#illusory chronicles

[peepos-prose]

WIP INTRODUCTION: 〖 APHELION 〗

⇴ Genre: Dystopia / Fantasy

⇴ POV: Third Person (one MC)

⇴ Contains: Diverse Cast; Badass Unicorns!; Elemental Magic; Celestial Symbolism; Grotesque Monsters Humans; Found Family; Subverting Expectations; Societal Criticism; Self-Discovery

⇴ Content Warnings: Violent/Graphic Content, Mature Language, Body Horror, Abusive Relationships, Death, and Deep/Unsettling Topics

⇴  Setting: Post-Cataclysm 2033 in Romanian-Slavic area

⇴  Status: Drafting

⇴  Layout: Book One in a Trilogy

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Decades after an asteroid belt collided with Earth, a dense fog still hangs in the sky, sapping energy from machinery and mankind alike. Yet, a strange new form of power is sweeping the globe, celebration and folly finding a place among the people.

For Emerys, it’s just another Saturday.

Finally graduating high school, he can barely wait to put his horrible home life behind him. But, his freedom doesn’t kick off quite as expected, as almost getting hit by a car awakens something magical inside him. Magical and confusing. With the help of his savior, a bubbly (and annoyingly cute) unicorn named Sunny, Emerys is thrown into a grand conspiracy, forced to unravel the truth of Earth’s mysterious energy source where the cost of failure is a fate worse than death. 

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If you’d like to be on a taglist for this story, please let me know! I don’t intend to go on a two year hiatus again so hopefully this one’ll be more consistent! I’ll also be changing all my tags over from ‘Secret Story’ to ‘Illusory Chronicles’, and you can follow that tag (or ‘ic: aphelion’) for more content moving forward :3

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[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder, Halifax Chronicle Herald

* * * *

Trump promises to eliminate future elections

July 29, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

Last Friday, Trump told Christian rally-goers that “You won’t have to vote any more” if they elect Trump in 2024.

Let that sink in. A presidential candidate promised to eliminate future elections.

The media yawned.

Actually, the media ignored the story (except for The Guardian) until commentators on social media and the Harris Campaign shamed journalists into acknowledging Trump's antidemocratic threat—which they did in a dismissive, begrudging manner.

It is tiresome to highlight the media’s failings, but this incident is so egregious that it is important on many levels. Most importantly, it underscores that Democrats cannot relent in their effort to warn the American people that Trump hopes to end fundamental democratic norms—like the peaceful, regular transfer of power as prescribed by the Constitution.

Among the issues that should drive voters to the polls in 2024, Trump’s repeated promises to end democracy should be the most alarming. But concepts like “democracy” and “tyranny” strike many voters as “abstract.” Taking away the right to vote is not abstract; doing so would render all other rights illusory.

Let’s turn this incident against Trump by convincing voters that Trump really, truly wants to eliminate the right to vote after 2024. And we must not let him (or his surrogates) weasel out of the plain meaning of his words.

What did Trump say?

 At a rally in Florida on Friday, Trump said,

Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more. You know what? It’ll be fixed! It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians. I love you. Get out – you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.

See The Guardian, Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!’.

Like most of Trump's statements, it is simultaneously inscrutable and blazingly obvious. He is promising the end of democracy if he is elected. “In four years, you won’t have to vote again.”

The same words uttered by most other politicians might be susceptible to innocent interpretations. But those words uttered by this president can mean only one thing: He wants to eliminate elections in America. He tried to override the will of the people in 2020 by canceling their votes through coup and insurrection. He says he will do so again if he is re-elected. We should believe him.

To repeat: A presidential candidate has promised that 2024 will be the last time that Americans will vote because “everything will be fixed.” That is the equivalent of a five-alarm fire for democracy.

How did the GOP, the media, and the Harris campaign respond? You can probably predict their responses, but let’s look for ourselves.

The GOP response

In typical GOP fashion, the GOP response was (a) he didn’t mean what he said, (b) he said the opposite of what you think you heard, and (c) Trump says weird things all the time, so chill out!

The typical Republican response was delivered by New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, who laughed off the statement by saying, (a) it was “hyperbolic,” (b) Trump was trying to make the point that “We want everyone to vote in all elections,” and (c) it was a classic “Trumpism.”

Saying that the statement was hyperbolic and “a Trumpism” are. not serious responses because they do not address the substance of what Trump actually said. Trump incited an insurrection by telling people to “Fight like hell” moments before the attack on the Capitol.” We are long past claiming that Trump's words should not be taken seriously and literally.

Claiming that Trump's statement means the exact opposite of what Trump said is depraved. Sununu’s interpretation of “We want everyone to vote in all elections” vs. Trump's “You’re not gonna have to vote again” is depraved. The depravity of Sununu’s perverse interpretation is not diminished because Sununu delivered the lie with a hearty laugh.

Other Trump apologists (on social media) argued that Trump was saying only that Republicans would not need Christian evangelical votes after 2024 because Trump would do such a great job of fixing all problems in America, “you’re not gonna have to vote.” That explanation makes no sense; even if Trump “fixed” all the problems in America in the next four years, the Constitution still requires an election in 2028.

There is simply no reasonable interpretation of Trump's words other than his declaration that in four years, he intends to eliminate elections (if he can).

The media’s response

As noted above, The Guardian gave serious coverage to Trump's statement. US media outlets, not so much. See, for example, Lucian K. Truscott IV’s description of the NYTimes’ pathetic response. As Truscott notes in his Substack, the Times relegated the statements to “a few lines in a wrap-up piece about what’s happening in the presidential campaign . . . and they buried it on the Times website.” The Times then breezily moved on to pedestrian coverage of the campaigns as if they were reporting the details of an itinerary rather than one of the most shocking statements ever by a major-party candidate for the presidency.

Perhaps even worse was the pathetic interview of Chris Sununu by Martha Raddatz on ABC. Raddatz asked Sununu, “What the heck did he [Trump] mean there [in the statement]?” As noted above, Sununu responded,

(a)  The statement was hyperbolic; (b)  Trump meant that everyone should vote in every election; and (c)  That statement is a Trumpism.

Sununu’s pathetic response was enough to satisfy Radattz, whose follow-up question was, “Ok. Let's turn to President Biden and Kamala Harris.”

I won’t pick on Raddatz (much). Almost every journalist on mainstream media is as pathetic as Raddatz. The inability to ask follow-up questions to ludicrous rationalizations of attacks on democracy is staggering. Most are entertainers, not journalists. Their presence on “news” shows is insulting to their viewers.

Raddatz’s failure to challenge Sununu’s answer and her immediate transition to a question about President Biden and Kamala Harris demonstrates the media’s dangerous addiction to mindless “balance” and false equivalency. Nothing Kamala Harris did over the weekend deserves to be in the same news block as a story about a presidential candidate promising to end the need for elections. Nothing.

Having watched the media fail miserably for seven years with Trump, nothing should surprise us. But the guy tried to overturn one election already and is saying he will do it again. What will it take for the media to realize that Trump is a unique threat to democracy who deserves coverage that applies only to aspiring dictators?

Even if the Times and Raddatz believed that Trump's remarks had a benign explanation, they failed to acknowledge the more plausible, malign interpretation. Instead, they were willing to assume that Trump's remarks were harmless “Trumpisms.” They are not. We saw what happened after Trump told his followers on January 6, 2021: “We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.”

So, continue writing those letters to the editor and comments to stories highlighting the media’s failings. And become a messenger for Harris by amplifying her campaign’s messaging. Read on!

The Harris Campaign’s response

Kamala Harris’s campaign organization has been reacting to Trump's missteps and threats like a rapid response force to each. Early Saturday morning, the Harris campaign posted a clip of Trump's comments and attached the following statement:

Statement on Trump's Promise to End Democracy When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump: After the last election Trump lost, he sent a mob to overturn the results. This campaign, he has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America. Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear —this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

The Harris campaign’s statement is spot-on for several reasons. First, the campaign issued the statement just after noon on Saturday morning, showing a willingness and ability to rebut Trump quickly. By responding within the same news cycle, the Harris campaign shaped the social media response, which ultimately prodded the major media to acknowledge Trump's threat.

Second, the Harris campaign identified Trump's threats in plain language, including

“Trump's Promise to End Democracy.” “Last election Trump sent a mob to overturn the results.” “He has promised violence if he loses” “He has promised the end of elections if he wins” “He has promised to terminate the Constitution” “To become a dictator” “To enact dangerous project 2025”

Dangerous threats demand plain language. The Harris campaign rose to the challenge.

The campaign’s statement was strong in another respect: In identifying Trump as a threat to democracy, it identified Kamala Harris as the point of unity to stop Trump. A very smart move! Kamala Harris is giving Democrats the antidote to Trump's cult of personality. The campaign is fashioning Kamala Harris as a champion of democracy. And it is working!

Concluding Thoughts

Trump's threats present a dilemma. Should we take them seriously? Or does our attention give them credence and heft they do not carry on their own? As with most things in life, there is tension in truth. We must take Trump's threats literally and seriously. But we must not ascribe superpowers to Trump or self-executing inevitability to his threats. By taking his threats seriously, we can prevent them from coming to fruition. So, do not despair or cower in fear. Raise the alarm as we work to defeat Trump and stop his dark plans.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to rally around Kamala Harris. She held her first fundraiser in Pittsfield, MA at the Colonial Theatre. The event was sold out, with an overflow crowd in front of the theater. Kamala Harris spoke after an all-star warm-up that included former Governor Deval Patrick, Senators Warren and Markey, Rep. Neal, and Heather Cox Richardson.

According to those in attendance, the evening was “electric.” The crowd was so enthusiastic, Kamala Harris had difficulty quieting the cheers so she could say “Thank you.” She gave a great speech and pumped up the crowd even further.

In eight short days, Kamala Harris has unified and inspired Democrats in a way that has defied expectations of pundits and career politicians. She is doing so at the precise moment that Trump's veneer of invincibility is cracking. We need to sustain the wave of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris and spread it to others—so that we can push Trump’s downward trajectory past the tipping point of no return. We can do that!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[houseofpurplestars]

via Palestine Chronicle:

Abu Obeida, the military spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, announced that Israeli soldiers were captured, killed and wounded during a Resistance operation on Saturday afternoon in the northern Gaza Strip.

