#in the realms of the unreal

[fentanyl-rabbits]

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 420

Darger: The Henry Darger Collection at the American Folk Art Museum

Brooke Davis Anderson

American Folk Art Museum / Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2001

By all accounts, Henry Darger (1892-1973) lived a solitary and lonely existence, working as a hospital janitor on Chicago’s North Side. Shortly before his death at the age of 81, Darger’s landlords, Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner, discovered something astonishing: some 350 watercolor, pencil, collage and carbon-traced drawings, most of which were stitched into three enormous albums, as well as seven typewritten hand-bound books, thousands of bundled sheets of typewritten text, and numerous journals, ledgers, and scrapbooks. The centerpiece of the discovery was a monumental 15,000-page fantasy novel—The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion—illustrated with hundreds of scroll-like illustrations, some as large as 30 feet wide and painted on both sides. Today, Darger is one of the most famous—and controversial—figures in the history of outsider art, and this book provides a fascinating glimpse into Darger’s private, innocent, and occasionally deeply disturbing world.

[ai-dream]

The Realms, 2.

[sportsthoughts]

just two lovable dogs

[triste-le-roy]

Art from The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion (Henry Darger, 20th century). (via MoMA)

[agirlnamedbone]

Henry Darger The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion (Volume 1) 1910–1938/39

[woundedwonder]

ᵍʳᵉᵃᵗ ⁿⁱᵍʰᵗˢ

[ccaptain]

History Fictionologists. Hierarchy & Becoming a ''being'':

I have mentioned in almost every single one of my posts that H:SR Kaeya has lived for what I estimate to be millennias after being turned into a ''being'' of the Enigmata, and had time to develope himself and make experiences mostly by himself. By now, he has enstabilished himself as a kind character, if not a bit weird, with strong morals oriented towards a justice that he perceives.

He defines himself as a Fictionologists, but this isn't the truth. As per usual with the Enigmata and anything involving it, nothing is that simple.

I have imagined that, in this Path, there is a non-spoken hierarchy made of two distinct roles:

- The History Fictionologists, composed mostly of human Emanators of the Enigmata who operate long-distance avatars made from many collected traits from multiple sources. They predominantly work on altering history on paper in their personal Archives. - The ''beings'' of the Enigmata, Emanators turned into non-humans selected by Mythos. Trained to burn away their past identity and turned into eternal creatures, they are essentially back-ups of the limited human Fictionologists and operate on shrouding history in lies with more active approaches. 

These two roles technically belong in the same category- but to a trained eye who knows Fictionologists from experience, ''beings'' will always be recognizable due to the uncanny vibes they emit and can be picked up by other humans.

''It'' is commonly referred to a ''being'' approaching this concept in the first stage, stripped bare of anything they have of value. Social manners. Emotions. Knowledge. Communication skills. A purpose. It's a creature that has returned to Level 0, having to re-learn everything from the bare bones in order to pass off as human. 

A loss of their previous identity is necessary to achieve the status of ''being'' for their safety: while human Fictionologists can create entirely new avatars without the truth about them being revealed and causing them harm, the identity of a ''being'' being shone truth on would vanish as a whole- ''beings'' do not use a long-distance avatar, instead becoming one themselves. And thus, they need their previous identities to whittle away to make them unfoggable- eternally present, a forever unresolved mistery and a threat to those who think the human mind is strong enough to face the truth. To discover the truth behind someone's avatar is to erase it- for ''beings'', the stakes are much higher, and thus this process may seem cruel, but necessary.

The stages of a ''being'' have three phases, named as such by fascinated human Fictionologists:

Level 0, also called the Morphing Phase. The individual enters a slow process of degradation of the self that strips away anything related to their previous personality and identity they had, and morphs them into a new, clean slate with only the basic knowledge attached to what remains of them. It can be a very slow process and varies from person to person.  Level 1, also called Screening Phase. The ''being'' stemmed from the Morphing Phase needs to either re-learn by themselves or be taught again how to properly pass off as a normal human, before it can begin any sort of mission; for everything that they learn, whatever was left of their previous identity, if there were any remnants left of it, is further discarded as they become an entirely different thing. This process has been observed to be significantly sped up by turning oneself into an avatar, as the ''being'' absorbs the knowledge along with whatever traits they select; the name of this phase derives from the word screen as a verb, aka to block, protect or hide someone or something with a screen- related to how gaining different traits as a new avatar effectively acts as if the ''being'' was putting a ''screen'' in front of their true identity. Level 2, commonly paired and also at odds with Level 3, doesn't have a proper name: this was often a point of friction among the Fictionologists, who wanted the last two agents, Riddle and Mirage, to be somehow paired together in a new name to more easilbe able to group. However, after observing the ''beings'' for so long, it has been concluded that their behavior cannot be grouped under a singular name. Some of the ''beings'' grow to naturally pick the Riddle aspect, choosing to spread falselihood through voice and difficult guessing games that often reach a different branch of lies instead of the truth, where others grow closer to the Mirage one- using more tangible methods, such as manuscripts, recounts of historical events on papers, and even visual alterations of historical trinkets. Beings who are able to manipulate both subpaths are considered ''extraordinary'' and held in high regards. At some point, they can even become mentors themselves.

Once a ''being'' has reached the end of the Morphing level, it's usually paired with either a single human Fictionologist, who has expressed interest in teaching to ''it'' until a satisfying level of knowledge is reached, and to document the experience- or with a group of Fictionologists who were extremely attuned in working as a team, in order to not give contrasting instructions to the ''being''.

The Screening Phase can last weeks, months or even years. Every ''being'' takes its time to learn, and every human Fictionologist has their methods to teach. If an human and a ''being'' clash, the ''being'' is immediately reassigned to another proper human teacher in order not to hinder the process too much.

When Level 2, aka the successful ''screening'' is complete through becoming an avatar, the ''being'' is sufficiently proficient in mimicking that it can essentially ''graduate'' and be sent in the outside world to undertake the task of directly shroud history- thus engaging in Level 2 or 3 based on what they feel more inclined to take.

That being said, usually an human Fictionologist and the ''being'' they taught to usually stay in good terms. There are reports of Fictionologists essentially becoming friends or becoming found family for the ''beings'', as they continue to be reported to. This is not frowned upon and has become the normality in how things work, in order for history to continue being shrouded both in writing and person.

[toestalucia]

beloved friends you should read main story archived right here before they announce the BIGGEST story update EVER when koregura for september hits (they will not announce it)

[frogsandfries]

I have officially typed the first twenty pages of The Realms of the Unreal.

It translates to thirty-two 8×11 pages of size 12 Georgia with 1.5 spacing and .6 margins (I couldn't decide between .5 and 75).

At this rate, I estimate that this volume alone will balloon from its current approximately 630 pages, to well over a thousand. Even after a basic cleanup (because I'm not paying attention to typing, I'm just transcribing and it's messy), I can't assume it would make that much difference. Anyway, you can follow my progress on Ao3. I don't know what's coming, so presently, I've set it to registered users only.

[yuthura-banns]

yeah i've been asleep for the past 900 years but i Promise i'm qualified to make decisions for The Entire World beacause i was napping very productively. i was Watching Opinions

[ai-dream]

[inthefallofasparrow]

Settle a dispute: I don't want to get into too much toxic blorbo discourse here, but if the 'Verge Escapement' series ever got adapted into film, who would be the best casting for Commander Mo Skerrick?

[deepseacityunderground]

i think one of the issues re/ ppl getting into useless moralizing discourse over kids shows like steven universe or even something more "adult" but still ultimately mainstream like hazbin hotel is that the ppl arguing about this have very small windows of reference for challening stories... if you expand your storytelling taste + learn about stories written 50+ years ago or stories written outside of your own culture then you will eventually come across stuff that does genuinely challenge or even upset you. but despite that you might also enjoy the stories you are experiencing. and by having this experience itll help teach you to differentiate between "this story is flawed and contains elements that would be seen as offensive in my own time and culture buts ultimately goodhearted" and "this story has some unfortunate and very clear systemic biases but they add to the story being told and may act as a core component of it" and "this story is actively hateful but has some good elements" and "this story is iredeemable trash". but if you never actually experience the full spectrum of Problematic Media then you can never learn just what that looks like.

[heyitsrink]

Me using my own fan art to argue with Robin Hobb about the inherent queerness of her characters

[haleigh-sloth]

I really look forward to mha finishing because I'm following several other series I just haven't had the mental capacity to read for months and will finally be able to do that again, and I can read some finished stories on my list like Delicious Dungeon

Surprisingly the only manga that hasn't taken a blow to my lack of capacity is Oshi no Ko