown, grow gills, and return to burn.

181. Big Bang (Goddess) I couldn't tell you how many sibilings you have--my Dream is a rowdy boy.

182. Virtue (Goddess) Your love is all we want. Your morality makes you special; but all moralities will always balance themselves in the eyes of love--no parents could ask for more. Live out your dreams, rafters--and be magnanimous.

Part V: Rebirth of the Warrior

183. We look up. We look down. Do we not look back up again?

184. 1. From the strangest sleeps do we bear our clearest awakenings.

2. The Warrior awoke from his dream to find himself near a massive canyon, with a horrible sulfuric taste in his mouth. He goes to check his screen for information; for he is not panicked, as odd as that should seem. He is truly desensitized by his screen--and can surely handle a bit of literal dimensional transportation. He reached for a screen, but pulled out a compass--shattered, ashy and mishapen. He was surely far gone from the Age of Semblence. Did we get bombed? Did the powers that be find some unendurable anomoly they missed in their calculations, causing panick and subsequent genocide? That could not be it--i'm in a different location. I was transported in my sleep to the future. Good--I can leave this mask--this compass though? Too weird to let go.

3. Fantastic! A wrangling of unconscious conviction beyond freewill, a morality so hard yet with no value here!: The first physical, natural enforecement of a true transvaluation of values, for use of all that is only necessary--this apocolypse--this Hell--this is not my world. I am inclined to find no Romans. I must move for food. A new start, near a daunting canyon. What liberation! Hold on--are there people down there?

185. The Grand Valley I have no inclination for my morning cigarette--and daily subsequent ones; this alone was my first panic, for I have none on me. However, my crippled cells seem to have adjusted back already to before I ever even had one--a massive relief. I am quick now to decide my wills. This is horrible. I wonder if those folks down there sell cigarettes.

186. Jailhouse Rock 1. There is a stone of a man. He is etched in flames and mandalas, wires and horns and bones. He raises his head from his fist and looks into me. His name is Jack Longhorn.

2. Jack has a misty background and embraces his monsters like a Christian embraces his enantiodromia. With the muscle tone of David, with rings in his eyebrows and one gold tooth peaking out from his smile, he goes: "You never wrote back! What'cha been up to?" "I guess it started in the desert, really. I broke free from some horrible ways of living and set of to make my own. Then, many strange days and dreams made me realize I had to come see you. What is going on, exactly? Do they tell you what's going on?" "There's a bi-monthly, but no one reads it. Something about a senile guy making a baby the new president, buncha shit after that. So what'cha been up to?" "I fell asleep and woke up in a different dimension--only it feels more like the same one but on a different side of a coin. So much is confusing, but I am typically well. I found some smokes from some dudes, so if you ever time travel, don't worry about those things." "Thanks. What else?" "I feel like I see something--and I always see it--and I feel like I have to get ahead of it. Then, once I finally feel like I'm ahead and about to conquer that strange feeling I had to ever get ahead, I realize just how far behind I really am." "Huh," offered Jack. "Sounds kinda pussy to me. Speaking of cigarettes, do you have any change?"

187. The Shabby Stand I was crossing the edge of town and there was a shabby stand with a man selling scrolls and books. This was a serious dissappointment in the end--for no shabby stand ever carries what you would call exactly "cannonical philosophy and fiction." The most interesting thing I came across was a recipe book for various lukewarm soups. "Be gone, cancer merchant!" I chanted, and waved in my disgust and hunger when the salesman condescended me. I threw down the cooked book as I moved on to find proper nourishment.

188. The End of a Fight Those who can "bring you down to size"--well, they surely can, and will--bring you down to their size. If this, in fact, occurs, then arises the fact that there had to have been an unconscious and mutual misreading of a pre-figured (and, in their minds at this point, possibly misconceived completely) heirarchal structure at work once the individuals cease to find meaning in that particular domain of their own inconsequential willing arguments. This is a typical rift in "sizing" situations--and best dealt with magnanimously, of course.

189. The Signs of Non-Morality "There is nothing for sale here--and we are not open. Please stop loitering." The house I entered was pristine--the squares were square and the rounds were round. There were six plants along a long windowledge, three inches apart each. Along the top of the window, a shiny railing with hand towels hung perfectly symmetrical, and a quaint, little stringed ornament that hung down from a perfectly vertical and evenly spaced loop around the rod, once, twice, and back down again, about half an inch higher from the other endpiece. There was no sense of time in the cupboards; the stacks of plates, bowls and glasses, all of it--might as well have materialized there at the birth of time, so unmoved and dust-free. The house I entered had a room with two single beds and a square desk, with a small television parallel to one bed and a closet running behind the other's length. Within that closet, multi-colored bricks of towels and blankets. In the living room there were walls with inlaid shelving holding perfectly spaced bubbles for plastic toys, office decorations, masks, candles, jars of shells and sand, and ceramic idols with no voice at all. This is a house of paper--a world of pretend: Elmo's World.

