twicecursedmonk - Tumblr blog

twicecursedmonk · 9 months

Text

Psychics at the station

Wrote another pendulum thing but I'm really high and can't tell if it's good >.<

In Pendulum, the will of the Goddess is absolute. Through her nourishment of our city, we resist the effects of the scourge, enjoying the bounty of eternal life. As the goddess sees to our needs, the Augurs see to hers.

Simon looked at the stairs leading down to the subway station in front of him. It was midday, the station was packed with bystanders. A dense crowd is an Augur’s nightmare, the surrounding thoughts blend into a miasma of angst and despair; it becomes impossible to pick out those who would seek harm to the goddess.

Simon began to walk down the stairs. Each step forward, he projected his will outwards. The most fundamental influence of the augur, the bystanders in the crowd unconsciously shifted their movements to allow him to pass. Simon effortlessly flowed at a steady pace through the bottlenecks of the crowd, like sand through an hourglass.

Like how ripples greet a stone.

Like a snake in the grass.

Like a bullet from a gun

Simon froze – The violent metaphor he picked up through the thought-miasma was cause for concern. He tightened his left hand’s grip on the package he was guarding. The flesh0matrix secured the package to his wrist far more securely than his grip could ever match. He didn’t care, a vestigial mortal impulse to hold onto the case securely outweighed any intellectual understanding.

Mortality – The poison in the veins of the Augur caste

Another threat issued by the collective unconscious of the station. The package hummed gently, shaking its connection to Simon’s wrist. It knew something was wrong too and was anxious to see what its new host would do to address the threat.

With his right hand, Simon held up his steel pocket watch to check the time.

11:55

He focused deeply on the face of the watch. Beneath the 3 gold hands the face of the watch was embossed with the emblem of the raven, the sigil of his station within Pendulum’s ruling class. The raven remains when all else has gone.

On the other side of the station, an inbound train unloaded its passengers into the densely packed station. A wave of dread washed over Simon, a torrent of anger released all at once into the thought miasma. Before, the disruption was subtle, its influence only visible to those sensitive enough to read the thoughts of others. This time however, the anger visibly throbbed through the crowd.

A tensed wrist here, a bulging neck vein there. The chaos burst outward from the minds of the crowd, first with the sound of gritted teeth, then with shouted curses. As the station descended into pandemonium, Simon alone stood unaffected. He scanned the platform where the train unloaded, looking for the source of the psychic disturbance.

A sound echoed down the stairs, cutting through the violence of the crowd. A heavenly chime, the sound of the bells of the clock tower above announcing 12:00

The second chime struck. Simon was searching for those like him, who seemed immune to the cacophony of violent urges in the air around him.

The third chime struck. A piercing blue set of eyes, from deep inside the crowd. Simon spots them but then immediately loses track.

The fourth chime struck. Simon hears the click of the gun being readied. The sound pierces through the shouts in the crowd.

The fifth chime struck. A column of enforcers charged down the stairs into the station to contain the situation, themselves falling victim to the spell of violence as they descended.

The sixth chime. A man with curly brown hair is shoved onto the ground, and the same set of blue eyes appear. Standing by the front door of the third car, cold, calculating, waiting to strike.

The seventh chime. The third eye emerges, the barrel of the gun.

The eighth chime. The gun fires, striking Simon in the shoulder.

The ninth chime. The eyes narrow. Another shot is fired, striking Simon through the heart.

The tenth chime. Simon falls to the ground.

The eleventh chime.

The twelfth chime.

Simon looks up from the pocket watch. The time now reads 11:56.

The crowd shuffles between itself, not yet entangled with each other in violence. A train pulls into the station, and the tension builds.

The now-familiar wave of anger washes over the crowd. Simon stands tall, the wave of anger crashing around the steep cliff shore of his will.

The first chime strikes. Simon reaches for his service weapon. He plants his feet on the ground and begins to take aim.

The second chime strikes. Simon’s confidence exudes outwards, a soothing balm keeping the rage in check.

The third chime strikes. The crowds’ movements synchronize with his will, as he clears a path to the front door of the third car.

The fourth chime strikes. A man with curly brown hair emerges from the train car.

The fifth chime strikes. Simon pulls the trigger. The bullet passes through the shoulder of the man with the curly hair.

The sixth chime. The main with the curly hair falls to the ground. Behind him, Simon’s target lay dead. One piercing blue eye remained, the other evaporated into red mist.

The seventh chime. The case purrs delicately with satisfaction, releasing a burst of oxytocin into Simon’s bloodstream through the flesh matrix. The outbound train pulls up to the platform where Simon stands.

The eighth chime. Simon boards the train, as behind him, the enforcers try to contain the situation.

#Pendulum #Terra Pendulum #writing

5 notes · View notes

twicecursedmonk · 10 months

Text

Dissection at Dawn: A Pendulum Story

Gerard looked at the gift left on his processing slab overnight with disgust. When he was assigned the role of head mortician, he believed that he would eventually get used to the desiccated husks of the bio-computers. Each operation proved his past self wrong.

Gerard inspected the remains in front of him. The death tag on the toe read “46664 -3.75”.

“Fuck,” Gerard muttered imperceptibly.

There was no-one in the room aside from him and the bio-computer laid supine in front of him. His junior had completed initial processing by collecting the first order recoverable material from the specimen, but after just 4 hours on the slab the outer layers of soft tissue had already begun to turn to ash. The effects of the Scouring were well known to Gerard, but the time before their onset was growing shorter and shorter. The brain would have to be removed immediately to ensure it remained in usable condition.