The soldiers were captured when an Israeli force was lured into a tunnel in the Jabaliya refugee camp.

This is the full text of Abu Obeida’s speech:

‘Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the hearts of a believing people.’

“O our great people, O heroic fighters, O our nation and free people of the world, peace and blessings be upon you.

“The enemy government and its oppressive army persist in their blind, reckless policy of revenge and destruction, moving from one failure to another, seeking illusory achievements to market their massacres and military pressure against our people as victories or accomplishments. Our great heroic fighters continue to teach the occupation lessons on all fronts, relying on Allah, holding firmly to His strong rope, and defending their land against a wicked, barbaric, and vile enemy.

“The latest chapter of Zionist failure and confusion has been the horrific crimes committed by the enemy forces, which continue to this hour, in Jabalia, Rafah, and other parts of our beloved land. The occupation forces sift through piles of rubble searching for the remains of some of their captives whom they deliberately bombed earlier. They deploy thousands of soldiers in the alleys of Jabalia and elsewhere, searching for corpses, sacrificing their soldiers for Netanyahu’s personal plots and the interests of his extremist, fascist government.

“Then, the enemy army markets the extraction of remains as a military and moral achievement. Despite the genocide war and indiscriminate destruction, our fighters have been and remain vigilant against the enemy forces, carrying out dozens of operations against them for more than two weeks in Jabalia, Rafah, Beit Hanoun, and all axes of aggression and incursion.

“The latest of these operations was a complex operation carried out by our fighters this afternoon, Saturday, in the northern Gaza Strip. Our fighters lured a Zionist force into one of the tunnels in Jabalia camp, trapping them in an ambush inside and at the entrance of this tunnel.

“By the grace and strength of Allah, they were able to clash with this force at point-blank range. Then, our fighters attacked the reinforcement force that rushed to the scene with explosive devices, hitting them directly.

“Our fighters then withdrew after detonating the tunnel used in this operation, after causing all members of this force to be killed, injured, or captured, and seizing their military equipment.

“Every day that the enemy spends in its aggression against our people and our family will incur a heavy and significant price. We will continue to make the enemy pay this price, by Allah’s will and help. We are continuing to confront the aggression in every street, neighborhood, city, and camp in our Strip, from Beit Hanoun to Rafah.

“We will reveal new details of these operations at the appropriate time, Allah willing.

“Salute to the souls of our righteous martyrs, our courageous wounded, and our proud prisoners. Salute to our heroic fighters in all their positions and to our great, giving people everywhere.

“It is a jihad of victory or martyrdom.

“Peace be upon you, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.”

[dailyanarchistposts]

Footnotes, 301 - 322 (end)

[301] Great changes have taken place since the forties in the attitude of the richer classes towards the unions. However, even in the sixties, the employers made a formidable concerted attempt to crush them by locking out whole populations. Up to 1869 the simple agreement to strike, and the announcement of a strike by placards, to say nothing of picketing, were often punished as intimidation. Only in 1875 the Master and Servant Act was repealed, peaceful picketing was permitted, and “violence and intimidation” during strikes fell into the domain of common law. Yet, even during the dock-laborers’ strike in 1887, relief money had to be spent for fighting before the Courts for the right of picketing, while the prosecutions of the last few years menace once more to render the conquered rights illusory.

[302] A weekly contribution of 6d. out of an 18s. wage, or of 1s. out of 25s., means much more than 9l. out of a 300l. income: it is mostly taken upon food; and the levy is soon doubled when a strike is declared in a brother union. The graphic description of trade-union life, by a skilled craftsman, published by Mr. and Mrs. Webb (pp. 431 seq.), gives an excellent idea of the amount of work required from a unionist.

[303] See the debates upon the strikes of Falkenau in Austria before the Austrian Reichstag on the 10th of May, 1894, in which debates the fact is fully recognized by the Ministry and the owner of the colliery. Also the English Press of that time.

[304] Many such facts will be found in the Daily Chronicle and partly the Daily News for October and November 1894.

[305] The 31,473 productive and consumers’ associations on the Middle Rhine showed, about 1890, a yearly expenditure of 18,437,500l.; 3,675,000l. were granted during the year in loans.

[306] British Consular Report, April 1889.

[307] A capital research on this subject has been published in Russian in the Zapiski (Memoirs) of the Caucasian Geographical Society, vol. vi. 2, Tiflis, 1891, by C. Egiazaroff.

[308] Escape from a French prison is extremely difficult; nevertheless a prisoner escaped from one of the French prisons in 1884 or 1885. He even managed to conceal himself during the whole day, although the alarm was given and the peasants in the neighborhood were on the look-out for him. Next morning found him concealed in a ditch, close by a small village. Perhaps he intended to steal some food, or some clothes in order to take off his prison uniform. As he was lying in the ditch a fire broke out in the village. He saw a woman running out of one of the burning houses, and heard her desperate appeals to rescue a child in the upper story of the burning house. No one moved to do so. Then the escaped prisoner dashed out of his retreat, made his way through the fire, and, with a scalded face and burning clothes, brought the child safe out of the fire, and handed it to its mother. Of course he was arrested on the spot by the village gendarme, who now made his appearance. He was taken back to the prison. The fact was reported in all French papers, but none of them bestirred itself to obtain his release. If he had shielded a warder from a comrade’s blow, he would have been made a hero of. But his act was simply humane, it did not promote the State’s ideal; he himself did not attribute it to a sudden inspiration of divine grace; and that was enough to let the man fall into oblivion. Perhaps, six or twelve months were added to his sentence for having stolen — “the State’s property” — the prison’s dress.

[309] The Medical Academy for Women (which has given to Russia a large portion of her 700 graduated lady doctors), the four Ladies’ Universities (about 1,000 pupils in 1887; closed that year, and reopened in 1895), and the High Commercial School for Women are entirely the work of such private societies. To the same societies we owe the high standard which the girls’ gymnasia attained since they were opened in the sixties. The 100 gymnasia now scattered over the Empire (over 70,000 pupils), correspond to the High Schools for Girls in this country; all teachers are, however, graduates of the universities.

[310] The Verein für Verbreitung gemeinnütslicher Kenntnisse, although it has only 5,500 members, has already opened more than 1,000 public and school libraries, organized thousands of lectures, and published most valuable books.

[311] Very few writers in sociology have paid attention to it. Dr. Ihering is one of them, and his case is very instructive. When the great German writer on law began his philosophical work, Der Zweck im Rechte (“Purpose in Law”), he intended to analyze “the active forces which call forth the advance of society and maintain it,” and to thus give “the theory of the sociable man.” He analyzed, first, the egotistic forces at work, including the present wage-system and coercion in its variety of political and social laws; and in a carefully worked-out scheme of his work he intended to give the last paragraph to the ethical forces — the sense of duty and mutual love — which contribute to the same aim. When he came, however, to discuss the social functions of these two factors, he had to write a second volume, twice as big as the first; and yet he treated only of the personal factors which will take in the following pages only a few lines. L. Dargun took up the same idea in Egoismus und Altruismus in der Nationalökonomie, Leipzig, 1885, adding some new facts. Büchner’s Love, and the several paraphrases of it published here and in Germany, deal with the same subject.

[312] Light and Shadows in the Life of an Artisan. Coventry, 1893.

[313] Many rich people cannot understand how the very poor can help each other, because they do not realize upon what infinitesimal amounts of food or money often hangs the life of one of the poorest cLasses. Lord Shaftesbury had understood this terribLe truth when he started his Flowers and Watercress Girls’ Fund, out of which loans of one pound, and only occasionally two pounds, were granted, to enable the girls to buy a basket and flowers when the winter sets in and they are in dire distress. The loans were given to girls who had “not a sixpence,” but never failed to find some other poor to go bail for them. “Of all the movements I have ever been connected with,” Lord Shaftesbury wrote, “I look upon this Watercress Girls’ movement as the most successful.... It was begun in 1872, and we have had out 800 to 1,000 loans, and have not lost 50l. during the whole period.... What has been lost — and it has been very little, under the circumstances — has been by reason of death or sickness, not by fraud” (The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder, vol. iii. p. 322. London, 1885–86). Several more facts in point in Ch. Booth’s Life and Labor in London, vol. i; in Miss Beatrice Potter’s “Pages from a Work Girl’s Diary” (Nineteenth Century, September 1888, p. 310); and so on.

[314] Samuel Plimsoll, Our Seamen, cheap edition, London, 1870, p. 110.

[315] Our Seamen, u.s., p. 110. Mr. Plimsoll added: “I don’t wish to disparage the rich, but I think it may be reasonably doubted whether these qualities are so fully developed in them; for, notwithstanding that not a few of them are not unacquainted with the claims, reasonable or unreasonable, of poor relatives, these qualities are not in such constant exercise. Riches seem in so many cases to smother the manliness of their possessors, and their sympathies become, not so much narrowed as — so to speak — stratified: they are reserved for the sufferings of their own class, and also the woes of those above them. They seldom tend downward much, and they are far more likely to admire an act of courage... than to admire the constantly exercised fortitude and the tenderness which are the daily characteristics of a British workman’s life” — and of the workmen all over the world as well.

[316] Life of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder, vol. i. pp. 137–138.

[317] See Marriage Customs in many Lands, by H.N. Hutchinson, London, 1897.

[318] Many new and interesting forms of these have been collected by Wilhelm Rudeck, Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland, analyzed by Durckheim in Annuaire Sociologique, ii. 312.

[319] A Servio Tullio populus romanus relatus in censum, digestus in classes, curiis atque collegiis distributus (E. Martin-Saint Léon, Histoire des corporations de métiers depuis leurs origines jusqu’à leur suppression en 1791, etc., Paris, 1897.

[320] The Roman sodalitia, so far as we may judge (same author, p. 9), corresponded to the Kabyle çofs.