190. Memories of Tia One day, I introduce myself to a girl named Tia. She is adopted, yet has seven brothers. She drank a bottle of whiskey hours earlier. She is eighteen. She takes classes online due to the Junebug paramaters. Initially, I decided to not start a conversation and I went inside from my smoke--saying nothing--only smiling. But due to her being attractive to me and her quiet eyeing of me, I decided to restructure my values. I went back out and gave her a cigarette and asked what her name was and told her mine with a smile and a genuine interest. Not from duty or guilt--but a will renewed. I was honest, curious and gained her trust. In the Day of the Junebug, you couldn't get a girl that young even if you were Marlon Brando's ghost in Robert Pattinson's body--so relax. We smoked some of her pot after becoming friendly. She asked me for two more cigarettes over the span of the night--then, got picked up by a truck full of men. It's been well over a month and I haven't seen her since. A lovely moment in time.

191. Memories of Anita I had over a girl who I met on a dating app named Anita. She quickly identified herself to me as a socialist. She has been to Europe; she had three jobs there. I cooked us steak as we talked. We discussed politics, travel, family and individuality. I spoke too much about my problems, to her disinterest. She faked an English "accent" while texting before we me--"x" signatures and all. She was, in fact, American--well, African-American, age twenty--not that that matters to those with a balanced countenance. She was taller than me by two inches at least, and after this evaluation, I felt much more relaxed--for no modern woman will you find with a mate of such comparative proportions. I knew already this would not last more than a few hours. She had a pleasant smell that stayed in my chair for a day after she had gone home. We did not "click." She decided that she would get off the grid for a while as I would stay on; all of this difference, this effort, this loving reach that never quite grasps--all under the simulatory Junebug situation: no attempts at intimacy, for fear of the Bug. A fun night.

192. When an individual will gives itself away to the group will, distraction becomes an ever-ending phenomena throughout all substages of the Reality State. Old Man Freewill always appears in the aftermath of this abandoning--reminding you, yet again, just how unoften we really get to be ourselves.

193. Reverance and Support The most revered figures in history whom we consider the most morally upright are not the ones who set out to claim a piece of immortality for themselves--but the ones who set out to claim a peaceable mortality for all. This is a healthy mix of gratitude and empathy that leads to reverance: an unconscious, unidimensional and trans-emotional collective agreement upon the validation of the magnanimous and respectful "love for the good of all." This reverance is found when in consideration toward an individual only; group causes cannot be revered--only supported.

194. The Corpse Without independently formulating a personalized value structure for yourself that can help you clarify and solidify the means with which you could best search for meaning properly, all there is left is outside influence and base momentum--carrying you like a corpse into the outskirts.

195. We all wish not to be cruel. To coddle is so much simpler. The truth is, cruelty hardens--and no one reveres anyone without one day giving them their statue. There is always potential for roaring fire in soft coal--only after many a harsh reaction; but were we to then allow rains to cry upon the fire, the coal would burn out--where the wood would burn strong. The wood never needs hardening. The coal must be reacted with in order to create a proper fire--and must never be rained upon.

196. Game of Hearts You can't teach a big heart practical tricks. The small heart will repeat the same steady attacks over and over for eternity in order to win the game of hearts, wherein the big heart will merely absorb the small heart's attack and declare itself the winner. Two hearts that continue this for long will notice they have both forgotten about their brains. They will see they have made up their own rules to the game so as to always win, instead of just playing fair.

