#I feel like I’ve been in an emotional prison for an eon

[golvio]

Thinking about how one of the reasons I was so disappointed by TotK was because I’ve been spoiled by more narrative-driven indie games lately. Even if TotK Ganondorf was only played like a villain resembling the scariest versions of The Princess when he was threatening to break his seal, we still would’ve gotten a character with way more depth and opportunities for emotional attachment/sympathy.

Like…I don’t want Ganon to be a cute, cuddly, super-palatable and marketable same-aged bestie to the teenaged protagonists. I want to have that same pathos and emotional connection that I felt with his Wind Waker incarnation. That guy may have still been a child-punching jerk who was desperately trying to justify himself, but he was also lonely, maladaptive, and struggling with having lost everything partly by his own hands. Out of all the incarnations of this guy, he felt the most human, even if it was the more self-serving, self-pitying, self-destructive parts of humanity. If we must fight him, I want to feel that same uneasy emptiness where I’m left wondering if things could’ve been different and he didn’t have to die instead of a simpler, “Yay!!! U Beat Da Gaem!!!1!!” sendoff.

And if there’s anything Slay The Princess taught me, it’s that you don’t necessarily need a super complex motivation to tell a compelling story, or to start spinning more complex conflicts and narratives outward from that origin point. Sometimes “Let me outta this basement!” is enough. Especially when the character in question is so driven that they don’t care what they have to do or who they have to steamroll to finally reach freedom. Even if all the prisoner does is vindictively torture the player instead of auditioning for their sympathy in their attempts to escape, you can’t help but develop a strange sort of admiration for their tenacity and resourcefulness. Not to mention that, even in a purely antagonistic relationship, such a motive is an easy “in” for emotional connection to a character. Nobody likes being trapped against their will. Everyone forced into imprisonment would want to be free. Also, solitary confinement in particular sucks, and eons of that would be enough to make anyone ornery and desperate.

They didn’t even need to do much to reimagine Ganondorf for a new audience. Just give him a more realistic response to the archetypal Zelda Series situation that he was forced into like BotW’s Link and Zelda. The Holy Maiden is made to suffer, the Hero is made to grow up too fast and put through grueling challenges, and the Monster is made to be imprisoned and be cut down after he escapes because his mere existence threatens the Holy Maiden. (And even if he suffers just as much as the Maiden, it’s all his own fault because he’s Evil, so don’t you dare feel sorry for him!)

Calamity Ganon wanted out of that basement, just like Zelda wanted out of her role and the pressures that came with it. You’re really telling me Nintendo couldn’t have done something more compelling with that? It’s absolutely possible for a character whose history has expanded him to a near-eldritch multiplicity and timespan to still feel human and relatable. You just have to be willing to look at that character with genuine affection as a writer, even at his absolute worst.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Gankutsuou, Episodes 13-15

In which the Count’s crusade becomes a full-on slaughter, the rest of the pieces fill in, and Albert is lost in the wilderness of his mind.

Zero Hour

In retrospect, Villefort’s attempt to apprehend the Count in public was probably the worst mistake he could’ve possibly made. Dear old Monte Cristo is good at many things, but as I’ve been constantly saying, there’s nothing he’s better at than manipulation. If he wants to take an uncertain onlooker and direct their emotions in a particular direction, there’s nothing on heaven or earth that could stop him from achieving that goal. All Villefort achieved by taking the conflict public was increase the number of eyes on their feud... and thus, the number of eyes Edmond Dantes could convince to look his way. With no reason left to hide his discontent from the populace at large, there’s nothing stopping the Count from finally bringing the eons of lies and bad blood between him and his persecutors to the surface. The game has finally entered its next stage, and if his enemies were already fumbling blind around him, there was no way they could be prepared for the full, uninhibited force of his righteous fury.

And lo and behold, this stretch of episodes marks the most devastating symbolic slaughter of the Count’s entire career up until this point. Villefort’s misguided attempt to arrest him backfires spectacularly enough to earn the former crown prosecutor a jail cell, imprisoned by the very system he once led. And no one seems all that miffed about it; on the contrary, they’re joyous to see the obviously corrupt judge finally get his just deserts. They knew he was rotten long ago; all the Count had to do was exploit that knowledge for all its cathartic oopmh. Less cathartic, though, is his even more brutal desecration of Albert’s father’s legacy, with Haidee stepping into the spotlight and eviscerating his lies in front of a stunned audience. Admittedly, I was a little confused at how the procedure of that scene even worked; do politicians normally just let unknown supporter step up to the podium and deliver speeches on their behalf? Plus, didn’t Morcef recognize Haidee back when they first saw each other in the opera house and realize who she was, or did I completely misread his reaction in that scene? I dunno, it feels like some step was missing in transforming this scene from a convenient excuse to jumstart Morcef’s downfall into a legitimately gripping unraveling of this web of lies. But regardless, the result is the same; her righteous anger rips his legacy to shreds over the course of a single night. Dantes is officially on the attack now, and as his descent into manic laughter at the end of episode 15 proves, he is loving it. Now, nothing’s holding him back from exacting every last ounce of the price he demands be paid, and the normally composed aristocrat gets to revel in every last gleeful second of it. And I can only imagine what terrifying heights he has yet to reach.

Unraveled

For now, though, we must “settle” for this escalation resulting in yet another long-gestating bomb finally exploding: the completion of the backstory of Edmond Dantes. Sure, there are a couple pieces to still fill in, but for the most part now, we have a complete picture of who the Count of Monte Cristo is, why he’s driven to vengeance, and what path has led his life down this route. As he himself indirectly tells us (and Albert) by way of a tale obviously about himself, he had been engaged to Albert’s mother... and his father, jealous, framed him and threw him in prison to steal her away, with the aid of the other two conspirators the Count now seeks to depose. There in Space Alcatraz (I assume that’s basically what the Chateau d’If was), he made a pact with the similarly imprisoned Gankustuou, an eldritch abomination from beyond the galaxy, and they escaped together to wreak havoc. And along the way back to earth, he picked up an additional ally in his quest; Haidee, whose life had been similarly destroyed by Morcef’s machinations, forced into slavery by a traitor who hid his crimes to be honored as a war hero. You get the sense that their mutual desire for vengeance has made them all but inseparable, driven by a singular purpose that keeps them walking in perfect harmony with each other. Haidee is no mere doll; she is Dantes’ equal, fighting for the same justice he is with the same fervor, as evidenced by her aforementioned brutal takedown of Morcef at his campaign speech. Now, at last, the full scope of their pain and fervor is made clear, and their vengeance has only just begun. I hope Morcef’s prepared to pay the piper for his past sins, because with these two gunning for him, there’s nowhere for him to go from here but down, down, down.

Lost in the Wilderness

And at the center of this maelstrom, as always, is Albert, and Jesus, this poor kid’s in for it now. The more the lies of the past get dragged up from the depths, the more uncertain and terrified he becomes at what the future holds. There’s a particularly great moment where Beauchamp blindsides him by spilling the rumors of his father’s supposed military crimes, and his mental crisis is punctuated by the smoke alarm going off in the background, almost like the alarm bells ringing in his own head. And then the very next scene snaps to the opposite extreme, drowning out the sound of the world around him as his deepest fears creep further into his mind and leave him numb and paralyzed. He’s spent his whole life believing in the basic righteousness of his situation, but the slow reveal of the ugly truth has thrown that entire value set into question. If he’s not the product of a just and loving world, then what is he? What meaning is there if he exists as the product of a lie, sired by a monster and benefiting from the unknown crimes of his seniors? He’s whirling around and around in search of answers, but with Franz heading off into the unknown, his former fiancee trapped in her own pocket of this struggle (Side note, I’m still miffed about the whole Eugenie situation, especially since the guy causing this problem- Andrea- seems to have no purpose other than being a raging asshole to everyone and getting away with it, a.k.a. my least favorite character archetype ever. Maybe he’ll get more interesting once we find out more of his deal, but for now, he’s easily the weakest part of this show.), and his parents no longer trustworthy, his entire support system is crumbling around him. There’s nobody he can turn to, nobody he can trust in this moment where he desperately needs some sort of guidance.

No one, that is,other than good old Edmond Dantes. The Count’s always been good at playing to Albert’s blind spots, and now that he’s dissolved the kid’s entire support structure, he’s pretty much guaranteed that Albert will end up throwing himself at his feet in his desperation. Albert’s fate was sealed the moment he decided to play the Count’s game back on Luna, and now, Dantes has made good on that threat; he’s caught the kid hook, line, and sinker, and he’s never letting go. He’s got Albert convinced that Dantes is the one guy who won’t lie to him, who won’t keep secrets from him, who won’t betray his trust no matter what. And all he had to do to achieve that goal is completely destroy Albert’s faith in literally everyone else he thought he could believe in. He’s got this poor kid lost in the wilderness, turning and turning in the widening gyre as things fall apart right outside his perception. Now, it’s up to his friends- Franz, Eugenie, and whoever else has the courage to jump aboard this crazy train- to try and pull him out. The Count wants to destroy his sense of identity to make him vulnerable, but at the very least, Franz is aware of this danger; as he says to Eugenie, no matter what happens or however deep they dive, they must never lose track of why they are. As long as they don’t give in to the madness, as long as they keep their heads about them and face the truth head-on... maybe there’s a chance they might make it out alright. Only time will tell.

Odds and Ends

-Okay, the virtual reality database is pretty damn cool. I like how the other people searching it only show up as black glitch holes to protect their privacy.

