#So is conscience created organically? well the only way to find out is to die basically. but the likely answer is: yes

[raubtierfuetterung]

I‘m feeling strangely anxious, and not about maths. Rather my general anxiousness is increased by my lack of fear regarding the final maths exam. It feels so pointless and unreal. I just know already that I will not feel proud of my achievement if I pass. Then what‘s the point of succeeding, of doing anything really… I feel anxious because I am fickle and arrogant and my heart feels hollowed out. My imagination is so bright and fantastic that the world looks pale and bland, always. I want to be a reclusive wizard living in a wonky cramped castle with a magical garden and only mingle with people when they come knock at my door and ask me for help nicely (Then I would even offer my assistance for free). If that‘s not possible maybe I just kill myself

[alegotic-twelve]

I think its time to talk about this (Nina The Killer)

For those who do not know Spanish, I will summarize and translate what I speak in this "interview"

This video was the idea of ​​a friend of mine, she helped me finally break this silence that I had for 9 years, I thank her for doing this and giving me a place of trust where I can speak and feel comfortable to talk about this great trauma that I have

It is not a video that I look for where to victimize myself, nor do I seek to give pity, I only count the events as they happened, I want to get this out of my system to, maybe someday, overcome it and embrace this character that y create

As some (or very little of you) may know, I am the original creator of the creepypasta "Nina The Killer", a story of urban internet legend which I wrote at the age of 13 Mainly, which I do not talk about in the video, I create Nina because i loved Jeff, in my youth i suffered a lot from Bulliyng, and I saw too much admiration in a chaotic and dangerous character who could take revenge on the people who bothered him to the point of The madness I created Nina to reflect my admiration for this character, Nina was the reflection of everyone who admired Jeff and wanted justice as he did

Obviously I was young, my sense of justice was still very cloudy and even dangerous, I never did anything bad or hurt anyone, but the harassment generated a lot of hatred, and instead of releasing it on my classmates, I made a creepypasta that made feel justice

In the interview, my friend asks me why I lost my relationship with Nina The Killer, since she was already such a famous creepypasta, and even, it is taken as part of the cannon for many, I soon explain that it was due to the horrible hate that i lived through.

I tell about how I did Nina after trying to make a Jeff cosplay with a purple hoodie that I had, the photo of Nina is actually me, the story, quite rough and even cringe, I wrote it at that time, even innocent and inexperienced, I could not To say that I did a great job, well, I was 13 years old, we all do cringes at that time (and the one who does not throw the stone xD)

I keep telling that in addition to Nina, i had created A Cloe the ragdoll, a creepypasta who talks about the wandering body of a girl victim of the illegal sale of organs

and a strange entity in the disguise of a rabbit that protected children from adults, in an extreme way, he calle psychopath rabbit or something

Despite the great creativity of these creepypastes, Nina was still important to me, because I identified more with her So in a year I decided to make her one of the most famous creepypastes, I made an effort, drawing every day, updating my facebook and devianart, publishing in groups and pages of creepypastes, all that effort paid off, but let's say not the what i expected

There was a bit of hate at first, nothing that a normal person would not tolerate, I had a lot of character and conscience to tolerate the hatred of people who well, I understood that they did not like my creepypasta, I always said "not everyone is going to like what what did I do"

but this Hate was climbing to an unbearable point I soon learned of a huge number of hate groups for Nina, and not only for the character, they hate me, because people only had to say "I hate Nina", they also said "I hate Nina's creator" In my 14 years I could not understand why, but I kept going, that until every day I received 15 to 20 comments on my DA and messages on my Facebook, telling me that Nina sucked, that I was a whore, that I should die I had to commit suicide, that nobody loved me, that I wish I had an incident, that I was a motherfucker and the list of horrible things was endless, so much so that I only received 2 to 3 comments per week telling me they liked Nina I even admired many influencers from the creepypasta community, and many of them, horribly despised me and drew their creepypasta ocs killing Nina, and not only that, they also said horrible things about me. I spent days crying without understanding, stressed, depressed, and then I decided to end it, that along with having finished with my boyfriend at the time was a breaking point that I do not wish for any 15 year old girl I could not understand why adult, conscious, more experienced people came to the profile of a girl who only made a story and to criticize me in such brutal and horrible ways, as I said, I do not wish that on any child, I left many marks I spent a long time away from people, from myself, even I deal with self-esteem problems, I have very little self-confidence and I spent many years in depression

that caused me rejection and generated a lot of people who now wanted to take over Nina, to tell the truth, I never sold it legally, for copyrights, Nina is still my property, although I wanted to deny it for a long time, I am not now, I am the creator of Nina, it is something that I cannot change, but it is something that I also want to leave behind, something that even today, with my 22 years of age, I am finding it difficult to overcome I want to thank these friends who make me feel good about this who help me to overcome it, I do not seek to generate any hatred with this, rather, I want to raise awareness about what people say on the internet, sometimes they are just written words, but there are to be careful of how it affects the other person behind the screen, also to be aware of the youngest, children do a lot of nonsense, do not hurt them, they are children, they do not know what they are doing and that is normal, our duty as adults is to tell them what is right and what is wrong, not to insult them for their mistakes

Thanks for getting here and reading this, I've been through a lot but I want to hug Nina again and maybe give her the well-deserved story one day, something interesting and true to the creepypastas

maybe someday

[butdidmarlenacomebackhome]

okay so I'm probably going to make an unpopular statement, above all considering the platform I'm sharing it on but I feel like Tumblr is one of the places on the net where one should raise awareness the most considering the popularity of this topic. frankly, I don' t care about the repercussions because this is a serious matter I'm really passionate about. I've already talked about it on Twitter, where a few days ago this was a hot topic & I collected a lot of data from various point of views. let me just repeat my own stand one more time:

please, do not romanticize the mafia in any way, shape or form

I think a lot of misconceptions have been spread all over the world about what the mafia is all about and let me tell you that as an Italian citizen well-studied on the matter, fancy lifestyles and hot-ass possessive mobsters ready to romance the fvck out of you is not it. it's quite disrespectful to picture this romanticized version of a real world-wide issue through media (official and unofficial) and I will proceed to explain why. a lot of people on Twitter think they have every right to treat the matter as something (and I quote) "meaningless" so I went ahead and made a thread about the "meaningless" crimes committed by the Italian mafias.

mind that the articles I've linked as well as their titles contain some pretty graphic descriptions and/or pictures, I recommend refraining from reading if those may trigger you

here are some of the most cruel and well-known atrocities that make up the mafious history (past and present) to better understand what we're talking about. I guarantee that everything you know about the mafia (from the concept of honor, to that of familial loyalty and union showcased into the media) is wrong:

The Forgotten Story Of Giuseppe Di Matteo, A Boy Dissolved In Acid By The Mafia

Three-Year-Old's Mafia Death Shocks Italy

Mafia in Naples is still going strong – and we must not forget how it affects everyday life in the city

Italian Prosecutor Fights the Mafia—and Fears for His Life

How the brutal murder of an anti-mafia hero altered Sicily

Italian politicians and police among 300 held in mafia bust

7 Major Mafia Murders [Warning: Gruesome Photos]

‘Migrants are more profitable than drugs’: how the mafia infiltrated Italy’s asylum system

Outrage as deadliest ever mafia boss, 86, who ordered 150 murders and a boy to be dissolved in ACID is set to be freed from jail so he can ‘die with dignity’

Paolo Borsellino: the massacre in via D’Amelio twenty-eight years ago

Lea Garofalo was killed by her Mafia family. Now she's the face of anti-mob protests (this one to show you mafia has no fvcking honor, kills men, women & children alike & if you get in their way not even family bonds can save you)

Italian mafia boss suspected of trying to buy a baby for €10,000

Meet the Sicilian Mafia Hitman Who Killed 80 People and Will Be Free in 5 Years

The shadowy world of Mafia boss Diabolik who strangled a pregnant woman and murdered 50 others

How the Mafia infiltrated Italy’s hospitals and laundered the profits globally

[ tw for graphic images ] 'My photos are just blood, blood, blood': Cosa Nostra's brutal murders in 1970s Sicily are revealed in images taken by female photographer who defied Mafia death threats to cover their crimes

[tw; graphic images] Children murdered by the Mafia as Italian mobsters sink to new low

Italian mafia groups are cashing in on COVID-19 by exploiting the social and economic crisis

Revealed: Mafia’s prime role in human-trafficking misery

Italy remembers general killed by mafia

How the mafia is causing cancer

adding this one too, which is a list of victims killed by the Sicilian Mafia ONLY, countless others have been brutally and unjustly murdered by the other Italian mafias too

in conclusion: people have died, people still grieve the losses of their siblings and friends and co-citizens, people are still fighting and people have died trying. to create fictional works or tiktok videos or whatever people are doing these days twisting the very cruel and very gruesome reality of the mafia is and will forever be disrespectful to its victims, past present and unfortunately future. this doesn't mean one shouldn't be free to create a fictional work based off the world of criminal organizations, but to do so while being unproblematic requires two possible solutions:

1. to respectfully treat the issue through a realistic depiction of the mafia, based on documented research and actual facts

and/or

2. to satisfy your need for a criminal/mobster love interest WITHOUT attributing the scenario to the mafia, for example by simply calling it a criminal!au instead than a mafia!au - this is really an easy and accessible solution, it costs literally nothing to change this habit

keep in mind that in no way am I intending to bring forward any sort of "cultural appropriation" speech as the mafia is in no way part of the Italian culture, nor should it be treated as any cultural asset: it is rather an on-going historical plague. I want to clarify (as many of the people who have spoken up about it have been accused of this) that I am not asking to attribute it to Italians, but rather to recognize the gravity of this deeply-rooted problem.

Mafias are not an aesthetic.

choosing to ignore this crucial fact is to serve as an accomplice & to debase its crimes against humanity.

"We need restless consciences in our country, we need citizens who will say they've had enough! We've been talking about mafia for ages."

— Father Luigi Ciotti, deeply involved in the fight against illegality and organized crime, as the Mafia

"I never asked to deal with the mafia. I got involved by accident. And then I stayed because of a moral issue: people kept dying all around me."

— Judge Paolo Borsellino, killed by the Mafia in the Via D'Amelio bombing because of his investigations against the mafia and his Antimafia Pool which brought to justice 475 mafiosi

"The fight against the mafia must become a cultural movement which accustoms people to appreciate the beauty of the fragrant perfume of freedom opposed to the stink of moral compromise, indifference and therefore of complicity"

— Judge Paolo Borsellino

p. s. one of the scariest parts about the post I've written has been searching for English quotes about the mafia: the only ones you'll find are some kind of inspirational phrases & other famous quotes by world-wide known mobsters which, by the way, are in no way truthful and/or realistic. the Italian testimony has practically been erased in foreign media & is only accessible to Italian speakers. therefore I need to specify that the quotes I've used in this post have been personally translated by me from the Italian source.

"Nobody will avenge us. Our pain has no witness."

— Peppino Impastato, Italian journalist and activist who spoke up his entire life about the mafias, denouncing their crimes, assassinated by Cosa Nostra

[bigskydreaming]

Going through some old pages on the wiki I keep for my projects (can not more highly recommend building a private wiki site for yourself if you’re a writer with a ton of different or extensive projects. Soooo helpful at keeping me organized).

Anyway, came across this old short story I wrote set in the days of the Holy Wars from the Citadel ‘verse I was talking about a couple weeks ago, that was the original setting for what became By Lost Ways. Tossing it out there in case anyone wants a read. Its fairly short and is a glimpse at the future gods of Night and Day from that ‘verse, Adana and Reyus. *Shrugs*

Even Heaven Can Break

“God is dead.” Nerrick sighed and pulled off his glasses, mopping at them again with his now wrinkled shirt front. It wasn’t as though he held any great hopes that clearer vision might give him any further insight into the utterly inscrutable - and likely insane - young woman sitting across the table from him. He‘d already tested that theory and found it lacking. It simply gave him something to do. An ever so slight distraction from the roundabout circles they‘d been engaged in since - what was it now? Some six hours past? 

“Yes,” he heaved, long past the point of trying to disguise his weariness. “You’ve said as much, multiple times. I don’t suppose you’d care to elaborate?” The girl - and she was nothing more than a girl, no matter what foolish superstitions she’d inspired amongst the lower classes - smiled again that same enigmatic smile that half made him wish he was a man more inclined to act on violent urges. 

“God is dead,” she repeated with a small, careless shrug. “It seems a fairly straightforward statement of fact. I’m confused as to what more you expect me to say on the matter, Sir Magistrate.” His back molars ground together audibly. His patience maintained only by the constant vigilance of his temper. Nerrick reminded himself, not for the first time that morning, that he was a man noted for his restraint, his even temperament and unemotional dedication to justice. He was not about to be bested in a contest of wills by some ignorant, backwoods child, in his own prison. 

The small dank room stank of mildew and rot, not to say anything of the havoc the dim torchlight was wreaking upon his fragile eyesight. Only his own personal ethics kept him from abandoning the girl to a more permanent exile in the deeper catacombs, an option that grew more appealing by the moment. 

But as long as the possibility remained that she was merely repeating some heretical pagan belief, unaware of the repercussions her words had upon more civilized folk, he could not in good conscience treat her as just another rabble-rouser. Or, the Citadel guard against, condemn her to a space in the asylums, no matter how mad she seemed. Sitting comfortably three levels below the surface of the great granite and steel prison as though she were some grand lady awaiting tea in her parlor. . “Perhaps you speak of another god unknown to me,” Nerrick conceded gracefully. The wooden chair, almost entirely rotted through, creaked ominously beneath him as he shifted his weight, but God above, even his ass was falling asleep. Still she remained poised, back ramrod straight and never shifting those dark, pupil-less eyes from his. He was a man of reason and science and knew the unnerving Berut eyes to be nothing more than an unfortunate physical trait of her people, but it was easy enough to see how they’d gained their reputation for witchcraft and beguilement. Only the sternest of wills kept his gaze locked with hers. “I admit to being unfamiliar with all the customs of your people, and perhaps we speak of two entirely separate entities. The God of my people is eternal. He created everything we know, and much else besides, and He will endure when all else has turned to dust. He can not die.” “No.” Still she smiled. “There is only one God. In this, my people believe much the same as you. But you speak of faith, things that you can not know but believe to be true. I speak of fact. God is dead. This I know.” He tried reason. “God is the creator of all, and has no peer. If you admit this to be true yourself, then how can God possibly die?” She shrugged again. “Perhaps he willed himself to die. One can imagine eternity might grow tiresome after a time.” Nerrick could almost agree with that sentiment, as for a moment, he entertained the blasphemous thought that even God could be moved to suicide after sufficient time spent with this wretched creature. He dispelled such thoughts with a shake of his head - down that road lay this girl’s particular stamp of madness, no doubt. He tried another tack. “God created the universe. If He is gone, how is it that we are not? Shouldn’t the creation end with the creator?” “Perhaps it is ending, and it just hasn’t finished yet. We can hardly expect the universe to work on the same timetable as ourselves.”

