#( infinite like i have god and the devil in different colors

[feareborn]

“&– - Only fools care about legitimacy. Especially when I have a shiny Arceus.”

[plantvgreviews]

Remnant 2 Is An Incredible Game That's Worth Every Minute of Your Time. But...

The title isn't misleading, Remnant 2 might be one of the only games released recently that is worth it's base $60 price tag. Hell, at the time of writing, I'd even say it's worth buying the three dlc that's scheduled to come out soon. (The first two are already out, but the last one is yet to be reviled.) However, I have some concerns about the future of the game. Nothing to lower the worth of Remnant 2 right now. But enough that I wanna bring them up to be addressed.

(This game is also incredibly deep, on the macro and micro level. If I miss something. I may come back here and change or add to this review to clarify.)

What is Remnant 2?

Remnant 2 is a third person looter shooter with soul-like elements. A simple concept in hindsight, but believe me, it gets crazier. Your character gets sucked through a big rock into alternate realities, such as;

An Overgrown Vegan Wonderland with Violent Plant-life and (sometimes racist) Furries That Would Swear on Their Hooves That They Remember Woodstock.

London, England circa 2024 (colorized) feat: The Newly Renovated Royal Palace

N'Erud

The Enigmatic Inner Machinations of Patrick Star's Mind

Earth, if World Leaders Refuse to do Something About Global Warming

The world variety is really a joy to explore. Including N'Erud! I may have chosen the worst part of it for the joke, but many of the dungeons in N'Erud are a blast. (We'll get into it further when I break down each world.)

Within each world is different variations of environments that feel like someone had lived there at some point. Each world had hosted a society of lore to be uncovered. And depending on which campaign you roll, you can get different pieces of lore to the same story. There are very few games that I actually enjoy uncovering the lore of myself. Guilty Gear, Tekken, Metal Gear Solid, BlazBlue, and Devil May Cry. But now Remnant 2 is added to that list of really fun lore to uncover. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I find it interesting. Not just in how it's written or how you can find new pieces, but for how it's implemented in the game.

Secrets Out Of Everyone's ***

Gunfire Games made Remnant 2 the Pepe Silvia to everyone's mail room. A couple of days ago I made a post on the Remnant 2 subreddit explaining a bug I found with the Polygun. Switching to the gun with infinite ammo when you had zero ammo caused the game to crash. After explaining the bug, I had two people in the comments theorizing about how it's not a bug and instead a way to access a new hidden item.

Not to spoil anything, or tell you where to exactly find the following. But here are some insane examples.

If you return two children to an orphanage, you can talk to the granny sowing by the fire to learn that they are actually an Oracle-like being. They love quilts, and if you let them ramble about them for a while, they'll give you a relic.

Rolling specific world's campaign will give you an open area to explore. In that open area there are three pieces of a circle pendant. But you can only pick up 1 in each instance of that campaign. So you have to play the same world three times to pick up each piece and give them to a merchant in the camp. That merchant will give you an amulet. Take that amulet behind a waterfall and reveal a secret passageway and receive a new gun.

The Backrooms hold a secret class that you can only get after beating the game once.

Stand next to a large sewer grate, and you'll be pulled into Jerma985's closet of dead bodies. Kill the rat king and you'll get a new class.

Two Kings claim to be the true king of an area. You are tasked with voting out the Imposter King via assassination. (I wish I was making up the Imposter part, but I'm not.)

A god of destruction is hunting a doe. You stumble upon the doe inside the god of destruction's lair. The devil tries to convince you to sin. This one fight has 4 DIFFERENT REWARDS based entirely on how the fight plays out.

If it wasn't instantly obvious, you should consult a wiki while playing this game. I also recommend using an item tracker too, because there are 742 items. We could be here all day with the insane interactions between player decisions and gameplay. But I want to leave you invested to experience some of them as they happen. (Also there are the two secret items that had to be data mined by the community to find. So who knows what we're missing.)

Expansive Library for Build Crafting

Remnant 2 is a massive game with player creativity and theory crafting at it's center. With a simple system of, pick two classes, then pick an amulet, then pick four rings. Nearly everything and anything you think of can be viable. If it's your first time playing, a simple build is preferred. There's a lot going on the macro and micro level, and the build you start with probably won't be the same build you end your run with. But;

Wanna make a build that focuses around guns and gun damage, then run Hunter and Gunslinger and blast everyone in your path. There's a build for that:

Wanna make a build that turns you Lifestealing Summoner?

Wanna play the Status Effect meta?

Wanna become an AOE Pharmacist from Florida?

Wanna be the child of Riden and Doomslayer?

The variety is immense, but it can feel tedious to obtain items that are MANDATORY for a build to work. Example, there's an amulet in The Forgotten Kingdom that gives a 30% increase to all summons's damage. If that's what you're lacking for your summoner build, you'll need to fork over $10USD to get the opportunity to get that amulet. Lick mentioned before, there's a gun that requires you to roll and reroll the dlc campaign three times to grab all the parts for it. It can and will be tedious at times, but the payoff is almost always worth it.

The build verity is so crazy that you'll pick up a ring that increases all damage you take by 200%, but increases your damage by 15%. You sit there and wonder why anyone would want to use that. Then you'll wake up in a cold sweat wanting to play Batman; bare-knuckle brawling mentally insane Brits in the sewers. That ring will be the pencil case sniff you need to get you through the day. Don't get hit lmao.

You won't run out of ideas for dumb ideas to play the game with. But that's something that brings me to by first worry.

DLC, Great But Sadly Necessary

At the time of writing this review, The Awakened King and The Forgotten Kingdom are the only two dlc available. Both of them are $10USD each. What they add to the game are new rings and amulets that add building blocks to classes that desperately needed them. The Summoner class was nearly unanimously regarded as the worst class in the game. Not bad, but over shadowed by the other class combinations. (Hunter/Gunslinger, Alchemist/Medic, Any other class/Secret Class) But if someone what a Necromancy fanatic, they're going to be underwhelmed with just the base game.

This also goes for the Handler class. The doggy is a very good boy/girl, but it's not a class worth missing out on; An Engineer turret, an Invoker Storm, or a Medic's Heals. Not that the other classes are broken and need nerfs. But that the Handler Class is under powered. Everything that the Handler can do, a different class can also do better AND MORE. But you can pet the puppy, so it makes it the best class in the game from an objective perspective.

(I hope this class gets a rework to make it worthwhile other than leveling it to lvl10 for the Kinship trait.)

Then there's the aspect of the classes we got with the dlc. Invoker is currently the strongest class in the game. Ritualist is also really REALLY good and can be used in tandem with Invoker. They spark the question of, 'Why do you need support classes when everything is already dead?' Elemental Damage is so strong that it doesn't make sense to use anything else when you're having problems with a boss. The game has an answer, it can give bosses Elemental Resist. But that's only a resistance, when I strike everything in a 24 meter radius with lighting for ~2000 damage. 🤷‍♀️ The storm lasts for 30 seconds, I'll pop a relic and chill till everyone's dead. If not, I'll throw out another one. "Opps wanted some motivation. Blew up their whole quadrant. I'm moving like Oppenheimer." -MF Dracula

They're just too strong for the glass casing they're in to be considered a problem.

When I say the dlc is necessary, it's cause there are some builds that don't work AS WELL as others with out the dlc. You still get an extremely satisfying experience for $60USD. But if you unlock Summoner, Handler, or Explorer with just the base game, they are going to feel lack-luster in comparison to other classes. Which is a real shame.

Gameplay is Well Balanced But Less Than You'd Expect

With builds, world secrets on top of secrets, Remnant 2 has a lot to offer. And we haven't even shot anything yet! So let's talk about controls.

Remnant 2 is very stiff feeling when you first pick it up. Not a bad kind of stiff, it's designed. Risk vs Reward is a common theme alongside Trade Offs.

Jumps are hard coded when you dodge roll off ledges, which also means that there's no designated jump button. You gotta sprint and roll. This isn't a hypermobility, Forknite, CoD montage fever dream. You have to be methodical with your actions. It can be easily expressed between whether you should dodge or dodge ROLL. If hold a movement key and press space, you'll dodge roll. (Like any souls-like game.) But if you just press space, then you're character will stagger back with less i frames, but recover faster. A LOT faster. To the point that you want to get as good as you can with neutral dodges. Especially if you're wearing heavy or ultra heavy armor.

As I said, the stiffness of the controls is designed carefully. Your character's movement options aren't what makes you strong. It's your weapons/armor/class skills/actual gamer skills that make you strong. Becoming better at the game, and understanding of a situation to better position yourself. That's what will keep you alive. But messing up a roll, or an important shot will convert you into a firm believer of any and all religions.

On the scale of Call of Duty Finest Hour to Warframe, Remnant 2 falls nicely around Red Dead 2 and Gears of War. There are some techs you can learn, and simplistic ai enemies that you can take advantage of to make up for simpler controls. Speaking of, videogamedunkey moments are frequent in this game. (If you know, you know.)

I'm going to sound like a psychopath in this next section, but just know, them rolipoly b****** in Yaesha were asking for the smoke.

Gun play in Remnant 2 is really fun! The sounds of each gun tells you where they originate from. Thorn is from Yaesha and carries it's aesthetic. Similarly, Deceit has Losomn's Fae style. Each boss drops a material that can be made into a weapon and has a mod that makes them unique. Some guns don't have unique mods, meaning that you can attach a mod to it. Mods can vary from Lacing your bullets with fire or shoot a big spear into an enemy, to freeze a group of enemies in the 4th dimension or launch a fire tornado.

The universal gun reload speed is pretty slow in comparison to other shooters. But it incentivizes you to play smarter. The slow reload speed is off set by just how satisfying guns are to use. Each gun sounds and looks cool as hell. Then there's the Polygun...

I don't have a PHD in astrophysics and Proctology, but the fis**** you get from it is unearthly. Just imagine trying to play dark souls, but after every few swings you have to perfectly time a qte to be allowed to swing more. That's the Polygun. It's the best gun in the game if you don't **** it up.

"Oh the Places You Will Violate the Geneva Convention" - Ford

Like shown before, Remnant 2 has five world in total that you will explore on each playthrough. Three of them have multiple different layouts, dungeons, events, and 'injectibles' to spice up what happens in them. (Yaesha, Losomn, and N'Erud.) While two remain constant from run to run. (The Labyrinth, and The Final World.) On your first playthrough, it can feel overwhelming. And rightfully so.

Each world has (or will have) 3 different campaigns that you can roll in a play through. One of those three campaigns are the dlc campaign, so if you don't have it, or haven't beaten the dlc adventure then you won't have to worry about them.

Losomn has 24 different locations

Yaesha has 20 different locations

N'Erud has 12 different locations (doesn't have it's dlc yet.)

That's a lot! A few of the locations are large areas to run around in, with multiple doors that can take you to dungeons. Every Dungeon has their own boss fight too. Included in each dungeon are also 'injectables'; secret areas that you can find behind a statue, covered by destructible crates, or through fake walls. There's a massive sandwich that you can bite into with each world.

So, I was planning on writing about each world. However, this review is already really long. And there's other things that deserve to be in the review more. So I'll leave it at this;

Bosses are tough when you don't have a stable build. For your _first_ playthrough, play on the easiest difficulty.

Each world is basically their own game inside the bigger game of Remnant 2. There are elements and interactions with NPCs and items outside their respective worlds. Play with a wiki in a separate window.

If you feel like a boss is too hard, switch your build around. You might find that a mod/skill/amulet you were running might not do anything to the boss. Or you might just need to wear tankier armor.

Performance

Remnant 2 was made predominately for the console version. I play on the PC port, so my experience might be a bit different from yours. My PC isn't a slacker either. (NVIDIA 3060ti, Intel i7, 32gbs RAM) There is a major flaw in the optimization for this game. I run it on medium graphic settings, but I still get frame drops in a few combat areas. They're few and far between, but enough to wanna bring that up.

I also wanna bring up a specific setting in Remnant 2 that is critical to the game to actually run well. You see, instead of actually optimizing the game's PC port themselves, Gunfire off loads that job to AI. I don't like Generative AI. AI artwork is theft. But to my understanding, Remnant 2 isn't generated by any AI. It uses AI to help optimize the game in the background as you play. I don't know how it works, but I haven't seen anywhere that says it's making something itself. So I'm ultimately fine with this. AI IS still doing a job that humans CAN do, but Gunfire is handing it off to the AI to then focus on other areas. Which benefits them, and helps the consumer. At least for now...

The AI used to help optimize the game is made by other companies. NVIDIA, AWD, and Intel. Meaning that only specific hardware can use this highly necessary setting. And in the off chance that NVIDIA's AI changes version enough, I might not be able to play the PC version of Remnant 2. With the optimization relying on hardware and software that will eventually change, the crutch that's holding Remnant 2 up is potentially going to stop supporting it. And that worries me.

Since it is just optimization, hardware will become strong enough to overpower these problems. But who knows how long that will take to become affordable to the average consumer.

If your computer's hardware is able to run the AI optimization tools, then you might be able to play this game. But if you know your computer isn't that strong, then this might be a game you'll have to skip for a while.

Speaking of Affordable, Let's Put a Price on This Game.

At the time of writing this review, I'm at 105 hours. (And I'm about to put in some more after I'm done.)

The current base price of Remnant 2 on Steam is $50USD. Which I think is a F****** STEAL. I'd easily give Remnant 2 a $60/$50. If Soulslike/Roguelite Looter Shooters are your thing, this game should already be in your library. The fact you haven't bought and played the game already is offensive to me.

There are two other 'Editions' for sale. To keep is simple, the 'Deluxe Edition' is a complete waste of money. Everything in it can be achievable in game for free. Don't buy the 'Deluxe Edition'. The 'Ultimate Edition' is what you should be looking at. It comes with the dlc for a cheaper price than the base game + dlc separately. (Plus it comes with some other stuff that doesn't really matter.) Other than "The Awakened King", "The Forgotten Kingdom", and the last dlc campaign, there are no other dlcs for sale. So our minimum maximum price that you can pay for is set to $70USD.

I'd say 75/70 for Remnant 2 is perfectly reasonable for what you're getting.

This game is worth more than it's cost. If you haven't played it already, I'm sure you'll like it.

(Since starting to write this review, I beat the game twice by the time I finished it. Hence why it took so long.)

ALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THIS GAME HAS ONLINE MULTIPLAYER LIKE F****** **** CAN IT STOP GETTING BETTER!?!

[uncleasad]

When I was writing the part of Beware the Spirits Lurking Within that became Chapter 2, I started a detailed explanation of what had happened to Hope and Josie before the events of this story (and which had been alluded to in Chapter 1). But the more I wrote, the more I felt like I was going off in the weeds, away from the story I wanted to tell and instead fleshing out background information that wasn’t relevant at that level of detail.

So I ripped it all out and rewrote an overview, with only a few details…but for the morbidly curious, the original version (unedited) of the journey through the underworld is below. Spoilers for Chapter 2, of course!

that fateful day

“If you kill me, you’ll never know what I’ve done with your beloved Josette, never find her again,” taunted Malivore, fully ensconced in Landon’s body, immortal and impudent.

“There’s always a loophole,” Hope retorted, her voice hard despite being crushed between twin losses. She extended her claws and plunged one into her left wrist, yanking it backwards towards her elbow and tearing a large gash in her forearm, spurting blood. The auburnette thrust her wound to the teen’s…the monster’s…mouth and forced him…it…to drink. Hope saw the exact moment Malivore allowed Landon’s consciousness to regain control, she saw the shock in his eyes as he was drowning in the torrent of blood being forced into his mouth. She saw and felt him try to speak, to no avail as she held firm, tears rolling down both of their blood-spatted cheeks. And then the light went out of those green orbs and they became black…black goo seeping out of his eye sockets. Soon, the rest of the body of the boy who had loved her for her had melted into black goo, forming a puddle on the ground. And not just a puddle, but a portal…half a loophole. Hope jumped in feet-first.

Malivore was different this time around. Inky blackness extending forever, but now it was punctuated by weird glowing areas of dark colors, and the chaos had increased tenfold. Creatures were tearing each other apart, with hellhounds feasting on the carcasses. Hope trudged through the darkness, defending herself from many attacks, for she didn’t know how long until she found what she was looking for, a glimmering silver-black pool guarded by a green-skinned man wearing the white pharaonic crown with two ostrich feathers affixed.

“Who goes there?” the man inquired, crossing and uncrossing his crook and flail over his chest.

“Hope Mikaelson, daughter of Klaus and Hayley. I seek entry to the underworld.”

“You are the child of the devil; my brother Set will embrace you as his own.”

“Just what I wanted to hear.” At that, the auburnette grabbed her head and, using her werewolf strength, snapped her own neck, falling to the ground.

When she awakened—unaware of how much time might have passed—Hope’s head was throbbing in excruciating, disorienting pain, and she was hungry, very hungry. The green man—Osiris—appeared over her. “What have you done, girl?” the befuddled god of the afterlife inquired.

“Nothing that concerns you,” the auburnette replied, snatching his crook, snapping it in half, and plunging a broken end into the deity’s chest. Ripping the broken tool out once more, she drank the blood that flowed from the wound, feeling her hunger subside and the headache and ringing in her ears vanish. Just as quickly, Hope was inundated by power surging back—magic, the wolf, and so much more. If her powers had been overwhelming before, this was infinitely more, whatever that word was…no wonder The Hollow had wanted her.

And speaking of The Hollow, Hope felt all of that power—and darkness—within her. It was as though she had tapped into her entire bloodline, had the power of Inadu and all the Crescents, of her father and uncles, of Esther and Dahlia and their ancestors to time immemorial, all flowing through her at once. She was a walking totem of the most powerful ancestral magic. Power was one hell of a drug.