197. Blackbird "Say, John, have you done cookin that chicken, yet? Fancy we'll be late much longer." "Almost, Paul; please--it will be worth the wait, I assure you highly." "What the bloody hell is that smell? Christ's sake, John! The shit's on fire! Open the windows! Give me a chair I need to prop this door open. Givin' me a bloody headache already?" "Ahh! No big thing. Place isn't in shambles, now, is it? Seems quite fine to me--quite providential. We truly are lucky to be alive, in many bitter ways." "Enough of that. I need actual food, so we got to leave now, okay? You ready then? Alright! I'm leaving the chair, the smoke will be clear by the end." "My gate has no lock, Paul, remember? Surely, everything will be stolen if you do that." "Nothing is going to be stolen, John, really. I think you're paranoid--what is it then?" "Being paranoid is being true to nature, Paul." "Great, so can we leave the chair? I want to come back, you know, I have equipment here. It's not just your stuff, y'know? I'm not trying to get you robbed, here. Down the gate, then, come on. Come on, boy." "Have it your way, then. Let's go--oh, and Paul--here, take this; it will put an end to all this horrible fighting--and perhaps later tonight we'll find a new song. The chicken was nothing, really. I promise--and I am sorry."

198. Sweep and Collect, or: LIfestyles of a God We seek freedom in open spaces of land and wish so eagerly to let go of vanity, passion, responsibility--all with a foolish grin. After this, we seek the dungeons--dark and dripping, with loud music echoing through the crooked caverns full of lost, crowded souls; a light show of pure collected chaos lurching in damp caverns--and to take everything given to you, until you get closer and closer to the source--the pitchest black mass that could ever stand before you--with all your limbs falling away at it's unfathomable and primordial power. After that, we find the open lands we were first wandering so happily, as the foolish grin returns.

199. Coby A person who's name is of no importance goes on a four-month venture with their dog Coby to their property in the mountains and reads aloud to him every day for a total of four hours a day. The owner reads excerpts from books that present one or more characters with a clear moral convivtion, up until that conviction is either acheived, compromised, abandoned, or corrupted. In the mountains, the owner begins to read to Coby: children's books for the first month, youth fiction for one week, adult fiction for one, then back to basic children"s stories for the rest of that month. The owner does not continue reading if Coby loses interest for any reason; only when the interest is completely gone from Coby, in his mountains, will the owner continue where they left off in the sentence. One day during the beginning of the third month, the owner goes to feed Coby as regular; but then looks deeply upon Coby's eyes and finds his true dog soul, and gives forth a cryptic and disheartening tone of voice with the following phrase: "I would not eat this if I were you." The person walks away back to where they sit to read and waits. Coby will begin to show serious fear and frustration. After some whining (and, perhaps, crying?) the dog will retire back to the carpet where the owner reads to him--head low, but eyes up. At this point, children's stories end as well as youth novels. After some time, Coby will be starving--and will force itself to eat the "suspicious" food. Eventually, with no strange feeling as was expected and some self-doubt, the dog will soon forget what happened here (consciously). The owner begins to read aloud much more distinct authors with very multifaceted characters, colliding motivations and coalescing convictions--tales of rises and downfalls to the highest degree of severity--but still only when Coby retains interest, for four hours a day, until four hours is reached--by any sleepless means necessary. Time and space and conscience are no longer worries for Coby. As the owner is reading a particularly heated cross-section of plot arcs one day, the moment comes when hour four of the day's readings end and when the owner slaps the book shut until tomorrow. "OWN! OWN! OWN! OWNOOO! FISHISH IT FINISH IST POOORRS-POOORRS!" "Yes, Coby, what was that?" "....IFISHIT...IFSHISHESHET..." "I don't understand, Coby. You can't talk. You're a dog, Coby...you will never be able to be really heard. I'm sorry." "PROOOSS OWN OWNOOOOO....IFISHISHIT.....FISH IT.....PREEEEEEEOOOOOSS!" "I'll read more tomorrow, Coby! Don't be upset--it's going to be okay! Too-mor-ow! I Promise you! Tooo-mooor-rooow." "UURROW....OROW................ROKAY...."

200. The Utopia Lives "Hello, welcome to Your Grocer, level oh-two-five-three. We please ask--yeah? Yep, you know, okay. It's free, yes, but, you know--just be reasonable, don't break anything, please, really try not to break anything. You will have to clean it up."

201. Ego's Final Breathe? or: "persona non grata" In periods of cloudy thoughts, in depressed and inverted views of all lived and liveable life, you must find the other side of the actions you partook in since the oncoming of these clouds. This is the accidental killing of your own ego, to your horror--so unexpected you begin feeling false and grotesque passions of "deserving" and "non-deservingness." This new persona is not you, but a dead cell factory sending placebos to every port of interest and meaning trying to replicate the ego's natural awesome powerhouse. This cloudy headache of nihilist root can be thwarted, and must be--immeditely; surely, you are wrong, and you know it to be true. Only defiance of your own closest and most precious non-wills can break the freshest and most unrusted chains of doubt. Ego has yet to die. Stand straight and walk forward--with mouth closed, and mask off. Embarassed? You ought to be--you killed your ego, after all. Only embarrassment brings it back to life.