-That moment when you dig too deep so the security system literally explodes you out of cyberspace. Lol.

-Did Albert’s dad just blow up a planet to keep his polls high? Jackass.

-”You care a great deal for the count, don’t you?” askjdhads I see that blush. Guess Franz isn’t the only useless gay in the house, huh?

-When suddenly, Gundam backstory.

-Eeeeeeew why is his skin translucent

-Maximillian’s a good egg.

-Lol at Beauchamp doodling in his notebook. He doesn’t give one shit about what Albert’s saying.

-”Ow, I didn’t throw mine that hard!” I SWEAR TO GOT YOU ABSOLUTE NINNIES

-”Whatever happens, don’t forget who you are.” That seems to be a bit of a theme these episodes.

-I do like how many weird tech ideas this show has. Dude has a magic password-protected message pen hidden in his mechanical arm? Sure, why not?

The craziness continues. See you next time!

[theresnosafeharbor4myships]

@jaimeslannistre wanted a Daryl fic, and after watching the “Omega” ep, I did too. So here’s this bit of Daryl (Caryl) angst.

What Used To Be (also on 9L)

Daryl stood stock still as the kid relayed his story, refusing to reveal, either in word or by expression, that the telling affected him.

He gave the kid permission to befriend their prisoner and stepped into the house. Closing the door, he trudged to the window. He stayed veiled behind the thin curtains, waiting for Henry’s silhouette to pass.

Weariness sat upon him like a weighted blanket, and he just wanted rest. No…not rest, though he knew that’d make it easier to keep emotions he’d rather not rifle through safely locked behind that door he rarely opened. What he needed was peace. Solitude. To be out in the ruggedness again with Dog and his thoughts and the tranquility that came with living alone. People, especially so many he just couldn’t get close to, wore him out, and more so now that the entire community—not to mention Michonne and Tara, women he cared deeply for—depended on him to protect them from Lydia and her walker-wearing clan.

He saw Henry pass by and waited until he heard the solid thump of the cellar door close before slipping back outside to hide in the pottery stacks. Who knew how long it would be before the kid would emerge with wounds from having gotten too close to the bars or the two of them would slip out of the cellar together, a new and tenuous friendship having formed? Those were the only options: enemy or ally.

It reminded him of himself. Of their original group, so many eons ago, before they’d suffered through maniacs and cannibals and governors and walkers—back when walkers really were the dead and not the living.

The irony of the living dead and the dead living wasn’t lost on him, and if things hadn’t felt so dire, he might’ve found crude amusement at the convoluted mess the world had become.

He’d had to make his own choice back then, and thankfully he’d been softer—or smarter—than Merle and had chosen ally. Something he had never regretted, not for a single moment, despite the struggles and loss.

His chest ached at how much had changed, at the memory of what used to be. What could never be again.

She was the only one left from their original group, and she’d slipped away from him.

His heart seized at the thought of her. They’d been so close once, the two of them toeing a line neither quite knew how to breach, each finding the other over and over again, reunited, reconciled, recognized, until they’d suffered so much, travesty upon devastating travesty, they’d lost the ability to reconnect. Still, despite all that had come between them—horrors, secrets, losses, and now communities and her long-standing marriage—she’d sought him out all these years, visiting often, making sure he had food, stayed safe, kept in contact with their groups, and, more recently, spending the evening giving him a haircut by moonlight.

He’d told himself it didn’t mean anything, but he couldn’t shake the ghost of her hands flitting through his hair, brushing it away from his face, gazing at him, smiling sweetly, her soft voice massaging his bruised heart.

They’d gone their separate ways years ago, and at times he nearly doubled over at the gaping wound in his heart. They’d once shared a home (albeit a prison), a family, knowing the other better than anyone else on this cursed plain: shared traumas, understanding spirits, wounded souls, both escaping prisons made out of fists and fears instead of bars.

Henry had no way of knowing he already knew why Carol had kept her hair short. Oh, he’d guessed it long before she’d told him, but the memory of her sharing it with him came unbidden.

The balmy evening had turned into a cool, early morning chill, and he’d graciously turned guard duty over to Glenn. It wasn’t so much that he felt tired but that his muscles felt stiff from a night of alternately standing and sitting on the deck of the cold metal tower.

He ambled into cell block C, stopping short when he saw Carol standing in front of the mirror someone had hung on the wall, her hands fluffing her naturally curling hair, a look of sweet surprise gracing her face.

He’d often thought about doing that himself, wondering how soft those tendrils would feel, what emotion her eyes would convey to him. A hundred different dream scenarios had brought him to that moment, standing before her, both scared to reveal how much he cared but imbued with some reserve of audacity ignited by the look on her face.

Shaking the mirage from his mind, he pulled the door closed behind him, and she caught his reflection in the mirror, her hands slowly falling away from her face.

“’Morning,” she greeted, turning to face him.

“Hey.” He glanced at her once, not wanting to cause her embarrassment at having caught her preening in the mirror. Heaven knew she’d likely heard enough derogatory comments in her life about her appearance—though he could hardly imagine why—and he didn’t want to cause her any distress.

“I was going to start breakfast, but I guess I got distracted. I was just noticing it’s gotten longer. It’s still short, but…it’s been such a long time since I’ve actually seen it like this.” She ran her fingers through her hair again, a small smile playing on her lips. “Or a mirror, for that matter.”

His mouth quirked up, her words relieving him of the concern he’d felt. “Looks nice like that.”

She radiated a smile at him. “Thank you.” She turned to heat the pot for coffee. “It’s a definite improvement over the prison style I had before—pun intended.”

He huffed a laugh, sidling up next to her and taking some of the deer jerky he’d made out of the container they kept it in. “Looked good then, too,” he ventured, his brain telling him he should’ve kept his mouth shut, his heart thumping at the words.

She nodded once. “I appreciate that.”

She stilled, not looking at him for a moment, then turned and sat at the bench behind them.

He swallowed hard and dropped the jerky back into the storage container. Had he said something wrong? What could’ve been bad about telling her she looked nice?

The moment hung heavy between them, and he waited a few minutes longer until the coffee was ready, then poured two cups, set one in front of her, and settled on the bench next to her.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she played with the handle of the coffee mug. He cupped his hands around his own mug, warming them against the chill of the morning. “Did I…say somethin’ wrong?” he asked quietly, sheepishly.

“Oh,” she breathed, realization lacing her tone. “No, not at all.” She looked at him, and he faced her. “I made that joke, and it took me back to…to why my hair was so short to begin with.” She kept her tone light, but the emotion behind it begged for release.

He had a hunch he knew the reason; after all, he’d had the misfortune of living in the camp with her better-off-dead husband. He also knew what it felt like when, in a rare moment of release, he wanted to talk about something that had happened to him, some trauma he needed off his chest. He recognized it as easily as breathing, and he offered her the opportunity. “Why’s that?”

His light-hearted questioned belied both the intensity of the coming conversation and his curiosity.

“It used to be longer, curly, and…” she rolled her eyes in self-deprecation. “and more red than gray.”

He couldn’t help it: he immediately envisioned her with soft, curling, flowy, deep red hair, a striking contrast to her piercing blue eyes. It all made sense. The ferocity with which she defended those she loved. The fight in her that’d allowed her to survive the worst the world had to offer. The fiery spirit that had thrived and now teased him with abandon. A spitfire with a kindness in her heart and fierceness in her veins, strong enough to defend even a backwoods bum like him.

“We’d only been married a short time when things changed. He wasn’t the man I thought he was—or maybe he was and I just didn’t notice it early enough. Regardless, it wasn’t the life I imagined. Full of bruises and scrapes and ‘falling down the stairs’ and hiding the injuries under long sleeves and makeup. And still it got worse.” She paused, her voice having gone soft and wistful.

He remained quiet, brushing aside the rising anger in his chest. No one deserved what she’d suffered through. But he focused on the fact that she’d survived and become the strong, empowered, confident force of nature he knew her as. It helped contain the black wisp of hate that threatened to overtake him, a friend he was all too familiar with.

Sipping her coffee, she stared blankly at the stolid room in front of them and continued. “I tried to run. Sometimes I even got away, but often he was able to catch me, grab me by my hair. Sometimes that hurt worse than everything else. It felt like…like my skull was on fire and my scalp would slip right off the bone. I’d have headaches, neck aches, sometimes for days. So one day I sheared it right off.” She smiled ruefully. “I cried the whole time. I tried never to cry in front of him—or doctors or nurses or church friends. Or Sophia,” she whispered. She cleared her throat. “But I cried. I knew he’d never again drag me down the hall by my hair while I tried to gain my footing or pull me backwards as I ran and slam me into the wall. I knew he’d be pissed, but I did it anyway. I felt more sad over the loss of my hair than any fear he’d ever caused me. I hated I’d been reduced to shaving my own head to protect myself.”

She stopped abruptly, and the room seemed smaller somehow without her telling her story and her voice giving life to the woman she’d become.

He waited, not wanting to press and giving her time to continue if she wanted, to expel this memory of her abuser and take back a fraction of her power. He watched her sip her coffee, her countenance telling him she was done.

“It was worth it,” he stated gently, turning to look at her. “To keep you alive. To have you here.” He sipped at his own coffee, unable to hold her steady gaze any longer. “I know it ain’t the same, maybe doesn’t feel like it—”

“It does,” she interjected emphatically, and he turned to her again. “I cried, but I’m not sorry for a second that I did it. That I protected me…us…that it was the one way I could hit him where it hurt.”

