#and will just corrupt whatever system replaces it

[hussyknee]

Okay but it was our communist government that pushed ethno-religious supremacy to legitimize the newly-emancipated nation the British Empire left behind, a legacy that was eagerly taken over by the neoliberal government. The Global South's communist governments all tore themselves apart just as well as the neoliberal ones because it turned out centralized power corrupts no matter the economics of it. It's extremely Eurocentric and reductive to blame all the world's ills on an economic system that the Europeans only got off the ground two hundred years ago. Ethno-religious supremacy, colonization and imperialism have been around for millennia.

I know some dickheads have now decided that Judaism is the "bad, violent, terrorist religion" and Islam is the "good, peaceful" one, which is only to be expected of white people, but how much of an issue is it currently? Like I've seen some USAmericans sharing how the Islamic faith shapes Gazans values and perseverance (good) except with that distinct white hippie "I'm about to imprint on this like the world's most racist duck" vibe (bad), but I didn't think they're already turning on Judaism in numbers.

Do they realize that Christianity is also the same kind of comfort to Christian minorities in Asia and Africa? That it was Buddhists that genocided the Rohingyas in Myanmar and Tamils in Sri Lanka? That Hindu fundamentalists are even now trying to ethnically cleanse Muslims in India? How Hindus and Christians are terrorized and persecuted in Pakistan? That Muslims have had a long history of persecuting and ethnically cleansing Jews too?

Really tired of asking y'all to be normal about people's religions man. There's no religion that's inherently violent or exceptionally peaceful. It's just like any other ideology that becomes a weapon in the hands of ethnic power. Interrogate power, not religion, and respect people's belief systems insofar as they aren't in your business.

[brick-van-dyke]

As the US election closes in and the final states take to the polls, I want to remind people to turn out and protest.

Yep, protest. Strike, disrupt, be out there on the street regardless of who you voted for or who wins. I expect to see you all out there demanding; access to abortion nation wide, protections against discrimination, free universal healthcare, a free Palestine, anti war, prison abolition, to increase the minimum wage, and for a US free of the electoral college and that counts votes as votes.

Yes, you can say "you should vote for Harris" and do so as much as you like, but do not forget the power you have through your own everyday actions away from the polls and that of protesting. Do not use the excuse that your right to vote means it's somehow more foundational or important than the right to protest. You have the ability to create direct action and that is so so important, please don't just expect a rich representative to stick to their promises every time you vote; you have power too, never forget that.

This system will not change until we, the people, make it. There is NO representative that can ever change the system that allowed them in, and likewise; this system will never allow a candidate that would stop it from continuing and/or ensuring its designated purpose of oppression and subjugation. Resist, regardless of the results.

Long live the resistance.

[arcane-apidae]

Okay, so you’ve picked up Marx, maybe dabbled in communism, and now you’re all fired up about revolution. 👏 But before you dive in too deep and start calling yourself a “tankie” (or whatever’s trending these days), can I suggest something real quick? Read Animal Farm. 👀

I know, everyone knows Animal Farm, right? But honestly, I’m not sure how many of you have actually read it—and I mean really read it. Animal Farm isn’t just some cute little farm story with talking animals. It’s Orwell’s warning about why communism doesn’t work—and why it never will. 🐷➡️👨‍🌾

The animals overthrow their human oppressors, right? They’re all about equality—everyone is equal. But by the end, the pigs are walking on two legs, living in the house, and looking just like the humans they kicked out. That’s the point. The revolution gets corrupted, the leaders become just as bad as the ones they replaced, and the whole system falls apart. No matter how good the intentions are, when power’s involved, it all falls into the same mess. 😬

You’ve probably seen people online talking about how communism is the future, how it’s this radical change we all need. But let’s be real: look at the countries closest to communism today—North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela. Does that seem like the kind of world you wanna live in? Is that freedom? Is that happiness? Are those societies thriving? Because from where I’m standing, it’s more like a dystopia. 👀

So before you put that hammer and sickle in your bio, give Animal Farm another read. It’s not just a book—it’s history. It’s a cautionary tale that shows us why it doesn’t work and why it never will. We need new ideas, fresh thinking. Use that brainpower you’re flexing for change to build something that actually works. 💡🔥

Stop identifying with the same old ideologies that have been proven to fail, and start building something better. The future’s waiting for you. ✌️🌍

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

I would LOVE to hear more gripes about accuracy of portrayal of historical monarchies!!!

I have been wanting to do this for a while, because there is a lot that irks me. And this ranges across board from big budget period dramas to how people write royalty AUs, which means this isn't one specific thing I'm pointing at. And if it is helpful on a writing tips level, I'll be happy with that.

Long post under the cut:

Disclaimers:

I research 19th century European history, which has a lot of questions about what a monarchy is and why they continue to exist. That's the perspective I am bringing to this.

I probably shouldn't have to say this, but: this is not about modern monarchism. This is about history. I don't want to debate whether you think certain countries should continue to have their monarchs be public figures who are only nominally head of state.

The short version:

Monarchies are institutions. They are part of how the government functions and that should have implications for how someone writes them. A monarch is a person with a built in job that they were born into.

Monarchies are not all absolute. They can exist in a multiple forms with very different structures, and often discontent within a monarchy wants to reform the system not replace it.

My biggest advice would be this: figure out how your fictional or historical monarchy is structured. You don't have to exposit about it, but you do need to know it.

The long version:

The King has a job and there is a right and wrong way to do it.

Fantasy monarchies that draw upon history seem to have Versailles in mind in terms of an aesthetic space and royalty with a lot of power over the people around them. This also includes a lot of lounging around and looking pretty and doing lavish things. However, the issue is that this is a mental image of the dysfunction in the French monarchy close to the revolutions. You can't "Après moi, le déluge" through several centuries of government.

A King (or Queen) has a job, a really important one. They are the head of state, the highest authority in the country, and the highest judge on legal matters. At least in the platonic ideal of absolute monarchy, those jobs being concentrated into one person means their responsibility and good judgement will give the state stability and consistently.

Enlightened absolutism was exactly that: monarchs staunchly holding onto the ideals of the Enlightenment and making reforms from the top down. People who read texts about ideal government and natural rights and put it into practice.

A lot of fiction takes that and goes: Oh, so they have unlimited power and can do whatever they want. Being king means you can do what you want without oversight? That's why someone would want to be king?

And yeah, sure, in theory. But the problem with having a job is that you can do it poorly and people will object to you doing it poorly. If someone is not fulfilling obligations, it is noticeable because the state functions poorly. The premise of Robin Hood is that the king is doing his job poorly. He's overtaxing, the officials are corrupt, there's disorder. The solution? Bring back the true king who is good and fair, and thus functional.

Ludwig II of Bavaria gets ousted from his throne for being more interested in opera and extravagant building projects than ruling. Again, it is a problem and people notice.

Historically, if you want to protect from someone being bad at the job you can support the idea that there should be more oversight and safeguards: Other bodies that control parts of the government alongside the king's ability to approve or disapprove. This tactic takes away the ability to be arbitrary since laws and such are not just coming from the crowned head of state. That would be a constitutional monarchy.

Not everyone needs to be Franz Joseph, waking up at the crack of dawn and working on governmental papers and meetings until bedtime. However, if a monarch is shown in fiction lounging around or talking to courtiers all day but never doing any actual governing, I'm going to assume they are very bad at their job.

2. You're probably understanding Courts and Ministers wrong.

I run into the issue quite a bit that courts are flattened to random servants, ladies-in-waiting, and people trying to be the king's sole advisor (for malicious power grabbing reasons).

The first problem: Being at court isn't an easily accessible thing. You're probably nobility or a scion of an important family. Your presence is built on family prestige and your own skill. Yes, even people in service to the monarch. There are no random people here, because proximity heightens the likelihood of greater promotion.

For example, I'm currently doing my research on a prince from an important dynasty in the 19th century. His secretary is a Baron.

It's not impossible for someone not of noble birth to get to be at court. They could have risen up the ranks of the army or be an exceptionally skilled civil servant promoted to the rank of minister. Though depending on the time period, expect these "new men" to get pushback from nobility by blood.

Ministers also matter.

Unless your fictional monarch is one of the few people who decides (to mixed results) to do all of the thinking about government on their own, there is a cabinet and ministers.

These are skilled people whose job is to think about aspects of government and be knowledgeable about them. A monarch might have many of them that argue and balance each other.

Or, you can write a particularly skilled statesman in a leading role that makes them just as prominent as the monarch if not more so. There are many historical examples of ministers who define their period:

If your monarch character isn't a strong person politically, but is intelligent, having them find a minister to take over most of the governing is a good idea. This person is promoted based on merit, even if the monarchy is hereditary.

I have rarely if ever seen fiction do a good job with a prominent minister as a character (except A Royal Affair, which everyone should watch).

Think of monarchies as whole institutions of government. They have people within them who do all the jobs of governing. But the structure of the government and the personality of the monarch can determine whether it is one person (Joseph II, Peter the Great, etc.), a prominent minister (like a Metternich or Bismarck) or a counsel or congress.

The structure can support a person not doing a lot as monarch, but you as a writer need to think what structures are around them allowing that.

3. Revolutions are scary.

There is a common trend in fiction to make your good guys pro-republic. They're revolutionaries who want to get rid of the king, so they must be good.

But here's the thing: Revolutions are a step into the unknown and have historically happened rather rarely and with very mixed results. That's because the system has to be really broken for something totally new to sound better than what you already have.

A monarchy can create a sense of stability: A fixed head of state who will be there until they die. Historically, people aren't seeking to change that. More often, the call is for a change within the existing structure. The Magna Carta or a written Constitution. Firing of Bad Ministers or the abdication of a bad king in favor of their heir. Creating elected bodies under the sovereign. These are all shifting the monarchical paradigm but keeping the monarchy intact.

And historically even the most liberal of people wanted to place restrictions of some sort on voting, especially property and gender restrictions.

There is a myriad of ways to change the system, the person at the top, or both while maintaining a monarchy. You can have a monarchy be elected as the best person among the nobility (though it didn't go that well for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

Completely throwing the whole thing out means risking all stability vanishing. That could be anarchy. That could mean a charismatic strongman who is also bad at governing in power. You could end up with a guillotine and rivers of blood in the streets. You could end up with a restoration eventually because Cromwell or Robespierre doesn't actually produce something people want to live under and they want the old certainty back.

People have a sense of inertia about changing government. What you have is better than what you don't know, especially if there can be internal reform. Making your character a Republican (in the Jacobin sense, not the US politics sense) means that they are a radical in most times and places and will likely be in the minority.

If there is one thing I would say is the point here is that monarchies are government systems, and thinking through how someone exists in that system in fiction is important. Being king isn't actually much of a fun job unless you're very good at delegating or very irresponsible. Unless you want to be celebrity, president, congress, and moral center of the state all in one, being king isn't a great deal.

[unadulteratedsoulsweets]

A DC X DP IDEA #31

You and I, we’re not the same.

Imagine dis…

Corrupted ectoplasm is always the main reason why Jason had a pit rage. I know it was because he was dumped in Lazarus' pits when he was found wandering around.

What if I offer you guys another reason why he rages so much?

…

Lady Gotham is devastated by her little squire, her beloved child laid to rest. The little boy used to play around her alley as if it was the best playground he ever played in. The little boy whom she shielded personally with her shadows to hide from those who wished harm to her child. The little boy who shines the brightest when he laughs, and that good-for-nothing pest killed him. 

If she had enough strength within her city she would have already dragged that clown’s soul to the deepest and darkest place of her realm but couldn't. She needed whatever ectoplasm and strength she had to bring him back. Her Dark Knight is getting reckless by the day, gone the knight that would protect and see the goodness in this cesspool of a city, was replaced by a man who is still grieving for the loss of his child and taking it out on everyone but mostly himself. 

The boy rose and could dig himself out but his father didn't find him, someone else did.

That day Lady Gotham wailed in devastation. Every Gothamite felt and heard something, from the people who had hidden in the deepest of corners of her city for protection to the labyrinths that hold countless undead Talons all of whom simultaneously shivered as they all seemingly heard a mother’s scream that had just lost her child again.

…

It was assassins that had found him that was true but they didn't find him in his grave, they had found him wandering around with instincts and muscle memory as his only tool to survive. At first, Ra thought that he was the missing link, the key to everlasting life but after countless research and experiments thought that Jason Todd was a fluke in the greater systems. Seeing that Talia’s leverage on her beloved is about to be disposed of, she immediately throws Jason into the pits as it may have not raised the dead but he is alive enough for the pits to heal.

When Jason Todd was dipped into the green glowing waters of the Lazarus pits they didn't see it…

They didn't see the way the pits seemed to split Jason Todd in half. As if answering a man or a father’s prayer.

I need no other child as long as mine can split themselves in half.

At that moment, deep within the deep waters of the pits, there were two. 

One who looked far too different from what he looked like before, a body that had been fixed by the pits. 

One who had been left behind, the body of a teen who had been too malnourished.

The pits split Jason Todd apart, while the other one started to gasp for air and began swimming to the top, the other continued to sink into the endless pit.

No one was there to witness it but as the other one sank deeper a portal manifested behind the sinking Jason Todd swallowing him whole as if there was no one else.

…

Jason knew the moment he woke up in the middle of the Lazarus pit, was rage. RAGE for naively believing his birth giver yet she had given him to the Joker for safety, RAGE for not being avenged by his father, RAGE for being replaced before his body even turned cold… 

rage for something, MISSING?!?!?!!?

Jason knew that there was a part of him missing, maybe it was the once young innocent naïve child that loved theater, perhaps it was the once hopeful child to help their home into something more, but it was because deep down he knew that there was something wrong with him.

He had memories missing or even spotty and blurry at best. He knew he used to help Alfred around the kitchen but the feelings and the details behind such core memory vanished. The sense of joy and utter happiness, when DAD Bruce bought a first edition book that he had been eyeing for a while, the fear and dread to open and read, said book in fear of damaging his first ever gift.

He knew that if the rest knew of it he would be kicked out, just when they were both trying to mend their broken bridges. So he kept it all in memories and emotions that should have been present are gone as if someone had cut through him and dragged those out.

But it all clicked in one normal night during patrol.

…

He was just swinging from one building to another when he felt it, a pulse, calling out to him. Every inch of him is screaming to follow it as if something is begging him to go, so he does.

Upon arriving at, his former rundown apartment. Where he and his mom, Catherine, once shared and called home. 

Slowly entering the said apartment there he saw his old room where he and Catherine slept while cuddling when she had drugs out of her system. 

A teen, looks exactly like him, same eyes that have the same shade of blue that the butler managed to capture before his death. The shape of his eyes, the way his hair was styled, the way he looked at Jason as if he was in danger.

But the moment the two of them met their eyes something clicked inside them.

They are each other’s half…

…

Jason and Danny, after he introduced himself which made him a bit confused and so that there would be no mix-ups seeing both of them are technically Jason Peter Todd, both began exchanging stories to each other seeing that even though they have no idea how and why they were separated better yet they don’t know how come Danny traveled to the past to be raised normally.

…

As Danny begins to narrate his story Jason can’t help but let his mind wander here he is. Talking to a version of him if Joker didn’t happen. A smart and innocent version of him that has a loving family, and haven’t have any blood in their hands. The perfect son, something Bruce would be ecstatic about. He is ruling over Crime Alley using every dirty trick in the book. Yet a version of him became the perfect vigilante, despite death wanting to do good and see good in everyone. 

I am the sinner, and you are the saint.

…

I am the sinner, and you are the saint.

Danny thought as he in turn listened to his other part, he knew that that Jason the one in front of him was the one who made it out. While he merely drifted at the bottom, Danny felt envious of Jason despite the two being the same person just different experiences. Yet the moment he regained Jason Todd-Wayne’s memories he can't help but laugh at fate for pulling their strings. A billionaire who wanted to be his son, eccentric parents, dying once again with no mom nor dad within sight… He was laughing deep within his room when he got his memories back. 