[321] It is striking to see how distinctly this very idea is expressed in the well-known passage of Plutarch concerning Numa’s legislation of the trade-colleges: — “And through this,” Plutarch wrote, “he was the first to banish from the city this spirit which led people to say: ‘I am a Sabine,’ or ‘I am a Roman,’ or ‘I am a subject of Tatius,’ and another: ‘I am a subject of Romulus’” — to exclude, in other words, the idea of different descent.

[322] The work of H. Schurtz, devoted to the “age-classes” and the secret men’s unions during the barbarian stases of civilization (Altersklassen und Männerverbände: eine Darstellung der Grundformen der Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1902), which reaches me while I am reading the proofs of these pages, contains numbers of facts in support of the above hypothesis concerning the origin of guilds. The art of building a large communal house, so as not to offend the spirits of the fallen trees; the art of forging metals, so as to conciliate the hostile spirits; the secrets of hunting and of the ceremonies and mask-dances which render it successful; the art of teaching savage arts to boys; the secret ways of warding off the witchcraft of enemies and, consequently, the art of warfare; the making of boats, of nets for fishing, of traps for animals, and of snares for birds, and finally the women’s arts of weaving and dyeing — all these were in olden times as many “artifices” and “crafts,” which required secrecy for being effective. Consequently, they were transmitted from the earliest times, in secret societies, or “mysteries,” to those only who had undergone a painful initiation. H. Schurtz shows now that savage life is honeycombed with secret societies and “clubs” (of warriors, of hunters), which have as ancient an origin as the marriage “classes” in the clans, and contain already all the elements of the future guild: secrecy, independence from the family and sometimes the clan, common worship of special gods, common meals, jurisdiction within the society and brotherhood. The forge and the boat-house are, in fact, usual dependencies of the men’s clubs; and the “long houses” or “palavers” are built by special craftsmen who know how to conjure the spirits of the fallen trees.

[thee-morrigan]

right where you left me

À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Chapter Five The Wayhaven Chronicles Nate Sewell/Adam du Mortain 2.6k words —

“The better question would be when your companion is. Or when he is not.”

The timbre of that voice slid like a serrated knife across his already frayed nerves. Nate clamped his eyes shut, attempting to block out the dissonance of the voice, to regain some sense of equilibrium. When he opened them again, he was met with a gloom that seemed almost alive, slithering across surfaces that shimmered with a sheen not unlike oil on water. The room—or was it a chamber, or an abyss?—seemed to warp around him with the mocking resonance of that voice. He wondered if this were a dream, the kind where you fall and fall and fall and never hit the ground. A nightmare, perhaps. Yet the room held him in its grip, unyieldingly and improbably corporeal.

Stay calm. Focus.

The echoes of his own mantra reverberated in his skull as Nate forced his eyes to adjust to the oppressive dimness. The room, if it could be called such, was cobbled together from angles that seemed inconsistent with the laws of geometry, more akin to the fevered imaginings of a mind unmoored than any architect's deliberate design. Each surface appeared to warp under his gaze as if refusing to remain fixed in any one form for too long, blooming and dissipating like ink in water. As if drawn by some unseen magnet, his gaze flitted across the dim expanse seeking something anchoring, something that defied the fluidity of his surroundings. There had to be something tangible in this surreal landscape.

His eyes caught a flicker — no more substantial than the shadow of a flame in a drafty corridor — but it was enough to draw his attention. There, against the farthest wall that seemed to ripple and breathe, stood a door. Or at least an approximation of one, its edges shimmering with the same slick iridescence that coated everything else within this place. The door, if that's what it was, appeared almost illusory, as though seen through the warping heat of a desert. As he approached, the chimeric walls straightened and solidified into vertical beams and paneling, morphing from sharper lines to rounder curves and back again. The silence was suffocating, the absence of that awful, ethereal voice somehow more overwhelming than the voice itself had been. But then, from beneath the door, a frail beam of light flickered into existence. He reached out tentatively, almost afraid that his hand would simply pass through the mirage of a door. To his surprise, the cool wood was as solid under his fingers as the room felt unreal around him. He pushed, and the door gave way with a reluctant creak. With one deep breath, he braced himself against the uncertainty, against the fear that clawed at his resolve with icy fingers, and stepped across the threshold.

Keep Reading

[kiranfmp2024]

Name of the game

To decide on a title for my game I created a mind map of attributes and categories of the game and thought of words/sentences linked to that. I thought of the "tale of an/a … journey" Through looking at titles named "the legend of Zelda", Chronicles of Narnia, etc.

The only issue is, is that I cannot think of what to put in place of the ellipses. I am thinking of words such as misguided, Distorted, hallucinated. I am currently thinking of any word to do with the main characters state.

To find the word I asked three peers to play my game and think of one word to replace the ellipses in the title. I created a google forms to keep track of the answers.

The Rover medic: The tale of a shifting journey

The Rover medic: The tale of a shadowed journey

The Rover medic: The tale of an illusory journey

The Rover medic: The tale of an false journey

Out of these my favorite answer is the last one. I really like the "tale of a false journey" This really drives the fact that the characters perception of the situations isn't always the reality.

[mertkagansakli]

Critical Analysis

Ferdani, D., Fanini, B., Piccioli, M. C., Carboni, F., & Vigliarolo, P. (2020). 3D reconstruction and validation of historical background for immersive VR applications and games: The case study of the Forum of Augustus in Rome. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 43, 129-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2019.12.004.  This article goes into "3D Reconstruction and Validation for Immersive VR Applications and Games: The Case Study of the Forum of Augustus in Rome," which embarks on a critical investigation of the symbiotic link between cultural heritage and virtual reality (VR). The phrase "Virtual Archaeology," coined by Paul Reilly in the late 1980s, takes center stage, chronicling its evolution from early skepticism to modern success. While the author is unknown, the paper masterfully navigates the historical foundations, multidisciplinary cooperation, and modern technical developments in applied science and cultural heritage. It stresses the practical influence of immersive technology by focusing on essential principles such as multidisciplinary cooperation, technological change, and the purposeful use of dramatization. This short yet sharp introduction lays the foundation for assessing the article's structure, author credibility, and analytical contributions, revealing the delicate dance between legacy and technology. The rise of virtual reality (VR) and serious games in the cultural heritage sector represents a watershed moment in the relationship between technology and the preservation of history. Paul Reilly invented the term "Virtual Archaeology" (VA) in 1990, characterizing the application of virtual simulations to archaeological investigations, dating back to the late 1980s. The key principle underlying virtual archaeology is embodied in the term "virtual" itself: an illusory image that serves as a copy or replace for the original. This conception includes the description and modelling of archaeological formations, as well as the use of a multidisciplinary approach and digital technology into historical reconstruction.

Since the 1990s, the environment of cultural legacy has changed dramatically, promoting the integration of humanities and hard sciences. Annual debates at seminars such as CAA, Eurographics, and Digital Heritage have helped to establish widely recognized standards such as the "London Charter" and "Sevilla Principles." As a method, virtual archaeology currently entails a theoretical and multidisciplinary approach that employs digital technology for the reconstruction and modeling of historical objects, architecture, and landscapes.

This progress has not been without difficulties. Early efforts were hampered by skepticism and technological limits. The lack of appropriate answers and theoretical guidelines hampered growth. However, through continual experimentation, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and the development of successful theories, methodologies, and technologies, virtual archaeology and 3D heritage applications have gained popularity within museums and archeological sites. These activities' success is ascribed not only to technology developments, but also to the purposeful use of dramatization and narrative, which use emotional processes to engage people and spread historical knowledge.

The article addresses the transformational environment of virtual reality (VR) and serious games in relation to cultural heritage protection. Key concepts include: the history of virtual archaeology, the interdisciplinary nature of cultural heritage studies, the role of digital technologies in reconstruction and simulation, the rise of serious games and virtual reality applications, and the impact of dramatization and storytelling. 

In summary, the key ideas revolve around the historical evolution of Virtual Archaeology, interdisciplinary collaboration in cultural heritage studies, the transformative role of digital technologies, the adoption of serious games and VR applications, and the strategic use of dramatization and storytelling for impactful heritage engagement. Together, these concepts provide a narrative that spans the conceptualization of virtual archaeology to its present implementations, stressing the dynamic link between technology and cultural heritage protection. 

There are several instances given to demonstrate the practical uses of VR and serious gaming in cultural heritage. Serious games like Battle of Thermopylae and Defend the Wall are among them, as are VR experiences like Beyond the Castle and Arkaevision Arkeo. These examples are used well in the essay to highlight the variety and efficacy of technology in immersing consumers with historical knowledge.

The article shows a thorough comprehension of the subject. The thorough examination of historical background, technical progress, and modern initiatives demonstrates a degree of skill in applied science, cultural heritage, and immersive technology.

The article includes references to conferences, principles, and research, demonstrating a dependence on outside sources to back up its claims. This utilization of known knowledge adds credibility to the material offered and is consistent with academic norms.

The essay is organized logically, ranging from the historical foundations of virtual archaeology to modern uses of VR and serious gaming. The narrative flow portrays the progress of technology and its increasing incorporation into museums and archeological sites well.

The practical uses of virtual reality and serious games in cultural heritage have been highlighted, highlighting their importance in processes of engagement, interaction, and learning. The article acknowledges Creative Europe's and Horizon 2020's rising emphasis on combining heritage and video games, emphasizing the importance of these technologies in the real world.

Analytically, the study advances our understanding of the developing link between legacy and technology. It recognizes the advantages of immersive VR gaming over traditional ways, noting research that show how these technologies may improve exploration and learning at archeological sites.

The paper provides a thorough and insightful examination of the emergence of virtual reality and serious games in the context of cultural heritage. The breadth of knowledge and use of varied examples and references indicate a well-informed viewpoint. The essay provides a detailed overview of the topic matter by efficiently navigating through historical foundations, multidisciplinary cooperation, and modern technical breakthroughs.

The usage of external sources, such as references to conferences, principles, and case studies, adds credibility to the text. This reliance on known knowledge adheres to academic standards and strengthens the credibility of the material offered. The article's logical framework is obvious, providing a coherent narrative that tracks the historical evolution of virtual archaeology to its present uses, notably in the realms of serious gaming and virtual reality experiences.

