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vilandel · 2 months

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Within Your Nacre

Summary It was such a rare colour, in the shade of nacre, shining differently each time Lital moved even only slightly. Fuegoleon could spend hours by just looking into her nacreous eyes.

Lost within her nacre…

A/N I've wrote this because I stumbled upon Fuegoleon bashing one day and I needed to give hims something good and fluffy, because he deserves it. It was also a good excuse to write Lital, my very first Black Clover OC.

Ao3 link

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Fuegoleon loved his job as a Magic Knight and as a squad captain. He really did. But even he had to admit that there weren’t only good sides or advantages about it. It would have been odd if his work was just perfect, to be honest.

He cared a lot for this country, for the people living in it. He would be a bad Magic Knight captain and potential candidate to be the next Wizard King if he wouldn’t care. Even more, it was also personal. For his squad, for his siblings and his house, for his friends, his rival… and especially his beloved wife.

Lital.

Just thinking of her made Fuegoleon smile and the exhausting day of work he had behind him seemed suddenly less unnerving. Lital was wonderful, he would knew that after having loved her for ten years and won’t stop loving her.

Fuegoleon hoped that she was alright. Lital had been quite nauseous since a few days. It was probably nothing, he hoped. But he didn’t like to see the one he loved being unwell. Who would like to see their loved ones unwell, honestly?

Like him, Lital was a Magic Knight, member of the Crimson Lions, even though she only became a knight at eighteen. She had her reasons, given that she was a bastard – legitimated, but always remembered of her roots – and that she lived the first years of her life in the slums. But she was one of his best knights and even before they finally get a grip of themselves to confess their love for each other, Fuegoleon had knew that he could trust Lital, that he could count on her. It was the same the other way around.

She didn’t came to work today, due to her nausea. Instead, she decided to go see Owen. He could tell Lital what she had and once he would knew it, Fuegoleon could be able to finally taking care of her properly.

A soft hiss interrupted his train of thoughts as Fuegoleon reached his and Litals chambers within the Vermillion Palace. Today had also been quite exhausting for Salamander as well and knowing his spirit friend, he was probably impatient to get into a good fire to relax and rest.

“I’ve ordered that a fire would be done into your room. Go rest there, you can join us for dinner later.”

Salamander hissed thankfully, before he immediately flew away towards his room. People were a bit irritated that he would give a spirit his own room, but Fuegoleon didn’t care. Salamander became a friend since the day they bonded and this was what mattered to him. He owed Salamander quite as well.

Fuegoleon now moved towards his own bedroom. Well, his and Litals. He just couldn’t wait to see his wife.

And there she was, sitting in one of the armchairs, at the window, a book on her lap. Her dark purple and curly mane fell freely on her bare shoulders, with her long bangs elegantly braided out of her face. Her delicate profile, her long and slender fingers holding the book she was reading, her frame that fit so well in his arms.

Lital was for him the most beautiful woman in the world and not only on a physical level. She was also brave, calm but also passionate, truly kind-hearted despite her heavy past. Fuegoleon was so lucky to be love by her.

“Dear.”

“Fue, you’re home!”

Lital immediately let go of her book, got up and within the next second, she was embracing him. Fuegoleon hugged her back without any hesitation, careful to not burn her with his fire arm, but thankfully he had excellent control over it.

After a while, Fuegoleon let a bit go of her, to look into her gorgeous eyes. Everything about Lital was beautiful, but her eyes were simply mesmerizing. It was such a rare colour, in the shade of nacre, shining differently each time Lital moved even only slightly. Fuegoleon could spend hours by just looking into her nacreous eyes.

Lost within her nacre…

Lital was beautiful in each possible way, but her eyes were maybe Fuegoleons favourite trait of his beloved wife.

“You’re making those eyes again.”

“Those eyes?”

“Like you’re looking at me as if I’m one of the seven wonders of the world. Or maybe the eighth one. It’s kinda surprising that you’re still doing it after we are a couple for even more than a decade.”

“I can’t help myself. It is so easy and wonderful to lose myself within your nacre.”

Lital blushed while smiling. Even after ten years, she was still blushing with happiness so easily when he complimented her. Fuegoleon remembered how Lital had difficulties to accept them before they got together. And how shy they had been about their two-sided feelings at first. Without sister Theresa, they would have continued within their shyness for years.

Fuegoleon was forever grateful to his ancient mentor to have helped him with his love.

“Sorry I wasn’t able to support you today with the nobles delegation,” Lital said as she lead him towards their bed. “Vanessa couldn’t come either for Nozel. She said that the hypocrisy of the nobles might be bad for her pregnancy.”

“Maybe she is not really wrong about that,” Fuegoleon replied with an amused smile. Nozel and Vanessa were now married since not that long, something the majority of nobility was still trying to recover from. And the fact that Vanessa had been a pregnant bride. Of course, the wildest rumours had been running, but for once, nobles were trying to hold it back, more or less. Not only because Nozel and Vanessa were completely unfaced by the rumours, but also because the future baby was in their eyes a new path to enter somehow into royalty. It was a never ending story.

“That delegation was a handful, my dearest. I think even William and Kaiser were close to lose patience with those nobles and to be honest, in the end none of us had any idea about what they wanted. There were too many contradictions. Of course we refused their request and the nobles wasted hours for nothing.”

Lital put a soft peck on his cheek, a comforting touch. “I’m sorry all of you had to go through that. I know that it’s belongs to your job as captains, but that kind of duty shouldn’t even be considered as one. How was Charlotte? She is a captain too, but very pregnant. Wasn’t it too difficult for her?”

Fuegoleon chuckled. If nobles were already shocked about Nozel and his pregnant witch bride, having Charlotte doing quite the same had been probably even a bigger shock. Yami and Charlotte planned to get married in December and Charlotte would be very close to the end of her own pregnancy. It was bold, but Fuegoleon knew that if was a couple that couldn’t wait much longer, it would be those two.

“Yami and Charlotte left right after the delegation were out of the room, it had been certainly exhausting for her. But she was very proud and daring the whole ordeal. If I learned anything today, is that pregnant women can be very, very frightening sometimes.”

Lital laughed and Fuegoleon couldn’t help but feel a wave of love wash over his heart at the sight. While living her first years in the slums, his dear wife had gained a very strong endurance, but she always kept a kind heart and joy. Her stepmother, who took her out of poverty and raised her as her own child, also made sure of that.

But still, Lital was also very able to be frightening when she wanted to. She was even able to not be afraid of Mereoleona.

How much he loved her and was proud of her.

Litals laughing calmed down, there were even happy tears at the corner of her eyes. How beautiful it looks within her nacre, especially when the last sunlight fell on it.

“You seem fine, Lital. Did Owen give you something against your nausea?”

“Oh, about that, darling…”

Lital didn’t stop smiling, but now she was blushing, almost nervous and excited, maybe? There was some special shine, one he never seen before. And only Heavens knew how learned each shade of Litals nacreous eyes by heart.

Fuegoleon frowned. Was something wrong? Probably not, he would have knew and Lital never hid important secrets from him. He saw her holding her belly, as if it was something precious…

Wait a minute!!

“You are… We’re going… I’m going… We will have a baby?”

“Yes!”

Fuegoleon was frozen, he was shocked of course. But there weren’t any doubts or fear in his mind and his heart. Just joy, growing joy.

He almost couldn’t believe it. But only almost.

A child… They were having a baby, he would become a father…

Of course they had talked about it, of course it had been in his mind. Of course he wanted children, to have a family on his own. But they hadn’t planned it yet, they were only married since this spring.

Was this really that important? Of course not. Nozel and Vanessa or Yami and Charlotte were becoming parents as well, their situations had even been way more complicated than his own. But the four of them were still happy to have babies.

And this kind of happiness was exactly what Fuegoleon was feeling right now.

“When?”

“According to Owen, our child might be born at the end of April or the start of May. We still have some time. But yes, my nausea and the fact that I couldn’t handle your grandfather’s strong cologne was due to… that.”

Fuegoleon couldn’t hold himself anymore, he pulled Lital into a tight hug. “Thank you, my darling. Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me? I’m not the only who will become a parent, you know.”

“But I’m so blessed to have you. You and the little one,” Fuegoleon smiled, stroking her belly slowly. Their child was in there, already loved.

Fuegoleon softly cupped his wife’s face, looking lovingly into the shining nacre of her irises, before pulling Lital into a deep and slow kiss, putting in it all his love for her and for their still unborn child.

Yes, he couldn’t be more blessed right now.

A few months later, at the last of April, Fuegoleon and Lital Vermillion became parents of a strong, adorable baby girl, who had her mother’s nacreous eyes and her fathers red hair, plus the special red eyelines which was so typical of the Vermillion fire siblings.

They gave her the name Esclarmonde.

Esclarmonde Vermillion.

#Black Clover #Black Clover Fanfiction #My Writing ☘️♣️#Fuegoleon Vermillion #Lital Lys #Black Clover OC #My Black Clover OC ☘️#Fuegoleon x Lital #Fuelital

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no-nightingales-iwanttodie · 3 months

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PERCY JACKSON EPISODE 7 SPOILERS!!! (and also for the book if you haven't read it!!)

So, as always, FANTASTIC episode.... But..

There were soo many things that I waited the week to see, that they either changed, or completely left out.

A lot of the changes they did in the series are not changes that bother me or they're changes I really liked, but this time they did me dirty.

The struggle in crusty's??? The waiting room filled with dead people??? The whole oh no cerberus is after us what are we gonna do omg wait cerberus is just a big puppy that wants to have some fun???

I know they did still technically have that last one but it was very different from the book.

Now see, I don't mind that it's different from the books, this is Rick's chance to rewrite the book but with the knowledge he has of what happens in the whole book series.. But some things I think affected the episode a bit on the negative side.

Another thing that does annoys me at times, but truly isn't the end of the world, is that too often the characters just. Know. They meet a new monster and they immediately know who it is and what they do. Where as in the book they find out the hard way. Knowing that they've reached medusas lair before they see the statues to prove it, knowing how to defeat crusty before even walking into his shop (otherwise Annabeth wouldn't already be wearing her cap, fight me) etc. I think the overall show would be slightly improved, had they just added maybe 10 minutes to every episode, and used those extra minutes to show our heroes actually in trouble. Percy doesn't know how to properly fight yet, show him learning. They do that, but I think they could do it more.