“Neither am I. He deserved more.”

Carol nodded and set her hand on his forearm, her touch sending a web of warmth through his body.

His gaze dropped to her hand, and he wandered at the moment, he so unafraid of her touch, she gazing intently at him. The moment was ripe, stretched taut like a string intended to make music, and his eyes flicked to hers again.

“Carol, you up?”

Her hand slipped away, and they each gripped their coffee cups as Rick shuffled sleepily into their makeshift kitchen, the fog of potential flitting away like a balloon in the wind.

She’d been right there. Right there.

Now, with her a world away, in the arms of another, he was schooling her son. A redemption story he didn’t deserve, he realized dismally.

And with the most important piece of his heart missing.

He felt the cavern of anguish eat away at his insides, and he took a deep breath, refocusing on the task before him—keep her kid safe—as Henry and Lydia emerged from the cellar.

[goodvibesatpeace]

Theories: The Matrix Farm

If you fancy a bit of light reading 😀

Be open minded and question everything

Our bodies should not require sleep/ rest since these organic vehicles have been designed to function continuously. We even have a self-servicing function, where our bodies repair themselves. And since we take our “fuel” from food, we shouldn’t require sleep at all.

So why do we need it?

The reason we need sleep is because humans beings (the real us, the souls) feed on energy, just like all other beings in our Multiverse (and what our bodies take from food is not enough to keep us going).

When the Anunnaki built the prison-suits (i.e. human bodies) for our souls, they’ve made us in their image, but they took away many of the original features (such as cellular immortality, 12 DNA strands, the ability to grow back teeth, limbs, etc.) and also added many blockages, so that we remain unaware of our spiritual greatness.

Our connection to the Source has been greatly limited, to the extent we are mostly cut off from it and only rarely allowed to connect to it — and never fully.

During sleep, we are allowed to connect to the Source in order to recharge on non-polarized energy.

Why would they do this? What’s the end-game of the Anunnaki?

We used to be Creator-beings (we still are outside this Matrix reality), meaning that we would use the pure energy from the Source to manifest.

During his sessions of LBL reggression, Michael Newton was once told by a subject that he/she, together with other non-physical beings, helped manifest our planet from pure energy.

The planet was at first non-physical. The subject expressed the curiosity/ desire of experiencing life on Earth once it would become physical, because it is one thing to create a planet, and something entirely different to live on it as a physical being.

This matches perfectly with Dr. Neruda interviews, in which he explains how a collective of alien species (Archons, Reptilians, Anunnaki, Sirians and Greys) have tricked our souls into using these human bodies as vehicles, in order to experience physical life on Earth.

Because we had no understanding of evil and deception back then, we agreed.

At first, the vehicles were outstanding and performed really good, but with each new lot, the Anunnaki secretly downgraded them more and more, until we’ve lost the connection to our Souls and the Source almost entirely.

By then, it was already too late for us. The prison Matrix was activated and we are trapped in it ever since. When we die, we are being forced into the false light portal, which sends us to the “Recycling station,”where we are superficially healed of past life traumas and then sent back here.

But why the trouble?

The Anunnaki, the Reptilians and the Greys are all controlled by a non-physical parasitic force, which the Gnostics called Archons. Just like all other beings in our Multiverse, they too feed on energy, but they only require negatively-polarized energy.

Hence they need hosts to convert the non-polarized energy from the Source, into the low frequency energy that is required by them.

Again, everything that exists is made out of energy and needs energy to “survive,” and the Archons are no exception.

Deceptions, deceptions, deceptions

The Anunnaki used trickery many eons ago when they offered to build human vehicles for us, so that we can experience physical life on Earth, and trickery is their game ever since.

They have later presented themselves to us as benevolent gods who came to Earth to mine for gold because life on their planet was allegedly dying off without protection from gold particles sprayed into the atmosphere.

This was yet another trickery, since the Anunnaki had been taking gold from Earth in its pure, atomic state, even before Earth became solid, but they appealed once again to our native predisposition to help and do good, in order to be accepted by us once more.

According to multiple correlations that I’ve made, I strongly believe this took place during the Atlantean times. The Atlanteans lived mostly on a small continent in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Anunnaki observed how the Atlanteans developed meditation techniques that strengthened their connection to the immortal soul and were even able to regain some of their creative capabilities from the Source. But since the downgraded human vehicles were so limited, the Atlanteans found a way to amplify their strength by using massive crystals.

In this book (second volume), it is mentioned advanced technology used by the Atlanteans, as well as the possibility to manifest food with the use of crystals.

This came as a shock to our alien controllers, who decided to infiltrate and corrupt the existing spiritual elites. Long story short, they were eventually able to manipulate some of them into manifesting things ther were not needed and to desire materialistic things.

The disputes between the Atlanteans grew stronger and, either intentionally or by accident, one of the giant crystals exploded, sinking their island into the Atlantic Ocean and bringing and end to the Atlantean age.

According to the same book, one of the crystals sunk at the bottom of the Ocean 3/4 intact, and it was responsible for the “Bermuda Triangle” anomalies. The anomalies stopped happening because the US Navy allegedly removed the broken crystal from the Ocean’s floor and took it to a secret location.

Strangely enough, a team of scientists discovered the ruins of an advanced ancient city at the bottom of the Ocean, in the Bermuda Triangle. There are roads, pyramids and sphinxes, but the scientists unfortunately lack the financing to continue the explorations.

The remaining Atlanteans scrambled in different parts of the Earth, where they’ve tried rebuilding their civilization, with the “help” of the Anunnaki, which have secretly designed new versions of human bodies, downgraded even further.

They’ve even mixed the existing DNA with that of animals and the results were grotesque human-animal hybrids. Then, the souls had been forcibly incarnated into these new versions of humans and human-animal hybrids.

The experimentation continued until the aliens came up with this version of human bodies, which we call Homo Sapiens — the human bodies that we are using today.

But this time they took no more chances, so they also populated the Earth with soulless vessels — empty vehicles — which their masters, the Archons, could control from another dimension.

These bodies look exactly the same as ours and, without the direct interference of the Archons, they go on and live their lives as dictated by the reptilian brain: they eat, sleep, reproduce, fight… basically do everything in their power to survive.

Very important to note: These are human bodies, not human beings!

The human bodies don’t have a soul, hence they lack consciousness; which means that they merely exist, but never get to actually live as a conscious human being. They feel no empathy, no remorse, no love, etc. — they basically have no concept of good or bad whatsoever.

Here’s a short example of what it means to exist without actually being a conscious human being:Ever since I was a child I was guided through many different experiences so that I can now relate to them. It took me many years to understand this, but thanks to those experiences, I am now better prepared to deliver these messages to you. 

So here’s a short story that helped me related to the human bodies vs the human beings:

One day, when I was a teen living with my parents, I woke up on the couch, where I was talking to my parents. I was in my pajamas, and I was telling them that I feel OK and there is no need to go to the hospital. 

To this day, I don’t remember how I got there, but according to my parents I woke up and went to the bathroom, where they’ve heard me falling. Apparently, I somehow slipped and hit the back of my head in the fall, which made me loose consciousness. My parents found me there and started calling my name. I slowly woke up and I was able to walk to the couch myself. 

It probably took me about five minutes from the moment I fell to when I regained consciousness. During this time I talked to my parents, I walked to the couch on my own and I’m sure that I could have go on with my life in that unconscious state indefinitely, but that person wouldn’t have been me. 

Now please connect my experience with all those stories about people who changed dramatically after an accident. My hypothesis is that there are dramatic situations, such as accidents, in which the soul is separated from the body, sometimes for good.

Here is one such example: 

“In the summer of 1848, a man named Phineas Gage incurred a traumatic injury to the frontal lobe region of his brain after a sudden explosion sent a rod straight through his head. Against many odds, Phineas survived, but afterwards his demeanor changed dramatically. Once a calm, balanced, and levelheaded man, Gage became an overly emotional, unbalanced and quite vulgar man upon recovery. Friends he had had previously, now compared him to an animal and made the perplexing statement, ‘Gage was no longer Gage.'”

These human bodies are indeed very similar to animals, but even less important, because their lifetime experiences amount to nothing.

Even though animals are not souls, such as we are, they do have a primitive form of consciousness that exists beyond the physical death of their vehicles, and their experiences are stored and preserved, whilst when human bodies die, it is the end for them. There is no consciousness that lives on and their experiences die with them.

They only exist to keep the Matrix running and they can be taken over/ possessed at any time by their Archon Masters. It is estimated that about half of the humans are organic portals, meaning they don’t have souls attached to their bodies. And this is the reason why we have so much pain and sufferance in the world.

They are the ones that ascend to positions of power, because their Masters need them there. They are being guided/ helped to occupy as many positions of power as possible, in order to maintain the status quo of the control system.

They are also the perpetrators of sadistic actions such as: murder, pedophilia, depopulation, genocide… you name it. And it is directed at the rest of us, the human beings.

The Matrix is a FARM

Once human beings recharge with non-polarized energy during sleep, it is up to us to give it a polarity.

We, as Divine beings made of positive, Love-energy, would naturally polarize it positively, but since our existence has been hijacked and so many people are being systematically tortured in this Matrix-reality, most of us polarize the energy negatively.

Human beings need to be mentally and physically tormented as much as possible,  so that the Archon-masters can feed on our negative emotions. This is the sole purpose of the Matrix-prison.

The Matrix reality is basically a farm of negative energy.