The emphasis is on real-world applications, demonstrating the concrete influence of immersive technology on cultural heritage participation. The article highlights the rising importance of merging heritage and video games, mentioning Creative Europe and Horizon 2020 as initiatives aimed at supporting such innovations. The article's analytical significance stems from its contribution to a better understanding of the dynamic link between legacy and technology, stressing the benefits of immersive VR gaming over traditional techniques.

Ultimately, this page is a useful resource for scholars, researchers, and fans interested in the intersection of technology and cultural heritage. Its mix of historical background, practical examples, and analytical insights makes it a timely and instructive investigation of the emerging terrain where virtual reality and serious games connect with cultural heritage protection and distribution.

[annewithankyou]

Triumph Over Self: An Exploration of Freedom and Happiness in 'Into the Wild'

“There were days when despair swept over me, I chose to forgive. Since people lived so dreadfully, vanity is getting illusory, I have nothing to glorify but desperation and forgiveness. It’s better to see the end of the despair to realize how things truly are. It does not mean advocating ascetic life but be conquered and be conquering at the same time.” (Trinh Cong Sơn, 1972)

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau embraced a solitary life in a tiny cabin by a river, chronicling his experience in "Walden." Over a century later, Christopher McCandless followed a similar path, immersing himself in the Alaskan wilderness, as depicted in Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild." Both men sought to conquer themselves, free from societal norms and material possessions, to find a deeper connection with nature and discover true happiness.

McCandless, driven by a desire to escape the burdens of money and social prejudice, left his past life behind and ventured into the wild. His journey, documented through incomplete diaries, showed no overt emotions but reflected a fierce inner call for self-discovery. Krakauer analyzed McCandless's character to understand his motivations, shedding light on the impact of family traumas on one's later behavior.

The common thread between McCandless and Thoreau was their pursuit of personal triumph and self-realization. They rejected societal norms, valuing individuality and self-awareness. While such a lifestyle requires letting go of burdens, many find it challenging to abandon the familiar and embrace the unknown.

In the eyes of those who encountered McCandless, his happiness was evident in the simple and natural moments. Lovers rediscovered lost warmth, a mother found her son's spirit in the adventurous young man, and others experienced fleeting but intense connections. McCandless, too, found his version of "absolute freedom" without material possessions, contrary to his family's desires.

In the end, the elusive happiness McCandless sought was not found in isolation but in the shared experiences with others. His final diary entry revealed the realization that happiness is best enjoyed when shared. Throughout his journey, he encountered love, companionship, and warmth, finding that true happiness lies not in the wilderness but in the connections we form with others.

The stories of McCandless and Thoreau remind us of the significance of personal triumph over self, embracing self-awareness, and valuing individuality. Their journeys into nature served as a canvas for self-discovery and finding happiness in simplicity. While seeking solace in solitude has its allure, the ultimate happiness, as McCandless discovered, lies in sharing moments with others and forming meaningful connections. Both men's journeys leave a lasting legacy, inspiring us to examine our own lives, conquer our fears, and appreciate the beauty of human connections.

[7r0773r]

Kilometer 101 by Maxim Osipov, translated by Boris Dralyuk, Alex Fleming & Nicolas Pasternak Slater

My concerns today are exactly the same as they were some thirty years ago: First, not to sink into the mud, to sully my conscience; second, not to land in jail; and third, not to miss the moment when one ought to leave, forever. And I harbor the same illusory hope I harbored then: that we’ll wake up one day and find ourselves in the clear, with all this darkness behind us. (Sventa, p. 10)

***

In the early ‘70s, Yakov Grigoryevich secured a place for himself in the old cemetery (there were already two at that point) and began to make trips here— much more frequently than one would expect of a relatively young, happy-go-lucky man. He ordered a white slab-limestone, locally sourced—and had it engraved with his name, surname, year of birth, and a frivolous epitaph: "All's well that ends well." The invention was this: below, at the foot of the slab, was a hidden button—you click it, move the slab aside, and descend into a little bunker. Protected from moisture and even from extreme cold, this bunker held an entire library, ranging from works that were of oficially classified as "defective" (Gumilyov's poems, Sinyavsky's Strolls with Pushkin, typescript translations of Orwell) to those that were out-and-out anti-Soviet (Gulag Archipelago and issues of the Chronicle of Current Events). When Sasha was in seventh grade, he and Yakov Grigoryevich stopped meeting at the ice cream parlor and started taking trips to the old Luxemburg cemetery. This led to the happiest moments of Sasha's youth. (Luxemburg, p. 124)

***

She'd changed a lot over the past few years. "Men grow old and women change..." Who said that, Goethe? Eva herself studied at a perfectly first-rate Moscow school, but, for all that, can't even add fractions. What goes on in the head of a person who can't add fractions? Then again, who cares about fractions? Just think of all the things he himself doesn't know—the rudiments of music theory, for instance. True, Eva is just as ignorant of music theory, but... (Luxemburg, p. 142)

***

"We've got Tsinandali by the glass now."

The young waitress's face is impenetrable. Last time he was here he'd noticed a bottle with a portrait of Stalin on the label, with a fake quote: "When I die, they will dump a lot of garbage on my grave, but the wind of time..." and so on. The paranoid Generalissimo would never have said, "When I die"—he planned to live forever, as they all do.

Sasha had asked, as calmly as he could: "You wouldn't happen to have one with Hitler on it, would you?"

The waitress caught his drift: "What have you got against Stalin?"

"Without going into specifics, let's just say that he murdered millions of my compatriots."

"Ah, I see..." she drawled, as if he'd told her that he was allergic to chocolate. At least she didn't ask him to say who, exactly, his compatriots were. In any case, Sasha won: they started serving Tsinandali by the glass. (Luxemburg, p. 143)

***

BIG OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities, you understand? Soon he'd have enormous, almost limitless opportunities. He kept insisting on those opportunities—opportunities that would open up for him soon, that lay just around the corner. She should know, though, he added, that he was doing just fine as it was, better than fine, better, in any case, than she could imagine. She, of course, hadn't the slightest intention of imagining his current opportunities, much less the ones at which he was hinting. All she needed was for him to deliver her as quickly as possible—who can remember where, after all this time? The editorial office, a party, the theater. So what, she doesn't want to hear who he is? Oh, she knows well enough, but she won't say it: another annoying, chatty driver, a grdonchik—one of a handful of words of Armenian slang she'd picked up from friends. Despite the cluster of consonants, grdonchik was still, in her opinion, far more euphonious, more affectionate than the Russian bombila, although it meant exactly the same thing—an unlicensed cabbie. This is Moscow in the nineties, every other car is a cab. Raise your hand and someone's right there: "How much?” "How much can you spare?" No, he's no bombila, the fellow yammers on, and this isn't his car—he gets this one through his job. His own vehicle's totally different, of a whole other order, and he isn't about to ruin it on these roads. He didn't pick her up for the money, either—pronounced "eee-ther," with a kind of Jewish intonation, though he clearly isn't a Jew. Then again, he also doesn’t look Russian: maybe Komi, Chuvash, Udmurt? A small man, but with enormous, in his words, opportunities ahead of him; a rapid, choppy manner of speech, matched by a rapid though generally careful manner of driving; a face that isn't exactly ugly, just expressionless. He's entitled, he says, to a personal driver, but he prefers to do everything himself. For the sake of encounters like this, maybe? But what's it to her? "Stop over there." So that's it? Maybe she'd like to have lunch or dinner, "get a meal" together? Oh God... Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? No, she doesn't want to offend him. His courtship, let's call it, wasn't arrogant, but rather naive, automatic, terribly foolish. He tried to seduce her not with a show of prowess, of wit, or of talent, but with big opportunities. The only appealingly human thing about him was his speech impediment, a childish one: his s's sounded like sh's. She had tried to leave him two hundred, or maybe twenty thousand (she can't remember what the money was worth back then), but he refused to take it. Instead he handed her a card with his personal number, saying he never gave this number out, to anyone, hardly ever, so if she happened to change her mind... Oh, certainly—merci.

Victories of this sort don't bring even a hint of joy, and she would never have remembered the pint-size grdonchik—considering the number of men who had hit on her before and after, although seldom quite so clumsily—if not for an incident, an occurrence that changed her life forever. They showed up at her door early in the morning—six men and a dog put her eighteen-year-old daughter in a car and took her away, and then they turned the apartment upside down. She was having the place renovated and it had seemed to her that it couldn't be made more of a mess than it already was, but apparently it could. She was afraid for her daughter, felt all this was happening to someone else, not to them, not to her, and was ashamed—embarrassed by the piles of underwear, old letters, photographs. She also knew she needed to fight, of course—to call lawyers, say nasty things to these goons—but her life seemed to be over. "What are you looking for, gentlemen?" Gentlemen, right. "Listen, on what basis are you searching my apartment?" On the basis of an order—see for yourself. Extremism, terrorism, anarchism, social-media records. When the time comes, she'll hear all about it. The dog alone behaved itself more or less decently: walked around, sniffed a few things, then plopped down. She gave it some water. "What's this?" the one in charge asks her, sounding for the first time, the least bit interested. A real professional: he had found a card in the lining of an old purse—name, surname, number, that very card. "Give it here!" she snatches it from his hands and, without giving herself time to figure out what exactly she wants to say, makes the call. "Yesh,' with the characteristic sh. Their conversation hardly lasts two minutes, and she's the only one talking: tears, vows, pleas—not the moment for shyness or discretion. He finally says, in the same dispassionate tone in which he'd told her about his opportunities, "Pass the phone to the one in charge." The man goes out, then comes back: "All right. We'll lock her up for a long time if she doesn't leave the country by Tuesday. Never call that number again, got it?" He grins: "Go over to the station and pick up your darling. Caesar, come." They leave. "Life's fucking sense..": a half-finished inscription on a fence, author unknown. The good things, the best ones, are often anonymous.