“Tell me then,” he finally indulged her. “What makes you so certain God is dead?” “I saw him.” He sketched disbelief with an aged ashen brow. “You saw God.” “We seem to find a language barrier between us again, Sir Magistrate. Is my Erudi not accomplished enough for our conversation? Among my people, I’m considered quite proficient in your tongue, but perhaps I’ve been misled.” Nerrick flushed. Her Erudi was quite fine - more than, in fact, if a bit stilted. Another minor detail that bothered him, though he could not say why. How did such a young representative of an infamously uneducated people come to speak his tongue with the skill of the most lettered gentry? He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “How do you know that the man you saw was God?” “Wouldn’t you know God if you saw him?” “God is above humanity,” he rasped impatiently. “He doesn’t appear in human form. Should we see him, we’d hardly be capable of comprehending his glory.” Her lips moved in what he imagined to be an expression of pity. It was impossible to be sure, the way her eyes resisted any attempt to read emotion in them. They quivered like liquid night, reflecting the faint torchlight as unsteady flames alit on twin seas of oil. “You speak again of what you believe, because you have never known otherwise. I have known otherwise, and speak again of what I know.” “Enough!” His hand cracked down on the wooden table top, spearing his palm with splinters. His reddened face, already contorted in rage, barely registered the pain. Her face registered nothing at all - just the same painted mask of gentle amusement she’d worn since first escorted down here in the company of his guards. And it was a mask, he was sure of it now. She was too clever with her words to be either ignorant or insane. Whatever game she played at, he wanted no further part in it. “I have no more patience to waste indulging your heresy, and I refuse to subject more of my city’s people to it. You’ve caused nothing but disruption since you first arrived, inciting riots and restlessness among the lower classes, using their faith in service to your own twisted agenda, whatsoever that may be, and it ends here, girl.” She remained unmoved. A pale statue in a plain white dress, inky black curls spilling down both shoulders like curtains cut from the same cloth as those damnable eyes. Her lips twitched. “You may call me Adana.” Nerrick froze, save for where his chest heaved like the billows of a forge, grasping greedily at air to feed his exertions. The tinglings up and down his spine were more than just pinched nerves from too long sitting in one position. This girl, with her damn eyes and impenetrable nerves and heretical talk was more than just some insolent brat from the savage lands north of the city. He was no longer completely convinced there was nothing to the stories and legends of Berutian bewitchery. But those eyes held him now, and he didn’t think he could look away even if he willed it. “You resist giving me your name for these past several hours, and now offer it freely, without me even asking. Why?” “It no longer matters,” Adana told him, heaving a sigh of her own for the first time all morning. Nerrick almost felt that there was regret in that sigh, but her painted mask hid that as well as any other emotion, were it there at all. “For what it’s worth, it was never my aim to disrupt the peace of your city. Call it an unfortunate symptom…nothing more, nothing less.” “Then why?” “Everything you know is about to change,” she said gently. “Well, not for you, I suppose, but for them. They needed to know. It’s time for man to take charge of his own destiny, not spend the coming days huddled in shrines chanting desperate prayers to a deity dead and gone. They won‘t listen, not nearly enough of them at any rate, but some maybe.” Why not for me, Nerrick wondered, but instead he merely asked, “Why now? Why do you tell me all this now, when before it was just a game to you?” Adana laughed, a low throaty chuckle laced again with that hint of pity. “It no longer matters,” she said again. “You want to be here,” Nerrick intuited suddenly. “You evaded the guards for over a week, and then when they arrested you today, you hardly resisted. Like you wanted to go with them. Why? Why now, why here? What is it you want?” “To wait. Here with you.” And then, before he could ask for what, she continued. “There’s a mountain two day’s journey north of here by horseback. My people call it the Degatoi. Yours call it the Foothill, I believe. They say that’s where the Citadel rests, where God makes his home.” “That’s just a myth,” he frowned. “God doesn’t dwell amongst his creations, the Citadel exists in a realm untouchable by our own.” “Some myths are make believe. Others are facts that have since been forgotten. I believed it to be fact, as do my people. So I journeyed there, a pilgrimage of sorts. My…reasons are my own.” “And did you find the Citadel?” “No, it wasn’t there anymore. It moved. It does that, you know.” “Of course,” Nerrick snorted. “Why wouldn’t it?” “Why indeed,” Adana smile wryly. She smoothed her dress in her lap. “I did however, find God. He was lying at the base of the peak. Roughly your height, wearing unfamiliar clothes, though I suppose that’s only to be expected. His hair was strange, almost feathery, and he looked like no man I’d ever seen before. He was dead. And I looked into his wide, staring eyes and in them beheld the Abyss. And I knew then that he was God, and knew all the mysteries and secrets of the Universe that he’d known then at the last. My people can do that, you see.” Nerrick nodded, numbly. He had heard that, any schoolchild knew that myth of the Berut people, the legend that kept even the greatest sorcerers of the South from their doorstep lest it turn out to be true. They could see into a man’s soul with those strange eyes of theirs, see all the way into them into their deepest, darkest reaches and pull out every twisted secret and hidden truth for accounting. It was the kind of legend he’d always held up to be nonsense, but now, staring into those eyes of myth and reckoning, he knew it to be true. Knew all of it to be true. 

He started to tremble, sweat dotting his brow, tracing salty rivers down the cracked parchment of his skin. The torchlight grew fainter and fainter and the air was dryer and thinner, harder to grasp at. Black flecks spotted his vision, and he took off his glasses again. Wiped them, though he suspected the problem was his eyes, not the spectacles. He’d heard these were all symptoms of a heart-death, but it was hard to worry about such things now. He had to know, had to wonder instead, what kind of things might one see in the eyes of a dead God? What kind of things might one know? “The same things we all know at the end,” Adana said softly. She looked at him in the rapidly regressing torchlight and he knew with the same certainty he knew everything now, that yes, her eyes held pity. For him. “You feel it now, don’t you? When it’s so close, that no reason, no logic, none of the games we play to convince ourselves we don’t know the things our soul senses - that little piece in each of us that’s the smallest sliver of divinity linking us to the rest of the universe - none of them can hide it anymore.” Nerrick shivered and licked chapped paper-dry lips. His voice came out a croak. “Why are you here?” “To wait.” “For what?” “The end.” And then, “I’m sorry.” The earth split with a roar, but to Nerrick, all seemed silent. He leapt back, knocking over his chair with a hoarse shout his ears could never possibly hear over the sound of walls crashing down, thunderous echoes reverberating throughout the small chamber. The stained slate floor rent with a crack right through the center of the room, and he stumbled, tried to right himself, stumbled again as the earth shook and danced and trembled like a living thing, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Dust stormed the air in gray, ominous clouds that twisted into his lungs with every breath he took. The sound and fury buffeted him on all sides, splinters and shards of broken rock bombarding his skin. Pricking, ripping, tearing and gouging. 

His glasses cracked and fell, but before he the torches finally failed, he could still blurrily see the girl, Adana, seated serenely on the other side of the table, riding out the madness with perfect poise and watching him with those damned eyes. He fell himself finally and the ceiling split, raining clouds of dust and slate and broken rafters. One struck him full in the chest, pinning him to the floor. He felt ribs break, felt his terrified screams silenced by a shard of wood spearing him through one lung, all his breath going to granting him a few last gasps of air. Adana’s face filled his blurred vision then. In all the din, there was no chance of hearing her get up from the table and walk over to his side, but then there she was kneeling over him. She looked deep into his eyes. “You see? We all know things, even if we don’t know we know them,” she told him gently. “It’s because we’re all a little bit of God. Or maybe the Universe. Creation. I’m still figuring out where the line separating one from the other begins and ends. You were special, Sir Magistrate. Even if you didn’t know it. Take whatever comfort from that you can.” “Go with God.” Then her hand covered his mouth and nose, and she looked into his wide, staring eyes and beheld in them the Abyss, and all the secrets and mysteries of the Universe he had known at the end. ************* Adana rose with some difficulty, and drew the magistrate’s keys from his belt. She smoothed her dress - it would never be white again, she feared - and made her way to the door over a floor that still quivered and rattled, but only restlessly now. Much of its temper had been spent. The hallway beyond was relatively untouched. She quirked dry lips at divine providence, but perhaps it was more accurate to say she enjoyed the favor of the Universe at the moment. The torches were all spent and broken, save for where one had fallen upon the corpse of one guardsman and set his skin and hair aflame, lighting the gray hall fitfully with its macabre light. It was more than enough to see by. At least, more than enough for her eyes. She stepped over another body and ascended the small, tight stairwell at the end of the hall gracefully. Less so, when she almost ran into the blond, dirtied youth who came clattering down the stairs in the opposite direction. He reared back, startled, and she saw that she’d been accurate in her assessment: he was probably no younger than she herself, but his youth shone from his eyes and the sprightly smile that sprang to his face. She recognized him as one of the city-folk always to be found at her gatherings, listening intently to her words. Reyus, she thought his name was. She smiled. “Milady,” Reyus rasped out. The air was still thick and heavy with dust, and he had to stop and pant for breath before continuing. “We were just coming to rescue you!” He waved aimlessly behind himself with what she took for a stolen sword, perhaps looted from a guardsman dead in the earthquake. Coming down the stairs behind him were another young man and a slightly older woman, similarly ill-equipped. Adana favored them with a bemused smile. “How thoughtful.” Reyus blushed a rosy dawn and pressed his back to the wall to allow her passage by. He followed quickly at her heels as she passed the other two and continued up the stairs - rather like an eager but ill-trained pet, she contemplated with some amusement. “Well, there was a number of us - rather, we thought…we weren’t certain what the magistrate would do to you, and we were concerned…” “So I see,” she murmured as they alighted on the ground levels of the prison and found ten or so more men and women of varying ages and garb awaiting them with anxious expressions. They filled in silently behind them as Adana continued towards the front gates, kicking aside the outstretched limbs of the dead where they littered her path. “And are these all your enemies slain? What fearsome warriors have come to my aid here?” She suspected she might be needling Reyus just to see how much further his face could purple in shame and embarrassment. But it was the end of the world, after all. One should take one’s entertainment wherever they found it. The hues of his face performed admirably. “The rest of the guards fled when the earth shook. We never suspected - milady, what is happening? Is this your doing?” “God is dead,“ she said softly. “Such a thing is not without consequences.“ Adana stooped and unwrapped a relatively undamaged black cloak from one body, throwing it over her shoulders. “You’ll want one as well, I believe,” she told the boy. 

His eyes held hers bravely, and he nodded. His was an interesting soul indeed. A cult had hardly been her intention. Gaining the attention of the magistrate had been her only real aim, and if she happened to seed her own mystery a bit early, and allow it more room to grow - well, that had hardly seemed at cross purposes either. But, she supposed, it was never too early to find one’s faithful. A boy like Reyus might come in handy, and who knew what secrets the others might hold? She nodded decisively, and raised her voice to address them all. “Everything you know is about to change.” “I have a long road to walk ahead of me,” she continued. “It is not for the faint of heart.” She turned and walked from the prison‘s gatehouse. All of them, she noted with some interest, followed close behind. They raised scattered cries and shouts of alarm as they beheld the vista outside, but she barely looked up. She already knew the sky overhead was a dark red as though aflame. Roiling purple thunderclouds collided and went to war, crimson lighting stabbing at one and then another underneath. A long black tear split the heavens, stretching from one horizon to the next. Consequences were to be expected. The streets ahead of them were filled with the ruins of buildings and the bodies of the fallen. Survivors milled about in small groups, suffocating in shock while scattered fires raged. Flames crackled hungrily, fitful tongues licking at the sky and spewing their venom of smoke and ash. She could hear, faintly, the desperate prayers for salvation and succor. She sighed, and would have told them to save their breath, but then, she’d already done so. Reyus spun about, lost for even a direction to point his horror. “Milady, what about them?” Adana shook her head without slowing. “They’ll follow, or they’ll die. This city is not long for this world. It’s too close to a Vein. Nothing more can be done, and the whole world will follow if we do not reach our destination.” “But where are we going?” She favored his persistence with another small smile and drew the hood of her cloak up over her head. “We‘re going to the Citadel. To seek divinity.” It began to rain, thick, heavy drops that were warm to the touch, quickly soaking them through and through. She was glad to have found a black cloak, as the imagery of her white dress stained by this unnatural downpour was not one she cared to contemplate - even if it would already never be white again. She reached out to raise Reyus’ hood for him when he remained too distracted to care. The blood staining his golden hair, still vibrant even beneath the dust of dungeons, was not an image she found herself caring much to contemplate either. His was a curious soul indeed. “Milady, I don’t understand. If God is dead, what divinity do we seek?” Adana laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that echoed through the ruins of the broken city. “Ours,” was all she said. They picked their way through the rubble as the skies continued to bleed.

[readersguidetotheuniverse]

The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig

The Book of Regrets

Ariadna: I love how the author puts them down on paper —or on video, considering Hugo’s version of the library. Regretting past decisions is part of our human nature, and most of us live in societies that, even though improving, do not give much space for vulnerability and emotional talking. I found it very interesting how writing them down and reflecting —or acting, as Nora does— on them may help us improve, be more gentle and understanding with ourselves and, in turn, with others around us. I think it is a great symbol of how our regrets weigh us down and how we can deal with them in order to raise above them and grow.

Alicia: If I had in front of me a book of everything I regret and I had the chance to change things, would I? Yes. Hundred percent yes. Cause I am a very regretful person and I have done bad things, treated people badly and just fucked up in many many ways. So if I could I would change about a million things, no doubt. However, I don't have that book. And I can't change things from the past. I can only make sure I don't make the same mistakes in the future. Having regrets is natural but also a royal pain in the ass, pardon my French. I have had sleepless nights cause I remembered that one time I embarrassed myself in front of a guy I had a crush on when I was twelve. It sucks. And I'm slowly but steadily trying to come to an agreement with myself that everyone has done things they regret and it's okay, and I just have to move on. Hopefully one day I will fully embrace this thought.

Marina: I’d like to think everybody has a Book of Regrets, be it a literal book or an imaginary one. We all have made choices that we may regret later on in life even though we thought they were the right ones at the time. The fact that Nora sees them all in writing is, comprehensively, overwhelming; I too would feel pain if I were shown all my regrets in one sitting! But otherwise, it’s a way to show the character (as time goes on in the narrative) that she can overcome them, they were the choices that made her Nora, not Nora the swimmer, not Nora the singer, just Nora. And that’s what I take away from the book: life is not pretty and we may regret some choices, but in the end it’s what makes us real and how we got to this point in our lives, even if it’s not the best of times, we will endure.