I don't mind the telling, not showing, because the entire first book is just a huge infodump. The people that are mad at that, needs to read the book (again)

Also, that is EXACTLY how I envisioned hades to be. Not so somber, not the hadestown version of hades (tho I really do love hadestown hades) but the dorky, clever little bastard that was in episode 7. Thank you! I immensely enjoyed every second of those few minutes of screen time he had. But I do think some scenes were too short. Don't come for me, I know a lot of the "fights" from TLT are way shorter than some people might remember, but they did almost die in crusty's shop and I wanted persassy talking to charon and sailing the Styx.

I did like that they kept the shoes dragging grover to tartarus, that gives a lot of info to non readers about who the traitor is.. One thing about tartarus though... I clearly remember it as a cave with a huge bottomless pit? I could be wrong, and honestly, it being in a cave or the middle of a desert is not something that is too important to me, I just thought the cave set the whole mood. Ykno, with Artemis being trapped in there in TTC and all that. But again, not That important to me.

The only thing that has legitimately bothered me about this show, has been the lighting. As someone who is incredibly passionate about lighting, and wants to become a professional in the field, watching (or struggling to) some of the scenes, were so annoying. They could do better than giving Pjo the DC treatment. I watch the show on my computer, in a dark room, with the screen light on max, and still couldn't see certain scenes in the show (like the amusement park, the minotaur, fields of asphodel etc)

There's many ways to show the audience that it's so dark the characters might have trouble seeing, without the audience feeling the same way.

I'm so sorry about the length of this, I had stuff to say. But no one will ever get me to dislike this show. I love it, so so soo much, sometimes there are just things I'm insanely excited to see, as a book reader, that doesn't happen and I'm a bit sad about that, no matter how good bad or neutral the changes are.

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #Percabeth #pjo tv show #pjo books #Spoilers #I still love the show #No matter what they change or leave out entirely #We find out the truth sort of

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smartycvnt · 1 year

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Thinking About You

Pairing: Nick Jackson x Reader

Prompt: 6. "You're all I've been thinking about lately."

WC: 791

Nick had no idea what was going on with himself. Your relationship over the years had done a lot of progression, despite what both of you had envisioned it to be. In the very beginning, you had just been two people training at the same wrestling school. You hated Matt, so Nick hadn't really tried that hard to be your friend. All it had taken was one night of sneaking beers at an afterparty and you became one of Nick's one-night stands. There were rumors about the types of girls that found their way into his bed, and you had been disgusted to become one of them. Nick hadn't bragged about you to any of the guys though, but he had avoided you the best he could for a couple of months after that night. It worked well enough that you ended up not seeing each other for almost three years after that night, but once you did, the two of you fell into bed together again. After that, it was a little easier to keep meeting up until you were fucking regularly as friends with benefits.

The saving grace in all of that was that Nick didn't have to see you all the time at work or anything. At least he didn't until your contract expired at WWE and they didn't renew it. Kenny was quick to convince Tony to sign you, despite Matt's very legitimate protests and Nick's fake ones. Nick was excited about getting to work with you again, even if he knew that sneaking around might be a bit harder. From what Nick remembered about working with you, you were quite the flirt. Nick had always been a bit jealous of the way you'd hang around on the arm of whatever guy you were seeing at the time.

"I don't get why we had to sign her," Matt complained as he watched you superkick Willow. The two of you had been having an absolute banger of a match against each other for Elevation. "I mean she can't have that many more years left to wrestle. Why did we need her?"

"Y/n is a guaranteed WWE Hall of Famer, a legend on the indies, and she's just getting started. Matt, you should have heard the way she was talking when at the contract signing meeting. I haven't heard that passion from anyone in a long time," Nick said. Kenny and Matt both looked at him in disbelief. "What?"

"Nothing, Nick. I'm just glad that you're finally coming around with Y/n," Kenny said as he clapped Nick on the back. Nick hoped that Matt would brush it off, but Nick could tell by the look in his eyes this was going to be a longer conversation at a later time. Kenny and Nick turned their attention back to the monitor to watch the end of your match, but Matt just watched Nick. Willow got backstage first after the fact, so Kenny went on his own to congratulate her and tell her what a good match that was.

"You should talk to her, seeing as how you guys are so into each other," Matt said. Nick scoffed as he turned away from Matt. Truthfully, Nick had been wanting to tell you about his feelings, but there was too much fear about being rejected. Nick didn't want to put himself out there just to get stomped on, so he had always kept his feelings quiet about you.

"Whatever," Nick muttered under his breath. He went to find Kenny, but instead bumped into you on the way there. "Hey, great match. Matt won't admit it, but he was impressed too."

"No, he wasn't. Nothing that I ever do will impress Matt Jackson, he's got blinders on when it comes to me. I'm glad that you liked it though, you're a tough guy to impress," you said. Nick blushed a little as he looked away from you. "That's not all you wanted to tell me, is it?"

"Honestly, no it's not, but what I've been thinking is a little inappropriate," Nick admitted. Your curiosity was definitely piqued with that comment, even if you doubted that Nick would tell you. "N-not like that. You're all I've been thinking about lately. In a normal sense, not a sex one."

"It's about time. I was wondering how long we would be dancing around the feelings subject before you said something. I'm all on board for taking this seriously if you are. Bye Nicky." You pressed a kiss to Nick's lips quickly before going back to the locker room to change. Nick stood there a little flustered, but ultimately feeling very proud of himself for finally saying something to you about how he felt.

#nick jackson x reader #nick jackson #aew x reader #aew #my writing

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danphantom · 2 months

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oh hey i wanna talk abt smth thats been on my mind both lately and on and off for a while in general. sorry this ended up being a hella long post lol. but i have a lot to say

so...for context, ive been in the phandom for 10 years--since 2014--though it has admittedly been on and off in terms of engagement from me. in 2017 i got into dragon ball and all but dropped danny phantom completely with a few small drawings here and there. it was only like..within the past week that i actually got back into the phandom legitimately again, actively making art and posts about it and engaging with the source material and etc

anyway, i was obsessed with dp from 2014-late 2017 (until i got into dbz). i made lots and lots of fanart, played the gba games like all the damn time (i got to where i could speedrun tue lol), rewatched the show regularly...i was even one of those fans that bought obscure merch and learned useless trivia that ive since forgotten. in 2015 a lot of you may remember that i made @doppelgangercomic, a comic about an au i had where dan got a redemption arc (albeit a bumpy one) and future vlad was there and stuff happened (go read the comic LOL). it got a LOT of love and traction! it made me really happy to see all the positivity around my work like that :) i actually got a lot of positive responses towards my work in general. i had a really great time in the phandom back then

then i changed fandoms and kinda fell out of the phandom space. after being on a hiatus from the phandom until literally a week ago, i honestly have to say ive felt like i kind of...faded into obscurity in the phandom's eyes? basically i feel like old news. people dont generally know what doppelganger is now. they may have seen my art in passing here and there but they dont know who i am anymore. i think the only place people actively still find my old danny phantom art from when i was heavily active is...deviantart lol. i get notifications from favorites literally every day there. but uh anyway--im not saying this to garner pity or tell a sob story or anything! im just expressing some thoughts and feelings ive had for a long time lol.

the reason i bring this ^ up though, is because like...i know its not true? logically, i know that i DID make an impact in the fandom i loved/love so so much. i left my mark on both the fandom in an artistic sense, and also the people in the fandom, and sometimes i forget that because i get significantly less engagement on my posts than i used to. but i know that doesnt mean that people dont like my stuff anymore, or that ive been forgotten.

i actually got a message from someone today--a friend i made kinda recently who approached me bc they liked doppelganger actually. they told me that basically its surreal to them that theyre talking to me as a friend because they remember reading doppelganger when they were younger and looking up to me because of it. and it really reminded me of what i said previously--ive not been forgotten, and people still do appreciate and love what ive put out into the world (specifically about danny phantom in this case). ive made an impact on people's lives even when i dont realize it or see it physically. the message and sentiment made me feel really really good and nice and happy and honestly relieved, because the phandom and danny phantom as a media has been an extremely important and impactful part of my life ever since i got into it ten years ago. i literally changed my name to dan because of it lol. it was the reason i found stephen silver's work and went down that path of my art journey. its the reason i found so many amazing people and friends and artists and continue to do that even now. i owe a lot to danny phantom and the phandom as a whole, and i try to give back in the only ways i know how--mainly thru showing my passion through my art and posts.

anyway erm. yeah. all of this to say i wanted to thank yall--the phandom--for supporting me all this time, whether youve been with me from the beginning or if youre just joining me recently. youve been an absolute delight in my life and i know youll continue to be for a long time. :)

#this post sounds like im leaving the phandom i promise thats not what this is LOL #im just bein a little sentimental is all..wah

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aristotels · 3 months

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Thinking about art and fiction and concepts of ownership and honestly it's kinda fucked that collaborative and transformative storytelling is literally as old as time and one of the most basic human instincts that exists, but the only good word it we have right now is "fanfiction"

and when you tell people you write fanfiction they think you're some kind of cringe weirdo and possibly pervert and then the whole thing gets derailed by this bizarre side discussion into how "No it's not all porn, it's absolutely everything and anything imaginable, duh, but like, even if it were all porn, that would also be okay". Like I'm all for pointing out the double standards about how published authors who put sex into their stories don't lose any respectability (especially if they're men, and especially if the sex is cishet), but the second I, a fanfiction person, add a romantic arc into my plotty casefic suddenly I'm a fujoshi with shipper brainrot etc etc-

But it's tiring that this is even a focal point

My favourite funny and sad thing is watching people (usually dudes) who clearly either view themselves as above fanfiction or have simply never ever thought of themselves as "the type" to do creative writing discover The Fanfiction Urge, because the way they express it is like. An increasingly passionate and detailed video essay about how Movie should have gone instead, or, my favourite, a story about something cool that happened to them in XCOM or Darkest Dungeon or some other Difficult Game For Serious Gamers and by the end of the post they're legitimately just writing prose. Like look at this! LOOK! Damn if this person didn't speedrun the gamerbro-to-AO3 pipeline just for a sec. And not that there's anything wrong with those formats but it makes you wonder if that's something they'd be interested in exploring more if their wings got unclipped

Or DnD. Small wonder that TTRPGs are becoming so popular when they're one of the few increasingly non-cringe ways to do the extremely basic human urge of Tell Story Collaboratively

A friend of mine had this to say recently about his own struggles with this kind of internal bias:

i'd like to try out Thousand-Year-Old Vampire (a solo role-playing game with minimal rules to make you write your own narrative) and my toxic masculinity is getting in the way. discouraging thoughts include: i'm not creative enough; creative writing is for Floofy Humanities types and i am a Cold STEM type; it's not a real game unless it has Systems that you can Study and Master. would anyone like to say something encouraging?

and honestly that's incredibly illuminating innit isn't it. The splitting off of creative activity (not just fanfiction, either) into something only for Floofy Humanities Types but not Serious People and the way it's linked to whether or not you can make money off it... oof.