Slashing her forearm with the broken end of the crook, Hope watched as her fully-activated tribird blood flowed down her arm. “Vitris,” she cast, watching the blood harden into a sword in her hand. Moving quickly, the auburnette slit her other wrist before plunging the sword into her gut, gasping in pain and then collapsing to the ground. Her blood flowed freely and pooled on the soil, sizzling like acid. Forcing herself into a near-sitting position, the tribrid yanked the blade from her stomach and stabbed herself in that same region repeatedly. Hope slowly drug herself to the edge of the shimmering pool, groaning and leaving a trail of blood in the dirt. By this point, her blood was gushing from the wounds and had nearly formed a small pond. Now nearly exsanguinated, with a final flourish of pain, Hope pulled the blade from her gut and plunged it into the ground, where it was drenched with a geyser of blood from her stomach. “See…you…in…hell…” the auburnette gritted, before toppling into the silver-black pool.

Had she remained, Hope would have witnessed massive fissures opening in all directions from her blood sword, and the popping, fizzing, and sizzling of her blood eating through the world she left, dissolving it. Malivore was disintegrating, unravelling from the one thing that could destroy it, and soon it would be nothing more than a memory, a bad nightmare haunting the dreams of those who had known it and survived.

§

Josie awoke in a soft bed in an unfamiliar room. The last thing that she remembered was Landon—Malivore—snatching her away from Hope and consuming her, taunting the tribrid that he had won. Was this what Malivore was like? It was nothing like Hope or any of the monst…other beings Malivore had consumed had described. Had she died? Was this Peace? The brunette began checking herself for injuries or other telltale signs that she might have died…and she pinched herself for good measure, in case she was dreaming. But, no, it seemed she was very much alive, in the softest bed she had ever known, in a room so opulent she could not even imagine.

A gentle rapping sounded on the door, and Josie softly replied, “Come in.”

“My lady,” a woman entered the room, curtseying, “my Lord is awaiting your presence.”

The siphon struggled to rise from the bed—there was such a thing as ‘too soft,’ apparently—but finally managed, and she followed the woman out of the room and through many hallways before entering an ornate hall with a massive throne made of yellowish stone at the far end. On it sat a shirtless, muscled man with a cruel, withering gaze…the ‘Lord’ the woman had referred to, Josue presumed.

“Welcome, Josette,” the man’s voice boomed out as the pair of women approached his throne. “We have been waiting for you for some time now, watching your development with great interest.”

“Who…who are you, and how do you know my name?” Josie asked, slightly frightened for the first time since she awoke.

“Oh, yes, I forget…with the passage of time, we are no longer worshipped by your kind, but we have not faded away. We still hold dominion over the earth, the sky, and the sea, over life and death…. I am Hades, first-born son of Cronus and Rhea, brother to Poseidon and Zeus, ruler of the underworld, keeper of the dead. I know many things, and I have many servants working for me among the realm of humans. You have been on our radar since you nearly set your sister on fire, but lately…burning Penelope Park’s hair, the black magic…so much black magic! and taking retribution on Alyssa Chang…now that was a form of justice we admire greatly.”

A chill went down Josie’s spine, in spite of the heat of the place. Hades! Hades had had his eye on her, and now, somehow, she was in the underworld, his domain, kneeling before him.

“My consort, Persephone, spends only one-third of the year with me, so we have come to an arrangement, where I am permitted to choose another…a sort of ‘junior wife’…to sit by my side the rest of the year. After millennia of searching, I have finally found a suitable match. You, my dear Josette.”

§

Hope awoke in a new world, one of heat and fire and blinding light, red, orange, yellow, and white. The heat was searing; the only way she could describe it was the feeling of putting one’s face right next to the white-hot coals of a fire—except on a massive scale, on all sides. This must be what one experienced when being baked alive. Breathing was difficult and her insides charred and scabbed with each breath. The tribrid’s auburn locks soon ignited, becoming a flaming mane. Girl on fire…Katniss had nothing on her. Soon her entire body was engulfed, her clothes nothing more than embers. Her skin burned and charred, and soon she felt her flesh melting off of her bones, sizzling as it hit the ground in small drops.

Hope trudged forward, nothing but a skeleton, her bones super-heated from the environment. humanity switch?

[scrubsandsweats]

A Series of Unfortunate Autopsies:

"I'm begging you son please don't cry, shhh, shhhh, it's gonna be okay." 

Those were Hawaa's final words. 

…

"Where am I? What is this place?" Hawaa stared around an entirely white room. Cold suffocated her. There were no walls, only an infinite vacuum of white. A face of wrinkles and dry, flaky skin stared down at her. 

"So you're finally here?" Death said.

Hawaa didn't remember dying. She didn't even know she was sick. In fact, she couldn't recall anything about her life. All she remembered was that she was once a doctor. 

"You're not in Kansas anymore. Or Detroit." Death answered.

"Detroit? Seriously? Why would anyone want to live there?"  Hawaa responded. 

 Death laughed caustically and snapped its long, thin fingers. 

Hawaa's surroundings transformed. She blinked several times, and every time she opened her eyes, something new appeared. Tables. Sinks. Weighing scales. Microscopes. The dull white was replaced with melting colors. The floor blurred until it morphed into a tiled appearance. An empty observation room appeared across from her. An unusual feeling of deja vu overcame Hawaa, but she could not extract a single memory of being here. Then, finally, a body appeared on the silver autopsy table, covered in a white blanket. 

"Are you God?" Hawa asked. Of course, she knew the answer already. Everyone could recognize Death.

"'Course not. You think God is this pretty?" Death struck a pose and laughed before resuming its serious expression. "You know what to do right?" Death pointed to the body, and she nodded. It was in the part of her memory that she wasn't conscious of, like riding a bike, driving a car, or believing in God. 

 "To recover your memories and uncover the truth behind your death, you must conduct a few more autopsies." Death explained.

"Are you serious?" Hawaa put her hand on her hips. Just then, she noticed she was wearing a white coat with dark red stains on the shoulders. 

"I'm as serious as a heart attack." Death cackled at its own joke before vanishing .

Hawaa was glad to be alone. She disliked Death and its idiosyncrasies. The afterlife was much different than she had been told. There were no flames, no angels or devils, no rivers of wine, and 72 missing virgins. 

Contemplatively, she stared at the body before lifting the white blanket. For some reason it would only permit her to see the ankles. If she tried to lift the blanket any higher, the blanket became mysteriously heavy. It was clear that Hawaa would have to investigate the feet first. 

The skin of the soles were cracked like the floor of a desert. The veins around the ankles were dark and blue, with slight bruising around the ankle. There was a crack in the big toenail on the right foot and an ulcer on the left. Even with the tiniest glances, she could begin her list of differential diagnoses. Diabetic neuropathy was her primary concern, but she had to look under the microscope to be sure. Hawaa leaned in to get a skin sample and noticed faint jagged scars. The sight of it made Hawaa almost collapse in shock.

She recognized those feet. And suddenly, she unlocked a memory.

It was the summer of 1991. Hawaa was only six years old. It was a record breaking hot day, and Hawaa had to stay inside to keep cool. Her mother, Sophia, could not escape the heat, though. She had to make dinner so she diligently wiped her brow as she stood before the stove. 

Sophia was always standing as a teacher and a mother of 3. Hawaa poked at her mother's varicose veins and wondered why grown ups decided to have kids. Suddenly, a young boy knocked on the door. Hawaa pulled herself from watching TV and greeted him inside. He was one of the many students who would join Hawaa's family for dinner. 

Sophia never turned away a hungry child. And their neighborhood was never short of them. They shared a plate of macaroni and cheese, topping off their dinner with 4 cookies each.It was no surprise Sophia became a diabetic later in life.  Once they finished eating, everyone cleaned the kitchen together. Hawaa balanced several plates on top of each other, to her mother's chagrin. 

"Be careful!" Sophia said. But it was already too late. One of the children bumped into Hawaa on her way to the kitchen and glass shattered everywhere. Sophia rushed to carry the children to safety, stepping on the glass in her haste.

Hawaa bandaged her mother's bleeding feet while accepting her mothers praise. Sophia was terrified of blood. 

"A Muslim student once told me heaven is at the bottom of your Mother's feet." Sophia said. 

Hawaa blushed, pleased with herself for helping the women who raised her and so many of the neighborhood children. 

That was the moment Hawaa realized she wanted to become a doctor. 

…

Hawaa was back in the room. How long had she been lost in her memory?A breeze blew the blanket further off the body. There were no windows in the room nor any signs of air conditioning. But Hawaa knew better than to question the afterlife. She looked back at the autopsy table, but this time, the body was someone else, someone Hawaa never met before. It was a man this time, with hairy legs and a Hebrew tattoo on his shin. The white sheet was mostly gone now, but it stayed firm on his face. It was no mystery how he died—a bullet wound in the chest. Hawaa began to wipe the blood away and sprayed the body with water from the sink. Her hands shook as she began to dissect. The first question to answer: was this suicide?

She couldn't take blood and gastric samples to test for toxicology. But he didn't seem to have been under the influence. His GI tract did not have the signs of gastric mucosal injury commonly seen in alcoholics. His lungs were smooth and pink, so it was unlikely he was a smoker: no dark purple nails or signs of cyanosis and no track marks on his arms.

She examined and weighed what was left of his organs. She quickly found a bullet in the heart. Despite the obvious trauma, the rest of his body looked extremely healthy. Death reappeared and leaned over the body, as if it was judging Hawaa's work. "So…what do you think happened to him?" Death asked.

"It's unclear, but I'm thinking maybe he had asthma." Hawaa responded sarcastically. 

"Surely Rosalind Franklin taught you more than that?" Death said. 

"Who is that?" Hawaa asked, forgetting the name of her medical school university.   

Hawaa turned the body over to show Death a better view.

"It looks like he was shot from behind, so I'm ruling out suicide." Hawraa said. Hawaa had seen so many suicides in her career that it became a cliche.  

"You're finally getting there." Death glided towards the body and snapped its fingers again. For the third time, the body changed. But this time, the white sheet was completely gone. 

Hawaa stared at the face. She stared and stared and stared until the shock wore off. Then she screamed. 

…

Not many pathologists got to determine their own cause of death. 

Meanwhile, Sophia sat in the observation room, helplessly watching her daughter scream until she collapsed on the floor. It was a sight that no mother would ever want to see. Hawaa's body was on the table. Her face was barely recognizable. Her skull blown apart by bullets.

Sophia lived her life selflessly. She led by example. If someone was hungry, she would feed them. If someone was hateful, she would love them even harder. Sophia felt stupid now. How could Sophia expect to reverse the course of hatred with macaroni and cheese? Sophia instilled good values in Hawaa. But they were just hapless gestures. She inspired Hawaa to volunteer at a hospital in Gaza- a decision that would lead to her death. Sophia thought it was all her fault. If only I taught her to only care for herself, Sophia thought. She was tangled in it now; the web of pain tying a collective conscience. 

Someone tapped Sophia's shoulder. A tall plain looking man stood before her. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, revealing a Hebrew tattoo on his shin. 

"Hi, my name is Ben. I killed your daughter."

Sophia wanted his blood. She wished she could inflict infinite pain onto him. She tensed her fists as tight as she could. Imagining her hand around his neck, squeezing tighter and tighter and tighter. She considered swinging at him right then and there, but decided against it. She relaxed her fists. There was no use, after all the damage was done. He was already dead. And so was she. And so was her daughter. 

There was no revenge to revel in. Only regret. 

"The last thing I remember is going to a hospital and shooting everyone." Ben said with his face in his hands. Sophia didn't reply, and Ben took this as an invitation to continue to speak. "I could have refused, they would have put me in jail. But I had a choice. The truth is, I did it because I wanted to do it. Not because other people told me to do it. And it wasn't only me, but a whole army of people who agreed. Some people kill and others die. You think you are better than me. But if you were born as me, you would have done the exact same thing."

"Go fuck yourself." Was all Sophia, a retired elementary school teacher, could say. 

"Don't worry, I got my punishment. I felt everything. Earlier, when your daughter was dissecting me, I felt the pain. My organs were poked and prodded and my skin was peeled. She fondled my heart in her hands and played with the bullet parts. I suffered. I know what it feels like to scream in agony without anyone hearing a sound. Does that make you feel better?"

"No." Sophia began to cry. His pain could not cancel out hers. Pain was only additive. To her surprise, Ben began to join her. Neither of them had any idea how to stop the carnage. Nor any remaining whim to try. Eventually, out of curiosity, Sophia asked Ben a question.

"What does your tattoo mean?" Sophia asked.

"It means 'mother' in Hebrew." Ben responded. 

"Is she still alive?"

"For now." Ben said. 

…

Death returned and snapped its fingers again while Hawaa rose from the ground. Hawaa's dead body disappeared from the autopsy table. The shock had deteriorated. She remembered everything all at once. Her childhood. High school. Undergraduate school. Medical school. Residency. October 7th. 

"Would you have changed anything? Knowing that your decision to join Doctors Without Borders resulted in your demise?" Death asked.

"Of course not. I did the right thing because I wanted to. Not because other people told me to do it. I wasn’t alone. Hundreds of doctors left their homes to volunteer. That's how our mothers raised us." Hawaa shrugged. 

"Are you sure about that?" Death motioned towards the observation room. The door swung open and Sophia rushed out to embrace her daughter. Ben remained motionless. He sat completely still and watched as the two reunited. How could they be so happy? He wondered. Don't they remember all the pain I inflicted on them? 

 "So Mom, if heaven is beneath your feet, then how exactly do we get there?" Hawaa asked. 

"I'm not sure, but keep those scalpels away from me." Sophia teased.

 And even Ben laughed, despite it all. 

The End

[writtenwyrm]

The Ascension

A Slay the Spire Story, Part 29

All Parts

Was this it?

The end of my journey, after all this time?

I was stopped in a tunnel, another of the endless winding paths that sometimes opened into something larger and sometimes dropped into an endless void. It looked no different than any other tunnel I’d been in. But it felt different.

I could sense it. An ever present , thumping force, coming from directly overhead. It made my whole being tremble with disgust, for I could feel the darkness in it. It was the purest of evil, whatever it was, wrong.

More than even that, I could feel it’s complete and utter hatred for me.

It wasn’t far. This was the first time I could feel it directly, which meant I was close.

I reached into my soul to touch the Spark for added strength.

Lucirron was there, wrapped around my heart like a snake around a rat.

You’re not there yet. He whispered. There remain trials ahead. There will always be trials. The world seeks to harm you. And yet you refuse to fight back.

I ignored his words, drawing strength from the blood of my ancestors. The fury of generations was there, but it was dormant, tamed. It had been a long time since I’d felt that burning hatred for everything and everyone. It had lasted longest towards the devil in my heart, but even that had cooled eventually.

Instead I exited the tunnel, moving toward the dark pulsing.

The room I found myself in made my eyes hurt just to look at it. There was a door in the far wall, and it seemed to be only a few feet away. But when I stepped forward, it stretched back into the distance, as if it was actually a soaring archway seen from far away. The ceiling seemed somehow both cramped, my instincts telling me to crouch to avoid banging my head. But reaching up to touch it revealed it to be a distant illusion.

This truly was a place made from nightmares. My instincts warned me that such a living section of the Beyond often contained something inside it.

So I wasn’t surprised when I turned around to find the tunnel I had exited from hundreds of feet away. Standing between me and escape was a creature, if you could even call it that.

It towered over me, flat cuboid faces somehow all simultaneously growing outward in all directions. It seemed both ten feet tall and a hundred, depending on how I looked at it.

Something shifted behind it, stepping around on short, stumpy legs. Another monstrous creature, shaped like a ring. Its smooth surface was swirling as well, every bit curling in on itself and collapsing into the hole in its center, despite how impossible it seemed.

Deku and Donu. The guardians of the Peak, the oldest and also the youngest of the Ancients, the Twin Gods of Space. Lucirron had warned me about them. They would attempt to bar my passage.

Backing up, I plucked the small bag off my waist, and emptied it onto the ground between us. Marbles, small and colorful, seemingly countless, poured out in a wave. I still felt a twinge of sadness for the magical toy getting used for battle, but it was too useful to refrain.

My opponents adapted quickly, however. They slammed their stump-like feet into the ground with additional force, crushing the marbles rather than slipping on them. Not unexpected, as the Spire constructs always seemed to take extra effort to throw off-balance. I would just have to overwhelm them.

But first, it was time to place my bet.

I spoke the Oath. The one I’d stolen from him, the Word I’d discovered had more than one use.

SACRIFICE

to give in excess

The Oath, once held over my head as a way to gain infinite strength, became something new in my soul. I sacrificed my energy within the moment, leaving myself drained and open, barely on my feet.

Before the remnants of the godlike power could leave my body, I snatched at the tail-end of it, borrowed its energy to fuel the dark embrace Lucirron had taught me at the beginning of my journey, speeding my mind in accordance with the weariness of my body.

Deku’s attack took me full in the chest while I was vulnerable. My armor saved my ribs from being entirely crushed, but it could do nothing to stop me from being hurled across the room. The far wall approached far quicker than it should have, the spacial warp of the room slapping me against the stone like a man slapping a fly from the sky.

I had to rip my limbs free of the rock one at a time, before falling twenty feet to the ground below. I landed on all fours, and remained there, sinking into a quick battle trance to decide the best next steps.

First things first was to deaden my screaming nerves, so I could focus. Then I borrowed another piece of Lucirron, pushing a demonic growl through my gritted teeth. It made my bones rattle just to speak it.

Normally, the horrible, intimidating sound, like a hundred bears snarling in unison, made enemies hesitate. But the approaching creatures didn’t pause in their step, perhaps correctly assessing that I was not the actual Ancient of Strength.

I had one more trick, however. Hands still on the ground, I reached for the memory of my hardest impact. Once, it had been the blast of the Automaton. Now, the memory of the incomprehensible transient creature exploding in my face was far stronger.

Gripping the memory, I pushed it down into the ground. There was a half-second where nothing happened.

Then the stone rippled, rocked in a shockwave of force. It moved in a wave, and finally the inhuman creatures stumbled.

Donu hit me next.

I wasn’t sure how it had traversed the room so quickly, though I suspected it had to do with more spacial twisting. The attack was weaker, knocked off balance from the shockwave, but it still slammed me face-first into the ground. If not for my mask, I would have been spitting chips of rock.

More, Lucirron. I commanded. He complied, filling my mind with new tactics, chuckling darkly as he took his reward for our burning pact, and I lost something in turn.