The library/videoclub store/restaurant, etc (or why it changes from person to person)

Ariadna: At first, it seemed weird that there existed other versions of the «library». Don’t get me wrong; it seems very organic to me to start reading a book or a movie and being transferred to that particular life, I understand how that plain of existence shapes itself according to the psyche of the individual to accommodate them, make them feel secure, calm, at home, in a way. It just didn’t make sense that you ate spaghetti bolognese and were transported into a life in which you’ve moved to a small village in Tuscany and worked as a photographer in a vineyard state, for the lack of a better example.

Alicia: I think it was such a smart move to have different people go through the same thing but with a different setting to fit each individual's life. It made so much sense to me. Everyone goes through different experiences and feels attached to different things, so the most logical thing would be to have a specific setting for each person according to what they feel the most connected to. I like the library the most, especially because the idea of each life being a different book for you to read is fascinating. But I couldn't help imagining an infinite Blockbuster full of movies of your other lives and I love the concept as well. Now that I think about it, mine would probably be some kind of online streaming service. An afterlife Netflix of sorts.

Marina: I found this part very beautiful. The fact that it changes from person to person to best fit their personalities. I thought about what this in-between place would look like for me but I honestly couldn’t come up with anything! There’s not a place that I associate with complete and utter happiness. I have been happy in many places and sad in many others, so to choose just one is very difficult for me. 

The ending (it cuts abruptly)

Ariadna: Suffering mental illnesses myself, the ending pissed me off. It is predictable, clichéed and plainly boring. Too “feel-good” for me. I think Matt Haig, having suffered depression too himself, could have taken the opportunity to dwell on real ways to deal with this kind of mental illnesses, instead of creating an imaginary place after commiting suicide where you are given a magical second chance (or third, or fourth, or twentieth). This is straightforwardly triggering and naive and does not give much other message than “you just wait, some day you’ll reach rock bottom and suddenly, if you don’t die, you will be awarded a magical 180 degree turn in your life and everything will be better in a split second”. I get it, he wants to highlight how seeing things from different perspectives may help, but that’s not the way to do it, not at all. I think you already got how pissed I am, so I’m leaving it here.

Alicia: The ending was pretty predictable, some parts of it. For me, at least. But still I liked it. Being a person suffering from anxiety and a bit of depression I know it's not that easy and nice and cute. But, at the end, it's a book and it's fiction and I'm not going to try to solve my life with it. What I took from all the lives and the ending is that there are always going to be regrets, no life is perfect, thinking about what could have happened doesn't help anything. Nora realizes what she wants in her life, what she misses, what she did wrong and works to fix that and be nicer to the people around her. I think it's a nice take. Realistic? Probably not. Depression is not gonna just leave. But I think it's quite optimistic and hopeful and that's not always a bad thing.

Marina: To be completely honest I expected how the book would end from pretty much the beginning. So the fact that it ends where and when it does did not surprise me much. I think Matt Haig  could have done a better job. Talking about it with Ariadna and Alicia we have come to the same conclusion: how does Nora deal with her depression? Does she all of a sudden get cured? Or does she still have mental health problems from time to time? It would have been a better ending if it addressed some of those issues but overall it was expected that it wouldn’t.

Mrs. Elm

Ariadna: We all tend to idealise people who do us good or help us in hard times, specially as children. If we are to recall them, we remember them wiser, warmer, prettier... Imho, the library version of Mrs. Elm is an idealisation of the real Mrs. Elm. Being the only supporting adult in her childhood, more specifically, when her father died, Nora considered her a reference, an idol, if you want, so her mind has idealised her like some sort of a gurú or wisewoman. I would have loved to see how, meeting her again in real life, Nora could pinpoint the differences between them and acknowledge that even her young days’ idol has flaws and is a human being like any other. In the end, we tend to love people more because they’re flawed that we would if they were perfect.

Alicia: I think we all have met someone at some point that we looked up to. That person doesn't have to be perfect, or the smartest, or the best person out there. Probably we don't even know that person fully well. But for some reason we find comfort in them, we feel safe. The Mrs Elm from the library and the real Mrs Elm are not the same person. Sometimes we create a mental picture of people that doesn't 100% match with reality, but that doesn't mean it's not true for us. Real Mrs Elm said she was a bad wife and not a good mother, she maybe wasn't the person Nora thought she was, but she was still kind to her and took care of her when she needed it the most. Everyone can make mistakes sometimes but some things can't be faked, like true kindness. Maybe it's a bit naive of me, but I think mistakes can be forgiven if the person really is pure of heart. I think these kinda people are rare. At least, I haven't found many. (Truth be told I tend to easily see the bad in people so I am not the greatest example here). I think that in my library I would find a literature professor I had in my freshman year of college. I rarely talked to him outside of class, and if I did it was barely greeting in hallways, but I admired him so much and I felt at peace when I listened to him speak. I think he would be my Mrs Elm.

Marina: The differences for me are obvious: Mrs Elm in real life is a person, just another normal human being with problems and regrets. Her library counterpart, however, is just an entity that guided Nora through her regrets and helped her “overcome” them. So, in a way, we could theorize that the Mrs Elm in the library is really Nora’s own conscience trying to help her through her mental state.

Quantum theory or the multiverse

Ariadna: I love the idea of the multiverses (who doesn’t, after the whole MCU multiverse, timeline altering mumbo jumbo), of how a single minor decision can change your life drastically. I found it somehow inspiring and terrifying at the same time. It is scary to consider the power every little decision has in your life, how it can turn your life upside down but, at the same time, it offers billions of possibilities, it encourages you to try, to get past the infamous Book of Regrets, for you never know if a «bad decision» could have turned otherwise even more awful than what you think is your life now. It’s all about perspective.

Alicia: I am completely enthralled by the concept of the multiverse and also confused as heck. I am not one for science so really specific explanations just sound like gibberish in my mind, but the idea of an infinite number of universes existing simultaneously blows my mind. I keep seeing it in movies and TV shows and I fall for it every single time. At the same time, it stresses me out a little bit. It makes me wonder what I am doing differently in those other universes, am I happier? Am I successful? What if in one universe I worked harder or wasn't as picky and I managed to get a job I truly enjoy? What if I moved to a different city like I have always wanted to? What if I wasn't as afraid of living...

Marina: I geeked out a bit, not gonna lie, when Hugo explained the whole quantum theory of the multiverse. I’d like to think there’s one Marina out there that, for example, knows how to speak perfect Chinese; or runs marathons every year  (though that would be very hard!); or dresses like a hipster or a million other things. I do believe that every choice we make turns into a different reality; but, just the same as it creates a new universe, it makes me who I am. It makes me the woman that writes about books for fun, that likes to have dinner with her friends and get a little tipsy on one cocktail or too shy to talk to anyone but will power through a public talk because she is also a bit of a badass (if I do say so myself ;P). And even though I get sad sometimes because I regret some choices I made, in the end, it brought me here and I have to believe it’s where I am meant to be. I sound way more chipper about it than I actually am sometimes… I mean, I do try to look on the bright side as often as I can!

Nora’s “perfect” life and why she didn’t choose it

Ariadna: Maybe you’ll call me spoilsport, but I think nobody gets their real “perfect” life, that it does not truly exist, because then accomplished turns out to be underwhelming. I think that’s what happened to Nora, why she couldn’t stay in that fairytale version of her life: because she was, in some way, bored. She had everything she ever wanted, therefore, she had nothing to really fight for, nothing to make her life motivating and interesting. I think, in the end, life is just the not-so-perfectly balanced mix of good and bad times, successes and failures. If all we did was win, we would end up not valuing the successes and living a bland, boring life. I think one of the main morals of this book is precisely to learn how to value good and bad times equally, to learn to find the good in the seemingly awful and the bad in the seemingly perfect to find the right in between.

Alicia: I knew quite early on that she'd end up going back to her original life, I think it was quite predictable and expected. However, that didn't stop me wishing she decided to stay in her 'perfect life' with Molly and Ash. Mostly cause I was rooting for her and that happy ending she seemed so desperate to find, and this seemed to be it. She could finally be with someone good who loved her, have a loving family, a good relationship with her brother, have a nice career in philosophy... it was just perfect, but it wasn't hers. And being honest, I also wouldn't want to live another life that wasn't mine. Even if it belongs to myself from another universe, it is still not mine to live. I rather have a life in which everything I have, I earned.

Marina: We all would love to have that “perfect” life, or what we think is a perfect life, right? To have a bigger house, a nicer car, a sexier body, or whatever you think “perfect” means. But not many people can say they actually live their perfect life. Nora gets that choice and, as I think many of us would realize,  it’s not altogether what she imagined. Yes, she gets the guy; yes, she gets a great daughter that loves her, but is she happier there than she was in her crappy apartment with her crappy job and her cat? In a way, I guess, but ultimately no. She is aware that this is not the life she created for herself, nor the life she will get to live. I feel like this would happen to all of us if we had the opportunity to live our “perfect” lives, we would get everything we wanted but at what cost? What did we sacrifice to get there? Would it be a price worth paying? As the Stones say: “You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes, well, you might find / You get what you need”.

[catastrophemissionary--moved]

What did they first think about Rhodes Island and how does it compare to what they know of it now? What would they like to change? What do they hope would never change?

I’ve written this like 17 times before it felt coherent

Well to be honest, when she first arrived she thought this would be the break through that everyone’s been looking for. A pharmaceutical company working on a cure for oripathy coincides with her tasks of helping prevent further cases. She contained such hope when she had first arrived to Rhodes Island. A purely optimistic view of being able to help more people survive through this disease, even if she wouldn’t live long enough to see it. Those were the expectations set on Rhodes Island.

Yet when she arrived it almost seemed more of a military power. The constant battles and loses, the individuals hired to the company. A good number don’t hold a profession that would lend to a medicine company’s name. Only a handful interact with Originium for studying, and even less for the purposes of creating a cure. It tore her heart apart at first. Wanting to dedicate her life to saving people. To help people survive Catastrophes and find a place in the world after being infected. So to be put in a situation where killing others or being killed was the only solution... well it definitely held a negative impact in her conscience. She more than likely doubted if this was the best path for accomplishing her ideal world. While certainly correct, from her view point, was it the most optimal?

However, with the loss of the Doctor’s memories, her faith in the operations has returned. While the war with the Reunion is still a constantly ongoing thing, it feels to her it’s more out of circumstances rather than heading in to defeat them. The world seems a bit livelier with the rebirth of the Doctor. She even believes if he were to potentially remember his old ways, it wouldn’t be possible to become that man again. At least not to the same extent now that he’s built stronger relations with those he relies on. It would be unfathomable for her should he return back to a ruthless tactician.

As of now she has nothing she can realistically wish to change from this industry. It might have it’s minor hicks and questionable crew members, but that’s the current charm to her. Leaving from what felt like to an partially organized militia, it’s become more of a dysfunctional family to her. Whether it’s from Warfarin’s outrageous schemes, Gavial’s questionable practioner methods, or Gravel’s over-bearing displays of affection. They have all become people she can adore and trust. Enough that she works herself down to the bone as a Catastrophe Messanger, only to rush to Rhodes Island and provide whatever aide she can.

With how far they’ve come, there’s no way she would want to turn back and run. Not like she might have contemplated in the past. Even if this path they’ve all choosen to take was wrong, it would be worth it should she be able to walk along it with her fellow operators. It’s become the principal of believing they all tried their best to do what’s best. Even if they made the wrong choice in the end, they were never bad people for trying like this. 

Does she hold regrets? Most definitely at one point or another. Though the road was riddled with obstacles and will continue to twist and turn into the future, this won’t be one of them. She’ll choose to live and die by these people she now calls family.

@ripharm

[theculturedmarxist]

Organization which is, after all, only the practice of cooperation and solidarity, is a natural and necessary condition of social life; it is an inescapable fact which forces itself on everybody, as much on human society in general as on any group of people who are working towards a common objective. Since humanity neither wishes to, nor can, live in isolation it is inevitable that those people who have neither the means, nor a sufficiently developed social conscience to permit them to associate freely with those of a like mind and with common interests, are subjected to the organization by others, generally constituted in a class or as a ruling group, with the aim of exploiting the labor of others for their personal advantage. And the agelong oppression of the masses by a small privileged group has always been the result of the inability of the oppressed to agree among themselves to organize with others for production, for enjoyment and for the possible needs of defense against whoever might wish to exploit and oppress them. Anarchism exists to remedy this state of affairs ...

Now, it seems to us that organization, that is to say, association for a specific purpose and with the structure and means required to attain it, is a necessary aspect of social life. A human being in isolation cannot even live the life of a beast, for they would be unable to obtain nourishment for themselves, except perhaps in tropical regions or when the population is exceptionally sparse; and they would be, without exception, unable to rise much above the level of an animal. Having therefore to join with other humans, or more accurately, finding themselves united to them as a consequence of the evolutionary antecedents of the species, they must submit to the will of others (be enslaved) or subject others to his/her will (be in authority) or live with others in fraternal agreement in the interests of the greatest good of all (be an associate). Nobody can escape from this necessity.

Admitting as a possibility the existence of a community organized without authority, that is without compulsion — and anarchists must admit the possibility, or anarchism would have no meaning — let us pass on to discuss the organization of the anarchist movement.

In this case too, organization seems useful and necessary. If a movement means the whole — individuals with a common objective which they exert themselves to attain — it is natural that they should agree among themselves, join forces, share out the tasks and take all those steps which they think will lead to the achievement of those objectives. To remain isolated, each individual acting or seeking to act on their own without coordination, without preparation, without their modest efforts to a strong group, means condemning oneself to impotence, wasting one’s efforts in small ineffectual action, and to lose faith very soon in one’s aims and possibly being reduced to complete inactivity.

A mathematician, a chemist, a psychologist or a sociologist may say they have no programme or are concerned only with establishing the truth. They seek knowledge, they are not seeking to do something. But anarchism and socialism are not sciences; they are proposals, projects, that anarchists and socialists seek to realize and which, therefore need to be formulated as definite programs.

If it is true that organization creates leaders; if it is true that anarchists are unable to come together and arrive at an agreement without submitting themselves to an authority, this means that they are not yet very good anarchists, and before thinking of establishing an anarchist society within the world they must think of making themselves able to live anarchistically. The remedy does not lie in the abolition of organization but in the growing consciousness of each individual member. In small as well as large societies, apart from brute force, of which it cannot be a question for us, the origin and justification for authority lies in social disorganization.