A number of years passed—quite a few years, because her daughter had since managed to graduate from the university in Lille, while the daughter's Moscow friends and acquaintances, boys and girls from good families just like hers, had managed to serve out their sentences in prisons and camps—they were given from seven to twelve years—while after numerous adventures and travels she herself had ended up in her own house in the South of France. And, of course, all these years she'd been following, peripherally, out of the corner of her eye, the career of (it must be said) her benefactor, the bombila, the grdonchik—following it with horror, since here and there, in Africa, Asia, and even at home, he was invariably to be found at the center of some unthinkable, unimaginable evil, in violation of all divine and human laws. Until finally she comes across an announcement that he's been awarded a hero's Gold Star, his second—this time, however, posthumously. "In an attempt to save the crew" and so on, and so forth—implausible nonsense, without even a single believable detail, which is of course never the point—"he died a hero's death," along with some number of people. And to her, as to all commentators, it's perfectly obvious that all this official chatter is intended only to conceal, to drown in itself the shameful, disgusting truth of what had actually happened—a drunken death while out hunting, a political murder, or something of that sort. How strange, she thinks: he's lying there in a deluxe coffin, powdered and made-up, with his enormous, limitless opportunities, waiting to be buried in the best cemetery next to writers, artists, and composers, all to the sounds of beautiful music that he probably never liked. And would she want to find out that the announcement of his death was false? No, better not to ask oneself such a question. He had done her a favor, been good to her, while to everyone else—judging by the terrible things they write and say about him—he had been exclusively bad. All right: Does she feel sorry for this little man with his childish speech impediment? After all, she owes a very great deal to him, if not her own life: her daughter's freedom, this South of France. Maybe she does feel sorry. A little.

***

N. IS THE principal town of one of the regions next to Moscow, and I've been working here as a doctor for a year and a half. It's time to sort out my impressions.

The first and most dreadful one is this. The two most obvious feelings in the patients here, and many of the doctors too, are a fear of death and a dislike of life. They don't want to think about the future. Everything ought to stay as it is. Not life, just living out one's days. On vacation they have fun, they drink and sing, but if you look into their eyes you don't see any merriment there. Here's an acute case of aortic stenosis, needing urgent surgery. If he's not going to have it, no point lying in a hospital bed. "So what's going to happen? I have to die, is that it?"—Yes, so it turns out: he's going to die.—No, he doesn't want to die, but he doesn't want to travel to the regional center either, with all the fuss and bother of appointments and the rest. "I'm already fifty-five, I've had my life."—So what is it you want?—Retirement on health grounds. A sickness certificate. He doesn't believe in the possibility of getting well, what he wants is free medicine. "Doctor, am I going to live long enough to draw my pension?" (People who don't live to draw their pensions are failures; so long as you do get that far, it makes your whole life worthwhile).

Second: power is split between money and alcohol, i.e., between two manifestations of Nothingness, emptiness, death. Many people think that problems can be solved with money, but that's hardly ever true. How can money help you to awaken an interest in life or love? And that’s when alcohol takes over. Here's an example of what it does. Not long ago, a two-year-old child named Fedya fell out of a first floor window. His drunken mother and her live-in boyfriend got Fedya back into their flat and locked the door. Luckily the neighbors had seen it all, and called the police. When they came, they broke down the door and the child ended up in the hospital. The mother, as mothers do, was standing hollering outside in the corridor. Ruptured spleen, splenectomy. Fedya lived, and even pulled out his airway himself (no one was watching—all busy with another operation). Then he pulled out his intravenous cannula too.

Third: practically every family has had a violent death in the recent past. Drownings, exploding firecrackers, murders, disappearances in Moscow. All this contributes to the background against which our own family life is played out. I have often had to deal with women who had buried both their adult children.

Fourth: I have scarcely ever met anyone deeply involved in their work. It's just that sort of feeble-spiritedness that makes people incapable of focusing on their own medical treatment. All those drug names (trade names, generic names) are another problem, and so is dosage. In order to take 25 milligrams, you have to break a 50 milligram tablet in half, or a 100 milligram one into quarters. That's difficult, and no one wants to bother. Weighing yourself daily and doubling your diuretic dose if your weight goes up—that's simply unrealistic. There aren't any scales at home, and the idea of buying one never occurs to them. It's not about the money. People are just practically illiterate—they know how to join letters up into words, but they don't apply their knowledge in practical terms. Their usual response, when I ask them to read the recommendations I've written for them in large print, is: "I haven't got my glasses with me." But if you've come out without glasses, that means you weren't planning on reading anything today. And that's illiteracy. Here's another test: "Do you understand where you have to go? Do you understand that you need to say you were referred by me?"—"Yeah, I suppose so."—what's my name?"—Angrily: "How should I know?"

Fifth: it seems that friendship is an experience restricted to intellectuals. So-called ordinary people don't have friends. I haven't once been asked how a patient was getting on by anyone other than a relative. Mutual help doesn't exist—we're the biggest individualists you could ever imagine. Our nation doesn't seem to possess the instinct for self-preservation. That's just our lot: it's easier to die than to ask your neighbor for a ride to Moscow. "So, no wife, but what about friends?"—None. "I've got a brother, but he's in Moscow. I've got his phone number somewhere."

Sixth: men are almost always idiots. A man with heart failure, if he doesn't have a wife trailing around after him, is bound to perish before long. This idiocy begins in adolescence and progresses steadily, even if the man grows up to be a chief engineer or, say, an agronomist.

A man who cares about his relatives is a rarity, and those who do, inspire respect. One such, Alexey Ivanovich by name, is a patient of mine. He's managed to arrange for his wife to get a kidney transplant: he sold everything they had, and spent forty thousand dollars on the operation. It's not usually like that. Mostly it's "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away," a funeral and a memorial. (My Native Land, pp. 193-95)

***

I remember my horror as a child when I first discovered that grown-ups could be idiots. Many of my patients still haven’t realized this, and that gets them into difficulties. (My Native Land, p. 200)

***

If you look at Olya, it’s obvious that evil isn’t an inherent part of human nature; it’s something that gets into it, penetrates it, to fill up an empty place, the intercellular space. Evil and good are different in kind, and emptiness has an affinity for evil. (My Native Land, p. 204)

***

Getting a gangster to help sort out any problem you like—that's the great temptation of our age. In the old days, you'd have gone to the KGB—just as ubiquitous and all-pervasive. Getting them to help you, if you were a respectable person, was regarded as out of order. But with gangsters, it's different—and now here's a very sweet elderly lady recommending that I apply to a certain rich peasant, if I need funds: "He's not a gangster anymore, though he might have been one..." And he donated a set of curtains to the library, and a local bigwig recites poetry at his birthday party. And it isn't that the bigwig is telling himself, "Hold your nose; look the other way and kiss the villain's hand"—he genuinely feels friendly toward this man of action. So what does it mean—"he's not a gangster anymore"? Has he undergone some grand spiritual conversion, repented, done his time? Or does he simply no longer need to kill people? "Yes, but his children are studying at Oxford..." Children, as Gogol wrote of Chichikov, are such a sensitive subject! What happened to "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children"? There's enough evil there for years to come, but lady intellectuals are easy suckers for a man of action. (A Sin to Complain, pp. 211-12)

***

What is it that unites all these different Russias? What saves our country from falling apart? At your worst moments, you tell yourself it's nothing but inertia. A friend from Boston writes, "It has occurred to me, paradoxically, that the Soviet system perpetuated many of the weaknesses of prerevolutionary Russia." We're scrambling back into the nineteenth century, even in our spelling: give us back our old orthography! In the family of nations, we're the pupil who has to repeat a year. He's finishing up the year with his classmates, but you can't expect anything much from him. Everyone else is subject to discussion, and, if need be, to condemnation, but we aren't. Here's this beanpole sitting behind his desk, the tallest in the class—but what's he thinking about? No answer. A meaningless dream—that's the feeling we sometimes get about our own history. There's no line of direction in it, no vector. (A Sin to Complain, pp. 216-17)

***

“They’re just primitive, ignorant people,” good folk tell me. I’d put it differently. They’re bad people. They’re primitive because they’re bad, not the other way around. (A Non-Easter Joy, p. 232)

[sparkys-ec-corner]

happy 13th anniversary, moonlit bear! have a redraw! 🍎🍎🐻

[peepos-prose]

Hello lads! Coming back from Artfight, I wanna start talking about Illusory again (mostly to pump my interest back up), so if I were to do some infodumps;

I'll be coming around to all these at some point, but I want to keep things interesting for you! I'll be compiling a master post after the fact, too, but for now, lmk what you think!

And for the first time, here's the taglist! (I am so professional XD)

Illusory Taglist (-/+ on request!)

@kingkendrick7, @kahvilahuhut

[kingstylesdaily]

‘Your World Is Waiting’: On ‘As It Was,’ Harry Styles Reemerges Different But Wiser

Styles' lead single and first video from upcoming third album 'Harry's House' finds him facing down gravity and impermanence and arriving at what comes next.

By Larisha Paul

Try as he might, Harry Styles is no match for the perpetual motion of change. The 28-year-old musician is currently in a state of transformation himself, leaving a fresh bouquet of flowers at the grave of his sophomore era Fine Line and returning home to breathe life into his next artistic endeavor: Harry’s House, his third solo studio album, out May 20th.

The singer has been teasing the visual and conceptual landscape of the record through YouAreHome.co – the cryptic website that has been trickling out album easter eggs for the past two weeks. The site features an ivory colored door with a gold handle, unveiling a different image every day – from obscure snapshots of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to the Cavallini & Co. 1,000 piece mushroom puzzle and the neatly inverted Harry’s House album artwork. As the content hidden behind the doorway shifts daily, the accompanying You Are Home Twitter account shares brief, poetic messages with existential undertones. Two days before the new musical era launched with Styles’ first release in two years, a simultaneously freeing and anxiety-inducing note appeared: “Every place you’ve ever been will never stay the same, and neither will you.”

Whether threatening or comforting, the statement holds truth: On Harry’s House lead single “As It Was,” he tries his hand at coming to terms with feeling stuck within this very notion of impermanence, draping his musings over shimmering synths and thumping percussion courtesy of producers Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson.

