#one last comic before university hits me like a bulldozer

[meowmeow1meow]

buzz 7.11/dinahs introduction was prob my fav in the story

[infini-tree]

FANFIC: against all odds - part 4

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Summary: Moments of relative ease while they were on the run.

A/N: alternate title - haha! i tricked you all into reading my personal headcanons on the pmd universe!

I feel like there’s a vague theme, but for the life of me I can’t put words to it. This has also been sitting in my drafts for a while. How much can I write for just the fugitive arc plot point? According to the word count, over 5,000 words.

_________________________

I can’t fight. You don’t know how to manage resources on the road. If I suddenly wake up in a dungeon or we’re in peril, then I’ll do everything to switch back to you, but you have to agree to switching back when we’re just traveling. Our survival may depend on it.

Guildmaster of the Jerome Horwitz Guild,

Krupp leaned back, inspecting the writing with a frown. Was it stupid to sign a note he scrawled in the dirt in his own pine needles? Perhaps. 

He signed it anyway. Listen, if he had to rank the absurdity of the events so far, this would be dead last.

The abomasnow shuffled to his feet. It was late night and this was the only time he would have to himself. He gaze shifted to the dying fire, to the two boys sleeping soundly. He lumbered his way over to the campfire to feed it a few more sticks and some fallen pine needles.

(Morbid as it was, they made excellent firestarters.)

Satisfied with the size of the flame, he made his hasty retreat from the heat. Back to the message he scrawled to the dirt. Well, it was now or later, and later happened to have the boys being awake and nosy.

How had those miscreants made him switch over? Harold managed it by making the static around him crackle in a specific way, but George--

He brought a thumb and finger together. Here goes... everything.

Snap.

_________________________

He didn’t like thinking about the day he evolved. 

Under most circumstances, it should have been a happy time; certain families would make a big show of it, or at least gave congratulations. The ability to do so was in constant flux along with the waxing and waning of major disasters, so everyone treated it as something unlikely and miraculous every time.

It had been cold, but then again it was always cold at the family orchard. All he could remember was being so angry, and if his heart hadn’t froze then, then the look his mother gave him completely iced it over to protect it. To salve the pain.

(But it was still in there, thawing the ice from the inside.)

The moments after that were a blur; the ice that made a vice grip around his heart made his way into his veins, to each needle, made him glow so bright that it could’ve caused snow-blindness.

And then he had the power to protect himself.

It was a strange comparison to make, but switching over to the other guy-- it felt like that rush of emotion and power. Instead of the cold and anger, it was... the only thing he could describe it was alive, the joy of it. The fierce determination to protect that. It was foreign and terrifying to him.

He came back to his blunt claws caked in dirt and strange markings. It took too long to realize that it was writing.

It looked so minimalist, what with its lines looking all the same. Even between the curves and the straight lines, there was no rhyme or reason to the shapes of the letters.

It took even longer to realize that he could read it.

Not to worry, Guildmaster!

_________________________

Sometimes, a part of him wondered if the other guy felt like turning to him was a disappointment-- if he felt this way when he switched over, then the reverse must be true.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but he didn’t have much time to think about it as George and Harold were running headfirst into a mystery dungeon that was starting to form, he just looked away for five minutes--

(True to their agreement, he snapped his fingers. He jolted up in an unfamiliar clearing, in strange clothes, with the boys giving him concerned looks that it made something in his heart twinge.

And then, recalling that he left most of the supplies back at the previous camp when he ran in to catch them, and the something was doused.)

_________________________

Sometimes luck was on their side. Sometimes the dungeons were short, and sometimes there was swaths of apple trees at the end.

Despite all that, Krupp couldn’t help but be the pessimistic one-- someone had to be. Short dungeons meant they couldn’t stay for long; those hunting for them would bulldoze through the floors, no matter how tricky the dungeon was. 

Plus, he didn’t like the look of the trees here. Each and every one of them were identical-- it was a weird byproduct of taking root at the epicenter of a dungeon.

Still, food was food. He made his way over to the one the boys were trying to coax fruit out of. At first they tried to climb it, but the strangeness of the dungeon left the bark slightly less textured and with no footholds.

Now, they were trying to cut it down, taking turns tackling-- and in George’s case-- hitting it with iron tail.

The abomasnow rolled his eyes. “Get out of the way,” he grumbled. The needles on his back raised, and suddenly there were a quartet of ice shards.

George stared at him, crossing his arms. “If our attacks couldn’t do anything, what makes you think those little thing--”

The shards shot up the tree and wove through the branches. After a few moments, several apples with frostbitten stems fell down. One even managed to hit him in the head. The force was strong enough to impale itself against the pine needles.

Harold snickered before another apple hit him on the head. Considering the amount of wool, it was less of a hit, and more of a...

Well, it was lodged deep in the wool.

Krupp barked out a short laugh before realizing where he was and who he was. He clapped a hand to his mouth, attempting to play it off as a cough or-- or something else. Anything else.

His plan to scarf down one of the apples and feign choking quickly fizzled as the boys at each other in quiet disbelief, and then to him. They noticed. Of course, the miscreants who thrived off pranks, and by extension the laughter that came from it, noticed. It was stupid to think otherwise.

“Just,” he ran a hand down his face, hand outstretched towards the mareep. “Just hand the apples over so I can bag everything up and we can move on.”

From this place, from his stupid, stupid fumble.

Harold’s mouth quirked mischievously before he shook, sending the apple-- and everything else that was lodged in his wool-- flying.

(So that’s where they kept their comic supplies, he remembered thinking, before frustration took precedence over sated curiosity.)

_________________________

“How’d you do the thing?” George asked. 

The noonday sun was high and sweltering. This meant that the boys started their routine of what he liked to call We’re Not Technically Touching You So You Can’t Complain, where they would walk as close to him as they could get away with, before backing away before he noticed.

“What thing?” he grumbled, flicking away the meltwater.

“You know, the thing with the ice shards,” Harold offered. “The-- you know, whoosh, whoosh!” To emphasize his point, he jumped from side to side, pantomiming how it wove through the branches.