Gerard readied himself for his task. As senior mortician, his primary responsibility during a dissection was ensuring the integrity of the brain. He began with a steel brush, and scrubbed the cranium clean of any flakes of ash and other signs of biological decay. He worked in a spiral pattern from the top of the cranium outwards toward the edge of the calvaria. He then positioned the cranium in the jig for the oscillating saw, the whining of the blade drowning out any thoughts of disgust while he cut a thin line around the crown of the head.

Gerard wrenched the skull plate from the incision and was promptly met with a billowing poof of ash and dust; the dura mater had also decayed within the skull after the blood was drained by the junior mortician. He inspected the thin layer of powder coating his uniform, he hoped being thorough while brushing off the ash would have kept him clean.

“Some things just can’t be helped,” he thought.

An observation that seemed contrary to the nature of Pendulum, a city whose residents deny the inevitable each day.

After brushing whatever residue he could off his uniform, Gerard inspected the skull’s contents. He was relieved to see that a thick layer of mineral deposits had built up on the outside of the brain. A common side effect of prolonged exposure to the Blood Network, the calcification had the upside of preventing the rapid breakdown of the underlying tissue. If this unit was in better condition, the brain may have been completely lost.

He worked a metal bar towards the bottom of the skull, near the olfactory bulbs. Once in position, he levered upwards until he heard the satisfying snap of a brain with late-stage ossification detaching from the spinal cord. A more precise approach may have been called for under different circumstances, but even with the protective shield of calcium, he did not wish to risk decay setting in. The consequences for failing to recover the material would be the end of his career.

Pulling the brain out of the skull, Gerard gently placed it into a vat of liquid. The calcium deposits, while useful for short term preservation, would prevent the absorption of Ichor into the tissue. He placed 2 probes into the solution, a current would run between them to assist with the decalcification. He took a step backwards and stretched. While time was still of the essence, the electrolysis would take time to complete.

He had about 30 minutes to prepare for the final cleaning, where he would remove any remaining calcium deposits with a scalpel. He found this part of the process therapeutic. The husks were too human for him to be comfortable around them. The brain, however, was simply a component of the divine machine, its maintenance was his expertise.

Gerard considered this, reflecting on the person he had become. After a moment however, he remembered the one truth of Pendulum:

It is the only choice.

He uttered a short prayer to the goddess, and then left to pour himself a cup of coffee.

#TERRA PENDULUM #Doing some writing for once

9 notes · View notes

twicecursedmonk · 1 year

Text

Getting My Bearings

I’ve freed myself from work for long enough to actually write something. My aim right now is to define the scope of what I will be blogging about. I’m in the middle of transforming my online identity fully away from season 4*, which includes diversifying the platforms I’m active on. For reference to anyone interested in my online career, the plan is this

Twitter/Mastodon will be for shitposts, passing thoughts, and other ultra-short form content

Neocities will be more of a gallery experience of writings and other works that I believe are best representative of my overall creative vision.

Tumblr will be for medium length content that is temporally relevant. Descriptions and analysis of the things I am doing/making/consuming.

A painting I saw on Twitter, posted there without credit

More on tumblr: I don't plan on using this site often beyond using it to catalogue my thoughts. At this time I don't have any aims on community building here, and my blog will mostly function as a sort of behind the scenes view of the process of creating other projects that interest me more.

What other projects you ask? Here's a list!

How To Win Disco Elysium by becoming the baddest hustler to ever live (YouTube)

Untitled Video on the Pale and Innocentic system (YouTube)

The Unscrupulous Netizen's Guide to Modern Computing (Neocities)

Untitled Home Alone Rip Off Game (Platform TBD)

Untitled Naruto Rip Off Game (Platform TBD)

Music? (Soundcloud?)

For now, my goals are more based on creating a process I can stick to than any particular output, however I feel better with the projects I've selected for season 5 than previous seasons. In the past I have not been very good at getting things done. The problem I have identified is that it's very hard for me to try to do things. The solution I'm testing is doing without trying.

Notably, Twitch is not a platform I have any major plans for at this time. Twitch for me right now fits in the category of too time consuming without any real benefit. I may stream incidentally if I am already doing something that would work well as a stream, or if I have a specific idea, but it's not something I will be putting major amounts of effort in. I do need lots of Disco Elysium footage at this time, and I plan on streaming while I collect that, but beyond that I have no specific plans for the platform at this time.

Monetization/calls to action? None at this time. I may set up a Patreon at some point, however it doesn't seem important at this time. For now, just know that you can get in touch with me best on Discord. I made a new server recently too!

Feel free to join, you will need approval to get into the server, just let me know where you came from and I'll let you in. That's all for now

--End

*For reference

Season 1: Middle School. I was active on an unmoderated forum for a children’s book series that a bunch of 4chan/SA posters had colonized. Everyone hated me (deservedly). Later on, I switched from the book forum to the official SSOHPKC forums, which I believe also no longer exist. I’m very glad for that. Not many people, including myself, have record of season 1. Defined by the disgusting ignorance of youth

Season 2: High school - college. I was mostly active on Facebook and reddit. Sadly this cringe still exists. I have no plans on removing it however. Search for it if you'd like, my only request is that you let me know if you find it, and not ruin the search for others. Towards the end of season 2 I withdrew from most public forums. Defined by a paralyzing fear of rejection.

Season 3: Commie Zoombini. This is where I believe most people who may read this first became aware of me. Season 3 is when I became active on Twitch, Twitter, and Discord. I started streaming after watching Hasan for a while and thinking "yeah I could do this". Defined by a smug sense of supieriority

Season 4: Cursed Monk (Maine). I honestly have very little memory of this. Gave up on everything. Defined by the burden of expectation

Season 5: Cursed Monk (Texas). Last season sucked, but the name was good so I'm keeping it. Season 5 is the present. Defined by the unknown.

#disco elysium #twitter #mastodon #neocities #youtube #twitch #gamedev #discord

1 note · View note