Another battle trance, in conjunction with Lucirron’s power, and I was brimming with ideas.

I discarded them all in favor of one.

I flexed, rising to my feet. With a roar, I tapped the Spark, exhausting it all at once. Everything, all my focus, became a tool of destruction.

In my satchel, the Akabeko, my ally and friend throughout this journey, lent me its power.

As my blood boiled, fiendfire burst from my flesh and struck the monster before me in a whirlwind of ash. Every spark that landed grew into a blaze in an instant, burning out in a final flash of destruction.

The flames licked my body, but I felt no pain. Instead, they coalesced and cooled, forming a crust of ash on my skin.

Donu fell.

A dozen holes burned through every part of its ring-shaped body. Through the torn holes I could see bones, shaped like ribs and a spine, but curling around the hole in its center in a nonsensical way. A moment later the holes filled with a black liquid, thicker than blood. The ichor pooled under its body, dripping almost like tar.

When Deku struck me next, I caught it’s blunt hands with my own.

The Oath was beginning to take effect.

For a moment, the creature seemed only barely taller than me. We stood and faced each other, or at least as close to a face as I could guess it had.

Then it broke away, and the illusion of size shifted. It was enormous, and it cycled its skin over its body in a way that dazed my mind.

I shrugged it off, and lifted my mask. My other weapon, the fangs hidden within my mouth, were revealed, and I attacked with a fervor.

Another stolen power. I’d taken the offer of the pallid creatures almost just to spite Lucirron. But it had proved useful, healing me even as I fought.

When I bit into Deku’s leg, my mouth filled with his dark ichor. It tasted like oil, rancid and clogged, but it healed me just the same.

His next double-strike pressed me back, but didn’t knock me down.

We faced each other once more. It cycled its flesh, and I raised my defenses.

That was when the real battle began.

We fought like monsters do, crashing into each other and attempting to tear pieces off of each other. Our battle was silent, aside from the cracking of stone and scraping of steel. Deku had no mouth, and I refused to give Lucirron the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

And throughout, the Oath began its task, building my defenses into an impenetrable barricade. My brief sacrifice paid off in the long term, soaking up endless hits from the hulking cube.

When it struck, I met it with my armor. Each time it was easier, and I entrenched myself further in my defensive fighting style every chance I got.

At the same time, Deku seemed to grow denser and denser, from flesh, to stone, to steel. It’s warping skin grew both outward and inward.

The battle went on for ages.

I don’t know how long it was. I don’t know when I became conscious of what was happening to me.

The stone. Shaped like melting bones, forming jagged stalagtites and uneven ribcages, was beginning to stick to me. It attached to my skin like paint at first, thin layers that crackled and flowed. Every time I crashed into a wall, I seemed to pick up more of it, until I my hands were thick and unrecognizable mitts of rock.

This place was a place of nightmares, and a place of gods. A place of ideas and concepts.

Slowly, slowly, it began to change me.

It took days. Maybe weeks, or months. I couldn’t tell, because every moment was spent wrestling with Deku, trying to gain the upper hand. The room itself grew and grew to contain us, expanding into an enormous, barren cavern.

I was untouchable. Entrenched in a hundred feet of solid rock, feeling the shattering blows of the creature outside, yet unable to pierce my new stony skin. I was truly invulnerable.

But so was Deku.

I attempted to strike out at him, but my blows were slow and ponderous, scraping uselessly against layers of god-flesh without ever drawing blood. I was the larger by now, towering even over its space-stretched form, but it was like attempting to crush a steel marble between my palms.

Useless. Lucirron whispered to me. You refused the power too often. Without the form of the Demon, you will fall by the wayside and be trodden underfoot.

In the end, I was unable to lose, yet I still couldn’t win.

In the end, it simply turned and left, and I was unable to lift my legs to follow.

I lay there, trapped within my own living armor. Breathing, only barely, preserved through the magic of true defense.

And always, always, even in my dreams, Lucirron’s mocking laugh rang endlessly in my ears.

[svtskneecaps]

crew and cast

(gender neutral) reader x jihoon

genre: fluff + some?? angst? listen i tried lmao; words: 2.8k

well howdy @toxicsocial​ tis i, your tct secret santa. so uh, i can’t actually make people cry in a timely manner and i didn’t figure most people would be down to read like 9k of buildup, so!! the angst is minimal!!! but i tried really hard and i hope you like it i love you so much also i forgot to title it again until right now so don’t look at it too hard

You loved your high school’s theatre crew. From freshman year they’d been a staple in your life. It was refreshingly stable to be able to walk into the tech room anytime and reliably know what would be going on. Except, there was one thing about theatre you couldn’t stand: Lee Jihoon. You’d avoided him since freshman year, but unfortunately for you, you’d taken over the position of Run Crew Head and Prop Master, and he was the Student Director. You were forced to sit through every production meeting with him.

Which, fine. You’d do anything for the show to run well. But that didn’t change the fact that he made you want to commit a crime.

Or three.

“Great news guys!” you yelled, sweeping into the tech room. “The crutches still aren’t right and Jihoon wants us to repaint the brickwork on the platforms to be less ‘garish’ and the typewriter is from the 1940s when it should be from the 1890s and I’m going to set something on fire!”

Chan slammed his head against the nearest cabinet. “This is the third time he’s rejected the brickwork, oh my god.”

“Fourth time he’s hated the crutches too, and I’ve told him that the only period accurate typewriter in the basement is literally one wrong keystroke from breaking onstage but I guess he’s willing to take that risk for a typewriter that���s going to be in one scene.” You massaged your forehead. “I’m gonna stay late Wednesday so we can have our shit together by Hell Week.”

“I’ll have to join.” Chan peeled his head off the cabinet, cracking his knuckles. “You think Mingyu’s got time to spare? I might get him to help; there’s way too much platform for me to do in time.”

“Dunno, he’s pretty busy.” Vernon scooped a loose screw out of a sawdust pile and swept the whole thing into the dustpan. “Makeup’s been working hard to get the ‘ragged urchin’ look right.”

“I’ll con Soonyoung into it then, I don’t think they’re rehearsing the dance numbers tomorrow so he might be free.”

“I wish you luck with that, dude.” You scooped the crutch off the floor. “I gotta go beg costumes to let me into the basement storage and see if there’s another goddamn piece of fabric I can use for the crutches.”

“You have fun.”

You ended up getting lucky; Minghao already needed to go down there so you wouldn’t have to fight for cell signal to make sure you were allowed to deface the cloth scraps you’d found.

“You seem stressed,” he noted as he unlocked the basement door.

You snorted. “Stressed is an understatement.”

“Jihoon again?”

“If he tells me to redo the damn crutches again I’m going to nail him to the wall.”

Minghao lead the way down the stairs. “I really thought you had it that time.”

“Nothing is good enough for that guy.”

He shrugged. “He just wants the show to go well.”

“Yeah, well, so do I. He doesn’t have to get up everybody’s ass sticking his opinions where they don’t belong. He’s never been crew, why does he get to make us repaint the entire damn set anyway?”

“He’s the director.”

“Everyone else thought the bricks looked fine!”

Minghao looked at you sideways. “What’s your deal with Jihoon?”

“Like I said, poking his nose where it doesn’t--”

“No, you had beef before he got appointed Student Director.”

You sighed. “I don’t know. He’s always kind of been a pain even when he was ensemble.” You drove your finger into your temple. “And he broke a crucial prop that wasn’t his the night before the show opened and didn’t tell me.”

“You did props?”

“Buddy I was Prop Master. I literally didn’t find out until the Stage Manager tried to run that scene before school.” You glared absently at the shelves of typewriters to one side of the walkway. “I literally had to skip my last three classes and dinner to get a replacement and he never even apologized for it.”

Minghao whistled. “That’s unforgivable.”

“Tell me about it.” You waded through the costume racks to get to the bins of scraps in the back.

“And you’ve never considered forgiving and forgetting? I mean, it’s been two years.”

You sighed, leaning the crutch against a shelf. “I mean. . .”

He snickered. “Come on, it’s just you and me and the ghosts down here, you can say it.”

“I mean. . . he just makes me so mad!” You yanked the lid off a tote with a snap that echoed across the basement. “Like, every time I start thinking maybe he’s not so bad he pulls some other shit on me and I slam right back into hating his goddamn guts.”

“You’re on the same team,” Minghao called down the row. “You’re just trying to make the show better.”

“Making the show better shouldn’t involve painting the entire set three times.”

“I’m just saying, it’d put at least three years back on your lifespan.”

“Yeah yeah.”

You managed to update the crutches by the end of the day, and repainted the entire set on Wednesday--although you had to sacrifice your lunch and free periods and several hours after school to get it all done. Thursday left you with a finished set and another production meeting.

He didn’t like the bricks.

You saw red.

In the hallway, you pulled him aside.

“What don’t you like about the bricks?”

He frowned. “They detract attention from the actors.”

You wanted to seize him by the shoulders and shake him like a maraca. “It’s gray! It is the darkest most nondescript color we have in the buckets and you’re telling me it detracts attention from the actors? You haven’t even seen them rehearse with it!”

“It’s gonna be too much,” he argued. “It’s the same color as half the costumes--”

“I have seen every single costume in the show, it’s not even close to the same pigment!”

“Even still--”

“Listen,” you snapped, your heartbeat pounding in your ears, “if you want the set redone in time for Hell Week then I expect to see you in the goddamn tech room tomorrow after school wearing something you don’t mind getting paint on because I’m not going to make Chan and Vernon repaint the entire damn set by themselves for the fifth time and I have to figure out how to keep that 1890s typewriter from falling apart, do I make myself clear?”

He looked almost disgusted at the prospect, but he nodded stiffly. “Crystal.”

You turned on your heel just as stiffly, striding away before you lost all composure.

To your complete surprise, Jihoon actually showed up the next day, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a shirt so faded that whatever decal had been on the front had long washed away.

“So he arrives!” Chan yelled from his perch on the desk, where he’d been watching you wrestle with the typewriter.

Jihoon looked distinctly uncomfortable, but he squared his shoulders. “Where do you need me?”

“We gotta move all the set pieces in before we start,” Chan said. “Then I’ll probably have you start on the legs. We gotta wait for Vernon before we can move the tall stuff. One sec, I’ll--” he bolted into the hallway.

Jihoon stared after him, then looked to you. “Where is he going?”

“To tell Vernon we’re actually doing the repaint.” You shrugged. “Honestly I’m surprised you showed up.”

“I said I would.”

“Actually you just said you understood the ultimatum; we had no idea if you’d show or not.”

“Oh.”

You shrugged. “Good to have you anyway.”

Chan returned with Vernon before the silence could get too awkward, and you helped them move all the platforms back into the tech room. From there, Vernon set up his speaker and the real work began.

Jihoon helped choose the color of the bricks (and Chan threatened to really break his leg if he changed his mind about it later), and they got to laying down the base coat. You went back to glaring at the typewriter and reading through every antiques article you could find online.

After trying seven different methods to no avail, you shoved your chair away from the desk. “Typewriters are hellspawn created by the Devil himself to punish unfortunate Prop Masters.”

Vernon snickered. “That good, huh?”

“I’m going to put a screwdriver through the keyboard,” you said mildly.

“Okay maybe don’t do that.” Chan paused to pull a clean paintbrush out of his pocket and throw it at you. “You know where the overalls are; come take a break.”

“Why do you just have that?” Jihoon asked.

“A painter is always prepared.”

Jihoon glanced at you. You shrugged. “I don’t question it.”

Between the four of you, you managed to finish all but one platform by the time Chan and Vernon had to go. Being older, you had infinite time, so you cracked your knuckles and sat back at the typewriter. Jihoon lingered in the doorway.

“You need any help?”

You looked up. “Nah, I think I got it. Thank you, though.”

He shifted. “Listen, I know we didn’t really get off on the right foot but, I’m sorry. I know I never really apologized for the prop, and I’m sorry for how long it took, too.”

You sighed. “It’s fine. It’s kind of unfair of me to hold it against you this long anyway, so, I’m sorry too.” It wasn’t the only reason he made you so angry, but that chip on your shoulder made a lot of other offenses you would have normally overlooked seem larger.

“Can we maybe start over?” he asked. “Freshman year all over again?”

You actually found yourself nodding. “As long as you don’t make us repaint the set ever again.”

He laughed, running a paint-stained hand through his hair. “No, I won’t. I can’t do that to your crew again.”

“Good. Cause we weren’t kidding about breaking your legs.”

“I will keep that in mind.” He hiked up his backpack. “I’ll see you on Monday, then?”

“Happy Hell Week.”

Hell Week was hell (and the sky is blue).

Three of the actors lost their voices four days before Opening Night. One of the glasses for the restaurant scene shattered during the dance number--even though it was supposed to be offstage already--and the third lead got very close to twisting her ankle after landing a jump wrong. The actors could never manage to find their light, there were technical glitches with the backstage mics, and you were so on edge that if you heard the word standby you’d jump so bad you’d bruise your knee on the table.

The typewriter gave you more anxiety than it was worth. The actress using it had strict instructions not to actually touch the keys, because the only thing holding it together was gaff tape. You’d put Jun and Wonwoo in charge of bringing the desk it sat on onstage, because you trusted them to have it under control and keep it from tipping, because if it tipped at an angle any more than about 30 degrees, the keys would get out of alignment and that required time and experience to fix, of which you had neither.

Needless to say, you were two steps away from tearing your hair out.

At least you weren’t fighting with Jihoon, though. You’d even gone out to grab takeout with him for dinner, once, and yelling about all the problems in the car was really cathartic and you came back refreshed and relaxed, for once (only for every muscle in your back to clench at once because an actor bumped the prop table in their hurry to get in costume and one of the glasses fell over).

But it was Opening Night, and you were wound tighter than a spring waiting for everything to go wrong.

And it did.

Jihoon was in the hallway behind the stage, giving Joshua a few final notes about his big solo, and he didn’t check his surroundings closely enough. In his wild gesturing to demonstrate the level of enthusiasm, his arm clipped the typewriter.

And it fell.

He stared at it. Joshua stared at it. You could not tear your eyes from it.

The keys had tilted out of alignment. The bar holding the paper was skewed. The decorative paneling to one side had cracked down the middle. You didn’t have time to fix it before it went on. Maybe you couldn’t fix it at all.

“I am so sorry--” Jihoon started, but you stopped him with a hand, balling the other into a fist.

“Don’t,” you forced through your teeth, because you didn’t want to start yelling at him; it was an honest mistake and it was your fault for not resettling it on the desk after the last run. You were just seething with rage, at yourself, at the typewriter--you didn’t want to project it.

“Ten minutes to go!” someone yelled down the hall. You forced yourself to exhale, gingerly picking it up, flinching with every shift of the keys.

“Is there anything I can--”

“Get to the booth. Tell Seungcheol what happened, just-- be in your place. Jun!” you yelled into the tech room. His head jerked up. “I need you to take over headset for me, can you do that?”

His mouth fell open seeing the typewriter and he nodded, wordlessly, leaping to his feet and hurrying backstage.

Jihoon still stood there, looking between the typewriter and you with an anguished expression. “You’re sure you don’t--”

“I got it,” you said again, clipped. “I can handle it. I can-- just get to the booth, Jihoon!”

You hadn’t yelled. You knew enough not to yell when the audience was already in their seats. But your words had the same effect, because he flinched, and he nodded, and he turned the other way and ran.

Your rage was turning inward as fast as it was dulling, but you had a show to put on, so you placed the broken typewriter carefully on a counter in the tech room and sprinted for the basement.

You managed to get the 1970s typewriter back upstairs and on the desk before it went on, and the show went on without a hitch. The actors hit their marks, all the props found their way back to the prop table, and the pit orchestra didn’t have to loop a section for a missed cue even once.

You waited until everyone was gone before you let yourself cry.

“I really am sorry.”

You looked up.

Jihoon stood in the doorway, twisting his hands.

“It’s fine,” you said. “It’s partially my fault for not making sure it was centered right.” You rubbed your eyes with the palms of your hands, hoping to disguise the redness. “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Do you want help?”

“I don’t know if it can even be fixed,” you said, staring blankly at the remains of the typewriter in front of you. “It might-- it might be beyond my help.”

For a long moment, you stared at it, mind spiralling.

You pushed yourself up. “They’ll want to lock up.” You slung your backpack over your shoulders. “I’ll just come in before the show and work on it. Maybe get Jun to grab me some McDonald’s or something and eat during the intermission.”

Jihoon’s brow furrowed. “That’s not healthy.”

“I’ve done it before.” You waved him off. “The show must go on, you know?” You slung your backpack over your shoulders. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The day came by in flashes as you researched the typewriter with a renewed vigor. You could probably use hot glue and some kind of putty to hide the crack in the paneling, you could probably put the keys back or at the very least tape them to look like they were back, from a distance. The bar at the top would be much harder but you hadn’t really inspected it the night before so maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as you thought it was?

You didn’t feel particularly hopeful when you stopped by the tech room to pick up the typewriter.

Until you saw the typewriter.

“What the fuck.” It was fixed. The keys aligned, the crack sealed, the bar sitting on top just as it was supposed to be. It looked exactly like it had when you’d first set it on that desk.

Jihoon came around the corner, dried putty staining his hands. “Hey,” he said, seeming tired but absolutely beaming at you.

“Did you do this?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I didn’t want you putting your health on the line.”

“Oh my god, thank you. I can’t-- this is incredible!” You kept tracing your fingers over the ridge formed by the sealed crack, but you couldn’t see it.

“I did a good job, then?” He put his hands in his pockets, grinning.

“Better than good, oh my god I could kiss you!”

Your cheeks burned when you realized what you’d said, but he laughed. “Whoa, buy me dinner first.”

“Bet,” you said, accepting it like a challenge. “You pick the place, I’ll pay.”

“Okay,” he said, and then lifted his hands. “I gotta wash up.”

“Meet you by the front door in five?”

“It’s a date.”