202. Goddess: "--and so, you have learned why your raft popped in the first place, my long-living rafter soul! I'm so happy about that!"

G.P.: "It was just bloodsport for profit, for Christ's sake! What is so wrong about a damn arena?? It was a huge undertakking, the domes were packed twenty-four seven! Sweat, screaming and sizzling insanity! This guy's just recounting the past and making half-baked diary entries! If you like me so much, why are you letting my current physical embodiment get so fucking sad all of a sudden? He did nothing different! He's dealing with time travel to an apocalpyse and there is no way in hell ten cigarettes are going to last him the rest of the way. Say, how long is this guy gonna go on for, anyway? Don't I get to come back?

Dream: "You said yourself that if the dead know they are dead, they will have to have appreciated distraction just a bit. As far as your particular incarnation, it's not like it's a big "blanket rule" we made (lazy, that would seem to me) for who actually dies, goes back or gets to sit back and watch. Maggy and I discuss it per individual--we have the time. When it comes to picking our favorites to keep living with us--the ones she likes best that are ones I also happen to not completely detest--well the chriteria is limited. You hold conversation well for a human, and display trusting, childish characteristics. You appear so random, yet seemingly all connected. That's basically my chriteria; and Mag, here, well--you're entertaining more than most. I mean, the ones who really like me a lot don't usually appreciate her at all. See, they definitely get nothing after. You don't underappreciate my girl. Then you have the ones who laugh at me. Well. My girl does that too--however, I still get final cut. They get nothing. You are the kinda guy who offends so much, he no longer offends. I like that, Maggy likes that, and the ones who don't are not your enemy, they're just there so we don't lose our own godly sense of appreciation for those seriously peculiar ones like yourself. You get to watch the floor from the table as long as you'd like. I can send you into the nothing whenever you would like, just ask--but you can't go back to the floor, not like you'd like.

G.P.: "Blast! Well, torture away then. Oh, and, uh, thanks for letting me know about that "out"--well, if you can call that an "out"--this could get ugly, or boring. I can trust you that it won't be, say, "Joycean", right?

203. There is a tone of humble and eager cynicism in the voices of those who only endeavor upon one out of every thousand considered endeavors.

204. Those who do not wish to have friendly enemies are the best ones at holding grudges.

205. "Reverence" is a worship of rational success: It comes forth in the presence of others with defined, pursued and achieved values. "Respect" is a distinguishing and regarding of corresponding values: It comes forth in the presence of others with defined and pursued values. "Envy" is a vexation toward talent; or, disgusted reverence; or, cowardly respect: It comes forth in the presence of others with higher success in any kind of defining, pursuing or achieving of any value, corresponding or non-corresponding.

206. Even the apex of the Flow is only a mirage of the true world--a tracing upon an image we can never see.

207. Love As An Instinct 1. Love is an instinct, not an answer--it is much like hunger. It is not exactly pleasant, and if we were to be free of it forever, we would ascend to new heights (and descend to new lows) never once imagined by anyone.

2. There is no "answer" to life any more than there is an "answer" to a potato--you simply prepare it to your liking. Do you love potatoes? Not exactly. Do you love yourself for knowing the many ways it can be prepared? Not exactly. Do you have a favorite method of preparing them? Yes. Would you be able to prepare them your favorite way always? No. Why not?

3. There is no morality in starvation--none whatsoever. There is no virtue in love--none whatsoever.

208. "Real" Time 1. Our concept of time is only as "real" as our concept of music inasmuch as it only feels "really" real when you are in it at the present. Do we enjoy sitting down, opening a folder and silently reading along to sheet music? Only a deaf person could do that and it not be a greivous and obvious non-will. So, then--what of the ones that are best at planning their happy futures? They are the time-deaf--incapable of enjoying "real" time: incapable of proper will.

209. Truth 1. The true world laughs without making a sound as it watches a dream and a reality fight to the death--deep in a hole they did not fall into.

2. A dream does not long to be a reality--it only wants to become true. A reality does not long for anything--it assumes it is true, easily and without question, and with this in mind, what is left for it to do, but to battle all dreams?