The words come out much easier than he expected, or wanted to. “You don’t grow up on an orchard without learning how to get the season’s stock off as quickly as possible.” He shrugged, sending some melting snow careening to the ground.

The boys thought about it. George looked off to the mountains in the distance, but Harold was looking right at him. For a moment he could have sworn that there was something he could only describe as recognition in his eyes, but he nodded and it was gone. 

“You know that’s not what we meant.” The snivy kicked a rock. It was sent careening off into the grass, and his shoulders dropped in slight disappointment.

“What, you want demonstrations now?” the abomasnow raised a brow. “You barely listened to anything at school!”

“Yeah, because no one’s teaching us stuff like that!” George shot back, raising his arms up to emphasize his point. “The most complicated thing Meaner’s ever taught us is don’t get hit!”

Krupp couldn’t help but wince. That might explain... a lot, actually. “I don’t know what to tell you, but that was just-- I don’t know, a thing.”

“How were you a Guildmaster for this long,” Harold shook his head, and he knew he was baiting him. They’ve been on the road long enough that the abomasnow could figure out their tells, how to tell the difference between staged theatrics and genuine emotion.

And here he was, falling for it hook, line, and sinker. 

The soil beneath his feet freeze-dried at every step. “Fine, you want a lesson?” He shrugged, and this time the snow and frost tumbled down with purpose before forming a few shards. 

“You either are naturally strong and can bulldoze through anything--”

“Like Captain Underpants!” Harold chimed in.

“Yeah, him.” He rolled his eyes. “Or you get creative with weak moves.”

He let the shards weave around the boys as they walked-- not too close, or else they would get frostbite, and not too fast, or they might get hurt if they moved suddenly. 

Just enough so they would stay cool.

“Maneuverability’s just a matter of endurance and concentration.”

He didn’t need to look back to see the boys make a face.

(In any case, Krupp considered this a victory. They wouldn’t need to huddle so close to him now, and hopefully that was enough to stop their prying questions regarding it.)

[jackyjango]

Dark Phoenix Review

I saw Dark Phoenix yesterday and I wanted to bank in my reactions until Saturday, because many more would have watched the film by then, but it turns out that I’m not very good at keeping my opinions to myself. I almost didn’t sleep the whole night (which isn’t healthy. lol)

So I’ll empty my guts here and leave it. You can read it now, or after you’ve watched the movie or not at all. Life’s full of options.

Oh, and 1 more thing, spoilers come free with my opinions

Who is that man in a wheelchair with a bald head and? They say he’s Charles Xavier. Listen, you want to portray Charles in grey shades, be my guest. Charles does have many dark qualities. He’s prideful, he’s manipulative, but one thing he’s not is selfish. He wouldn’t put his interests before the lives of someone he loves and cares. In fact, one of Charles’ greatest downfall is that he loves and cares too much. The man who practically drunk himself to death over Raven leaving him doesn’t shed a tear when she dies, instead gives a speech on what a hero she was.That, to me is not Charles Xavier. You get to see the real Charles Xavier only for the first 5 and last 15 minutes of the film, which is quite a tragedy in itself.

Jean making Charles walk up a flight of stairs while he pleads for her to stop was SO painful to watch. I can hate this movie for that scene alone. Using Charles’ disability against him is all kinds of screwed up.

The Helmet and the wheelchair has become symbolic of Erik and Charles in a way. I understand Jean destroying both of those is metaphorical and all, but they could have done it without putting Charles through that pain and humiliation.

I absolutely don’t understand Raven’s characterisation. Now, she’s suddenly the one to lecture about family (She’s not Mystique anymore). Wasn’t she the one giving speeches on how they’re not kids anymore and that they need to fight and not hide behind walls? And suddenly, they’re kids all over again? (They’re in their late twenties for fuck’s sake) The friction between her and Charles is really tiring.

Telling a little girl that she was responsible for her mother’s death and that her father didn’t want her because he thought that she was a freak is apparently the right thing to do. Brave XMCU! Blaming Charles for hiding that truth away and sending them on dangerous missions while he stays back is a low blow (He didn’t think about himself when he passed out using the cerebro, did he Raven? Is that dangerous enough for you!!?) Urghhh! I won’t even understand that trajectory, so fuck it. It pisses me off to no end.

As I expected, the friction between Charles and Hank is just baseless. Blaming Charles for Raven’s death (come on man, that was an ACCIDENT!!!) and running away to kill Jean was contradicting. Because Raven dies trying to save Jean and Hank now wants to do everything that Raven would have done? (Uhhhh? Where is the logic, exactly?)

I don’t know who wrote that scene where Hank forces Charles to admit that Raven’s death was his fault, because I’m sure I’ll tear that person to shreds if I meet them) ‘Come on, man. Admit it. Admit it to me right now!’ It’s not a juvenile version of ‘Truth or Dare’ where you force your friend to admit that they have a crush on someone.

Hank and Erik “bonding” over the fact they both loved Raven. You know what, I don’t even want to get started on that shit trail.

Why portray Charles as an almost-alcoholic? Was it really required? What did you want to show? That he’s drowning his sorrows and short comings in alcohol.? Well, in order to do that, you have to portray his sorrows first, you geniuses. It’s some shitty story telling.

Why bring in the storyline of Quicksilver being Mag’s son when you’re not going to broach the topic at all? Not once, not even in passing.

Hey, you know what? I’m terrible at writing dialogues. I write shit dialogues. But I thought that I could write better dialogues than who ever has written it in this movie. And if I can write better than them, just imagine how bad it is: In no universe I know would Charles say things like, ‘Yep’ and ‘Damn it man’. And in no universe would Erik say, ‘Save your ‘old friend’ shit Charles’. Listen, Erik might be a lot of things, but he isn’t the one to disrespect relationships. Above all else, Charles is the only meaningful relationship he has in his life (and need not be in a romantic way). He would in no way disrespect it. ‘So… yeah, I have killed people’ IS THAT THE BEST DIALOGUE YOU COULD HAVE COME UP WITH, YOU IDIOTS!? Bad dialogues are not new to the X-Men movies, but the actors have always pulled them off. Some of them in this are so bad that even James and Michael sound stupid saying it.

