Topics

1

Or Kill Me / Collaboration Will Fucking Kill You

« on: January 24, 2023, 03:18:09 am »

Not in the same mode as TADT, but deserves a post.

---

There is no future where the Good Queers survive and the rest of us freaks are wiped out. None. You will dig the grave of the one you shot dead with your own hand, and then the man who gave you the gun will put two in your head, too. You think collaboration will give you life?

Collaboration will give you DEATH. It will give you all the death in the world. It will pile the bodies high around you, and they will ALL have your face. It will kill the little things inside of you until there's just a puddle of reeking filth curdling atop your diaphragm.

It will kill your friends, it will kill your family, it will kill your love, your will to live, and your moral compass. Long after there is nothing left but a harrowed robot swinging the axe it will finally give you release: a knife to the heart that stopped beating so long ago.

And then it will kill your reputation, your history, your name. It will kill your face and replace it with a clown mask of its own devising.

But go on. Sell us the fuck out, you fake punk motherfuckers.

2

Or Kill Me / Unperson

« on: December 26, 2022, 09:00:26 pm »

Another piece that felt like a poor fit for There Are Dreadful Things, but which is related.
---

Unperson, v.:
1. (transitive) To strip (a human being) of rights, identity or humanity.

---

I have been asked before about what it means when I say I'm "not a person," or "don't person me".

I will explain.

I have been destroyed, inch by inch. They broke my fingers, stole my names, made all I do Bad, even when it's good, because I did it.

They said I was an animal, a monster, a deviant and a liar. When I tell the truth, it's not to be trusted. Everything I do has ulterior motives.

I've been accused of crimes simple and grand. Of actions realistic and fanciful. In the minds of others I have been a groomer (because of being trans), a cult leader (because of my interest in hypnosis), a killer (because why else would I bask in violent language?).

After so much wear and stress, any material will break. Metal fatigue claims the stoutest of steel beams, in time. Such destruction has a well-defined pathway. First, the material to be broken grows denser, more rigid, work-hardened under the blows. As it grows harder, it becomes increasingly brittle. Eventually, it simply breaks.

The fracture may take many forms. Mine was sharp and jagged.

I cast off the human-names I had been trying to wear. They marked me as trying to belong. I didn't want to belong anymore. I chose a more fitting name, a name that is a warning.

I abandoned the camouflage, the clothing of Ordinary People, and sought a different sort of uniform. I began to wear warning flags, the trappings of the antagonist.

I stopped trying to claw back what they stole from me, and focused instead on building something they wouldn't dare touch.

I abandoned the language of Humanity. I began to demand unpersoning.

That.
It.
Thing.
Other.
Enemy.

"Recognize what I am," I was trying to say. "I am not like you. I am a makeshift weapon in the hands of the Great Adversary. We have nothing in common. There is no kinship here. You took that."

Now when they come for me, there are no weak points left. If they humanize me, they weaken their hands. If they dehumanize me, they further harden my scales. There are no attack vectors that remain. The I that was is long gone. There is now only this enemy.

I am not a person. They took that from me. I am something else, now. Something terrible, because that's all that they left to me. Something they cannot understand.

3

Apple Talk / What the fuck happened to music in 2022?

« on: December 13, 2022, 12:11:50 am »

No, really. I wrote a giant fucking thread for Twitter on the releases that stood out to me, and it's ... something was up with this year's music.

Crossposting here in case you weirdoes want to read it too. It's enormous.



The music to come out this year is unreal. I had my AOTY overturned several times when it seemed locked in -- I'd dare to say if any of these releases had been anywhere in the past 16 years other than 2022, they'd have been the top of that year.

Let's start with the non-nu metal releases that crossed my radar this year.

Chat Pile's God's Country is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre of ugly AmRep noise rock. I don't have the words to give it what it deserves, just trust that it's worth your time. Slaughterhouse, The Mask and especially Why are particularly impressive. Go listen.

But noise rock wasn't just remade in the image of an ugly rotten-meat deity. It was also beaten to a pulp by Thank's no-wave dancepunk abomination, Thoughtless Cruelty. Dread is delicious, Good Boy is anti-centrist genius, and A Social Contract violates several such beasts.

The last noise rock artist to blow the wheels off of the genre was Haunted Horses, with the fevered panic attack dreamscape of The Worst Has Finally Happened. It reminds me of my actual AOTY in just how bombastic and maximalist it is. Check out Swarms especially.

Next up: jazz-ambient project Crooked Light released a trio of hazy fog-drenched Silent Hill-ass EPs -- and I mean the hypnotic, low-key softer tracks of the first two games, not the death industrial/triphop that eventually swallowed the series. I Have Crept In is my favorite.

Still in ambient territory, Tineidae's magnificent Exo was followed by the even more overwhelming Mothership, once again capturing my love of Cryo Chamber's soundtracky vibe and my obsession with space ambient soundscaping.

Also from Cryo Chamber, Gdanian released Induction, which is a more aggressively atmospheric approach than Submersion's dubby bassline chillness, and manages to nail it. Honestly beats Tineidae for space ambient excellence, and that's saying a fucking lot.