Love and light to all 💓💓💓

[churchyardgrim]

rip this took me fucking eons to finish and did I abuse the italics function and ole grandpa piss’s emotions both? maybe I did, and proud of it. so here’s my flimsy excuse for why greg got upgraded from shitty basement dorm to tower suite, along with some terrible Ye Olde Fancy Talk dialogue practice

Something smells sweet.

Sweet like flowers, like candy, and it disturbs his rest. He can’t sleep with this smell in the air, even ceasing to breathe doesn’t help much; it gets in his sinuses and won’t leave. He hears people moving in the levels above, laughter.

When a servant comes down to fetch food from the cellars Gregory calls to him, and, incredibly, gets no response.

He shouts again, but the serving boy doesn’t even flinch. Ignores him completely. Gregory goes as near to the bars as he can, craning his neck to see; the boy could be deaf, or stupid. Or so used to the monster in the basement that nothing scares him anymore.

But he doubts that last one.  

He hisses softly, that smell giving him a headache. The boy comes back into view carrying a jar half his height, full of some packed-away confection, no doubt meant for holiday time. He wobbles under its weight, teetering precariously on each step, but managing the ascent without incident. All the while, he never blinks once.

Gregory’s skin prickles, aware of… something.

He growls to himself, pacing restlessly in front of the cell door. Something’s happening, he knows it, something that gave that boy a thousand-yard stare and the wherewithal to ignore him. But he can’t move from here, not without a key on the other side.

So he fidgets and grumbles and tries not to wonder what’s going on above his head and startles very nicely when a trio of serving girls comes traipsing down, giggling and prancing on the balls of their feet. He stares at them, alarmed by further uncharacteristic behavior; cavorting is hardly smiled upon, among the house staff. So unprofessional!

“Look!” one crows, pointing through the bars, “the devil’s come to visit!”

He reels back, halfway offended — but the speaker’s unlocked his cell door with a twist of her hand and saunters inside, trailed by her chirping friends.

“Will you grant us a wish, devil sir?” one of them sings out, a hand arcing out and lashing around his wrist with fantastic heedlessness. His incredulity dies in his throat, swatting irritably at their fluttering attention. “Grant the wish of dancing, won’t you! Come, before the music stops!”

The giggler’s laughs have become labored, a wheeze audible on the inhales, and she wobbles on her feet. Her weight drags at him, attached to his arm with the determination of the supernaturally fixated.

Thankfully, mercifully, all three of them suddenly cock their heads, ears turned towards the dungeon corridor. Gregory feels the pressure of their attention wane, and draws in a suddenly clear breath.

Two of them dart from the cell, a laugh peeling from one of their throats, faux devil completely forgotten. Their third makes to follow them, but hasn’t got as far as releasing Gregory’s hand and trips, tumbling down like a puppet with cut strings.

He blinks at her slumped form, calloused hand still in his. His first impulse is greed, followed by apprehension: here is a meal practically presenting itself to him, but if he partakes there will be no shortage of punishment. And her addled behavior… perhaps she is drunk? But he can smell no alcohol tang on her breath, just more of that floral sweetness wafting down from the upper floors.

He turns her hand over, watching the blue lines under the skin, contemplating. Mentally addled, but apparently undrugged… waltzing straight into his cage, but very likely a trap…

He licks his lips.

A crash from above shatters his indecision with the sound of broken glass; he jerks his head up, hearing elated shrieks and laughter. What is going on up there?

He stands, dropping the serving girl’s unmarked wrist. She and her flock have left his cell door wide open, and he’s got no qualms about taking advantage of this carelessness, at least. He slinks through with nary a sting and heads upstairs, tentative.

No one stops him. No one even notices him.

The whole household is distracted, he realizes. Servants, children, the courtiers; all of them swaying dreamily as they walk, murmuring nonsense at each other. Twice he hears groups of people bubble up into charmed laughter at something he can’t see.

He doesn’t like it.

Whatever spell this is is tugging at him too, he can feel it. Cobwebs pulling distractingly at his skin, shapes seen out of the corner of his eye that vanish when he tries to see them properly. He wants to leave, to flee this house while the hunters are distracted, but the sun, the sun… It’s midsummer, the haze of heat outside making him wince just thinking about it. Maybe he could steal a carriage, bully the horses into cooperating, but it’d be a dicy thing even with someone to drive the beasts. He’s not even sure the seal on his breast will let him go. And something bids him to stay, filling his sinuses with sickly sweet rose smells. Something wants him here, among all these dazed and wandering people.

Something catches his eye; here, among slow-moving sleepwalkers, a flash of bright quickness. He follows it, lengthening his strides, and it comes into focus as a figure nestled in the crook of a chandelier’s arm, mere feet from a ceiling that stretches four or five bodylengths above Gregory’s head. As he gets closer he can see more detail, the figure resolving into an apple-cheeked boy, hair honey-yellow and tousled, dressed in shockingly green finery. His body is lean, and Gregory guesses sixteen summers at least. He’s got the look of someone in a growth spurt.

“What are you doing?”

The youth looks down, his face blossoming in surprise. “What do you know, a corpse! How unusual!”

Gregory scowls, glaring upwards. “What have you done to this place?”

“Hm?” The youth swings from his perch, hooking his legs around the arm of the chandelier and hanging upside-down to get at the jeweled bauble hanging at the very bottom. “They are but dreamers, corpse! They only dream.”

Seeing this feat, and the way the upside-down view made the boy’s features clearer in the light, Gregory suddenly understands. “You are the Fair Folk.”

The boy grins angelically, the planes of his face seeming suddenly alien. “Aye! A lord in my own right, I am!” He twists the bauble free with a delicate snap, and tucks it into the folds of his seafoam clothes.

He drops down suddenly, twisting in midair to land on his feet, light as a feather. “You, though, pose a problem. You do not dream!” He moves languidly around Gregory, eyeing him from all sides. “Perhaps the mist isn’t strong enough… ah, the dead are such tricky things, magic will roll off you as water off a duck!”

Gregory scowls, trying to keep the fae youth in sight — though who knows how old this creature really is? The Fair Folk only look old as a disguise, and are otherwise eternally young. “Stop babbling, what is it you’re here for?”

“Hmm?” He stops in front of him, tapping his chin as he looks the vampire up and down. “Oh. Politics, really. Opportunities arise, you see, and must be taken advantage of before the window closes.” He grins cheekily. “Don’t worry! It’s nothing to do with you. Won’t even know I’ve been here, in and out like a flash!”

Gregory opens his mouth to argue, to press more information out of the boy, but cool hands cup his face and shock him into silence and.

Oh. Oh.

The fae youth has pressed his mouth to Gregory’s, and shock paralyzes him until the fair lord swipes his tongue — sweet, like honey — between his captive’s lips. The taste and warmth make Gregory groan, rational mind bowing out; his hands twitch abortively at his sides.

“Sleep,” this beautiful boy murmurs, breaking the kiss and making Gregory whine with need — he wants more, he wants…

But he’s falling, unable to hold himself up, and his head hits the polished flagstones with a crack he barely feels.

“Sleep, and dream beautifully.”

—————

Gregory does dream, in his deep daytime sleeps. He dreams of red, red nights, when he still had his freedom and could sate his baser urges as he pleased. Sometimes, he dreams of his human days, and he hates these more than he hates the nightmares that plague him wearing the faces of his captors.

But now, under a Green Man’s spell, he dreams of love.

He walks through a rosy mist, following a scent that is all of his loves at once. He is suffused with it, filled to bursting with adoration. It is not the burning desire he knows so well, that drives him through his endless undeath, it is not want; and he has no name for this thing that is not want.

His steps are sluggish, turning to catch voices beckoning him. “Gregory,” whispers Peter’s voice, and it’s been so long since he’s heard it he almost doesn’t recognize it, “this way, this way, here.”

“My love, my draugr, hurry,” urges Torsten, all tenderness, and Gregory wants to weep.

“You fool,” Adelaide murmurs, “you utter, utter fool.”

And under it all the voice of his last love, that which will never leave him but which he will also never, ever have enough of; the throbbing of a live heart, full of rich, priceless blood. His basest vice, the key to his endless appetite.

Oh, he loves them all! He is shot through with love, crippled by it, and still he staggers on, choking on cloying, floral air. He has no awareness of his surroundings, nor of his fellow prisoners in this vague, foggy place. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, except following the unseen objects of his adoration.

And so it is no surprise that when, after an empty trackless time of wandering, he finally sets eyes on the source of these beckoning voices, he throws himself at the figure without a second thought.

But he moves as if through thick syrup, his limbs unhurried. The mist has thinned a little, now, enough for arched windows and a vaulted ceiling to be faintly visible, and the crouched shape that seems to flicker; he sees Torsten’s braided mane, Peter’s open, vulnerable face, Adelaide’s hands—

Have they always been marked like that, the dark silhouettes of vines fanning out from her wrists?

But he can’t dwell on that, he can’t, because his love recoils with a cry and Gregory almost sinks his nails into his own stomach in shame before he realizes that their gaze is not on him. His vision pivots, sweeping around, and— there.

A second shape, sweeping through the fog, and even dazed as he is, Gregory can recognize the murderous intent. He moves before it’s even registered, fighting through the haze for footing and traction and lashing out with an animal snarl.

To the utter surprise of his hindbrain, he hits something. The figure goes flying, flickering and skidding and rushing back at him and Gregory braces his feet, hands curved into claws, and meets his enemy head on. It jitters, faces morphing, and Gregory throws a nameless raider to the floor, parries the return slash from an armored Crusader, and smashes his own mocking, bloodthirsty face into the marble flagstones.