Some scenes are so bad that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Jean just taking off after Raven dies. That’s so uncharacteristic!! You would shoo away a dog better than how Erik sends Jean away from Genosha.’Go! Leave now!’ Really? I almost died out of second hand embarrassment.

The aliens feel SO WEIRD in an X-Men movie. I thought I could get used to the idea, but… no. Didn't happen. You simply cannot associate aliens with an X-Men movie. Avengers, sure. Just not an X-Men movie. It’s not a bad thing necessarily, just weird.

No matter what, I can’t root for Jean and Scott’s relationship in this. The chemistry just falls flat. They look more like brother and sister. And since their relationship plays an important role, that whole branch of that arc doesn't entice me at all.

The trope of ‘someone important in Erik’s life dying to turn him bad again’ isn’t cute the fourth time around.

I knew the ending even before I went to see the movie, so I knew that Charles would leave his school to Scott (as it is in the comics), and I was thrilled at the prospect of cherik being canon. While I’m thrilled for the cherik ending, I feel like Charles was almost forced out of his own school. Okay, he lied to Jean to protect her from the truth, so what, he’s not fit to be a teacher anymore? He’s not the same man who guided and gave you guys a home and showed you how to control your powers, you ungrateful shits? There should have been some sort of closure where Charles chooses to retire voluntarily and says goodbye before leaving.

Well, there ARE some really good aspects to the movie as well. It’s not completely bad. I really enjoyed it in many ways:

The movie is actually centred around Jean, start to end. It shows her struggling with her powers and the story doesn’t stray away from her, so that’s definitely done better than last stand, where Jean was just a fuming bulldozer. I also love how powerful they’ve portrayed her to be.

Genosha is really nice and I especially like Erik’s flat/container/living situation. It’s very rusty and cool. Suits him (I would like that very narrow single bed to turn into a double bed once Charles is there) I also loved Erik’s and Charles’ wardrobes. (Though I prefer Charles in cardigans, suits do him good)

I didn’t like the fight sequence in New York because there were too many unwanted things going on, but I did like the fight sequence in the train. Mags especially! AWESOME!!

All of them fighting together. That’s what I always wanted.

The music is really good. But that’s expected from Hans Zimmers.

These movies would have hit rock bottom if not for the actors. Sophie is AMAZING!! Everyone as well. But Sophie stands out.

The officers in the train scene who are transporting the x-men are called ‘Mutant Containment Unit’. In short, they have MCU (also known as Marvel Cinematic Universe) plastered on their uniforms. Erik telling them ‘you need us’ was brilliant. If it was intentionally put in there, it’s a stroke of genius, else it’s just luck.

There’s a scene in the train sequence where Erik protects Charles, Scott and Jean by closing the compartment they’re in with metal. I literally clapped my hands. Similar to what Sir Ian did it in ‘Days of Future Past’. Not as obvious and grandiose in gesture as the ‘X’ in XMA, but it’s enough to satisfy my little cherik heart. 

I LOVED the chess proposal at the end!! And when Erik said, ‘You gave me a home once and I’d like to return the favour’ I think my heart exploded in my chest. If your OTP flirting with each other in the city of love while one proposes of moving in doesn’t make them canon, then I don’t know what does!!

In short, you’ll love the movie if you only love Jean Grey and Raven. If you love everyone else along with them, well…tough luck.

I said that I’ll be happy as long as they give me a cherik ending.

They did give me a cherik ending and all I want now is to read a fic where Charles and Erik are cuddled up on Erik’s very narrow bed while Erik re-assures Charles with kisses that nothing was his fault. (I’ve deleted the part where Charles loses his hair in XMA from my brain, so Charles still has his luscious locks intact in this fic I want to read)

It’s certainly a private joke to me that 19 years of X-Men ended with cherik being canon. The thing with X-Men, you can love it and hate it at the same time and somehow not get tired of it.

[jasecomplex]

Death By Astonishment

The following is a real story about psychedelic drug use, if the subject matter bothers you please refrain from continuing. It’s important that the reader be at least somewhat familiar with what DMT is in order for any of this to make any kind of sense, I realize that in order to have found this report you're likely well acquainted with the subject, but I want for everyone to be able to appreciate this. Dimethyltryptamine, (DMT) is the most powerful class of psychadelics we are currently aware of. It also happens to be endogenously produced, meaning our bodies actually produce the compound, so from the moment you’re born to the moment you die you have the most powerful psychedelic drug in your brain, so do all mammals as far as I know. It is thought to be the cause of dreams, near death experiences and some alien abduction stories. The typical "smoked" freebase DMT trip is very fast in onset and very short lasting, usually around 15 minutes in total. The molecule is destroyed by the monoamine oxidase in your stomach before it's able to pass your blood brain barrier and have the desired effect. Combining DMT with an MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) allows it to be ingested orally, this is known as ayahuasca, which I'm led to believe has become quite popular among the yuppie class who like to travel to South America to exploit the last remaining vestages of an ancient land, ritual and people before they're all bulldozed over for that sweet sweet palm oil. (I kid, I kid.) My only experience is with DMT freebase. The MAOI in ayahuasca typically leads to severe gastrointestinal distress, pain, diarrhea, and vomiting are typical of the experience, and I'm not all that interested in shitting and puking my brains out as they are simultaneously sucked into the interstellar vacuum. There are multiple “levels” of the DMT trip, the most intense being what’s known as a “breakthough” dose, which is said to be the most powerful experience a person can have, after having been through it, I’m inclined to agree.

I want to note that I did not undertake this experience as a rank amateur. At this point in my psychedelic journey I was smoking DMT at least once a week and had well over dozen trips under my belt, as well as several acid trips, mushroom trips, mdma, and 2cb. You could say I fancied myself a psychonaut who could handle his shit. I have since been humbled.