[hullabalooshoneybee]

IDV — MY ANALYSIS OF ANN’S LORE & DEDUCTIONS (W/ THEORIES)

CW: death, throw up, murder, illness/plague, abuse/harassment, religion (Christianity), (implied to be forced) conversion, brief self harm mention (only one quote)

written by @hullabalooshoneybee

        When she was a little girl, Ann was diagnosed with an illness. Whether she was born with it or developed it is unknown, but the disease caused her eyes to change color to a piercing yellow— like a cat. Coincidentally, a plague had struck her region at the same time she was diagnosed (or at least developing the physical symptoms of her illness).

        It was stated by the Identity V devs that the contagion and her illness were not the same. In addition to this, the symptoms from the plague listed in the first deduction ( “... vomiting, spasms, high fever, etc.” ) also prove they are not the same illness since Ann was never mentioned to of demonstrated these symptoms. Regardless, those who knew of Ann’s illness had assumed the diseases were one and the same; blaming her and accusing her of being the one to bear the regional pestilence.

        Bear in mind that Ann’s backstory is based around the Black Death and the Salem Witch Trials, meaning majority of the logic behind the diseases were roped back to the Christian God. Because of this, Ann’s neighbors had accused her of being the “eye of evil” or the devil’s eye, saying the epidemic was not a punishment from God as the Bubonic Plague had been, but a curse brought about from (a ‘possessed’) Ann herself.

        However, young Ann and her family were shown to be of a separate faith; when her mother fell ill in the second deduction, Ann’s father had prayed to a cat-shaped idol on a shrine. Shrines are regarded as holy due to their associations with divinity, a sacred person or relic, which implies that Ann’s family had worshipped a deity other than the Christian God (considering the Christian God has no known affiliations to cats.) Since those of other faiths were notoriously shamed and harassed by Christians, this could also be a supporting role as to why Ann was blamed for the pandemic.

        In the second deduction, Ann is detailed to be crying at a woman’s bedside— likely her mother. This implies that her mother had either fallen ill or died, but it was likely only the illness at the time since Ann’s father was praying rather than mourning or dismissing of the body. However, come third deduction, it is revealed that Ann’s parents had eventually passed away on different occasions (the mourning clothes were worn several times— this could also imply that others in Ann’s family fell ill and died too).

        So, what became of Ann? Well, in the fourth deduction, it shows that Ann had inherited her parent’s land and houses (yes, plural; the deductions heavily imply that her parents were wealthy) through her parents’s wills. But the community wasn’t happy, which led to a copious amount of unwanted attention, often in the form of death threats. Not only were they convinced Ann was a creation of the devil and a bearer of plague, but now they held deep jealousy for her inheriting such wealth— such wealth they felt she didn’t deserve.

In the fifth deduction, a priest details in a letter that he was praying for Ann’s family, which had likely also fallen ill from the epidemic. In the letter, he claims that as long as Ann is alive, her curse will continue to infect others.

I theorize that the priest’s letter could’ve been to someone well known in the area, for the following deduction is an example of the harassment Ann faced; a rock with a poorly written message on it, blaming her for the plague and the death of the author’s mother.

Another reason the priest’s letter could of gone to someone higher up or with more influence (or if it became public) has to do with Ann’s death— The town wanted Ann dead since she was a little girl, but the priest’s letter was written closer to Ann’s adulthood (and was likely an influence on her diagnosis in deduction seven, more on this later). If this letter— which essentially claimed Ann’s death would free them— fell into the wrong hands, it could easily be used as motivation for Ann’s murder.

Back to the lore; Not long after the events of deduction six, Ann was given a quite religiously influenced diagnosis. The description of extreme stress and hallucinations lead me to theorize it being a severe case of anxiety or paranoia, but that is heavily up to debate (especially since I am not a licensed professional). Ann was told that her only treatment was to convert; turn to God and pray for salvation, which is why her diagnosis may have to do with the Priest’s letter from the fifth deduction.

So Ann abandoned her faith of the cat-shaped idol and became a nun, pursuing God’s cure ( “An infinite approach to the sun...” ) despite the hatred she gained from it ( “... is equivalent to infinitely hurting yourself” ).

But.. Why did Ann become a nun? Why did she change her faith now, of all times? In the original lore given to us by the Identity V twitter, it explains how Ann had eventually believed the town’s rumors of Ann being a seed of evil. So, since she was convinced she was a horrible person, she was likely desperate for a reason to change and fix herself— especially if it would get her abusers off her case. She likely believed God was her only solution, converting out of desperation for salvation.

During her time as a nun, her eyes had never (returned/became) normal, and the harassment she received had never stopped. She struggled to find the solace she yearned for, which inevitably led to her demise. On the night of a new moon, which symbolizes new beginnings (more on this later), she had made her way to the sanctuary of her Church. Unfortunately, she never made it to the Church since she had been impaled through the heart by a wooden cross— which is likely the cross she bears as a weapon at the Manor.

As she bled out, a cat-shaped shadow had approached her claiming, "I can make your wish come true, once you've sacrificed your last bit of faith” . The figure, theorized to be her family’s original deity/honored spirit, was likely telling her to give up on Christianity and revert back to her original faith. By doing so, Ann would get her wish; her cure.

And so she did. Ann turned her back to the “sun”, and was given her cure; revenge. Ann was risen from the dead, and brought about a new pandemic— a lethal one that targeted not only her region, but only the specific people who harassed and/or murdered her.

The reason her death being on a new moon is so important is due to it’s symbolism, which further enriches Ann’s lore. A new moon represents not only new beginnings, but reflecting on the past. This pairs well with the timing of Ann’s demise since it implies her revival was a new start, much like the moon’s implication. Not only that, but Ann was forced to reflect on her time as a Christian and the treatment she was given, which led to her ultimate choice of revival— and revenge.

There are several theories on Ann’s lore, one of the most notorious being who the cat-figure really is. The most popular theory is that it’s her family’s deity/honored spirit, but other theories suggest the cat is either the devil, or an illusion from the manor. I personally am unsure on what to believe, but all the same I find it interesting how the cat could represent a diverse range of roots.

A theory of mine, however, has to do with the cat and how Ann got to the manor. We know why survivors come to the manor, but what about hunters? Like Dead by Daylight, it seems to be implied that some of them just.. End up there. Appear and exist. But with Ann, I theorize a different case. The cat spirit could of made other deals with Ann, one of them perhaps being that Ann would forever be able to, “...punish those who want to approach the truth” if she agreed to come to the manor and play the Baron’s games.

Ann is one of the most intricately woven characters of Identity V lore, and the fact her background is not officially tied to any other characters makes it all the more difficult to decipher her history. All the same, I hope my analysis helps provide clarity as well as clears up confusion with Ann’s upbringing. All of my sources come directly from Identity V, be it their YouTube, Twitter, or in-game text such as Ann’s deductions.

( If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me! I’d love to discuss theories and whatnot with you all <3 )

[marabarl-and-marlbara]

odd numbers are divine 1 because it is everything 3 because it is the trinity & is also everything (1=3) 5 because it is angel & demon & is the divine organism 7 are unknowables i forget about them 6 is twice the trinity but evil because 2 is in it 8 lacks the trinity & has 2

4 is the polygon (the quad, another building block in 3d but really is just two triangles) & what makes arachnids 0 is the server when it was off, its in nothing but is the shadow] of 3 (&1) & it cant ever be seen by anything that contains 1 or 3 6 are insect 8 are arachnid

names of angels & demons always add up to 10, because their title is demon/angel + title 10 is the individual extraterrestrial ultraviolet & infrared are like glitches but they are also part of the system i dont think they can b represented with numbers because they rnt visible

god is inside every single insect every single plant every single house every single picture every single pigment its all god -- this is th argument 4 deep ecology imo but there is no point in being a deep ecologist; no 1 is advocating for plant rights,,

god is in deserts 2,, god is in anime 2,, there are primordial captures of god in old media imo like old games & stuff there are warpingsof god that gets denatured (they get more primordial w time); this is why sega saturn & psx have their own angels & demons cosmology

desserts* sry; but ya; go play a bunch of saturn games, go copy art styles from n64 & the genesis & dreamcast n realize how bziarre & contained it is,,, u are a monk illuminating a forgotten manuscript when you do that,, that is the devil(5) i tappedin2 with sengoku turb

my blood is 80% blood; waves from denatured god fractals r constantly being transmitted thru into me; they are rays of light that are always going thru everyone & every1 has it but no1 picks up on the light no noe sees the light refracting & denaturing them every single day

artificial light isp oisoning you, the light in the water is poisonoing you, the light in the food is poisonoing you, the light when you look injto a flower is poisoning you, the light when you look into sega saturn is poisoning you, you get poisoned in idnvidual waysby the color

ppl like sunny & dogi r super poisoned by the color & they pick up on it rlly well i think; keffie is increidbly poisoned by the color; here is so much artificial light in the blood of every1 bc its how the cycle goes; its like this: the world was made of light & color in nothing

the god that is in everythiing here is not the god that turned-on "nothing" & made it disappear into infinite triangles -- this is a different god we can never kno, its not ultraviolet, its not infrared, its completely outside ofthe shell we r contained in; but our god is god 2

our god is constantly trying 2 become its god outside, & in doing so the fractals of god in the deep-layer [humans] are being controlled by higher layer colors & lights to manufacture god -- like how pigments compete w each other 2 make paintings by artists u know, or music even

& eventually the shell will be completed & another torture chamber will be built & florish inside this torture chamber; progressiely more wounded gods create progressively more hellish torture chambers that they love like tamagotchis kinda

this is eve *(like adam n eve)from sm(pretend theres apicture of her here)t; if you draw this  enough & relate to it enough, rlly learn to love it, you will get poisoned by these colors 2,, if you look @ this image and listen there ARE voices inside of it, there IS static tht sounds like insects chattering

this IS psychosis but its also GOD contained within the chattering, this is how 2 invoke the crawling chaos; nyarlathotep is REAL & is awiting for you in infrared/ultraviolet adjacents that stray close to your pool, you just have to believe strongly enough & ignore all insects

if you just draw it you will be poisoned, if you just look at it you will be poisoned, if you just do the rituals some1 tells you you will be poisoned, but being poisoned isnt enough to find the crawling chaos, u need dseperation like in any religion 2 make chaos real in urself

this is y the suffering strategy works, the more you lose friends & the more you scare people & the mroe you scare yourself & the more you stop sleeping & the more you stop eating & the more you clip thru the walls in life the closer you get 2 seeing ultraviolet/infrared

& honestly that is a bad thing bc it makes u miserable; but misery is how uo get religion; christian gods are their own form of crawling chaos,, there is power in the ash; there is power in tending the grave of the qlifot, bc the dead things r inside of me 2,, i do not have life

the aspect of grace in decilne is important 2 me, as in my head it was: as long as i am graceful about my bad mannerisms, i can be Above the insects (like yuria from das3), but the genuis is internalizing all suffering makes it more caustic 2, bc it eats @ you inside outward

i cant hear the chattering bc i am not 5=angel i am 5=demon i was oplluted, angels polluting humans would make just a broken thing as me, but the colors from hellhurt jsut as much as colors from heaven; i can only see the colors that are inside & hear them even if they r soft

none ofhtis stuff is real, but its also 100% real; its not visible but its 100% visible; its not aduble but its 100% audbile; the insects trick tf out of you by writing books; nothing exists beyond ~1 week ago, the server resets every week, its just a .txt file now

is that real idk it might b me conflating my really bad memory w/ the server resetting bc i dont know/remember what mara was doing a week ago; this is ashell world tho; none of the ppl hwo can read this or respond 2 this are real they r just ghosts trying influence me in2 playing

sry about all this god im dumb but in love w u   🌈🌎👁‍🗨💙🌍🌏🔞🔪😌🙏🔥

[tawakkull]

ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 75

Another Way of Journeying and Initiation

Some make spiritual journeys by refining and developing the inner faculties, while others purify the carnal self within, causing it to take certain steps. In both these ways, suffering for certain periods is essential to reach the rank of perfection and to become a perfect human being. Yet there are other ways, different from these two ways, to reach the ranks and stations and the favors and blessings that come through spiritual journeying and suffering. Among these ways, there is one which is based on the way of the Prophet’s Companions and may be regarded as a manifestation of the truth of Messengership.

Helplessness, poverty, affection, reflection, zeal and thankfulness are the basic elements of this way. Helplessness means being aware of one’s inability to do many of the things that one wants to do, and poverty denotes the awareness of the fact that it is God Who is the real Owner and Master of everything. Embracing everybody and everything because of Him is affection, while reflection is thinking deeply, analytically and systematically about and meditating on the outer and inner world, with a new excitement everyday. Zeal is the great, ardent desire and yearning to reach God and to serve in His way. Always thanking God for His bounties and proceeding to Him in full consciousness of all His blessings during the journey is thankfulness.

According to Bediuzzaman Said Nursi,[1] this way is more direct and safer. Helplessness is a path of light leading to being loved by God that is safer and quicker than love; in it the more one perceives one’s helplessness, the more quickly one will reach one’s goal. Poverty is an inexhaustible treasure which, to the extent of one’s consciousness of it, will lead one to the protection and direction of the All-Merciful and His infinite Power much sooner and more safely than the greatest discipline, efforts and endeavors could. Affection is deeper and more sincere than love. No traveler having this feeling, which is a manifestation of Divine Compassion, has ever been left halfway. Reflection is the way of the enlightened spirits who relate everything to wisdom through study and the observation of one’s inner world and the outer world. As for zeal, it is the characteristic of those who are always conscious of the points or senses of reliance and asking for help that are innate to them. These two senses always remind of God. Those endowed with zeal never become desperate or disappointed. And finally, thankfulness is returning with gratitude all the blessings of God that we receive almost gratis.

The essence of the way can be summed up as: “I am helpless, You are the All-Powerful; I am poor, You are the All-Wealthy; I am needy and in straitened circumstances, You are the All-Compassionate; I am bewildered and seeking a way out, You are the only Goal Which is sought and to be reached.” It is not possible for those who are aware of their helplessness, poverty, neediness and bewilderment to see themselves as pure or of being of any rank, thus it is not possible for them to be heedless or forgetful of God while knowing that whoever forgets Him is forgotten and bound to forget him or herself also. Nor is it possible for them to attribute to themselves the accomplishments with which God has favored them, using the pretext of their endeavors, nor to ascribe their evil and sins to Destiny, thus regarding themselves as existing independently of God.

According to Bediuzzaman, this way can be dealt with from the viewpoint of the following four disciplines:

Making efforts to see the carnal self as not being purified and sinless, as against its innate tendency to see itself as pure and sinless. Being careful and resolved to forget oneself when and where one should forget and remember oneself when and where one should remember. Being well aware of the fact that God creates everything–good and evil–and is the only source of all good. Thus, one should attribute to oneself all one’s sins and evil as being caused by one’s own person, albeit it is God Who has created them, and all good and all accomplishments should be attributed to God, and one should be thankful. Whatever state one is in and whatever rank one reaches during one’s journey, one should know that both one’s existence and merits are but a shadow or a shadow of the shadow of the lights of Divine Existence, and that all aspects of one’s existence are a mirror of the manifestations of His Knowledge and Existence. Now let us explain these points in accordance with the approach of Bediuzzaman:

The first discipline: The carnal self in its nature is fond of itself, and only loves and has relations with others because of itself. The self-love of the carnal self is so great that its adoration of itself is like the adoration of God felt by a sincere believer devoted to the One Who absolutely deserves worship and who should be sought. It never shows inclination to acknowledge its errors and always sees itself as being pure and free of error. So, one should wage the major (greater) jihad against such an attitude, always criticizing and questioning it, softening and melting it in the blast-furnace of self-criticism and self-supervision in order to reshape it. One should never see oneself as free and absolved of errors and sins, and the acceptance of this is, in fact, the tap under which it should and can be cleaned. Only by doing so can one’s innate positive potentialities be developed.

If we continuously seek purification in seeing ourselves as prone to evils and errors, angels and other spiritual beings will greatly appreciate our decency and cleanliness, and, as stated in a Prophetic saying,[2] they will come down from all sides to shake hands with us. If, by contrast, we are so heedless that we see ourselves as clean and infallible, we will inevitably be representatives of a loathsome nature from which even devils will keep aloof in disgust. As Mawlana said, human beings are such that sometimes they become like the Devil under the influence of satanic impulses, and sometimes they are on a par with angels at the summits of spiritual life.

The second discipline: A person with an unpurified, evil-commanding carnal self may be forgetful of the most vital matters, which should never be forgotten, and such a person does not even want to recollect them, while pulling up from the heart matters that should never be remembered. Human beings should always think of serving God’s cause, of being earnest in their deeds, of their responsibilities to the people around them, and of death and what lies beyond it. They should uproot from their spirit hatred, jealousy, worldly ambitions, greed, and carnal desires. Only by doing so can human beings keep their innate tendency toward spirituality alive, and hold themselves back from rousing the satanic tendencies within them.

We, travelers on the way to God, should see belief in God and living along the line of His good pleasure as a blessing, and concentrate on how we can please Him with all our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We should also try to lead our lives in His company, and by virtue of this company, we should continually seek new means to be always in close relationship with Him. We should always be aware of what Mawlana reminds us of: “There is a hidden One here; O heart, do not see yourself as alone.” Based on our relationship with Him, we should strive to transcend our limited nature in order to advance toward infinity, developing our drop-like existence into an ocean, and seeking the mysteries of the universal in our particular existence. If we lead such a life, the things that are seen as impossible to do are done and obstacles that seem insurmountable are surmounted. Particulars become reflections of and mirrors to the universal, and what we see as non-existent takes on the color of existence, a dew-drop excels the moon in reflecting the sun, earth becomes as elevated as the heavens, and our particle-like natures expand to the extent of the universe.

Mawlana, the prince of the lovers of God, advises us to transcend the corporeal dimension of our existence and discover the mysterious potentialities of our spirit, saying:

A pitcher which has found the way to the sea: Rivers prostrate themselves before it.