210. Just Deserts Many will often go their entire lives mistreating a person in order to avoid confronting another (a double-non-will distraction sundae with reality on top)--all without a single "moral" conundrum. These are the instinctually enslaved; the free-attending; the willfully non-willing. There are no seas of distraction for them--only deserts. They have no flow or anti-flow states. They do not enjoy water. Best thing you can do for them?

Throw them a raft.

211. The most obvious give-away of a non-will is unconscious motive for negative result.

212. Ego vs. Recent Memory 1. We have a physiological memory bank that stores and labels common sets of conditions we typically place ourself in that, when accessed, lead to semi-conscious "distracted aiming" based on gradual and consistent shiftings of pre-understood sensual predelictions and determinations of meaningfulness. Out of this second-rate daily flushing and refilling of barely-free favorabilities--or, suffering, according to many complainers--emerges a common and powerful non-will that comes in the rare form of a living and breathing entity--a wyvern within you that you do not control. This non-will breathes--lives up high, circling, waiting--and with sharp, tongue-minded eyes that search out gotchas and a-has, but no eurekas.

2. An ego cannot have a memory--it is meant for "real" time, not all time. No life can endure like it would wish to due to it's crushing atmosphere--just as the ego cannot help but delight in the notion of a deep truth found in no memory. This being, this fresh memory, is behind us always--and with the highest valued stocks fresh and hot for the taking. Do not be mistaken--this is no feeble-fired and obsolete creature. This is the Dragon of Egolessness, here to size, to sum, to polish, to label, to give the clear and take the cheer, to deem, to discriminate, to describe, to dispel, to compare, to refute, to depress, to laugh, to kill, to circle, to wait, to seek ubiquitous indifference.

3. Ego is only useful in "real" time--this is usually called "timelessness" and what many believe to be the true Flow state (it is not--it is the precursor). The past and future must remain forgotten: first rule to defeating Egolessness.

4. Do not forget: this beast is a non-will--a lie, based on a past "truth." Not a dragon, then--but a duck.

213. Going To Work, or: The Book of Enoch The Dragon of Egolessness is a foreman: a major proponent of historic productivity. History is a workplace the egoless attend in order to attain some short burst of worth. They shower and shave by means of suffering. They punch in by means of distraction. They spend work time by means of maneuvering science (the provided necessary equipment) to make copies of objects. How we long for Nostalgia in the presence of her younger sister--why we would choose to work here in the first place, we cannot even understand--and an old, silly morality comes in new regard after facing down a sharp and fresh self-proclaimed "reality." What now, of history's Nostalgia? What kind of product wishes it were obsolete? Can this phenomena exist? Non-productive is only non-productive when the boss says so--first rule of slavery. Boss being right means I stay alive--second rule of slavery. Not an ongoing phenomena, but more likely a handful of rare occurences; perhaps, a single egoless worker under a haze of non-willed and slave-driven nostalgic "morality" coming up the stairs in pursuit of legendary status by means of willing an instant and new history that ought last forever, surely, if such "morality" and "rarity" were permissable as genesis. Of course, history would like to forget this old and silly untruth--it has much work to do, and can always hire a new boss. Egolessness is impatient with anomolies.

214. Non-will As An Instinct? We do not seek to impress ourselves any more than we seek to disgust ourselves. The true motive of being is balance. Non-wills are the things we do when we are balanced in order to establish chaos. We wish to establish chaos out of boredom and satisfaction. In this sense, a non-will becomes an unavoidable instinct to the likes of love--no virtue and no morality, yet still a choice for self-destruction, for degeneracy.

215. Now we're getting somewhere... Where was I going again? South? What day is it? What is all this commotion up ahead? It matters not; I feel caught up--almost. Time to ditch my coat.

Epilogue: Eyes Without A Face

216. Insight? No, no, no--believe me, nothing good grows in there. I'd rather not. You see, I pay attention, so I may take it back. My balance is of a physical understanding, a subconscious tearing down, a falling and chasing of pieces--of lava floors and hazy peripheries and magnanimous recoveries. I am an architect, a traveler, an adapter, a riser and faller, a starving god, a virtuous immoral, a lion in zebra paint: A gonzo.

217. The Fine Pair Rodney Maker and Lisa Stephanies 1. In winter I came across a group of dusty, shuffling creatures gathered about a stage where an old couple were in the middle of some theatrical display for entertainment. They were performing some sort of dinner scene between enemies and friends. There was a pillow with a chicken drawn on it under the woman's arm as she gave off the final ends of a monologue. "...and in lack of gratitude did all former slaves claim their moral!"