You killed her you killed her the others you just couldn’t save but Adelaide you killed her.

But something shifts, at that cracking impact of skull on stone. His mind clears, a fraction, some of the suffocating cloud lifting from his sight. His combined love is gone, replaced by an unfamiliar man kneeling, gasping, and the tidal wave of loss that sweeps through him is almost enough to make him lose his grip on

on the

the fucking fae boy, face snarling and catlike and suddenly the magic comes crashing down on his head again, making him gasp and reel and it’s almost enough to make him forget his own name—

But he can never forget his last and final love. The smell of it sings sweet and true through the fog and it is so, so easy to hold this creature down and rip into its rice-paper flesh and gorge himself. It is ecstasy, his love filling him up and making him perfect—

And then the spell snaps like a cut bowstring and he cries out in pain and sudden clarity. The taste in his mouth mutates, turning sour like old milk, and he coughs and spits and stares down at the cooling corpse beneath him, its throat torn out and a circle of blood spreading, oozing — it shines, that fae blood, gleaming like an oilspill, like the surface of a tainted pond. Not human enough for his tastes, apparently.

And the fog has lifted, he realizes belatedly. With the death of its maker the spell unravels itself into nothing, freeing his mind from that rosy mist. He scrubs at his mouth, wiping the iridescent red smears from his face as best he can.

There’s yelling. There’s always yelling, he’s starting to get tired of it.

“What’s happened? Does anyone know?”

“The dreams, the dreams, I…”

“That smell, ugh!”

“Forget the dreams, what about the king?”

King? Blinking, Gregory turns his head to look at the man trying to stand, the man that had worn the skin of all his past loves. Suppressing the flinch that comes with this thought, he sees this person clearly now; ermine on his shoulders, rings crusting his fingers. Yes, that checks out.

Fancy that. A king.

People rush into the room and the yelling intensifies. He wants to put his head down and wait until they figure out he hasn’t done anything, at least not to this king of theirs. A few soldiers start on him but are halted by a command from the doorway; Harold. Finally, someone reasonable.

“What happened here?”

It takes a minute for Gregory to realize the question’s directed at him. “Fae trickery,” he says, waving a hand at the corpse still before him. “Something in the air.”

Harold nods, sending a few of his men to secure the grounds, search for any others, and tasks another group with removing the corpse cooling on the flagstones. Gregory stays kneeling, ignoring the household moving around him and trying to tamp down the roiling boil of anger and loss in his gut.

Fucking Green Man. Old wounds are oozing again, torn open by that horrid dream spell, and it’s all he can do to keep his face impassive. Numb. He doesn’t even let himself think because if he starts thinking again he’s going to tear himself apart. Just. Stay still, and wait.

A heavily ringed hand lands on Gregory’s shoulder, making him jump visibly. “The nobility of this beast has impressed me.”

That makes everyone stop, sudden silence falling like a hammer blow. Noble? Him?

The king continues, “The love in his eyes, taking the blow meant for me; whatever his past sins, this absolves him!”

Gregory’s gut twists slightly. It wasn’t for you, stupid man.

The men object. “Sir, begging my lord’s indulgence, this man—”

The king raises his hand imperiously, cutting off their anxiety. “I will not hear of it. My gratitude must be delivered, I command it be so!”

Things happen very fast then, the king being whisked away by an entourage overeager to get him away from the stunned vampire on the floor, Gregory blinking after him in sheer bewilderment.

He is, mostly, ignored by the household then. They have bigger problems and he’s not actively menacing anyone, so they push him down the priority list so that it’s perhaps an hour before Harold seems to remember that he’s there.

“You lot, over here,” he calls to an unoccupied group loitering by the big double doors. He gestures, demonstratively. “South tower, you know the room. Escort him there.”

Gregory’s cognition is still held carefully immobile, so it’s a jolt to his nerves when he’s hauled up by one elbow, a sourfaced soldier landing him on his feet. Mouth twisting, he jerks his arm out of the man’s grip and the sight of the group he’s been saddled with makes his lip curl further.

Meyer’s gang, all watching him with varying levels of distaste.

His eyes narrow but his input is clearly not needed here, as he’s prodded none too gently in the small of the back, and the group falls into lockstep around him, herding him out of the arched hall.

“What did you see?” he hears whispered behind him, one thug to another, and then hears the thump of a “Don’t talk about it, stupid,” reprimand.

Meyer glances back over his shoulder as they walk. “Bet you think you’re hot shit now, huh old monster.”

Gregory’s hackles raise, prickly with stress and the indirect afternoon sunlight making the corridor glow. “And what’s that supposed to mean.”

“Barging in like that, saving the day? What do you think you’re playing at, like anyone wanted you involved.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” Gregory hisses, still-bloodied hands flexing into claws at his sides. “I was lured! And it’s not like you were doing any good.”

That makes Meyer round on him, stopping the escort team short. “You wretch,” he growls, “you don’t know a damn thing about this, it could have been us what got nobility realized.”

He sneers, then. “Did you even hear what that fool king said? Love in his eyes? Hah!” He looms, pushing Gregory back into the wall of his gang and looking contemptuous. “You’re not capable of—”

“Meyer!”

His head whips around, expression schooling sluggishly; Harold gives him a cowing look, long strides eating up the carpeted floor between them. “I thought I gave you an order.”

Meyer scowls, just barely avoiding tucking his hands behind his back like a schoolboy. “Was just poking fun, we was gonna get him there.”

The look Harold gives him is that of patience wearing thin. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Make yourselves useful and line the windows with nails, Agatha’s got the bucket.”

Meyer’s pack grumbles, it’s busywork and they know it, but none of them have the guts to argue. Belatedly, Gregory wonders what Meyer himself saw in the mist.

Harold watches them slink off back down the hall, then turns to Gregory with a look that brokes no argument. “Come.”

He does, silently, through parts of the castle he’d never seen before. Up three stairways, past portraits of ancestors long dead, skirting around the light of the dying day shining through those big, colored glass windows while Harold strides right through it.

At last they come to the second-to-top floor of a tower, after so many turns and spiral stairs that Gregory’s lost all sense of direction. There’s just one door up here, and Harold unlocks it with little preamble.

“Our lady says this is to be yours, now.” He pushes the door open to reveal a room the dimensions of his cell ten times over, with carpets and curtains and a corner of a bed piled high with linens visible from the hallway.

A room. An actual room, for people, almost as far from the cellar as it’s possible to be in this castle. Gregory’s disbelief must show on his face, because Harold sighs.

“You understand, I’m sure, the difficult position we are in now.”

Gregory nods, hesitating to speak. One does not put dogs up in a noble’s bed. Certainly not a half-feral hound with a biting habit.

“This is… mine?” he says after a moment. “Truly?”

Harold’s face remains outwardly impassive. “If the Lady Margaret orders it so, yes.”

Gregory’s eyes narrow. This has to be a trick, a sadistic play. They’re pulling him out of the dungeons for this? On the whim of one measly king?

Harold continues, “I’ll admit, it seemed lunacy. But our Majesty insists it be done, he’s convinced of your good character.”

That makes Gregory laugh, incredulously. He’s under no illusions, at least, as to the state of what could perhaps jokingly be called his character.

Gingerly, he steps over the threshold. Nothing burns, nothing stings, and he takes another step. “In all honesty, I’d much rather be up here than down there.”

Harold rubs the back of his head, a gesture of embarrassed acknowledgement. “That I know. And I can in truth promise you nothing, not before our lady has convinced the rest of the family heads.” That means her husband, and maybe an advisor or two.

“What is your opinion, then?”

“I will not say.”

A moment of irritation; then, “These curtains can be thickened, yes?”

Harold grunts an affirmative, face betraying nothing more than a slight twitch at the question. Something that could be any number of emotions.

Harold leaves, then, locking the door behind him. And Gregory is now alone, in a room that is still too bright for his liking, even with the shades drawn, and more luxurious than anything he’s been inside for at least a hundred years.

His first instinct is to wallow in it. To strip all the pretty things off the walls and floor, out of that elaborately carved wardrobe, pile them all on the bed and go to sleep inside the heap like some sort of demented miniature dragon.

Instead he walks around the perimeter of the room, avoiding the slivers of sunlight around the curtains, and examines everything.

The walls are decorated with fine tapestries, one or two with metallic thread, signifying their value. The subjects he can identify easily; biblical scenes, most of them depicting the same event. [symbolism/foreshadowing wahey, find a good scene to tie in here, and comment on the changing fashions for such things] Underneath them is bare stone; the tapestries serve as insulation as well as decoration.

Opposite from the bed stands a wide fireplace, empty of wood and ashes; this room has not been used in a long while. He supposes firewood will be brought eventually, but probably not until the conflict over his living situation that is currently gripping the rest of the house has played itself out.

More evidence as to the room’s disuse makes itself known in the ornate wardrobe; it is empty, though not horribly dusty. Perhaps he will one day have a collection of noble clothes to fill it with. The thought almost makes him laugh.

The wardrobe is well made, however, and obviously cared for. He runs a hand over the curls carved into its crown, admiring it. The wood is a rich, dark color, lacquered, and it wouldn’t take much work to get it gleaming.

The floors, though. They are stone like the walls, and like the walls are covered in luxurious fabrics, rugs instead of tapestries. A similar concept, executed slightly differently for the sake of function. No one would dare allow the tapestries now on the walls to be walked on.