When a community has needs and its members do not know how to organize spontaneously to provide them, someone comes forward, an authority who satisfies those needs by utilizing the services of all and directing them to their liking. If the roads are unsafe and the people do not know what measures to take, a police force emerges which in return for whatever services it renders expects to be supported and paid, as well as imposing itself and throwing its weight around; if some article is needed, and the community does not know how to arrange with the distant producers to supply it in exchange for goods produced locally, the merchant will appear who will profit by dealing with the needs of one section to sell and of the other to buy, and impose his/her own prices both on the producer and the consumer. This is what has happened in our midst; the less organized we have been, the more prone are we to be imposed on by a few individuals. And this is understandable. So much so that organization, far from creating authority, is the only cure for it and the only means whereby each one of us will get used to taking an active and conscious part in the collective work, and cease being passive instruments in the hands of leaders.

But an organization, it is argued, presupposes an obligation to coordinate one’s own activities with those of others; thus it violates liberty and fetters initiative. As we see it, what really takes away liberty and makes initiative impossible is the isolation which renders it powerless. Freedom is not an abstract right but the possibility of acting; this is true among ourselves as well as society as a whole. And it is by cooperation with our fellow human beings that we find the means to express our activity and our power of initiative.

An anarchist organization must allow for complete autonomy, and independence, and therefore full responsibility, to individuals and groups; free agreement between those who think it useful to come together for cooperative action, for common aims; a moral duty to fulfill one’s pledges and to take no action which is contrary to the accepted programme. On such bases one then introduces practical forms and suitable instruments to give real life to the organization. Thus the groups, the federation of groups, the federations of federations, meetings, congresses, correspondence committees and so on. But this also must be done freely, in such a way as not to restrict the thought and the initiative of individual members, but only to give greater scope to the efforts which in isolation would be impossible or ineffective. Thus for an anarchist organization congress, in spite of all the disadvantages from which they suffer as representative bodies, are free from authoritarianism in any shape or form because they do not legislate and do not impose their deliberations on others. They serve to maintain and increase personal contacts among the most active comrades, to summarize and encourage programmatic studies on the ways and means for action; to acquaint everybody with the situation in the regions and the kind of action most urgently needed; to summarize the various currents of anarchist opinions at the time and to prepare some kind of statistics therefrom. And their decisions are not binding, but simply suggestions, advice and proposals to submit to all concerned, and they do not become binding and executive except for those who accept them and for as long as they accept them. The administrative organs they nominate — Correspondence Commissions, etc. — have no directive powers, do not take initiatives except for those who specifically solicit and approve of them, and have no authority to impose their own views, which they can certainly hold and propagate as groups of comrades, but which cannot be presented as the official views of the organization. They publish the resolutions of the congresses and the opinions and proposals communicated to them by groups and individuals; and they act for those who want to make use of them, to facilitate relations between groups, and cooperation between those who are in agreement on various initiatives; each is free to correspond with whoever he/she likes direct, or make use of the other committees nominated by specific groupings.

In an anarchist organization individual members can express any opinion and use every tactic which is not in contradiction with the accepted principles and does not interfere with the activities of others. In every case a particular organization last so long as the reasons for union are superior to those for dissension; otherwise it disbands and makes way for other, more homogenous groupings. Certainly the life and permanence of an organization is a condition for success in the long struggle before us, and besides, it is natural that every institution should by instinct aim at lasting indefinitely. But the duration of a libertarian organization must be the result of the spiritual affinity of its members and of the adaptability of its constitution to the continually changing circumstances. When it can no longer serve a useful purpose it is better that it should die.

We would certainly be happy if we could all get along well together and unite all the forces of anarchism in a strong movement; but we do not believe in the solidity of organizations which are built on concessions and assumptions and in which there is no real agreement and sympathy between members. Better disunited than badly united. But we would wish that each individual joined their friends and that there should be no isolated forces, or lost forces.

It remains for us to speak of the organization of the working and oppressed masses for resistance against both the government and the employers. Workers will never be able to emancipate themselves so long as they do not find in union the moral, economic and physical strength that is needed to subdue the organized might of the oppressors.

There have been anarchists, and there still are some, who while recognizing the need to organize today for propaganda and action, are hostile to all organizations which do not have anarchism as their goal or which do not follow anarchist methods of struggle. To those comrades it seemed that all organized forces for an objective less than radically revolutionary, were forces that the revolution was being deprived of. It seems to us instead, and experience has surely already confirmed our view, that their approach would condemn the anarchist movement to a state of perpetual sterility. To make propaganda we must be amongst the people, and it is in the workers’ associations that workers find their comrades and especially those who are most disposed to understand and accept our ideas. But even when it is possible to do as much propaganda as we wished outside the associations, this could not have a noticeable effect on the working masses. Apart from a small number of individuals more educated and capable of abstract thought and theoretical enthusiasms, the worker cannot arrive at anarchism in one leap. To become an convinced anarchist, and not in name only, they must begin to feel the solidarity that joins them to their comrades, and to learn to cooperate with others in defense of common interests and that, by struggling against the bosses and against the government that supports them, should realize that bosses and governments are useless parasites and that the workers could manage the domestic economy by their own efforts. And when the worker has understood this, he or she is an anarchist even if they do not refer to themselves as such.

Furthermore, to encourage popular organizations of all kinds is the logical consequence of our basic ideas, and should therefore be an integral part of our programme. An authoritarian party, which aims at capturing power to impose its ideas, has an interest in the people remaining an amorphous mass, unable to act for themselves and therefore always easily dominated. And it follows, logically, that it cannot desire more than that much organization, and of the kind it needs to attain power: Electoral organizations if it hopes to achieve it by legal means; Military organization if it relies on violent action. But we anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves. We do not believe in the good that comes from above and imposed by force; we want the new way of life to emerge from the body of the people and correspond to the state of their development and advance as they advance. It matters to us therefore that all interests and opinions should find their expression in a conscious organization and should influence communal life in proportion to their importance.

We have undertaken the task of struggling against existing social organization, and of overcoming the obstacles to the advent of a new society in which freedom and well being would be assured to everybody. To achieve this objective we organize ourselves and seek to become as numerous and as strong as possible. But if it were only our anarchist groupings that were organized; if the workers were to remain isolated like so many units unconcerned about each other and only linked by the common chain; if we ourselves besides being organized as anarchists in a federation, were not as workers organized with other workers, we could achieve nothing at all, or at most, we might be able to impose ourselves ... and then it would not be the triumph of anarchism, but our triumph. We could then go on calling ourselves anarchists, but in reality we should simply be rulers, and as impotent as all rulers are where the general good is concerned.

[geneticyborg]

STATISTICS.EXE

BASICS

DESIGNATION: X5-599 PREFERRED NAME: Zack D.O.B | D.O.D: August 28th | N/A SEX | PRONOUNS: Cis Male | He, His, Him ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo. Precise, exact and critical, Zack understands that the devil is in the details and he pays attention to them. He is hardworking, efficient and methodical and can usually work or reason his way out of any challenge. ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good. He follows his conscience with little regard for what others expect of him, making his own way but has a good heart. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations and struggles to keep his belief in the face of trauma and terrible experiences. He hates when people try to intimidate others and follows his own moral compass. MYERS BRIGGS TEST: ISTJ, the Logistician. Enjoys taking responsibility for his actions and takes pride in the work that he does when working towards a goal. Defined by his integrity, practicality, logic and tireless dedication to duty makes him a vital core to any family or organization that upholds traditions, rules and standards.

PERSONALITY

POSITIVE TRAITS: Analytical, practical, observant, honest and direct. Dutiful, committed, responsible, level headed and reliable. NEGATIVE TRAITS: Stubborn, blunt, insensitive, rigid and judgmental. Self-loathing, guilty, self-depricating, jealous and aggressive. SURFACE TEMPERMENT: Zack will often present himself as “the boy next door”, using his generic white male appearance to portray an act of being polite, well-mannered and friendly as a means of lulling those around him into a sense of safety and familiarity that allows him to pass as memorable but nonthreatening. TRUE TEMPERMENT: However, those whom are given the benefit to see beneath the surface act will soon realize that Zack is far angrier and violent that first impressions would imply. Zack can become incredibly aggressive to those that he perceives as a threat to his safety or the safety of those that he cares about and responds accordingly. He’s merciless, cold and efficient when it comes to achieving his goals and can compartmentalize his emotions and uses this tactic to keep everyone at arms length save for a handful of his proclaimed brothers and sisters.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTORS

EYES | HAIR: Blue | Blond HEIGHT | WEIGHT: 5'11 | 98 kgs TATTOOS: Black, patented barcode on the base of the back of his neck. Often laser removed but inevitably resurfaces after a handful of days. PIERCINGS: None BODY MODIFICATIONS: As a genetically engineered X series, Zack’s DNA has been spliced with various forms of animal DNA that enhances and heightens his physical capabilities. After shooting himself in the head in order to donate his heart to X5-452, Zack is harvested by Manticore for several other organs, kept alive to undergo heavy cybernetic modifactions in which the damaged tissue and missing organs were replaced with synthetic tissue.

CURRENT LOCATION

Zack has returned to the city of Seattle after six months working on a Ranch with no memory of his past or his real identity. His memories however have been clawing back to the surface, triggered by numbers, posters and phrases that has driven him to seek out the woman that he knows only as Max. Abandoning the Ranch and returning to the city, Zack is slowly but surely piecing together his past while working as a Construction Worker in sector 9.

HISTORY

X5-599 was created by a covert genetics and military agency that went by the codename Manticore. Hand crafted, designed and spliced with numerous animal DNA and DNA found of extraordinary men and women, 599 was genetically engineered to be the perfect human weapon. Placed within a surrogate mother to be carried to term, 599 was born into servitude and trained from infancy to be an obedient soldier of Manticore alongside fifty others of his kind. As an X5, 599 was trained to be a Commanding Officer, attuned to make his own independent decisions and tactical strategies without the need for human oversight and co-led with X5-492 and X5-452 of a twenty man unit all ranging from the ages of six and ten years old.

Among their unit, 599 and the others chose names for themselves, 599 being given the name Zack by his siblings, and slowly pieced together their own identities whilst living under the oppressive training regime of Colonel Donald Lydecker. They were regoriously trained in physical skills, hand-to-hand combat, weapons training and assembly and military strategy and tactics as well as Intelligence training and conditioning.

Zack was closest with 492 and 452, Ben and Max, as they led their unit in different fractions of their objectives, assignments and missions but it was with Max that Zack felt the most for. Unlike the others in his unit, his feelings for Max were romantic – though he didn’t understand this until he was older. When Max’s life was threatened, Zack responded, attacking their trainer and spearheading an escape attempt in order to get Max and the others out of the facility before any more of them could be killed or hurt again.

Zack led the escape, separating his siblings and urging them to scatter and go underground once they escaped the perimeter fence. Zack was captured temporarily by Manticore security helping his siblings and Max escape the base but eventually escaped from transit before he could be returned to the facility and fled from Manticore’s Wyoming facility. Zack would spend the next ten years searching for, finding and protecting the twelve others of his unit that managed to escape that night. When finally reunited with Max, he was twenty years old.

Zack sacrificed every chance he had at making a life for himself in order to keep his siblings and Max safe and protected from Manticore whom were still searching for them in the hopes of returning them to Manticore for experimentation and reindoctrination.

Zack would give up his own freedom to save Max from Manticore’s clutches and would be tortured for four months by Colonel Donald Lydecker in the effort to find out the locations of the rest of the escaped members of his unit and would be rescued from the island during an escape attempt by Max.

During an assault on Manticore, Max would be shot through the heart. Her death and Manticore’s inability to repair the damaged tissue caused Zack to take his own life so that the Manticore scientists could use his own heart as a transplant to resuscitate Max before her brain was without blood and oxygen for too long. He saved Max’s life but Manticore refused to let him die.

Manticore kept Zack alive to be used as an organ doner, harvesting his lungs and other internal organs for other injured X5’s in Manticore’s service. He was eventually transferred to another facility where he was subjected to further violations by having his missing organs and body parts replaced by cybernetic implants and synthetic tissue. The damage that he sustained to his brain caused him to develop amnesia, unable to piece together his own memory on his own he had no sense of identity or of his past and was sold on the Black Market by an IT tech when Manticore was eventually destroyed.

Zack found himself the property of a gang of Body-Moders known as Steelheads who used him as extra muscle and an obedient tool until Zack once again reunited with Max. At first he was unable to remember her until she presented her barcode and Zack was able to make the connections with his own memory. He left the Steelheads and returned with Max in order to try and get his memory back. He succeeded. Recalling everything and feeling responsible for every perceived failure and mistaking his relationship with Max as romantic he eventually triggered his Manticore programming.

While in Manticore’s custody, PSY-OPs planted the belief that Eyes Only, or Logan Cale and Max’s soulmate, as a traitor. Zack attempted to kill Logan, believing that he was avenging himself and Max for the perceived terrors that they underwent while in Manticore which forced Max to electrocute Zack until he lost consciousness and wiped his memory once more.

Max made the choice to give Zack a new identity as Adam Thompson, making him believe that he had been working on a ranch when during a resource pick up had a car accident which resulted in his injuries and his memory loss. As Adam, Zack returned to work on the Ranch out of Seattle but slowly began to regain his memory.

[zalrb]

if you had to give tvd characters an dungeons and dragons alignment (lawful good, chaotic evil, etc.), what would you give them?

Hmmm…

Caroline is Lawful Neutral

A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.He may attack an unarmed foe if he feels it necessary.  He will never harm an innocent.  He may use torture to extract information, but never for pleasure.  He will never kill for pleasure, only in self-defense or in the defense of others.

I think this sums up who Caroline is supposed to be and that sort of strict, self-righteous, adherence to what’s “good”. I mean it’s not cut-and-dry because it’s TVD and they make characters make allowances for things/people (Damon) that contradict their character rather than nuance it. 

Stefan is Neutral Good

A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them.These characters value life and freedom above all else, and despise those who would deprive others of them.  Neutral good characters sometimes find themselves forced to work beyond the law, yet for the law, and the greater good of the people.  They are not vicious or vindictive, but are people driven to right injustice.  Neutral good characters always attempt to work within the law whenever possible, however. Neither numbers nor individual concerns have any bearing on decisions regarding the needs and rights of any given creature.  In other words, in the view of a neutral good being, rarely will either the needs of the many or the personal desires of an individual outweigh the needs of any other creature.

This part really sticks out to me: “Neither numbers nor individual concerns have any bearing on decisions regarding the needs and rights of any given creature.  In other words, in the view of a neutral good being, rarely will either the needs of the many or the personal desires of an individual outweigh the needs of any other creature.” Because of antis’ consistent criticism that Stefan gives up his humanity to save people but creates problems by becoming the ripper when the whole point is that no choice he makes in that situation is a good one because either way innocent people die and innocent people become murderers or work for the devil or something and it isn’t about numbers, it’s about what he can do, he makes impossible choices in impossible situations.