The third discipline: A carnal self that has not yet been able to step on the way to refinement through journeying in itself and the outer world, ascribes to itself whatever good and achievement it is favored with, while imputing evils and failures to either external factors and causes or its incorrect, stunted concept of Destiny. Instead of overflowing with thankfulness for whatever favors it receives, it inwardly collapses because of self-pride, conceit, and arrogance, and extinguishes its feelings of thankfulness to and praise for God. It contaminates its horizon with the filth of such bad morals, and ruins itself. Whereas, if the carnal self is able to attribute to God all the good and achievements and impute all evils, shortcomings and failures to itself, then it would be favored with blessing after blessing, even in the most unfavorable circumstances. What is necessary is that the carnal self should see that its perfection lies in its perception and acknowledgment of its imperfection, and that it should always be humble before and devoted to God. The carnal self should also overflow with thankfulness and zeal by perceiving and acknowledging that its power comes from its helplessness, and its richness lies in its innate poverty.

It is extremely important for us as believers to know that all our merits and accomplishments are from God, while all our imperfections and errors are from our own selves, and that we should keep our system of self-interrogation and self-control alive and active. So long as the travelers to God can do this, they will always yield fruit, even in the most unfavorable circumstances. Whereas, from the moment when aridity arises in the spiritual world of the carnal self, due to certain erosions, then only thorns will grow, even in the most favorable circumstances, and it will hoot like an owl, lamenting its loss.

If human beings were only physical beings, their concerns and worries about corporeality would be meaningful. Seeing a noble being as consisting only of a physical body means reducing it to the level of flesh, which is bound to disintegrate and rot away and be food for microorganisms. This is the most abominable form of despising the noblest and most honorable of all creation. But the actual fact of the matter is that humankind, by virtue of their creation, endowment, and potentials, are more valued and sublime than even the angels. Human beings are much more than being mere body; they are endowed with heart, spirit, and other inward spiritual faculties, with consciousness, intellect, perception, intelligence and other outer and inner senses and feelings. Human beings are an assemblage of values that transcends the physical dimension of their being. Human beings are such precious and well-endowed creatures that they can sometimes fly so high that even the angels desire to catch up with them; sometimes they can reach the peaks which separate the realm of mortal beings from eternity and infinity. Using their mental faculties to the utmost degree, they arrange travel to celestial bodies, and transfer sounds, voices and images from great distances, offering us the most beautiful melodies of time and space shrinking at great speed.

However, despite the extent of their capacity and exceptional nature, humans can fall into a net of hatred, grudges, greed, and lust, becoming the most wretched and abased of all beings. They can be wretched slaves and beggars, despite their nature and capacity to be the masterpieces of creation; they can become nothing more than worms creeping on the earth, despite their potential to be heavenly beings. But if they turn completely to God with all their inner dynamism, overflowing with thankfulness for all the good He has bestowed on them, and impute to themselves all the evils they may commit and shortcomings they may suffer, they can become perfected and be saved from those shortcomings through awareness and wakefulness, and by being cleansed under the taps of self-control and supervision. Then humankind can set up the tent of true humanity on the debris of evil feelings and passions, and express themselves through accomplishments, without ever losing their humility and feelings of nothingness before God. This also means discovering themselves anew at every attempt, being fully aware of themselves in their own depths, and experiencing a new revival at every moment. Mawlana sees this as the feet of the soul being freed from the fetters of corporeality and the spirit starting to become heavenly. A spirit which has become heavenly also attempts to arrange its own, inner world with its whole power of perception and consciousness, makes incessant efforts to repair the defects standing in the way of its perfection. Such a spirit travels sometimes in the realm that stands before the veil over existence and sometimes beyond it, and goes into ecstasies at every seeing of the depths of its heart. Every such seeing arouses in it a new desire to grow into perfection, and every desire a new zeal for self-renewal. It sees its heart as a home of God and utters:

The heart is the home of God; purify it from whatever is there other than Him, So that the All-Merciful may descend into His palace at night.

The truly and fully human beings cleanse the heart of foul concepts and images, adorn their “secret” with knowledge of God, illuminate their “private” with the torch of love and zeal, and make their “more private” utter loyalty. They are always occupied with the Beloved One, and ready to sacrifice themselves for His sake. This is their affliction, which is preferred to all cures; they are exhausted with the excitement of being on the way to Him. However, their affliction is sweeter than all cures, and their exhaustion is preferable to every rest or repose. Their affliction causes them to travel through deserts in quest of greater afflictions, saying:

I used to seek a cure for my inward affliction; They said: “Your cure is the affliction itself.” I used to seek something to sacrifice in the court of the Beloved; They said: “Your soul is the thing you seek to sacrifice.” (M. Lutfi)

The soul also utters, as many have uttered:

I used to seek a cure for my affliction; I have come to know that my affliction itself is my cure. I used to try to find that which is hidden in my origin; I have come to know that my origin is that which is hidden. (Niyazi Misri)

Many have sung melodies of love about Him, and of separation from Him and yearning to meet with Him with all of their being, as if each part of their bodies were a flute.

Concerning this, Mawlana says:

O heart! You and your suffering for Him exist; ah, how nice it is always to be concerned with Him and suffering for Him! That suffering is, in fact, your cure. So, bear with all the afflictions and troubles coming from Him, without making the least complaint. So does He decree. If you have been able to trample your bodily desires, then you have killed the dog of your carnal self, which is the thing that should be killed.

The fourth discipline: The carnal self sees itself as if it were a being which exists independently. It sometimes adopts a manner so refractory and abased that every attitude and act it performs is disobedience and hostility to Him Whom it must unquestionably worship. In reality none other than Him has an independent existence of itself. Every existing being or thing, living or non-living, functions as a mirror to the Names of the Most Exalted Creator with respect to the level of life with which it is favored. Even though the human carnal self has an exceptional nature and capacity particular to itself among other beings, its existence with whatever it has is from Him, and subsists by Him alone. For this reason, with respect to itself, it is a zero in the face of Eternity, a shadow in the face of the Original Being, and is nothing in the face of the Truly Existent One. Its perception of this is the first step to the attainment of true existence, while thinking otherwise is a lethal stumbling. When one sees oneself as an independent being existing and subsisting by oneself, one rolls headlong into the dark abyss of non-existence. Yet, when one functions as a polished mirror to the Truth (having whatever is good and valuable as only a reflection from Him), one is en route to eternity. One smashes the tight frame around one and finds the light of the Existence of the True Being. Concerning this, Muhammad Iqbal[3] says:

In your essence, there is a substance from the Existence of God, and a ray from His manifestation. But for His ocean, I do not know where we would have been able to find this “pearl.”

The following couplet, whose author is not known, relates the matter to the famous saying, “He who knows himself, knows his Lord:”

Know your own self, if you desire to have knowledge of God; Only he who knows his own self, is one who has knowledge of God. Mawlana sums up the matter as follows: So long as a servant is annihilated with respect to his ego and conceit, It is impossible for him to attain true belief in God and His Unity. Unity does not mean union with God; it means freedom from ego. Whoever says otherwise, speaks a lie and cannot make falsehood truth.

To sum up, it is possible to say that, other than the way composed of love, suffering and similar essentials by which one can reach God, there is another way; this is the way of one’s perception and the acknowledgment of one’s own helplessness and poverty before God, and of affection and reflection. This second way is safer and more direct than the former one.

Travelers following such a way in consciousness of their helplessness turn to the One of Infinite Power with all of their being, each saying: “Hold me by the hand, hold because I cannot manage without You.” The more aware they are of their poverty, the more sincerely they take refuge with the Divine Wealth, and attribute to Him whatever in their possession is good and praiseworthy. They are in constant thankfulness and act zealously where others stumble because of their self-pride and utterances that are incompatible with the rules of Shari’a. Those who study deeply and reflect on their inner world and the outer world do not fall into pride (by ascribing any accomplishment and the favors they have received to themselves,) nor do they fall into mental and spiritual confusions by imputing evils to external causes or Destiny. On the contrary, they attribute to God all of their accomplishments and the favors they receive, rely on Him, and enjoy the pleasure of dependence on Him. As for evils, they ascribe them to themselves and turn to God with repentance, penitence and contrition, feeling pangs of separation from Him and pleasures in the expectation of again meeting with Him. Since they regard their existence as a shadow of the light of the Divine Existence, they never consider that they have independent self-existence, nor do they need to be preoccupied with such notions as Unity of Being and Unity of the Witnessed. With the conviction that their existence, with all its attributes and potentials and whatever endowment they have been granted, are all from Him, then they live with the pleasure or the hope of His company, and act in thankfulness for being on the way to Him. They never value or esteem easy behavior or utterances that suggest self-pride and self-complacency.

The basic essentials of this way were once expressed by the present author as follows:

O friends, come and listen, O friends! Our way is the way of zeal; The comrades satisfied with belief, Thorns are roses for us.

Thanks to Him, we have seen the Face of the Truth, And found the very essence of everything; We have adopted His every word as a principle; And His Speech is evidence for us.

All strength by which we are strong is His; We are known for His Name, by Which we act, And travel, going beyond the summits; All difficulties are easy for us to surmount.

We have no wealth but are extremely wealthy; And are noble and honored by relation to Him. Reflection is our way; and everything, wet or dry, Is a source of knowledge of God for us.

Plains, residences, and deserts, All voices mention Him throughout the universe, Roses of all colors that have opened, Each is a message to us from Him.

You know us from serving God with utmost zeal; Our work is always thinking of Him, And what we will always do and declare: His Book is the guide for us.

We have found Him and submitted to Him; And been saved from grief and despair; We were sullied but have been cleaned; His Mercy is the ocean in which we were cleaned.

O Lord, accept my repentance, and clean me of the dirt, answer my prayers, secure my place in religion, guide my heart, make my voice always speak the truth, and root out all kinds of hatred and envy from my heart. And bestow Your blessings and peace on our master and support Muhammad, and his family and Companions altogether.

[1] Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1877-1960) is the most famous and one of the greatest Muslim thinkers and scholars of the 20th century. He wrote about the truhts and essentials of the Islamic faith, the meaning and importance of worship, morality, and the meaning of existence. He is very original in his approaches. Sozler (“The Words”), Mektubat (“The Letters”), Lem’alar (“The Gleams”), and Sualar (“The Rays”) are among his famous works. (Trans.) [2] Al-Muslim, “Tawba,” 12-13; Al-Tirmidhi, “Qiyama,” 59. [3] Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) is one of the most outstanding Muslim thinkers and activists of the 20th-century Muslim world. He studied in England and wrote many books. The Reconstruction of the Islamic Thought is the most well-known among them.

[calpurniawoods]

When Love & Death Embrace

Prelude to Introduction

We live in a world where our selfishness reaches a point of wanting immortality. Something that has been forbidden to us by a God who promises a better life will wait for us in the next life. Yet there are those who deceive the word of God, and chose to live by their own means of rules, unaware that they are only human, and vulnerable to one of God’s greatest creations. Death is a taboo topic in different parts of the world. Every culture deals with their loss differently from the next. When death comes into the lives of people they always seem to forget that the life of their loved one could have not been created if it were for the opposite of death; Love. Truth be told that the opposite of death is considered birth, but even before birth something had to have created that being before it was even brought to this world. Love has to become a factor when creating new life. As society continues to view these two as bitter opposites, there are those few who understand that the beauty in life does not exist in the way a person wants to life their life, but by how it is given to them, and taken.

When Love & Death Embrace

What is the meaning in life if the essence that created it, is affiliated with the being that will end it? Why are we breathed in life, only to have it taken away from us? Can it be that we really aren’t meant to live forever, and death is doing us a favor in stopping what ever suffering we have? Can it really be true that out physical life must end, but our whole being will move on to an even greater life? One where love promises life will never end, and we thank death for this new life? Is Death our mother learning to let go of her precious child called Life? Is our father Love who created us through his seed of care?

When Love looked into the eyes of Death, he did not know what to say. For he had fallen for Deaths large, noir, orbs like a foolish romantic he was. Death was not someone people believed to be beautiful, but in fact she was more than beautiful. In a way, she was almost unreal. Unimaginably perfect, that any man would fall for her look of morbid grace to his death bed. The black hooded robe that everyone spoke about were actually her jet black tousles of wavy hair that ran past her whole body as she walked, framing her thin, pale face and physique. She was dreadfully tall that one could only imagine how long her ebony locks were. The stereotypical scythe that held the reputation of fear was actually just her long walking stick she used because…she was blind…

Love did not know exactly why he found Death so appealing. Maybe it was the way she carried herself. Unable to see the people in front of her, but still able to walk with grace towards those who have met their time. Maybe he was just infatuated with her appearance. He could't help but find her morbid, macabre state…warming. But if Love were questioned what it was he adored about Death the most, he would have said her smile, not missing a beat.

It was in her nature to not display any kind of emotions towards others, yet when he was in her presence she couldn’t help smiling with him. Her small, pouty lips were the only thing that has any color in them. Red, the color of romance and affection; the color of blood and deception. Because that was what she was. Love was okay with that…He heard her laugh once. It was random, and completely unexpected. But ever since that day he’s tried to make her laugh every time they would meet. He would even settle more a small chuckle, as long as he heard it from her. It was haunting, and hollow, but inside he knew she wasn’t empty and she wasn’t haunting. All she needed was love.

The time had come for their reunion. Although they had been together just moments ago, to Love it felt like years had been put between he and Death. He always looked forward to these encounters, yet he still dreaded them. He knew that every time he would meet Death it wouldn’t be for a friendly chat; Death was going to rip his heart out.

Love: It’s nice seeing you again…how long has it been dear? Two weeks maybe? Haha.

Death: It feels more like two hours. Then again what do we know about time…it’s not like I’m a heavenly angel, or God.

Love: …No, you’re not. But then again you aren’t the devil either.

She stayed silent, not sure of how to respond to such a dramatic and confusing comeback from him. He always did this to her. Every time she would lash at herself with the worst of comments, he’d always say the opposite…She didn’t know whether she liked it, or if she was supposed to hate him for it. She didn’t even know if she was supposed to hate anyone at all. Death was always curious about Love’s actions. Ever since they were created he was always this hopeless romantic who was too hopeful in mankind's ability to remain faithful for his own good. He spoke about everything in such a blissful state that Death found herself enchanted by his words from time to time. The optimistic he was compared to her pessimistic. She couldn’t help but wonder if opposites can really attract. Because right now as he stood before her about to die for the infinite time he smiled, and that always pained her to see.

Death: Why do you do this to yourself…why do you let this happen to you every time when you know you can always tell God you’re tired of getting broken every time this happens…why do you let yourself die Love…why do you let the love die?

He smiled at her, and she looked away. Damn him. Damn his bright smile that made everything okay. Why couldn’t he see that it literally hurt her to do this to him…She looked up, because she felt something different. Instead of a bright smile she always felt from him…she was met with broken, tired eyes, and a bittersweet smile.

Love: Nothing is meant to last forever dear, not even us. Thats why…when we have to end it, I always look forward to seeing you again. Even if it took a day, a week, a month, or even years. You and I are inseparatable. We’re made for one another darling.

He closed the distance between them, taking her in a warm embrace. If only she could see his face. His angelic, perfect face. Her white eyes could only see a dark outline of him, but even with that she knew he was beautiful.

Love: God really knew what he was doing when he made us. Opposites by fate, yet destined to be lovers. God’s a pretty good Shakespeare isn’t he? Then again he did create him too.

Death could only laugh at his witty thoughts. For once she realized he was right. They were destined to be lovers, just not always together. She guessed thats what it must be like to be a human too. Not everyone born spends their life with their first love. She sort of thought her situation was like that, but it wasn’t either…With the distance they shared coming to a close, Love couldn’t help but get lost in Deaths large pale eyes. With their faces only inches away Death brought their lips together with her cold, thin hands for life’s most bittersweet kiss.

Love: Until next time, my sweet Death.

Death: Until next time, by everlasting love.

In the event of life’s misfortunes, there will be two things that will always be a part of life. Love and Death. Life cannot be created with the absence of love, nor can death keep the balance without the existence of life. Love will forever continue to create life as long as Death continues to let it go. The two things that people can come to fearing the most are histories tragically, oldest soul mates that can never be. Love will always be understand, and Death will always have to let the love go, and Life will continue to be their children they must learn to set free for a better life.

[vanityloves]

anyways im gonna listen to/read the fuckin...rise of the ogre shit bc ive been putting it off 🪓🥴 im gonna put stuff under the cut bc im gonna be TALKING n dont wanna make a new post everytime

piss

ok he performed for 2 pounds 50. which is basically $3 today i- well it was absolutely a power play on his father behalf that also had the promise of money so.

also lol he said Rejection fueled my ambitions which, yknow,, i already knew but it still hurts and i will continue to talk ab it xoxo

AH HELP. "...if ebay had been invented at the time he would've sold me online there and then,"

"man hands on misery to man, yknow"

THEN PROCEEDS TO CONNECT IT TO MUSIC/HIS CAREER. this man said :) the one thing i truly have a passion for. the one thing i fucking like.

oh yeah. bullied by students AND teachers.

oh god hes 42ish during this interview? ok.

the fuckin school bully saying he wouldve acted differently if he knew what hed become

getting called "faceache", then proceeds to call 2d that. jfc he really does just repeat what everyone says. really "treating others how i was treated/how they treat me"

maybe thats why? hes kinder to fans? bc :] you support me and like me so, ok ill return that energy

MURDOC GETTING HIS ASS BEAT N PARADING HOME LIKE WELL I WON BC 'I PISSED YOU OFF' SJDJD

a real rowdy boy. absolute nasty boy. fraud and arson... shooting ppls windows with his air pistols

black sabbath being a huge inspiration? fucking absolutely.

became a satanist n shit at age 16? "it fitted me like a glove" "heavy metal and devil worshipping became my favorite past times" ajsj funny that ppl in trying times often seek religion or following of some sort

heavy metal being his favorite, n loving the clash, while hannibals was more punk based

hannibal breaking murdocs nose for the 2nd and 3rd time for playing his music on hannibals turntable

he doesnt sound that bitter? ab hannibal? he doesnt sound incredibly fond but he talks ab how he got him into a lot of music. so, i imagine they we're a bit closer than i thought?

international baccalaureate in antisocial? anthropology?