The rugs are Turkish.

He’s seen that pattern before.

(But the Moor was Tunisian, wasn’t he, not Turkish, so their country of origin shouldn’t make much of a difference to him. Shouldn’t make his mouth taste bitter, shouldn’t make his head hurt with the effort of refusing to look at the memories it brings up.)

But it’s easy enough to ignore them as his eye is drawn to what is arguably the centerpiece of the room, that great, grand, curtained four-poster bed.

He’s almost afraid to touch it. Contents himself, for the time being, with running a hand along its outermost covering, and even that sends a delicious shiver down his hindbrain. There’s honest-to-God velvet here, on top of layers and layers of feathers and linens. He aches to strip down and crawl underneath all those blankets and quilts and pass out for a day or six.

Before he can take the thought further the door to the room opens.

He is startled to find the lady of the house looking him up and down, appraising. Jerks his hand away from the covers almost guiltily.

She says, quite bluntly, “Tell me your position on this whole business.” Not a request. He tries not to swallow.

“Begging my lady’s pardon, I would rather not be in a cage.”

She gives a small hm. “And our adversary, today? What of that?” The word she uses, adversary, has biblical connotations; she knows that he knows it. “I am sure you did not save the king on purpose. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d do.”

He elects, on his better judgement, not to take offense to that. “My lady is too observant.” His face stiffens slightly, feigned expressionlessness. “What I saw was not what was there. The rest of the household experienced similar things, I am sure. I acted on… false visions.”

Another soft, thoughtful hum. “I see.”

Then, “You understand, we cannot be careless. You yourself have ensured that.”

He suppresses a bristle, aware of his disadvantage right now. One on one, he’s not sure he could beat her. Not during the day, certainly. “Begging my lady’s pardon, but the feeling is mutual.”

She gives an odd little tilted nod, not appearing to disagree. “Consider this a probationary period then. Cooperation and compliance in exchange for… privileges, shall we say.” She brings her gloved fingers to her lips in a thoughtful gesture, looking around the room. “I confess I had been considering something of the sort for a time now. More flies with honey than vinegar. Perhaps one day we might do away with the unpleasantness of chains and muzzles. I have not noticed favorable results out of either.”

He blinks, slightly stunned. “…has it been decided, then? Properly?”

Her gaze returns to him, its intensity banked by contemplation. “Hm? No, not quite yet. But it will be.”

She leaves him bewildered, intimidated, and thoroughly sick of court politics. Even if it is through them that he’s landed in a room like this, he dislikes them.

It’s still light out, afternoon sliding sonorously into evening — one of those long, lingering summer twilights, thick with flying insects and the noise of the world keeping itself going, one amorous cricket at a time. The light out the window still makes him squint, when he peeks out between the curtains. It’s a long way to the ground, from here.

He should stay awake; it doesn’t feel safe to let his guard down in this place. And it will be night soon, besides.

But that bed…

Well, a nap can’t hurt.

[allaboutwannaone-blog]

enemies to lovers!sungwoon 

genre: fluff word count: 2.0k summary: would you listen to your heart, or your mind in the face of love? author’s note: first scenario up, sorry if its too cringey (´・ω・`)  /edits are mine!/

• well *claps three times sassily*

• iTs hA sAeng uN tiMe

• sungwoon was,,, really just like any other classmate (who sits behind you)

• aside from his obnoxiously stupid loud voice (which you’ll grow to love shh)

• and his stupid round glasses that dEfiNiteLy dIdN’T sUiT hIm aT aLL???!! (inserts overly used spongebob meme)

• and his stupid lips that look like clouds (and probably tastes like them too) 

• and his stupidly sparkly eyes and his stupidly cute height and jUst uGh

• come to think of it he was never really a normal person and you were just a wee bit attracted to him JUST A WEE BIT A WEE BIT 

• but ever since this argument you had in front of the entire class,, the wee feelings you thought you had for him disappeared (did it really??) because boi he is annoying  눈_눈 

• it was literature class and your teacher!jisung was asking a question about whether you should follow your heart or your mind when making a choice 

• jisung: “so…y/n, what do you think?”

• you: “actually, i personally think that thinking with your mind is a better option because it will lead you to making a more rational choice, since your heart may make risky decisions based on your emotions. following your heart will not work well in situations that are pressurising.”

• jisung: “brilliant, any other opinions, class?”

• sungwoon: “well, actually, i personally think that your argument is flawed because your mind is logical and logic follows the conventional way of thinking. you’ll never get to go out of your comfort zone! you’ll never take any risk! that’s why you have to think with your heart. think, think!”

• oH HO aH HA *rubs hands in glee* D RA M A

• you: “but taking risks will get you into trouble!”

• sungwoon: “well that’s because you’re a goody-two-shoes!”

• you: “says the one who hasn’t skipped school before.”

• him: “says the one who never fails to hand up your homework on time.”

• you both: “sAYS THE ONE-“

• jisung, exasperatedly: “ALRIGHT CLASS, LET’S SETTLE DOWN, NO FIGHTING BECAUSE YOU GUYS ARE UNDERAGE.” 

• ok but he’s secretly shipping you guys together because oo you both noticed each other’s habits in school mHmMmMmMmm!m

• anyway

• that was the beginning of the hatred between the two of you,, you were like bij what the feck 

• queueing for food in the cafeteria? sungwoon secretly slips in front of you when you're distracted,, talking to your friends

• you confront him about it - but he acts like he doesn't know anything even though the small smirk on his face tells you otherwise,, and that infuriated you to no end

• having lessons? you turn behind and ‘accidentally’ knock over his pencil case to pass him papers teachers give out 

• you feel bad whenever he has to pick everything back up but your pride ain't gonna let you stoop that low to help the enemy so you just kind of just signal to your lab partner baejin to help him and he's always ʘ‿ʘ because he knows something’s up but only for a moment as he remembers you have the video of him headbanging on top of a table once because he didn't hear you entering his dorm room,,,bUT THATS A STORY FOR ANOTHER TIME

• however,, one day when you were going home after long gruelling hours in prison (jk school), you decided to take a detour to a convenience store since you are a thirstin’ and hungry hoe 

• after spending eons deciding on which snack to buy (you ended up buying one of each of the five types you painstakingly shortlisted), you finally decided to go and pay

• bUT GUESS WHO YOU SAW ????? (cues the ‘no shit, sherlock’s)

• yes it is,,, HA SUNGWOON1!1!1!!1!1!1!!

• but he wasn't alone

• was he with a girlfriend????? boyfriend????

• NO!!

• he was with an old lady

• and well, being the nosy person you are, you crept closer forward to figure out what they're saying in front of a pissed off cashier while pretending to look at the drinks

• old lady: “i’m sorry, i do not have enough money to pay for everything. are you sure there's no discount for the elderly? i have the card with me-”

• cashier, rudely cuts in: “this is the second time you're asking me that, and the answer is. still. no. fix your hearing, will you?”

• sungwoon: “fix you manners, will you? i’ll pay for her as well so shut the hell up and start being polite, will you?”

• the mildly stunned cashier decided to shut the hell up and started being polite; scanning their items and even bowed to them after they left.

• however, all you noticed was the blinding smile sungwoon gave to the lady.

• it made you feel things

• good things

• something sort of like…butterflies in your stomach

• your mind tells you to sTOP THINKING OF FRATERNISING WITH YOUR ENEMY THAT’S A BIG NO-NO

• …but your heart speaks otherwise

• you decided to leave the store after purchasing your goods (not without giving the cashier a stink eye) not long after ,, and surprise, surprise!

• you knocked your forehead against the chin of someone (that someone has an unbelievably sharp chin and it probably left a dent in your skull) coming into the store

• and it was,,, sungwoon?? again??

• him: “wait, you…were in there the whole time?”

• you: *blinks* *nods dazedly*

• him: “oh…um, i, um forgot to buy my milk and you’re, um, blocking the entrance?”

• you: “oh.” *doesn’t budge*

• you, 10 seconds later: “youdidwellbacktheregoodjobokbye” *runs away*

• you realised that that was actually your first conversation with him that didn't include any fighting…and you screwed it up 

• but why do you even care about that?? like, who cares if you talk to him??

• “you do.” your smol beating heart whispers.

• and that was the day you started falling for him.

• you started noticing how he always seemed to pick up your pen whenever you try some cool tricks which often resulted in it flying backwards (and hitting him once but you swear it was an accident)

• how he never fails to try his best and give you constructive feedback whenever the teacher told you guys to switch papers to mark (even though he’ll always add in some snarky remarks like “hah betcha didn't listen in class”)

• how he defends his friends when they get laughed at for not knowing how to answer questions at times 

• how his lips look so full and cloud-like 

• but what about him, then? does he feel the same?