Elena is Chaotic Good

A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he’s kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society. Chaotic good characters are strong individualists marked by a streak of kindness and benevolence. They believe in all the virtues of goodness and right, but they have little use for laws and regulations. They have no use for people who “try to push folk around and tell them what to do.”

The reason why I call Elena chaotic good is because rewatching season 2, I realize how much she treats Damon like her own personal attack dog and she doesn’t care about the consequences of his actions as long as he follows her rules/the rules of her own conscience:

Damon is Chaotic Evil

A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. He is hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal.Chaotic evil characters are motivated by the desire for personal gain and pleasure.  They see absolutely nothing wrong with taking whatever they want by whatever means possible.  Laws and governments are the tools of weaklings unable to fend for themselves.  The strong have the right to take what they want, and the weak are there to be exploited. The chaotic evil also likes to corrupt the innocent and virtuous.  People are play-things to the chaotic evil, to be used and manipulated for their own personal pleasure.  A chaotic evil doesn’t necessarily go after individuals just because they stand in the way of their success, they will harm or destroy people for the sheer pleasure of it.

I hesitated to call him this because I don’t think he’s diabolical, I think he’s just a homicidal man child but Chaotic Neutral is too goal-oriented for Damon and I don’t think he’s as goal-oriented as he thinks he is or as the show thinks he is. When you think about it, Damon doesn’t really need to use Caroline to get the crystal, as a Salvatore he is a Founding Family member and could’ve gotten into the ball simply by being a Salvatore. He kills Lexi because the council was on their backs but the only reason the council was alerted to vampires at all is because he came into town killing people just because he wanted to and then later on the show decides that he killed Lexi because she made him feel things. He kills Jeremy and Aaron because he’s hurt. His plans are haphazard etc.

Katherine is Neutral Evil

A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusion that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble. On the other hand, she doesn’t have the restless nature or love of conflict that a chaotic evil villain has.The neutral evil is an unscrupulous, self-serving character who is only out for himself.  Power, glory, wealth, position, and anything that will make his life more comfortable is his goal.  It matters not who gets caught in the middle, as long as he comes out smelling like a rose.  This person will lie, cheat, and kill anyone to attain his personal goals.

I mean it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Those are the easy ones.

Bonnie ... is difficult for many reasons because she’s used by the narrative but I’m going to go with Neutral Good because the witches are supposed to be, well they’re supposed to be True Neutral but I think they’re more accurately Lawful Good and she’s constantly at odds with them because things aren’t as cut and dry to her and she’s about and I think this, along with the characteristics listed above, describes her:

Neutral goods value both personal freedom and adherence to laws.  They feel that too many laws may unnecessarily restrict the freedom of good beings.  They also believe that too much freedom may not protect society as a whole and encourage counterproductive divisions and in-fighting.

Tyler ... OK why are there so many Damon gifs when I type in Tyler? It’s annoying and weird, anyway... Tyler I’m not really sure to be honest.

I think Matt is closest to Lawful Good

I consider Kai a blend of Chaotic Evil and Neutral Evil, I can make cases for either side and to be honest it does matter if Bonnie is involved.

[thetakenpokemon]

Act 1 - Ambushed

[PoV: ???]

I feel my body lift up suddenly from my seat as the vehicle goes over another bump, causing the seat belts to drag me back down.

“God, I hope we get out of here soon.” I hear Lewis mutter in the back seat.

We’ve been driving off-road for more than an hour after we received an urgent transmission from HQ, ordering every Fetch team to recall back to Progria. They also mentioned something about keeping an eye out for anything suspicious, since apparently someone or something has been picking us off.

I’m still feeling very uneasy after having heard that.

There are four of us packed in the Scouter Hummer. Johnny, Cora, Lewis, and me. All 'security personnel’ of the HWDP, each having signed a contract with the group organization. However...to be honest, a few of us truly had no idea what we were getting into.

“We’re not on coms as of currently, right?” Johnny asks, also sitting in the back next to Lewis. “They can’t hear us talk?”

“No, nothing’s being recorded.” Cora responds irritably, currently driving us and doing her best to avoid trees in the vehicle’s path. “What?”

I look back from the passenger seat to look at Johnny, and what I see is a mid-twenty year old guy who has seen far too much shit for his age.

He looks uncertain, as if regretting that he opened his mouth. But with our attention on him, he eventually gets the nerve to speak. “What we’re doing is wrong...right?”

Although his voice was quiet, he might as well as yelled them due to how strong the uncomfortable silence that followed.

I don’t know about the other two, but I definitely know the answer. And...well...

“No, it isn’t.” Cora growls, driving me out of my thoughts. “We’re doing this for a reason, and that reason is for the betterment of humanity. In order to grow, sacrifices need to be made. Those Pokemon are stepping stones, nothing more.”

I feel the strong temptation to speak up, to say how wrong she is. But...I don’t say anything. It’s not my job to talk, only to do what I’m supposed to do.

“That...is one way to look at it.” Lewis slowly says.

“I still don’t like it...” Johnny mutters quietly.

“Hey, shut the fuck up!.” Cora says harshly, making Johnny flinch. “We’re getting an annual salary of two hundred thousand a year, that’s a lot more than a LOT of people are making.” For a brief moment she looks over her shoulder and gives him a glare. “Yeah this is dirty work, but you’re signed under contract. We ALL are. If you don’t like it, then you shouldn’t have written your name on that paper to begin with. So suck it up.”

I feel my lips turn into a scowl at this, but I still stay silent.

“God I want to get out of this car and back into my bunk...” Cora mutters before grabbing one of the radios on the console. After pressing the side button she begins to talk into it. “Hud-12, this is Fetch Squad 11. We’re ten minutes into Progria and have a package in the trunk, what are the coordinates for us to rally at?”

She releases the button but all that follows is static, blinking on the console is the red light that signifies the lack of signal.

“The fuck...?” Cora mutters. “We should be well in range, why the hell aren’t we picking up anything?” She looks at me irritably. “Hey! Don’t just fucking sit there, find out what the hell is wrong!”

My gloved hands clench tightly, my anger quickly rising.

She glances at me again and her lips twist into a snarl upon seeing me doing nothing. “Yo! Fredrick, what did I just fucking say?! Find out why this damn thing isn’t getting any signal!”

Actually, scratch that shit about ‘it’s not my job to talk’. Fuck the silence, things need to be said and I will fucking say them.

“You know what? You need to fucking shut up.” I growl loudly, making both Johnny and Lewis recoil in surprise. “Normally I’d let this whole attitude slide, but don’t get fucking angry with Johnny. He has every right to feel the way he does, because this work IS wrong. Are we being paid good money? Yeah, but only because we’re doing the work of fucking monsters. So don’t try and make him feel bad for having a fucking conscience.”

The air quickly grows very, very tense. In the back I see both Johnny and Lewis looking at me with a mixture of surprise and respect, but when their gazes turn to Cora...said expressions quickly morph into fear.

Cora slams on the brakes, causing us all to lunge forward in our seats as the hummer immediately stops.

She turns to me, her eyes burning with an almost murderous gaze. “I don’t think I’ve heard you right” She hisses. “You mind repeating those words back to me again? ‘Cus if I heard what I thought I heard, then things are gonna get messy real fucking quick.”

“Uhh, I...think we should keep movin-” Lewis starts, only to be silenced by a death glare from Cora.

As for me? No, not this fucking time. She’s not gonna intimidate me anymore. I’m putting my foot down, and there’s NO way she’s gonna make me back off.

“You...fucking...heard me.” I growl back, going as far as to bare my teeth. “You are a heartless bitch, Cora. No one likes you, no one EVER liked you. You’re just-”

Through the driver’s window side I see sudden movement, causing me to lose track of my words. Suddenly a loud sound of an engine fills the air as a gigantic armored truck comes barreling towards us.

“GET D-” I shout, but my words are cut off as the truck slams into the left side of the hummer.

My world starts spinning as the vehicle is completely flipped over and sent bouncing and rolling from the impact, causing me to repeatedly slam my head into either the side door or the back of my seat.

Eventually the hummer finally comes to a stop, having landed right side up. Everything is spinning to me, my head pulsing in a very painful away.

 I feel something wet on the left side of my head, and after slowly raising a bruised hand I wipe it...

...and when I look at it, I see...blood.

Yet...

My head is definitely hurt, but I don’t think it’s bleeding. So...where did the blood come from?

I look over to the left, and when my vision clears...

...

The left side of the hummer is completely caved in, and before my eyes are the mangled remains of Cora. The metal completely crushed her, causing blood to spray all over the place.

I immediately look behind me and see that Lewis suffered the same fate, his body also crushed from the metal of the hummer. As for Johnny...I can see his face bleeding profusely from several open gashes, each created from several sharp shads of metal that came from the ceiling of the vehicle.

Shit!

SHIT!

SHIT SHIT SHIT!

I look for my helmet only to see that the thing is beyond repair, having been tucked in the ceiling and now ended up being a crumpled mess. I try to open the compartment in front of me that holds my rifle, but the thing is jammed.

No no no... Please fucking no...

I quickly try to unbuckle my seatbelt, but I discover that the thing is almost stuck. Reacting as quickly as I can I draw my knife from my vest and immediately cut the straps, once free I try for the door...

...only to discover that the thing is also stuck.

I angle myself as best I can and start kicking at it, trying my best to dislodge it. After the third kick I immediately feel it give way, causing it to swing open.

I throw myself out, getting myself out of that deathtrap. I stash my knife and pull out my sidearm from my leg. Turning off the safety, I get up onto my knees and-

I hear a loud crack soon followed by a bullet hitting me in the chest, sending me on my back.

No...

I writhe in pain, my free hand going to my chest. I feel blood quickly welling in my throat, causing me to choke.

Please...no...

The loud sounds of an aircraft fill the air, I could only helplessly look up as something hovers over the trees.

I cough violently, trying to clear the blood out of my throat. But it keeps filling back up, giving me no opportunity to breathe.

Is...this it...?

A shadow passes over me and I could only turn my head to the side to look at its source. It’s...a figure, covered in camouflage armor. They look at me through the red visor of their helmet, a rifle in their hands.

...

My body is weak, my strength and vision is leaving me. I cough again, more blood spilling on my chest.

If...I’m going to die...

...

I...might as well...

...try...

With whatever strength I have left, I raise my pistol...

...only for the figure to fire a bullet straight into my skull.

...

[fuller-writing]

Knowledge is Power

The grainy surveillance footage was from the 7-11 across from Kalela Jones’s house. The policeman pointed at her dot sprinting towards her front door and then to the man following her, Tony Albeniz.

On the screen, Dr. Jones seemed to trip and almost topple over. She paused for a second, and then continued running. Later, Martin identified her expensive high heels that she had been so proud of lying forgotten in a snowbank. The right shoe had a broken heel, and Martin knew that while she ran from her attacker, nothing else had mattered to her except escape.

The video showed the man approaching Kalela as she frantically tried to unlock her door. At first, he only shouted and pleaded with her. Eventually, he grabbed her arm and Kalela shrieked and kicked out her leg in his direction. He jumped back and her bare foot scraped uselessly across the ice of her driveway. She redoubled her efforts to open the garage door, strange sobs escaping her throat.

“Please, Dr. Jones, just tell me. I swear, no one else will find out. You have my word,” Tony Albeniz had told the police later that he’d said that.

Kalela shoved him away and managed to lock herself inside her house. For a moment, the video surveillance seemed peaceful as Albeniz seemed to be walking away.

Inside, Kalela pulled out her cell phone and dialed 9-11.

April 2, 2020. 11:15 EST

Martin had worked with Dr. Jones since they were both in college and he had never seen her lose control like this. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, which practically vibrated with fear. If her emotion hadn’t been a huge factor in their experiment, he wouldn’t have cared. On his worse days, he might have relished in her stress.

Martin exchanged a look with Andrea, who held Dr. Jones’s right hand. For a second, they battled silently about who should comfort Dr. Jones, and in the end, he lost.

“You’re ready,” He said. Martin knew Dr. Jones would appreciate the succinctness of his compassion. As it was, she still glared coldly at him, just will less energy than usual.

“I am,” Dr. Jones agreed.

When she stood, she looked as statue-like as ever. All traces of doubt left her figure and she began placing the electrodes on her forehead and heart with admiral detachment. When she was ready, she nodded once to Martin and Andrea, before calmly striding to her execution chair.

Martin, Andrea, and the twelve assistants took their places, none of them sparing a glance at Dr. Jones. Now, she was just another practice dummy. The beats of her heart echoing through the chamber sounded no different than the simulation.

It seemed to Martin as though the team worked to the beat of Dr. Jones’s heart. On the diastole of the beat, he engaged the program. On the systole, he typed in the first command. On the diastole, the fourth in command administered the first shock. On the systole, another shock. After two more, Dr. Jones’s heart beat one last long diastole and gave out.

Without her heart to guide them, the work felt more chaotic and terrifying. The worst part was that there was nothing left to do now except wait and monitor for four full days. As the team began to turn their computers to autopilot and discuss the experiment in low voices, Andrea clapped Martin on the back. The pat felt more like she was trying to dislodge a piece of food from his throat than encouragement, but he smiled wanly at her. He doubted he would sleep for the next four days.

April 6, 2020. 11:15 EST

Life went on while Dr. Jones turned grayer. The machines kept her cells from rupturing and releasing the enzymes that would decompose her body. For all intents and purposes, Dr. Jones was dead; Her brain and heart no longer sent signals through her body. But the team kept enough of her body fighting that bringing her back would be possible, even after four days. The hardest part was maintaining her consciousness throughout the procedure.

For years, Dr. Jones and Martin had researched. Well, Martin thought ruefully, Dr. Jones had researched and Martin, a Harvard graduate, had brought her take-out. Finally, three years ago, Dr. Jones created ‘the thinker’. This machine didn’t really think, but used a tiny part of Dr. Jones brain to channel conscience streams onto its hard drive. When she woke, Dr. Jones could examine ‘the thinker’s’ conscience as though it were her own.

Martin wasn’t worried about waking Dr. Jones. Her body was in optimal condition for resurrection. All day they had worked slowly to revive her organs and remove some waste products that had built up. Now it was as simple as restarting her heart with the defibrillators.

“Ready?” Martin whispered into the intercom.

A shock went through the body. Then another one. For ten whole minutes of terror, Martin thought it might not work. But then the assistant at station 8 announced that she was breathing. Four doctors approached Dr. Jones and their fiddling obscured her from Martin’s view.

“We have to download the memories now, before she can make true sense of the real world. Otherwise they might be tainted by her experiences now,” Andrea reminded Martin.