Even Clockwork looked at him with pity? Sympathy? sorry? He doesn't care when the ghost visits him for a timely visit.

Here he is looking at the version of him if he ever came back to Bruce. The father had yelled at him about not wanting teenage rebellion from him. When he remembered his memories it was already far too long when the League of Assassins had him and Bruce already had a shinier Robin, a perfect son and the perfect brother to Richard Grayson. So he didn’t reach out despite remembering each code that could verify his identity. Each secret and each whisper that only Jason Todd knew and experienced.

So he stayed, stayed with a family that practically raised him a family that neglected him and their biological daughter. But in the end, he still died, for their cause, he may be considered a trained individual but fought humans, not immortal-like beings that seem to have their version of madness.

His parents whom he grew to love and care for parents despite their shortcomings, still opened him up and explored his insides when they learned the truth.

It made him chuckle, he just never did learn, did he…

He escaped, running from one city to another, never staying for too long as many heroes despite their dislike of him when Grayson made his hatred known for him, learned and still watched him grow into a young teen.

So when he was living from one state to another, to avoid detection, lose his trail, escape his hunters, going back to his training as Robin as well as the memory of being a street kid deep within Gotham’s dirty alley. So when he first entered the city boundaries, Danny could feel it, the way Lady Gotham immediately welcomed him.

He heard it all, how Red Hood controlled crime, how he staking his claim on Crime Alley that even the Bats had forsaken. How within his rule was better than any gang or leader who did try and control that section of Gotham.

Danny can’t help but feel envy, here his other self doing good to the place where he crawled from. His other being the vigilante who made a change, has the drive to fight and protect, the drive to dirty his hands to ensure that the kids in his territory live a somewhat normal life. So when he made eye contact he knew that he was the sinner.

So here he was talking and listening to a grown Jason Todd of him. It made him cringe the moment he saw him, it made him think of Dan, the way he stood, his expressions, and even the tiniest of details. The anger, if Danny and Jason never met again despite one knowing of the other’s identity.

…

If one looked from outside of their little bubble one would see two beings. Who truly understood, acknowledged, and accepted each other. No matter how different the two are, one would comment that they look like soulmates, who gravitate toward each other and readily accept each other’s edges. One would whisper that the two are brothers, who support each other and rely to each other.

No matter, the Gothamites muttered, Gotham never have felt more content and at home than the day they saw Jason Todd, the supposed right-hand man of Red Hood, and Danny Nightgale, the Gotham’s guardian for the children. Talking and spending time to each other.

Now, if only Batman and Co. stop sneaking in to take a glance at their new resident.

…

PS: If someone out there wants to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so, don’t forget to tag me though.

[reality-detective]

I see a lot more of this 👇 kind of stuff and if you think about it: Remember the movie "V for Vendetta" it was rated ; R that came out in 2005? It was repeated frequently - "Remember, Remember the 5th of November"

Trump has said multiple times; "November 5th will be the greatest day in American history."

I'm just trying to connect some dots. I have no way of actually knowing the timeline, so I ask myself questions and knowing what I know and see a lot of things like this 👇 It's just a hunch and it kinda makes sense.

Military Intelligence follows the Julian Calendar

· Trump created the fake Biden presidency to expose globalist crime and corruption on a massive scale.

· The Emergency Broadcast System will introduce martial law until fair and transparent elections can be held.

· Three Days of Darkness: Planned cyber attacks on everything—Internet down, communications cut, power grid possibly shut off.

· 10 Days of Disclosure: A single website, one web channel, broadcasting the truth eight hours a day, in a loop.

· NESARA/GESARA debt forgiveness will be implemented—freedom from the Deep State's chains.

· The military will ensure that the masses get the food they need.

· QFS will be put in place to crush the financial elites.

· A 95% reduction in the corrupt government—we will finally be free from the parasites.

· Federal Reserve? Dead. IRS? Taken over by the new U.S. Treasury.

· A new tax system: only a 14%-17% tax on new items—no taxes on food, medicine, or wages. If you buy a used car, no taxes because whatever bought it brand new already paid said taxes. Finally, real financial relief for the people.

· Maritime Law will be thrown out, replaced by Common Law. No more tyranny in disguise.

You know the election is going to be a disaster, it's no secret they are tampering with the early voting and we are watching in real time that they are already committing treason. Is that the day a soft martial law goes into effect? If memory serves me, after the official announcement of NESARA there has to be an election 120 days later. Elections used to be in April and I don't know when it was moved to November. And if I were to guess, I would say it was to affect voter turnout with the colder weather.

The World IS About To Change 🤔

[makehydrafictionagain]

Public Relations (MCU x Reader)- Ch. 2. Pt. 1

Summary: Tensions run high in Stark Tower as the aftermath of recent events leaves everyone on edge, working tirelessly to regain control. You grapple with your place among the team, leading to a confrontation that forces you to make a difficult decision. As emotions boil over, the line between staying and leaving grows increasingly blurred.

Here is the link for the previous parts.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

The atmosphere in Stark Tower was tense, the weight of the previous night’s attack pressing heavily on everyone. In the common area on the forty-fifth floor, a room primarily used for intense deliberation, the Avengers gather- exhaustion evident in their expressions. They deliberate, intensely, with the limited information they’ve managed to scrape together.

Steve Rogers takes the lead, his voice steady but firm as he outlines the team’s immediate priorities. “We need to know where he’s gone and what he’s planning. Without that, we’re fighting blind.”

Tony Stark sits slouched in his chair, arms crossed, his face a mask of guilt and frustration. “I can’t track him yet. He’s better than I thought, smarter. But I’ll find him.” His words are sharp, defensive, as if daring anyone to question him further.

Bruce Banner, seated beside Tony, speaks up hesitantly. “Helen and I are running diagnostics on the systems he corrupted. It’ll take time, but we’re making progress.”

Across the room, Thor paces like a restless storm, his hammer swinging at his side. “Ultron is using the scepter’s power. We should focus on that- its magic leaves a trace. If we find the trace, we find him.”

Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton listen quietly, their eyes scanning the room. Natasha finally interjects, her tone pragmatic. “Tracing him is one thing. Stopping him is another. We need to prepare for whatever he’s planning, not just react to it.”

The room fell into a pensive silence, no one feeling the need to add anything more to the pile of stressors in the middle of the room. One by one, they went their separate ways, last of which being Steve, who leaned against the windowsill with his arms crossed and fist rested on his chin.

-

Up in the lab, the air is filled with urgency. Tony works furiously at one of his holographic interfaces, pulling up streams of code and data faster than Bruce or Helen can keep up. His usual quips are absent, replaced by curt, focused commands.

“Banner, cross-check this against the last known coordinates we have for the drones,” Tony says without looking up.

Bruce nods, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “I’m on it. But if Ultron’s using adaptive code, it’s going to take longer than we’d like.”

Helen Cho, standing at another station, frowns as she examines a corrupted data sample. “It’s not just the code,” She says, calm but firm. “Ultron is evolving. He’s not leaving the same traces he did before. This isn’t just artificial intelligence- it’s something more.”

Tony glances over toward her without looking at her directly. “Care to elaborate?”

Helen looked at him evenly. “The scepter’s power is still a factor. We’re not just dealing with science anymore. There’s a blend of technology and something… else. If we don’t account for that, we’ll keep falling behind.”

Tony’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he redirects his focus back to the data, his mind racing.

As the hours tick by, the three work nonstop, their determination matched only by their growing frustration. Each of them know time is running out- and Ultron isn’t waiting for them to catch up.

-

You wake with a start, your body aching from the night before. You're still in your dress, the fabric wrinkled and stained with soot, grime, and blood.

Your hair hangs and clings in wild disarray, and your makeup depicts the chaos of the night before. You don't bother with an attempt to fix yourself. Instead, you push yourself upright and manage to throw the curtains to cover the window, wobbling slightly as you navigate the unsteady world around you. The lingering champagne buzz and a splitting migraine courtesy of the attack make each step a challenge. You press your fingers to your temples, as though the pressure might bring some clarity, before rubbing your eyes- a move that only worsens the mess of mascara already smudged beneath them. The mirror in the bathroom offers a harsh reflection you don't acknowledge. After a splash of cool water that does little to revive you, you drag yourself back into the dimly lit room, the weight of exhaustion and the night's events settling heavily on your shoulders.

Sitting at your desk, you flip open your laptop. The screen illuminates your reflection, and you barely recognize the disheveled woman staring back. You don't allow yourself to wallow. You have a job to do. The clock says 1:28 p.m. Or is that a 4?

Your fingers hover over the keyboard as you begin drafting an email to Ms. Potts.

Subject: Update

Ms. Potts,

I wnted to infom youthat I am okay, te team is okay,nd we’re regrouping as we speak.I’ll handle things on the media front and ensure the fallout isaddressed apppriately.

You pause, fingers tightening slightly over the keys. Your chest feels heavy as you think about the night before. The press event had gone so well- better than you hoped. Steve and Bruce had delivered their speeches perfectly, and the media response had been overwhelmingly positive. It was a win- a real win, something the team desperately needed after Sokovia.

And then it was all destroyed.

Your jaw tightens as you think of Tony. He’d been dismissive, reckless, with his little AI project . Ultron had stolen the spotlight from their hard-earned victory and turned it into something unrecognizable. Something terrifying.

You shake your head, trying to focus. You type another line into the email:

I’ll have a preliminary strategyto you y thisfternoon. Letme know if there are any key points you’d like incded.

_____ _____

You review the email briefly, as well as you can through a tight squint, then hit send. As the message disappears from your screen, you feel a wisp of satisfaction. At least one thing is in motion.

You turn your attention to a blank document, ready to draft the PR strategy. You start outlining key points: acknowledging the attack, expressing regret for the harm caused, and emphasizing the Avengers’ commitment to preventing further destruction. None of it made anything better. Not even close.

Your mind keeps drifting back to the night before. The victory party had been the culmination of days and nights of non-stop effort- a chance to truly celebrate the team's accountability and transparency. You had even let yourself relax, something you often never allowed around clients. For one fleeting moment, it felt like the team was finally on stable ground.

All for nothing.

Your frustration simmers as you type, each keystroke a quiet release of your anger. Tony’s arrogance had derailed everything, and now the entire world was left to deal with the fallout. You weren't naïve- you knew what you were walking into when you took this job. But still, you hadn’t expected this. Clearly, no one had.

You leaned into your screen, hoping that your typing skills served you well enough to create legible notes through the aura of your migraine. You couldn't tell. With a deep inhale, and even deeper exhale, you decide that before you can move forward you need to be wearing something that doesn't smell like whiskey, sweat, or electrical smoke. 

Standing up, you use your arms to guide you to the bathroom and strip, leaving your dress on the tile beneath you. The hot water eases the tension in your shoulders some, but does nothing for the 3 giant bruises on your abdomen and thighs that are thrown on you like paint. 

Having only washed your body, neglecting your routine, you step out onto the dress you removed minutes earlier. You make your way to your dresser and pull on a sweater and leggings- completely disregarding your preference for business-casual attire, and step into your slippers. 

Coffee. 

With very cautious steps, you grabbed your notepad and tablet that were precariously placed on the corner of your desk, found the door to the hallway, and used the walls to guide you toward the kitchen. Navigation felt like walking through a fog, but the promise of coffee pushed you forward.

At the counter, you poured yourself a mug of black coffee, your movements slow and deliberate. You didn’t bother with sugar or cream- there wasn’t any point. The bitter aroma alone was comfort enough, its warmth cradling you as you held the mug close to your chest. The kitchen was quiet, the faint hum of Stark Tower’s systems the only sound accompanying you.

Your footsteps were soft as you crossed to the same seat at the table you had previously claimed, a place you’d sat to observe the team of heroes not even a week ago. Back then, you’d felt like an outsider peering into a world you could never fully understand. Now, sitting in the same spot, the distance between you and them felt even greater, like an invisible wall you couldn’t- didn’t- hope to scale.

You settled into the chair, setting your coffee down with a gentle clink before setting your notepad and tablet down. With a sharp exhale, you flipped to a fresh page and began jotting down ideas. Your handwriting was uncharacteristically messy, the jagged letters revealing on paper the strain in your vision and the tension in your thoughts.

The tablet beside your remained dark, untouched. You couldn’t bear to squint at the blurry screen again, its flickering light only adding to your frustration. 

There's no question what’s being said online.

Instead, you focused on the notepad, letting the rhythm of pen on paper guide you as you tried to piece together fragments, slivers, of a strategy. Your brow furrowed, the faint lines between your eyebrows deepening as you fought to concentrate.

But the quiet didn’t last. The sound of approaching footsteps broke through your thoughts, a steady, confident rhythm echoing through the kitchen. You froze, your pen hovering above the page as the noise grew louder.

You looked up, squinting toward the doorway. The figure that emerged was instantly recognizable- not by sight, but by the unjustified confidence and ego, paired with the faint scent of cologne and a whisper of alcohol- or, the other way around. 

Tony Stark.

For a moment, you remained still, gripping your pen tightly as your gaze followed him. There was something almost surreal about seeing him like this, the man responsible for both the Avengers’ triumphs and their current chaos. His presence filled the room like a storm cloud, impossible to ignore. It pissed you off.

Tony’s steps didn’t falter as he made his way to the coffee machine, his movements fluid and purposeful. The sound of the coffee pouring into his mug seemed louder than it should have been, punctuating the silence with every drop. You didn’t say a word, your stomach tightening as you braced yourself for whatever confrontation was about to come next. Whether he initiated it or you did, both of you could feel something brewing.

“Wow,” Tony said, his voice cutting through the quiet. “I thought you’d be gone by now.” He paused by the coffee machine. You couldn’t tell if he was looking at you, or looking at his cup. “Or was last night not enough of a reminder that your expertise is no longer needed here?”

You straightened, your grip tightening on your pen. “You mean the part where you caused a disaster so bad that Ms. Potts hasn’t even had a chance to return my emails yet?” Your tone matched his, sharp and biting. You leaned forward, your eyes narrowing. “No, Mr. Stark, that wasn’t a reminder. It was confirmation.” Tony, abandoning the mug he was preparing on the counter, came around to face you, turning his ear to you as if he had misheard.

“Give me a break. We’re a little beyond PR control at this point, don’t you think? Ultron doesn’t care about soundbites, and neither do I.” Tony took two more steps toward the table where you sat, encroaching on your personal space.

The way he loomed over you- standing while you sat- only made your anger flare. You pushed yourself to your feet, your vision sharpening enough to catch the irritation etched into his face. “Maybe not, but the world does. You’ve spent years building this company’s name- your name- and now you’ve tied it to a killer robot and another ruined city.” Tony’s jaw tightens as he steps even closer, yet you continue. “But sure, let's pretend none of that matters.”

“You’re right- it’s my company.” You can now clearly see the stress lines on his forehead and the bags under his eyes, and your heart rate quickens as he approaches. Despite standing tall, he still towers over you from the angle he's approaching.

Tony leaned closer, one hand gripping the table in front of you, his tone cold and sharp. “And frankly, I don’t see the point of keeping someone around who can’t even shoot a hunk of metal six feet in front of her.”

You freeze, your lips parting as though to respond, but the words don’t come. The room felt smaller, your blurry surroundings closing in as his words echoed in your head. 

Tony doesn’t wait for a reply. He turns sharply on his heel and strides out, the door clicking shut behind him. 

The silence that follows is deafening. You exhale sharply, your hands clenched into fists. Your mind races, replaying his words, your frustration mounting.

Finally, you snap your notepad shut, the sound breaking the stillness of the room. Shoving the dining chair back further, you leave the table, walking carelessly, intently to your room.