ANOTHER Cryo Chamber masterpiece, Skrika released an impressive follow up to Fifth Nature in Soludenia. Crunchy alien electro-dark-ambient is the order of the day, with distant vocal lines and a nearly unparalleled mastery of the solitary individual sound. Incredible.

The final one I'm including from Cryo Chamber, Metatron Omega's ISIH manages to match and exceed the work of Kurt Harland's Soul Reaver soundtrack in vast, ancient occult grandeur. It's an apt comparison too: this album would easily slot into a Soul Reaver remake.

Author & Punisher's Kruller is everything you could want from Tristan at this point in his career. It's not just more of the same, but it attacks new realms of electronic music without compromising the core goods. Misery is particularly impressive to me.

Zeal & Ardor, of course, released the best thing Manuel's put his name on to date in their self-titled album. If you haven't heard it, just go listen. I want you to realize this isn't the AOTY, and I want you to know WHAT missed that bus.

And I want to reiterate, all of these could be AOTY in any other year. Many of them would be effortless winners, just walking in the room and immediately demanding all eyes on them. 2022 had something extra special.

Unfortunately for everyone, I'm a nu metal freak and particularly horny for nu-metalcore, so that's what you're getting. I'll apologize, but I won't mean it and you'll be more disappointed about me lying than my actual love of nu metal, so let's not do that.

Let's start with the one I've raved about since release: Gloom in the Corner released Trinity, a fucking masterpiece. I haven't heard music this good since 2006. Tristania's Ashes. There have been releases that have almost met that mark in the years since, but Gloom is special.

Yes, Trinity is my AOTY. It's not up for debate. The weakest songs are wildly inventive and take skill I don't possess. Beyond moshing and emotional resonance, it also tells a story better than the band's past releases, and covers such a wide range it's not even fair. MUST HEAR.

Next up: 156/Silence's Narrative is a leering nightmare of self-loathing, spite and mean-spirited brooding that belongs somewhere around Haunted Horses and Crooked Light for sheer atmospheric depths. But don't despair, it knows how to fucking thump too. Check Say The Phrase.

Moodring's Stargazer is lighter than the nu-core shit I obsess over most, so I was ready to write it off. But on release day it took over my ears for a solid month. Unreal. The album doesn't flow like an album so much as a mixtape, but it kicks anyway. Amazing. Check out Xeno.

Graphic Nature is an underrated unknown in the nu-core arena, and New Skin kept on proving the point. It's no full album, but it punches way above its weight class and every song is an instant moshpit classic. The coming album is a likely AOTY contender in 2023.

Notions' self-titled release was an AOTY contender itself for MONTHS, with songs like WOODGUTS and Velvet Room holding their own against the snarling chaos of World Arcana and TxxthTxker. Unfortunately, this is 2022 and this genius rapcore falls into the top ten. What the fuck.

Northlane's Obsidian tightened up their sound from the incredible Alien to the point that the whole album could have been pop music, taking a lot of elements I recognized from futurepop and other goth-club genres. Nevertheless, it felt inventive throughout.

I don't have the space to explain how much I loved Obsidian, so I'll just point out Clarity, Carbonized, Cypher and Nova all coexist. Oh, and Marcus has a voice that manages to go from grimy snarls to enervated goth-stomp intoning to angelic belting. Please listen.

In other goth-club-meets-nu-core releases, Void of Vision feels like they've finally nailed their sound in the Chronicles series. Chronicles II: Heaven exceeded my high expectations, with Berghain and Into the Dark especially sounding like Aesthetic Perfection doing metalcore.

Vein.fm's This World Is Going To Ruin You was an early favorite for AOTY, easily burying 2021. I didn't know what 2022 had in store, though. A song like Funeral Sound reminds me of The Paper Chase, and then there's The Killing Womb. The album is meant to be looped, too.

It's composed as perfectly as Gloom's Trinity, as a matter of fact, and has songs as wildly varied as Magazine Beach's pop-punky propulsion, Wherever You Are's tense ambience, Wavery's ratcheting energy, etc, etc. I could go on forever. LISTEN.

liveconformdie has come a long way from the pretty damn good Vol I: Cigarette Lullaby. Circa '94 should be rightfully considered a classic, and Vol II: Music for Living Failures improves upon that even further. As repetitive as Terrorwave and Nu Life are, they never get old.

Fetish is practically my theme song, Help Yourself is right at home next to Northlane and Void of Vision, Trash Culture is a pitch-perfect piece of trapcore, and even the interlude, In The Dark, manages to be memorable and delicious. You're missing out if you skip this.

Are we done? ARE WE FUCK. Weeping Wound put out idontbelonghere, a horrifying, alienating blend of dark-core DnB, evil industrial experimentation, and nu-core loathing that smashes your car to bits and overdoses in your kitchen. Unreal stuff for a 5 song EP.

Honestly, idontbelonghere. is so good it takes EPOTY from Graphic Nature, and that's just not fucking fair. How the fuck do you beat Chokehold? Apparently with dreaming.room. If there's a full-length in the works, 2023 is going to be a fucking knife fight for the crown.