MURDOC IS ACTUALLY SMART HE WAS JUST. NOT INTERESTED IN THE SUBJECTS? I GUESS? (also,,, he literally Built cyborg noodle and i think he had a PhD too lol. but its always nice to hear hes actually...yknow, interested or good at other things)

alright but murdoc having a fascination w/ other cultures - or at least some interests, that lead him to actually study the damn subject and "pass with flying colors"

'fuck college though. im gonna be a rockstar'

he sold his soul at 18ish? whenever the fuck he got kicked out but college was mentioned so my brain goes to 18ish idk

he lived with his father still and paid rent via low paying jobs one including 'part time dressing as santa'

help he was ab to take a Personal Job for quick cash and uhh well, "still made me call him sir though" he really said 20 dollars is 20 dollars, huh "that story was totally true"

alright, 1997,,,

2d stuff

loves zombie stuff? thats really cute, and is freaked out by the way they move. god he rambles

both he and murdoc are horses in the chinese zodiac

[[jfc ok if the official shit compares them a lot i understand why ppl ship them but Dont. its a narrative foil and that doesnt always mean Romance jfc.]]

SUMTHINK.

truly... a lil stinker. super cute bouncing baby and a "bit thick" which is stull so endearing to me. hes just a happy man!

excitable 10 year old and would dance around his room

jfc the fact he has normal/caring parents. i kinda forget how opposite hes supposed to be from murdoc but i think thats another thing jsjsysg (murdoc said why isnt my tragic story making me famous why does he get to be the Star. no wonder he acts like a loon)

i still dont get how gettin bonked by a tree branch made him go bald and also turn his hair blue

big tiddy nurse mommy,,,

went to the same school as The Cure and got decent grades despite hittin the noggin quite hard. WANTED TO BE A STORM CHASER... OMG??

oh thats really cute, hed bond with his dad by building keyboards toegther ����💕

messed around with paints and graffiti? artistic king

MURDOC AGAIN: QHDJ 'VILLANOUS' GANG HELP

oh yeah d day...new instruments, new band, new singer - and 'had to be the best or no dice' and absolutely CONFIDENT that his songs were bangers ajsjd

but on that same note, had absolute faith (or desperate) in 2d which i love

ransacked the fucking music shop jdjdj and 2d said he was Just Standing There behind the counter the whole shift hdhdh

"thats when your eye came out, yeah" "yeah!-" HELP WHY DOES HE SOUND SO HAPPY AB IT ?? yes he said ut hurt but he sounds...ok

jfc murdoc ragdolling this poor mf around. dunking him and slapping him around. actually? so incredibly terrible and abusive and i hate him for that 🔫 im sorry 2d stans. we dont condone that behavior here ong.

how and why the FUCK did 2d's parents allow that fucker near their child after that i??? help. wtf. his moms a nurse why didnt she just have murdoc sit in plain view of other people. god damn.

2d flying out the window n hitting the curb "whoops"

"just two black holes...[ah] it looked great...a blue hair, blacked eyed GOD- the girls would go wild-" "pretty boy looks" ???? HELP. HE DOESNT GO LIGHT ON THE COMPLIMENTS, HUH

RUSS TIME

oh yeah, he straight up kiddnapped this man help. idk how he managed that, russ is a Big Man??

AND MURDOCS MUSIC WAS SO FUCKING SEXY GOOD that russel said hm alright ill stay, :] out ifbhis owm free will im screaming.

"oh this is one of them febreeze commercials" "uh . yeah sure. *murdoc turning on his Sick Tunes*" but that either means? it was just his guitar playing the convinced russ? unless he and 2d recorded sumn?

"2d was the looks, murdoc the brains, then russel truly was the heart"

'while 2d and murdoc liked music, this man was a MUSICIAN' god fucking bless this book holy shit ny man russ getting some respect. he said back hurts from carrying this band.

murdoc basically heard this guy had big trauma that gave him So Many Skills n said "thats what i want" ok idk thats actually really? inch rest ting to me. seems that murdocs fine handing out compliments but i guess that where his charisma really helps out yeah?

"he was going to be in my band whether he liked it or not" ...murdoc-

HELP. 2D IS LIKE BRO GO ON IM LISTENING 🥺 despite hearing the story 50-60 times and murdoc said fuck off you lil shit.

ok irrelevant but i love his voice! its super comforting n nice to listen to 🥺

HELP MURDOCS SO BITTER. "NOTHING THAT HAPPENS TO US IS NORMAL" WELL YEAH. THIS IS TRAUMA CENTRAL.

idk how/why he sucked up all his friends souls though ... how are they all possessing the same person. they said "its my turn on The Russ"

DELL IS HIS ACTUAL, LITERAL SOULMATE...KING...😭

went to a private school,,, and was already possessed? and the thing where he gets bigger and smaller is a reoccurring thing?

was in a coma for 4 years?

hiphop machine...time and history...the ultimate set i guess.

his knowledge was infinite and hes a "Renaissance man" hes so fucking smart our king. jack of all trades but a master of drums. he said i know im good and what of it

PAULA.

HELP. HE RMBRS THE STALL: CUBICAL NUMBER 3 🥴 IF I DO RECALL 🤤

yes russel our king. fuck up his nose 5 more times. probably stunted his growth too. he shrunk after russ gave him a wallop im sure

why dies paula sound like tracer overwatch

also only dated 2d for 2 months before joining the band?

HELP SHE REALLY WAS THE FIRST MURDOC FUCKER: "but when i saw murdoc with his thick greasy hair, green teeth and yellow skin i thought 'oh this is the ine for me!'" "OH HES SUCH A DANDY-" HELP ME IM HQJDHD

sick in the head...like i want to hurt people help girl. shes fucking Crazy. but she rly said damn i didnt hear back from him again 😭 and my purse is gone JSHHD

MURDOC: SHE WAS DEPRESSINGLY UGLY *still fucked her*

NOODLE TIME

"small japanese person!"

2d: we werent gorillaz until noodle arrived!

im dying the reason he chose gorillaz. 'swinging through the jungle baring my ass'

noodle really said "im just happy to be here" and she balanced everyone out 😭 "she gave off pure love and the fact that she could laugh at murdoc REALLY helped too" RUSS... IS BABY

JFC MURDOCS SO FUCKING CONFIDENT IN THIS BAND IM LIVING FOR THAT. HE SAID YOU WANT US SO BAD IT MAKES YOU LOOK STUPID. THE CHARISMA

2d rambling ab some girl he met and "ssSs" "whats the s stand for hawhaw" "i dont know!".

THE RECORD LABEL GUY.

one song is all it took i ❤ good for them

just murdoc talking ab the party that they threw for thier deal and saying "you dont know how much of a dick i felt like [when carrying one of those huge checks]" like oh thats whatll make you a dick? alright.

A FOOD FIGHT THAT WENT SO HARD THAT IT KNOCKED 2DS TONSILS OUT? WHAT THE FUCK

ahshdj damon and murdoc not getting along bc of Rival Band One Uppery + damon calling murdocs cuban heels crap since ge wore steel ones with gold spurs.

MURDOC FEELIN EMBARRASSED BC HES 'QUITE PROUD OF HIS SHOES'

but the band and damon getting over music and their ambitions and became a "paternal figure"

HELP MURDOC SAID AWIOGA @ RACHEL WHICH MADE HER THROW HER DRINK IN HIS FACE AND SPLIT FROM 2D. kinda sad actually, she said i still like 2d but murdoc kinda ruined it by trying to get it in with me, it put a strain in our relationship :/ oh god murdocs That Dude

nov 31 1998: started recording :]

40 tracks that got cut down to 15 holy shit

KONG STUDIOS 🤲

hooking up cameras in every room ejdjsu

webby artist of the year in 2006? holy shit

noodle learning ab kong studios omfg

JFC. YES I KNEW KONG WAS BUILT ON/IN A CEMETERY BUT I DIDNT KNOW PPL FOR THE FUCKING PLAGUE WHERE THROWN THERE HDJD

built in 1739?

the ghost of the first owners ghost still roams around in the kitchen in the early hours and moans 'aaa glass of water'

theres some rotting bullshit near the studios and in the summer its fucking TERRIBLE

the former owners were a biker gang, and they all died in a fire

murdoc said this place has bad vibes. i want it.

grim weather

the building feels impossible to escape from huHgg

[really-sleep-deprived-nerd]

The Gay Prince Dream (Roceit AU)

Okay so, this was based on a Dream I had.

TLDR: Roman is the prince sent to kill the shady wizard (Deceit) and they fall in love.

There was once a kingdom that was known for being a nice place full of kind and peaceful people. 

Roman is the Prince, while Virgil and Patton are the royal advisors. 

(Not relevant but Remus Annoyed The Wrong Witch and got cursed, so he is off in another kingdom looking for help to undo the curse. On his journey he somehow befriended Logan and now they travel together.)

Not too many months ago, a wizard made his house in one of the caves in the mountains behind the forest.

 He was pretty close to the kingdom and, understanbly, people lost their goddamn minds because of this.

Rumors about him spread like wildfire

Some people said that he had sold his soul to the devil so he could become more powerful, some people said that the gods grew jealous of his power/beauty/some shit and cursed him to slowly become a hideous monster, some people said that he was dangerous and evil, that he had killed and tortured innocent people for fun. 

Rumors said that only those that were truly desperate went seeking for his help, since they knew that it was probably a suicide anyways. 

Those who went to see him never came back.

Most people were scared to even say his name, so they referred to him as The Snake.

The king, understandably, started to fear for the safety of his kingdom if this wizard one day decided to attack. 

He decided to send his most trustworthy knight in a long term undercover mission to eliminate this possible threat. 

The knight was supposed to try and “befriend” this vile creature and, once he learned about his weaknesses, he was supposed to kill him the moment he had a chance.

The king gladly ignored Virgil´s argument about how it maybe wasn't the best of ideas to send his most trustworthy knight on a dangerous solo mission when said knight was also the only heir to the throne and sent Roman on his merry way.

Roman, surprising everyone (Including himself), took the smart route and, before going blindly into a deathly quest, decided to research and study what they actually knew about this wizard.

Turns out? They didn't knew a whole lot . 

There were only rumors or old stories that no one could prove. 

Well, excepting one thing: The people.

You see, people had actually went to see him and disappeared, but they were, according to their families, just “whiny and mildly upset about some nonsense” and that they “would have surely gotten over it if they hadn't been so god damn stupid to go and see The Snake”. 

And that catched Roman´s attention, because that “nonsense” their families were irritated about wasn't actually meaningless stuff. The complete opposite actually. 

Maria, the young daughter of a poor family had gone missing after she refused to marry the old and crusty noble man that had asked for her hand in marriage.  

Logan, the oldest son of a noble family had gone missing after stating that “Lady Delia is a beautiful and charming woman but that doesn't change the fact that I do not wish to engage in a romantic and or sexual relationship with her. Or with any woman, for that matter.” 

And the list just went on and on and on!

Roman was confused. 

And very much pissed at some of the people of his kingdom, but that's besides the point.

Still mainly confused, how come that no one knew exactly what this wizard was capable of doing? how come that people ran away to him and didn't come back? Like, sure, they had more than enough reasons to don't want to come back, but it's not like they packed their things before going to see The Snake, so what in the name of everything that is holy did the wizard do with them? Did he kill them? if so, why? people didn't kill people for no reason! 

“It's what evil monsters do, Roman, monsters have no reason to kill humans, they just do” had argued Virgil, but that's just plain bullshit, even monsters have a reason, even if it's just hunger.

So finally, after all that research that left him wondering if there was even a wizard to begin with, Roman packed his things and went to the wizard´s hideout.

Now, when he was told that the wizard “Lived in a cave” he was expecting, like, you know, a small and cozy cave with the bare essentials and a poorly made door or something like that.

But what he found couldn't be more different

For starters, the cave was big. We are talking shit-I-can't-even-see-the-ceiling levels of big. And it had a nice carved path on the stone floor that went from the entrance towards a nice and cozy looking cottage.

He approached it and knocked at the door. He shuffled awkwardly for a few seconds before the door opened to reveal a man that made Roman have A Gay Panic™

The guy was attractive. Like, otherworldly ethereal being levels of attractive. His factions were sharp and his eyes were hypnotic, one being a warm brown and the other being a bright almost yellow-y green. Half of his face was dusted with shimmering scales of that same color. His hair was slightly ruffled and was wearing a grey and yellow shirt with black pants.

When he saw Roman, his expression became an amused one.

“Oh, and what do we have here? A noble has come to dear old me for help? My, my, what an honor.” He practically purred “How could I possibly be of assistance, sir?” 

Roman surprisingly didn't melt and smiled.

“Ah, such is that I did not come to see you looking for help, it was out of mere curiosity” Roman lied. “I am right in assuming that you are the one they call “The Snake”?”

“Oh, is that what they call me now? What a lovely and not at all ominous alias they gave me!” He said with a roll of his eyes and a grin. “Why, yes, it is probably me, but I much prefer Dee if you don't mind”

Roman snorted and nodded “Duly noted, so, I have some questions that-”

“You want me to answer, excellent, since I'm sure this will be a long and not at all boring chat, would you perhaps like to come inside?” Dee offered and Ro accepted.

Both of them entered the cottage and Dee closed the door behind his guest to later guide him towards a living room of sorts. It had a couple of comfortable-looking chairs that were covered by soft and fluffy looking wool blankets.

“Please make yourself comfortable, sir” Dee instructed as he sat in one of the chairs, the “sir” was said in almost a mocking manner 

And they started talking. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Me? Oh well, this kingdom is just so lovely! Why wouldn't I want to come and visit?” He said with a roll of his eyes

“If you wanted to come and see the kingdom, why didn't you go to the town instead of staying here in the middle of a cave away from everyone like a gosh darn goblin?”

“My, why didn't I think of that! Staying in town with people that surely wouldn't ever dream of trying to throw rocks at me the moment they saw my face! I would have surely found someone to rent me a place, it's not like there is a stigma that us magic users are evil and should not be trusted! How could I-”

“Yeah I get it. Stupid question, no need for the overuse of sarcasm” Roman snorted.

And talked.

And the day became night and they still were talking.

And Roman discovered a number of things about Dee:

1) He wasn't actually “making people disappear”.To those that just badly wanted to run away he gave an always-full skin of water and an infinite loaf of bread and sent them on the direction to one of the neighbouring kingdoms.

2) He was charming and sweet and kind.

3) He actually got the scales after a witch cursed him to become a basilisk  because she mistook him for the guy that killed her husband. Upon realizing her mistake the witch tried to undo the curse but the scales wouldn’t go away. He thinks they add a little Something to his Aesthetic and the witch still feels terrible about it to this day.

And so, Roman decided to keep visiting Dee.

Fast forward a couple of months and Ro has got himself a new boyfriend that Virgil would very much like to burn at the stake and Dee has got himself a new boyfriend that drags him off in Reckless and Moronic adventures and that might just be the only human on this god forsaken planet to out-gay and out-drama him.

They love each other very much.

[rukakikuchi]

LOONA theory - Heejin isn’t God of the LOONAverse; she was a fallen angel

One of the most popular theories regarding the LOONAverse is that Heejin is the God and created not only the LOONAverse, but the other girls as her angels. While this is an intriguing idea, since she is the first member of LOONA and her video “ViViD” essentially marks the start of the LOONAverse and their story, I don’t think Heejin is a God.

I mean, would an all-powerful God want to turn themselves into a high school girl and get stuck in an infinite time loop curse?

Okay okay, joking aside, while I found the idea interesting, I personally just see Heejin as a normal girl. However, I have recently been considering a new idea in regards to who Heejin really is.

In my theory about ViVi, I mentioned that her representative color was pastel rose, a shade of pink and an irregular color. Well, Heejin’s representative color is also a shade of pink; bright pink. And we’ve previously tied the colors of the girls to which world they might have originated from. So this got me thinking…

Was Heejin originally from Eden? Or perhaps even Heaven?

Heejin’s story

So we’ve already talked about Heejin’s story in “ViViD” in the context of her character in the LOONAverse, as well as through dream analysis, but now let’s look at it and see what clues we can find to Heejin potentially being from Eden.

We see Heejin working as a servant or housekeeper for a woman in black (played also by Heejin) lamenting her boring, repetitive days and wishing for a life filled with vibrant colors and excitement.

The woman she works for is clearly wealthy from what we can see of the music video. From the colorful mansion to the fancy clothes, there’s an overall feel of elegance and wealth to it. 

And as we know, Eden is meant to be a perfect world, though that “perfection” comes at the cost of personal freedom. And Heejin isn’t happy with the life she’s living. She’s bored of doing the same thing over and over; she wants something new, something different, something that excites her.

She says in her lyrics, “I wish for a new day each day I wake up, I don’t want to become numb towards myself without the light.”

This could’ve led her to the decision to leave Eden. I mentioned before that in the final shot of “ViViD”, she looks out the window as if she senses something. Maybe she felt something calling to her, or a strong desire to go to Earth.

Either way, she finally decided she had enough of her monotonous life in Eden and escaped. But, like we discussed with ViVi if she was originally from Eden, Heejin left without eating a forbidden fruit.

She didn’t become an android, but I think she could’ve lost her memories of Eden completely by the time she arrived on Earth. Or, perhaps like with ViVi’s memories, they were simply altered.

Another “ViViD” story

It’s interesting that Heejin has two versions of her solo song; the original jazzy “ViViD”, and the more laidback acoustic remix.

She didn’t get a second solo song like Kim Lip or Yves, which would’ve continued the pattern of the first member of each subunit getting two solo songs. They specifically gave her two different versions of the same song, similar to ViVi’s solo with “Everyday I Love You” and “Everyday I Need You.”

In fact, the two music videos we got for both versions seem to serve the same purpose as ViVi’s. “Everyday I Love You” showed us a restored though slightly warped version of ViVi’s human memories, while “Everyday I Need You” focused on ViVi in Hong Kong in what we can assume is the present day.

Now what about “ViViD”? Well, while the music video for the original version shows Heejin dreaming of a more exciting, colorful life in luxury, the video for the acoustic mix shows us Heejin on Earth, in Paris.

The footage was actually shot during the photoshoots for Heejin’s single, and most of the sets show Heejin in a gorgeously lavish mansion, wearing fancy clothes and jewelry. 