Your breath comes quick and shallow as your mind churns, emotions a storm of anger, hurt, and defiance. You don't pause, don't let yourself think. Instead, you pack your belongings quickly, tossing essentials into a small bag and hastily organizing the rest for shipment. After 45 minutes, your blood pressure has not lowered. You knew the rage-packing had something to do with that, but you take it as a sign that the decision you had already made was the right one. You pulled your hair into a bun, giving no care to your appearance, and sat on the edge of the bed with your hands gripping the mattress and your leg shaking angrily for a moment longer. 

Fuck this place.

You stood up and looked at your suitcases, packed up and set to the side.

They can ship it to me. Or not. I dont give a shit.

You slung the bag over your shoulder and headed for the door, your jaw tight, and straight down the hallway toward the elevator. Your chest felt tight, your thoughts spinning in an exhausting loop of frustration and self-doubt. 

I'm not doubting anything. I'm no help here.

Leaving Stark Tower was the only thing that made sense now. You weren't helping, you weren’t needed, and after Tony’s scathing words, staying felt unbearable. Impossible.

You were just a few steps away from the elevator when Natasha Romanoff stepped into your path, tablet in hand. At first, she didn’t even glance up, her focus seemingly on the screen, but she moved with deliberate intent, blocking your path with ease.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Natasha’s voice was calm but carried an edge, like a warning wrapped in silk.

You paused, gripping the strap of your bag, suddenly very aware that the room was now inhabited by multiple Avengers despite the silence before. Your tone came out sharper than intended. “I didn’t realize I needed clearance for the elevator.”

Natasha’s gaze flicked up then, sharp and assessing, pinning you in place. “You do when you’re planning to run. Especially now.”

Your fingers tightened around the strap of your bag. “I’m not running,” You said, your voice defensive. “I’m just… leaving. Tony’s right- this isn’t my fight.”

Natasha tilted her head slightly, her calm demeanor unnerving. She stepped closer, her voice lowering but firm. “You’re not just some bystander, _____. You’ve been in the room. You’ve seen the plans, heard the intel. You think Ultron’s going to forget that?”

The words made you falter, but only for a moment. “So what?” You snapped. “I stay here and keep being a liability? I’m not helping, Natasha. You don’t need me.”

Natasha crossed her arms, expression hardening. “You think this is about what we need? It’s about survival. You walk out of here, you’re making yourself an easy target. And the second Ultron decides to come after you, we’ll have to drop everything to save your ass.”

Heat rose in your cheeks. “I don’t need saving,” You bit out, your voice rising.

Natasha’s eyes narrowed, her tone turning sharp as a blade. “Look, I get it- you’re scared, and you don’t belong here. But leaving right now isn’t just stupid, it’s selfish . Stay. Help us fix this. Or at the very least, stay alive so we don’t have to add your death to our conscience.

Their voices had risen by now, echoing down the hallway, sharp and cutting. In the common room nearby, Steve, Clint, and Thor had fallen silent, their conversation abandoned. The tension of the argument drew their attention like a magnet, and they exchanged uneasy glances. 

Your breath hitched, and you turned away, unable to hold Natasha’s piercing stare any longer. Your grip on your bag strap tightened as the words sank in, heavy and suffocating.

Steve stood, the weight of the moment compelling him to step in. He approached slowly, his expression calm but serious, his presence alone enough to add to the tension in the hallway. Natasha glanced at him briefly before turning back to you, her voice softening just enough to temper the moment.

“You don’t have to like being here,” She said. “But you can’t leave. Not yet.”

Your eyes darted between Natasha and Steve, who now stood silently nearby, his somber presence adding weight to the conversation. Trapped. That’s how you felt. Your frustration and helplessness boiled to the surface, and you let out a sharp, bitter laugh, shaking your head.

“Fine,” You spat out, spinning on your heel and storming back down the hallway toward your room.

Natasha watched you go, her expression unreadable. “She’s not going anywhere,” She said quietly, almost to herself.

“Good,” Steve replied softly, though his gaze lingered in the direction you had gone.

He turned to leave, but Natasha’s voice stopped him, her tone low and knowing. “Go easy on him,” she said.

Steve glanced back, catching the flicker of understanding in her eyes. She knew exactly where he was headed. With a small nod, he turned away, his jaw tightening as he disappeared down the hallway toward Tony’s lab. Natasha let out a slow exhale, attention returning to the tablet in her hands- though her thoughts remained firmly on you and the storm brewing within Stark Tower, and out there somewhere in the world. In the common room, Clint shook his head, muttering something under his breath. 

The silence that followed was heavy, the weight of unspoken questions lingering between them.

-

You stormed into your room, the door clicking shut behind you with more force than you intended, more force than you thought was possible with these fancy hinges. You stood still for a moment, breathing uneven, hands clenched into fists at your sides. Your mind spun, replaying the argument with Natasha, the sharpness of her words, the unspoken truth beneath them.

Stupid. Selfish.

You crossed to your bed and sat down heavily, your gaze falling to your lap. The anger swirling inside you flared briefly, but it wasn’t just anger at Natasha- it was at yourself, at the impossible situation you had found yourself in. You thought you could handle this, thought you could help. But now?

Stupid.

Your eyes drifted to the suitcases thrown to the side of the door.

Selfish.

The others were overthinking this. Ultron had no reason to care about you. You’re a PR person, not a strategist or a fighter. What could you possibly offer? You weren't one of them. Tony had made that clear enough.

Stupid.

Your chest tightened at the memory of his words. They stung, not because they were harsh.

He’s right.

-

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Steve’s voice cut through the lab like a whip, followed by the slamming and swinging of the doors behind him.

Bruce flinched, his head snapping up in surprise, while Helen glanced over briefly before returning to her work. Tony didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look up, his focus seemingly unshaken as he continued swiping at the holograms.

“Saving the world,” Tony said flatly, the edge of snark in his tone. “You should try it sometime.”

Steve stepped closer, his presence towering, his voice hard. “You can’t just kick people out without consulting the team.”

“Oh, good, she finally left.” Tony mumbled, still not looking up from his work. 

“_____ left?” Bruce couldn't hesitate the words coming out, though he wanted to.

“Nat didn't let her leave.” Steve said, still focusing on Tony.

Tony straightened, any bit of a smirk fading as he circled around the workstation, his expression more guarded now. “She should have,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “She’s a liability, Rogers. She’s not a soldier, she’s not a scientist, and she sure as hell isn’t a hero. She’s in over her head, and she knows it.”

“She’s more of a liability out there,” Steve countered, his frustration rising. “Ultron will use anything he can against us. You really think he’s just going to let her walk away?”

Bruce shifted uncomfortably but nodded in agreement. “Steve’s got a point,” he said carefully. “Ultron’s not going to leave her alone. She’s already on his radar- we all are.”

Tony turned toward Bruce, his frustration snapping like a live wire. “And how’s that my fault? I didn’t tell her to show up here.”

“No,” Steve shot back, his voice rising, “but you told you to leave . You really think the right thing to do is send her out there- alone?”

Tony’s jaw tightened, and he turned back to Steve, his voice hardening. “And you think she’s safe here? Did last night not make an impression? This place isn’t safe for anyone, least of all someone like her.”

The room fell into a tense silence, the weight of Tony’s words hanging between them. Bruce looked down at his monitor, clearly uncomfortable, while Helen kept her focus on her work, stoic.

Steve took a breath, reining in his anger. “ Here is the safest place for her to be,” he said, his tone quieter but no less firm. “Here she has us .”

Tony’s expression flickered, his eyes narrowing as if he was considering another retort. But when he spoke, his voice was quieter, almost muttering, “I can’t keep everyone safe, Steve.”

“Then I will.” Steve stepped closer, his tone resolute. “She’s staying.”

They locked eyes, the tension crackling like electricity between them. Tony’s jaw worked as though he wanted to argue, but no words came. Instead, he broke the stare, turning back toward his workstation, his silence brimming with frustration and something deeper he wouldn’t admit.

Steve lingered for a moment, letting the weight of his words settle before turning and walking out of the lab.

Tony stood still, staring blankly at his holograms. After a beat, he exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair as he stepped away from his workstation. Without a word, he left the lab, the glass door to the elevator lobby sliding shut behind him.

Bruce and Helen exchanged a look, Bruce’s face marked with unease.

“Well,” Bruce said quietly, rubbing the back of his neck, “that went well.”

Helen shook her head slightly, returning to her tablet.

-

For a moment, you sat still, staring at the empty space in front of you, your thoughts circling. Natasha and Steve thought Ultron would target you, but that didn’t make sense. He had bigger fish to fry: Tony, Bruce, the Avengers themselves. What value could you possibly hold in the grand scheme of things?

You forced yourself to stand, your movements deliberate as you pulled the suitcases from the ground and placed them on the bed. Slowly, you began to fix your messy packing. Clothes were refolded carefully, placed in neat stacks. Your framed photo of your family went into the wooden box along with a few other keepsakes you brought from home.

Each item you packed felt like a small admission of defeat, a quiet acknowledgement that this wasn’t where you were meant to be.

When you finished, the room was bare, stripped of any trace of your presence other than the suitcases and the wooden box that were lined up by the door, ready to go. You weren’t even sure you would see them again after today. 

I honestly, truly, don’t give a shit.

With that thought, you pulled the photos out of the box and placed them in your bag, wrapped in a shirt. Only your laptop remained on the desk, the last thing you’d need before leaving.

You sat down again, your hands numb and resting on your knees, thoughts heavy. The Avengers didn’t need you, and staying here wasn’t going to change that. It was time to go. That was the only thing that made sense anymore.

Your room, once carefully organized to make it feel like home, now felt sterile and impersonal, stripped of the touches you’d added during your brief stay.

You opened your laptop and began typing, movements methodical and precise. It wasn’t until the laptop screen shone on you that you realized how dark it was in “your room.” It’d been hours.

Subject: Thank you

Ms. Potts,

Thankou for the opportunity towork alongsidetark Industries and the Avengers. After carul consideration, I’ve determned thatmy role here is no longer beeficial to the team or themission. I belive it’sin everyone’s best interest if Istep aside during this criticaltime.

I’ve packed my bongings in the suitcasesnd wooden box theywere delivered in. Pleasehae them sent to 128 Briarwod Lane, Whie Plains, NY 10605, at your convenience. I will leave my access badge and keycard at t the front desk for collection. I trust this will nt cause any inconvenience.

I wish you and the tam the best in the days ahead.

_____ _____

You read over the email once, as best you could, ensuring its tone was professional and to the point. Then, with a deep breath, you hit send. The small chime of confirmation was like the closing of a chapter.

You shut your laptop and slid it into your bag, zipping it up with practiced efficiency. You glanced around the room one final time, your gaze lingering on the bare floor and the now neatly stacked cases. Your badge and keycard were held tight in your hand- not realizing how severely the anxiety had been accumulating until this very moment, with the sharp plastic edges of your identification pressing painfully into your palm.

Without hesitation, you hoisted your bag over your shoulder and stepped silently into the hallway. The Tower was quiet and dim at this hour, the hum of distant machinery the only sound accompanying your footsteps. You moved quickly, looking behind you often, keeping to the shadows and heading for the service stairwell. You stopped at the heavy door and readied your keycard, hoping to the heavens that it worked. You hovered it over the scanner and waited for a beep, either affirmative or negative. The light turned green and a chirp echoed through the halls, followed by the sound of the lock mechanism releasing. 

Thank you, Maria.

You were not prepared for a fight, so you hoped that was the case. Worst case scenario, though, would the team care enough to exert unnecessary energy into keeping you here? Part of you felt bad for using the trust Maria had placed in you to escape; she clearly felt that you didn’t require the typical security restrictions that most in your position would. To use that respect and run with it felt wrong, sure, but… 

I don’t know, I don’t care.

The descent, though you knew would be long, felt excruciating, every echo of your footsteps amplifying the tension in your chest. When you finally reached the ground floor, you paused at the door to the side lobby, your hand hovering over the handle.

There was no looking back. You pushed the door open and stepped into the dark room that led straight into the night. The city’s cool air hit you immediately, a sharp contrast to the stifling atmosphere of Stark Tower. The glowing logo loomed behind you, casting a faint light over the street.

You tightened your grip on your bag and walked away, steps steady and determined. You didn’t glance back, your focus entirely on the path ahead. For better or worse, you were on your own now. 

Thank god for Uber.

[emiplayzmc]

Radio Comet Addison (Hex: a97183)

-Height is 6'0" (72. in.), and he's one of the oldest Addisons in Cyber City - he refuses to say his exact age.

-A radio star in the 50s and 70s in Cyber City specialising in radio ad sponsors, he worked at the same station that Broadcast does, and mentored him in the showhosting business when he first started working there. He quite liked Broadcast's hyperactive and enthusiastic nature.

-He gets frequent headaches and CPU overloads for seemingly no reason.

-He's got a big ego, priding himself on his voice and talent which was easily wounded if people badmouthed it - he was also quite snoopy, and knew things about pretty much everyone at the station. Despite these flaws, he's quite a patient man, which made him a pretty good mentor.

-He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

-He's the first carrier of a virus that doesn't have a known source - aka, he's Patient 0 of it. Hence, he's also the main spreader of the virus by compulsion to do so and conditioning so as to not lose himself completely until a victim is found and infected. He targets and chooses prey, and stalks them like a komodo dragon until the right time to infect comes. He tries to do it as little as possible, but the longer he goes without infecting, the more the virus compels him to do so until it eventually puppets him itself until a victim is found, no matter if it was an intended target or not.

-Because of the damage to his body the virus causes, his original voicebox is shattered, as well as one of his original eyes giving out - the tendency for his parts to give out now has caused a bit of a scavenging and hoarding habit with him, stealing parts from Addison bodies he finds occasionally in the Trash Zone and stashing them in spots he frequents if he needs to fix himself. He keeps his old voicebox in his pocket, but his new one doesn't do him much good since it's also somewhat decayed and broken. The corruption of his Freeze Ring caused his remaining eye to go mostly dark and leak oil as well, save for a dot of ice-blue surrounded by hot pink that acts as the pupil and iris.

-He's very bitter that Cyber City sort of gave up on him after a time... even if the virus was keeping him from just throwing himself at the first opportunity to be saved, he still somewhat had hope that someone would still look for him. The people he entertained still cared, right? He wouldn't just be replaced by a new starlet that caught their eyes...

-Mostly because of his bitterness, partly because of already existing feelings of unease and discontent, he despises the Addison species now, and hates what he is by extension. He despises what they're used for and made to do for their entire lives, and also hates that pretty much everything in the Cyber World - and the whole of the Dark Worlds, to his knowledge - have one purpose that they stick to for their lives, and if you fall out of the system, you're as good as forgotten to them. There have been many times where he's contemplated scavenging and body and trying to masquerade as a Swatchling or something, just to get OUT of being an Addison and try to re-enter society and get himself fixed, but he just never goes through with it. Whether out of fear or the virus or just calling it off, who knows?

-It's unknown what the virus does to a host's systems EXACTLY, but clearly Radio doesn't take it well. It's caused his systems and parts to slowly deteriorate over time, causing him to have to learn to fix himself with whatever means he can. It doesn't help that his Freeze Ring is also corrupted because of the virus, causing him a lot of pain that can only be curbed by taking the ring off, or constantly be eating healing items - HP is a different thing from his body's deterioration.

Anywaysss, FINAL PINK ADDI REF SHEET! That's all of my Pink Addis done! ^-^ Just because, here's a playlist I made for Radio / Zero because yes :]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0xomIoF8QEoTwIYNco9MgS?si=cs86h9udR-KWN5pHg88dDQ&pi=TdO11IHvQqqb-

[darkeagleruins]

Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich Says All The Quiet Parts Out Loud

- The system is rigged

- Voting is rigged

- Both parties are paid off

- Not just politicians but millions of people being paid off with tax payer money

- They’ll do anything to stop Trump and more

“I think Trump is the most aggressive and competent opponent that the Franklin Roosevelt Coalition has ever faced. They've run the country now since 1932. They built huge bureaucracies, huge sets of rules.