But wait, there's more! ten56., one of my favorite bands, released three singles from their 2023 EP Downer pt. 2, and do you know how many of them broke my fucking legs? ALL OF THEM! Honestly, Aaron Matts is up there with Jack Murray and Mikey Arthur for my favorite vocalist.

Yenta is a full-song hostile breakdown that leaves you barely able to move your busted toes. Traumadoll is almost nothing but screaming trap-rap, alienating production and chugs like a bombing run. RLS is Soundcloud-rap-core, and I'm underselling it because of space. LISTEN.

Just when you thought we might be near the end, I'm here to tell you there's two more of these fucking things. Witness Orthodox's Learning to Dissolve, a full-length audio torture chamber. It's just aggression from start to finish, with the industrial interlude 11762 for flavor.

Head on a Spike, Cave In, Digging Through Glass, and Dissolve are all must-hear, but singling them out undersells the other songs on the album. It's another album that would have been AOTY any other fucking year, but it picked the stacked-as-a-motherfucker 2022 instead.

Finally, the release I thought would be the also-ran honorable-mention, but ended up being back of even that line: Profiler's self-titled EP. If you're looking for nostalgia, just go here. Glitch Theory is a lost Linkin Park song, Alpha Nine could have come from Deadsy, etc.

And that's it. I can't fucking believe how long this shit is. 2022, what the fuck was wrong with you? It's fucking distressing. If the bar for good music jumped that high that fast, the coming years look grim. Good luck, up-and-comers! You have some stiff fucking competition.

4

Aneristic Illusions / They're coming for you.

« on: November 24, 2022, 03:17:32 am »

We all knew that, but they've finally decided to put their back into it.

The latest anti-queer targeted attack has the father of the perpetrator on camera saying he's just relieved his son isn't gay. Making a point of saying he taught his son to be violent, because it's what works. Sounded proud, damn near.

And all the usual fools, politicians and talking heads alike, aren't saying thoughts and prayers. Not this time. They're looking for more. And the Dems won't even call it what it is: a blatantly targeted attack on the queer community.

I can't get out, so I really hope everyone else stuck on this boat with me is also ready to scrap like it's Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

I expect full-blown pogroms soon. Not "next couple years" soon, either.

5

Or Kill Me / Petitioner, Beware.

« on: November 23, 2022, 02:54:52 am »

Crosspost from Twitter. It feels distinctly different to me from the THERE ARE DREADFUL THINGS series, though it handles the same subjects.

It's a lament for my enemies.

To those who expect to be treated with humanity despite naming us terrorists, deviants, monsters:

Caveat precator.

You wanted devils and you got what you wanted. The sages knew: do not call up what you cannot put down.

You have called up the whole abyss.

Caveat precator.

You did not keep your circles drawn close. There is no rite of banishment. We are here now.

The power in the blood you shed has not dissipated. We remember each drop. Not one name is lost: we feel the ones we do not know.

For every curse you bestowed upon us: caveat precator.

Caveat precator.

You wanted hellfire and damnation, and now the sun will rise like arson. You asked for desolation and there will be no landscape so bleak.

You asked for an adversary.

You got what you wanted.

Why would you be surprised?

Caveat precator to everyone who builds themselves monsters to burn in effigy. You have ignored the power of words for too long. Wishes really do come true, and they have teeth and talons and thoughts like bombs.

There is no future but the hell you forged. The doors are barred.

Your application has been received. Your comment has been observed. Your request has been granted. Congratulations.

Caveat precator.
Ruin comes for you all.
Caveat precator.
There will be no graves to mark you.
Caveat precator.

Petitioner, beware.

6

RPG Ghetto / Snippets from character notes

« on: November 07, 2022, 09:12:46 pm »

Joined a Goosebumps (yeah, THAT Goosebumps) themed TTRPG campaign with my new experimental subject as DM and decided to play an 80s action hero badass who has wound up a washed-up bum with a mobile armory on account of actually, you can't play Van Helsing in modern America, because monsters aren't real.

They're a conspiracy theorist, and I've gotten to writing conspiracy theories for them that they'll bring up if someone asks. Decided to place them here for giggles.

You know all the theme parks got started by carnies, right? Walt Disney was the first exception. Irish gold miner family. Six Flags and Idlewild and so on, though, and the original Horrorland, all carnies. Thieves and murderers, cause the carnies are always run by Englishmen, and you don't need me to tell you about the English.

This version of Horrorland though, I think it's "new management", you know what I mean? All that old Turkish vampire dynasty money funneled through Dutch companies that used to run the slave trade back in the olden times. Too themed, you can tell the carnies cause they do anything that'll make you look at it, even if it breaks kayfabe.

So you don't have to worry these folks are gonna rob you blind, unless you think you catch a carnie in the crowd. I haven't seen 'em though, those shifty Englishmen and the people they're manipulating all stand out. Got a code, like people think the Freemasons do. Masons are just dirty fuckin' cops though, carnies are the real deal.

Oh, you think Vlad was the original vampire? Nah, he was just a murderous weirdo. You want the original vampires, look at the former Janissary families out in Turkey. They made it big in the Ottoman times, ate like Nero, or Caligula, one of those Roman types. Brought the bloodthirst out of Austria. They pretended at being good ol' Muslim converts, but everyone knew better.