“Holding me back/ Gravity’s holding me back/ I want you to hold out the palm of your hand/ Why don’t we leave it at that?” Styles questions in the opening verse. “Nothing to say/ When everything gets in the way/ Seems you cannot be replaced/ And I’m the one who will stay.” Throughout “As It Was,” the singer presents a brightly dressed account of loneliness, fighting to unbind himself from the position he’s been affixed to while the world shifts around him. In the chorus, he sings: “In this world, it’s just us/ You know it’s not the same as it was.” How isolating must it feel to know that the only constant you can count on is inconsistency?

In the Tanu Muino-directed music video for the single, which appeared as today’s offering from behind the enigmatic door, Styles finds himself quite literally chasing a release. Sheathed in a long red coat, he steps through a doorway and emerges on the other side in a ruby sequin co-ord custom designed by Arturo Begero. Moving to the rotating platform in the center of the room, he brushes hands with a woman in a matching blue set – the first of many instances in which the intimacy he yearns for is just out of reach.

The endlessly spinning platform was directly inspired by “Celui Qui Tombe,” a theatrical, illusory performance piece created in 2014 by French director Yoann Bourgeois, who choreographed “As It Was.” The living presentation – which translates to “He Who Falls” or “The One Who Falls” – places a cluster of performers on a rotating stage where they run forward in hopes of fighting the perpetual motion, only to find that they consistently remain in the same place they started.

Bourgeois positioned Styles in this same conundrum. Whenever he embraces the woman in blue – wrapping his arms around her or shrinking his body into hers – it doesn’t last beyond the beat of a second. They go on and on in this cycle, running in circles until, eventually, she slips away completely. “As It Was” spotlights a different dimension of physical intimacy than the lustful scenes of Fine Line singles “Lights Up” and “Watermelon Sugar,” where Styles is enveloped in the heat of bodies. In order to obtain lasting comfort and warmth through embrace here, he must first reveal himself.

“I’m trying to generate empathy from the audience,” Bourgeois shared in a 2020 interview with NR Magazine.  “The essential question is one of relationships. I’m considering the idea that, as beings, we are about relationships. A performance is something that only exists through the relationships of the present; it exists only here and now… And it’s here that the poets have their role to play.”

Once he’s on his own, we briefly return to Styles sheltered in his red coat as he remembers a damning phone call: “Harry, you’re no good alone/ Why are you sitting at home on the floor?/ What kind of pills are you on?” He begins to strip down to his briefs, one article of clothing at a time, and without hesitation, those around him follow suit – barring the woman in blue. It’s only then, after he’s fully revealed his most vulnerable state, that he’s able to pull her tight against his chest for longer than a moment. He’s done his part, but it doesn’t last. As they’re ultimately pulled apart by forces outside of their control, Styles falls back into the spinning platform’s endless routine.

He’s a couple rotations in when the camera catches a shift in the singer’s eyes – the freeing second when he realizes he can choose to end the futile chase. It happens as Styles is rattling off the sprawling bridge of “As It Was,” his mind moving at a mile a minute: “Go home, get ahead, light-speed internet/ I don’t wanna talk about the way that it was/ Leave America, two kids follow her/ I don’t wanna talk about who’s doing it first.” It’s a moment of resolve, like a gleaming lightbulb blinding his every cyclical thought about what lasts, and what doesn’t, in the face of the unending impermanence he could never control.

Maybe it wasn’t just gravity holding Styles back: Detangled from his thoughts, he dances his way outside while unraveling in the chiming bells of the final chorus. Bringing “As It Was” to a close, the singer demonstrates the kind of authenticity often reserved for the comfort and warmth of a home. The way that he launches his body into the air and glides across the floor, all unabashedly flailing arms and legs, reverberates the familiar freedom of the safe space that his live shows represent for his fans. On tour, Styles fosters an environment of liberation and exclusivity with his fans, one that encourages them to spend 90 minutes being the person they’ve always wanted to be, and which feels as though no one else is invited to view that untethered version of himself but them.

In the final moments of “As It Was,” Styles bursts through the short gates separating him from where he was and where he’s heading next, wherever that may be. He even leaves them open for any curious wanderers to follow suit, leading them forward with a heartening smile. The singer’s silent encouragement echoes the sentiment of the final message shared from You Are Home just ahead of launching the official Harry’s House era: “Your world is waiting.”

via Billboard

[argonautsoul]

Soul Evolution and Personal Development

COME OUT OF THE CIRCLE OF TIME AND INTO THE CIRCLE OF LOVE

“We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.”

— Chronicles 29:15 NLT

﹡﹡﹡

Everything is energy and we impact others with our energy.

Eventually, you'll understand how destructive fear is, and that we act badly out of our own fear, and that Love is the answer to all things.

﹡﹡﹡

“Time and again the soul returns to earth through the gates of birth and death. It does this in search of ultimate perfection and spiritual growth.”  

— Charlie Lutes

A Yogi Path by Danielle Noel

Your soul’s purpose calls you here – to be embodied – on the Earth – in human form.

Souls incarnate with a mission to bring Heaven to Earth. You can’t do this without a body.

To fulfill this mission, the Soul is dispatched to the physical realm, enclothed within a body and equipped with a complete freedom of choice.

Existence is a school where we can take different forms and incarnate time after time.

Who, what we truly are, is pure vibrating consciousness -  embodied in multidimensional and multi-density beings.

Seth, channeled by Jane Roberts, eloquently describes the limits of our human mind to comprehend the spiritual dimensions of reality:

“…there is a reality beyond human reality, beyond human characteristics that you know. [...] And there is knowledge that can never be verbal. And there is experience that can not be translated in human terms. Although this type of existence seems cold to you, it is a clear and crystal-like existence in which things are known that are beyond your comprehension, in which no time is needed (in your terms) for experience…”

— Seth II/Jane Roberts, The Early Session, Book 9

Being born into a human life, however is a great forgetting.

Because souls were created in “GOD's image” (Genesis 1:26), it would only be through a process of personal experiences — one choice leading to another, and then another, and then another — that GOD's companions/co-creators could gain their own individuality, being a part of Source/GOD and yet individuals in their own right.

The feeling of having a personal identity is known as the ego.

The illusory-self (ego) is the creation of the true-self (soul).

The ego is a field of conscious awareness that identifies with your physical body. The soul is a field of conscious awareness that identifies with your energetic field.

Cosmic Journeys by Oska

The soul creates the ego to protect itself from the pain it experiences being present in 3D material awareness /3rd density consciousness.

Ego is the boundary-maker, the gatekeeper, drawing lines and dividing you from Source/GOD, or me from you.

We create a story and place within certain related or connected frequencies, and we call it our physical 3D reality.

Our awareness of existence, — the ability to distinguish between the self and others — is created by the brain, neuroscientist Anil Seth explains in his TED talk, “Your brain hallucinates consciousness.” He says, ”Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate a conscious experience — and not just any conscious experience, your experience of the world around you and of yourself within it.”

When we agree about our “hallucinations”, we call it “reality,” according to Seth. In this agreed-upon reality, we are each separate individuals, whose stories begin with our births and end with our deaths.

“… Nothing but the various stages of consciousness separates the dimensions, you see, but the separation is quite effective, nonetheless.”

— Seth/Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions, volume 6

The narrative of the story that seems to be your life — is just a story of your ego, not who you really are.

The stories are just analogies that our ego uses to try to understand reality.

The problem is that our ego-self identifies with 3D objects and not our true essence. (But as psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud notes in his 1930 essay “Civilization and Its Discontents“, the ego is mutable).

Since the ego believes it inhabits a body and lives in a material world, — it thinks it can die. And because it thinks it can die, it thinks it has needs, and because it thinks it has needs, it develops fears about not being able to get its needs met.

We misuse energy — soul, mental, astral, and etheric — and so we suffer, through the Law of Cause and Effect (Karma) by such misuse.

Most of our suffering comes from our stories: thoughts, actions and reactions of the present and immediate past. Our fears: insecurities, hatreds, jealousies, envy, frustrations and thwarted ambitions cause us to suffer.

Shaded by painful mental experiences, hidden behind the illusory-self, our Soul forgets who we really are.

The pure awareness of consciousness is overshadowed, or veiled by perceived/phenomenal reality.

“There are many dimensions in all directions. Now, I will tell you further that these dimensions merely represent various capacities of consciousness. All these dimensions exist at once, and even within your system, but your consciousness cannot perceive them.”

— Seth/Jane Roberts, The Early Sessions, volume 6

The ego is driven by the quest for self-preservation and self-enhancement; in this, it resembles the soul and self of all other creations. But the Soul is driven by the desire to create and reconnect with its Source.

Our lives are the story of the contest and interplay between these two selves, as we struggle to balance and reconcile our physical needs and desires with our spiritual aspirations, our self-focused drives with our altruistic yearnings.

The Soul would like to push on in evolution and perfect its virtues, but there is a tremendous pull in the other direction through desires, emotions and the senses that slow down our progress and sometimes even take us backwards.

Here on Earth, the Soul is challenged by the (apparently) conflicting needs and desires of the ego, where divine reality is obscured by the dense selfhood of the body and physical world. In this arena of hidden truth and perpetual challenge, the soul can fully express and actualize its divine power.

It is an exciting and challenging  journey to uncover and recover our true-Self. For me, there is no is more compelling or rewarding.

Artwork by Colin Anderson

Each soul chooses specific experiences to meet itself.

In time, soul experiences and acquired knowledge (applied correctly) will lead to wisdom. Inevitably, wisdom will lead to compassion and eventually love will be the end result.

The soul will have come to understand that it's primary essence and GOD's are one and the same, Love.

When we have tantrums of fear, rage and resistance to our soul or higher self – we are resourced in our scared, fragmented human parts – parts which have forgotten that we are Love.

You are seeded with GOD's Light/Source Energy – Your own soul is created from the highest degree of pure Love.

The purest form of Love imaginable.

GOD just loves us, all of the time - and we have been given powerful gifts - that we misuse with small thinking.

Love is defined in metaphysics as the bond that holds creation together.

Love is not an emotion. Love is a state of being.

All the positive emotions we can feel come from this energy of love, which is the Source Energy that gives us Life.

Love is the reason for creation and love is the creation.