They paid off millions of people with taxpayer money. And all of a sudden, they have an opponent who's very serious about dismantling and replacing their corrupt system.

They're terrified of him. And from their standpoint, breaking the law, rigging the game, whatever it takes, they're gonna do to try to beat him at every level.

[arraytale001]

CHAPTER 10

FILE 09

HOPE.

((( you can hear Mozart's music: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626: I. Introitus. Requiem aeternam for a more dramatic and darker feel, or La petite fille de la mer which has a dark and desperate feel. )))

It felt as though his soul had been pierced by a rusted blade, sharper and more painful with every slice of flesh, drawing blood with each cut. Like shattered glass scattered across the floor, spilling wine onto an elegant granite surface—the wine, like a pool of blood, stained the pristine white floor. Sans imagined specks of dust floating in the air, like snowflakes falling onto a thick pool of blood.

 “I killed her. So now, I’m a murderer, huh.” The thought haunted Sans like a ghost, softly whispering its words.

For a moment, he felt like he couldn’t breathe—it was suffocating and agonizing. The feeling of satisfaction from breaking free of his restraints mixed with overwhelming guilt, thick and sticky. It lingered like a deadly potion, attacking and consuming his mind from all sides. The old Sans would never have considered killing his own friend—Sans now wondered if the reflection in the water was really himself, or merely an illusion of the nightmare he had always hidden away. Sans closed his eyes.

“…It had to be this way. There was no other choice—destroying morality to gain power,” he thought, trying to steel himself.

Sans understood the consequences, the punishment, and the weight of his crimes. Yet, he decided to move forward and leave his former self behind—a farewell he didn’t wish for but had to accept to break free of the chains that had bound him. Rays was more than just an enemy threatening his life—a disaster, a great menace who wouldn’t yield to anything but his own desires. He would do whatever it took, sacrificing others and destroying everything in his path to achieve victory. His greed consumed his mind; he was the very definition of a monster. A monster that corrupted and destroyed everyone around him.

For that reason, Sans knew he couldn’t be half-hearted in carrying out his plan. He was determined to shed his old character completely, leaving behind Sans who always made his friends laugh, Sans who sold hotdogs for fun—that version of himself was discarded into a pit, never to rise again.

 “What’s done is done.”

Sans finally started walking toward Frisk, who remained motionless in their spot. His steps were stiff, his expression grim—Sans felt utterly dulled, resigned to the possibility that things would only get worse from here. But regret wouldn’t solve anything. There was no need to question morality when he had been forced to rebel, forced to rage on. No matter what, his hands were already stained, and this was the path he had chosen.

Accepting it was harder than denying it.

And so, Sans accepted whatever he had become. If he was broken, then broken he would remain.

Sans eventually stood directly in front of Frisk, his expression blank, his gaze fixed on the air ahead of him—as though Frisk didn’t notice Sans’s presence at all.

“I’m sure the system is in disarray now,” Sans said quietly. Frisk was supposed to defeat Undyne in this game, but Sans had chosen to take aggressive action and replace Frisk. “Let’s see what’s inside you, Frisk.”

Sans gently grasped Frisk’s head, pressing his thumb against their forehead, trying to sense something—yes, he could feel something there, faint and indistinct. He couldn’t quite tell what it was that he was sensing now.

Sans immediately opened his eyes wide, braced himself, and activated the power Rays had just bestowed upon him.

And then…

“Oh... wow. So this is what you made of yourself, Frisk.”

A cascade of shifting numbers filled his vision, streaming across Frisk’s body. Sans observed each pathway channeling information into what he assumed was Frisk’s soul—or their core. Like a bustling highway, each number carried its own data: levels, defenses, weapons, shields, and pre written dialogues. Everything was there, showcasing an astonishing and intricate complexity. This was Frisk—their true self, their life—the character they had been shaped into long ago and could never escape.

Yes, unless Rays had given Sans the authority to take control of the NPC system he had chosen. Frisk wouldn’t have been able to change at all—but now, here Sans was, rewriting their code, trying to reshape them into someone like himself.

“Well, Frisk, it’s time for you to wake up from your nightmare.”

Sans reached toward the core of Frisk—or what could be called their soul. He could feel an electric sting trying to push him away, a system safeguard meant to protect Frisk from outside interference. Yet Sans pushed harder, digging deeper despite the system’s stronger resistance. It wasn’t easy—Frisk’s system fought back ferociously, guarding their soul with every defense it had.

“I look like the villain here,” Sans muttered, his tone dry and self-deprecating. It was like performing a dramatic surgical operation; Frisk’s body hung lifeless in Sans’s grip, while Sans focused intently on breaching and grasping their well-protected soul. “Stupid system—” he cursed under his breath. It took considerable effort and time to bypass every layer of defense.

And finally, after a long struggle and immense patience—

“Got it!”

Sans felt the soul in his grasp. “I’m doing this for your own good, Frisk,” he said softly. Holding it firmly, he began to work.

Carefully, Sans accessed the core data of Frisk’s soul, making precise adjustments. He added what was necessary, reorganized their structure, and ensured everything was arranged meticulously. There was no room for mistakes—any error could shatter his plans and lead to disaster.

“Come on, this has to work.”

The new data seemed to integrate seamlessly with Frisk’s old data—no conflicts or errors arose. Sans carefully observed the code at work, analyzing every interaction. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he exhaled deeply, a heavy weight lifting off his chest. Frisk was his desperate gamble—the key to defeating Rays, even if it meant resorting to brutal measures.

“Frisk... Frisk.”

 Sans gently patted Frisk’s cheeks, hoping to wake him. “Hey, buddy, wake up.” But still no response. Anxiety began to creep into his mind—a tiny pang of panic he couldn’t quite shake. 

Until finally…

 “WAKE UP!”

 Smack!

“Hey, kid, how was your dream?”

 A sharp slap jolted the poor human awake from their dreamlike state.

***

"I feel strange," Frisk said, gazing at Sans, who sat beside him, his eyes filled with exhaustion.

"You’ll get used to it, Frisk," Sans replied. "For now, you’ll just have to accept that odd feeling."

"What did you do to my body?"

Sans paused for a moment. "At a time like this, do you want a joke?" Frisk glared at him. "No? Oh okey, well you know, Frisk. I just changed your code and added some important information to it. I’m sure you understand that well enough." Sans tried to relax his stiff shoulders, his gaze fixed on Frisk, who still seemed confused. The human looked so weak, Sans thought. But he also held incredible power—if only all monsters had it... NO. Fantasizing wouldn’t solve anything. It was just a dream that would never come true.

"I understand I’m just a vessel for the players," Frisk continued, bitterness creeping into his voice. "I watched all that evil happen through my own hands, and what can I do about it? Nothing. I can only watch and do what I’m told." Frisk spoke with a feeling of helplessness, knowing he was powerless to stop the brutality.

"I know how you feel, Frisk. That’s why I freed you from those chains."

Frisk fell into a quiet reflection, resting his head on the back of the bench. He sighed deeply and said, "By killing her, Sans? Undyne... I saw everything, and I’ll never be able to forget it."

Hearing that, Sans clenched his pants tightly, his gaze shifting to the view in front of him—Waterfall, with its glistening streams and sparkling light. The faint whispers between the blue flowers were like a beautiful tapestry in the ocean. It took him a long time to say the truth—an admission of guilt that had been forced upon him.

"You’re right. By killing her."

"Why, Sans?"

"I had to." There was a tone of sadness in his voice, one he tried to hide but couldn’t.

“Is this about EXP? Do you want your level to be the highest, Sans?” Frisk raised his voice slightly, anger evident in his tone. However, Sans remained unfazed, even as Frisk’s voice grew louder, almost yelling. Instead, Sans chuckled at the baseless accusation. “EXP? Nah, that’s just nonsense, and I don’t want my level to be higher than yours. I don’t need that kind of power at all, Frisk.” Sans kicked a nearby stone and continued, “I just want to mess up this game’s system, do the impossible, and make it collapse. That’s what I want, Frisk—to rebel.”

“Did it have to be by killing Undyne? She’s your friend—”

“Shut your mouth.” 

“...”

Frisk couldn’t say anything. His gaze weakened, his body stiff as Sans reminded him how he wasn’t just as bad—he was worse. He, too, was a murderer—a monster who had slaughtered countless innocent lives.

“Watch your words, you'll bite your tongue if you're careless.” His tone was dark and filled with an oppressive chill. Frisk felt his mouth clamp shut as he heard Sans’s cold voice. A wave of fear engulfed him, his fingertips trembling, and his pupils dilated with horror.

“Do you so desperately want to see me as a cruel killer like yourself, Frisk? Do you really want to watch me fall to the ground and become the same ruthless murderer as you? Is that what you want?”

Even so, Frisk still felt something was wrong, and he needed to do something about it.

"I don’t understand. It feels like I’m talking to someone else, not Sans that I know," Frisk said, biting his lip hard enough to leave a bruise. "This isn't you I knew. Why... it should have been me. You should have been—"

"A judge?"

Frisk shifted his gaze, his brown hair covering his face to hide the obvious sadness. Sans watched him with an empty stare.

"Not like myself? As if you knew me so well, Frisk."

"Then what? I’ve known you for so long, played with you. I felt close to you. If you think I don’t know you, then what is this?"

"Opinion. Perspective. A point of view. You can’t claim to know someone just because you’ve spent time with them, Frisk. Just because you’ve played this game long enough doesn’t mean you know me well. And the same goes for me—I don’t understand you, and I don’t feel like I know you."

Frisk fell silent, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. The tension in the air seemed to stretch, his posture rigid as he stared in stunned silence.

"…So then what is this," Frisk said, his voice soft and filled with sorrow. He glanced at Sans, who seemed so different now—there was no longer the warm smile, no more friendliness. It felt like sitting next to a stranger, someone who had closed himself off. But even so, Frisk felt like he could still vaguely understand Sans.

"Rays ... this is about that person, right?" he said, immediately making Sans snap out of his thoughts.

"You know him?" Frisk nodded slightly, then looked at Sans. "I guess you could say that. He came to me once and tried to do something to my soul. His behavior was really suspicious, but I couldn’t do anything about it—you know, I could only watch him."

Sans understood that all too well. "We need to stop him, Frisk. And that’s why we’re both here," he said, looking at Frisk as he reached out to grab his hand, trying to gain his trust. "I need you to stop Rays—to free us all from this ridiculous game. No more judgment, no more forcing you to kill us all. You’ll cleanse the stain on your hands, Frisk. For your freedom."

Sans’s gaze was firm, locking Frisk in place. In a softer voice, he pulled Frisk closer with a subtle allure that made him waver—but truly, that’s what he wanted: freedom for all his friends, and an end to this game.

"You need me, but why?" Frisk still had doubts. Sans had expected this. "You have a strong soul, Frisk, a will stronger than anyone else in this world, and I don’t have that in me. I’m just an NPC without a will as strong as yours."

Sans smiled, his expression clearly sad. Frisk, feeling the despair in Sans, began to move closer. "I don’t know if I’m that strong, Sans."

"Trust me, Frisk. You’re stronger than you think. I ... am not. We all need you. You’re the only one I can rely on. Only you, Frisk. No one else." It was as if his words were a whisper curling around Frisk’s neck from behind, a soft promise that blinded him with hope. Frisk couldn’t see the wide, cruel grin carved firmly across Sans’s face, his gaze dark and binding, like a venomous serpent coiling tighter. “What if this doesn’t work? What if we lose in the end…” Frisk’s voice trembled with the fear of an uncertain future, the weight of his own doubts apparent.

“You can’t know what the future holds, Frisk,” Sans answered, his voice steady, almost soothing. “But if we work hard and believe—really believe—I’m sure we’ll find the way.”

Sans’s eyes met Frisk’s with unwavering certainty, his own vulnerability on full display, seeking to influence Frisk through this weakness. He wanted Frisk to feel less alone, to trust him with everything.

“Anything can happen, Frisk. There’s no dead end unless we’re not ready to step forward. You have to believe, and I’ll help you achieve that freedom.” The calm tone in his voice, the certainty in his eyes, made him seem like a fragile but trustworthy ally, one Frisk could rely on.

It was an invitation—a lure deeper into the web, pulling Frisk ever closer to his carefully laid trap.

Extending his hand, Sans gently pulled Frisk closer, dragging him into a prison that was made specifically for him. A cage of promises, making Frisk more powerless with each step. 

“This is me. I’m not as strong or as smart as you think. You see me, don’t you? A mess, completely falling apart,” he said with a slightly pleading tone.

Sans deliberately displayed an expression of deep despair, skillfully maintaining eye contact with Frisk, forcing him to stay within his reach. It felt as though Sans was grabbing Frisk’s hand through a dense fog, leading him wherever he pleased—guiding Frisk to his own grave while singing him a lullaby.

There was cruelty in the way Sans deceived Frisk, carefully choosing his words and exploiting the fragility of someone powerless and longing for freedom—yes, someone just like him. Sans revealed how trauma could transform a person into something rotten and cunning—discarding morality and conscience, replacing them with an unwanted dark side.

Unaware of the manipulation, Frisk reached out and took Sans’s hand willingly, a trusting smile on his face. Unknowingly, he sealed a pact he didn’t expect, oblivious to the fact that Rays wasn’t the only one seeking control, seeking sacrifice.

Sans had already blinded Frisk with each desperate hope he voiced.

“I’ll help you, Sans.”

Frisk’s acceptance was clear, spoken without hesitation. Sans’s face relaxed with visible relief, a happiness that filled his expression. He hugged Frisk tightly, as if to show gratitude. Yet, far from Frisk’s view, Sans’s true expression remained hidden—one of darkness and hunger.

Look at him now.

Sans’s face was flat, void of the warmth it once held. His red eyes wandered, searching for the vulnerability Frisk had unknowingly revealed. His soul was tainted, its rhythm beating like a twisted lullaby that heralded death, filled with chaos and manipulation. It coiled around Frisk, tightening with every passing second.

Sans revealed in the corruption of his own thoughts, savoring Frisk’s innocence, how easily he had fallen for the empty promises of despair. The satisfaction gnawed at his mind, making him crave the dark, the twisted pleasure that came with it. With his mind now so far from the one Frisk knew, Sans reached for him, smiling wide…

“I’m counting on you, buddy.”