2. "What is the meaning of this?" I thought to myself as I waited for the actors to finish their finale so that I may inquire upon the context of their performance. After some applause and hand-shaking, these two very pleasant and strangely homey performers introduced themselves to me (after my accosting them, of course). "You there! Old couple! What exactly is this play about, eh? And when will it be performed by you again from the start? And who are all those short Station-like creatures?" "Old? Well, you hear that, Rodney, this boy thinks we're old!" "We is! Ain't nothing wrong wit dat!" "What did you call the people? Station-like? What does that mean?" "Nevermind--just tell me what you were saying about lack of gratitude as a moral? This interests me greatly. You both seem gentle, yet hard. I can't make it next week, you must tell me now. What is this pillow?" "This is my pet chicken, Oprah!" "We. Don't. Owe. Nobody. Shit." came in Rodney, "And wherever we go, we take our time. Nobody can tell me what to do with my time and my money." "I see. Well, I applaud your making some coin off of these creatures at least every week. You seem to channel all rivers well and proper, and, in the end, I hope you two flourish." "Oh! Oh! That's it! That's the name of our play!" exclaimed Lisa, excitedly. "What is?" "The Old Florida Flourish! We talk about history and sing songs--oh, it's so much fun--please come next week! Please? I'll let you hold Oprah while you watch!" "Let him go, Lisa. Just trying to know everything, this one is. Just paying and paying and paying so much attention, he forgot how to spend. Ain't no way he can understand Old Florida." "Excuse me, but I live in Old Florida, last I checked." "Last you checked? What, you forget where you live?" joked Lisa. "Listen. I'm not used to it being so cold down here. Do you know any merchants? I need a room for the night, or at least a blanket or some wood." "But you just said you lived here. Anyway, there are plenty of old pelts you can use for a blanket down in that old glory hole 'bout five miles south of here." "Thank you, that will have to--hold on...did you say glory hole?"

218. Be cruel to me (as you see fit).

219. The enemy of the mountain is not the valley--but the mountain of sand.

220. The philosopher cannot be understood, yet holds key information. The philosopher is a solid rolling force of will, wit and cruelty. The philosopher is the silent partner that traverses great distances alongside bumbling fools, to his irritation. The philosopher will always have copycats--all substandard. The philosopher is never the hero--but always the favorite (and the hero's favorite). The philosopher is erratic, contrary, obstinate, wayward, and essential.

June 2020

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jobannn · 3 years

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a young adult coming-of-age epistolary novel by American writer Stephen Chbosky. The Movie follows Charlie, an introverted observing teenager, through his freshman year of high school in a Pittsburgh suburb. This explains the details Charlie's unconventional style of thinking as he navigates between the worlds of adolescence and adulthood, and attempts to deal with poignant questions spurred by his interactions with both his friends and family.