Martin commed to the 8th assistant as much. One of the doctors pressed the ‘eject’ button. It took only a second for Dr. Jones to process her new memories, but in that time Martin could tell something was terribly wrong. Her eyes screwed up like she might sneeze, and then she screamed and didn’t stop until her voice gave out.

August 29, 2020. 18:12 EST

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Kalela Jones, Nobel prize winner for physiology and medicine and the scientist that recently discovered the answer to humanity’s oldest question: what happens after death.”

Kalela squeezed Martin’s hand once before she stood. He didn’t start when she made gestures of affection like this anymore. This new and softer Kalela had taken some getting used to, and even more surprising was that Martin actually quite liked her when she wasn’t so stuck-up. The audience clapped politely, although they stopped quickly, too eager to hear Kalela talk.

“Thank you,” She smiled graciously, “Thank you New York City for inviting me to this incredible dinner. I must be completely forthright with you: my decision has not changed. I will not now or ever release the contents of my fifteen year investigation. I will take this secret to the grave and it will die with me. I have found the bounds of science. More than anything else, I have discovered a branch of science that should never again be investigated. There are some things that humans are not meant to know. Not yet, although you will find out eventually.

“I have discovered the power of knowledge over and over through my years, but this is the most conclusive evidence I have ever found that humans are slaves to curiosity. My team and I are most guilty of this. We sought power over our curiosity. We achieved that power, and now I must wield it wisely. There is no higher responsibility in my life than ensuring that no one else ever repeats this experiment or endeavors to understand death again. If you looked at the ramifications of this knowledge logically, you would agree with me.

Religion would become extinct or else transmogrify into a horrible cult-like imitation. Without the fear of the unknown, murder, war, and suicide would increase. Everything that once was beautiful because of the immediacy of death will dim: music, art, laughter, family. No amount of grandieur or money’s worth the collapse of society.

That being said, my various patents and notes on the subject have been destroyed. Anyone wishing to know the answer will simply have to wait, or waste years of their life recreating my inventions.”

Kalela’s voice dropped in volume and she spoke tenderly, as if to a child.

“I can tell you this. There is nothing so important as life. You’ve heard it all before, but cherish every second and especially every person. Something I’ve realized is that the thing we call power which humans crave with every fiber of their being is truly a craving for love and admiration. With love comes responsibility. A responsibility to our loved ones and to that which we love. A promise that we will not destroy each other for personal gain. A promise that we will be loved and love as many people as possible. I swear to you that if you do this, you will feel powerful.”

Kalela nodded to the silent audience. It was the first time in Martin’s memory that an audience did not clap. Some were obviously angry, while others looked thoughtful. Everyone was too absorbed in their thoughts to notice Kalela’s quiet descent from stage.

August 29, 2020. 21:47 EST

“Please don’t make me walk home alone,” Kalela said, her hand hovering over her seatbelt, her eyes pleading with Martin.

Martin glanced at the bus, where the driver looked pointedly at his watch.

“Sorry ‘Lela, I really do have to get going. I’ll see you at work tomorrow, yeah?”

Kalela looked like she wanted to storm off, and six months ago, she would have. But tonight she only smiled her forgiveness and hugged Martin with one arm. Martin watched her head of enormous hair disappear and boarded the bus again.

September 20, 2020. 14:47 EST

Later, a combination of the police, Tony Albeníz, and security footage helped Martin piece together what had happened on Kalela’s fateful walk home.

Albeníz, a desperate, sad man, had followed her all the way from the dinner in the City. Neighbors reported screaming for minutes before the first gunshot, which had shattered Kalela’s patio door, but missed her. The second bullet shattered part of her rib cage and ruptured her liver.

In her case, it didn’t matter at all that Kalala hadn’t suffered much. All Martin could think of was her horrible drawn out scream after she woke up after her experiment.

He turned the small leatherbound diary over in his hand. It was the only record Kalela hadn’t destroyed, although he didn’t understand why she hadn’t. Or why she had left it to him in her will, but Martin knew what he had to do. She was giving him the option to know information that Tony Albeniz had been willing to kill for. He supposed it was her way of saying…he didn’t know. Maybe ‘sorry’ for treating him so poorly for most of their time together. Maybe as a sign of respect to him for standing by her side for so long. Maybe. But he couldn’t help thinking that, knowing Kalela, it was probably a test. Did he trust her enough to heed her last warning?

He stuffed the book under the fold of the ridiculous dress the embalmers had stuffed her into. “I guess you really will take this secret to the grave,” he murmured. Martin thought that Kalela would have liked his attempt at humor. He took one last look at the body, so much like how he’s seen her for those four days before everything changed.

As he walked away, he remembered one more thing, “Thank you.”

[sun-writer-blog]

The Campaign - Introductions

The First of a series about The Party’s first D&D campaign. This is sort of just setting the stage and more is going to come soon, but if you have any suggestions please let me know! And if you like it let me know as well - that’s great motivation to keep writing.

    Trying to explain Dungeons and Dragons to someone who had never played before was usually pretty difficult - not because the game was complicated, but because people always seemed to think they knew how to play it already. “It’s simple” Max started, staring down at the simple game board and pieces in front of her, “I roll for the number of tiles I can move, right?”

    “No, not at all, actually.”

    Max narrowed her green eyes and punched Mike in the ribs. “What do you mean no? That’s how every game works.”

    “Not this one. Just let me try and explain it, okay? I’m the Dungeon Master. That means I come up with the story and I play all the NPC’s-”

    “Non-playable characters” Dustin supplied, his smile radiating throughout the dimly lit basement. It was his idea to get The Party together to actually play through a campaign, and using the new Supercoms they had all gotten for Christmas (Eleven was the most excited about her present) he organized the day, time, and snack situation. It was a Friday afternoon when they began - right after school, so Max and El could just go straight to Mike’s house. His parents were gone on a vacation and Nancy had offered to babysit - which really meant she would be hanging out with Jonathan and Steve Harrington would be babysitting. Which really meant he would be picking up (and paying for) the pizzas. Dustin had even made sure it was okay with Chief Hopper - who only agreed because Steve would be watching over the whole thing, and he had gotten a job working at the Police Station after graduation instead of joining the family business or going to college. It was a good Plan C.

    “If they’re non-playable, how come Mike gets to play them?” Max asked stubbornly.

    “Because I’m the Dungeon Master. It’s like I’m the story-teller-”

    “Or a teacher at school-” Lucas chimed in.

    “So we’re the main characters like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Leia, and Mike is like, Darth Vader and the Emperor and all the random characters like R2D2 and C3PO and the aliens in the Cantina-”

    “Okay, Dustin. I get it.” Max was rubbing her temples. “What else?”  

    Mike looked like he was really coming to life as he continued. “So you play as your character, and you can do basically anything. There’s some governing rules and an overall direction for the story that I came up with, but you guys decide how it progresses. You can kill everyone in the town, or you can talk to them, or whatever else you want.” It took another hour for Mike to try and explain the combat and spellcasting system to Max, but she finally groaned in agony when Mike was trying to explain Armor Class ratings and just made him start the damn game already. She would learn as they played.

    Eleven, on the other hand, was very invested in every word that Mike spoke. She was quiet the entire time - which is how she usually acted when she was learning something, whether it was at school or watching TV or during Hopper’s “Word of the Day”. Her brunette hair had grown longer over the past year, but even though it was longer it was still curly and El found herself twirling those curls whenever she was learning something in the same way that Mike liked to fidget. They had all created their character sheets already - part of Dustin’s preparation for this marathon of gaming - and now Eleven sat with that sheet in front of her, a note pad, two pencils, and a too many dice to count. Mike was now setting the stage for the adventure, and as he spoke she found herself slowly descending into the world he was shaping, as if the game board itself was enveloping her and her friends. She always loved language - it was something she struggled with the most in school, and so it felt the most rewarding to learn - and she soon found that Mike wasn’t just good at making up stories, he had a real talent for them. They had all agreed to create Level 1 characters for Max and Eleven’s sake (“You would die if we took you on our real adventures!” Lucas insisted), and so this was a completely new experience for everyone.

    “It has been several years since the events of the great war in Dirkshire. Despite an uneasy truce, hostilities are still high between the tribes of the land: the Golden Hammers and the Emerald Leaves. The Golden Hammers demand a technological revolution of the mutually occupied land, while the Emerald Leaves want to preserve their agrarian and rural way of life. Your village has never been involved directly in the combat during the great war, but now you find yourselves in the neutral ‘No-Man’s-Land’ between the two kingdoms. You live on the banks of the Eretes river, but run off from the Golden Hammers factories have recently been harmful for your fishing community and the Emerald Leaves hunting parties have been growing closer to the outskirts of the forest, leaving your wild game supplies at risk. The Village Chief gathers the leaders of the community together, and this is where your characters meet and introduce themselves to one another. Roll initiative to see who speaks first.”

    Everyone did as they were told, and Eleven won with a Natural 20. She cleared her throat and stared down at her character sheet. “The Village Chief hushes everyone’s bickering” Max prompted. “Tell us your story..”

    “My name is Jane” she started, then bit her lip slightly as she read her backstory. Mike had helped her write it, and she practiced reading it out loud to him. Even though she had been in school for a few months now, her fluency wasn’t very good and it always made her self conscience to read. “But I prefer to go by Eleven because I am the eleventh of the Great Mages of this village, and the daughter of the Village Chief. I know much of the History of this village, and although I am young I have learned much of the great war and both the societies of the land. My flaw is that I really want to go out and see the world, no matter if that adventure is dangerous.” El let out a small sigh and set her piece of paper down. Mike smiled at her, and his eyes seemed to say Good job. She allowed herself a quiet smile in return.

    “Next, The Cleric.”

    Will cleared his throat and with the confidence of someone who has played this game many times before began to speak. “My name is Will, and many call me Will the Wise. I am the oldest human here, and although I may appear blind, the Goddess of Light whom I follow has gifted me with Truesight. I know many powerful spells, and I remember when the river first became polluted and when the game first became thin. My Goddess has called me to this life, but I am very stubborn and I don’t like to listen to anyone else’s opinion besides my own or my Goddess.”

    Lucas went next, describing how his character was a Hunter who often went to the forest and was particularly upset with the Emerald Leaves. Dustin was a Dwarven warrior who had fought in the war for the Golden Hammers but had recently settled down in the village after the war was over, putting his life of combat behind him. Max was the last one to go, and after a very heated discussion with Mike about the fact that zoomer was not technically a class she could choose from, they had reached a mutual agreement that if she could make up all of the stats and backstory so that is made sense, Mike would allow it. It was clear that Lucas had helped with this process.

“My name is Max and I am a Rogue Zoomer, which essentially means that I start with a mount - he’s a horse and his name is Dart.” At this, Dustin smiled softly and mouthed Nice name. “I am a merchant from out of town, but my fisherman are telling me that the river is being polluted and it is affecting my business. My flaw is pretty obvious, I’m greedy.”

Mike cleared his throat and nodded his reluctant approval“You all already know why this meeting has been called” he began in an old, wise voice. “We need to decide what to do about the threats to our way of life. It seems as if the Golden Hammers and Emerald Leaves are going to attack one another again soon. Our village is on the edge of both of their kingdoms, and it will likely become the battleground of this second great war. We have diplomats from both of their kingdoms in town, and if we speak with either of them I’m sure they could tell us more about their plans to woo us to become an ally of either kingdom. Does anyone have any suggestions?”

[stargleeksil-blog]

Criminal Minds s04e18 Omnivore review - or more aptly named, the episode that fucked with my mind, gave me emotional Hotch, lovely Rossi and SHIRTLESS SHEMAR MOORE!

Episode 18 – Omnivore

Hey guys! Whoo! Last night and today were ROUGH at work. Seriously, people need to get over themselves and realize that we are people here at the call service of Nespresso. Just saying.

Anyway, I’m ready and waiting to finish season four today. So let’s dive into it and I’m not holding back on the emotions and cursing! Just saying.

So let’s see what happens.

What is Hotch doing in south Boston?

Oh my god I love this guy! He was so funny on Castle! Clifford Stucky was his name there … oh my god, I love this man.

“A deal with the devil.”

Sorry, what are we getting into?

“You think he’s gonna start killing again.”

Oh boy, the minute the dude dies, the fucker from the letter will start killing again. Hot damn.

This just got good.

I just realized how well organized the States are at finding people. I mean, look at those personal ads examples. Holy shit. Amazing.

“’Cause I found it, do I get to know what it’s about?”

Oh you’re so cute!

“Okay.”

Oh my god she’s so cute!

But she’s probably the only one who can help you find anything on this asshole, so try and keep her close.

Aw! The old fart is gone. Poor Hotch.

Oh sweetie, a stranger walking up to you on a dark road and asking to help is definitely a bad thing. Especially on Criminal Minds.

Oh fuck. That is one disturbed fucking asshole. Shit.

Publilius Syrus: “Fate is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.” If you believe in fate.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to Boston.”

And that’s wrong, why?

“Why start killing again?”

“Well, because the only person who knew he’d won, the person he made the deal with, just died.”

Yup.

My cupcake is smart.

So Hotch managed to get the Boston police to let them in. Awesome

Poodle face!

I want to nibble on that tongue.

“The reaper seems to see himself as the personification of fate.” Yikes.

So the reaper made a call after every killing, and because he did, his ninth victim survived? Oh damn. So now he’s set to continue. Fuck.

Wait. How did the fucker know his name? I thought those were just random.

So there’s a question mark on the ‘fate’ word now? Oh boy.

“It’s for us. He’s saying it’s not fate. He’s saying we had ten years to save them and these latest ones are on us.”

“You got all that from one question mark. That’s impressive.”

“I may know him better than I’ve let on.”

Yeah, no kidding.

“There is a profiler on the reaper.”

And yet he said there wasn’t. Not nice.

“A substitute instrument for bodily penetration.”

See, they can’t just throw that word around. Not with my filthy mind at work.

Hebophile?

“Someone who’s attracted to adolescent post-pubescent children. Teenagers.”

Ew.

“Garcia can’t find George Foyet.”

Well, that’s impossible.

“He’s gone.”

Oh honey.

“Take if from me, erasing yourself like this, it’s extremely difficult.”

Good to know.

“I gotta say, this is impressive.”

True.

“He’s totally alone.”

Wait. So the reporter kept in touch? Dang.

Oh god, this guy is paranoid beyond belief, and with good reason, and he got stabbed on the night he was about to fucking propose to his girlfriend? The poor ducky.

“Nobody cares for him like you.”

True. That book basically glorifies that fucker.

Who the fuck is calling him on the hotel phone? That’s weird.

“I don’t make deals. I’m the guy who hunts guys like you.”

Oh crap.

Fuck. He just killed six people and a bus driver. Damn.

“So you think this is your fault?”