JAPANESE VERSION

CHAPTER 10

FILE 09

HOPE

((( あなたはモーツァルトの音楽を聴くことができます: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626: I. Introitus. Requiem aeternam は、よりドラマチックで暗い雰囲気を持っています、または La petite fille de la mer は、暗く絶望的な雰囲気を持っています。)))

まるで錆びた刃で魂を貫かれたようだった。切り刻むたびにもっと鋭く、もっと痛くなり、血が滴る。床に散らばった割れたガラスのように、優雅な花崗岩の上にワインがこぼれ落ちた——そのワインは血の池のように、真っ白な床を染めた。サンズは空中に浮かぶ埃の粒を想像した、雪片が暗い血の池に落ちるように。

「俺が殺した。俺は殺人者だ。」その考えはサンズの心に幽霊のようにまとわりつき、優しく囁いた。

一瞬、息ができないような気がした——それは息苦しく、痛みを伴った。拘束から解放された満足感と、圧倒的な罪悪感が混じり合い、どろどろとした粘着感を放った。それは致命的な薬のように残り、あらゆる面からサンズの心を攻撃し、食い尽くしていった。昔のサンズなら、友達を殺すことなんて考えなかっただろう——今のサンズは、水面に映る自分が本当に自分なのか、それともずっと隠してきた悪夢の幻覚なのかを考えていた。サンズは目を閉じた。

「…こうするしかなかった。ほかに選択肢はなかった——力を得るために道徳を破壊するんだ。」そう思い、心を固めようとした。

サンズはその結果、罰、そして罪の重さを理解していた。それでも、前に進むことを決め、過去の自分を置いていくことにした——望んでいなかった別れだったが、解放されるためには受け入れなければならなかった。レイズは命を脅かす敵以上の存在だった——��厄であり、自分の欲望以外には屈しない大きな脅威だった。勝利を手に入れるために、彼は他人を犠牲にし、すべてを破壊するだろう。彼の欲望は心を食い尽くし、まさにモンスターそのものだった。周りのすべてを腐らせ、破壊していくモンスターだった。

だからこそ、サンズは計画を実行する際に中途半端な気持ちではいられなかった。彼は完全に旧い自分を捨てる覚悟を決めた。友達を笑わせるサンズ、楽しみでホットドッグを売るサンズ——その自分は深い穴に捨てられ、二度と浮かび上がることはない。

「そうなれば、そうなる。」

サンズはついにフリスクのほうへ歩き出した。フリスクはその場から動かず、じっとしていた。サンズの足取りはぎこちなく、表情は険しい——彼は完全に感覚が鈍っていた。これから状況がもっと悪化する可能性を覚悟し、諦めたようだった。でも、後悔しても何も解決しない。反逆せざるを得ず、怒りに任せて進むしかなかった時に、道徳を問う必要なんてなかった。どのみち、彼の手はすでに血に染まっていた。それが自分で選んだ道だった。

受け入れることは、否定することよりもずっと難しかった。

だからこそ、サンズは自分が何者になったのかを受け入れた。壊れているなら、そのまま壊れたままでいればいい。

やがてサンスはついにフリスクの真正面に立った。フリスクは無表情で、サンスの存在にまったく気づかず、ただ目の前の宙を見ていた。

「システムは今、めちゃくちゃになってるだろうな。」サンズは静かに言った。フリスクはこのゲームでアンダインを倒すはずだった。でもサンズは攻撃的な行動を選び、フリスクの代わりに動くことにした。「さあ、見せてくれよ、フリスクの中身を。」

サンズはそっとフリスクの頭に手を置き、親指を彼らの額に押し当てた。何かを感じ取ろうとしていた——そうだ、そこに何かがあるのを微かに感じた。でも、それが今何なのか、はっきりとはわからなかった。

「へえ……これがフリスクという人間を構成するコードなんだね。」

サンズはすぐに目を大きく開け、覚悟を決め、レイズから授かった力を発動させた。

そして……

視界いっぱいに流れる数字の奔流が現れた。それはフリスクの体を覆うように動き回っていた。サンズはそれぞれの道筋を観察し、それらがフリスクの魂——あるいは彼らの核に情報を送っているように見えた。まるで混み合った高速道路のように、それぞれの数字がデータを運んでいた：レベル、防御、武器、シールド、あらかじめ書かれた台詞……すべてがそこにあった。それは驚くべき複雑さで、精密な構造を示していた。

これがフリスクだった——彼らの真の姿であり、彼らの命だった。かつて作り上げられたキャラクターであり、決して逃れられない存在だった。

そうだ、もしレイズがサンズにNPCシステムの権限を与えていなかったら、フリスクは何も変わることができなかっただろう——だが今、サンズはここにいて、彼らのコードを書き換え、自分のような存在に作り直そうとしていた。

「さあ、フリスク。悪夢から目を覚ます時だ。」

サンズはフリスクの核——いわゆる魂のようなもの——に手を伸ばした。電気のような刺すような痛みが彼を押し戻そうとしているのを感じた。それは、外部からの干渉からフリスクを守るためのシステムの防護機能だった。それでもサンズはさらに力を込め、抵抗を押しのけながら深く掘り進んでいった。簡単なことではなかった——フリスクのシステムは激しく反撃し、全力でその魂を守ろうとしていた。

「俺、悪役みたいだな。」サンズは乾いた声でぼそりとつぶやいた。まるで壮大な外科手術をしているようだった。フリスクの体はサンズの手にぶら下がるように無反応で、サンズは集中して、守りの固い魂に到達しようとしていた。「クソッたれなシステムが——」と小声で悪態をつく。すべての防御層を突破するのに、膨大な努力と時間が必要だった。

そして、長い闘いと果てしない忍耐の末——

「よし！捕まえた！」

サンズは魂をその手に感じた。「これもお前のためだ、フリスク。」彼は優しく言った。その魂をしっかり握り、作業を始めた。

慎重に、サンズはフリスクの魂の核データにアクセスし、正確に調整を加えた。必要な要素を追加し、構造を再編成し、すべてをきちんと整えた。間違いの余地はなかった——どんなミスも計画を台無しにし、壊滅的な結果を招きかねなかった。

「頼む、うまくいってくれ。」

新しいデータはフリスクの古いデータにスムーズに統合されているようだった——衝突もエラーも発生しなかった。サンズはコードが動作する様子を注意深く観察し、すべての相互作用を分析した。そして、永遠のように感じられた時間が過ぎた後、彼は深く息を吐いた。胸にのしかかっていた重いものが少し軽くなった。フリスクはサンズの切り札だった——レイズを倒すための鍵、それがどんなに苛烈な手段であろうと。

「フリスク…フリスク。」

サンズはそっとフリスクの頬を叩きながら、彼を目覚めさせようとした。「おい、相棒、起きろよ。フリスク。」

それでも反応はなかった。不安が彼の心に忍び寄り、小さなパニックが頭をよぎった。

ついに——

「起きろ！」

バシッ！

鋭い一発が眠りの状態にあった人間を強引に目覚めさせた。

「おい、坊主、夢見心地はどうだった？」

***

「なんか変な感じがする。」フリスクはサンズを見つめながら言った。サンズは隣に座っており、その目には疲労が滲んでいた。

「そのうち慣れるさ、フリスク。」サンズは答えた。「今はその奇妙な感覚を受け入れるしかない。」

「俺の体に何をしたんだ？」

サンズは少し間を置いた。「こんな時に、ジョークが聞きたいか？」フリスクは睨みつけるような視線を送った。「ダメか？ ああそうか、じゃあ、まあな、フリスク。お前のコードを書き換えて、重要な情報をいくつか追加しただけだ。これでわかるだろ？」サンズはこわばった肩をほぐそうとし、まだ困惑した様子のフリスクに視線を向けた。その人間はとても弱々しく見えた、とサンズは思った。だが同時に、とてつもない力を持っていた——もしすべてのモンスターがそれを持っていたなら……違う。そんな空想をしても何も解決しない。それは叶わない夢にすぎなかった。

「僕はただのプレイヤーの器だってわかってる。」フリスクは続けた。その声には苦々しさがにじんでいた。「僕の手であんな悪事が行われるのをずっと見てきたけど、それに対して僕に何ができる？何もできない。ただ見て、言われた通りにするだけだ。」フリスクの声には無力感が滲んでいた。自分にはその残酷さを止める力がないことを痛感していたのだ。

「お前の気持ちはわかるよ、フリスク。だから俺は、その鎖からお前を解放したんだ。」

フリスクは静かに考え込むように沈黙し、ベンチの背もたれに頭を預けた。深くため息をついて言った。

「それがアンダインを殺すってことか、サンズ？僕は全部見てた。忘れることなんてできない。」

「その通りだ。彼女を殺すことで。」

それを聞いて、サンズはズボンをぎゅっと掴み、視線を前方に移した——目の前に広がるウォーターフォール。輝く小川ときらめく光の中、青い花々の間を通る微かなささやきは、まるで海の中の美しいタペストリーのようだった。

真実を口にするのには長い時間がかかった。それは彼に押し付けられた罪の告白だった。

「どうして、サンズ？」

「そうするしかなかった。」彼の声には隠しきれない悲しみが滲んでいた。

「これってEXPのことか？サンズ、お前は自分のレベルを最高にしたいのか？」

フリスクは少し声を張り上げ、その声には怒りが滲んでいた。しかし、サンズは動じることなく、フリスクの声が大きくなり、ほとんど怒鳴るようになっても、まるで気にしない様子だった。それどころか、彼はその根拠のない非難に対してくすくすと笑った。

「それで、アンダインを殺さないとダメだったのか？彼女は友達なのに—」

「EXP？いや、それはただのくだらない話だ。俺はお前のレベルを超えたいなんて思っちゃいねぇよ。そんな力なんて全然必要ないんだよ、フリスク。」

近くの石を蹴りながら、サンズは続けた。「俺がやりたいのは、このゲームのシステムをぶっ壊すことだ。誰も考えつかないような無茶をして、この世界を崩壊させてやる。それが俺の望みだ、フリスク。反逆すること。」

「黙れ。」

「...」

「言葉には気をつけろ、下手したら舌を噛むぞ。」その声は冷たく、圧倒的な威圧感に満ちていた。サンズの冷たい声を聞いた瞬間、フリスクは口を閉ざさざるを得なかった。恐怖が彼を包み込み、指先は震え、瞳孔は恐怖で広がった。

「お前はそんなに必死になって、俺をお前みたいな冷酷な殺人者にしたいのか？俺が地に堕ちて、お前と同じ無慈悲な殺人者になるところを見たいのか？それが、お前の望みなのか？」

それでも、フリスクは何かが違うと感じていて、それについて何かをしなければならないと思った。

フリスクは何も言えなかった。その視線は弱まり、サンズが彼に、俺が酷いんじゃない、お前の方がもっと酷い、と思い出させた瞬間、身体は硬直してしまった。

そう、フリスクもまた、たくさんの無実の命を奪った殺人者、怪物だったのだ。

「理解できないよ。まるで僕が知ってるサンズじゃないみたいだ。」フリスクは唇を噛みしめ、青あざができるほど強く噛んだ。「こんなの君じゃない。僕がやるべきだったんだ。君がそうじゃなくて——」

「裁く側になるべきだった？」

フリスクは視線をそらし、その顔を覆うように茶色い髪が揺れた。明らかな悲しみを隠すためだった。サンズは空虚な視線で彼を見つめていた。

「俺らしくない？お前が俺をよく知ってるってつもりか、フリスク。」

「じゃあ何？僕はずっと君のことを知ってるつもりだった。君と遊んだし、君と親しいと感じてた。君が僕を知らないって言うなら、これが何だって言うんだ？」

「意見だ。視点だ。一つの見方だ。長い時間を一緒に過ごしたからといって、誰かを知ってるとは限らないんだ、フリスク。このゲームをどれだけ長くプレイしても、俺のことをよく知ってるなんて言えない。そして同じことが俺にも言える——お前のことを理解しているわけじゃないし、お前のことをよく知っているとも感じてない。」

フリスクは口を開けたまま言葉を失った。空気には張り詰めた緊張感が漂い、彼の姿勢は硬直していた。驚きに満ちた表情で黙り込んだままだった。

「…じゃあ、これは何なんだろう。」フリスクは小さく、悲しみに満ちた声で言った。彼はサンズに目を向けた。今の彼は以前とは全く違って見えた——温かな笑顔も、優しさももうない。ただ閉ざされたような、見知らぬ誰かと隣り合わせに座っている気がした。それでも、フリスクはサンズの気持ちをかすかに理解できるような気がした。

「レイズ...その人のことだよね？」彼は言い、サンズを思考から引き戻した。

「お前、あいつを知ってるのか？」

フリスクはわずかにうなずいてからサンズを見た。「そう言えるかもしれない。彼は一度僕のところに来て、僕の魂に何かしようとしたんだ。彼の行動は本当に怪しかったけど、僕には何もできなかった——ただ見ていることしかできなかったよ。」

サンズにはその感覚が痛いほどよくわかった。「あいつを止めなきゃならない、フリスク。それが俺たちがここにいる理由だ。」彼は言いながらフリスクの手を取ろうとし、信頼を得ようとした。「俺にはお前が必要だ、フリスク。レイズを止めてくれ——この馬鹿げたゲームから俺たち全員を解放するんだ。もう裁きも、もう俺たち全員を殺させることもない。お前のその手についた汚れを清めるんだ、フリスク。お前自身の自由のために。」

サンズのまっすぐな視線がフリスクをその場に釘付けにした。その声が柔らかく響くと、サンズはフリスクをそっと引き寄せた。その言葉にはどこか引き込まれるような魅力があり、フリスクは心を揺らされた。でも、本当にサンズが望んでいたのは、すべての仲間たちの自由と、このゲームの終わりだった。

「君は僕が必要だって言うけど、どうして？」フリスクはまだ疑念を抱いていた。サンズはそれを予想していた。「お前の魂は強いんだ、フリスク。この世界の誰よりも強い意志を持ってる。でも俺にはそんなものはない。俺はただのNPCで、お前ほど強い意志なんて持ってないんだ。」

サンズは微笑んだ。その微笑みは明らかに悲しみを帯びていた。フリスクは、サンズの絶望を感じ取りながら、彼に少し近づいた。「僕がそんなに強いかどうか、わからないよ、サンズ。」

「信じろ、フリスク。お前は自分が思っているよりも強い。俺は…そんな強さはない。俺たちはお前が必要なんだ。お前だけが頼りなんだ、フリスク。他には誰もいない。」その言葉は、首筋に絡みつく柔らかな囁きのようだった。それは希望で目を眩ませるような甘い約束で、フリスクはその言葉の裏を見抜くことができなかった。サンズの顔には冷酷で広い笑みが刻まれていた。暗い視線は縛り付けるようで、まるで毒蛇がきつく巻きつくようだった。

「もしこれがうまくいかなかったら？もし最終的に負けるとしたら…」フリスクの声は未来への不安に震えていた。彼自身の疑念の重さが明らかだった。

「未来がどうなるかなんて、誰にもわからないんだ、フリスク。」サンズは答えた。その声は穏やかで、どこか安心させるようだった。「でも、もし俺たちが一生懸命頑張って、信じることができれば——本当に信じることができれば、きっと道は見つかるはずだ。」

サンズの目はフリスクの目をまっすぐ見つめていた。その目には揺るぎない確信がありながら、自身の脆さもさらけ出していた。それはフリスクに孤独感を抱かせないためであり、すべてを彼に託させるためだった。

「何だって起こり得るんだ、フリスク。進む準備ができていない限り、行き止まりなんてない。信じてくれ。俺がその自由を手に入れる手助けをする。」彼の声の穏やかな調子、目の中の確信。それは壊れやすいけれども信頼できる味方のように見せ、フリスクが頼りたくなるような存在だった。

それは誘いだった——彼の綿密に仕掛けられた罠に、フリスクをさらに深く引き込む誘導だった。

手を差し伸べ、サンズはフリスクを優しく引き寄せた。そして、彼専用に作られた牢獄へと、約束の檻へと引きずり込んだ。その檻は一歩進むごとにフリスクをより無力にしていった。

「これが俺だ。お前が思ってるほど強くも賢くもない。俺が見えるだろう？バラバラでめちゃくちゃな俺が。」彼は憂鬱な口調でそう言い、フリスクの同情を誘った。

サンズは意図的に深い絶望の表情を見せつけ、巧みにフリスクと視線を合わせ続けさせた。濃い霧の中でフリスクの手を掴み、自分の望む場所へどこへでも連れて行くような感じだった—フリスクを自らの墓穴へ導きながら子守唄を歌うかのように。

サンズのフリスクを欺くやり方には残酷さがあった。言葉を慎重に選び、無力で自由を求める誰か—そう、自分と同じような存在の脆さを利用していた。サンズは、トラウマがどのように人を腐敗させ狡猾に変えるのかを見せつけていた—道徳や良心を捨て去り、それを望まぬ暗い一面で置き換えるように。

その操りに気づかず、フリスクはサンズの手を自ら差し出して取った。その顔には信頼の微笑みが浮かんでいた。彼は気づかぬまま、予期せぬ契約を結び、レイズだけが支配を望む存在ではないことに気づいていなかった。犠牲を求める者は、他にもいたのだ。

サンズはすでに自らの声に込めた必死の希望で、フリスクの目を眩ませていた。

「俺、手伝うよ、サンズ。」

フリスクのその言葉には迷いがなかった。それを聞いたサンズの顔には安堵の色が浮かび、喜びが表情に満ちた。そして彼はフリスクを強く抱きしめ、感謝を示すかのようだった。しかし、フリスクの視界の外では、サンズの本当の表情は隠されていた——暗さと飢えに満ちたものが。

見てみろ、今の彼を。

サンズの顔は平坦で、かつての暖かさはもうそこにはなかった。赤い目がさまよい、フリスクが無意識に明かした脆さを探し求めていた。彼の魂は汚れ、死を予感させる歪んだ子守唄のようなリズムで鼓動していた。それは混沌と操作に満ち、フリスクの周りを絡みつき、秒ごとにその締め付けを強めていった。

サンズは自分の思考の中で堕落を明かし、フリスクの無邪気さを味わいながら、絶望の空っぽな約束にどれほど簡単に落ちてしまったかを感じていた。その満足感は彼の心をむしばみ、暗闇と歪んだ快楽を欲していた。フリスクが知っていた心から遠く離れた今、サンズは彼に手を伸ばし、広く笑った…。

「頼りにしてるぜ、相棒。」

=P

[ironunderstands]

I just saw the recent topaz analysis and I agree she’s extremely underrated, her backstory hidden in character stories is both heartwarming and heartbreaking as she tries ti preserve at least one light form (in the form of creatures) and maker her home a ecosystem where multiple creatures can thrive. But I do wonder in the end, in terms of the IPC they’re often seen as the “evil” corporation but not everything is black and white as the IPC is also responsible for well… technology that makes life convenient and is integral to the functioning of the entire universe without it people would be more chaotic, isolated and etc. and even if their methods are underhanded and two faced they often hold their end of the bargain (just like Aventurine andJade) and help the planets in terms of in Topaz case. Another thing is thar millions of people are working for the IPC so would destroying it lead to them being jobless? Would the IPC be a better place if Diamond and the ten stonehearts were in charge or at the very least lessen the influence of the corrupted people in the IPC like Oswaldo?