This became a long post thank you for your patience

ngl i just dont rly care that much for fandoms... i like fanfic, i read it and write it, but i dont rly see fandom as my identity or smth i particularly care about, to me all of it is just the same as me playing with barbie dolls.

i dont think its something special that can be compared to actual literature and i think there are certain problems w booktok people relying on tropes that come from fanfic mentality. its just not the same, and i do wish people who like fanfic would sometimes also read.......some actual books sometimes

i just generally dont see what youre describing as some huge thing or problem, i think anti-kink ppl doxxing artists is the major worrisome thing when it comes to fandoms, but i think the doxxers also take the whole fandom experience too seriously

and i say this as someone who also writes fanfic, so like, it rly isnt me going "fanfic authors/readers are stupid", i find fanfic super cool to explore yourself, fanart taught me sooo much as an artist, i even enjoy roleplaying; all of this serves a very real purpose of exploring things as a human in realms of fiction, and pre-existing characters make that easier. i think that can be very useful, we learn about ourselves through books and stories. i just think fandom should be treated the way it is - playtime with toys ✌️

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phoenixkaptain · 1 year

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I think what we all miss in philosophical discussions about whether the Jedi were right or wrong is that Star Wars (the first six) as a whole is built on the idea that doing things out of fear, whether that be fear for oneself or fear for others, leads to bad things happening.

Anakin searching for his mother was based on fear: Anakin killed an entire village of Tusken Raiders.

Luke left in the middle of Jedi training out of fear for his friends: Luke got his hand cut off.

That sort of thing. In the fiction of the movies, acting on fear is bad, but this is especially highlighted in the prequel trilogy.

One thing I think of, whenever I think of the prequels, is that the Jedi High Council WAS afraid. They couldn’t feel the Force, everything was murky, Qui-Gon showed up with a weird Force kid, and the Sith are possibly back. They’re scared, and that’s okay! Fear isn’t actually the problem! The problem is when you make decisions based on that fear, when you ignore your brain to react on base animal instincts.

That’s the whole point of the Jedi, I think. Your base animal instincts shouldn’t control you. Because you aren’t fighting on instinct, you’re fighting with assistance from the Force.

The Jedi choose to join the war based off of fear, they agree to help the Senate more off of fear, they are no longer third-party made to assist with the people of the galaxy.

One thing to remember is that the Jedi Order was okay with people not following rules. Qui-Gon constantly broke rules, but he only started to get in trouble for it, actual legitimate trouble, during the Phantom Menace era.

Qui-Gon is admittedly all we really have to base this assertion on, especially in current canon, but it can be reasonably assumed that the Jedi accepted Grey Jedi, middle-ground Jedi, in the Order because why wouldn’t they? There was no Sith around! The problem was when Jedi went too far, but most of them didn’t and the Council was probably like “cool, congrats, good work.” It’s only when the Sith are “back” that the Jedi panic and start making the rules stricter. And they make the rules stricter out of fear!

I love the Jedi. I love that, above all else, they are people. They have worries, they have fears, they feel love; they’re just people. The difference is that they don’t allow these emotions to guide them. They let their duty to the Force and to each other and to the Galaxy guide them, instead. They do inherently stupid, reckless things because it honestly seems a bit impossible not to be a Jedi who does stupid, reckless things. But, more than that, they do these things out of an inherent passion for the people they’re doing it all for.

Because that’s really the point of the Jedi! To have passion that’s outward, instead of passion that’s inward.

(I know they say no passion or whatever but look me in the eye and tell me that Yoda isn’t passionate about teaching. You would be lying! Yoda uses fucking everything as a teaching opportunity, that man loves teaching more than he loves stew of dubious origin, he is passionate, do not even try to convince me otherwise you cannot)

But really, what the Jedi did wrong was that they very literally lost their faith in the Force.

Hear me out. This sounds very religious but I’m pretty sure the Force is supposed to be an allegory for God and anyway this is a random twenty-two-year laying on a bed trying to put into words the thoughts that are swirling impatiently around my head, like come on, give me a break, don’t take this too seriously, this is my first and last draft okay I’m tired-

This is me leaning a bit into literal interpretation of words, hold on tight.

Qui-Gon becomes part of the Force because he really, truly, honestly did his best to perform all actions in the name of the Force. Which, I have to remind you, does not include visions of the future because Qui-Gon does not have visions. Qui-Gon believes that something is what the Force wants him to do and so he does it. He is perhaps the most loyal Jedi Knight to the Force that we’ve ever seen, especially since he occasionally contradicts himself because the Force changed its mind (I assume). He is the man who is very sincere when he says “the Force wills it” and I love and hate him in equal measure, just like the Jedi Council.

Because on one hand, yes! Qui-Gon is following their lessons so well! Qui-Gon is doing the equivalent of keeping his eyes shut and letting the Force lead him around! That’s what the Jedi want, for their members to be so attuned to the Force that they are never in doubt of what to do! Yay!

But, on the other hand, this means that Qui-Gon actively goes against other Jedi because Qui-Gon is doing what the Force tells him to do in that moment. He isn’t acting in response to a vision of the future, he is acting as someone who has a list of instructions that only gains a new instruction when the prior has been completed. So, some Jedi will try to react accordingly to visions, while the Force is trying to get Qui-Gon to act in the opposite manner, leading to some discordance.

However, Qui-Gon doesn’t actually ever get into all that much trouble, honestly. Which means that they inherently believe him when he says he was willed to do something by the Force. And they trust the Force, even if that means they also have to trust Qui-Gon Jinn.

The Jedi don’t listen to the Force, is what I’m saying, or else they would never be in contradiction with Qui-Gon.

I think the Force shows visions more as a “Look. This is what will happen if you don’t listen to me.” So the Jedi who have visions are supposed to share those and the Jedi who have strong inclinations from the Force can lead them on how to act as the Force requests and it’s a co-existence that’s good, in my opinion, if I’m right.

But, the Jedi stopped doing that. They don’t listen to the Force, they just listen to the things they see in their visions, which inevitably makes those visions come true, you’d think they’d have learned by now-

Is this a very religion sort of view of it? Yes. Do I think that we aren’t supposed to view the Jedi as religious? Yeah. Do I think that nothing about them is based in religion? Of course I think everything about them is based in religion! “Force” as a word is used as the equivalent to the word “God!” “May the Force be with you” is literally just the Star Wars version of “Godspeed” like come on, the Force is so clearly an allegory it isn’t even funny.

All this to say, I think the title “Return of the Jedi” has multiple meanings, as all of the films do, and I think one of them is that Luke puts his faith in the Force. He saw a vision of himself being Darth Vader, but instead of trying to prevent that, he decided “Something tells me my dad still has good in him, so I’m gonna go pull out the good in him.” Luke listens to the Force, even if he doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing, and that’s what the Force has been waiting literal decades for.

I guess we don’t know what the Force told Obi-Wan or Yoda to do, but I think we can reasonably assume that it tried really hard to get them to help people. Like, maybe it gave Obi-Wan a pass because Obi-Wan was looking after a young Force-sensitive, but there’s no way Yoda got one. Jedi seem to be urged to help others above all else by the Force. It wants them to help people, it wants them to save people, it wants the citizens of the galaxy to have improved lives because of the Jedi. That’s the purpose, that’s why Jedi all formed an Order, so they could more easily go save people like the Force wants them to do.

The fact that Yoda and Obi-Wan were both in hiding suggests that they went against the inherent instruction of the Force. Yes, Jedi being alive is important, but look at all the Jedi who somehow lived while also doing so secretly and pretending not to be Jedi so they weren’t murdered. It was difficult, but certainly not impossible.

I think hiding isn’t what the Force wants. The Force wants direct action, for Jedi to step in and change things however they can, and the Jedi didn’t do that for a long time.

So, when the Jedi “return,” it’s more than in just a physical or metaphorical sense, I think it’s also in allegorically theological sense. Because Luke is listening to the Force. More than that, Leia is listening to the Force. The Jedi have returned.

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nephrastar · 1 year

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Honestly convinced that, barring maybe tumblr, bigwig social media has collapsed damn near all of my social circles.

All this shit about figuring out the algorithm, all this shit about analytics, SEO, about view time, about follower count... I just fucking hate it all now. Social media basically turned the internet from a wild west with pockets of peaceful and interesting communes to a monolithic walled city where the only thing that matters is numbers. And if you get big numbers, congrats you get to be famous!! But only if you can keep those numbers going.

And let me tell you from personal experience-- 9 times out of 10, when you post something to social media at "the right time of day" with the intent of getting some clout, your post just... Does not get clout, most of the time.

Any post that goes viral is a benefactor of circumstance. In my almost 20 years of being on the internet, the one and only thing I've ever posted that went viral was a shitpost on Twitter of me memeing on a restaurant because they had a tip limit on their app and they along with many other food and adjacent companies were being criticized for not paying their employees a living wage. This was in 2022. Last year. I learned nothing from having hundreds of thousands of likes and retweets, and have not had anything nearly as popular since. I promoted my art Twitter in the replies, but you wanna know what that did?

Absolutely FUCKING NOTHING. I didnt make any money as a result of piggybacking that viral tweet. I didn't have people clamoring for what i had to offer. And it was then when I realized that getting big numbers anywhere will ultimately amount to jack and shit. And Jack had long since left town.