Like many people who have tried getting into DMT, I was having no luck actually breaking through, I would get close, but never actually to the point of a full breakthrough experience. I thought that maybe I had broken through a couple of times, but one thing I’ve since come to realize is that there is no “maybe” to a breakthrough experience, if you have to ask upon exiting a DMT trip, “Did I break through?” the answer is no. You did not.

One thing that I feel obligated to get out of the way now is that this effort of mine, to describe my experience will be a colossal failure. I will do my best, but I will fall short, language is simply insufficient to convey a breakthrough experience to someone who hasn’t had the experience. I like to think of describing a breakthrough as trying to describe a 3 dimensional object you’ve never seen by a memory of its shadow. That being said, there will be no hyperbole in the following paragraphs, everything will be described to the best of my abilities. The gravity of the situation cannot be overstated, this is an experience that changed me at my core, an experience that shattered my perceptions of the universe and scattered the powdered remnants into the cosmic wind. The report will be split into two parts, the first will entail the experience as I remember it, not necessarily in the exact chronological order in which they occurred, time is a bit strange in the DMT world, and I've pieced what I can remember into a series of events that to me makes sense. The second part will be about how I have processed this experience over the past couple of years (yes, it has taken me that long to finally feel comfortable writing up a report), and how it has changed my core beliefs involving religion, consciousness, and indeed existence itself.

Part One: The Experience

It was a hot summer Saturday, my wife was at work and I was home alone with nothing to do, so I decided dropping some acid would be a good way to spend the day. I had recently gotten some 120μg tabs and I decided 2 would be a good dose, as one never seems to do all that much to me. One thing I love doing while on acid is listening to Terence McKenna, his way of speaking, the lateral thinking he displays and the novel ideas he puts forth are always more entertaining and inspiring to me while on acid. On this fateful day I happened to come across a video in which he describes smoking DMT while peaking on acid, and it seemed to make breaking through much easier, and I happened to have a stash of DMT and was nearing the 4 hour mark of my trip. In hindsight the hubris that follows is almost comical. I nonchalantly got my bong out, spread a layer of cannabis in the bowl, measured out 50mg of DMT, and put another layer of cannabis over the DMT. For any not in the know, the purpose of the cannabis was less to add to the high and more to protect and absorb the DMT, DMT is destroyed by open flames and becomes liquid when heated, so the bottom layer absorbs the liquid and stops it from just running into the water while the top layer keeps the flame from directly contacting your expensive DMT. When you "smoke" DMT you're actually vaporizing it, combustion destroys it.

I looked at the clock on my stove, which I can see from the living room, 4:32. I flicked my bic, placed the flame to the bowl and inhaled as deeply as I could. One hit. One hit is all I was ABLE to do, as before I even remember exhaling I was gone, I don't know if I coughed, I don't know how long I was able to hold it in. Fast is an entirely insufficient adjective to describe how fast freebase DMT hits you, especially when you're already peaking on LSD. It doesn't seem physically possible how fast it hits you, it's as if your brain starts dumping it endogenously in preparation for the freebase that's about to hit it, it's the closest thing to an instantaneous effect I've ever felt. I just messed up, bad. This is something entirely different from the experiences I've known to this point, this was somehow REAL, this combination had done something to alter the very fabric of reality, and I knew immediately that I had made a huge mistake. I remember looking at the purple and orange, sun and moon tie-dye tapestry we have hanging on our wall (yes we're hippies, get over it) and having the colors and spiral shape spread across the entire room, with every piece of furniture taking on orange and purple colors, and then distorting and spiraling upwards as if I were about to receive a visit from the Cat in the Hat. The visitor I actually received was far less pedestrian than a talking cat from a Dr. Seuss story. This orange and purple spiraling was the only open eye visual I managed to see, as immediately after taking the hit I fell back on our old futon and was no longer able to hold my eyes open. Eyes closed, mind opened.

Everything was black and eerily silent at first as I felt myself begin to be pulled/pushed upwards, away from my body. Looking up I saw blackness, with a pinprick of white, this white was what I was floating towards, slowly, and inexorably. I looked down, I could see… myself, my body, the crappy futon that had long outstayed its welcome, there was a hole in my ceiling through which I could see myself getting smaller as I moved upwards towards the waiting unknown. That’s when the real terror began. I knew I was never coming back, that my wife was going to come home and find me comatose, and that old futon that I hated so much would be where I died. I was going to leave my wife alone, forcing her to find me in that condition, scarring her for life because I had thought myself capable of concomitant psychedelic use when nothing was further from the truth. I felt powerless, stupid, selfish, I hated myself in that moment. This was terrifying, because I knew it was real, there was no doubt in my mind. As I continued being pulled from above and pushed from below, getting further and further from my body the layers of myself began peeling away. Slowly, every aspect of me that I could call “me” was being discarded, the last part of myself that I desperately clung to was my wife, the memories of her, both of loving tenderness and bitter arguments, I didn’t want to lose her, she had to be forcibly torn from my grasp, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. This was ego death, this was me dying, and from this point on I didn’t really consider myself to be myself, there was no ego attached to me with which perceive the event. I will continue to use “I” and “my" but that’s only because that’s how our memory works, I wasn’t me anymore, I understand the confusing, and unintuitive nature of this perspective, of being conscious, of witnessing, participating, thinking, reacting, and feeling without an "I" to be. With the fading of my ego came the fading of my resolve to cling to myself, and with much fear and trepidation of what was to follow, I finally let go of myself completely, I allowed myself to die. Once I let go, and accepted my dying, an overwhelming calm swept across me and the pervasive blackness all around began teeming with activity, light, and voices. These voices, singular in tone and pitch and yet innumerable in repetition and seeming sources were feminine in energy, maternal, and loving. The love I felt from those voices, the care, the worry for me, I’ll forever hold onto that feeling, there was a genuine, unabashedly accepting quality that left no doubt in my mind that the amount of love they felt for me was complete. The voices kept repeating the same mantras “We just don’t know, we don’t know, we just don’t know.” And though the words were vague, the meaning was crystal clear and unambiguous to me. They didn’t know what was on the other side, and they were sending me to find out, they were worried about me, they loved me and didn’t want any harm to befall me, but they were grateful that I was going to find out, that I had volunteered. For some reason I have always attached the name "Gaia" to these voices, they seemed to belong to the earth itself somehow.