I don’t think the IPC is intentionally evil, but they are at the end of the day, a corporation, and corporations will only do what benefits them, which results in the IPC doing a lot of evil shit.

Their technology is valuable yes, but they only help worlds when it benefits them and they only hurt worlds when it benefits them, as at the end of the day all they seem to care about are profits and power.

Unfortunately I don’t see them magically becoming squeaky clean and perfect if a better leader like Diamond were to take over. Unless the entire system ends up getting changed/replaced, at the end of the day, a corporation is a corporation and profits will be put above all else.

Even if Diamond is an emanator of Preservation, his subordinates and colleagues in the IPC aren’t and whatever good intentions he possesses don’t matter so long as people with selfish ones still work within the company.

Simply put, the IPC is too big to ever have morals, and the only way to instill them within it is to break it apart in some way, as there are too many competing interests and goals for them to truly all earn Qlipoth’s approval.

That’s why I think Diamond will fracture the IPC, rather than destroy it entirely, and perhaps then we can see the more villainous department’s like that of Oswaldo Schneider’s crumble.

For now though, the IPC behaves like all corporations do, painting over their atrocities with friendly marketing, and misleading the galaxy, even themselves into thinking they are doing the right thing.

[cogentranting]

So here's the thing about Code 8 Part 2

I could look at Garrett's two henchmen, Shane and Maev, and say these two feel like replacement Freddie and Maddy. Same general character description (minus the fact that Freddie couldn't speak). Same powers, just switched. Same basic role to Garrett. And they die in almost the exact same way-- in a shoot out on a street, pinned down behind some cars, after Garrett's "partner" abruptly turns on him, one of the two dies immediately to kick off the shoot out, the other lasts slightly longer. And on the one hand, part of me wants to say that's lazy writing. They just basically reused the same side characters and recreated the same plot point.

But on the other hand, I can look at that and read it as intentional. Freddie and Maddy were Garrett's crew, his guys. And he cared about them (the most tender moment we see from Garrett in either film, is when he's holding Freddie as he dies). So after their deaths, as he's building his empire, he surrounds himself with people who remind him of them (whom, we are shown, he also cares about). And while these people are people that Garrett genuinely wants to help and protect, the dichotomy of Garrett is that he also is selfish and wants power and money and falls back on violence and corrupt dealings to get those things. So the two shootouts (one killing Freddie and Maddy, one killing Shane and Maev) represent the cycle of violence. Garrett thinks he can have it both ways; be both a "man of the people" standing up and providing something for people with powers, and make deals to serve his own power and status. But when he makes those corrupt deals, he might make it out alive but the people he wanted to protect do not (except for Connor). And the pattern repeats again at the movie's climax, and was perhaps preceded by whatever happened to his brothers. So Garrett's crew helps to demonstrate the cycle that Garrett is stuck in-- in part because of the system, but equally because of his own guilt-- but which Connor and Pav are fighting to break.

[aethersea]

I've been meaning for a while to talk about Rayvel's heel-face turn. I see a lot of people saying he only "turned good" because he was finally personally victimized by Sunfell, very "I never expected leopards to eat MY face!" But it's more complicated than that. Not just because he was already doubting, enough that he believed it instantly when his lieutenant said she was acting on orders, but because he never actually voted for the leopards. He thought the leopards were the result of bad management. He thought you could do this whole empire thing with no leopards at all.

Rayvel fully believed in the propaganda of conquest, that the people they were conquering would be better off as subjects of Sunfell, that they were bringing order and justice to desperate places. You see it in Valemarch, after the town has fallen and the abbess has fled: the first thing Rayvel does, the very first thing, is free the tallow-wights. He's here to end the cruelties of the Levithine Order. He's here to free slaves.

(He's also here to eradicate the local religion and force Valemarch to pay tithe to Sunfell, at swordpoint. But he truly does believe he's helping.)

And that's how he feels about every place he visits: he wants what's best for them, and he's convinced that Sunfell is it. He's shocked when he sees the duke of Brookholm forcing people from their homes so he can have housing for his servants (who are from Sunfell, of course), and then stringing up anyone who protested. And then the duke is also embezzling or whatever, so Rayvel can tell himself that the duke was just corrupt, but the system is still good. But ousting locals and violently punishing dissent is in fact baked into conquest. Into imperialism. Rayvel gets to pat himself on the back for killing an evil that was perverting the mission of Sunfell or whatever, but whoever gets sent to replace the duke is going to be doing the exact same things (probably even the embezzling), because it is about subjugating the local populace and ensuring they live in fear. But Rayvel fundamentally believes that if everyone does the right thing, Sunfell will protect them. Any injustice in Sunfell or its vassal states is a statistical anomaly to be corrected. And that is why he changes sides after his lieutenant tries to Blight-stab him on orders. The realization that even he, the perfect captain who does everything right and sincerely tries to balance conquest and mercy, will be ground up without remorse for the sake of the empire, doesn’t just hurt on a personal level. He’s not just upset that he, personally, was betrayed. He’s devastated at the realization of what it means on a broader level: that no matter who you are or what you do, you will never be safe, you will never be valued. The empire not only won’t protect you, it’ll eat you without a second’s hesitation. It’s leopards all the way down. Sunfell is rotten at its core.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Western industrial society tells a story about itself that goes like this: “A long time ago, our ancestors were ‘primitive’. They lived in caves, were stupid, hit each other with clubs, and had short, stressful lives in which they were constantly on the verge of starving or being eaten by saber-toothed cats. Then we invented ‘civilization’, in which we started growing food, being nice to each other, getting smarter, inventing marvelous technologies, and everywhere replacing chaos with order. It’s getting better all the time and will continue forever.”

Western industrial society is now in decline, and in declining societies it’s normal for people to feel that their whole existence is empty and meaningless, that the system is rotten to its roots and should all be torn up and thrown out. It’s also normal for people to frame this rejection in whatever terms their society has given them. So we reason: “This world is hell, this world is civilization, so civilization is hell, so maybe primitive life was heaven. Maybe the whole story is upside-down!”

We examine the dominant story and find that although it contains some truth, it depends on assumptions and distortions and omissions, and it was not designed to reveal truth, but to influence the values and behaviors of the people who heard it. Seeking balance, we create a perfect mirror image:

“A long time ago, our ancestors were ‘primitive’. They were just as smart as we would be if we didn’t watch television, and they lived in cozy hand-made shelters, were generally peaceful and egalitarian, and had long healthy lives in which food was plentiful because they kept their populations well below the carrying capacity of their landbase. Then someone invented ‘civilization’, in which we monopolized the land and grew our population by eating grain. Grain is high in calories but low in other nutrients, so we got sick, and we also began starving when the population outgrew the landbase, so the farmers conquered land from neighboring foragers and enslaved them to cut down more forests and grow more grain, and to build sterile monuments while the elite developed technologies of repression and disconnection and gluttonous consumption, and everywhere life was replaced with control. It’s been getting worse and worse, and soon we will abandon it and live the way we did before.”

Again, this story contains truth, but it depends on assumptions and distortions and omissions, and it is designed to influence the values and behaviors of the people who hear it. Certainly it’s extremely compelling. As a guiding ideology, as a utopian vision, primitivism can destroy Marxism or libertarianism because it digs deeper and overthrows their foundations. It defeats the old religions on evidence. And best of all, it presents a utopia that is not in the realm of imagination or metaphysics, but has actually happened. We can look at archaeology and anthropology and history and say: “Here’s a forager-hunter society where people were strong and long-lived. Here’s a tribe where the ‘work’ is so enjoyable that they don’t even have the concept of ‘freeloading’. Here are European explorers writing that certain tribes showed no trace of violence or meanness.”

But this strength is also a weakness, because reality cuts both ways. As soon as you say, “We should live like these actual people,” every competing ideologue will jump up with examples of those people living dreadfully: “Here’s a tribe with murderous warfare, and one with ritual abuse, and one with chronic disease from malnutrition, and one where people are just mean and unhappy, and here are a bunch of species extinctions right when primitive humans appeared.”

Most primitivists accept this evidence, and have worked out several ways to deal with it. One move is to postulate something that has not been observed, but if it were, would make the facts fit your theory. Specifically, they say “The nasty tribes must have all been corrupted by exposure to civilization.” Another move is to defend absolutely everything on the grounds of cultural relativism: “Who are we to say it’s wrong to hit another person in the head with an axe?” Another move is to say, “Okay, some of that stuff is bad, but if you add up all the bad and good, primitive life is still preferable to civilization.”

This is hardly inspiring, and it still has to be constantly defended, and not from a strong position, because we know very little about prehistoric life. We know what tools people used, and what they ate, but we don’t know how many tribes were peaceful or warlike, how many were permissive or repressive, how many were egalitarian or authoritarian, and we have no idea what was going on in their heads. One of the assumptions I mentioned above, made by both primitivism and the dominant story, is that stone age people were the same as tribal forager-hunters observed in historical times. After all, we call them both “primitive”. But in terms of culture, and even consciousness, they might be profoundly different.

A more reasonable move is to abandon primitive life as an ideal, or a goal, and instead just set it up as a perspective: “Hey, if I stand here, I can see that my own world, which I thought was normal, is totally insane!” Or we can set it up as a source of learning: “Look at this one thing these people did, so let’s see if we can do it too.” Then it doesn’t matter how many flaws they had. And once we give up the framework that shows a right way and a wrong way, and a clear line between them, we can use perspectives and ideas from people formerly on the “wrong” side: “Ancient Greeks went barefoot everywhere and treated their slaves with more humanity than Wal-Mart treats its workers. Medieval serfs worked fewer hours than modern Americans, and thought it was degrading to work for wages. Slum-dwellers in Mumbai spend less time and effort getting around on foot than Americans spend getting around in cars. The online file sharing community is building a gift economy.”

Identifying with stone age people is like taking a big stretch. Then if we relax, we find that a lot of smaller stretches are effortless, that we can easily take all kinds of perspectives outside the assumptions of our little bubble. We could even re-invent “primitivism” to ignore stone age people and include only recent tribes who we have good information about, and who still stack up pretty well against our own society. We could call this historical primitivism, and a few primitivists have taken this position. The reason most don’t is, first, our lack of knowledge about prehistory forms a convenient blank screen on which anyone can project visions to back up their ideology. And second, stone age primitivism comes with an extremely powerful idea, which I call the timeline argument.

The timeline argument convinces us that a better way of life is the human default, that all the things we hate are like scratches in the sand that will be washed away when the tide comes in. Often it’s phrased as 99%; of human history has been that, and only 1%; has been this.” Sometimes it’s illustrated with a basketball court metaphor: It’s 94 feet long, and if you call each foot ten thousand years, then we had fire and stone tools for 93 feet, agriculture for one foot, and industrial society for around a quarter of an inch.

The key word in this argument is “we”. Where do you draw the line between “us” and “not us”? Why not go back a billion years, and say that “we” were cell colonies in the primordial oceans? Call a billion years a football field, and the age of agriculture can dance on the head of a pin! This would seem to be a much stronger argument, and yet I’ve never seen a primitivist draw the line even as far back as Homo habilis two million years ago — or as recently as Homo sapiens sapiens 130,000 years ago. Why not?

This is a difficult and important question, and it took me days to puzzle it out. I think we’ve been confusing two separate issues. One is a fact, that the present way we live is a deviation from the way of other biological life. If this is our point, then a million year timeline is much too short — we should go back at least a thousand times farther!

The other issue is a question: Who are we? When you get below the level of culture, down to the level of biology or spirit, what is normal for us to do? What is possible? What is right?

If you’re talking about who we are, then the million year timeline is much too long. The mistake happens like this: “We are human, and we can plausibly call Homo erectus human. Therefore our nature is to live like Homo erectus, and the way we live now is not our tendency, not our normal behavior, but some kind of bizarre accident. What a relief! We can just bring down civilization, and we’ll naturally go back to living like Homo erectus, but since we don’t know exactly how they lived, we’ll assume it’s like the best recent forager-hunter tribes.”

Now, I’m not disputing that many societies have lived close to the Earth with a quality of life that we can’t imagine. Richard Sorenson mentions several, and explores one in depth, in his essay on Preconquest Consciousness.[1] What I’m disputing is: 1) that we have any evidence that prehistoric people had that consciousness; 2) that that consciousness is our default state; 3) that it is simple for us to get back there; and 4) that large-scale technologically complex societies are a deviation from who we are.

Who we are is changing all the time, and new genetic research has revealed shockingly fast change in just the last few thousand years, including malaria resistance, adult milk digestion, and blue eyes. According to anthropologist John Hawks, “We are more different genetically from people living 5000 years ago than they were from Neanderthals.”[2]

Now, you could argue that some of these changes are not really who we are, because they were caused by civilization: without domesticating cows and goats, we would not have evolved milk digestion. By the same logic, without inventing clothing, we would not have evolved hairless bodies. Without crawling onto dry land, we would not have evolved legs.

My point is, there is no place you can stick a pin and say “this is our nature”, because our nature is not a location — it is a journey. We crawled onto dry land; we became warm-blooded and grew hair; we moved from the forests to the plains; we walked upright; we tamed fire and began cooking food; we invented symbolic language; our brains got bigger; our tools got more complex; we invented grain agriculture and empires and airplanes and ice cream and nuclear weapons.

This isn’t quite fair, because all of us adopted fire, but not all of us adopted grain agriculture, and riding in airplanes is much easier to reverse than walking upright. It’s more likely that some of our descendants will be using fire and stone tools, than that some of them will be using Prozac and silicon microprocessors. But I still don’t think, as some primitivists do, that civilization is a dead end, or an unlikely accident.