All through the 1991-1992 school year, Charlie, the 15-year-old saint, begins forming letters about his own life to a dark recipient tended to, "dear friend". In these letters, he discusses his first year at optional school and his fights with two horrendous experiences: the implosion of his single place school buddy, Michael Dobson, and the downfall of his main aunt, Helen. His careful English teacher, who inclinations Charlie to call him Bill, sees Charlie's excitement for examining and forming and goes probably as a mentor by apportioning him extracurricular books and reports. Despite the way that he is a recluse, Charlie is become a nearby acquaintance with by two seniors: Patrick and Sam. Patrick are dating Brad, a football player, and Sam is Patrick's stepsister. Charlie quickly develops a consuming squash on Sam and thus yields this to her. It is revealed that Sam was abused as an adolescent, and she kisses Charlie to ensure that his first kiss is from someone who truly loves him. Like his own understanding, Charlie watches his sister's lover hit her over the face, yet she disallows him from telling their people. He in the end makes reference to the function to Bill, who uncovers to Charlie's people about it. Charlie's relationship with his sister rapidly rots and she continues watching her darling against her people's cravings. Over the long haul, he finds that his sister is pregnant and agrees to convey her to an untimely birth office without telling anyone. His sister says the last goodbye to her playmate, after which her relationship with Charlie begins to improve essentially. Charlie is recognized by Sam and Patrick's social affair of partners and starts investigating various roads concerning tobacco, alcohol, and various drugs. At a social event, Charlie staggers on LSD. He can't control his flashbacks of Aunt Helen, who kicked the container in a car crash on her way to deal with getting him a birthday present. He ends up in the clinical center in the wake of falling asleep in the three-day weekend. At a Rocky Horror Picture Show execution, Charlie is drawn nearer to fill in as Rocky for Sam's darling Craig, who couldn't go to the show that night. Their friend Mary Elizabeth is astonished and asks Charlie to the Sadie Hawkins move and they go into a random relationship. The relationship closes, in any case, during a series of truths or dares when Charlie is embarked to kiss the prettiest youngster in the room. He kisses Sam, and Mary Elizabeth steps out of the room in like manner. Following this, Patrick recommends that Charlie stay away from Sam for quite a while, and the rest of his association pack avoids him. Without allies to involve Charlie from his considerations and fights, his flashbacks of Aunt Helen return. Patrick and Brad's relationship is found by Brad's harmful father, and Brad disappears from school for two or three days. After returning, Brad is cold and mean toward Patrick, while Patrick tries to reconnect with him. Nevertheless, when Brad cruelly attacks Patrick's sexuality transparently, Patrick really attacks Brad until other football players take an interest and unite against Patrick. Charlie partakes in the fight to monitor Patrick, and separates it, recovering the respect of Sam and her sidekicks. Patrick begins contributing an enormous bit of his energy with Charlie, and Patrick kisses Charlie rashly anyway then apologizes. Charlie is smart considering the way that he fathoms that Patrick is so far recovering from his assessment with Brad. In a little while, Patrick sees Brad attracting with an untouchable in the diversion community and Patrick can continue forward from the relationship. As the school year closes, Charlie is eager about losing his more prepared friends, especially Sam, who is leaving for a pre-summer school starter program and has found that her darling sabotaged her. Exactly when Charlie causes her pack, they talk about his expressions of warmth for her; she is enraged that he never followed up on them. They begin to interface unequivocally, yet Charlie startlingly turns out to be bafflingly abnormal and stops Sam. Charlie begins to comprehend that his sexual contact with Sam has worked up checked memories of him being assaulted by his Aunt Helen as a youngster. Charlie gives signs of PTSD from the event and the divulgence of his abuse empowers the peruser to appreciate his viewpoints on associations and love. In an epilog, Charlie is found by his people in a psychological state and doesn't show any turn of events despite being hit reluctantly by his father. Resulting in being admitted to a mental crisis facility, it is revealed that Helen very mauled him when he was young, the memories he had accidentally repressed. This psychological damage explains his flashbacks and derealization organizes all through the book. In two months, Charlie is conveyed, and Sam and Patrick visit him. In the epilog, Sam, Patrick, and Charlie experience the section again and Charlie stands up and yells that he feels boundless. Charlie unavoidably manages his past: "Whether or not we don't be able to pick where we start from, we can at present pick where we go starting there". Charlie decides to "share" for the duration of regular daily existence, and his letter-creating closes.

I truly love this film since this reflects being a loner like me and in the wake of distributing somebody gives me acknowledgment that having somebody won't be that terrible and it can even transform you. First Lesson is, meeting new individuals isn't so difficult. In the wake of building colossal nervousness around the way that he has not yet made any companions at school, Charlie chooses to contact Patrick during a football coordinate. He is a real sense just says "Hello, Patrick", and the rest is history! "Prostitute and The Falcon" We frequently award unnecessary load to minor viewpoints, ideas, and choices that become an integral factor in our lives consistently. Keep it basic, and life will be straightforward. Kapish. Next is, being a friend zone isn't so terrible. Well at any rate known to mankind of this film. He gets the young lady toward the day's end, and they all live cheerfully ever after-far away from one another, lamentably. I really think this film romanticizes the friendzone a piece by making that cheerful completion. A great many people in the zone won't receive in return in a year or ever. Sorry folks. Finally, Introverts are marvelous. Loners are fascinating animals. On the off chance that kinship was a fire, let's simply state they have huge loads of fuel, yet no flash. So next time you see somebody simply hanging out, start a discussion with them, no one can really tell how wonderful they may very well be. The most powerful scene for me is the revelation of why Charlie is like that (introvert) and it was because of her aunt. This tells us that everything we do isn’t always something that we want to, imagine Charlie’s life is he wasn’t maltreated by her aunt, he wound been an introvert at the first place. I can connect with Charlie because I am also not an introvert before but due to personal issues, I am here now, didn’t even want to talk to life and with him I realized that being introvert is cool at all. And this makes me remember how I changed when I met my friends, they changed my life. Even though they know how awkward I am socially but the still embraced about who I am.