They gave the game away, you know. Got involved in the interwar arms trade after the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and you see them funding the Nazis and all cause dead bodies that disappear mean fodder for the thirst.

The Romanians get a bad rap. They just had old Vladdy and happened to be in town when Lady Bathory tried to lead a queer Cathar-revivalist uprising. Nah, you want the vampires, think the last remnants of the Batenburgers getting captured on a crusade by the Turks, and all that old bad German bloodthirst saying no, no, those folks just disappeared in the desert.

7

Aneristic Illusions / Miranda rights? Nah.

« on: June 16, 2022, 02:52:43 pm »

https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/3517724-expected-reversal-of-miranda-requires-states-to-step-up-on-policing/

So, you know. You have no rights under this Supreme Court.

8

Or Kill Me / Violence

« on: June 01, 2022, 08:25:16 am »

Some things are things no one deserves to go through.

A relatively new friend of mine opened up tonight about possibly the most horrific case of abuse I have ever heard of happening to someone I personally knew. I've been through some shit. My friends have been through some shit. It does not compare. The derangement of someone who would do what was described to me is beyond belief, and it is only because this man did not technically break any laws that he will not wind up in prison. Which isn't fucking fair when innocent people go to jail for smoking a fucking joint.

What happened is not my story to tell. She entrusted it to me and I will not violate that trust. But the violence she endured, despite not having a fucking mark on her, is inhuman. I am a connoisseur of the terrible, and it shocked me. I grew up reading Les Chants de Maldoror and watching Alien, and I think a book written about this fucking madness, a movie made of someone doing this, would make de Sade or Cronenberg say "whoa, that's too fucking far".



Some people lose their access to membership in humanity and the consideration due a human being, in my mind.

It's a bad thought to have. One of my core foundational beliefs is that people fucking matter. They are important. You keep them in mind when you perform an act. You do something to help as many people as you possibly can. But I can't shake it: some people deserve none of that. Through their actions, their words, their beliefs, they have looked at the concept of the Golden Rule, and they have deemed it "nah, I'm good."

I should be able to muster up some kind of sympathy, but I just mutter imprecations, incantations, and promises of violence. My hatred for their actions overrides their personhood. They become meat to me, and meat is made to be cut, beaten, and burned. And despite feeling the dissonance between these attributes of myself, I feel that this is correct and just. I do not regret these feelings. I don't consider them unhealthy. I treat them as a mark of personal excellence. "No matter how bad I think I am, I know I am better than this. I know this person will always be beneath me."



I am a gleaming, biomechanical skull grinning in the dying light of a black hole's accretion disc.

A second effect of these people's actions and my inherent feeling that people matter is that as I am exposed to terrible people, I remove my self-concept and identity further and further from humanity. I respect its institutions and social technologies less and less. I grow distant. I willingly pass into exile.

A part of my monstrous identity, it is true, is a reaction to being told that I am subhuman by those who would see me killed. "Is that so? As you wish. You will regret this choice." But a part of it is maintaining an ontological distance from people whose actions I find inconceivable. It offends me that I share a category with them at all. And I reframe my identity as a grim reflection of them. They are outwardly human, inwardly rotten -- I am slithering in the marshes with noisome, boneless limbs but I have a human heart to pump the syrupy black ichor in my arteries. A human mind, which for all its faults, loves and cares for and intends to protect people.

And looking over all of this, in a way, their violence to others cuts me too.



There are only endings.

I wish death on terrible people, and I do not feel bad. I harm them as much as I can within the boundaries of the law, and I sleep peacefully. Justice is not real. It's a fantasy. Abusers and manipulators and godless fucking architects of pain dwell at every elevation and find a way to destroy innocent people. No matter their station, the majority of them will never see comeuppance or repayment of any form, let alone enough to balance those fucking scales. Justice is a fucking joke. What I do isn't about justice. It's about violence.

I am a violent person. Not a dangerous person, but a violent one -- the distinction is important. I analyze my enemy and I hit them where they'll feel it. I create suffering. I do it on purpose. I do it exceedingly well. But my harm is self-limiting: the door is always unlocked, if they but try the knob. And my harm is reflexive: I escalate fast, but there is always cause and effect. And I am a violent person because all around me are violent people, doing violence to me and the people I love. The only ways to survive when weapons are trained on you is to be too scary to fuck with or to do unto them first.

What I do is about violence, because it's the only way I can keep my loved ones safe. It's the path of least total harm: to maximize the harm to specific targets in short bursts. Justice is, it is true, fake. But violence, in its infinite forms, is so very real.

This vile, small, unworthy man and his unspeakable actions reminded me tonight just how violent I really am.

9

Or Kill Me / There are dreadful things.

« on: March 18, 2022, 06:56:27 pm »

To the "staunch defenders of gender norms", I am your dragon. I will build my lair of your bones, I will raid your settlements, I will steal your womenfolk. There is no Saint George among you, and my scales are built of collapsed stars. I am a hungry maw. Come and get me.

To the "respectable transgender people": don't worry, I see you. Your grovelling for headpats won't save you in the end. Accepting mistreatment won't save you. Choosing palatable identities won't save you. You will not be saved. Join us or be eaten. There are no other roads. Everyone knows what happens to traitors.