That may sound like i was upset that i didnt become internet famous overnight. I honestly wasn't, but there's a point to be made here-- the chances of your platform becoming big and internet famous are about as good as your acting landing you a breakout role in a Hollywood film. You're competing with hundreds of hours worth of content per second on most platforms, and depending on the site, their algorithm, which may or may not be controlled by real life humans.

Nobody can know for certain what types of videos will be hits on YouTube anymore. not even YouTube staff know what will be hits anymore because their algorithm is a machine learning AI, and creating any content at all with the intent of beating the algorithm or making faceless computers happy will lead to burnout. And when that content doesn't make the big numbers, you're probably going to feel like it's your fault when it's really not. this goes for any social media site that uses similar methods to "curate" their user's site experience.

And I've seen far too many people i know fall into this trap, which may as well be gambling. Getting good numbers so you can get that nice dopamine hit. Then maybe you hit a jackpot. Then you're just outright delighted. So you do the same thing you did before. But it doesn't make big numbers this time. Was it something you did? Ah well. Post again. Nothing. You adjust how you post and when to post. Maybe what to post, even. But still... Your content isn't doing well. You may as well be playing slots at a casino, except instead of losing thousands of dollars you're losing time. Time that, honestly, would've been better spent doing something you legitimately like to do.

The way i see it, make content like the algorithm doesn't exist-- make videos infodumping about your special interest like view counts dont matter, draw art and post it with the same energy a 5 year old has when they show off their macaroni art to their parents. Make the music you want to hear played during a thunderstorm.

Make the content that you want because you like the idea of it existing. At the end of the day, that content is FOR YOU! It has value because you poured your passion and love into it, and no amount of Algorithms or influencer courses or viral content will ever change that. And if that does eventually lead to you being notable and successful, then congratulations! You have a large audience that's cheering you on and encouraging you to do what you love.

#vent post #Neph does a vent

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literaphobe · 2 years

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Hi Mich!! About the buildmart Reddit post: imo I agree with OP. Op isn’t saying everyone can get first place in build mart, they’re saying a lot of people can get better with practice, and Build Mart has a #reputation that can prevent players from even trying to get better, as it feels like a lost cause because of the atmosphere around it, with both fans and ccs. Tester player responder there is convinced they’ll never get good, BUT they admit to having a bad memory, that is, a ‘worse than average’ memory: if someone with a bad memory can practice and improve- by their own admission, even if they don’t improve a lot - then people who have average or even good memories by logical extension have a shot and a half if they take it. I think THAT is OP’s point: maybe the game is hard initially, but the atmosphere around it needs to be lighter so people give it a genuine chance. Ultimately, different games test different skills; build mart tests game knowledge, spatial awareness, and memory a lot- these are legitimate benchmarks of skill that should be able to be tested right up there with speed (of puzzle solving or course clearing), parkour, and strategy (team and individual), imo. *whispers* also I went back and watched yellow after this past mcc- it’s such a good example of how like… good the game is. Everyone was calling out to each other, everyone was helping each other with extra blocks, you could see the players’ thought processes when they realized that they were like a block or two off, and how they recovered from it, aaaaaa! it’s a great watch if you have time! -T

i think op had a bit of an . Ableist view towards it. like i agree that aside from dream most of the build mart haters don’t try as hard to learn the strategies of ‘good build mart players’ but it’s a little weird to be like ‘don’t use colorblindness as an excuse this contestant is colorblind and has done well in build mart before’ and mentalities like that just don’t sit right with me but aside from that like honestly HONESTLY

my very honest opinion is that at this point until we get a new building game people are just gonna have to agree to disagree like some people like watching build mart and some people are good at build mart so if someone has fun watching build mart and some people have fun playing build mart so be it yknow i think it will always be one of those games that some people hate with a passion and some people love with a violence so like whatever leave it in sometimes it gets skipped and some people are happy when it does and some people aren’t it’s not ‘unfair’ when build mart gets skipped i think more and more contestants r realizing they suck at it and would rather have it skipped in some situations like it feels like a game wherein you have less control compared to a team game like SoT where u personally collect every coin u make for the team by fucking walking into it but that’s not the point the point is i think we should just agree to disagree on games we like/dislike such as build mart and there’s no need to tell players they’re not doing enough to get better at it

a lot of people hate HITW too for instance and there’s currently a debate re whether it should be removed but no specific players are being singled out and no one’s being told that they’re not trying hard enough esp since u can practice HITW mechanics but ya idk like i think its pointless to campaign to get rid of build mart but its equally pointless to tell people to git gud at it

#ask

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vivispec · 1 year

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so. absolution. i watched it last night and boy howdy am i a fan. i’ll give my non-spoiler thoughts above the read more, and then some more spoilery thoughts under the cut, keeping in mind i’m pretty easy to please. like golden retriever levels of easy-going.

first of all, can i just say what a wonderful surprise? when I first heard netflix was in charge of this, I was not exactly hopeful. the team did great, though. the whole thing was very respectful to the world bioware built, while still being unique and interesting. they used the lore to build a great story, and didn’t seem smothered by it.

honestly my high point? the action scenes. they were incredibly well-animated, and had an amazing flow. easy to follow, but still packed with movement and stunning. i usually don’t give two fucks about fighting scenes but these were mesmerizing. the dialogue was quirky, but i didn’t find it annoying. honestly, felt pretty da to me, like banter. characters were well-written (though it felt a bit rushed. like everybody else I wish there had been more time to set them up, but they did a lot with the 6 eps they were given) and there were lots of twists and turns, but they weren’t surprises for the sake of surprises. i feel like everything was foreshadowed pretty well, kinda in the vein of solas’ whole deal: hard to see it until you know, but once you do its so fucking obvious. still, might bother some with how much whiplash you get.

as said by many before, the pace is a little wonky in the first episode, but the rest of the series really smooths it out. they had to estabilish already built relationships and characters in a way that made you care for them from the start, and they did it pretty well, if awkwardly. but i can’t see it working any other way.

my stepdad, who only ever played origins all the way back when it came out, seemed to enjoy it with very little context. most of the episodes seem to be enjoyable for people who don’t know a thing about dragon age, but the final reveal of the series will not be very impactful if you haven’t played/watched da2. it’s such a small portion of the series, however, and i would still recommend it for anybody who wants to watch it before playing da:d, but who doesn’t want to play da2.

okay here’s my real actual spoilery thoughts yippeee

i am so sorry fairbanks you and your wife deserved so much more

can i just say how chilling the conversation between rez and hira is after we know the truth? like got damn. that was....something holy shit.

i actually really like rezaren as antagonist. i was kinda rolling my eyes at his whole deal when they set him up like he was going to be sympathetic but...then he just. turned, when miriam didn’t do what he wanted. and it was chilling. he is an evil, evil antagonist in a series that loves moral middle ground and i love it.

and that one line he says, oh my god. something like ‘how many lives taken to control one beast’. and you can’t tell if he’s talking about miriam or the dragon. chilling. maybe one of my favorite moments for that reason alone.

and i loved that neb turned away from rez like that! and towards miriam! he knew!

which btw....spirit neb was so pretty. god i wish he wasn’t a corpse.

speaking of middle ground antagonists, i won’t claim i saw her betrayal coming from the getgo but i was getting strange vibes from hira from the start. i think they handled her really well, all things considered? you can tell she legitimately cares for miriam, but that her desire for revenge is just. too strong. not unlike a couple other mages i know and love.

like, does being a mage just make you the most passionate motherfucker on thedas by default or?

i was going to ask if it was the oppression but she’s still a tevinter noble so. not quite the same as somebody like, say, anders. who really went through it huh.

on that note, because everybody has opinions about miriam wanting to stay with hira....i really do think its in character. they seem to legitimately love each other, and miriam hasn’t known love like that before. she’s desperate, and so very hurt. she just lost her brother a second time. i think it’s very in character

that doesn’t mean i want to see them together again. hira trying to sell her back into slavery is something you don’t get over. even if sapphira gets some kind of ‘redemption’ (next season? in da:d?) and they’re friends again...i think that trust should be gone. but that’s just my two cents.

i maybe possibly am on the qwydion/miriam train though so i am possibly maybe biased. legitimately don’t know yet if i ship them romantically or platonically though, either way i just. want them to be together and supporting each other. i love them i love their hugs.

i love love love seeing their interpretation of the demons and shades. memory was super cool, too. and the fact that you could tell what spells the mages were using? they could’ve opted for just ‘ah yes fireballs and lightning’ but they chose to use abilities that are pretty specific, like crushing prison.

going back to what i said before, where you can’t tell if rez is talking about miriam or the dragon, i really like them releasing the dragon like that at the end. you can tell just how painfully euphoric it is for her, to see something that had been shackled and chained and used as a weapon be recognized as simply a living thing that wants to be free. to be treated with kindness, and understanding, and love when all to often it is instead feared and hated. i wanted to cry, such a beautiful scene.

and the fact that its qwydion doing the healing, and releasing. the fact that she was the one who freed it in the first place? foreshadowing maybe? not my lil wlw heart jumping on this ship and setting sail. romantically platonically i just.....want them to be together holy shit

and finally, that fucking ending. holy SHIT. i was watching it with my stepdad (who only ever played origins, back when it came out) and i could not stop yelling. i think i scared him. when i heard her voice i lost my shit. like it makes sense: lyrium has a connection to the fade, red lyrium has some restorative abilities, and if i remember correctly there have been reports of regular lyrium holding onto memories, so...i could see it being that the red lyrium trapped her spirit before it could make it into the fade and restored her over the years, or a number of alternatives. but damn i did not think that i’d see her ass. poor hawke and varric. can the tyrants they kill just. stay dead, pls.

bioware seems to be acknowledging da2 a lot more and can i just say i am living for it.

i do think it was very evil of the writing team to make me think that we were going to see varric when hira said she had a contact in the hanged man and i do not forgive them.

and lackland? holy shit. i didn’t say anything about them here because what more can i say. their dynamic is so good, i love how roland teases and flirts but is seemingly just as invested as lacklon is. despite how little time they get the team did such a great job of building up their chemistry with the training and fighting scenes, which isn’t easy when there’s so. much. action going on. really, truly, they used what little time they were given so efficiently. they heard that we wanted a dwarf romance and boy did they deliver.