As I looked down again I could no longer see myself, instead what presented was ethereal, green, verdant energy in wafting tendrils like a kelp forest composed of light, swaying gently in calm sea. There were spots of light in all colors, photons slowed to crawl so that I could examine them, appreciate them, name them individually. I then turned my attention upwards and the pinprick of white light had grown exponentially and was now a shimmering white wall, pulling me towards it, beckoning me to enter it and behold the majesty within. There was a voice on the other side, masculine, less kind and loving than the one that had ushered me to this point, but far from malicious.

As I came to the wall the light that had surrounded me again faded to blackness and the loving voices stopped. What I could hear now from the wall was a continuous, low humming sound that didn’t grow louder as I neared it, but somehow fuller, more complete, as if it were a frequency that had begun resonating inside of my mind. As I neared the wall I began to feel a tingling sensation from being near it, as if it were composed of a static electric charge. I entered the wall, it didn't open for me, but I was able to pass through with no resistance. As I did there was a crinkling, crackling noise, reminiscent of a potato chip bag crumpling. My vision was entirely white, I passed through it.

The sight I was confronted with directly on the other side should have left me mortified, but it didn’t. There, suspended in space was my own decapitated head, but it wasn’t macabre or gruesome in any sense. My head was being used as a projector, images beaming out of my eyes showing my life playing out, the stresses, pains, and pleasures I’ve enjoyed and endured. Then the voice spoke up, there was no body to this voice, it was a calm, masculine, objective sounding voice, no love, but no malice either, it said to me “This is what it took” and a set of images played out that he seemed to control. These images were my own memories, of times I’ve displayed curiosity in the face of adversity, how I’ve shown courage, made sacrifices and refused to believe what I was told, choosing to find out for myself. Simply in getting here I had to make myself an enemy of the culture in which I live, a criminal, ostracized and having to keep who I truly am under wraps from family and coworkers. I am brave, perhaps a bit foolhardy at times, but I have shown a sense of courage that most are unwilling to match. It should be known that I have severe depression, and don’t often think positively about myself. I considered myself a coward, weak, and deserving of the ostracism I fear. Being shown all of these things that are undeniably true, and also positive, filled me with a heretofore unknown sense of satisfaction with myself, who I am, who I am becoming, how I think, and how I think about my thoughts. I’ve never had myself shown to me in such an objective light. He wasn’t trying to make me feel good, he was simply showing me who I am, who I was in life. Indeed if I were a different person, with a different set of experiences, if I were an abusive, Machiavellian, greedy, and all around shitty person, being shown my life’s actions without the filter of my ego would have been hell. Bad people aren’t bad in their minds, they have justifications for their actions that allows them to hold onto the myth that they are decent people. This entity’s purpose seemed to be to show those who come to him who they are, objectively, without emotion, without justification.

When he was finished there was a loud, echoing snap noise, someone snapping their fingers in a cave. At this sound, I dissolved. Each and every molecule and atom of my being separated and dispersed throughout the universe, I was nothing, I was everything. “I am God.” Just like that, with three tiny, prodigious words, everything I knew as a devout secular atheist vanished. How can I say there is no God when I AM God? What is God? God is existence, God is consciousness, and I am God. Before my eyes was laid infinity, the scope, the scale, the grandeur of the universe, it was too much to handle but I had no choice, it was there and so was I. This is the part of the trip that sadly has lost the most detail, I’m left with more of an absolute impression than the individual details. I recall traveling vast distances, visiting distant worlds and observing alien life. I saw the Mandelbrot of existence in its entirety all at once, viewing every individual fractal spire in intimate, individual detail while simultaneously marveling at the beauty and immensity of the image as a whole. I was pervasive throughout the Universe and could travel wherever I wanted at a whim, instantly. I knew everything, I watched stars go from disparate gas clouds to supernovae, seeing every second of their lives in an instant. This was pure happiness, knowledge on a scale impossible to contain in a human mind. I then began falling, slowly at first, accelerating constantly.

I didn’t pass through any of the “levels” I had crossed when coming, instead I fell into blackness, but I was falling from every direction, the atoms composing my being returning from their cosmic diaspora, coalescing back into myself, and as I fell I became myself again. Piece by piece I began to remember who and what I was, I looked down and I was falling towards the Earth, I could again see my body through a hole in my roof, I was falling towards it with the acceleration of gravity. I passed through my roof, then my ceiling, I landed back inside of myself and immediately opened my eyes and inhaled deeply, awake, aware. I looked around the room, everything was tinted green, the walls were covered in impossible constantly transforming opalescent geometric patterns, I looked at one of my dogs, Spicy, a short, squat bulldog/pitbull mix, someone had clearly been having fun in photoshop with her, colors and contrast altered unnaturally, her brindle pattern fuzzing into the air itself, she was a spectrum of matter fading into nothing at the edges, and I said out loud “Thank God, everything is back to normal.” Compared to where I just was this was normal, this was the reality I know, just altered somewhat. I looked at the clock, 4:37. 5 minutes. All of that happened in the course of 5 minutes, coming out it felt like literal weeks, while I was there time seemed not to exist at all, or at least not in the linear way we know it. But I was back, after knowing for sure that I wouldn’t be, and I was happy, I couldn’t wait for my wife to get home, to hug her, to know for sure that I came back and everything was the same. But nothing has been the same, how could it be after what I’ve experienced? I truly see the world differently, my core beliefs, altered irreparably by a 5 minute experience. This was by far the most terrifying event in my life, I died, that’s not hyperbole, I lost who I was and thought I would never get it back. Scary though it may have been, it was also by far and away the most powerful experience I’ve ever had, this is an experience that redefined the words “power” and “awe” for me, I didn’t know what those words meant, the true definitions aren’t to be found in a dictionary, they must be experienced to be  comprehended. Do I regret my irresponsible actions, putting myself into a situation I wasn’t ready for? Absolutely not, I can’t say this experience was one I necessarily enjoyed in the moment, but I haven’t regretted doing it for even one second. Would I have done it if I had known what I was in for? Absolutely not, I haven’t repeated this combination because every time I think about doing it I’m viciously aware of what I’m likely to go through, that kills the desire outright, it’s scary as hell now that I know. Do I recommend anyone else combine LSD and DMT? Absolutely not, I only say this because of how immensely terrifying the experience was, I’m not going to stop anyone from going down the road I went down. but I cannot in good conscience recommend someone else repeat my actions, this is a decision to be made by mature adults, for themselves, you are the master of your own destiny and will reap what you sow. Will I do it again? I’d like to think yes, but not anytime soon I’m honestly scared of DMT now, it was my favorite drug from the moment I got my first good hit (despite the taste) I’ve now done it 3 times in the past two years, despite it being right there, beckoning. Was this an overall positive experience? Absolutely, no single experience has changed my thought processes and opened my mind more than this one, I really think I learned more about this universe in that single trip than in all my years of school.