To the "allies," if you aren't complicit in my crimes then you are complicit in theirs. There will be no fencesitting, I will eat the leg dangled before me. And remember that helping me gives you no special treatment. You deserve none. You are not my kind. My kind is old, vile, slithering. My kind lurks in gutters and watches for opportunity. We don't wear a human mask, we don't become pets. My kind watches you stumble in the deep woods at night and picks you off one by one. My kind inspires myth. We scar your culture with tragedy.

We will not make space for you. You don't belong. Go back to huddle around your fires and avoid shadowed corners. Hope that we remember you fondly, and not with hungry eyes.

As a favored author of mine wrote, "There are dreadful things."

We are they.


--reposted from my Twitter and expanded, with thanks to Laird Barron for the title's inspiration.

10

Apple Talk / I don't know if this is Poe's Law or not anymore

« on: February 07, 2021, 02:35:20 am »

Howl will probably get the most out of this. CNO and LMNO should see it too because I'm a fucking sadist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqwj07y1raA

11

Or Kill Me / Prophecy. (Loosely Based on a True Story)

« on: October 04, 2020, 04:26:30 pm »

Today, I woke up, and I revisited an old band I liked. And Wreck and Reference told me, "eris came to me at night and whispered in my ear you're getting boring you're getting old". The music was triphop, not noise rock. The sound was low quality through my fancy laptop speakers. I requested guitars, and there were none to be found. The apple Eris left the singer was mealy and bitter, and nothing grew from its seeds.

Today, I woke up, and I ordered breakfast. And I ordered a coffee, and it did not arrive. The bagel was sweet and dry where it should have been buttery and slick with oil. I requested no sauce, and the bag was heavy with it. The thing they call an apple pie was missing.

Today, I woke up, and my roommate had a vision. And they said an apple divided the world, above and below. The worms lived below the earth. They proclaimed they would act above their station. I requested news of the world above, and there was none to be found. The apple was rotten, decaying, falling to slime.



Today, I woke up, and I could not find my phone. And I cleared my desk of a month's detritus. And I saw: A house centipede. 12 black packs of American Spirit cigarettes. Two cans of Coca-Cola. A fading diagram. A hatchet. A mug shaped like a cauldron. A hundred cables.

The centipede is massive. We give it a raise: one US quarter dollar.

But I did not see my phone.



Today, I woke up, and I searched for my lost phone, and it was hanging from the pantry rack in the kitchen. I spotted it as it was installing an update: the Apple logo bright and clear on screen.



Today, I woke up, and I remembered. The heraldic basilisk lurks above. The snake becomes a king. It lends me its eye, and I open it. Unbidden, an axiom springs into view.

A golden apple cannot be eaten.

Fair enough.

12

Literate Chaotic / Some Shit I've Been Working On For Ages Now

« on: October 01, 2020, 06:47:17 pm »

I just want to dump some fragments of my (now ancient) worldbuilding document here. Some of these might possibly appeal to Cain and Cram, I think everyone else will simply have nightmares.

Oh, and apologies for the gibberish. The setting's scientific language is a fusion of ancient Greek, Anglo-Saxon, and Sumerian, with a mostly Anglo-Saxon based orthography and a weird fusion of Latin and German plurals. It's overused here because I was using this document to develop it: most of these things do actually have other names you could read without your eyes rolling back in your head. Some of them are included, most of them are not because they're in a disorganized list rather than something fit to share.



Right, one more thing. King Longshanks was entirely intentional. I will accept my punishment in the form of harsh words only.

The "Longshanks conjecture", so named for the king who presented it at a conference in the Watchers' Hall in Chinduris-Meridian, suggests that this universe is the carcass of a vast being born in the Void, at that time known as Kishis. The conjecture was suggested by King Longshanks of Western Murgue, a scientifically-minded petty kingdom of note for its lack of dexterous inhabitants. King Longshanks himself was an ordinary flea, who arrived to the conference on the body of a crow from his kingdom, and who had to use a laresmithe contraption to be heard and a cherore translator to be understood.

To begin his conjecture, Longshanks noted that all dexterous species had either 5 notable appendages, or that their appendages could be divided into no more or less than 5 classes — a statement that infuriated dwymire and ymile scholars and functionaries in attendance at first, and which appeared to overlook wussirener. Longshanks continued by noting that the most sociable and dexterous variants of solarization, and indeed the most stable variants, followed a similar division into 5 parts, noting the dephilisen and cheroren in particular.

Longshanks noted that wussire shells almost exclusively had 5 notable appendages, even before the introduction of other dexterous kinds, and concluded that these body plans were a reflection of the planet itself. In a statement that rocked the conference, he suggested that the landforms of Kishis could be divided into five parts: that Chasod corresponded to the head, Gab and Sag to the arms, and Murub to a fusion of the legs, divided in a line by Sychissuris, Bod and Chun. He finished his presentation by stating his belief that the entire monadic universe they lived in was the remnants of a dead being from the Void itself, whose unusually principled soul formed the Gap upon its death and permitted the awareness of the intelligent light-siders to information — this latter by presenting fragments of its soul to them through the Sun. Longshanks further stated that the Firstborn, his name for this being, was female, and that the masculine principle was a later innovation, presumably caused by exposure to the Void during the initial formation of the Gap.