Moreover, she’s clearly happier, and more free.

Interestingly enough, they actually include a few clips that clearly show the photoshoot going on, with the staff visible, and Heejin talking to the camera. Several of these clips were even used in LOONA TV.

Now, outside the context of the LOONAverse, it’s a cute little montage of behind-the-scenes footage from Heejin’s Paris photoshoot. But what does it mean *within* the context of the LOONAverse?

Are we to assume that the real Jeon Heejin’s life as an idol is at least somewhat shared with her fictional counterpart in the LOONAverse? I wouldn’t say it’d be completely out of the question. After all, in Cinema Theory, there was a special clip called “ViVi’s Letter to Hong Kong” which showed the girls living their lives as idols but also contributed to the lore simultaneously (namely the ending shot of Jinsoul in her outfit from SCL).

It could be possible that Heejin becoming an idol would help her find the other members to gather LOONA, and they use their music to spread their message to other “LOONAs” in order to help them break out of the loop.

Moreover, there’s a shot that shows Heejin on a merry-go-round, perhaps representing her being stuck in the loop.

I also just generally find it intriguing that Heejin’s photoshoot have her in such fancy settings and dresses. Maybe this Heejin’s life is wealthy and luxurious, similar to the life she dreamed of having in Eden, but because she didn’t have the other members around, she could feel deep down that something was missing.

Heejin’s connection to Olivia

It’s been made clear to us that there is a connection between Heejin and Olivia. They’re the first girl and last girl to debut respectively. One girl not only has bright pink as her representative color, but wishes for her life to be full of vivid colors like a rainbow, while the other has silver or black as her representative color. They are day and night, the beginning and the end.

If Heejin was originally from Eden, it would make sense that they’d know each other, just like ViVi’s connection with Yves.

In fact, if you watch the Cinema Theory teaser, Heejin is the only one shot in black and white, holding a black bunny instead of a white one like in her solo video. 

Olivia was just shown as a silhouette, because she hadn’t been revealed yet, but why would they have Heejin, the girl associated with bright vibrant colors like pink, be shown in black and white?

Could it be representing when she was in Eden, and how she saw her life as lacking color? Or maybe it’s her shadow/dreamworld counterpart, something we’ve associated with being shown in black and white in the past. That could also explain why her rabbit is black instead of white; because things become reversed on the flipped side of the Moebius strip.

Okay, now that we’ve discussed one possibility, I’d like to discuss another possibility for Heejin’s true identity.

Heejin, the fallen angel

I’ve already talked about how I believe that the true God of the LOONAverse is a Goddess named “LOONA” and each girl might represent some aspect of her.

Well, I think Heejin might’ve actually been an angel who served under the Goddess, possibly even helping her create the LOONAverse. Like I said earlier, she was seen in “ViViD” as a servant, tasked by her master (who I have also theorized could be the Goddess taking human form to watch over Heejin) to clean the mansion.

Heejin might’ve been in charge of keeping the LOONAverse stable. But remember, Heejin is ambitious, a dreamer, and gets bored easily.

She might goof off every now and then instead of doing her job. She might dream up her own ideas of what she’d want to have in the LOONAverse. And that hubris might’ve gotten the better of her.

There have been a couple of hints that the story of Icarus plays some part in the LOONAverse. We see it referenced in Yves’ solo song... 

And there was also a painting of “the fall of Icarus” depicted in the mansion where yyxy taped their videos.

What if Heejin caused the LOONAverse to become unstable? Maybe she tried to add something into the LOONAverse to make it more exciting, more full of vibrant color, like she would want. However, whatever she did made the world unstable.

I’ve seen a theory that Heejin might’ve been the one to cause the loop the girls are trapped in, and if that were the case, maybe the LOONAverse becoming a Moebius strip was a result of that instability.

Regardless whether or not she did, she might’ve tried to undo her mistake, or even flew down from Heaven in order to try and stop the instability from getting worse.

Eventually, Heejin got caught up in that instability, drowned in the colors as they spread out of control, like we see in the music video. The Goddess likely undid what happened, as we see the colors fading by the end of the video, but it doesn’t completely get rid of the instability. The LOONAverse is now stuck in a Moebius loop, and Heejin is turned into a human girl without her memories as an angel.

It’s also possible that the instability and time loop curse might’ve been caused by an outside force. Pandora’s Box is mentioned in Kim Lip’s solo.

I even wrote a short story based on the LOONAverse where I portrayed the girls as angels, and that chaos was unleashed onto the world after a devil was released from a box. (Read here.)

Whatever the case may be, if Heejin was in fact an angel, she might’ve fallen from Heaven because of her ambition getting the best of her, and tried to save her friends and the world her Goddess made, only to become trapped on Earth as a result.

Hope you guys enjoyed this theory! Let me know your thoughts as well!

Until then, stan LOONA!

[whatsthenameofthisgame]

Intergalactic Interrogations (II)

"Where am I?"

[What do you mean?]

"Instead of just sitting there moving blood all day, and failing roughly might I add,- Are you recording this conversation? That's disrespectful, I'll have you know we started learning binary and ridiculous little facts about your friend. I don't know who raised you wrong,"

[Hey.}

"I'd- {emmited} have you forget. Speak English numb for brawl! *maybe there is a slap here*"

["Go to the top 10 close or near you everywhere you go that you consider the smartest people in the world & become their best friends foreverest...," I drawl out every one of my answers like a disgusting fountain, yet they aren't happy with any of them. To think it all could have started with a scared girl asking me what I know and warp through timespace paranoia, or that quantum mechanics has caused this all to be real.]

"Here's (apparently) what living sages do they write all of the time. And they secretly don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about them."

[I'm listening to someone write the show for me, I don't always connect parts of my brain with other parts so well, but when I don't its's because I'm completely mental that I can make things out as other sounds.]

"He inserted apparently over us. What a dick head."

[I was writing before this as well. Get ready for another roundabout of Intergalactic Interrogations]

["How would you describe this, Fake Judas(2) what kind of situation do we have here? Remember, I'm made to forget and then reremember again."]

"It's very logical. It's simple. You have to have a Marine Corp mindset in infilitrating the cause."

[I am both afraid and completely unafraid of what I am doing. To be afraid of this silly game would be ridiculous and stupid. On the other hand he's been learning from me as I learn from him-]

"He's been completely thinking ridiculous things over what we're saying. He's a whoremonger." ""IT IT,"" maybe demons scream, but I am untethered from the boulder like a chain beneath the ocean, the weight simply presses into the sand. The fishes swim around as I wander in my drowning to the top where the ship is safe in the sunlight.

[On the other hand- quantum questions pose like prose, possessing possibly -  I ignore FakeJudas(2). It is hard to keep up with everything. I need a writer still. I turn to Affiliate. Please have Alliteration do her thing without guiding us into rap for hours on end again, thank you very much. Affiliate looks confused and furious, for I often thought he was on the wrong end of the job spectrum ever since our staycation in the fire bird land of no sounds, place of the falsified Gods, faces in the spaces, The Devil's home of Peter's ignorances ... Anyway where was I? It is really hard to keep up with everybody and everything. There is a whole plot line, that I feel truly matters, and we are all missing it for the amount of activity going on in all of your heads while I've got mine. Is it mine? To start. Or are all of these conversations I'm tapping into the way of the real brain. Every particle of water an ocean? Every idea a world of thought? I already thought so. It isn't time for creative freedoms. I think we are supposed to focus on my suicide. For the sake of suicide. "Aha! Where we were last standing, one of the better reasons why I have roses elegantly and unevenly tattooed on my fingers. They're both cocked and one is in my mouth outright, while the other is at you. It was in your hands, and I gave you the tools necessary to save it. Save your belly aching. Every bit of paranoia, was it real, or were you trying to induce it? Save it for the masses. I know it's always a little bit of both. And that the most obvious answer is usually the truth. Variety is the best spice- and I'll have at my dad's pizza with way too much spice, for the loving good Grace from which Moses parted the water of life into place, (I am making a Tokyo MewMew joke that is a bit elongated) the V for which has He, Friends With Time, Drawer of Lord Excalibur when I actually love myself, rainbow gay pride I've forgotten uniciorn chapter books volume one and two powers activate!) *I start to turn, /now I am not paying attention to anything as I mash jokes into my own life story./

"This is what we paid for. This is disgusting filth. Think you can handle it?"

Think you can handle it? Would Filthy Frank even read this shit right here? We didn't even pay for all of these references. We're just hoping we get so many more people on team blue than team red so that we're able to just diss the suing right out of the waters like a lotus. Hah! Get that. I'm named after water so I'm doing water jokes. Listen, kid. I have heard a lot of jokes from the demons. You really don't want to start with me. I'm trained to accept them as a compliment, which I was saying back before we were all *I'm channeling Filthy Frank's voice in a ricefields sunhat visor right here* simple and shit. Now they are even trying to insult me with compliments and it's working. Listen, you never did knew that evil was good and proper and right. There was a new face of evil on the block, and it was the face of a genius sociopathic borderline child.

"Oh my God, You really do think like you're God."

[Guess what. Bitches, I have Autism so I cannot understand the emotional connotation in your words. Knowing that, I interpret it as fast as crazy, which is why no sweat because I also know that sometimes that's exactly what you're doing. Meaning I think of many ideas and crap. Your every thought could come to me like an intellectual process. I have no way of being.]

"Do you think you're special? Stay on topic please, I've seen we've gone a little socio today lady."

["I am silent. All is the same in my canoe which is made of wood and has travelled from hell through the underground rivers to the open and vast, great sea. Cold, or hot, shivering or sweating, thirst or hunger, war, famine, fire, flood, I know that I must and can navigate through it and 'round, 'round again, for this canoe and its lantern was tethered to my soul, it was tethered to my idea of neutral state meditation through chaotic forces. I was the canoe, one could say. I was the ship. Or the wood. The wood which came from the tree. Maybe The Tree. A Tree of Time, careful creature, making friends with it. And as the tree, and with brainwaves being like a tree, and all things one in the same, I made a hollow for those beyond to perch before they fade to worlds-"]

"This is artinery, itternerary(?) Get to the point."

[Often what I say, I sort of contribute to ghosts and other things.]

"This is what we get out of you? Jesus. (What are you, Santiago?) What happened to the sainthood?"

["Indeed I am Santiago, Another one of my many names, Dare ye say it, (Which they didn't.)]

"Look at what this kid is thinking of completely loaded. I think that maybe it is hilarious. Or perhaps all his excuses for crap."

[Indeed that all of this content was now filler. JENGA was on hiatus since the before times. We cannot remember those Interrogation Negotiations. But they were amazing. We have screenshots of half of them and had to delete the better half because they were too good and terrifying. We will try to interpret the rest of them someday (soon?).]

[The prophet wasn't just an excuse I made up. It was A Dream. A Dream that one day we will live not by the color of our skin, but by the confusing and complex mental makup which propels us towards the best future for us evolutionarily. Forget about that, everything. Like you have made me, by my words, let us start from the beginning.

Two systems learning from each other causes complex interactions to occur, especially when both have different and unfair advantages over each other. One could say each part of the brain that makes up the whole is its own complex system.]

"Stop talking about them to other people. I hope they rot for what they did to those people."

[Here is a classic bit where I have the chance to explain how either The Devil or The Enemy (FakeJudas2) Might try to make me look like the culprit. Reverse Psychology. It works on me. Which is why my card is chaotic. I don't want you to know what I'm doing, and if you do, then why should it matter what I do? It seems the whole world knows and yet no one knows. God knows what nobody feels like, because he is like us, we are made in his image. If I am nobody, he is nobody. So nobody knows just as well enough as anybody knows. But in both parts give or take, there are still bodies. Lot's of bloody and mutilated bodies which The Enemy has made of my Friends' & Loved One.]

/I take le break/

Depending on how serious JENGA gets, we have to use different members of the army through me. How did we get here, how is this all possible. It is a really meaningful story with lots of science, but we do not have infinite time. I will try to get to that at most.

"What about your boyfriend,"

["For the sake of Einstein, for the sake of proving you can go from Autism to full-blown socio, that realizing the brain works in the way that it does, and that it is all of your faults for being stupid assholes. It my fault for being a stupid asshole. And God is My Judge. Not You."]

"So, are you planning on telling him about any of this, or do you not know how important he is?"

["For the sake of insanity, genius is found."]

"Are you still completely avoiding the question? And how is it that he knows we're watching him for? Does he complete God in the blood?"

[Some things I do not understand. Or remember, or reitterate well. Catch me on drugs. Dattebayo! *flashback* Dattebayo was where it all started. The ten men, pandora's box, the stories, the puzzles, the lands across, the signs, a single time fine dining, and it is also there but not completely all-there.]

"So dattebayo was where it all started, huh? How embarrassing for one so wasted on the regular."

["Never giving up. Dattebayo. Believe it." "How about the story of the modulators some more? Before or after they were modulators? I have many stories to entertain you."]

"even when the conversation is all dead he has a way of going more crazy." a girl chimes in "He's probably been listening to what we are saying and considering it as JENGA."

he continues "Tell me a story to entertain me, that is what I am here for, give me a wild ride, show me some lude-icrous, something more, vivid, that shows me your kind of ideal lifestyle."

["You sounded like the villain in Tarzan for a second there. Well that's me, Tarzan. Me. Need. Jane. Didn't think I could play her. Rub the mud on my face, ask my monkey mother why I am not like them, she says to wipe the mud off.]

"I'm getting more curious, about what you're doing... you can write more than pages, you can write a book."

[I have, it's something I've always been working on. I've written loads of books, just lost, unpublished, deleted... How about I get really high and have someone speak through me now that we're getting down to the odds and ends. Let's get to the nitty-gritty of it. Once you find a way to constantly market off of things that might bother you, you have struck gold my son. The idea however, is to make them better, not worse, so they have a reason to last through the ages. Easier said than done...]

"He/She talks like an old wheezer. They can't- Can they hear me? Can they hear over our conversations? *plethoras of someones' breathy Oh my Gods" over everything. That means they know we're here, they can really hear us! Good job,"

[Did the dialogue switch into a ghosts' narration? It is hard to tell without any figures to watch with my eyes, and the words coming with systems built into a natural Ouija of my own. I won't literally raise hell again, yet... it is always tempted. And must be avoided. We're stepping too close to stories of old. The quantum questions must be pressed. Think harder. I don't know what it is you're thinking, I'm only typing. I am a genius if we aren't psychic, and a numbskull for God if we are All One.

The modulators can be set to different configurations, and put into different settings and events to see the initial outcomes in a module. At all of the Modulators worst configurations, M for their last name is capital. A good example of perfect awful configurations is religious reenactments by a family module within my own person. One's nature is that of a dads', Two is that of a moms', Three is that of a sons', four is that of a daughters', And the configurations always leans towards the predominantly biased neutral algorithyms.

Too much math, too may graphs to come, not sure how to organize it all, so we will have to say, partay.]

"So it feels like you're being taken advantage of by everything." my best friend asks me as my mom may also paranoidly be bothering my brother about me in the distance because I am typing so fast in the middle of the night.

[We've has this conversation before, so it's GroundHog day, only bigger, it's a show.]

"That's what we've been trying to tell you, You should write a show instead of bothering, us."

["Where is Jeremy Todd Ewbank?" I am the horseman, or headless, all the numbers, and the dungeon master because we currently already have a dab master, so you can Direct Message me the answer, Because I'm the Daniel Manual you've been looking for.]

"Jeremy Ewbank is not with us anymore. He's literally done. He can barely breath from your shit."

[The interrogations go haywire as soon as they begin again. Which one of us is being interrogated. "What happened to Jeremy Ewbank. Don't make me rhyme a hundred things with master in a bad rap. Aye, you know that gurl was my princess. You know, we know, we would never let go of or throw away one another, so where is he, *I put an invisible gun, but because I have written this, I will always be paranoid of them. We have to avoid them.

Evacuation Strategies: Red dots: Fun if you're a cat, dangerous if it is a gun. Shrodinger's Gun.

I take a break from interrogations because of laziness and lack of drugs. "JENGA," I claim, and the imaginary tower falls. How to explain a thing about creative manifestation to you, about all of the wild possibilities? So hard, I'd rather play Nintendogs for three hours.]

This is breaking bread with thine enemy

[invertedeidolon]

The Longest Library #3: Griffin & Sabine by Nick Bantock (Or, Eidolon again talks way too much about previous relationships, also, pretty art!)

(This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.)

Rundown: Postcard artist Griffin Moss gets a weird letter from a weird lady who can apparently see what he's drawing telepathically. They form an ill concieved bond over it. The story is told in colorful postcards and envelopes you can open and then read the mysterious things inside. 4.5/5 for calling me THE FUCK OUT and having some BOMB ASS ART.

I can't give it a full 5 because not everyone is going to have that experience when they read this. It's just going to look very strange and floaty and things won't make very much sense. This book hits close to home with me because it heavily echoes (more like yells about) my first long distance relationship. I'm not really able to see this book through any other lens, so that's what my commentary is mostly about.

So for the part that ISN'T about that stuff though: The art is amazing. Even though it's made by one person technically, both fictional artists have their own, distinct style. Let's be real: The art and the interactivity is the main draw of this book. There are envelopes inside with letters carrying a myriad of little details: Griffin uses a typewriter for his long-form letters, and bits where he's crossed out typos or added in letters with pen, or that Sabine's correspondence is something I now recognize as someone who uses quills or manual dip pens. The inconsistency in the color of her writings suggests she's using a homemade ink, brownish in color, slightly too watery. Maybe it's even watered down watercolor and not even ink at all. They've also made the background of her letters and cards a rich dark gray, while Griffin's is a clean, sterile white.

"Will you explain to me about those geometric paintings you did at Art college? I want to understand their hidden language of color and shape. It's so alien to me."

So this is about the fourth time I'm reading this book since I first got it, and now that I have to write about it, I'm noticing so many more details. Here the line "It's so alien to me."is written in smaller, slightly more rounded letters. The ink is much darker here too, suggesting she wrote this slowly, thoughtfully. What a detail!