“It is.”

Oh god, I’ve never seen Hotch this emotional about a case. Fuck.

“Look, if you want to end up like Shaunessy, like Gideon, blaming yourself for everything, you go ahead. But that voice in your head – it’s not your conscience, it’s your ego.”

Lord give me strength to contain my love for Rossi.

“This isn’t about us, Aaron, it’s about the bad guys. That’s why we profile them. It’s their fault. We’re just guys doing the job.”

“I know.”

“My wife always said I had a flair for the dramatic.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

I’m in love.

So he killed on the bus that Foyet takes to work that stops right in front of is apartment?

“He knows where Foyet lives.”

Well, shit.

“The apartment you interviewed him in today was 1439 Yarbrough.” Fuck.

“The other addresses he gave us. 201 South Brookline. 1488 Edenhurst. The numbers ob the bus are Foyet’s addresses.”

Double shit.

So cool seeing my lovelies with guns, kicking down doors, and catching bad guys.

DEREK LOOK OUT!

Oh my god! I can’t take this! Shit!

Wait. Wait, you fuckers!

You can’t just have the scene ending with “Wake up, Derek. It’s time to die.”

And then have someone dead on a gurney and not let me know who the fuck it is. I’m going to fucking kill you, assholes! FUCK YOU!

Oh thank fucking fuck, it’s not Derek. Thank god.

Baby! At least you’re fine!

Um. I think it’s the first time we see Derek shirtless. And it is beyond glorious. Thank you, all of you pervy minds in the Criminal Minds background XD

“He took my credentials.”

Well, yeah, that’s a serious blow.

“Don’t let him get to you.”

“Yeah, right.”

I’m with him.

“Prentiss, he’s telling me, ‘I had you’.”

Who cares????

“You know why?” Again. Who gives a shit?

“I’m sitting here because I was knocked out cold. He couldn’t torture me.”

Thank goodness.

“Or by letting them know he could have.”

Wait. So the girl Foyet was about to propose to was in his class for four weeks? Hell no.

“So it was either love at first sight, or what?”

“Foyet was lying?” Oh god.

“Oops.”

My baby made an oopsie.

“George Foyet is the reaper.”

And bingo was his name-o.

So that asshole stabbed the lady, drove a mile, called 911, and inflicted those wounds on himself. Oh god.

“Why would he do it?”

“He left his own glasses at the crime scene, he pointed us right back in his direction, and we still couldn’t see it.”

Oh honey, don’t blame yourself. Computer geeks are naturally geniuses.

Badass motherfuckers.

“Where’s my badge?”

“Where is it, you son of a bitch?”

John Hobbes: “Men heap together the mistakes of their lives and create a monster they call destiny.”

True. So true.

“So what, he took a little blood at a time until he had enough to convince us he was dead without finding his body?”

Oh that is one sick asshole.

Oh god, this bastard makes me want to hurl.

“Foyet escaped.” Wait. What?

Documents from Foyet’s house:

“They’re schematics from the electrical, heating and water ducts from the East Woburn Correctional Facility.”

“And not just for Woburn. For every jail, prison, and courthouse in Massachusetts.”

Well, fuck.

“They’re gonna find him, right?”

Oh my innocent lovely.

“He said he’d be more famous than we knew.”

“And he was right.”

Wow. That is one hell of a dramatic ending to a dramatic show XD

 So, this episode was all kinds of amazing. We got to see emotional Hotch, which is so rare on this show. We got to see Rossi being an amazing motherfucking kickass. We got to see some poodle tongue. Penelope was amazing despite hitting walls at every turn. And … Derek was shirtless for a scene. I can’t get over this. How can this human be so inhumanly handsome? Seriously. I don’t give a fuck if he’s 21 years my senior. I’m ready. I’m right here, baby.

Anyway, considering the plot …

So amazingly crafted, so amazingly spaced over the time they had to air the show. I just love what they did and I love that they didn’t just give an easy solution to catching the bad guy but showing that even our badass motherfucking team of superheroes can screw up and be outsmarted by assholes. And that they will find a way to catch him in the end, even if it’s not immediately right now.

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Toodles, lovelies.

Enjoy the photos that didn’t make it into the post while I fangirl over my lovely hunk of chocolatey goodness.

[mianite-season-3]

Unofficial Mianite Season 3 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7 - Hole in the Wall

Tom ran around for a long time in his half aware state. He cut down the occasional creeper or spider with his pickaxe if they got took close to him.

“Jordan!” was his only shout for hours; he didn’t realize his voice was getting sore until he tried to yell and all that came out was a crackly squeak.

He kept circulating around two particular mountain peaks, scanning the surrounding land but never going too far from them. There was something about it, with the left’s more organic shape and the boxy look of the rightmost one that felt... right.

Tom knew he was extremely close to finding his friend, but none of his shouts or searching yielded a response. The zombie man stomped his foot, stabbing the ground as a rush of anger shot through his veins.

Finally he stopped for a short rest, his chest heaving and hands on his knees. His mind wandered back to the night before, with certain moments carefully censored.

Specifically, he recalled his dream and the strange clarity it had in his mind. Normally, he either didn’t remember his dreams at all when he woke up, or they faded within an hour.

But the fiery image of his dead god was vivid enough to give him chills. Words echoed in his mind. “This world is in ruins.” No shit Sherlock. “Together, we can bring it back under control.” “Don’t abuse your power.”

The thing was, Tom didn’t feel powerful. No, in fact, since the moment he woke up this morning, he’d felt more powerless than ever. First Jordan nearly drowned, then his friends had nearly been torn apart by a pack of wolves and their weird golden-eyed human leader. And top that all off with Jordan nearly having his neck snapped by said golden-eyed human leader.

Something at the edge of his conscience pulled Tom back into reality. He squinted as he looked around, as if that would help focus his hearing.

“--llo?” He recognized the voice floating down from the mountain peak.

“Jordan!”

“-om!” Tom yanked the pickaxe out of the ground and shoved it hastily into his belt. He ran up the mountainside like a goat.

“Where are you?” He called.

“I’m here!” The zombie man altered his course towards the sound, and he kept his eyes skyward,, trying to catch sight of his friend at the summit. He gasped after parkouring across a large gap. How did Jordan manage this climb, with him being hurt?

“I’m almost there!” Tom shouted, wincing as his voice echoed.

“Be careful!”

“Of what?”

Tom cleared the edge of the cliffside and looked around. Jordan wasn’t anywhere in sight. He took a few steps forward and stretched his neck to attempt to see further.

The world decided at that moment to stop making sense, and the ground below him gave out beneath his foot and he fell through the world.

The drop wasn’t too deep, but it did knock the wind out of his lungs. He sucked in a deep breath as soon as his body allowed him to.

“FUCK!”

“Nice to see you too.”

“Jordan! What the hell!?” Tom pulled himself onto his knees and looked around in the dim, green-tinged light that was seeping in through the layers of carpet. Without thinking he stood up and gasped when the carpet above his head bent, then gave and let his body pass through like he was a ghost. “Shit! Did I fucking die?”

“Hope not. If I’m dead, I’m in hell cause my head's killing me.” Jordan’s voice was muffled through the wool, and Tom redirected his attention to vaguely where the sound seemed to be coming from.

“Where are you?”

“Over here.” A fuzzy gray shape waved at him from the wall, and he waded towards it. Tom shuddered as the carpet passed through his body with every step, cool and soft but completely wrong.

“Jordan, what the actual fuck?” Tom asked once he stood in front of the gray shape that was his friend. He motioned to the ghost wool all around them. “What is this?”

“I don’t know, why are you asking me?” Jordan’s voice pitched up defensively, and Tom rolled his eyes. “Do you have any food?”

“Yeah, here.” He dug through his pockets and handed over some bread, watching as the gray blob in front of him writhed as Jordan chowed down. “How the hell did you manage to get up here? Your head--”

“I’m not bleeding or anything! I don’t even think I have a concussion!” He announced happily, mouth full of half-chewed bread.

“But the mountainside! That climb took the wind out of me!”

“And we both know how in shape you are.” Jordan snickered.

“Jordan!” Tom whined. “I’m in shape!”

“Yeah, the path up here was sooooo tough to walk, wasn’t it?”

The zombie man stopped. “Wait, what?”

The fuzzy gray shape grew as Jordan raised his head and looked up at him. “The path? You know, the one you came up?”

“There was a path!?” Jordan snorted and started laughing.

“You climbed up the mountainside? Oh my god, Tom!” The gray shape fell sideways and Jordan’s laughter echoed as Tom’s ears turned red with embarrassment.

“Shut up! I was trying to find you! I didn’t see a path!”

“Well, here I am!” Jordan opened his arms in a wide gesture with what Tom assumed was a huge grin on his face. “Now, uh, do you have a way to get us out of here?”

“Gods, I need to do everything around here!” He moaned jokingly, groping in front of himself to find the wall. He swung his pickaxe and made quick work of creating a staircase back out into the world. Jordan took his outstretched hand after a bit of fumbling and was pulled to his feet.

They squinted against the sunlight and Tom immediately grabbed Jordan’s shoulders roughly and pushed his friend’s head down so he could look at it.

“Oww!!” Jordan yelped, ducking away from Tom and gingerly holding the back of his head. “What was that for?”

“I wanted to see how badly she bruised you.”

Jordan sighed and let his hands fall. “Could have just said so...” he mumbled. Tom took that as an invitation to take another look, though he was a little more careful this time around.

The man flinched when Tom lightly brushed his fingers against his hair to part it, to reveal the skin underneath. “Be gentle!” he hissed when the zombie pressed against the large purple mark covering the entire back of his skull.

“I barely touched you!” he argued back, stepping away. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Jordan took a moment to stare at him. “Why do you care so much?”

“Cause you’re my friend! And I’m gonna kill that crazy girl if she shows her face again!” Tom promised, swinging his pickaxe wildly in emphasis of his words. Jordan ducked as it whipped too close to his face for comfort.

“You’re gonna kill me! Calm down, Tom, I’m fine.” Jordan flashed him a smile. Then his eyes diverted past him and to the summit of the mountain, and his face took on a curious expression. “Hey, Tom?”

“What?”

“Does that look familiar to you?” Jordan raised his arm and pointed behind Tom. The other spun around on his heel and cocked his head sideways, then back, observing the mountain peaks as many ways he could think of.

“No.” Tom concluded.

“Are you sure?” Jordan sounded slightly worried. Tom took another glancing look.

The mountains were strangely shaped, but he’d already noticed that. Nothing about the taller mountain now on his right, with its mushroom like shape casting huge shadows onto the land beneath it, or the smaller peak on the right with a box of colorful blocks sitting on top of it rang a bell...

Until something inside him struck a sour chord and he physically jolted. “Jordan...”

When he turned around with wide eyes, his friend was gone.

“Jor-dan!” he called, his voice cracking on the second syllable. Tom turned back to the peaks and saw his friend racing towards the summit. He rolled his eyes and took off after him.

The back of Jordan’s head send stabs of uncomfortable pain down his spine with every footfall, but he was too focused on his goal to care at the moment.

He hadn’t been thinking when he was running away from Star earlier, and he’d just let his feet take him far, far away from her. The turns he’d been making were nothing short of random at the time, but now that he’s here, maybe they hadn’t been.

Maybe something was bringing him here.

Jordan stopped in front of the front of the box at the top of the mountain, staring at the leaves in front of him. Faintly behind him, he heard Tom huffing and puffing his way up the path.

“Can you stop running away from me? I thought you loved me!” Tom whined, hands on his knees as he recovered. Jordan ignored him and started pulling at the leaves and vines.

“Jordan, I know you just hit your head, so maybe you’re a little off. But you can’t honestly be thinking that this,” Tom waved his arm at the boxy shape his friend was pulling at, “is your--”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I just gotta see.” Jordan cut Tom off as he punched through that last bunch of leaves and ducked inside the box.

The air was much cooler, and the light seeping in from the glass to his right and the glowstone forming the wall in front of him illuminated the dust particles floating lazily in the air. The filtered light gave the empty inside of the structure a surreal quality, like Jordan was staring at an image that refused to let his eyes focus on it.

He took a few more steps and wiggled his nose as the dust tickled his nostrils. He rubbed at it vigorously to try and avoid sneezing. He didn’t want to break the mesmerizing spell the shadows dancing on the ground was casting. As he watched, memories and long buried thoughts started bubbling up.

The shadows undulated and morphed and became the image of tree branches, full of leaves dancing gently in a breeze that didn’t exist. He stared until his eyes burned but he couldn’t look away. Then the dark images changed again, and one tendril shot forward towards him.

He yelped as his foot burst into painful pins and needles, and he jumped backwards and blinked hard, looking back at the sunlit floor. The shadows no longer moved, cast in harsh lines as the blocks in front of the glass blocked out the light.

Jordan heard footsteps and soon Tom was standing in the doorway, his face impossible to read due to the shadows cast on his face. “What happened?”

“My foot... I stubbed my toe on something,” he lied smoothly, standing awkwardly with one foot braced against his hip as he tried to massage some feeling back into the appendage.

“What an idiot!” Tom teased, and Jordan managed a small smile. He flexed his toes and decided the needles could be ignored. He put his foot down and turned his back on the window. He was sleep-deprived, and the uncomfortable pain in his foot was just a coincidence. He’d been standing still too long and cut off a nerve. It had nothing to do with the dancing shadows. Jordan was just hallucinating, seeing things he wanted to see.

His friend ventured further from the door and looked to his left. “Have you gone downstairs yet?”

“There is a downstairs?” Jordan’s heart sped up, and he stepped towards Tom.

“Ladies first!” Tom joked, shoving his friend. Jordan threw his arms out and braced against the tight walls around the stairwell, masking his gasp with a growl.

“How kind of you,” he droned, taking the steps carefully. Though there may have been actual stairs here long ago, now there was nothing but cold obsidian. He shuddered as a chill ran down his spine. The cool air flowing up from the basement raised the hair on his arms and neck.

The stairwell twisted to the left about halfway down, and at this point he couldn’t see two feet in front of his face. Blood rushed in his ears as his heart raced.

“Tom? You’re coming, right?” His voice sounded loud, too loud, and he felt a burning urge to turn around and bolt back into the sunlight. Something was wrong. He hated it, he hated it here, but he also felt safe, and his feelings whirlpooled around inside of him until the twang of a loosed bowstring brought him back to reality, and he dove past the last step as an arrow buried itself in the wall behind where his head had been a moment before.

“Tom! Help!” Jordan shouted, rolling to the side as he heard the unseen creature nock another arrow. His brain went into primal mode as he came up on a crouch, swinging his leg out in a wide kick to sweep his attacker off their feet. The edge of his foot hooked around the other’s ankle, he pulled it back and heard the rattle of bones as the attacker stumbled.