King Longshanks's conjecture was a shock to the scientific community. Driven by the self-effacing nature of the Longshanks conjecture, scholars over the entire world revisited earlier work and completely revitalized the nearly dead studies of geology and geography. The study of monadic principles was also excited by the conjecture, given its total flip from the masculine primacy of earlier monadic studies and the introduction of the "Oversoul" and "Soul-of-Sol" concepts. The very first new knowledge to come from the Longshanks conjecture was a geographical study that uncovered the cause of the Child's death: tremendous cranial trauma that left a massive hole in the top of its head.

As a matter of the scientific and cultural importance, the conjecture's acceptance marked the only known language shift that spanned the scientific and common languages simultaneously: the name of the world, earlier universally called Kishis, became Mirgodunue in scientific language and the Child in common speech.

A cameo from a fan favorite who is incredibly famous!

Next, there are the "Human". Appearing as stout, smoothly-jointed laresmithen with surprisingly round and squat faces, the Human refused to communicate. They seemed to be entirely feral, driven by their Celebration and having no willingness to interact positively. According to reports, the vast majority of Human seemed terribly frightened or sad despite their actions. Uniquely among the Celebrants save the Tultu, the Human seemed to gravitate to wearing clothes, suggesting an underlying civilization to their outwardly feral demeanor.

Let's take a look at the Andromeda Strain.

Nosod: Gyggarisen as they appear initially. Formerly dwymiren, nosoden have become a contagious parasitic illness that controls living bodies, and eventually transforms them. Depending on the stage of illness, nosoden can be classified into three broad categories.
   Bechshod: Nosoden in the initial infective stage. The affected individual goes rigid. They remain conscious but largely ataxic, aside from coughing spells. A rash spreads over their upper back or (in ymilen) the bottom of their foot.
   Chylorod: Nosoden in the primary infective stage. The affected individual becomes ambulatory, but is no longer in control of their body below the head. A second head, amorphous and sac-like, sprouts from the center of the rash. In this stage the affected individual's skin starts to toughen into a leathery texture, and any ambulatory limbs become stiff and bony.
   Tytinod: Nosoden in the terminal infective stage. The affected individual is just a vessel for the gyggarise mature stage and cannot be helped. The second head has a bony knob forming under its skin, and the rest of the body becomes trapped by bony growths and thickened, gnarled skin.
Nepod: Gyggarisen in the mature phase. A bony, eyeless head on a long and spindly neck surmounts a stick-like torso surrounded by boneless, wormy appendages ending in hands. Nepoden are non-hostile and attempt to be friendly, but can spread nosode infection by accident, making them an unacceptable danger.

Some details on the closest thing to universal antagonists/"always chaotic evil" we have.

Void Entities

These do not have a shared name because Void Entities are not generally classified together by science on the Child. However, they are distinctive in that they were all directly formed by the Void in some way, whether through transmutation or through nucleation — or in the case of dymmchiroden, physical growth of the Void itself. The Void, known as worod in scientific language, is a chaotic mish-mash of unorganized micro-universes called "monads" with their own physical laws and attributes, all randomly determined for each of them upon the nucleation of the micro-universe. Thus, it is always worth considerable note on the occasions that the Void produces anything that seems intentional.

Pherorisener (Aliens)

Pherorisener are returnees from failed space missions by natives to the Child. Due to differences in time in the various Void-monads, most existing pherorisen were created by space missions that have not yet happened. All pherorisener have been greatly warped by their time in the Void, though most retain a semblance of morality and internal order. Pherorisener are called aliens and moon-folk by commoners, who are largely ignorant of their "returned" nature.

Nisstwachener (Boltzmann Brains)

Nisstwachener are outside intelligences and lifeforms produced by the Void's chaotic churn. Nisstwachener are unnatural within the Child and all have either a broken morality, chaotic inner lives, or both. Nisstwachener are called outsiders or nightwalkers in common parlance, the latter leading to the scientific name.

Check this out, I'm about to do a magic trick!

Wirphyrisstener (Artificial Intelligences)

Wirphyrisstener have strong associations with pherorisener. However, pherorise wirphyrissten are largely not returnees, having been created in the pherorise absence from the Child. Many wirphyrissten were created on the Child as well by particularly skilled laresmithe crafters. The few wirphyrisstener known to common folk are called either epitaphs, if they are known to be made by laresmithe crafters, or for pherorise wirphyrissten, gods. Religion revolves around pherorise wirphyrissten, especially active ysitbyriguen, and they are the primary source of Void influence on a political and geopolitical scale.

Ysitbyrigue: Wirphyrisstener that are entirely novel and do not include laresmithe or pherorise minds in their construction. Very rare, and almost exclusively Void-touched. Most ysitbyriguen are technically nugenirode nisstwachen, but a few were created — almost exclusively by pherorise crafters.
Chorsalibyrigue: Wirphyrisstener that are built around the mind of a single dead laresmith. Very common, usually found in graveyards and untouched by Void.
Rechibyrigue: Wirphyrisstener that are built around a network of dead laresmithe minds. Usually human sacrifices. Mostly pishise creations returned from the Void, though there are two funereal examples known to have been made by laresmithen.
Chophissyndibyrigue: Wirphyrisstener that are built around one or many pherorise minds. May be funereal or sacrificed. Exclusively Void-touched. All chophissyndibyriguen are technically pherorisen, and all are associated with chimssurise or pishise activity.