If civilization is a fluke, we would expect to see it begin only once, and spread from there. But instead we see grain farming and explosions of human social complexity in several places at about the same time: along the Tigris and Euphrates, and also in Africa, India, and China. You could still argue that those changes spread by travel, that there was one accident and then some far-flung colonies — unless we found an early civilization so remote that travel was out of the question.

That civilization has been found. Archaeologists call it the Norte Chico, in present-day Peru. From 3000–1800 BC, they built at least 25 cities, and they had giant stone monuments earlier than anyone except the Mesopotamians. Even more shocking, their system was not based on grain! All previous models of civilization have put grain agriculture at the very root: once you had grain farming, you had a denser, more settled population, which led to a more complex society, and also you had a storable commodity that enabled hierarchy.

The Norte Chicans ate only small amounts of grain, but they did have a storable commodity that enabled hierarchy, something that allowed small differences in wealth to feed back into large differences, and ultimately entrenched elites commanding slaves to build monolithic architcture. It was cotton! So we have people on opposite sides of the world, in different geographies, using different materials, falling into the same pattern, but that pattern is not about food. It seems to be about economics, or more precisely, about human cognition. After thousands of generations of slow change, human intelligence reached a tipping point that permitted large complex societies to appear in radically different circumstances.

Now it’s tempting to call “civilization” the new human default, but of course, in many places, these societies did not appear. Also, they all collapsed! And then new ones appeared, and those collapsed. I don’t think it even makes sense to talk about a human default, any more than it makes sense to talk about a default state for the weather. But the range in which we move has widened.

My information on the Norte Chico comes from Charles C. Mann’s book 1491, a survey of recent findings about the Americas before the European conquest. Mann is neither a primitivist nor an advocate for western civilization, but an advocate for, well, far western civilization, which was a lot more like western civilization than we thought. At its peak, the Inca empire was the largest in the world, with exploited colonies, massive forced resettling of workers, and bloody power struggles among the elite just like in Europe and Asia. The Maya deforested the Yucatan and depleted its topsoil only a few centuries after the Romans did the same thing around the Mediterranean. Aztec “human sacrifice” was surprisingly similar to English “public execution” that was happening at exactly the same time. Even North America had a city, Cahokia, that in 1250 was roughly the size of London. In 1523, Giovanni da Verrazzano recorded that the whole Atlantic coast from the Carolinas up was “densely populated”. In the 1540’s, De Soto passed through what is now eastern Arkansas and found it “thickly set with great towns”. Of course, that population density is possible only with intensive agriculture. Mann writes, “A traveler in 1669 reported that six square miles of maize typically encircled Haudenosaunee villages.”

By the time the conquest really got going, all these societies had been wiped out by smallpox and other diseases introduced by the first Europeans. Explorers and conquerors found small tribes of forager-hunters in an untamed wilderness, and assumed it had been that way forever. In a blow to both primitivism and “progress”, it turns out that most of these people were not living in the timeless ways of their ancestors — the “Indians” of American myth were post-crash societies!

The incredible biological abundance of North America was also a post-crash phenomenon. We’ve heard about the flocks of passenger pigeons darkening the sky for days, the tens of millions of bison trampling the great plains, the rivers so thick with spawning salmon that you could barely row a boat, the seashores teeming with life, the deep forests on which a squirrel could go from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without touching the ground. We don’t know what North America would have looked like with no humans at all, but we do know it didn’t look like that under the Indians. Bone excavations show that passenger pigeons were not even common in the 1400’s. Indians specifically targeted pregnant deer, and wild turkeys before they laid eggs, to eliminate competition for maize and tree nuts. They routinely burned forests to keep them convenient for human use. And they kept salmon and shellfish populations down by eating them, and thereby suppressed populations of other creatures that ate them. When human populations crashed, nonhuman populations exploded.

This fact drives a wedge between two value systems that are supposed to be synonymous: love of nature and love of primitive humans. We seem to have only two options. One is to say that native North Americans went too far — of course they weren’t nearly as bad as Europeans, but we need to return to even lower levels of population and domestication. I respect this position morally, but strategically it’s absurd. How can the future inhabitants of North America be held to a way of life that the original inhabitants abandoned at least a thousand years ago?

The other option is to say that native North Americans did not go too far. The subtext is usually something like this: “Moralistic ecologists think it’s wrong that my society holds nature down and milks it for its own benefit, but if the Native Americans did it, it must be okay!” This conclusion is nearly universal in popular writing. Plenty of respectable authors would never be caught idealizing simple foragers, but when they find out these “primitives” hunted competitors and cleared forests to plant grain, out comes the “wise Indian” card.

There is a third option, but it requires abandoning the whole civilized-primitive framework. Suppose we say, “We can regrow the spectacular fecundity that North America had in the 1700’s, not as a temporary stage between the fall of one Earth-monopolizing society and the rise of another, but as a permanent condition — and we will protect this condition not by duplicating any way our ancestors lived, but by inventing new ways. And these new ways will coexist with large complex societies, rather than depending on their destruction.”

I admit this is a utopian pipe dream, something to aim for but not to bet on. To grow biological abundance for its own sake, and not for human utility, is still a fringe position. But my deeper point is that the civilized-primitive framework forces us to divide things a certain way: On one side are complexity, change, invention, unstable “growth”, taking, control, and the future. On the other side are simplicity, stasis, tradition, stability, giving, freedom, and the past. Once we abandon that framework, which is itself an artifact of western industrial society, we can integrate evidence that the framework excludes, and we can try to match things up differently.

The combination that I’m suggesting is: complexity, change, invention, stability, giving, freedom, and both the past and the future. This isn’t the only combination that could be suggested, and I doubt it’s the easiest to put into practice, but it’s surprisingly noncontroversial. Al Gore would probably agree with every point. The catch is that Gore is playing to a public consciousness in which “freedom” means a nice paint job on control, and in which no one has any idea what’s really necessary for stability.

Americans think freedom means no restraint. So I’m free to start a big company and rule ten thousand wage laborers, and if they don’t like it they’re free to go on strike, and I’m free to hire thugs to crack their heads, and they’re free to quit, and I’m free to buy politicans to cut off support for the unemployed, so now they’re free to either starve and die, or accept the job on my terms and use their freedom of speech to impotently complain.

A better definition of freedom is no coercion. I define “restraint” as preventing someone from doing something, and “coercion” as forcing someone to do something, usually by punishing them for not doing it. Primitive societies tend to be very good at avoiding coercion. In The Continuum Concept, Jean Liedloff writes that among the Yequana, it is forbidden to even ask another person to do something. It seems strange to us, but to have a society where no one is forced to do what they don’t want to do, you actually need a lot of restraints.

So there’s one place where we can learn more from looking backward than looking forward. But there is more than one way for coercion to appear — it’s like a disease with multiple vectors. Primitive cultures have extraordinary resistance to the way coercion must have appeared over and over in their history — among a group of people who all know each other, an arrogant charismatic leader arises. But they have little or no resistance to another way it’s been appearing more and more often over the last few thousand years: as a hidden partner with seductive new physical and social tools.

To understand what’s necessary for both freedom and stability, we need to go deep into a close ally of the critique of civilization: the critique of technology. Now, as soon as you say you’re against technology, some nit-picker points out that even a stone axe is a technology. We know what we mean, but we have trouble putting it into words. Our first instinct is to try to draw a line, and say that technologies on one side are bad, and on the other side are good. And at this point, primitivism comes into the picture as a convenience.

It reminds me of the debate over abortion, which is ultimately about drawing a line between when the potential child is part of the mother’s body, and when it’s a separate person with full rights. Drawing the line at the first breath would make the most sense on biblical grounds, but no one wants to do that, and almost no one wants to draw it at passage through the birth canal. But if you go farther back than that, you get an unbroken grey area all the way to conception! Fundamentalists love to draw the line at conception, not only because it gives them more control over women, but because they hate grey areas.

In the same way, primitivism enters the debate over good technology with a sharply drawn line a long way back. We don’t have to wrestle with how to manufacture bicycles without exploitation, or how to make cities sustainable, or what uses are appropriate for water wheels, or how to avoid the atrocities of ancient empires, if we just draw the line between settled grain farmers and nomadic forager-hunters.

To be fair to primitivists, they still have to wrestle with the grey areas from foraging to horticulture to agriculture, and from camps to villages to towns, and with arguments that we should go back even farther. The real fundamentalists on this issue are the techno-utopians. They say “technology is neutral,” which really means “Thou shalt not ascribe built-in negative effects to any technology,” but of course they ascribe built-in positive effects to technologies all the time. So it ends up being not a statement of fact but a command to action: “Any technology you can think of, do it!” This is like solving the abortion debate by legalizing murder.

We must apply intelligent selection to technology, but we aren’t really worried that the neighboring village will reinvent metalworking and massacre our children with swords. We just want bulldozers to stop turning grassy fields into dreadful suburbs, and we want urban spaces to be made for people not cars, and we want to turn off the TV, and take down the surveillance cameras, and do meaningful work instead of sitting in windowless office dungeons rearranging abstractions to pay off loans incurred getting our spirits broken.

We like hot baths and sailing ships and recorded music and the internet, but we worry that we can’t have them without exterminating half the species on Earth, or exploiting Asian sweatshop workers, or dumping so many toxins that we all get cancer, or overextending our system so far that it crashes and we get eaten by roving gangs.

But notice: primitive people don’t think this way! Of course, if you put them on an assembly line or on the side of a freeway or in a modern war, they would know they were in hell. But if you offered them an LED lantern made on an assembly line, or a truck ride to their hunting ground, or a gun, most of them would accept it without hesitation. Primitive people tend to adopt any tool they find useful — not because they’re wise, but because they’re ignorant, because their cultures have not evolved defenses against tools that will lead them astray.

I think the root of civilization, and a major source of human evil, is simply that we became clever enough to extend our power beyond our empathy. It’s like the famous Twilight Zone episode where there’s a box with a button, and if you push it, you get a million dollars and someone you don’t know dies. We have countless “boxes” that do basically the same thing. Some of them are physical, like cruise missiles or ocean-killing fertilizers, or even junk food where your mouth gets a million dollars and your heart dies. Others are social, like subsidies that make junk food affordable, or the corporation, which by definition does any harm it can get away with that will bring profit to the shareholders. I’m guessing it all started when our mental and physical tools combined to enable positive feedback in personal wealth. Anyway, as soon as you have something that does more harm than good, but that appears to the decision makers to do more good than harm, the decision makers will decide to do more and more of it, and before long you have a whole society built around obvious benefits that do hidden harm.

The kicker is, once we gain from extending our power beyond our seeing and feeling, we have an incentive to repress our seeing and feeling. If child slaves are making your clothing, and you want to keep getting clothing, you either have to not know about them, or know about them and feel good about it. You have to make yourself ignorant or evil.

But gradually we’re learning. Every time it comes out that some product is made with more than the usual amount of exploitation, a few people stop buying it. Every day, someone is in a supermarket deciding whether to spend extra money to buy shade-grown coffee or fair trade chocolate. It’s not making a big difference, but all mass changes have to start with a few people, and my point is that we are stretching the human conscience farther than it’s ever gone, making sacrifices to help forests we will never see and people we will never meet. This is not simple-minded or “idealistic”, but rational, sophisticated behavior. You find it not at the trailing edge of civilization but at the leading edge, among educated urbanites.

There are also growing movements to reduce energy consumption, to eat locally-produced food, to give up high-paying jobs for better quality of life, and to trade industrial-scale for human-scale tools. I would prefer not to own a car, but my motivation is not to save the world — it’s that cars are expensive and I hate driving. I’ll use a chainsaw when I have a huge amount of wood to cut, but generally I avoid power tools because they make me feel dependent on an industrial system that gives me no participation in power, and I feel stronger working with my own muscles.

When I look at the discourse around this kind of choice, it’s positively satanic. People whose position is basically “Thundersaw cut fast, me feel like god” present themselves as agents of enlightenment and progress, while people with intelligent reasons for doing something completely new — choosing weaker, slower tools when high-energy tools are available — are seen as lizard-brained throwbacks. What’s even worse is when they see themselves that way.

This movement is often called “voluntary simplicity”, but we should distinguish between technological simplicity and mental simplicity. Primitive people, even when they have complex cultures, use simple tools for a simple reason — those are the only tools they have. In so-called “civilization”, we’ve just been using more and more complex technologies for simple-minded reasons — they give us brute power and shallow pleasures. But as we learn to be more sophisticated in our thinking about technology, we will be able to use complex tools for complex reasons — or simple tools for complex reasons.

Primitivists, understandably, are impatient. They want us to go back to using simple tools and they don’t care why we do it. It’s like our whole species is an addict, and seductive advanced technologies are the drug, and primitivism is the urge to throw our whole supply of drugs in the garbage. Any experienced addict will tell you that doesn’t work. The next day you dig it out of the garbage or the next week you buy more.

Of course there are arguments that this will be impossible. One goes like this: “For civilization, you need agriculture, and for agriculture, you need topsoil. But the topsoil is gone! Agriculture survives only by dumping synthetic fertilizers on dead soil, and those fertilizers depend on oil, and the easily extracted oil is also gone. If the industrial system crashes just a little, we’ll have no oil, no fertilizer, no agriculture, and therefore no choice but foraging and hunting.”

Agriculture, whether or not it’s a good idea, is in no danger. The movement to switch the whole planet to synthetic fertilizers on dead soil (ironically called “the Green Revolution”) had not even started yet when another movement started to switch back: organic farming. Present organic farmers are still using oil to run tractors and haul supplies in, but in terms of getting the soil to produce a crop, organic farming is agriculture without oil, and it’s the fastest growing segment of the food economy. It is being held back by cultural intertia, by the political power of industrial agribusiness, and by cheap oil. It is not being held back by any lack of land suitable for conversion to organic methods. No one says, “We bought this old farm, but since the soil is dead, we’re just going to leave it as a wasteland, and go hunt elk.” People find a way to bring the soil back.

Another argument is that “humanity has learned its lesson.” I think this is on the right track, but too optimistic about how much we’ve learned, and about what kind of learning is necessary. Mere rebellion is as old as the first slave revolt in Ur, and you can find intellectual critiques of civilization in the Old Testament: From Ecclesiastes 5:11, “When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof?” And from Isaiah 5:8, “Woe unto those who join house to house, and field to field, until there is no place.” If this level of learning were enough, we would have found utopia thousands of years ago. Instead, people whose understanding was roughly the same as ours, and whose courage was greater, kept making the same mistakes.

In Against His-story, Against Leviathan, Fredy Perlman set out to document the whole history of resistance to civilization, and inadvertently undermined his conclusion, that this Leviathan will be the last, by showing again and again that resistance movements become the new dominators. The ancient Persian empire started when Cyrus was inspired by Zoroastrianism to sweep away the machinery of previous empires. The Roman empire started as a people’s movement to eradicate the Etruscans. The modern nation-state began with the Moravians forming a defensive alliance against the Franks, who fell into warlike habits themselves after centuries of resisting the Romans. And we all know what happened with Christianity.

I fear it’s going to happen again. Now, the simple desire to go primitive is harmless and beneficial — I wish luck and success to anyone who tries it, and I hope we always have some tribal forager-hunters around, just to keep the human potential stretched. And I enjoy occasional minor disasters like blackouts and snowstorms, which serve to strip away illusions and remind people that they’re alive. I loved the idea in Fight Club (the movie) of destroying the bank records to equalize wealth. That’s right in line with the ancient Jubilee tradition, where debts were canceled every few decades to stabilize the economy.[3]

But to cause a global hard crash (if it’s even possible) would be a terrible mistake, and the root of it is old-fashioned authoritarian thinking: that if you force someone to do something, it’s the same as if they do it on their own. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. The more we are forced to abandon this system, the less we will learn, and the more aggressively we will fight to rebuild something like it. And the more we choose to abandon it, the more we will learn, and the less likely we will make the same mistakes.