Skeleton! Jordan puffed out a sigh of relief. It was just a skeleton. He could fight that.

The man rolled again as the skeleton loosed another arrow in his direction, then kicked out again, this time higher. He glances off the side of its leg, doing no damage. He stumbled and landed hard on his back. Jordan scrambled to get back on his knees and looked up and the dim light coming from the stairwell now across the room from him highlighted the monster in front of him.

“Tom!” he called again, and its head swiveled and followed his movements with scary accuracy. It lifted its bow once more and drew back an arrow. The skeleton aimed, and released its arrow just as a shadow raced down the stairs and Tom loped the monster’s head off with his pickaxe.

Adrenaline pumping and heart racing, he took Tom’s outstretched hand and stood up on shaky legs.

“You ok? Here, lemme put a torch down.” Tom told his friend, placing a lit torch in the beside them. Then, seeing how unstable his friend was,  took Jordan by the shoulders and sat down, effectively bringing his friend down with him.

“Does your face hurt?” Jordan’s hand flew to his face, bringing it away sticky with blood. Now that the heat of the moment had passed, he started to notice the burning pain in his right cheek. Jordan opened his mouth to reply that yes, his face did hurt, when Tom’s face twisted into a shit-eating grin.

“Cause it’s killing me!” Tom shrieked with laughter as Jordan glared harshly at him for a moment. He dabbed at the blood that was now dripping off his chin and wiped it on his friend’s sleeve.

“Eww! Jordan!” He squealed, crab walking back towards the stairs. Jordan snickered.

“You asked.”

“I did not ask for you to wipe your body fluids onto me!”

Jordan rolled his eyes, now using the edge of his sleeve to apply pressure onto the wound. He took a deep breath, then another, letting himself take in his surroundings.

The basement they were in was just as musty and dusty as the rest of the place, and the smell was even heavier. The torch Tom had placed illuminated the walls to his right, flickering yellow light bouncing across them.

“Tom, look.” Jordan raised his free hand and pointed. Tom turned his head and furrowed his eyebrows. He stood up and investigated the line of chests along the walls.

“Nothing good. Just a bunch of random shit.” Tom announced, hefting a dented iron sword out of one and sliding it across the floor to Jordan. “There, you won’t need me to save you next time.”

Jordan deigned not to respond, attaching the sword onto his hip for easy access. Tom took out a couple more iron tools that had seen better days and stowed them away.

“Should we be stealing those?”

“Nobody’s been in here for years, Jordan. I think we’ll be ok,” Tom smirked, hands on his hips as he showed off the leather chestplate he’d found. “How do I look?”

“Like a noob.”

Tom gasped dramatically, miming being stabbed in the chest. “You’ve wounded me! I think I might die!”

Then his eyes shifted, and he stood up tall again, joking demeanor gone. He took steps towards Jordan, then past him. He seemed to shrink as he descends a few steps, staring at the slanted ceiling in awe.

“You were right,” Tom muttered in disbelief. “You were fucking right, Jordan...”

“Huh?” But as Jordan took the torch and stood up, he realized what is was that Tom was silenced by.

The signs on the top of the wide stairwell shouldn’t be anything special. The words themselves weren’t even aggressive, but they sent chills down both their spines.

“The Vault. No block breaking or placing.”

[restoftheowl]

Does Culture need Humans?

Abstract: The pinnacle of evolution is culture which guides the evolution of humanity, by ruling genes through memes. The following text was published in what was to be Encyclopedia of Internet Memes and Phenomena and ended up as the Hungarian version of the same. Translation by the author.

If there's anything harder to accept than humans are descended from apes, is that we are descendants of apes and we are not the pinnacle of evolution. The assertion that on the top of the evolutionary tree we find culture, is peculiar not only because it de-biologizes the Darwinian system to some extent, but also works really well with the extremely biologized interpretation of memetics.

The insides of a coat

The phenomenon, which scientific terminology calls culture - and common language would rather use the word civilization - is key to human existence. This existence means the whole infrastructure of survival, from drinking water supply system down to individual level: that while on colder climate an animal grows thicker fur, man puts on a thick coat. The genetic answer expressed in fur was replaced with a complex object, composed of the technology manufacturing textiles with various qualities, patterns of construction, logistics, fashionable colours and brands. Coats created by culture are not only the result of their own evolution, they go beyond natural body covers in their space of application and their information/genetic background. Is it a real possibility, that humans were tailored to fit this coat, (or to be more general) this hyperevolutionary environment?

The fact that within human inheritance culture is of the most importance was pointed out by the father of immunology, Nobel-laureate Sir Peter Medawar. In his lectures titled The Future of Man we see vivid memories of the rise and fall of Nazism: Medawar states the primacy of culture, and warns of the reckless overuse of notions based on genetic analogies and the pseudo-scientific biologization of human beings.

"The conception I have just outlined is, I think, a liberating conception. It means that we can jettison all reasoning based upon the idea that changes in society happen in the style and under the pressures of ordinary genetic evolution; abandon any idea that the direction of social change is governed by laws other than laws which have at some time been the subject of human decisions or acts of mind. That competition between one man and another is a necessary part of the texture of society; that societies are organisms which grow and must inevitably die; that division of labour within a society is akin to what we can see in colonies of insects; that the laws of genetics have an overriding authority; that social evolution has a direction forcibly imposed upon it by agencies beyond man’s control—all these are biological judgments; but, I do assure you, bad judgments based upon a bad biology." (Medawar, 1959)

Our question now is how one of the latest theories of cultural evolution, memetics relates to the above mentioned bad judgments.

By today the meme concept has become a part of common vernacular, since despite its abstract nature it grasps the phenomena of high speed communication of the information age excellently. Memetics started its life as a playful interdisciplinary application of Darwinian logic. As the father of the concept Richard Dawkins, himself an admirer of Medawar, puts it:

"I am an enthousiastic Darwinian, but, I think Darwinism is too big a theory to be confined to the narrow context of the gene.  The gene will enter my thesis as an analogy, nothing more. What, after all, is so special about genes? The answer is that they are replicators." (Dawkins, 1986)

It's immediately apparent that the only way to avoid - despite Medawar's warning - the direct and aggressive genetization of culture if we the analogy of genes "only" on the basis of replication. The way of memetics from here on seems to be taking a path to being a information theory burdened by phobias, while in public conscience, which tends to handle the abstractions of analogies most economically, remains view of the direct genetic operation of culture, including misconceptions like memes are alive, because they replicate like viruses - while viruses are not viewed as living organisms precisely because of their dependence on a host for replication.

Domesticated replicators

Having not much to lose, at this point we take the liberty of meddling with Dawkins' concept and come out with a brutalized interpretation - slightly akin to the commonly held concept - , and see where it takes us if we view memes as simply cultural genes.

First of all, we need to take into account, that if we look at a DNA sequence we don't see any genes, since genes are abstract entities, sections defined by their function. Memes can be defined the same way - the efficient performance of their function and their cooperative benefit of which give them resistance against entropy. This also means, what we think of as a meme, encloses those not readily transparent details carrying psychological functions, which are the actual cultural genes.

If memes are a the part of cultural DNA, culture is literally alive, an informational organism, the environment of which consist of creatures capable of communication. We are now beyond the approach that sees culture as a construct invented by man to be able to fully convert his superb and energy expensive brain to actual survival. The viewpoint that culture is a secondary, artificial environment also changes: our connection to this environment is based on mutual benefit.

Multicellular organism is more than a bunch of cells. Evolution of cooperation requires adaptation by taking up communication, along with the differentiation of inner and outer environment, that is the definition of the borders of culture.

Biological adaptation to the circumstances of cooperation means that humans evolved adapting to culture moving ahead of them: by the way of memes culture forced the persistence of qualities keeping it alive, like the decrease of aggression, the drive for increasing efficiency of communication and other social capabilities. Thus being adapted to the symbiosis with culture means our origins are to be found in both monkeys and a cooperative informational organism - though we need to keep in mind that the above mentioned monkey is already a product of adaptation to culture to high-degree, since the evolution of information as a non-trivial direction for adaptation follows life all the way.

To put it another way: memes are primary and genes follow memes. The potential for the survival and reproduction of a cat (more specifically a modern internet connected cat) is directly proportional to the memetic potential of its eccentric, funny, or cute appearance. An even better example would be homing pigeons whose genes are expressed in superior navigation abilities, for which they had been domesticated to serve as a channel of - sometimes vital - communication.

Game theory views cooperative evolutionary solutions as an ethological question, instinctive reactions to external circumstances, and while it's role in evolution is acknowledged, it would hardly view culture - be it either an abstract or an actual living entity - as a sovereign, non-genetic part of evolution. Thus our present train of thought certainly appears to fall on the esoteric side, however to its defence we can say that even if it genetizes a bit here and there, the integration of culture within evolution is not one sided, and also doesn't go against Medawar's warning, being based on the priority of culture.

The future of human face

Let us introduce some questions to our suggested new life form.

Can man have a direct influence on culture? Our limits conform the laws of reproduction of memes, and the survival of the culture. What makes it even harder is that the function and consequences carried by the memes are presently not exactly known. Memetic complexes that have deeper influence on culture, such as ideologies (particularly failed ideologies) are considered to be very important by humans. The historical knowledge of the average person usully far more exceeds their knowledge of natural sciences - also in the general sense knowledge of history and identity are considered to be cultural knowledge.

A unique group of these memetic complexes are religions, the vital function of which is balancing hyperevolutionary pressure and human biological existence, serving as an interface, enabling the human evolutionary needs to appear in culture, in coordination with the political goal of collective survival.

How long does culture live? Does it get old? Can it break a leg? We have ample information about disappearance, disintegration, or fragmentation of cultures. We mostly describe their fate in biological metaphors. Culture and all known cultures can be seen as self-correcting scalable network immune to human tampering, however it could be the case that Nazism was not be the last example of a culture viewing human destruction as necessary, having been poisoned by memes of scientific origin.

Is there culture without humans? From the viewpoint of culture humans can be replaced by the any life form having the appropriate qualities. Even though potential sentient life in the universe would not necessarily have a humanoid form - in case of a contact we'd find a lot of social functions, mechanisms, and values that would look human to us.

Based on all this what is the future would we like to see? Humans avoiding obsolescence would be a nice thing, and the ability to coexist in culture with non-human - probably artificial - intelligence, and before that acquiring the ability to coexist in a culture with other humans.

by Viktor Papdi-Pécskői

[khorosvein]

@aenarchy​ said: steeples fingers... tell me how mera feels about the war and the church in general... esp. if she finds out the church is just a whole ruse for rhea to revive sothis

  tldr; mera hates the church and rhea that’s why i don’t have a church route bc i would never do that to her and also war is bad ( but we knew that )

  ( I’ll start with the church bc aklsjfdlksa a mess tbh ). Mera .... never comes to trust the church at all. Think about it from her perspective - this organization that is meant to be benevolent and help others basically does nothing while your homeland is destroyed and just about everyone you know and love dies. She knows right from the get-go that the ‘ mercy ’ of the goddess and the church is meant for a certain group of people that follow the doctrine ( that she never really understands or particularly cares to ). Also, the game mentions how opening Fodlan up to other nations is apparently against the doctrine as well and that wouldn’t sit well with her either. It would even reinforce her initial perceptions of it. 

  The church is a protector of the tradition, also something she doesn’t like. Lonato’s rebellion is another way to put it in perspective ; Mera is forced into a position to harm civilians that are fighting against a perceived justice. The fact that the church has an army at all is utterly baffling and unsettling to her ; she understands it’s about control and maintaining the power structure that exist in Fodlan. She knows it’s an oppressive force disguised as a kind religious organization. Even so, she would never truly deny anyone their right to pray and believe in its teachings provided it doesn’t drive them to do horrible acts. 

  Rhea is ........ complex to say the least and while Mera might come to see her as such it’s a very slim chance. In her eyes, the archbishop is not someone she can consider “a good person”, Sothis reveal or not. The way she spoke of Edelgard after the reveal ? Mera has that moment of ‘ yes, this is who you really are ’. And I think finding out what Rhea has been doing just pushes Mera to come to despise her and be willing to overthrow the church ( i.e BE route Mera ). She can sympathize with the loss that Rhea feels but she can’t do that for the ways in which Rhea chooses to handle it. 

  Not to mention, by the time that Mera would find this out, she’d also be attached to Byleth to some degree and the thought of Rhea coming anywhere near them would leave her absolutely livid. It’s not her place to want atonement from Rhea, she knows this, but it would be preferable to Mera that she did atone in some way for what she did. It depends on how much Mera ends up knowing about the church: Sothis, crests, etc. At the end of the day, she’ll always be for the reformation of the church or even its destruction.

  Mera hates the war ; she hates the way people are dying. But, at the same time, she knows she has to fight in it if she wants to see it come to an end. Only death can pay for life ; if she wants peace then she has to go to war for it. Avoiding it isn’t an option. 

  She can sympathize with Edelgard’s reasoning for going to war ( the church being corrupt and wanting to forcefully change the landscapes of Fodlan altogether ), but I don’t know how much she’d be able to handle the guilty conscience of being a part of the group that started the war and also is stacking up all those bodies. BE!Mera has to wrestle with this guilt all throughout the war. She doesn’t struggle so much with turning her back on Faerghus because it was never the kindest place to her to begin with. She’s fueled way more by her .... I don’t want to say resentment but it’s something like that which in turn makes her push forward to forcibly change the world with Edelgard and the Empire.

  Of course, in the BL route for her, she does have to submit to the Empire out of necessity, out of survival, because she would be crushed otherwise. 

  On the other hand, she’s kinda screwed in the beginning of the war because Dimitri .... is like that ( to put it lightly ). BL!Mera comes back to Faerghus for her friends and Dimitri being alive is a good thing ( from a political perspective and also an emotional one ) but he’s ..... well, I’ll just say it, he disappoints her, even angers her, despite how much she can empathize / understand him. When it comes to early post-time skip Dimitri, I’ll be honest, she doesn’t want to go to Gronder Field and die for him there ; she doesn’t want to die as a tool for someone else’s grief and revenge. But she has to go because that’s the only way they might all live and the only way she can create the future she wants. 

  GD!Mera is having a much better time in comparison to her other two route counterparts. It’s difficult but Claude doesn’t have the same issues that either Edelgard or Dimitri have: he’s not initiating the war and he also isn’t on a revenge path. He doesn’t force her to compromise on her ideals / feelings. Having to kill her old Faerghus classmates and the way Dimitri goes out aside, it’s an ............ easier time for her in this route. 

  Also, not to make this sad at the end, but you know in the other routes, Mera is gonna have to like .......... face off against Dedue in some capacity. So, like ..... war time for Mera sucks !!!!!!!!!!