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sketchiedetails · 6 years

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Spec Ops: The Line [Story - Dissociative Identity]

It’s important for the player to strongly identify with the protagonist in a video game. There are many ways to do this - have an interesting design for the character, give them enough backstory and a clear motivation so the player can understand why the character is doing what they’re doing at any given time. Or just make the character a blank slate and let the player fill in those gaps with their own ideas on how to play the character.

Spec Ops: The Line doesn’t want the player to blend into Walker’s character, but rather be an active reader of the story. It wants players to understand Walker’s background and motivations clearly so they can judge his character during specific events in the game and question what it means to be a hero when all you do is kill, kill, kill.

Captain Martin Walker is a decorated soldier tasked with rescuing an infantry unit led by John Konrad, a fellow soldier Walker has admired since their encounter in Kabul. The events of the game lead to Walker’s character disintegration as a result of witnessing the horrors in Dubai that were the result of Konrad’s unit. Walker commits acts just as vile as the ones he’s attributed to Konrad, and by the end there’s no clear way to tell how much of what happened was real and how much was the result of Walker’s mind falling apart.

The game presents players with choices to make at specific points in the story. These choices don’t matter, because they will always end the same way and they usually result in some sort of failure. Cutscenes following those events will usually have your squad bickering over what was the right thing to do and hearing the characters justify their brutality every chance they can but losing a little bit of their humanity at their expense.

From the places I’ve read about Spec Ops, it came off as a very divisive game upon inception. Some criticized its conceit of being a deconstruction of violent action games because it presents the illusion of choice to the player, but every choice results in the same tragic outcome and the game dresses the player down for even thinking they could save anybody. I can see that as a very frustrating experience, and I think that might be due to the game never committing on whether the player should identify as Walker, or merely bear witness to his actions.

There are several moments where the game is trying to make the player consider the actions they are about to take in the story, but the gameplay will always funnel the player into committing those actions regardless of whatever ethical rhetoric was presented earlier. The game strives for this cognitive dissonance and even makes it one of the loading screen tips. You are meant to be complicit in Walker’s actions, but remain separate in mind from Walker. Unfortunately, that intention gets kneecapped by other elements of the game.

I had said in earlier posts that Spec Ops’ loading screens were a clever way of expressing psychological horror directly to the player instead of keeping it entirely on Walker’s character, but that also tends to blur the line between player and character, because some of the writing on those screens are phrased to address the player directly, such as “You are still a good person” and “This is all your fault.” Within the game itself, there are moments when Konrad is directly addressing Walker but the dialog is phrased in the second person similarly to the loading screens and it makes it seem like Konrad is talking over Walker to the player. It’s pretty inconsistent whether what’s going on in the game is supposed to be Walker or the player’s fault - and the merits of player agency in an entirely linear game is worth a separate post itself.

I wanna compare this player-character dichotomy to Nier: Automata’s use of switching characters. I had written about N:A’s usage of diegetic game mechanics to create a distancing effect between the player and the characters, and I hadn’t brought it up in that post that the reason the player can switch between protagonists at a certain point in the story is that the Pod units decided to work together and stay connected to guide the last remaining YorHa androids to finish their mission.

Switching between 9S and A2 keeps the characters separate from the player because you’re looking at the story from multiple perspectives, and it changes both the gameplay and the overall mood of the story. A2 starts off depressing but gradually becomes optimistic up until a certain point, but 9S is slowly going insane over the loss of 2B. He’s well aware he’s become suicidal and is obsessed with destroying all of the machines but nothing his Pod can say will sway his resolve. He’s much like Walker by the end of Spec Ops.

The interesting thing about 9S’ character at this point is that the player can’t really get into 9S the way someone could get into Walker because 9S doesn’t have any internal monologue to justify his actions and he won’t even attempt to talk with his Pod. Players may not agree with 9S’s motivations, but they can at least understand what led up to this moment. The game isn’t judging the player or 9S, but it presents his actions as the next step in what 9S would consider a logical chain of events.

Walker and Spec Ops go on endlessly about choosing what was considered the right thing to do given the circumstances, but it’s presented too bluntly sometimes. It’s fucked up how tiring it can get to slaughter an entire arena full of bloodthirsty soldiers and then have your player character going endlessly about how they’re doing the right thing.

Let the player be the judge of that. I like that Spec Ops wanted to explore some dark themes and have players criticize the myth of the war hero, but I think it needs to put more trust in the player’s hands instead of funneling them along another scripted war atrocity.

#spec ops: the line #spec ops #nier: automata #nier #thinking bout games

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