#dragon age #dragon age absolution #dragon age absolution spoilers #all spoilers are under a readmore #the mayor is speaking

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gayleviticus · 19 days

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it feels telling that so much talk abt the dangers of 'transgenderism' is oriented around sports bc like. in a world rife with wars, genocides, cost of living and housing crises, and climate change, sports are honestly the least of my concerns. i devoted maybe 0.5% of my brainpower to thinking abt sports in any given month.

all the crying about women's shelters and prisoners and evil trans women at least makes more sense; that's an issue you can imagine being passionate abt. but the fact so much moral panic is oriented around how transgender people are destroying everything we hold dear bc theyre letting men play women's sports betrays an extremely unserious position

could you be upset and annoyed about trans women in women's sports being a bad thing? sure, but even if you it were legitimately a bad thing, it's hardly the harbinger of some apocalyptic destruction of the human race. it's 'ethics in gaming journalism' tier irrelevant

#cw transphobia

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lorz-ix · 4 months

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Time for another series retrospective

REC (2007)

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of mainstream spanish cinema, but holy shit if this isn't one of the best movies my country has produced. This found footage zombie movie released during the peak of those sub-genres, and they really tried their hardest to make it something special. It was filmed in real locations using actual neighbors as extras to make the movie feel truly real, and it paid off.

I won't go into much more detail. If you think what I already said sounds interesting, just go watch it. It's legitimately top quality stuff.

REC 2 (2009)

This one instantly goes in the "sequels that are arguably better than the original" list. Picking up exactly where the first movie ended, now we get to see what goes down when security forces have to enter the scene. This makes for a different vibe, since a lot has already happened, but they really manage to set up strong stakes and drama, plus we get to see a bit more of the reasoning behind what caused the events in the first place. Some people might dislike that the curtain over that mystery gets pulled a little bit, like in so many horror sequels, but I believe it's done just enough to keep things as interesting as they can be.

REC 3: Génesis (2012)

The only one of these I had the chance to see in cinemas back in the day. It's a massive change of pace and tone, since in order to tell a different story, they abandon the found footage style early on, and there's a lot more comedy bits in there.

Frankly, it's very easy to just watch the first two and forget they made more, because this isn't on that top tier level anymore, but I honestly still like the third entry. I think they were able to pull off an emotional story pretty well. Perhaps I am biased as a spaniard, because the setting and characters still feel very real, like this wedding gone wrong is one I have attended many times, minus the zombies of course.

I guess my verdict is "trust me on this one bro", you might think it's generic and not fantastic, but you might like it too.

REC 4: Apocalipsis

If you think a horror sequel that tells you too much about the "lore" ruins the appeal, then you've come to the wrong place. This final entry feels like one of those later Resident Evil movies, with a lot of action, a crazy setting and infodumps from an actual evil villain. It's forgettable, it kinda tarnishes what came before, and I can only suggest watching it if you're really curious about watching all of them.

Quarantine (2008)

You want proof that REC was a smash hit? Here you have it. Americans just bought the rights to remake the whole movie from the ground up, except with half the charm since it was filmed in sets with regular actors, and it's a cynical remake rather than a passionate original project.

In all seriousness, it's not a bad movie, it can't be when they're mostly competently copying something that's so good, but why would you watch this when you literally have a better version right there? Because you hate listening to other languages? Because subtitles bother you?

To add insult to injury though, they took the relatively unique paranormal/religious lore of the original series, which was kinda relevant because the whole catholic angle felt very grounded in the spanish setting, and replaced it with a generic biohazard/virus plot. Yup. They really thought making the movie even less special and more generic would be a good idea.

Quarantine 2: Terminal (2011)

The people who brought you Quarantine couldn't keep remaking the original series, so instead they opted to make an original sequel, and it's even less special, more forgettable, and less worthy of your time.

The one and only reason to watch this one is if you're really interested on hearing a bit more of that sweet "original" lore that they changed for this american copycat. Everything else I already forgot about.

#lorz mediapost 2023 #movies #long post #horror

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bekoobove · 10 months

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Fazbear Fears #10: Remnants

...Dealing with personal loss and a struggling paranormal investigation business, Zee gets a scoop that may be just what she’s been looking for…

“For the last time, Mrs Calloway, my tools picked up no spectral activity. I’m quite certain your canary’s spirit has moved on to the beyond. Goodbye, and if you have other paranormal problems, I hope you’ll choose Zee & Micah Ghost Hunters.”

Zee slammed the phone back onto its base. “Crazy old lady…” she muttered, rubbing her temples. She’d taken the canary job several times, mainly because she was desperate for cash. Still, she had standards. She was a legitimate paranormal investigator, and was ready for some serious cases.

“Let’s see.” she said to herself, checking her messages. Nothing.

Zee sighed. “I knew this whole business was a bad idea. We needed a way to make real money, and we chose to chase ghosts?”

Still, she thought to herself, it had seemed like a much better idea when Micah was still around. He had been so passionate about it, ever since they had first met in high school. Some kids may have been put off by their classmate talking about ghosts, demons, and the undead in general. Zee, on the other hand, ate it all up. Her parents had told her many spooky stories from Hispanic culture- La Llorona, el Cuco, the Duende- so she was already into this stuff, and she loved what Micah was saying. While she loved ghost stories, she also enjoyed science, and felt like the two were at odds. But Micah had changed that. As he taught her, the dead created electricity that could be measured, and heat that could be detected.

Honestly, Zee had never been sure how seriously either of them had taken it. But being able to tell people you’d gone ghost hunting last night was certainly a conversation starter, and it was incredibly fun. They’d started doing it after Micah got Zee an EMF meter for her birthday. While the rest of their students were at the Prom, the pair were searching for paranormal activity at the nearby graveyard- and having their first kiss in front of some old mayor’s mausoleum. From then on, they were a couple- and they dreamed of being together forever, of hunting ghosts until they had passed themselves.

“Well, best-laid plans.” Zee said bitterly.

Suddenly, her phone rang. Zee picked it up, and angrily said into the mouthpiece, “Mrs Calloway, I swear to Christ…”

“Uh, I don’t know who Mrs Calloway is, ma’am. I’m just calling because I’ve got a job for you.” responded an unfamiliar voice.

Zee blushed. “Ay dios mio, I’m so sorry. I’ll take any job you’ve got, as long as it doesn’t involve canaries or-”

“Or Fazbear Entertainment?”

Zee froze, then answered with venom in her voice. “So you know I have no interest in those places. Look, whatever you saw in there was probably paranormal activity. It's an established fact in the ghost hunter community that those pizzerias are haunted. I have no interest in beating that dead horse. If that’s all…” she moved to hang up.

“Well, you see ma’am, the place I’m talking about isn’t exactly a pizzeria. And it’s never been investigated before, far as I know.”

Zee paused, then hesitantly returned the receiver to her ear. “I’m listening…”

“There’s this place, underground, where they used to have these really advanced animatronics. Apparently they were rented out for parties.”

“Underground?” Zee laughed. “Is this some sort of prank?”

“No, it’s real. It was called Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals.”

Zee pondered this. “Any relation to that short-lived restaurant? I investigated there a while ago, and to be honest it’s one of the less haunted locations.”

“Yeah. After that gas leak that closed it down they took those things down to that fancy basement where they were stored and repaired.”

“So what happened to it? Why isn’t it operating now?”

There was some hesitation, the man clearly doubtful if she’d believe him. Finally, he answered. “The animatronics disappeared.”

“Wait, what?” Zee said incredulously. “From what I heard about the restaurant, those animatronics were huge, even assuming someone could steal normal sized ones without getting caught.”

The man sighed. “Listen, I honestly don’t care too much about missing robots. I want that place investigated because my friends died there.”

“Oh, um… my condolences. Do you believe them to be the ones haunting the place?”

“No. Something there killed them. Something unnatural.”

“How do you know?”

“They were hanged.”

Zee’s blood ran cold. “Wh-what do you mean, hanged?”

“In the rooms the animatronics were kept in. They were hung from wires. Both on the stages the animatronics used to perform at. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“...No, probably not. When did this happen?”

“Couple of months ago. I would have contacted someone like you sooner, but I just kept trying to deny it. Figured I’d sound crazy, even by your line of work’s standards.”

Zee tried to get a little more upbeat. “At Zee & Micah’s Ghost Hunters, no one’s crazy.”

“So, you’ll take the job?”

Zee stopped. She’d gotten so invested in his story, she’d forgotten- she never wanted to investigate Freddy Fazbear locations again.

Then again, she needed notoriety. While several people had died in the restaurants, the company refused to admit that paranormal activity was to blame. They blamed ordinary glitches in the animatronics, when they acknowledged the deaths at all. But if what this guy was saying was true, even Fazbear Entertainment couldn’t cover up something like this if it was brought to the light. She’d be famous for blowing this mystery wide open.

“Fine.” Zee answered. She slammed the phone down. “Let’s roll.”

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

Her new car was nice.

It was red- her favorite color. Not exactly a brand new model, but only a couple of years old. Definitely a lot nicer than the Dead Car Rolling, as Micah had called their old ride. That name hurt now.

It was about four months ago when it happened. Micah and Zee had been driving along an old country road, towards an abandoned Freddy Fazbear location. It was late at night, and raining. Still, together they felt warm.

Zee had seen the decrepit building up ahead and eagerly pointed to it. Micah smiled and prepared to pull into the parking lot.

From the left, lights suddenly flashed at them. A moment later, the truck hit.

The car had flown off the road, careening into the lot. It hit a long-lifeless lamppost standing on a curb stop.

Zee had hit her head, and began to lose consciousness. Before she did, she noticed two things.

First, Micah. His head was on the dash, and was basically cracked open. Blood poured from the gash. His eyes were lifeless, and he wasn’t breathing.

Zee, horrified, tried to look away. She turned, and saw one other thing- the Freddy Fabear’s Pizza sign on the roof of the establishment. The cartoon bear smirked at her from it, as if this was the most entertaining thing he’d seen in a while.

Then everything went black.