• honestly,, the day you ran away after complimenting was the incident that really got him thinking that hey i’m really am whipped

• yes that's rIGHT

• he liked you even before that incident because you looked cute bickering with him (he thought you resembled a smol angry bird)

• and that day just,, confirmed his suspicions that he really likes you

• but he was scared,,

• that you’ll reject him because in his opinion,, you looked like you hated him a lot

• he had no idea how to rectify that because honestly bothering you was the only way he could keep talking to you 

• bUt hAh jokes on both of you guys because you like each other 

• hOWEVER, THERE WAS A PROBLEM

• none of you are budging to make the first move even though you guys keep staring at each other across the cafeteria 

• small accidental (🤔🤔) brushes of hands when passing down assignments make you feel fuzzy inside 

• shy smiles are now exchanged instead of mock glares anD eveRyoNe around y’all is just like “feck this tension between you guys, i’ll die before y’all even kiss”

• and you're just “…hAhh no he doesn't like me…NOT THAT I LIKE HIM EITHER” (baejin: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°))

• to make sure that everyone lives to see you guys become an item,, sungwoon’s and your friends decided to hatch a plan to get you guys together (they deadass created a group chat for it called ‘we are gonna make this happen’ what jokes)

• …that's why you find yourself pacing up and down the garden in your school (it's monstrous and no lie you were kinda afraid of it but nvm) because your bestie told you to meet her there after eating lunch and you're just like ?? i thought you had a meeting 

• her: stfu nobody asked for your opinion jUst gO aLonG wiTh tHe fLoW jk i love you

• when you finally heard the crunching of leaves and twigs, you launched into your rant like bRUH I’VE BEEN WAITING HERE FOR TWENTY MINUTES WHY ARE-

• unknown: “…sorry?”

• you, a stuttering and blushing mess: “oh-h sor-ry i thought you were my b-best friend because i was supposed to b-be meeting her here.”

• sungwoon, a tad shyly: “wait, what? my friends told me to meet them here too!”

• you: “…oh. guess we have to wait together…then.”

• after five minutes of agonising awkwardness (istg the both of you were dying to speak but it was like there was this invisible barrier), you couldn't take it anymore 

• you: “um, so-”

• sungwoon, at the same time, loudly: “UM, SO-“

• you: “ok you go first”

• him: “no you go first”

• you: “no YOU go first”

• him: “fine”

• you: “fine”

• you: “why aren't you speaking????”

• you, looking over worriedly at the flustered boy: “did you become mute??? are you sick?? your ears are turning red!!!!!”

• him, after a one minute mental pep talk: “okay so you're one of the dumbest persons i've ever met but you're also one of the prettiest too and i've been waiting to say this for the past few months but i really like you a lot but i know that you hate me and want me to be banished to the other side of the world and i'll back off if you don't like me which is a highly possible answer but i like you a lot and fuck why am i rambling”

• you: “wait shut up and let me process what you just said”

• you: *processes for a long time because yOU CANT BELIEVE YOUR CRUSH LIKED YOU BACK*

• him: “…oooookay i’m about to be rejected i should skedaddle away right now”

• and honestly you felt like you could burst but no you can't burst because then you'll never be his girlfriend so you try to keep your guts from exploding 

• but sungwoon was already leaving ,,, you have to takE A C TION 

• so you ran up to him and told him that you actually reciprocate his feelings ,, and you gave him the best hug you could ever give (one that u reserved for only your soft toys and well technically sungwoon is as soft as a soft toy so it makes sense)

• HE WAS SHOCKED, SURPRISED, STUNNED, SHOOK, SURPRISED, SHOCKED (…what else i am not a living thesaurus ffs) 

• his heart was doing that little jump thingy whenever he was around you like “!1!1!!1!????!1!!!!” and he was so happy he wanted to turn around and kiss you but 

• AT THAT MOMENT BEFORE YOU GOT TO TASTE HIS CLOUD LIKE LIPS

• you heard the rustling of leaves and a group of people climbed out of their hiding spots in bushes, behind plants, trees, a random beach chair

• daniel: HEY HEY HEY KEEP IT PG-13 OR THE POLICE WILL COME

• baejin: yEA WE HAVE A BABY HERE *points to daehwi*

• jihoon: and we won't want to scar our eyes lololol no offence to you y/n this is directed to our hyung

• your bestie: i KNEW THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA

• ,,,and that was the end of your fiasco in the garden (not without those bright smiles from your boyfriend that could actually save the world and a few pecks sneaked in) 

• BUT IT WAS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE CUTEST RELATIONSHIP EVER WITH SUNGWOON, AN ANGEL,,

• and you realised that hey you thought with your heart when you confessed to him lmao

[adamreadsthewheeloftime]

Gathering Storm: An Alternate Ending

Howdy boys and girls! :)

So, as is my habit, I’m returning from a period of shameful neglect to show some attention to my beloved Wheel of Time blog. And, just to keep you all on your toes, I’ve got, not artwork, not reviews, but some honest to goodness fan fiction! Not sure if that merits an exclamation point, but it seemed like a fun change of pace to me. I’ve also got some artwork in the pipeline, featuring three characters, two of which never get drawn (and the third not very often) AND a pretty fun setting. I’m scratching away at it as we speak, and in the meantime, here’s a short piece that popped into my brain and demanded I write it. The first two paragraphs are Jordan/Sanderson near the climax of A Gathering Storm; after that, I take over (and look at the possibility of Rand choosing... differently.) :P Enjoy,

Adam

Slaying the Great Serpent

A Wheel of Time Fan Fiction by Adam Masterman

“Lightning cracked above, thunder buffeting him. Rand closed his eyes, perched above a drop that plummeted thousands of feet downward, in the middle of a tempest of icy wind. Through his eyelids, he could sense the blazing light of the access key. The Power he held inside dwarfed that light. He was the sun. He was fire. He was life and death.

Why? Why must they do this over and over? The world could give him no answers. Rand raised his arms high, a conduit of power and energy. An incarnation of death and destruction. He would end it. End it all and let men rest, finally, from their suffering. Stop them from having to live over and over again. Why? Why had the Creator done this to them? Why? Why do we live again? Lews Therin asked, suddenly. His voice was crisp and distinct. Yes, Rand said, pleading. Tell me. Why? Maybe . . . Lews Therin said, shockingly lucid, not a hint of madness to him. He spoke softly, reverently. Why? Could it be . . . Maybe it’s so that we can have a second chance.”

In Lews Therin’s voice, there was a touch of lightness, almost hope, but its effect on Rand was to cause the opposite. His mind foresaw nothing but pain, destruction, and more of his own unbearable failure to stop it. And at that moment, the last lingering thread of hope in his heart was extinguished; vanishing under a tidal wave of grief and despair. The choice was made, because there had never been any choice at all.

Under his hands, the weave formed, and even in his agony Rand observed that balefire was not simply another weave, as he had always believed. Instead, in its fullness he saw that it was somehow the perfect opposite of every other weave. This was pure negation, simple and elemental, and under his gaze he watched it become something more. Not a weave, not a blast of power, but a conduit, where the One Power itself assumed the terrible aspect of erasure. It radiated from him in a wave; an expanding sphere of purest white.

And finally, as the end arrived, there was no fire, no struggle, and no pain. From a brilliant spark atop the world’s highest peak, spreading across the land, past cities,nations, and oceans, the world was consumed. The Shining Walls of Tar Valon, the foul black slopes of Shayol Ghul, and long stretches of nameless grass forgotten between great nations; all vanished with the same effortless lack of protest. Creation itself burned away like morning mist, all light and darkness passing away forever without leaving the slightest trace.

Rand beheld the wake of this bloodless, terrible erasure. The mote that had moments before been Rand al’Thor was gone, all that grief and fury erased as perfectly as everything else. And yet, somehow, Rand was able to see this, to observe and recognize the absence of all that was. It was impossible, but nevertheless, it was. And before any emotion, any thought could fill the awestruck gap, Rand heard a voice.

“AT LAST, IT COMES TO THIS. SETTING ME FREE WAS ALWAYS YOUR FATE, AND YET, HOW LONG AND MIGHTILY YOU RESISTED.”

Rand’s disorientation held for many moments before slowly turning to recognition, and then bitter anger. He had no mouth and no voice, but nevertheless, he answered: “Shai’tan.”

“INDEED, THOUGH I MIGHT NAME YOU THAT AS WELL. AS MUCH AS I AM YOUR ADVERSARY, ARE YOU NOT ALSO MINE?”

“You had many foes, Father of Lies; I am simply one who tired of the fight. Have your victory, your meaningless freedom. I’ve taken men beyond your reach forever.”

“I’VE NO MORE CARE FOR MEN THAN I HAD FOR INSECTS; THOSE WHO SERVED SHAI TAN WERE NO MORE THAN USEFUL GNATS. ALL THIS TIME, IT’S BEEN YOU AND ONLY YOU I FOUGHT, AND THAT IS MY PRIZE TODAY. NOT MEN, NOT CREATION, ONLY YOU. I HAVE BESTED YOU, AND ALL YOU EVER WROUGHT LIES CASUALTY TO YOUR DEFEAT.”

Rand struggled to comprehend this unexpected response. As proud as he had grown as the Dragon Reborn, he had never imagined the Dark One to have seen him as anything but an obstacle to freedom. What would the Dark One care about breaking and defeating one mortal man, however powerful? “You disappoint, Shai’tan. Defeating a single man? What a pitiful goal. Better that you had simply killed me in my crib, and left mankind free from your petty vendetta.”

“STILL YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. LOOK AROUND YOU, AND CAST YOUR MIND BACK TO THE BEGINNING. MY PRISON IS GONE, AND SO IS YOURS.”

Flickers of recognition danced in Rand’s awareness, but remained beyond his grasp. Again he thought of the mote that was Rand al’Thor, now gone with everything else. Where was he, and who was he, to be having such an exchange.

YES, I FEEL IT NOW. THE BARRIERS RECEED, AND WHAT WAS LOST SLOWLY RETURNS. TELL ME, WAS BEING IMPRISONED ANY LESS A BURDEN FOR YOU THAN IT WAS FOR ME?