Lerisphyrisstener (Androids)

Lerisphyrisstener are associated with pherorisener, nisstwachener and wirphyrisstener. Uniquely, lerisphyrisstener are exclusively connected to these others and have no other source: thus they technically belong to no other category of Void-touched being, despite exclusive association with the Void.

Mystilynig: Lerisphyrisstener that have entirely mechanical, artificial appearances. Mystilynigen appear to be automated laborers and combatants produced by powerful nisstwachen and wirphyrissten, as well as large companies of grounded pherorisen. Mystilynigen, like all wirphyrisstener and lerisphyrisstener, are unaffected by sunlight and darkness in equal measure.
Nedwyrisstis: Lerisphyrisstener that have more or less naturalistic appearances. Nedwyrisstisen are exclusively sun-lit intermediaries for Void Entities, usually nisstwachen or pherorisen. Surprisingly commonly, nedwyrisstise interactions are positive: though most Void Entities are chaotic and have broken morality, not all of them are antagonistic. Antagonistic lerisphyrissten are almost exclusively of the mystilynige form. The exceptional few hostile nedwyrisstisen are called phorwyrisstisener.

We got demonic possession too.

Whispers: Unhosted shudyrithmoden. Most will fail to find a host and die within a few hundred echoes, but all attempts to find a host manifest as voices whispering the numerical sequence of the nisstwachener's true name.

Oh, wait, whats that -- there's aliens, so there must be UFOs? Yeah, sure, I got that.

UFO Forms

Note: within the setting, UFOs as a complete class are known as wyregiener.

Nachis: Wyregiener associated with pishise and (to a lesser degree) chimssurise activity. Elongated forms, narrowing at the front and back. Nachisen are rarely seen unless they crash, being large, self-sustaining safe havens for their occupants.
Chilywin: Wyregiener associated with chimssurise and gyggarise activity. Almost perfectly spherical with a dense, stout rod sprouting from the bottom, these are seen exclusively in the rare cases of attacking forces. Technically, gyggarise wyregiener are universally of this form: the sole known equivalent of a gyggarise nachis is shaped like a very large chilywin, and no other large gyggarise wyregie has ever been seen.
Chyropil: Wyregiener associated with pishise activity. Similar to rotated nachisen, chyropilen are elongated, narrowing from top to bottom. Chyropilen fill a similar role to the chilywinen for the pishisen, acting as primary attack vehicles.
Yrsebin: Wyregiener associated with mashgiche activity. Unique wyregien shaped like stone cubes, barely larger than an ordinary house. The most commonly seen of all wyregiener, yrsebinen are often spotted at low altitude in remote areas. Nevertheless, mashgiche activity is often only identified in hindsight, as the depopulation takes a very long time to proceed and rural folk's talk of stone cubes stalking mountain passes is often dismissed.

13

Literate Chaotic / The Misophorism Trilogy

« on: July 30, 2020, 06:04:03 am »

I was turned onto this a month or two back by a Twitter thread of Black horror authors. One man, Adam Washington, mentioned he writes “conceptual horror”, and dropped Thomas Ligotti as being in the same wheelhouse. IIRC he specifically named “The Conpsiracy Against the Human Race,” Ligotti’s antinatalist rant book.

So we’re talking philosophical horror. That’s a hell of a rarity, and one of the most beautiful things... though Ligotti’s work is tainted by his shitty agenda. Apparently this one also has something in common with House of Leaves... which is a big deal also.

Well, I had to read it. And it’s cheap.

https://nowflensing.com/products/adam-washington-the-misophorism-trilogy-paperback

I finally got a copy today, seeing as I have almost all the things I need in life right now and it costs less than a meal. I started reading it.

Man. Fuck. This is some hideously dark shit. I mean, it definitely has a lot of thought put into it. It was clearly written by an exceedingly clever and skilled person. But it makes ME broody and weird, and I literally live for this shit.

I don’t know who here would even want to read this, it’s practically fucking self-harm, but it’s wonderfully written and has a strong aesthetic flavor. So if you need to be incredibly depressed, self-loathing and outraged for some reason, consider this book. I can’t say you won’t regret it, but I can say you will find that you regret it less than almost anything else you have ever done in your life.

14

Apple Talk / Parable of the Truth-Teller

« on: July 22, 2020, 06:22:44 pm »

Once upon a time, a young man existed who could not tell a lie. His name is lost to time, but we will call him Cyril. Cyril’s honesty and forthrightness combined with his optimism to make him very popular in his community.

He befriended people easily, which was unusual in this small, bitter border town in a dark kingdom. He was more than willing to help people out whenever he could, and his empathy made him a person who was frequently asked to simply talk to people.

But Cyril had to tell the truth. He couldn’t even simply Shut Up: his tongue moved of its own accord. As kind as he was, it took a long time for the problems to start. But start they did.