If you are thinking of trying this combination, it’s imperative that you have ample experience with both LSD and DMT separately, and remember that it’s not LSD *plus* DMT, it’s LSD *times* DMT. One piece of advice for anyone embarking on this journey, just let go, you will come back, don’t cling to yourself, your loved ones, or anything in this world that you deem important, you’re leaving all of that behind when you agree to take these molecules into your body, it’s not a decision to make lightly.

Part 2: Processing

It’s now been 2 full years since this experience, and I’m not sure if I’ve gone 8 full hours without thinking about it at least once. This was a legitimate religious experience. I didn’t think religious experiences were actually possible until I had one. The term had the same significance to me as the term “fairy tale”. Now it carries more significance than I'm sure it does to 90% of devout Christians, a truly religious experience is far more profound to the individual than anything that can be found in the Bible.

Now, on being God. This whole “I am God” thing really threw me for a loop and I had to think a long, long time about what that meant. Do I think I’m the Christian God? No, I don’t believe in the Christian God, I don’t believe I’m anymore God than anyone else, but I think everyone else is also God. God is existence, consciousness. It’s not some separate entity to be worshipped, because everything is God. I believe Our brains do not generate consciousness, rather consciousness is a dimension and our brains tune into it like radios of sorts. All matter is conscious on some level, everything that exists knows on some level that it exists, what it is, and how it should behave. That "level" is dependent on the level of complexity, a giant boulder is far less complex than the inch worm crawling across its surface, and as a result the inch worm, despite being far smaller, and containing far fewer atoms is on a higher level of consciousness. The reason we are “more” conscious than other animals is that we are more complex than other animals, specifically in our brains. Were we to create a machine or program (or more likely a combination) that is as complex as the human body, with the complexity of our neural network it would be as conscious as we are.

This experience, coupled with the knowledge that DMT is endogenously produced, and there can indeed be endogenous DMT trips, has led me to a rather left field theory concerning religion in general. All religions have their base in endogenous DMT trips. At least all religions concerning religious experiences. Essentially my charge is that religions are just perverse, high stakes versions of the telephone game we played as children. One person had an endogenous DMT trip, told people about it as best they were able, those people then relayed the experience to others, minus or plus certain details, and thus a belief is born and subsequently spread. Then some people gathered many different experiences and beliefs and wove them into a single story, a religion. This of course would require the original stories to be extensively bastardized and warped to fit a specific intent. However genuine the origin, religion seems to draw the very worst type of people to lead them, and within a few generations the true story is lost to a strict set of rules and limitations. I’m not a fan of religion. So many people killed, tortured, persecuted, immolated, exiled and all other manners of brutality and humiliation, for nothing. Since this experience I’ve done more open minded research on religion than I had in my life up to this point, and I’ve come to a pretty unsurprising conclusion; all religions are wrong. Some are less wrong than others, Buddhism, in my opinion (and at my current knowledge level) is the closest to being correct, and much can be learned from the teachings of Buddha, specifically on the psychological implications of his beliefs on happiness and suffering. Regardless of your personal religious beliefs you would benefit from studying Buddhism and incorporating many of the philosophies into your own personal grand unified theory. In fact, based on the reading I've done, I 8think that there are more truths to be found in general with religions based on philosophy moreso than religious experience, wonder why? Now I could be entirely wrong here, and I go through life knowing that at any moment a piece of information could come along that would require a complete rethinking, beliefs should be transient and subject to information. Base the beliefs you accept on the information you have, don’t base the information you accept on the beliefs you have.

One thing that I cannot shake is the similarity between my experience and some stories I’ve heard in some religions. Most notably the entity who showed me my life, if other people have met this entity before, I could very well see him being the origin of the “Peter at the gates of Heaven” story (and every other similar myth, of which there are several) judging your life, determining whether you get into Heaven or Hell. Like I said, if I had been an awful person, this experience would have been hell, and were I the most virtuous, least flawed person on the planet it would have been Heaven. As it is I’m a decent person, I’ve done things I regret, but overall I am a good, kind, just, and honest person, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it Heaven, it was closer to Heaven than Hell.

Could this have just been a drug induced hallucination with no significance beyond that? Certainly, and I never allow myself to forget that possibility. However, anyone who thinks there is no significance to these experiences beyond interesting, purely chemical alterations of brain chemistry and neural pathways is someone I can almost guarantee hasn't had an experience on this level. You can’t see what I’ve seen and felt what I’ve felt and say it’s just the drugs, you can’t have traveled distances and beheld scales which dwarf everything you thought possible and think “I was just high.” I had no idea that a person could endure an experience so powerful, but I have, I know they exist, and I’m somewhat saddened by how few ever get to see and experience an event so intense so utterly astonishing. Falling in love, marriage, the birth of a child, losing the one most cherished to you, these are are all experiences that are bound to be powerful and have profound effects on a person, none of these hold a candle to a breakthrough. I’m not trying to offend any parents or people who have lost loved ones in saying this, but I’m convinced that there is nothing that can happen in a normal human life that’s as intense, strange, and indescribable as a breakthrough. If there is an experience more powerful, I don’t think I’m interested in having it.