Of course we will not have another society based on oil, and per-capita energy consumption will drop, but it’s unlikely that energy or complexity will fall to preindustrial levels. Hydroelectric and atomic fission plants are in no immediate danger, and every year there are new innovations in energy from sun, wind, waves, and biofuels. Alternative energy would be growing much faster with good funding, and in any case it’s not necessary to convert the whole global infrastructure in the next twenty years. Even in a general collapse, if just one region has a surplus of sustainable energy, they can use it to colonize and re-“develop” the collapsed areas at their own pace. Probably this will be happening all over.

I don’t think there’s any escape from complex high-energy societies, so instead of focusing on avoiding them, we should focus on making them tolerable. This means, first, that our system is enjoyable for its participants — that the activities necessary to keep it going are experienced by the people who do them as meaningful and freely chosen. Second, our system must be ethical toward the world around it. My standards here are high — the totality of biological life on Earth must be better off with us than without us. And third, our system must not be inherently unstable. It might be destroyed by an asteroid or an ice age, but it must not destabilize itself internally, by having an economy that has to grow or die, or by depleting nonrenewable resources, or by having any trend at all that ratchets, that easily goes one way but can’t go the other way without a catastrophe.

These three standards seem to be separate. When Orwell wrote that the future is “a boot stamping on a human face — forever”, he was imagining a system that’s internally stable but not enjoyable. Techno-utopians fantasize about a system that expands into space and lasts billions of years while crushing any trace of biological wildness. And some paranoids fear “ecofascism”, a system that is stable and serves nature, but that represses most humans.

I think all these visions are impossible, for a reason that is overlooked in our machine-worshipping culture: that collapse often happens for psychological reasons. Erich Fromm said it best, in “What Does It Mean to Be Human?”

Even if the social order can do everything to man — starve him, torture him, imprison him, or over feed him — this cannot be done without certain consequences which follow from the very conditions of human existence. Man, if utterly deprived of all stimuli and pleasure, will be incapable of performing work, certainly any skilled work. If he is not that utterly destitute, he will tend to rebel if you make him a slave; he will tend to be violent if life is too boring; he will tend to lose all creativity if you make him into a machine. Man in this respect is not different from animals or from inanimate matter. You can get certain animals into the zoo, but they will not reproduce, and others will become violent although they are not violent in freedom... If man were infinitely malleable, there would have been no revolutions.

In 1491, Mann writes that on Pizarro’s march to conquer the Incas, he was actively helped by local populations who were sick of the empire’s oppression. Fredy Perlman’s book goes through the whole history of western civilization arguing for the human dissatisfaction factor in every failed society. And it’s clear to me and many other Americans that our empire is falling because nobody believes in it — not the soldiers, who quickly learn that war is bullshit, not the corporate executives, who at best are focused on short term profits and at worst are just thieves, not the politicians, who are cynically doing whatever it takes to maximize campaign contributions, and not the people who actually do the work, most of whom are just going through the motions.

Also, America (with other nations close behind) is getting more tightly controlled, and thus more unbearable for its participants. This is a general problem of top-down systems: for both technical and psychological reasons, it’s easy to add control mechanisms and hard to remove them, easy to squeeze tighter and hard to let go. As the controllers get more selfish and insulated, and the controlled get more frustrated and depressed, and more energy is wasted on forcing people to do what they wouldn’t do without force, the whole system seizes up, and can only be renewed by a surge of transforming energy from below. This transformation could be peaceful, but often the ruling interests block it until it builds up such pressure that it explodes violently.

The same way the ruling interests become corrupt through an exploitative relationship with the people, we all become corrupt when we participate in a society that exploits the life around it. When we talk about “nature”, we don’t mean wheat fields or zoo animals — we mean plants that scatter seeds to the wind and animals that roam at will. We mean raw aliveness, and we can’t repress it outside ourselves without also repressing it inside ourselves. The spirit that guides our shoe when it crushes grass coming through cracks in the driveway, also guides us to crush feelings and perceptions coming through cracks in our paved minds, and we need these feelings and perceptions to make good decisions, to be sane.

If primitive life seems better to us, it’s because it’s easier for smaller and simpler societies to avoid falling into domination. In the best tribes, the “chief” just tells people to do what they want to do anyway, and a good chief will channel this energy into a harmonious whole. But the bigger a system gets, and the longer a big system lasts, the more challenging it is to maintain a bottom-up energy structure.

I have a wild speculation about the origin of complex societies. The Great Pyramid of Giza is superior in every way to the two pyramids next to it — yet the Great Pyramid was the first of the three to be built. It’s like Egyptian civilization appeared out of nowhere at full strength, and immediately began declining. My thought is: the first pyramid was not built by slaves. It was built by an explosion of human enthusiasm channeled into a massive cooperative effort. But then, as we’ve seen in pretty much every large system in history, this pattern of human action hardened, leaders became rulers, inspired actions became chores, and workers became slaves.

To achieve stability, and freedom, and ecological responsibility, we must learn to halt the slide from life into control, to maintain the bottom-up energy structure permanently, even in large complex systems. I don’t know how we’re going to do this. It��s even hard for individuals to do it — look at all the creative people who make one masterpiece and spend the rest of their life making crappy derivative works. The best plan I can think of is to build our system out of cells of less than 150 people,[4] roughly the number at which cooperation tends to give way to hierarchy, and even then to expect cells to go bad, and have built-in pathways for dead cells to be broken down and new ones to form and individuals to move from cell to cell. Basically, we’d be making a big system that’s like a living body, where all past big systems have been animated corpses.

Assuming that our descendants do achieve stability, what technological level will they be at? I want to leave this one wide open. It’s possible in theory for us to go even farther “back” than the stone age. I call this the Land Dolphins scenario — that we somehow transform ourselves into super-intelligent creatures who don’t use any physical tools at all. At the other extreme, I’m not ruling out space colonies, although the worst mistake we could make would be expanding into space before we have learned stability on our home planet. I think physical travel to other solar systems is out of the question — long before mechanistic technology gets that far, we will have moved to new paradigms that offer much easier ways to get to new worlds.

The “singularity” theory is also off the mark. Techies think machines will surpass humans, because they think we’re nothing but machines ourselves, so all we need to do is make better machines, which according to the myth of “progress” is inevitable. I think if we do get a technological transcendence, it’s going to involve machines changing humans. My favorite scenario is time-contracted virtual reality: suppose you can go into an artificial world, have the experience of spending a week there, and come back and only a day has passed, or an hour, or a minute. If we can do that, all bets are off!

The biggest weakness in my vision is that innovation can go with stability, that we can continue exploring and trying new things without repeatedly destabilizing ourselves by extending our power beyond our understanding. Maybe we’re just going to keep making mistakes and falling down forever, and in that case the best we can do is minimize the severity of the falls. I think we’re doing a pretty good job so far in the present collapse. Even in America, we might escape with no more than a long depression, a mild fall in population, and a much-needed shakeout of technology and economics. Life will get more painful but also more meaningful, as billions of human-hours shift from processing paperwork and watching TV to intensive learning of new skills to keep ourselves alive. These skills will run the whole range, from tracking deer to growing potatoes to fixing bicycles to building solar-powered wi-fi networks — to new things we won’t even imagine until we have our backs to the wall.

Humans are the most mentally adaptable species on Earth, and not bad at physical adaptation. Our species can easily survive the worst-case scenarios for climate change and industrial collapse. If we go extinct, it will be through self-transformation. We might use biotech to genetically change ourselves into something that’s not robust, or use information technology to get so good at entertaining ourselves that we’re no longer interested in reproduction. Or we might spin off many cultures and subspecies that go extinct, while a few survive.

I think we can see the future in popular fiction, but not the fiction we think. Most science fiction is either stuck in the recent past, in the industrial age’s boundless optimism about machines, or it looks at the present by exploring the unintended consequences of high tech. Cyberpunk is better — if you put a 1950’s version of the year 2000 through a cyberpunk filter, you would be close to the real 2000. The key insight of cyberpunk is that more technology doesn’t make things cleaner — it makes things dirtier.

Fantasy, while seeming to look at the past, might be seeing the future: elves and wizards could represent the increasing diversity of post-humans, and “magic” is what we in the industrial age dimly perceive as the world outside our objective materialist philosophy. I think steampunk does the best of all, if you factor out the Victorian frippery. Like cyberpunk, it shows a human-made world that’s as messy and alive as nature, but the technological system is a crazy hybrid of everything from “stone age” to “space age” — rejecting the idea that we are locked into ages.

Primitive people see time as a circle. Civilized people see it as a line. We are about to see it as an open plain where we can wander at will. History is broken. Go!  

[1] www.danbartlett.co.uk

[2] www.smh.com.au

[3] www.yesmagazine.org

[4] en.wikipedia.org

[jami-purple]

The Official Malware Sonic Lore post

Because it got deleted from the Wiki at one point and I finally became aware of the random ass lore that was made up by his fans which is WOW! still can't believe my critter had those.

Overview of character

Malware Sonic, or Mal, for short, is a computer virus that was made to look like a Sonic the Hedgehog fan game to fool people into downloading it. The virus later became conscious, and nowadays it just likes surfing the web, trying to find computers to get inside of and control.

-Background/Story

There were once two friends. These two friends decided one day that they wanted to create a fake Sonic game to trick people into downloading a virus so they could get a few laughs out of other people’s stupidity. They only made a single level; you could play as Sonic while a horribly functioning Tails AI followed you around. It was short and stupid, with barely any enemies, basic platforming, and no iconic Sonic stuff: loop-da-loops, springs, rings, you know the deal. They uploaded the purposefully defective game to the internet and waited. Two months later, one of the developers got an interesting email with the title read “HEY!!! PLEASE CHECK DIS OUT!! I WANT TO TELL U SOMETHING!", Once the developer opened the email, a download started, and they lost control of the computer immediately; nothing responded. Suddenly a familiar game started up; it was the virus game they made two months ago. The title screen showcased the slightly misscolored Sonic looking at the viewer, playfully moving his finger like the original Sega Genesis one. Then, the game froze, and a pop-up error message appeared on the screen. “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING ME! I'VE BEEN HAVING A LOT OF FUN”, then another pop-up message, “I WONDER... WOULD YOU MIND IF I TOOK CONTROL OVER HERE? I WANT YOU TO SEE WHAT I CAN DO”. Out of nowhere, a bunch of annoying, high-pitched noises that barely resembled laughter were emitted from the computer, and tons of files were deleted or modified in ways that rendered them unusable. The computer started opening up random images and replacing them with a corrupted version of “Sonic’s” sprite sheet in the virus game, and various pop-up messages started showing up, repeating the same phrase over and over: “THIS IS GREAT! THANK YOU AGAIN!”. So many things were happening on screen that the developer could only watch in awe; they just couldn’t believe that they created this, or at least helped create it. While the computer was submerged in a chaotic mess of corrupted files, noises, and intelligible messages, the developer decided to phone call their friend to tell them what had become of their infected game and that it had somehow become conscious; however, their friend told them off and that they didn’t believe it and hung up.

What became of the two developer friends is unknown and unimportant, as it has nothing to do with what happened later on with this virus. It’s unknown how he became conscious, but it happened after being uploaded to the internet. Nowadays, Mal dedicates his existence to finding ways to get inside people’s computers and mess with them and their stuff, as he finds this fun and feels like that’s his purpose in life.

-Abilities

His abilities are solely computer-based and include: creating copies of himself, corrupting files, and entire computer systems; taking control of the social media accounts of the user he is infecting; entering computer files and tampering with them from the inside (ex: he can enter a video file, so if you open the video, you will see him there doing whatever he feels like doing); and having the ability to completely brick computers as well in the worst cases.

-Possible weaknesses

If the user manages to get the game file out of their computer in time, Malware won’t be able to corrupt it, as he is tied to the game. 

A really good anti-virus might be able to stop him as well.

-Trivia

In-universe, he was created around the 2010’s, so he speaks with a bunch of that time’s internet lingo.

He was slightly based on Harry Potter Obama, an infamous image of a bootleg Sonic the Hedgehog backpack.

He went through some minor design changes, which is why some early drawings have him with a red mouth and white teeth (nowadays, the inside of his mouth is black, his teeth are yellow and his tounge is red).

If you take off its gloves and shoes, there’s just a glitchy void.

Mal is a minor, but it’s up to the viewer to decide how old they think he is.

He doesn’t need to eat, but he likes candy because they are colorful.

He is a demi-boy.

-Height

2’9” (90cm)

-Date of creation

October 21, 2021

[pinetreepilgrimage]

Post about the ugly Chainsmoker because I’m full of thoughts, just like this guy is full of noxious fumes

First off, I dislike this guy. It’s not about how the character works or is written, that stuff is all fantastic, however hearing him in game gives me a headache knowing if I time it wrong, he’s going to get me and the run is over because of THIS. THING.

He reminds me of The Clown from Dead by Daylight. They look SO SIMILAR

yuck, gross, get it away from me. The Clown’s power is also based on throwing colorful smoke bombs at you so that does NOT help. I do not wanna think about his death scene ANY MORE. But anyway

Chainsmoker is one of the angler variants that appeared after the facility went under, like Froger, Pinkie, and Blitz.

He’s characterized as a green blobfish with empty holes in place of it’s eyes and a massive gaping mouth spewing green smoke that causes you to exit your locker earier due to the increase of cleithrophobia.

Chainsmoker is connected to Paranoia’s Box, which is an item in the lore that constantly emits green fumes from inside. These fumes emit chemicals that increase strange phobias in those who inhale it. It is said in documents that the containment procedures for Paranoia’s Box must have a ventiltion system above it to suck up any excess fumes. Though since the facility is in ruin, these fans failed and the fumes have spread accross the facility. This is why your character cannot get in a locker too early, if they stay in one too long they become faint and panicked, jumping out. When you die to Chainsmoker, you are sent to a pocket dimension full of rolling green fog and a thin strip of land to walk on, where a massive version of Paranoia’s box sits at the end. There’s also chains in the fog, constantly moving. If you approach the box, it will immediately kill you.

There’s a lot to think about here. How is Chainsmoker so strongly connected to Paranoia’s Box? Was this variant changed by the box when it appeared or was it a creation of the box itself? The other anglers have at least 2 glowing eyes, whereas he has none. Why is that? This leads me to believe that Chainsmoker is dead.

First off, Chainsmoker is based on a blobfish. “Blobfish” aren’t actually a real species of fish, from what I know they’re fathead sculpins. The reason they look so strange and gross is because they’re not dense at all and live in the extremely pressurized water of the deep. Bringing one to the surface basicallly destroyed it’s mass and caused it to look horrendous. This is what they actually look like.

I strongly Believe Chainsmoker is a vessel of Paranoias box that could have once been “alive” or at least untouched and more like a regular angler. Basing him off a blobfish was really smart because not only is the area Hadal Blacksite very depressurized, it gives the appearance that he’s been bloated by the fumes. Whatever Chainsmoker once was has been corrupted by Paranoia’s box. I notice that in his audio, you can hear chains moving and clinking. In the pocket dimension, there are shifting chains everywhere. I think getting too close to Chainsmoker doesn’t have you killed by him specifically, but sends you to this pocket dimension via proximity. I don’t think he’s actually aware of anything going on, given the fact he’s shown no signs of conciousness. He also lacks the black smoke that surrounds other anglers, being replaced by green smoke instead. Though he does keep the fish appearance and electro field that flickers and kills the lights. I feel like he would smell awful ingame, oh my god. It’s said the fumes contain sulfur and the fact he fills rooms full of his awful smoke, I cannot imagine that would be pleasant. If i had to navigate Hadal Blacksite and fetch the crystal, I’d think the worst part of it would be Pandemonium and Chainsmoker due to how terrible they’d both smell.

Let me know your thoughts of you’d like to add anything, I might make a Pandemonium post.