The truck driver had been found guilty of drunk driving and manslaughter, and sentenced to ten years behind bars. Still, no sentence would bring Micah back.

Zee had returned, several times, to the sight of the crash. She’d tried out every one of her tools, searching desperately for evidence of Micah’s presence, but came up empty over and over again. And every time that bear sign mocked her, reminding her she was all alone in the world. After that, she’d never wanted to see a Freddy Fazbear’s again.

And yet, here she was, driving to one. Sure, it was called Circus Baby’s Pizza World, but she’d been. It was barely different- basically a reskin of the original restaurant.

Finally, she pulled into the lot. She walked around to the side, where she’d entered last time.

It was like Zee remembered- abandoned and lifeless, everything from the tables and arcade machines removed (well, there was one machine left in the room over, but Zee had investigated it last time- didn’t work). And of course, the stages, barren of animatronics.

Zee ventured deeper into the restaurant. She made a quick pit stop in Party Room E, which was the place she’d picked up the most paranormal activity last time. She scanned the room, but didn’t find any differences. The only thing that made it stand out were all the Circus Baby posters- she suspected it was designated for birthday parties with her.

Zee came to the back room entrance, on which a sign read !EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATRONICS SHARP PARTS AND LIVE WIRES- CAUTION! Last time, Micah had advised against checking it out, promising they’d return more prepared.

Well, she’d returned. And with all she’d been through, what could be behind that door that she wasn’t prepared for?

She pushed it open, and poked her head inside.

The backroom had also been cleared of everything- no robotic parts, no tools, no workbenches, nothing. Only one thing remained- an elevator shaft in the center of the room.

Zee smiled. She’d hoped what the man said was true, but until now she hadn’t fully believed it. The elevator was cylindrical in shape, about twelve feet wide and eight feet tall. A window wrapped around the entire structure, and pipes formed a network between the inside and out.

Hesitantly, she pushed the button beside the entrance. With a rusty creak, the doors slid open.

She prodded her EMF meter into the elevator to test for paranormal prescenses. If these spirits were willing to kill, she wouldn’t want to meet them in a tightly enclosed box above a deep shaft.

Some small wavelengths, but nothing significant. Zee shrugged, and entered the elevator. A red, obvious button caught her eye. She pressed it, the doors closed, and she began to descend.

As the vent fan in the elevator above her spun, it cast shadows which blocked out the eerie blue light illuminating the shaft. The posters on the elevator’s wall flapped with the breeze sneaking through the vent. Other than that, it was completely silent and still.

Zee examined the elevator itself. For all the exposed pipes and wiring, it looked advanced. It was 2003, not 2023. And yet everything was sleek, smooth, and worked well despite barely being used.

A jingle suddenly burst out of a wall mounted speaker. Zee jumped, startled, before groaning at being so easily scared.

The jingle was kind of creepy, though. It was like upbeat circus music, just a little too energetic for her liking.

“Well, whatever.” Zee muttered. “Ghosts or no, this fancy basement will be a lot worse than some weird music.”

Soon enough, the elevator hit bottom. The doors didn’t open automatically, but all she had to do was press the red button. Stepping back out, she found herself staring down a long hallway.

“Jesucristo, how big is this place?” Zee groaned.

Luckily, there was a motorized cart. It had only two front seats, with the back converted into a large bin, probably for transporting animatronics. As of now, it was empty except for a few screws and nuts. The key was still in the ignition.

Within a minute, Zee was cruising down the hallway in style.

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

And within ten minutes...she was still driving.

Zee was completely baffled. Judging from her starting point and the direction she was going, the tunnel was going under the forest north of Circus Baby’s. Why the heck would it lead there?

Finally, she saw a light at the end of the tunnel- or, more accurately, a door. She also noticed another cart outside it- one whose owners had never driven it back.

In the cart’s bin there were some more little mechanical components, as well as a full animatronic hand. The thing was creepy- pale white with fat, jointed fingers, and wires spilling out of it. It definitely gave truth to the claims of the animatronics’ enormity.

One other thing was a small sketch, sort of like a floor map. There was a long, thin strip, with an arrow pointing off the paper that was labeled Elevator.

“So that’s this hall…”

The rooms beyond the door were arranged in a cross-shape that she was at the top of. The room she was entering was labeled Circus Gallery.

Zee tested out the doorknob. To her pleasant surprise, it opened. She pocketed the drawing, knowing it’d be useful.

Eagerly she stepped inside. “Hello, murderous robots?” she joked. “Mind if I snap some pictures?”

The room was laid out weirdly. There was a stage of sorts- really it was more like a platform- in front of some windows. Through them, Zee could see more of that advanced tech aesthetic, as well as some weird looking dolls hanging from a control panel.

“Guess this was Circus Baby’s old hand.” Zee took out her ghost box and turned the dials, hoping to pick something up. There was about twenty seconds of crunchy radio static. Zee sighed, and moved to turn it off. However, at the last second, some audio came through.

“Daddy, why won’t you let me play with Her?”

Zee gasped. The voice was like a little girl, definitely not one of the mechanics. Was she the original ghost? And who was Her? The way ghosts work, that line had to be significant, probably related to the girl’s death.

“I should head deeper.” Zee grinned. “I knew it was worth coming here, this might be the biggest find of my life!”

There was a hallway to the left. Zee excitedly ran down it. There was a ninety degree turn halfway down it. She pulled out the sketch again, to see she was heading into the Funtime Auditorium.

Entering the auditorium, she noticed there were four doors. One, to her right, was locked, with a scanner on the side indicating she would need a keycard. “Probably not getting in there…” Zee said, then winced. “Ugh, what’s that smell?!”

A scent like rotting meat and sickly sweet fruit drifted along the air. Zee looked over at the stage, suddenly realizing with horror the man had never said if his friends’ bodies had been removed. But nope- the stages were empty, save for some suspicious stains. Trying to trace the smell, she quickly realized it was from a door- one of two, right next to each other- across the wall. She looked down at the map, which identified the one on her left as Scooper Room and the one on her right as Scooper Controls. The smell was coming from the Room, so she nervously walked across the Auditorium and opened the door.

An automated message blared over a small speaker, spoken by a calm, flat voice: Warning: You’ve entered a highly dangerous area. You’ve entered from Maintenance Entrance 1B, reserved for cleaning and repair of The Scooper! Entering this side of the room is strictly prohibited by unauthorized personnel. Assuming you are authorized personnel, remember to proceed with caut-caut-caut-”

The voice cut out, and lights flicked on loudly from the previously darkened room.

Zee’s eyes took a moment to adjust, but they quickly located one thing- a corpse.

Zee screamed and stumbled backwards. Sure, she’d been told two guys were dead down here, but their bodies had been removed. What, had they just forgotten about the third one?

It was an ugly thing, and strange. It had no skin- nothing but exposed muscles and bone. There were only stubs for arms and legs, the body mainly consisting of a rotting torso and a gaping, bloodied skull. All in all, it looked less like the skin had been removed from the body, and more like the body had been removed from the skin.

After Zee vomited (look, what do you think you’d do?), she looked around in fear, trying to find something or someone that could have done this.

She found her answer quickly- sort of. There was a gaping hole in the wall that was shared with the control room. Unattached wires jutted out of the cracks.

“There was some kind of machinery…” Zee guessed, wiping some vomit off her chin. “But who’d make a machine capable of ripping people apart?”

There were small animatronic pieces on the floor in front of the machine- a finger, a few sharp teeth, and a tiny red bowtie, for example. There wasn’t any machinery in them like the hand she’d found; rather, they looked more like hollow shells.

“Almost like all the animatronic parts were torn out of them.” Zee deduced.

Shuddering, she decided that was enough for today. Already this place’s death count had been raised to three, and it didn’t seem like they were even the ones haunting the place.

Zee stumbled back through the door, preparing to leave. However, from the last door- against the leftmost wall- a banging noise echoed. Something was hitting from the other side.

Zee should have ran. She should have ran down the hall, back to her cart, and left this place in the dust. But, like so many before, one part morbid curiosity and another part misplaced confidence convinced her to stay.

The door gave, crashing down onto the cold, tiled floors. And an abomination pulled itself out.

It was the machine- it had to be. It was an enormous mechanical limb ending in a scoop. But this thing wasn’t for ice cream: it was closer to construction equipment, with an angular shape and bladed edges. But that wasn’t all.

A metallic, silvery fluid leaked out of it, like oil. But the liquid was strange- it moved and pooled with the Scooping Machine, towards Zee. And aiding it in its crawling were dozens of those plastic shells- bulky arms, a pinkish torso with a speaker embedded in it, a robotic woman’s head with hair pulled into a tight blue bun, legs that ended in curly red shoes. All of them had the fluid pouring out the seams, taking the place of their mechanical parts, helping to form a nightmarish body that dragged itself along the ground.

Zee stared, horrified. The main rumor about Fazbear animatronics had always been that they were possessed, but this was on a whole different level. And she took a moment to ponder: if this thing’s animatronic innards were gone, had they escaped? Were they out there, hiding in dark corners, waiting to claim more innocent victims?

Shaking, Zee held out her ghost box. “What- what do you want? Please, tell me!”

The thing stopped for a moment, thinking. The box began to hum with what sounded like a symphony of voices, all in incredible pain. Finally, from the gibberish a few words emerged.

“T̸̠̗͛͆͗O̴̩̊̅̃ ̷̧̥͐̑͆H̵̡̻͌̋͋U̷̢̝̹͝R̸͔̫͈͌̑T̴̳̾͂ O̵͉͠T̶̫̂H̶̋ͅE̸̝͌Ŕ̷̯S….L̷̡̲̍I̵̗͎͕͛͌̉K̸͕̄̆Ḛ̸̆͆̕ ̸͙̍̓W̷̲̋͂͠Ę̴̓̈́’̶̱̿̆̄V̸̝͚͐̏Ẹ̶̩̩̑̒ ̵̘̥͕̿͌̇B̸̢̛̻̠͛̆E̷͍̔̃͘É̸̲̭̊̂N̴̖̩̞̐̒ ̸̛͖̈H̷͙͂̑Ư̷̡̢̬̆͗R̷̥̰̜͆̾̍T̴̨̡̙̍̓.”