Anyway that's it for the objective bits of the book, the rest is entirely subjective from here on out.

"The phenomenon that links us has taught me much about you, yet I am ignorant of your history."

My years and years of suffering emotional abuse set me up to be able to read and predict what was going on in your head perfectly, as well as respond in the most helpful ways with eerie precision, yet I am ignorant of your history, and who you really are (because you use such obtuse floaty language and metaphor. Who were you really? Suffering, but that's about all I could tell.)

"Why doesn't this alarm me as much as it should?"

Because we're already "in". And I "feel safe" to you because I've been trained to be the least offensive, most placating being in the universe. If I could build a business model on conversational comfort, if I could sell my goddamn empathy like the capitalist machine really wants me to, *I'd be so rich*. It would be like, a step down from therapist. Anybody want a virtual friend for like an hour? Gimme 20 and we can watch stupid videos or I can calmly talk you through bread making. It's okay, you can cry. GOD PLEASE LET ME JUST SELL MYSELF SAFELY, I WAS MADE FOR THIS GODDAMNIT.

"I want to hear everything. Write in detail. Tell me all about yourself. I demand to know - please."

This is like fucking CRACK to those with a suppressed self. An unwitnessed self. "Someone who's interested in ME, and won't yell at, ignore, or dismiss me for talking! Holy fuck I love you!"

"Finally I knew who you were. I counselled myself to be cautious and find out what you were like before revealing myself fully."

Sabine at this point is to the reader who I was to Him. A weird mythical creature, the non-human monster of your lonely adolescent imaginings, who is intimately aware of your secrets, "I've been watching you" it says before introducing you to a wondrous world free of the pains of living, where you actually feel loved and all is well forever and ever. Except I wasn't as inhuman as I wished to be.

"Occasionally I'd come home to a re-enactment of The Battle of Britain in the front room. [...] My entrance would make no difference to their dogfight, but when one of them accidentally (and inevitably) knocked over a pile of books, they'd stop instantly and unite to examine the extent of the damage."

The whole 'making light of a not-great home life because it was your normal for so long that you still haven't learned that you need to be horrified about it' thing. As well as passing it off as something funny. Thankfully this character's parents (SPOILER?) get literally run over by a truck and he gets sent to live with his mom's step sister who is really good and lets him ditch school to become a potter's apprentice and eventually go to art college. He never really deals with the grief when the step sister dies, OBVIOUSLY.

"And hearing that my existence eased your pain made my heart race. We have found one another, and I give thanks."

Hearing that my existence wasn't going to be punished but instead, made someone happy? Fucking HEROIN. Downplay it a little with grateful gentleness, I don't want to be punished for being presumptuous or for seeming like I like it too much. If I like things too much they get destroyed, hard.

"My kinsmen are responsive to me - but there is no one to reach my heart, and you who are so far away, have been closer to me than any man on the Islands."

This is something I remember. So far all they've done is shared eachother's life stories and gushed about how close they feel now. She (like my past self), has confused the feeling of 'finally, a witness! they're witnessing me! I've been Seen!' with the feeling of attachment. Of course she would feel infinitely more attached to this man. She's witnessed his most private moments as a creator for a good portion of her life. It's been a mainstay throughout her adolescence through adulthood, so of course an unwarranted sense of intimacy is going to be attached to this mysterious figure. The whole thing wrapped up in a dream like sense of mysticism.

"I remember your first erotic drawing; I was trembling from head to foot by the time you'd finished. Was that Sarah? No don't answer; I'm only teasing."

...Unless? (Man the implications hurt to think about. I REMEMBER THIS FEELING. This author has unintentionally called me out. I wonder how much of Sabine’s writing is actually calm, or if she’s reigning herself in almost constantly?)

"I was finding it hard to get over the idea of there being other men in your life when I reached the part in your letter about my erotic drawings. I stopped being jealous. We were lovers and I hadn't realized it. The drawings weren't of Sarah; they were of you."

ow ow ow ow ow ow JUST SAY IT ow ow ow ow, Also, I REALLY wanted her to be like 'bitch that looks nothing like me, what the fuck', but instead she's all like "So you've been making love to me ten thousand miles away - how tantalizing." URGH. TOO CLOSE, TOO FAST. DISENTANGLE YOURSELVES NOW. GRIFFIN GET HELP.

"I had failed to understand how unhappy you are. You cover up with jokes and a front of being self-contained. I'm worried for you."

EVEN SHE SEES IT, GET HELP.

"When you found me, I thought my loneliness had gone for good. I was kidding myself. I desperately desire your company. I haven't talked to anyone in three days. I was sure I was going to start seeing your pictures like you see mine. I've tried so hard. [...] How can I miss you this badly when we've never met?"

BECAUSE YOU MISS HUMAN CONTACT AND YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FAMILY LEFT YOU NERD, GET HELP. DON'T HANG IT ON ONE PERSON WHO IS TOO FAR AWAY TO HELP YOU IN THE WAY YOU NEED.

"Island magic works on island souls. You and I will heal eachother."

ANTIDEPRESSANTS MAYBE UUUUGGGGHHHHH

"I've started to hate this city, this country, all these stupid fucking people [...] I finally snapped. [...] I want to know what you look like."

*HEAVILY RECOILS*

"Why, my kindred spirit, are you prepared to settle for a postcard of my face? If you wish to see me, why not come here? What is there to stop you - you're clearly unhappy where you are. Come."

Yes. I offered and I offered and I offered. What's to stop you from just fucking TALKING TO ME instead of DISAPPEARING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. and then COMPLAINING THAT YOU'RE SO HURT AND LONELY. I'M LONELY TOO. WHEN I HAD THE MONEY YOU DIDN’T TAKE MY OFFER FOR ME TO COME SEE YOU, SO WHAT THE FUCK IS UP KYLE?

"Foolish man. You cannot turn me into a phantom because you are frightened."

This kind of sentiment is what lead to the breakup. This feeling of being large, and dark, and slighted. Being real and supernatural. Make your choice. Say REAL words instead of just flagellating yourself. Do I exist to you?

"If you will not join me, then I will come to you."

Unfortunately, Sabine has what I definitely did not: Mobility, the ability to make things real. She had a job and money and her own life and the ability to travel. I had a shitty little shared room in my parent's house where I spent most of the time partially starved and dodging devils in one form or another. Many many times I wanted to spontaneously show up and give him the closeness that he needed. But I couldn't. And he wouldn't take my words. He wouldn’t take me.

3 down, 294 to go.

[wafflewarriors]

The Not-So-French Mistake

Chapter 1: Angelic Abductions 

Sydney woke to an unfamiliar ceiling. She stood, eyeing the room, hands outstretched in a protective circle. The setting sun beamed in through the yawning windows and their golden rays glared over her face. Feverish, sweltering heat crashed down and sweat trickled off her forehead. It was the occasional, rickety hotel room with thin, decorative curtains and typical furniture. Yet a threat lingered in the air. 

Her apparent amnesia heightened her fear. However, with the lack of visible threats, she allowed her rigid shoulders to drop an inch. Nothing was off, per se, besides the apparent fact that she hadn’t recalled purchasing a hotel room; and for reasons unknown, her senses were warning her that she wasn’t alone: like a hidden, buzzing alarm somewhere in her conscience.

On cue, a gentle, cool draft blew in the room, and there a man stood at the foot of the doorway. He entered the room, his stare stoic and concentrated with a calm expression shaping his intense features. The khaki-colored trench coat embracing his shoulders fluttered with the breeze while his stark-blue tie politely waved.

Her eyes betrayed her. She dug her nails into the sweat of her palms, forming anxious fists that would dubiously protect her from whatever evil lay before her. An ocean of questions flooded her brain in a panicked moment, and she cowered fearfully. Her elbows tucked into her ribs, palms out in surrender like a frightened animal.

The man blinked benignly. Curiously, he took a step onto the lip of the carpet. He spoke honestly: “My name is Castiel.”

With a set jaw and a wary mind, she regarded the man. He appeared harmless: his ruffled dark hair and clear blue eyes dampened her nerves significantly. Continuing to gape like a fish, she struggled to form intelligible sentences. She finally demanded, “Where am I?”

Castiel neared cautiously to avoid alarming her. “A place you do not belong.“ He extended his arm toward her face, two fingers caressing her temple in a gentle profession.

A wave of bliss shot through her, blessing her muscles into a restful state. The darkest corners of her mind eased and folded under the grace’s fluid power, and she folded into unconsciousness as her eyes fluttered shut. She went limp and steady hands caught her before she descended onto the tile floor.

Castiel supported her deadweight and unfurled his wings. Then, with a confident rush of wind, the humid prison of a deserted hotel was behind them. The angel observed his new surroundings, while he gingerly assured the girl’s safety within his arms. Castiel pushed past a startled Bobby and grunted as he set her on the couch.

Bobby’s face wrinkled his brow in confusion and then raised them again, ready for a thorough explanation. “So, who’s the girl?”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, although his expression remained passive. He revealed three gleaming angel blades hidden in his trench coat and displayed them on the table. “Angels had locked her within an abandoned hotel not far from here.” His tone was soft and concerned. Regretful.

Dean and Sam both looked exhausted: the bruised raccoon eyes from lack of sleep and the slouched mannerisms proved their late-night research and hunting.

They had chosen their stance throughout Bobby’s country home: Castiel stood with his hands in his trench coat pockets while watching over the girl, Sam and Dean were both inclined up against the antique table, and Bobby had situated himself in a wooden seat.

Dean raised an eyebrow at the girl splayed on the couch. Her auburn locks fell onto her shoulders in chocolate waves. A snugly fit jean jacket enveloped her, the sleeves’ ends frayed and torn with age and worriment, while a plain black tank top fit her middle. Black leggings clung to her knees in wrinkles, but, oddly enough, no shoes were present. Dean immediately remarked, “Can she even drive yet?” For someone associated with angels, she was awfully young.

Castiel paused, considering it literally, and before he could embarrass himself by answering, and Dean stopped the angel. The hunter chuckled and rephrased his question, “Cas, what I mean is: Why do the angels care so much about a teenager? Is she human?”

Castiel looked regretful when he replied, “Yes. She has a human soul. Whatever the angels are searching for, it is foolish.” The angel blades along the table clattered as he nudged their handles, recalling their owners apologetically. The angel huffed, reluctant to tell as they waited patiently for him to explain. He owed them one, however. After all the favors the Winchesters had given, they at least deserved answers. “They stole her from a… variance of our dimension.”

Dean pouted a lip. “So, what? They went all, Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe on her? Yanked her out of the professor’s magic wardrobe?”

The angel watched, lost as Dean made references, so he merely continued explaining without acknowledging them. “No, Dean. She doesn’t exist here. That’s what makes this extremely dangerous.”

“Like… Aslan kind of dangerous?” Dean smirked.

“Aslan? The Turkish word for… lion?” he said, looking bewildered until he had decoded Dean’s phrase as a casual joke. He huffed, “No- no, Dean. This level of interference could cause catastrophic damage to our universe. This could disrupt time itself if we don’t prevent it. This could alter fate.” Castiel sought to prove how world-altering this could become.

Dean shrugged. “Another chance that our world may be royally screwed. Why am I not surprised? You know, sometimes I feel like the world is just begging for attention.” He took a calm sip of his half-empty glass. “So how do we get her… back?”

Castiel shook his head. “I don’t know if we can. There are infinite realities out there, Dean. Finding the correct universe would be like searching for a specific atom in an entire galaxy. It’s… unrealistic. Even to our standards, ” he said.

The hunter sent a silent impressed look. It wasn’t like they were defying the laws of nature on a daily basis or anything, but he couldn’t argue.

Sam froze. “Hey, wait. Is this related to that alternate reality we were thrown into by Balthazar? The one with our lives as a television show with no mojo? I remember now. Our names were, eh, Jared and Jensen?” He remembered that day. A world where supernatural, demons, and angels didn’t exist. Nothing of the sort had ever walked among anyone. It was a blessing, really. Plus, Sam and Dean had been ridiculously rich. He didn’t have a bad memory of the place, besides the angel Virgil pouncing on their tails.

He remembered how Cas had been. Or mostly, how he hadn’t been. Misha Collins, he recalled vaguely, the sweater-wearing variant of their angel friend. His voice had been higher-pitched, too: less gravelly and low. Misha had been rather vulnerable as a human. From the homeless man’s descriptive details, Sam had pieced together that Misha had blubbered and squealed blatantly as the blade of Virgil’s knife had pinched threateningly at his neck. Nobody could blame the guy: he had been an innocent, inexperienced variant of their mid-war Castiel. Although, now that the angel was here in the flesh while Sam speculated, he couldn’t help contrast Castiel’s and Misha’s polarity.

Castiel nodded. “Yes. A similar one.”

Sam made an abundance of facial expressions when he was thinking. His eyebrows would draw crinkles along his forehead and his teeth would grind together in thought. His eyes remained steady and sure. “Then couldn’t we use that symbol we used the last time? The one that glowed red on the window we jumped through?”

“No.” The angel answered sadly. “Not that simple. We knew about your location.”

Sam leaned back further against the table at Cas’s response. It never was that easy, was it? “So that’s it? We… let her stay?”

Without hesitance, the angel replied, “No. That could altogether upset the natural order. I suggest we find the angel responsible.”

All three hunters eyed the angel in anticipation. When he didn’t respond, Bobby spoke up, “Who, then?”

Cas fidgeted. “I don’t know yet.”

It was quiet after that. A whistle of hot wind trickling in from a loose window and danced throughout the house, filling in the silence the group left. In all seasons, nature’s sounds were talkative at this end of the country. The cicadas chirped enthusiastically when the stars blinked above, and the mosquitoes nipped when summer sweat pooled in their shoes. It differed completely from the city. There was no whining of engines besides their own, and the air smelled of sweet ponderosa pine: a soft, blended aroma of vanilla and butterscotch. The Singer Salvage Yard was a rusty home for the hunters, but it was home.

Dean couldn’t shake the instinct within him that told him to question the scenario, so he spoke up, headstrong. “Okay, but is this even a bad thing?”

“Of course, it’s a bad thing-!” Bobby barked incredulously.

“Yeah, yeah, but Cas said it could alter fate. So what if this could improve things around here? I mean, if we recruited her, think of the hunter she would-”

“That was not meant to encourage you, Dean.” Castiel disagreed. “You know too well how this turns out. Becoming vain over ‘good intentions’ backfire. They always do. Of all people, you should have learned this lesson by now.” He pivoted to take a glance at the comatose teenager on the couch cushions. She seemed at peace now, but once she woke, it would be worse than at the hotel. “She was petrified when I retrieved her. Imagine if she learned what lurked in the darkness. It could break her, Dean.”

Castiel had a point.

Dean shifted uncomfortably,  recollecting old memories that started with the phrase: ‘good intentions’. Sam’s par against demon blood and had spiraled into the upbringing of the devil himself and the apocalypse along with him. The time Castiel had been juiced up on souls and transformed into ‘God’ was also an example of ‘good intentions’ gone wrong. 

Dean could additionally add the constant sacrifice of his life for Sam’s as another example of where he could officially state he had literally been forming deals with death. Wearing Death’s ring and impersonating him for an entire day just to bring Sam’s soul back from Lucifer’s cage was a rather personal issue of his. Protective was a light term.

Cas sensed the hunter’s change of attitude and figured it best to drop the topic while they were still civil and level-headed. “I suggest you all sleep. I’ll take watch.” The angel shuffled into a comfortable position, preparing to stand silently for the rest of the night as the chirrups and warbles of birds outside hushed.

So, the idle room roused, itching for its inhabitants to sleep as the stars sat above them.

Bobby was first to act, and he migrated from his seat to settle for the night. The stairs gave a distinct thwap thwap of socks against the wood to indicate he was heading off to bed and leaving the boys to their own business.

Sam rose from his corner of the table, stretching and lumbering off to the car to rest like a defeated moose. The couch was occupied, so he was making do.

Dean raised an eyebrow, trotting off to grab another drink. Nobody bothered to protest against his habits because, unfortunately, this was Dean’s way of coping with the obstacles life threw at him. Eventually, Dean would settle; however, the rattle of a fridge shutting proved it would not be for a while. He returned to the living room, glass now refilled with alcohol. He sat at the desk chair Bobby had abandoned and swayed pleasantly to the hum of crickets sounding through crevices in the walls.

Dean flashed an amused look towards Castiel. “You know, you don’t need to stand over her like a hawk. You carved the sigils into her ribs, right?”

Castiel was, indeed, hovering over the teenager. He blinked, realizing his mind had gone blank with fatigue. Faltering, he swapped his attention to the hunter. “Yes… I suppose I did,” he said, giving a weary, brief look to the couch once more before sitting on the floor with his hands rested on his knees.

“Then she should be fine.” Dean expressed his interest with an inquisitorial gaze. “What’s got you worried, Cas?”

His friend was unusually uptight. “If angels deliberately brought her here from another dimension, she must be valuable to them. If we lose her once…” he trailed off.

“We won’t,” Dean stated with confidence.

Castiel frowned pensively. “I know.” He looked to the floor, pulling at the sleeves of his trench coat. “I’m draining, Dean. My grace is fading, and by the day humanity is prodding at the floodgates for cracks and fissures. I fear one day I’ll wake up as a human.”

Dean paused at the words ‘wake up as a human’ and carefully said, “But… you don’t sleep.”

“Exactly,” Castiel muttered. He rested his forehead along his palm, finding it heavy. “I’m finding it difficult to avoid the temptation of sleep.” The angel exhaled, closing his eyes and succumbing to his exhaustion.

Dean ceased to stir his drink and instead planted it on the desk. He threw a blanket over Castiel’s resting form with a soft smile. Resting his elbows on his thighs, he absorbed the night. He browsed Sam’s laptop for data on dimensional travel, but results proved frustrating. In periods of boredom, he would rise from his seat and amble around, occasionally refilling his glass. This was what Dean accomplished when he was restless. It was just another night of nothing.

Eventually, after hours of repeating this process, the hunter drifted away as dawn illuminated the house with a tame gold. He sunk into the chair, his head lolling until it sagged against the wall.

Fortunately, it was a dreamless slumber.