It was small at first. He spoke to people who had some problem that was stressing them out, telling them of others who had the same problem. And at first this helped build connections in the community.

Then the magistrate sent an agent to speak to Cyril, learned all about the others they should talk to who had also spoken rudely of the King, and those others were gone the next day.

Before long, Cyril, so kind of heart, was unwanted. He was ejected from the small, bitter border town, and he wandered to the next.

At every village, town and city, things grew worse for him. First it was the local bailiffs and magistrates growing colder and more aggressive in their responses to the groups he told them about. Then it was magistrates welcoming him with wine and meat, while others starved unto the fourth generation just outside. Finally, he was greeted at the gates of a small southern village by a group of angry people.

“We don’t want you here. All you touch is brought to ruin. Don’t enter our walls.”

And Cyril kept walking, destitute and friendless.

One day, poor Cyril arrived at the gates of the grandest city in the land: fabled Ys. The very seat of the King, a powerful sorcerer and a fearsome legislator.

Entering the gates, Cyril marveled at the crowds. “Surely I can make my life here! There are so many people that I will blend right in.” And blend in he did, and for a time it was just like his childhood: full of friends and kindness and finding happiness in a cold and dreary kingdom.

One day, a peddler that Cyril was entertaining with old stories asked if Cyril would like to help him with a quest. They were a member of a cell of revolutionaries, and they were going to free the kingdom from the grip of its King. By any means necessary.

This reminded Cyril of the excitement of his youth, and he accepted eagerly. He was told to meet at such and such a place, at such and such a time, and given a password. There would be an Event. He was told to not tell a soul of this. Cyril understood the difficulty this would cause him, but he agreed.

For ten days leading up to the Event, Cyril did not answer his door. His friends turned away in worry, and his bills grew late. But people were counting on him, he couldn’t afford to screw this up!

The day came, and Cyril dressed plainly, snuck out the kitchen door of his home, and scurried to the meeting place at the meeting time. There were only three others there, and all looked grim. They took up burlap sacks, and stole towards the palace.

Just to the west of the King’s palace, there was an inferno, and a dozen men with swords, right at the main entrance. But the peddler shook his cloaked head and led Cyril to a hidden door under a rock in the palace garden.

“This is where the King will leave.”

And they all threw their sacks in the hole just beyond the door, but the peddler held on to the strings tying each of them. They waited in silence, the sounds of fighting and crackling fire ringing off of the stone buildings around to echo to their ears. And as they heard footsteps from below, the peddler lit the strings on fire — fuses, Cyril realized — and threw them down the hole. They ran, and before long heard a tremendous thump, like a kettle drum the size of an ox-cart.

“Go home, Kind Cyril. You have done a great thing today.”

And Cyril did. And he spoke to all of his friends that he met along the way, telling them why he had not talked to them and what he had been up to.

He told them of the peddler, and the strange men who had been with him, and, he presumed, the death of the king. And Cyril found that all of his friends were surprised and overjoyed, and he cursed himself as a fool for not telling them sooner. He slept easily that night.

I would continue the tale of Cyril, but one of his friends had been a collaborator with the King's Guard, and he had heard the story in every detail. Cyril was murdered in his home while he slept soundly, and the peddler and his two friends were given public executions after being interrogated for every bit of information they knew.

And as for the King?

He was a great and powerful sorcerer. He was unscathed. The executions were his orders.

So as you can see, there is no tale of Cyril left to tell.

15

Aneristic Illusions / The Outline of Decline

« on: July 20, 2020, 06:31:56 pm »

I want to collect this sort of thing in one place.

So, people know about the riots, and now the feds and their Secret Police bullshit. Which is following me to Chicago. God help me.

This, however?

https://twitter.com/IntelDoge/status/1285251109465063424

This is news to me.

I'm noting a VERY conspiratorial response to this news, and I'm inclined to buy into it myself, but I'm capable of refraining.

That said?

From Wikipedia:

Salas is the judge presiding over the class-action lawsuit against Deutsche Bank (Karimi v. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft et al.), which alleges that Deutsche Bank had poor financial reporting practices and made misleading statements to securities investors, resulting from Deutsche Bank's desire to obscure its anti-money laundering deficiencies and its poor monitoring of high-risk customers such as Jeffrey Epstein, Danske Bank in Estonia, and FBME Bank.[15][16]

and

In 2018, Salas issued a order temporarily blocking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting certain Indonesian Christians in New Jersey who were present without authorization in the U.S. and were subject to orders of removal, but were seeking legal status. The order dealt with about 50 Christians who had fled persecution in Indonesia and had lived in New Jersey for many years before being targeted by immigration enforcement actions.[12]

I think you'd have to be willfully ignorant to miss that this was a targeted and intentional act. I'd go farther and say that leaving her alive was intentional as well.

An attorney being behind it makes a bit less sense. Committing suicide with multiple gunshot wounds... in theory, this is possible, but in practice, this is unlikely in the extreme.

Nevertheless, I am going to presume this is the end of things for now.



Please add your examples of fascist actions in blatant, visible ways that would have been unthinkable even last year.