So Love is Life, and Life is Love, and thus, GOD is Love, and Life is GOD.

Knowing that, this is so is key to your healing.

…LOVE IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL. Strive more and more to put it in everything you say and do...

In the end, we are judged based on our motives.

And if you simply keep that loving perspective and let love and kindness be the primary motivation as much as you possibly can, you will accumulate so much goodness (good karma) and accelerate your own spiritual growth exponentially.

So watch your motives, and make a study of love.

Choose what will motivate you in life as a whole. Will it be Love or Fear that sets you apart in this lifetime? Karma has no hold on our souls greater than a love known as grace. Or a fear of sheer torment during this sojourn of our Earthly trek. If you choose poorly then you shall be preyed upon and easily manipulated by your peers via numerous tactics of hate at large. If again you choose wisely than keep on your guard using reason with an unconditional love. Because a conditional love is flawed as a mixture of demands placed on it by the frail ego always. It has no place being called love in the absolute eyes of God(dess).

— Ivan Alexander Pozo-Illas

Love thy neighbor as thyself, and watch miracles unfold in your life.

﹡﹡﹡

Take what resonates with you, leave the rest.

Thank you for reading, x

— eye of the moon

[cyn-syti]

2.1.7 Napoleon in Good Humour | Though ill and uncomfortable on horseback because of a painful indisposition, the emperor had never been in such good humour as on that day. Ever since morning his had been a smiling inscrutability. On the eighteenth of June that deep, marmoreally masked soul beamed blindly. The man who had been grim at Austerlitz was cheerful at Waterloo. Those with the greatest destinies to fulfil often make these mistakes. Our joys are illusory. The supreme smile belongs to God.

[ There are exactly 365 chapters in Les Misérables. This is a chronicle of my attempt to finally read them all. Fingers crossed … ]

[bestworstcase]

What would you have thought if Madam Canardist was designed and characterized without the racially negative stereotypes against the Romani people and voiced without an accent?

she’d be a completely different character in that case. 

her basic role in the story, as a character accompanied by a disguised/shapeshifted demanitus, who ends up facilitating the important exposition in lost and found, is completely fine on its own. so, i wouldn’t have a problem with a different, hypothetical non-racist character filling that role

in the context of... sticking with canon and the episodic cartoon format and trying not to deviate too much from the canon plot, here’s how i’d design that character:

1. obviously just... completely scrap her canon visual design. i think she should still be a woman of color, because there aren’t enough women of color in tangled. actually you know what this is all hypothetical so let’s get real self indulgent with it and say she’s voiced by and modeled after ciara renée, Because Reasons.

2. she’s still named canardist, but to lean more into the pun, demanitus’s shapeshifted form is a duck, not a monkey. [in english, a “canard” is an unfounded rumor, story, or hoax, and in french, a “canard” is a duck. :P]

3. she’s a village bard and team corona first encounters her in her hometown of fortuna. rapunzel and eugene are on a date, rapunzel sees this woman chilling with her lute and her slightly deranged looking duck by a fountain or something and is like !!!, and canardist not-very-begrudgingly agrees to perform, like, the epic ballad she’s composed about the town’s history. 

4. it turns out that the history of fortuna’s founding is absolutely fucking bizarre, like this town is a total weirdness magnet and all kinds of utterly bonkers stuff has happened and when canardist finishes the tale eugene is like hahaha, yeah right. canardist, put out by his skepticism, is like “look my duck is psychic fortuna is just Like This okay” and eugene loses it. 

5. rapunzel is intrigued by the psychic duck and wants to pay for a fortune, but canardist is like no way, your boyfriend is a jerk, get lost, so they go. they stop in the market to pick up supplies on their way back to the caravan, discuss eugene’s cynicism, hear some rumors about the thieves who’ve been terrorizing the town lately. rapunzel persuades eugene that they should loop past the fountain again and apologize to canardist for him, you know, laughing in her face and insulting her pet, and when they get there the duck is gone and she’s distraught because two kids grabbed him and ran off. cue the rest of the canon plot of vigor the visionary, with the girls and everything. except vigor is a duck. 

6. in the end, they bring vigor the duck back to canardist, and to thank them, she offers rapunzel one of vigor’s fortunes. it’s vague and confusing and won’t come into play until, let’s say happiness is—when we (and rapunzel) realize that it was warning her not to fall for the illusory happiness offered by the lorb idol. eugene is still skeptical, insisting that the “fortune” was vague and it only lined up with the events on the island by coincidence. 

7. now—fundamentally, bards were chroniclers. they recorded history. and canardist, being a rather good bard, figured out pretty quickly just who rapunzel is and, after team corona left fortuna, decided “you know what? that’s history in the making. i’m going to follow them and write down what happens.” 

8. so she hops a ferry across the sea and waits for them on the other side. rather than the whole lombard’s pass / telescope theft / nonsense with the curse, the episode after peril on the high seas is shenanigans with canardist being all, “i want to join your group and chronicle you” while team corona is like um. there’s a b plot with vigor the duck kind of terrorizing eugene/following eugene around and refusing to be shooed away; the a plot maybe has to do with a clash between canardist, who’s accustomed to nobility paying her for the privilege of having her chronicle their lives, and rapunzel, who has Uncomfortable Feelings about being important enough for a professional bard to be wanting to travel with her and write about it; maybe they still have to cross lombard’s pass, canardist helps (she’s a bard, she’s well traveled, she probably knows a trick or two), and at the end of the episode it’s like—okay, rapunzel’s not comfortable traveling with what’s essentially a biographer, but she and canardist come to some sort of agreement to go their separate ways but with the understanding that canardist is going to trail after them and interview people about what they did and at some point, when she’s ready, rapunzel’s going to give her side of the story.

9. canardist gets tied back into the narrative in brothers hook. this time it’s not because she’s following them, but because hook hand’s a friend of hers and she, completely independently of team corona, decided to show up and support him at his big gig for king trevor. it’s a much more amiable meeting and, after hook foot leaves, rapunzel decides to invite canardist along. because she’s doubling down on her decisions in the great tree, she feels more secure than she did the last time they met and letting canardist chronicle their journey no longer seems as scary. so canardist takes hook foot’s place in the party.

10. her presence then becomes yet another thing putting pressure on cass, because the thing is... it’s clear that cass is just a footnote in the story canardist is chronicling. she’s not important, in the context of the history they are making. rapunzel is. cass is on track to end up as rapunzel’s nameless bodyguard in this ballad canardist is writing and she tries not to let that bother her but it really really does. 

11. i think it’s sort of funny if canardist gets just, completely skipped over by all the whacky evil shenanigans in the shell house. because tromus recognizes that vigor the duck is demanitus and he’s like okay, that’s a grenade i’m not going to touch with a ten foot pole, and zhan tiri is like yeah good call, so canardist ends up just like, sipping tea and casually strumming her lute and making small talk with tromus while the rest of team corona gets terrorized by mirror demons and time-twisting tops and lotus dreams. 

12. so lost and found. there’s some tension in the group because canardist wasn’t harmed by anything in the shell house and that has eugene feeling just a mite suspicious, and maybe cass is backing him up too to distract attention away from what she went through and her “do i take the moonstone or not” dilemma; and partly to smooth it over canardist is like look, rapunzel, eugene, take vigor, he has something he wants to show you.

13. by this point everyone is sort of used to canardist talking about vigor like this even though he is, to all appearances, a slightly deranged duck, and rapunzel is insistent that canardist is completely trustworthy so she’s like okay!! sounds great!! and drags eugene along. the maze stuff happens. vigor reveals himself to be demanitus. it’s basically canon except he’s, you know, a duck. also it just occurred to me that i never specified what kind of duck i’m imagining when i say duck so i feel the need to do that now: 

one of these guys, but like, a little bedraggled and crazed-looking. it’s the red eyes that really sells it. 

14. anyway vigor also reveals that, yes, canardist knew he was demanitus the whole time; turns out she comes from a long, long line of bards stretching back to an ancestor of hers who knew demanitus and agreed to protect his undying birdbrained duck vessel until such time as he was ready to emerge. eugene feels bad about distrusting her, they make up at the end of the episode, she slips him vigor’s fortune about one of the group turning traitor in the dark kingdom. he’s like, fuck.

15. destinies collides happen, cass gets the moonstone and fucks off, for the rest of s3 canardist’s role is like... she and vigor stick with the group, she’s still chronicling them, but she also, because of her own history with demanitus, is able to help fill in some of the gaps; she reveals to rapunzel that gothel was once a servant of demanitus—and betrayed him for zhan tiri, and then betrayed zhan tiri for the sundrop. basically she’s how we get more of the the gothel+zhan tiri lore we were all craving in s3

16. other s3 stuff—maybe with her help team corona starts sketching out a plan for dealing with zhan tiri immediately after race to the spire, rather than putting it off until plus est en vous. maybe she gets to be a kind of foil to cass; as a bard, she’s always the one telling the story—never participating in it directly—and perhaps she has some complicated feelings about that that could parallel cassandra’s feelings about always being in the shadows, just a footnote, just a bit player, never someone the story is about. maybe she can have a cute bonding moment or two with varian the demanitus fanboy or xavier the legends buff. also whacky vigor and canardist shenanigans during lost treasure are mandatory. anyway the point here is, she’s not just yeeted out of the story 

[okay-all-jokes-aside]

A short excerpt from the life of Lyubov

I

This is a short excerpt from the life of Lyubov, a Russian youth who found solitary respite from one especially cruel winter in the barren wilderness that lines the northern territorial barrier of the Buryat province, found on a map on the southern fringe of the mammoth body of land that is Russia. Like so many lives, Lyubov’s contained numerous excerpts worth noting, and the one shared here is not especially exceptional in comparison. Nonetheless, a writer must find some way to select one story from many that will entertain their reader, even if such a selection is utterly arbitrary. Enough from me.