A beeping noise came from the scooping machine. There was a pause, and then it activated. Zee barely dodged the mechanical scoop as it flew at her. It slammed into the wall, and peeled out a chunk of concrete. The limb retracted, ready to try again.

Panicked, she looked around. All of the exits were behind the Scooping Machine, and it was moving closer. She threw the ghost box at it, but the metallic fluid stretched up and plucked it out of the air, absorbing it.

Zee was backed up against the wall, no way out. She turned her head away, disgusted by the metallic monster. Her eye caught something on the wall behind her, though- a vent, level with the floor, big enough for someone to crawl through.

Relieved, she kneeled down and crawled through the opening. The echoey metal tube was tighter than it looked, but still passable.

As she crawled, she looked at her map again. She was headed towards a room labeled Primary Control Module. One vent, on the wall to her right, would lead her to the Circus Module, the room behind the window in Circus Gallery. But there was no vent leading into the gallery; she’d be cornered.

From behind her, she could hear metal scraping and machinery beeping, as the Scooping Machine creeped towards her, dragging itself along the metal walls.

“Stupid thing, how can you even fit?” Zee yelled, as if an insult might slow it down.

Finally, she stumbled out into the relative openness of the Module. Zee frantically scanned the map, desperate for another way out. She found one, but not one she expected.

There was a vent on the wall to her left. At the end of it, there was a round chamber labeled Elevator.

“Another one?” Zee said incredulously. “Where does this thing even go up to?”

But as the metal monster emerged from the vent, she realized she didn’t have much choice. So she turned, and began crawling once again.

As she did, she began to think about what the Machine had said, all that stuff about getting hurt and hurting others. She felt kind of sorry for it, but on the other hand, why attack random people? If she had been the one who’d killed whatever souls resided within it, sure, but that wasn’t why it was attacking. It just wanted to cause pain. Why couldn’t it just let go?

Though, ultimately, wasn’t that what ghosts were? Shadows of their living selves that stubbornly persisted, all for the sake of the long-dead, long-abandoned, and long-forgotten. Zee didn’t want to end up like that.

But she couldn’t help but begin to think she was.

She missed Micah so much, which- y’know- made sense, of course. But only now did she realize how much it was consuming her. There had been times where she’d considered just ending it all to be with him again. She had tried to let go, to move on, but it was just so...impossible.

“Why am I worried about this now?” Zee cursed. She pulled herself out of the vent. To her pleasant surprise, the sketch hadn’t lied. There was an Elevator there, almost identical to the one she’d first come down in. Eagerly she ran inside and hit the red button. She began to ascend just as the Machine emerged from the vent, but the rising floor quickly cut off her view of it.

“Yes!” Zee cheered. “So long, you robotic freak!”

Her excitement was dampered when, from below the elevator’s floor, there came sounds of scraping metal and shifting parts. It was climbing up after her.

The elevator wasn’t particularly fast, so within a few seconds it was scratching against the floor, and grabbing onto the mechanism. To Zee’s horror, she could feel the floor shift, beginning to give.

After far too long, as the floor began to peel open, the elevator reached the top of the shaft. Well, almost. It stopped a few feet below the floor’s surface, but the space was big enough to crawl through.

Zee climbed, and stumbled a little, but managed to pull herself out of the chamber. She looked back inside the elevator, worried the Machine was going to follow.

It didn’t seem likely. The Machine had left most of its plastic shell parts behind in the vents, having only a teeth-filled snout, a skinny clawed arm, and some bearish looking legs. It was struggling to pull itself up, and the elevator looked like it was about to fall.

But Zee noticed something else- her EMF reader, lying on the elevator floor.

“It must have fallen when I was climbing out!” Zee realized. “I- I have to get it.”

Desperately she reached back in, her fingers scraping against the small device, but not quite gripping it.

“Please…” Zee said to no one in particular. “It’s all I have left of him…”

But then she realized that maybe it was time to let go- literally.

So she retracted her arm, pulling it out of the gap. Not a moment later something in the shaft snapped, and the elevator plummeted.

The creature screamed as it fell, an ear-bursting, shrill, metallic sound. But screaming did it little good, because from below there was an enormous CRASH! A fiery orange light reflected off the shaft walls, and a wave of heat burst upwards- but before any of the real explosion hit, the elevator door slid shut.

It was odd- when it had fully closed it blended right with the wall. In fact, looking around, this whole place was weird- a sort of storage basement, but not filled with Circus Baby animatronics and props. There was normal stuff- an old, cobwebby fake Christmas tree, boxes full of knick knacks, and a treadmill with a couple of old work shirts slung over it.

Zee cautiously moved to the stairs, and climbed. Sure enough, she emerged not in some kind of robotics facility, but a house. It looked pretty normal by abandoned house standards- dusty furniture, burnt out lights, and a strange emptiness. The only thing that looked amiss were the stains all over the floors and walls- some sort of oil and rusty red substance.

“Well, that’s enough for today.” Zee muttered. She quickly found the front door and left the house. Like she’d suspected earlier, it was situated in the middle of nowhere, in the forest.

An old road led out of the clearing, probably back to town. Zee followed it.

As she did she thought of Micah- his smile that lit up her life, his curly black hair, the happiness with which he did everything. He wouldn’t want to hold her back like this, would he?

“No.” Zee confirmed to herself. It wouldn’t be easy moving on, but she really had to.

The forest was peaceful and serene. The trees waved gently in the cool breeze, and birdsongs echoed quietly.

Zee smiled.

What a beautiful day.

#fnaf #anthology #fazbear frights #five nights at freddy's #horror #cw: gore #fnaf sister location

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dzpenumbra · 1 year

Text

3/9/23

I slept like shit again. I woke up super dehydrated, my eyes were really close to doing that stick-to-my-eyelids sharp pain thing again, I got really lucky that didn't happen. I guarantee it's my contacts, it started right around when I got them. Dehydration too, but... it's gotta be directly related to my contacts.

I woke up, did yoga early, ate a bowl of cereal and passed out in the comfy chair for a few hours. It worked out, I'm just wiped now.

I got a lot of work done on the decorative sign thing I made. It's pretty much done, actually, I just... haven't decided if I'm going to mod podge it. I might even actually do the acrylic sealer spray I have. Just... to make it last a bit longer. Cardboard is not known for its ability to endure the elements. Trust me, I know cardboard. I did a test swab on a different piece of cardboard, it came out fine... I just took a bit of the ink off when I applied it, which is not a good sign... and it was pretty textured. I might have better luck if I water the mod podge down a bit first? It's not like I need a thick coat, I just need full coverage. I'm a bit worried about it... warping the cardboard? Like, the moisture when it soaks into the paper. Idk. I want to make sure I have a test idea before I commit the sealer to the project, because sealing it is the last step.

I was watching/listening to a live stream with the ESOTERICA guy and another woman from Germany who is a historian, linguist and archaeologist, who focuses on translating obscure texts, ritual incantations and studies inscriptions and artifacts too. I was just... completely engrossed. It was like 3.5 hours straight, they were both so passionate and brought me along on this big rollercoaster. I loved it!

It was really... validating, honestly. It was focused on this Demotic text from Egypt, having to do with some kind of exorcism or like... casting out a demon kinda ritual. And it was really cool to get a bit more in depth with Egyptian spiritual lore, which hasn't really been at the forefront in my life. Greek was the one I was most familiar with, being raised with several books of it. But the coolest and most personally validating part was how... the entire ritual was like... a massive fusion of all different deities and characters from different religions. And they were speculating that, in those times of cultural blending around the Roman era, it might've been that these rituals were kinda... adapted for each individual person's personal spiritual belief mix. Which I found very relatable and very appealing.

Which would obviously challenge the... set-in-stone traditionalist, purist spiritual types. And outcast this type of practice into the realm of... low-brow? Poor? Fake? Even evil? I mean, there is very clearly a stigma that has persisted for millennia. There's a line between "mainstream" spiritual belief (which is rife with magic and miracles, ritual and symbology) and... "magic" or "witchcraft" or spellwork. And they touched on that really directly today, which was a conversation and perspective I've never really overheard before... but completely related to and got onboard with 100%. It's like... bigotry, honestly. And the way it was referred to in the podcast was basically... it's... far-from-academic. And it happens especially within academia. Like... these people get mocked by their peers... because they are digging deep into the... the "layman's spiritual practices". As though the only spiritual practices worth investigating, the only legitimate ones, are the ones in the lavish tombs of royalty. And a slice-of-life look into the everyday practices and beliefs of the overwhelming majority of the population at the time is... a waste of time? It's chasing the "woo woo" foolishness of poor, uneducated folk or something.

And you see that prejudice today. Clear as fucking day. You tell someone you have a spiritual life, they ask you which vetted religion you ascribe to, which centralized church, temple or mosque you attend, what group you practice with. If you say you are praying by your bed to your god before going to sleep, you are given space, for the most part. We do have a growing portion of... I don't even know what to call them... militant atheists? Like... proselytizing atheists? Who just shit intolerance and... certainty... very liberally... and very loudly. Which I find just as uncalled for as someone carrying a sign telling you you're going to burn in hell if you don't accept Jesus. So, obviously that's messy, and it always will be... But... if you tell someone you practice astrology? XD Or read tarot, or other non-denominational divinatory practices... You get scoffed at by an overwhelming majority of people. And if you are a practitioner, you... more often than not... have a suspicious eye watching you as though your every move acts out of deceit with the intent to swindle them. And it's a very different type of prejudice. A prejudice that reminds me of the way that the Romani people have been, and continue to be treated. I feel like even with the atheist vs theist contempt, there's still this level of... empirical argument? Like it's just sorta a debate on whether their deity/deities exist. With occult practices, you get treated like an adult playing in a sandbox with a pail and a shovel. Just... speaking from experience.

It was really affirming to hear individuals within academia doing active historical and archaeological research, making brand new discoveries about the commonplaces beliefs and practices of people from ages passed. Doing research in these fields. And, at the same time, completely disheartening to hear how they get snubbed and refused funding by their own peers, their own institutions, who benefit from their labor and findings. The lack of respect is... well, it elicits a lot of emotions... But, on the flip side of that, it is so cool to hear about how the internet has changed all of that. That they can now raise funding directly from the people like me who have a passion and interest for the more obscure side of history and spirituality, the undiscovered, the documents no one else translated because the language was too difficult or they ignorantly assumed it was just... frivolous garbage, shit like that.