I no longer fear death. Before this experience, being a secular, naturalist atheist, my biggest fear was death, but now that I’ve been on the other side, seen what there is, I no longer fear it. I do think there is more to this universe than we can see before us, and I don’t think oblivion follows this life. If you’re reading this, congratulations, you’re alive, try to enjoy it, and don’t reduce the joy of others. Just try not to live in fear of the end, you’ll be amazed at what’s on the other side, it’s more than you could ever imagine.

@JaseComplex

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Antiheroes, Theodore Sturgeon, A. E. van Vogt, Dreadstar

Popular Culture (Adam Lane Smith): Much has been made about the oft-lamented shift from Hero to Antihero and the modern obsession with romanticizing evil. Most frequently, I’ve heard this complaint directed at modern western media’s fixation on selecting one unyielding human trash fire after another as every main character. There’s a reason modern book sales and movie sales are struggling. To understand the shift over the last hundred years of stories and main characters, one must understand the cultural environments and the mental aspects at play, particularly attachment formation and its impact on society.

  Writing (Rawle Nyanzi): With every passing day, it seems that global pop culture disappoints us more. Classic franchises are vandalized into self-parodies to “modernize” them, creative talent increasingly treats fandoms as the enemy, and geek-oriented media champion the intimidation and silencing of creatives who don’t toe a very particular ideological line. The Pulp Mindset is not a book on how to make millions with one simple trick. It is not a book about gaming Amazon’s ever-changing algorithm. It is a book about having the right mentality for storytelling.

Hugo Awards (Dark Herald): This years Hugos went so far beneath my radar I didn’t know they had happened. I think we have finally reached the point where a Hugo Award is actually damaging to an author’s reputation. Certainly, no one who loves Science Fiction will want to buy a book with the words Hugo Award winner on the cover. As you may know by now. George R.R. Martin hosted the 2020 Hugo Awards and he was apparently too old to be Woke.

Fiction (DMR Books): Now I don’t have to wait six months to release my collection! Necromancy in Nilztiria will be available in next month, and the cover illustration (which you can see to the left) is based upon “A Twisted Branch of Yggdrasil.” In this tale, the Norseman Hrolfgar and the Atlantean Deltor have been drawn through the labyrinths of time and space to the world of Nilztiria by a sorceress, who commands them to slay her enemy, Xaarxool the Necromancer. But as you can see this is no easy task, for Xaarxool has giant skeletons to defend him.

Fiction (Marzaat): Like most critics, he regards Sturgeon’s supreme strength as characterization. Sturgeon was allegedly good at seeing the cruelty behind civilization and the ways “conventional morality” (supposedly Sturgeon distinguished that from “fundamental ethical systems”) created anxieties and phobias hence some of his horror stories like “Bianca’s Hands”). Stableford contends Sturgeon never was onboard with John W. Campbell’s enthusiasm for science and technology. He suggests that Sturgeon’s “Killdozer!”, with its bulldozer under the control of a hostile alien force, is a hostile metaphor for that enthusiasm.

Fiction (Wasteland & Sky): Much credit should go author and editor Richard Paolinelli for all the work he has done in the Planetary Anthology series. After Superversive Press shuttered it looked unlikely that the project would ever be completed and was destined to be a what-if, but not only has Tuscany Bay released more volumes than Superversive did (and next month will have re-released all of Superversive’s old volumes), it has also carried the project into a whole new medium. That would be into the burgeoning audio book world.

History (Jon Mollison): The pre-history of the Americas is a true dark age – a time of great uncertainty and filled with mysteries for which we may never have solutions.  The most basic of these, who was the first to arrive, remains shrouded in conflicting narratives and contradictory evidence provided by scattered and controversial archaeology sites. The question assumes the Bering Straits Theory is the only one that holds water.  A rather sizable assumption given the dearth of evidence.  And the possible explanation lies in the stone-age sailing ship piloted by Thor Heyerdahl.

Dragon Awards (Dragoncon): In this three-part series, past Dragon Award recipients talk about their award-winning novels and their Dragon Awards experience. During this time, nothing provides a better escape from the world than diving into the pages of a Dragon Award winning novel. The Dragon Awards, launched in 2016 in tandem with Dragon Con’s 30th anniversary, allows readers, writers, publishers, and editors a way to recognize excellence in all things Science Fiction and Fantasy. These Awards are by the fans, for the fans, and are a chance to reward those who have made real contributions to SF, books, games, comics, and media.

Cinema (Other Master Cylinder): John Saxon was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, the first child of Antonio and Anna Orrico. His mother was born in Caserta, a small city near Naples in Italy. There’s some confusion about John’s age, partly due to his fiddling’ of the dates for his first contract. “I was born on August 5, 1936. Many have it wrong because I made myself a year older to get a Universal contract at the start. If I had been younger it wouldn’t have worked.”

Review (George Kelly): The 9th book in the Harry Dresden series features Dresden in a desperate quest to clear his vampire brother, Thomas, from a cunning plot by powerful Magical Interests. Harry Dresden, professional Wizard and Private Investigator for the City of Chicago, grew up an orphan. His upbringing included a lot of physical and mental abuse which explains his taciturn disposition.

Comic Books (Totally Epic): Finally! After 3400 pages of Epic Illustrated, we’ve (that is, I) have finally arrived at the first thing published by Epic Comics! Er, or, rather not, because first we’re doing Marvel Graphic Novel #3, Dreadstar. I mean, I kinda have to, because it bridges the story started in Epic Illustrated and The Price (over at Eclipse) and the Dreadstar series proper.