In a mass of land that was left vacant by an agrarian reform of the 19th century, Lyubov acquired a modest cabin to lease for the relentless Russian winter which habitually invaded the idealist’s psyche. Perhaps, Lyubov hypothesised, a southern refuge would eschew the migrant Siberian winds that so scathed her social encounters every other year, unforgiving and bare. It was only with aggressively pinched eyelids that Lyubov reminisced on that violent wind, consoling herself through the repetition of generic mantras that reaped no real cognitive reward but at least distracted her from the opposing and intolerable repetition that one finds themselves succumbing to when they are idle and cannot, no matter how vehemently they protest, elude a memory they wish to forget. Only here, in the company of the infertile earth, could she detach herself from the natural insecurity that plagues social encounters, ominous and persistent, unchecked by hollow conversation and hollower clouds, encircling the Petersburg metropolis like vultures around rotting carrion. Only here could she defy these vain competitions that emerge from sterile conversation, inducing ugly discord, bloody and merciless. Only here could she flee the counterfeit laughter, the upturned noses figurative and literal, the deafening echo of words unspoken yet understood all too well. Alone and adrift, Lyubov sought to conquer the insomniac self-doubt that preys on the susceptibility of youth, mutating innocence into cynicism and vanity unrecognisable. 

Of course, years of experience or glaring grief would have taught Lyubov that this process is self-refuting, for isolation tends only to cement isolating understandings of social contempt, especially in those who have not experienced real loneliness and so must cease relations abrupt and unprepared. Lyubov could not hear this reality over the obscure utterances that sifted through hoarse Petersburg winds, morphing into familiar depressive mantras, as are so painfully common amongst youths who are yet to truly suffer. I am sure the reader does not require an example of such a mantra, for I have known them to be quite ubiquitous. I only interject to imply that I do not intend, through my recounting of this excerpt, to mock the naïve idealism that drove my protagonist to escape the warmth of her family home on that harsh winter. And it is true that these mantras I mention can travel through wind, for a depression that knows no cause will find a way to the vulnerable mind through any means imaginable.

I digress. Lyubov deemed it necessary to escape the repressive smog that infested her home in the hopes of regaining the purity that so commonly betrays the scornful expression of children who, given a change of scenery, marvel unashamed over unfamiliar surroundings. So, like a child who comes to resent familiarity, Lyubov wrote a brief note to her parents which summarised her task, assembled her belongings and silently climbed over the front gate that separated torment from freedom. And in that lifeless night she stood motionless, facing away from her home toward the long journey ahead, listening to the pace of her heart rate, gauging the mass of fog that emanated from her breath. To her total dismay, no genuine difference could be detected. Never mind, she thought, change will come. The reader need not be reminded that Lyubov was ignorant to the impossibility of engineering the type of change she sought. Psychological change, as the reader and I know, does not require geographical change. In fact, it is common that geographical change will mute psychological change as a consequence of the illusory impression these foreign settings have on those that determine to force difference.

Lyubov’s journey from her home to her cabin was not exceptional in any way and so will be omitted here. The writer will omit space and time in a similar fashion; entirely derivatively. As was likely anticipated, the reader will notice the tense pervert to the present as sardonic snows imprison the homes of those who do not expect visitors, deriding their frivolity through the simple logic of their presence. The task of ignoring this irony proves laborious as Lyubov climbs through a crusted window that impounds the alien cabin, desolate and ugly even after a month’s company. Lumbering through congested water vapour, Lyubov’s melodramatic groans could be heard by anyone within a 100 metre radius, though no one is listening. She shields her eyes from the glaring truth that ricochets from the snow to the sun; here, she is more alone than she could ever have conceived and here, she cannot escape her cynicism through the melodious soundscape of small talk. She is staggering confused through an empty wasteland, trying to remember why she so detested the cradling heat that radiated warm and true from that distant home she so desperately struggled to forget. The predator that is isolation had begun to feast on the flesh of Lyubov’s psyche, engendering a race between her thoughts, disconcerting them, watching them indifferently as they twitch in despair and groan restlessly, a futile plea, like that of a wounded deer in the desert snow, or like men who succumb to alcoholism and during every hangover, apologise to those they have humiliated and repeat their fictitious aims to quit. 

To Lyubov’s credit, she did disqualify some contestants, ridding them of their psychological potency through an often repeated, altogether simple desire to get home to her motherland. But the reader mustn’t forget that Lyubov’s youthful naivety rendered her dangerously susceptible to insecurity and dangerously immune to patriotism, and so she was divorced from her mother as swiftly as her body swung from her front gate to that decisive night, dissolved by the ominous glow of street bulbs that even I confess once lured me from my humble beginnings. And here, in the indifference of the Russian winter, Lyubov met another onslaught of psychological carnage, glaring and brutal, transforming her knowledge into suspicion as she trudged back to the lonely cabin. True, my protagonist did well to fend off the prying claws of uncertainty for a time, though I would be unworthy as writer if I exaggerated the extent of this feat. A month into her stay, Lyubov undertook the painstaking task of retrieving those portions of her memory she had so cruelly banished, grasping desperately at dimming conversations with those she once derided in repulsion, mocking their vanity, ignoring the parts of herself that she saw within them. For this is the irony of cynicism in that cynics deplore only those traits they wish to bury within themselves; conceit, naivety, self-doubt, susceptibility. 

I wish I could give the reader an ending to this all too common story of a directionless youth who tries in vain to defeat the type of self-doubt that is so troubling and yet so integral to social encounters jarring and inevitable. No, I will leave this subsequent excerpt from the life of Lyubov to another writer who, in some maddening chaos, tries to make sense of the chronology of a person, clinging to a singular event and attempting to justify it as significant. 

II

The writer, on erecting space between one event and the next, need not justify their absence. No, the writer is only responsible for the stories they tell, never for those they imply. These vacant planes will roll on indeterminably into distance that cannot necessarily be defined as distance until the writer decides to pen another chronicle. And it is for this reason that I kept writing, for I am not obliged to write my own. No, I will not patronise my reader by explicitly acknowledging the relationship between this excerpt and the last. I must have faith in my reader’s intellect to write to them, lest I become seduced by the characteristic coping mechanism of writers who authorise the self-effacing simplification of their process, making concessions for readers that do not exist. I believe it is only writers who have been tantalised by this strategy that can traverse the space between the pen and the reader, for it is only these writers that have learnt to write to themselves; unashamed, naked. I, myself, am still working at it. Enough from me.

The excerpt that is to unfold upon these pages is grounded in the inner northern Kalininsky district of Petersberg. The night is empty and it sits patiently with the street debris, awaiting the apathetic footfall of morning commuters. It is October and so howling winds swallow the audibility of human voices, human footsteps, behaving similarly to those who make an uncomfortable amount of sound when they eat, though less rhythmic. Our old friend Lyubov has taken advantage of the overfed city, capitalising on its bloated belly, edging her way through a front gate that she cannot call her own. Her figure effortlessly negotiates with this barrier that separates permissible from impermissible, right from wrong.

Lyubov, the invader. By now, the reader may have succumbed to the objectless curiosity of this metamorphosis from escapee to intruder. Those readers should remember that some questions remain answerless for good reason, or perhaps for no reason at all. It is only with maturity that we begin to tolerate the unresolved. I, personally, cannot attest to such wisdom. Long ago, when I was informed of this event, I interrupted, demanding an explanation of what had happened in-between; what had caused such vast transformation. I was met with a taciturn glare that regarded wall only, seemingly mocking my romanticisation of the in-between by exposing it for the discomfort it is empowered to evoke. Time prolonged but was likely brief until our excerpt was mercifully resumed.

Inordinate adrenaline, speechless footsteps, folded shoulders, darting eyes, an unlocked window; the archetypical burglary. In and out, rewarded for risk, pray your crime was not evident. Still, it is generally acknowledged that archetypes exist only as vague guides to narration, and they will be, in all probability, challenged. Alas, Lyubov realised the anomalous nature of her felony too late, for her shimmied motion through the alien window was interrupted by two hands bigger than her own, inviting her into the supposed crime-scene. And suddenly one crime became another as Lyubov’s limbs were taped together and thrown into a vacant corner, struggling through muffled screams. This metamorphosis need not be elaborated either, for it happened in one swift motion, as though it didn’t require explanation, like all those unexplained phenomenon that simply exist because they exist. 

Lyubov, the kid. Napped from a house she could not call her own, pleading almost in soliloquy into two menacing eyes that were entirely unforgiving of the void between where she was from and where she was.

-Please, I beg of you, let me go, I am the daughter of an aristocrat and he will pay generously for my release…Please, I’m begging you, I cannot take it, forgive me, forgive me…Forgive me, I have sinned and I am sorry, I will do anything…Kill me, please just kill me. 

Such pleas fell into the chasm of darkness our abductor had constructed, assuring no glimmer of light could find its way through the fateful window. Cigarettes burns began to populate the arms of our ostensible burglar, deep lacerations sought to deface her otherwise smooth complexion, portions of her otherwise long hair were devoured by the terrorist razor. Of course, physical deformities always seem to pale in comparison to those psychological. Hours stretched indeterminably into days that were marked by a torment Lyubov herself told me she believed was entirely unexplored, even by those who have truly suffered. On one of these days, Lyubov awoke from a nightmare-laden slumber to dead silence, though she could not tell if it was night. Nor could she tell if it was silent or if she was dead, for her malnourished body had begun to prey on her sensory perceptions, deluding her into uncertainty. During such bouts of insanity, Lyubov almost glimpsed freedom, pretending through closed eyelids that she could see streams of daylight flood the crime-scene, a sure sign that her captor would himself be captured. But he would not allow this, and he beat the beast of uncertainty out of her until she was assured of where she was.

A loud thud followed by ugly laughter and uneven footsteps interrupted this almost tranquil silence. Our tormentor strolled into the room wearing an unnervingly sincere smile and held before him a treasured belonging of Lyubov’s; a framed photograph of herself and her late Koshechka. Uncannily, this was one of the only possessions that accompanied her on the voyage the reader is aware of to the Buryat province of southern Russia. The sight of her Koshechka sent Lyubov into another fit of uncertainty which was hastily clarified through a twisted smirk.

-I am merely an imitator.

And, indeed, when Lyubov glanced from her trusted possession to the voice speaking to her, she saw her reflection in the cursed eyes of her victim, her tormentor.