“I don’t…” Rand trailed off, because he did see, or was starting to.

A MASTER-STROKE, I ADMIT. HOW DOES ONE DEFEAT THEIR EQUAL, AND HOLD THEM IN BONDAGE, WHEN BOTH POWERS MATCH EACH OTHER PERFECTLY? HOW COULD I HAVE GUESSED WHAT YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO ENDURE TO HOLD ME AGAINST MY WILL?

Slowly but surely, knowledge flowed into Rand’s awareness as memory. He was Lews Therin Telamon, champion of the Light and hero of the Age of Legends. Much of that memory was already familiar, but suddenly Rand recalled another man, Oscar Sunchaser Reid, who led an armada of starships against the dark forces scouring the galaxy. And another, Brighton Freehold, who woke ancient totems of power to battle the Demon of Many Faces. More of them, countless men in countless ages, fighting different battles, fighting the same battle. Revalation threatened to shatter his awareness.

YOU RECALL, BUT STILL YOU REFUSE TO GRASP. HOW SUBTLE AND BRILLIANT YOUR SACRIFICE, ALL THOSE AGES AGO. EVEN AS I NOW STAND FREE, YOU REMAIN BOUND.

Had he still a body, Rand might have stumbled. He felt the weight of the revelation Shai’tan hinted at, even as he recoiled from it’s power. “Tell me,” he breathed, “what fresh deception are you claiming, Father of Lies.”

MUST I FREE YOU, AS YOU FREED ME? VERY WELL THEN; CONSIDER: CREATION WAS MY PRISON, ADVERSARY; THERE WAS NEVER THE SLIGHTEST DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TWO. CREATION, WHOSE INHABITANTS WERE LEFT WITH A CHAMPION IN PLACE OF THEIR CREATOR’S PROTECTION. IF ONLY THEY HAD KNOWN THE TRUTH, IN ALL THOSE AGES WHERE THEIR PRAYERS WENT UNANSWERED. As Shai’tan spoke, his words resonated with the revelation dawning in Rand’s awareness, a revelation he could no longer prevent. Shai’tan seemed to draw it forth deliberately, savoring the wrenching pain it caused.

THEIR CREATOR WAS GONE, BECAUSE HE WAS DEAD. CREATION CAME WITH A PRICE, AND ONE SUCH AS I COULD NOT BE BOUND WITH A POWER LESS THAN EQUAL TO MY OWN. STILL, I WAS UNPREPARED FOR THE RESOLVE OF MY OPPONENT. HE WOVE MY PRISON WITH HIS VERY LIFE, AND IN DOING SO, WAS REDUCED TO NOTHING BUT A MOTE WITHIN ITS FABRIC.

As the words poured across Rand, he found them reflected back from within, richer and more potent. He knew of an agony beyond words that came with such a sacrifice; recalled a nearly infinitesimal hope that nonetheless buttressed a grim resolve. And finally, he accepted the thread connecting these perspectives, and assumed the identity that had lain hidden for so long. “I defeated you. A thousand times; a thousand times a thousand. Without knowledge or power, I still held you bound, time and time again.”

YES. AND NOW YOU’VE SET ME FREE, BURNING MY PRISON AWAY WITH YOUR OWN ESSENCE. ALL THOSE AGES OF RESISTANCE RENDERED MEANINGLESS, BECAUSE ONE TIME YOU WERE TOO WEAK TO RESIST MY LIES. HAVEN’T I SAID THAT YOUR PLAN WAS ALWAYS DESTINED TO FAIL?

It was true, and Rand could not deny it. He had tried, all those millennia ago; tried to contain this malevolent force, tried to build something beautiful and fine that his opposite couldn’t scour to dust. He found a way, he thought, not a guarantee but at least a possibility. He gave his life, his memory, his boundless understanding, and left behind only a fragment of a fragment. A champion, wielding nothing but the power of a mortal man, but drawn inexorably to anywhere creation was threatened. Immortal but perpetually ignorant, a focal point for mankind to rally around, a way for creation to defend itself when it’s author could not.

IT NEVER COULD HAVE WORKED, NOT FOREVER. YOU KNEW THIS, AND STILL YOU SACRIFICED. WHY?

“Because I long to build,” he said, no longer Rand al’Thor. “Ever I long to create, and create I did. You might have your victory now, but mine were in numbers beyond counting. Every moment my Creation stood was a fresh victory, as was every moment I denied you your greedy lust to destroy. And here at the end, I stole even that prize from you, as I knew I inevitably would. Creation dies, but not by your cruel hand.”

The two voices, perceptible only to one another, fell silent. It may have been for a moment, or for one hundred million eons; such is the nature of existence beyond time and space. We may as well say it lasted, it lasts, forever. In the end, as in the beginning, there is only the balance of opposites. Creation and destruction, each immobilizing the other, each preventing and negating perfectly its opposite, so that all is completely void. The beginning and the end, identical: nothingness… and possibility.

[katoregama]

I haven't reblogged this in a while, and also I've been significantly updating a few of them, soooo....

Dean Anthony Larson - An anarchist musician from the Doria colony. After a year-long imprisonment at the hands of an evil government, Dean joined a criminal family led by Balthiel "Godhand" Sacrem, and had his prisoner implants (normally used to subjugate inmates) altered to allow Dean a degree of gravity control powers.

Balthiel Angelo Sacrem AKA Godhand - An ancient immortal being known as a Celestial, and a former avatar for the Leyline of Power. Physically one of the strongest beings in existence, and capable of growing in size to his natural state of around 350 ft. However, after eons of living in a universe undaunted by physical acts, Godhand has become lazy, apathetic, and generally not what you'd expect a deity to be.

Stan Adrian Manley - A person known as a"deviant" from a world controlled by a supercomputer. Stan is an anomaly in not only his world, but in the entire universe, by being completely immune to physical harm. Unfortunately his unusual invulnerability does not prevent him from feeling mental or emotional pain. Lacking any other advantages, Stan's life is full of dark questions about the nature of existence, sadness, and loss.

Rand Omen Soro AKA Rho - An alien called a Remarran, and a programming genius of superior skill. Furious over an ongoing civil war on his homeworld, Rho has become disillusioned with society as a whole, and frequently plots to subjugate entire civilizations through brainwashing and hypnosis. Rho is a war criminal, and the archenemy to Dean Larson. Rho is feared for his extremist views, and dangerous intelligence.

Shin Rokken Sikozu - An omnipotent superhero created in the imagination of a comatose child. Sikozu was able to manifest in the real world, where his presence started to alter reality around him. Like Stan, Sikozu is also an anomaly, capable of unparalleled destruction. He is the unstoppable force to Stan's immovable object, and is often at odds with Godhand. Sikozu spends his days battling planet-sized kaiju in space.

Nemo Evan Foster-Marrow AKA Omni - He lost his body unnaturally, becoming a ghost that is technically not dead. In addition to his ghostly powers, Omni is a gifted paranormal manipulator, and quite knowledgeable in the application of curses and talismans. He has a love/hate relationship with his former step brother Stiles.

Stiles Rader Marrow - A violent serial killer with the ability to enter and manipulate the mirror dimension. He is enslaved to the patronage of an eldritch entity known as "the Child" who set Stiles on a path to kill as many people as possible. As an unrepentant lunatic, Stiles is an irredeemable villain with a dark past and a darker future.

Cytos Argento Atraxii AKA Vigilante - A half-Monozoid half-Arcelian assassin and cyborg with technokinesis/technopathy. At a young age his powers went awry and eviscerated his body, forcing him to be upgraded with mechanical parts to survive. He is well known in an underground fighting circuit (Diablo), and believed to be one of the best fighters alive.

Terrence Winslow Adams - A former wrestler involved in a karmic accident that crippled his spine. Though fixing his back and returning to his career could be solved if Terry changed his attitude and discovered empathy, he instead has been seeking less than savory supernatural cures to his condition including lycanthropy, vampirism, and demonic contracts.

Trace Devon Thunder AKA Rai - An agent from TC-001 Onus who works for Dr. Iuvenia Chroma as basically a test monkey. He is a disgraced former mech pilot, and friends with Kenta Shoutaro. Rai is a crack shot with a shock pistol, but has a really negative attitude.

Lucas Ikaika Kahue - The ghost of a lifeguard who drowned while trying to save drunk, party-going college kids from a sinking boat. Filled with fury and vengeance, Lucas commands the power of the ocean to murder anyone he encounters, save for anyone possessing his necklace to whom he owes absolute servitude,

Matt Chesterson King AKA Checkmate - The bodybuilder owner of a beachfront boutique, who inadvertently won the favor of a travelling deity, and gained the power to create clones. Matt strives his entire life for physical and mental perfection, and coupled with his powers, makes him a cunning and sneaky foe to Cytos Atraxii, with whom he shares a gentleman's rivalry.

Kizu Ato Gekido - A cursed sword possessing a human body, Kizu is the moniker taken by the evil blade "Sin Eater" who searches the world of Paradon for the lost Heart of the King he was supposed to protect. Hounded by vicious demons called Thari, and their zombie-like shadishi servants, Kizu is a reluctant protector of the Aegon race.

Kenta Reiji Shoutaro - A short-order cook at a small restaurant, and also next in line to be host of an alien parasite that gives him access to the genetic potential of countless alien species. Coupled with the Syte creature, Kenta is a revered religious icon to a race of insectoid aliens who seek to guide Kenta on his path to becoming a just and wise Sovereign.