Fiction (Amatopia): I’m three-quarters through The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons–sequel to Hyperion and book 2 in the 4 book Hyperion Cantos series–and I can’t stop singing these books’ praises. I think so far I’ve convinced over ten people to give Hyperion a shot. It has been a long time since I’ve found a novel or series that has engrossed me to this degree, particularly a sci-fi novel.

Fiction & RPG (The Other Side): Over the last couple of years, I have been on a quest to find and read all the Raven books by “Richard Kirk” who was, in reality, the pen name of authors Angus Wells and Robert Holdstock.  Both wrote Book 1 and then they alternated with Wells on Books 3 and 5 and Holdstock on Books 2 and 4. The story is one that is simple, but close to many FRP gamers. Raven wants to kill Karl Ir Donwayne. How is going to do that? Well, they need to Skull of Quez to appease this ruler to get to Donwayne.

Review (Rough Edges): The Digest Enthusiast, Book Twelve – Richard Krauss, ed. Interviews

Tony Gleeson (Fantastic, Amazing Science Fiction, Mike Shayne, Personal Crimes).

John Shirley (Weirdbook, Fantastic, The Crow, Constantine, Wetbones).

Games (25 Years Later): From the very beginning, you are made readily aware of not only the stakes but the epicness of the tale at the heart of Darksiders. The tale I speak of is at first set in modern-day Earth, and you take up the role of War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who finds himself in our realm in the midst of a battle between Heaven and Hell. This is where Darksiders gives us a taste of War’s power before stripping it all away when he is killed during the battle. After War’s demise, he is brought in front of the Charred Council, where the blame of the apocalyptic events is placed squarely on his shoulders.

Pulp Fiction (DMR Books): The story starts in the “author as ghostwriter” conceit, as was the fashion of the time ever since its popularisation by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Sword and Planet tales, and indeed utilised by Merritt himself in other stories such as The Moon Pool. So ubiquitous is this method of acclimatising the reader to tales of death-defying derring-do, it almost lulls the reader into a false sense of security – that this adventure will be just another ripping yarn, good for the mental exercise, but could safely be put down after reading.

RPG (Black Gate): Getting into Conan 2d20, for the casual gamer, or for the merely curious, demands a fair amount of cognitive load. This is because, I believe, the system is so innovative — and those innovations are precisely what makes this a Conan game. I have encountered many anecdotes of gamers and consumers gleefully obtaining this gorgeous hardcover tome (or PDF), riffling through it, saying, “Huh?” then setting it aside with a “Sorry, not for me, but the art is pretty, and this still makes a good resource.” adventures, the pandemic hit, and these two players weren’t interested in online play.

RPG (Silver Key): Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s all about execution. The title of the post should speak for itself, but a little context. Heard on the intranets recently… “Gary Gygax ripped off Dave Arneson! Dave is D&D’s true creator!” My response: Horse shit. Ideas are like a@#$holes. We’ve all got one, and most stink. I can sit here in the calm quiet of my living room and fire off a dozen. “Weight loss app.” “Online mentoring program for pediatricians.” “Telehealth scheduling interface.” “Dying Earth role-playing game.”

Comic Books (Bleeding Cool): Sylvian Runberg writes: “When I was offered to do an adaptation of Conan, I was immediately thrilled, and for several reasons.     The first is that this character was a part of my childhood, especially with the comics drawn by John Buscema and obviously the film with Arnold Scharwzenegger. But the second, and maybe the most important reason, is Patrice Louinet, one of the worldwide best specialist of Robert E. Howard, who could advise us during the making of this adaptation, offered me the possibility to discover an another Conan from the one I had in mind from this childhood, a more complex character living in a more complex world, even if we’re still talking about fantasy, magic spells, epic adventures and monsters.

T.V. (Dark Worlds Quarterly): In 1982, Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian was brought to the big screen in a film featuring Arnold Schwartzenegger. The success of Conan the Barbarian spawned a plethora of bad Sword & Sorcery films (including Conan sequels). I will make no comment on those films here but state none was better than average and most were far below the worst of the Ray Harryhausen’s classics. Until 1999’s The Thirteenth Warrior I can’t think of a post-Conan film of a heroic fantasy of any real interest. Since the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Fantasy films have been experienceing another renaissance.

Tolkien (The Wert Zone): The Hugo Awards are the premier awards for science fiction and fantasy literature, first given out in 1953 and every year since 1955. One of the more interesting mysteries of the award is that J.R.R. Tolkien, widely regarded as the most prominent fantasy author of the 20th Century, was never given one despite being eligible on multiple occasions.

Science Fiction (Fantasy Literature): This collection of nine short stories, novelettes and novellas originally appeared in hardcover form in 1952, from the publisher Pelligrini & Cudahy, and sold for $3.50. By the time my edition came out, the Berkley Medallion paperback from 1963, with another wonderfully abstract/Surrealist cover by the great Richard Powers, the cover price had dropped to 50 cents but the number of stories in the collection had been reduced to seven. Missing were the novelettes “Vault of the Beast,” from the Aug. ’40 ASF, and “Heir Unapparent,” from that same magazine’s June ’45 issue.

RPG (Grognardia): I bought Mörk Borg solely because of its physical characteristics. A local friend of mine raved about it months ago and then, while perusing Free League’s website recently, I caught a glimpse of it in all its lurid glory. I was so intrigued by its bright yellow cover and black, white, and red artwork that I ordered a copy and anxiously awaited its arrival. I was not disappointed when it appeared at last: the 96-page A5 book is sturdy and well-made, like so many European RPG books these days. Most of the paper in the book has a satin finish, but its last section, presenting an introductory adventure, has a rough, natural feel to it.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): Today, July 24, is the birthday of John D. MacDonald (1916-1986). MacDonald wrote for the pulps and transitioned to paperbacks when the pulps died. (I wish someone would collect all his science fiction.) For today’s birthday post, I want to look at One Monday We Killed Them All. Dwight McAran beat a girl to death and went to prison for it. He’s about to get out. Dwight is Fenn Hillyer’s brother-in-law. Fenn is a cop. They don’t get along.

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