And they actually put out a call for help, for someone who is capable of coding a data entry kinda thing. And if I were qualified or capable, I would've immediately emailed both of them. They want to catalog and like... hashtag keyword associate... all of the symbols, words, terms, names of deities, all of it. The woman has already completed her Kickstarter for the project of archiving all of this, but they were floating the idea of having an online interactive database. Which would be incredible. Especially for the skull project I have coming up next, where I want to sorta craft my own ritual, my own process, and I want to meld in historic symbology as well. All revolving around death and rebirth, as kinda like...

I have had a few run-ins with Death this year. And the past few years, too. He's been lurking around my family for a while. Lots of very scary situations with my infant nephew, scares with both of my brothers, losing both of my roommates/pets/best friends. And my own PTSD state of feeling... my existence - both my life and my purpose - being in immediate threat. Like Death is lurking at the end of the hallway, slowly pacing down the corridor and softly hissing at my door. And, to be completely honest, I've been starting to chat with him, in a manner of speaking. Because... let's be honest. Death is important, and inevitable. And Death, innately, is not bad. It's just... scary, because it threatens You. It threatens your existence. Which is horrifying and hard to even conceive.

But Death itself, on an ecological (and spiritual) scale... is simply a transformative force. And my skull piece, I decided recently... is going to be my way of sitting down and having a little chat with Death. Have a cup of tea, get to know him, let him know I understand him, I respect him. But if he could show me the same respect, and give me a little space for bit... maybe cut me some slack... XD Maybe let me breathe a bit! Because what the fuck use is life if you're not living! And if you're just cowering from the threat of Death all day every day, you're hardly living!

So I really want to learn about like... rituals from history around that sorta idea. An idea of initiating a dialogue with the embodiment of the concept of Death, with the goal of... finding a healthy middle ground. Like... I don't know. Like being trapped in a garage with a wild animal or something, and you both know you're trapped in there together, and you just have a moment where it's like... okay... we're just sharing the space... and then once we figure out how to get this door open we go our separate ways. Like a momentary, peace treaty between two worlds or something? I don't know if that makes sense, because it clearly isn't going to be a mutual feeling like that. But I feel like working through this - as with spreading my dog's ashes, as... odd and clumsy a process as that was for a first-timer - is to not just find a sense of closure with Death, and let him know (in case he didn't know already) that his work... can be done here for a bit... but also to help me get a bit more acquainted with Death. Like... not just closing the book and tucking it away and saying "this is the graduation ceremony and this is the end of grieving", but to actually take that time of working on this carving and use it to reflect on what Death means. Because cleaning, drawing and carving this skull will not be a quick 20 minute ritual. It will be many many hours, in many sessions.

Good to get that idea out on paper, it's been built up inside me for a while now. I'm sure that was a bit scattered and hard to understand, the concept is still pretty amorphous and still taking form. So... what better way to find relevant symbology and practices that others have used for this kind of purpose for millennia... than the database and resources these two on the podcast were talking about.

So... I just had it in my head by the end of the podcast that I really want to reach out to this woman and offer to help. Any way I can. I can try to learn different written languages and help translate? But I have zero experience, and I have no idea if I would be any good at it. I can do data entry? Kinda... I actually type the wrong way and it might actually do some damage to me if I really focus on mass data entry for hours on end. Writing this stuff is bad enough. And again, no experience. And I feel bad writing this woman and offering her... everything, but also... nothing. Like... how is she ever going to say yes?

But then it hit me. I can just... tell her what I'm doing. I am a fine artist who is going through a phase of personal spiritual exploration through the crafting of spiritual artifacts. Some are physical relics, some are experiences, most are fusing both. A lot of what I have been up to has been deeply blending between artistic expression and spiritual practice, to the point of throwing the line out entirely... and now I'm struggling to be able to express to others what it is I'm even doing anymore! And that led me to the thought that I might be able to... if she was willing to be patient with me experimenting with new mediums... 1) create replicas of ritual artifacts using as close to authentic materials and methods as possible, 2) create new ritual artifacts using ritual instruction from ancient documents, 3) create replications of ancient rituals and practices (within reason, some of these things call for like... blood of someone who was murdered violently, and... I just don't really feel like going that far with it, ethically... XD), 4) create my own new modern ritual artifacts and practices by studying the process and thought behind ancient ritual practitioners - by trying to put myself into the shoes of an ancient spiritual practitioner, and think like they would, have some kind of a base of knowledge to the degree that they did... I should be able to craft my own processes and custom ones for others, the way these two were positing these ancient Egyptian priests did.

I have no clue how to phrase that clearly and not just... wall of text... like I normally communicate apparently... But... I think that'd be really cool, and would likely be of some value to her. Acquiring authentic resources might be a challenge... and not cheap... but the end result... would truly be one-of-a-kind. Like... recreations of items that are extremely rare.

So yeah, that got some gears turning in my brain, as I'm sure you can see.

I talked to my therapist, really good session today. Again... I end up in therapy with someone who... in any other reality... would likely be a very good friend. And, because of legality and shit... they can't be. But he's helping greatly. He seemed very insistent that creating a barrier between my artistic works and my personal self-worth was a very important thing. And... I struggled to relate to it. Honestly. I just... it felt like... he doesn't really know my story. I have gotten the worst critiques you could possibly get - silence. And I've gotten that pretty consistently. For over 15 years. I've lost entire bodies of work to studio accidents, natural disasters, and the homes of people who didn't treat it like art. At no point did I ever believe that my work deserved that. Or that I was less of a person for that. It pained me. I have often questioned my abilities, as a way of trying to find... direction. To figure out how to improve, where to go. To figure out how I can make this life stable. I tried to really emphasize to him... my primary problem here... is my ability to secure reliable funding. It's money. That's all. Paying rent, paying for bills, paying for food. That's it. I would love to connect with an audience. I said it very openly, like... without an audience, it's like I'm trying to have a conversation with a wall. All of my pieces, my stories, etc. They're all supposed to be conversation pieces. Like how, back in the old days, my friends and I used to meet up and gather around the old television (remember those?) and watch the weekly episode of a show called Surface. And afterwards we'd all talk about what we thought would happen next, and throughout the week we'd all chat about our theories and what it made us think and all that. DO PEOPLE EVEN DO THAT ANYMORE?!?! Or do you all just scroll immediately to the next dopamine hit with two 10-second ads hastily glued to the wrapper?

Sigh.

I really emphasized that my biggest problem with my life is financial stability. Which makes me feel like my life is in danger. Because it is. And since my life and my career are essentially... one and the same... because my career is... me sharing my experience of life, my perspective, my passions, my inspiration, my lens through which I observe the world... When I feel my life is in danger, I start to defend my career. And when my career is in danger? Yep... It gets messy. So I definitely do get why he was encouraging detaching the two and creating a boundary. And with some careers, that definitely works. But with the type of life I've decided to pursue? This multimedia stream-of-consciousness, inspiration-chasing, teach-as-you-learn creator role I have embraced. Because it's really... my natural state... like... leave me alone in the woods and I will live this life. Strand me in outer space and I will naturally do this. You know? I don't know if I can really... separate that. And I don't know if it would even be healthy if I could. Because it's like... trying to split "me" from "myself". And I don't even know what that looks like.

I mean, for fuck's sake, I don't even hear other people speak like this... that might be a hint that it might need to be treated a bit differently than others who don't seem to have this dilemma.

So I've really focused all of my energy into cultivating a secure safety net and drumming up whatever support I can. Trying to find a loving home for all of my creations, a home that appreciates the soul that is inscribed into each and every one. And hopefully these people - who don't really exist quite yet - can see it in their hearts to help me keep a secure roof over my head, and food in my cabinets, and utilities kept on, so I can keep imbuing my soul and my fingerprint onto more and more things. So I can keep making more beautiful and meaningful things, and sharing more stories. So I can continue communing with The Muse, carrying their inspirational spark, creating what they show me, and sharing the result with the world. Whoever cares enough to engage.

Otherwise, I'm gonna have to spend the majority of my time working some job for some other person and daydreaming half the time, and I'm afraid I'm going to fuck that up. And all the while, I'll have this other life that I know I would love so much more, because I've lived it. And it will be dangling eternally just out of my reach, like Tantalus.

I don't know if my therapist fully understood, I think he came close but probably not as close as I imagined. Which is okay, that's just... life. But he did seem very supportive of my interest in voice acting, and my fleeting thoughts of possibly going to see what's involved in like... guest teaching or teaching elective classes at the local community college that I used to go to back in like... '07?

That community college (before they relocated) was where I was introduced to two courses that changed my life forever, Comparative Religions and Science and Spirituality. I took those, along with Acting 1 and Vietnam in Literature and Film as my semester. That semester... it completely shaped the entire rest of my life to this day. And it was my first time in this city, and my first time living completely alone. And here I am... 16 years later? How fucking poetic would it be if I taught an elective course on occult spiritual practices, or prejudicial mass hysteria - like the Salem Witch Trials, or Satanic Panic. Or even just an entry level Comparative Religions course. Or... an art course! You know? Trying to leave the door open for that, and put my self-limiting fears cautiously behind me.

So yeah, the therapy session went well, they always run over time and always end too soon. I got chinese take out, a pretty expensive routine, but a comfortable one. Then I ended the night by streaming Session again. And the high school kid showed up again, and fell asleep or left mid-stream. But I got him excited about skating. Someone who clearly had never really been introduced to skating before. And I call that a major win. Any time I get a non-skater excited about me landing a line... where they're cheering and shit! That's such an amazing, uniting feeling. For real. Like, there really is no feeling like having a construction worker look over when he's on his break and see you land a kickflip or something, and just give you a solo standing ovation. Like, genuinely impressed. It makes you feel... connected. You know? Like... for that one split second, they get skating. Even if they immediately forget and go back to their lives. For that split second, they got it.

I can tell things are going well when I don't have to reset the vibes. :) Bed time.

#diary #journal #online journal #stream of consciousness #stream of thoughts

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