Location: Avery’s Dinner?
Phase: Evening Phase?
Date: 09.09.1994 (FRI)?
Weather: Rain?
Originally Posted by
Ultra
“You really are extra, are you not? Well... I lowkey like that about people. Their bravado can be refreshing in a world where a colour can suck the life out of a farmland, leaving behind a blasted heath, or where light can become the anchor of time... truly, both akin to what was born in that hellfire reaching for the skies, so many years ago. Julius may have stolen my words, but that does not make them any less so. You'd do well not to reach into that unless needed to, for you'll find yourself agonized AF by what you find. A man should not strive for the world of gods and deities - lest he becomes a philosopher, a Prometheus of their own making. And that is a fate I highkey wish not for anyone. Reaching out into that world is a far cry what the Seven did, or what HE has attempted. You'll totes-magotes cease to be yourself when you do.”
Julius…? Ah, Oppenheimer. Also, what John Dove desperately hopes was not a Lovecraft reference. He is fine with his SAN score right where it is right now, thank you very much.
On an aside, it is not as if John Dove harbors the desire to become a spellslinger—a mystic, in the appropriate vernacular. It may sound like dodging responsibility, but thus far, John Dove has not make a concerted effort to penetrate the murky waters of the Turnside. Ever since that night ten years ago, it has been the Turnside that grabs him by the ankles and shackles him to its boundary, not quite part of it yet not quite alien to it. Rather than asking, “will John Dove choose to wholeheartedly enter the Turnside?” we should be asking “will the Turnside ever let go of John Dove?”
If the answer is “no”, then he might have no other choice but the path of the mystic. Then again, can Ultra truly claim that a human dwelling in the Turnside can become a modern Prometheus? Is that not a little too pretentious? Whatever “fire” such a person might bring to the prisoners in Plato’s Cave cannot be the flame of universal truth, polluted as it is by subjectivity. Maybe they should all accept that there are as many worlds as there are thinking beings.
By the way, the more people keep bringing up these ‘Seven’ or whatever, the more they feed John Dove’s curiosity. Makes you think whether they are actually trying to damn him after all.
‘Kosmos Noetos’, she then says. The highest, furthest point in the universe, the secret eighth sphere of Heaven. So we are going with Gnosticism now? Babalon as Barbelo, the supreme female principle? Is she claiming to be the Trimorphic Protennoia?
…Elaine Winters was right; Crowley was a pompous clown and this mess of a person is entirely his fault. I should be grateful the first mystic I met was somebody agreeable and reasonable.
Mister “Therion” could not just aim to create a god; he had to do it in the most pointlessly obtuse, convoluted, pretentious way possible.
John Dove decides right then and there that, if he ever has to learn magic, he will definitely never use Thelema as his foundation. Absolutely not. No way in hell.
Originally Posted by
Ultra
“Know what you tangle with, and what monsters you try to heal. Sometimes it's better to leave the lit ramblings of a Wicked Man to die on their own. I was the last one remaining, see? With my destruction, everything would have ended then and there - but you dangled hope like a piece of meat in front of a starving dog. Big oof.”
John holds back on rolling his eyes. Now she is the one being unreasonable: of course it is better to help her, if the alternative is letting her break apart and become a wandering wraith that only knows hopelessness. She would only get in the way like that. Also, thank you for confirming there used to be more moonchildren, Ultra.
Wait, that means he now has to investigate Parsons’ antics and their potential relationship to whatever’s happening at Road’s End. What a royal pain in the ass.
On another note, the world is becoming blurred, or rather, less real. Is he flowing out of it, or is this mysterious space that will cease to exist? Whatever the case, it appears his little rendezvous with the moonchild is reaching its conclusion.
Originally Posted by
Ultra
“Thus, reap your rewards and take responsibility for whatever happens in the future, you figment of my imagination... if we even have a future. Whatever happens will be on your ass...especially if you continue with such cringey tirades. Not that I don't lowkey like them. But that's a me problem.”
“Sure thing,” he says, smiling with unreasonable conviction he absolutely has no way to possess. “If it comes to that, we can take responsibility together.”
That is how it works, right? People gather to share each other burdens.
And with those words, color once again disappears from his world.
He stands right in front of the men’s toilets, as if he has just finished his conversation with “Isaac”. He needs a moment to gather himself, to reassert in his mind that it actually happened—that Ultravania, Crowley’s Moonchild, was real. The words they exchanged, the deal they made…the reactions and the emotions. Having returned to the greyscale reality he just defended, it is the separate reality created by Ultra that for a second feels less authentic—like a powerful illusion, or a fever dream. However, that scene, too, was real.
With the retreat of color, John Dove is left alone with the memory of a John Dove in the world of Ultravania’s colors.
He walks to the table he shares with his classmates with stiff, almost toy-soldier-like steps, not saying a word as he settles next to Ubon, looking at the unfinished piece of cherry pie in front of him. With the same stiff motions, he slowly and carefully takes the plate and sets it slightly to the side. Then he just slams his face on the table as if his neck can no longer bear with its weight.
What the hell was thaaaaaaaaaaaat!?
It is the same foundation which currently drives him that now stops him from rolling on the floor like an embarrassed maiden. As it is, the hopeless boy just buries his face on the table, hiding the burning heat in his cheeks as his traitorous mind floods him with an unceasing replay of his actions and words inside that mysterious space.
Who the hell is that guuuuuuuuuuuuuuy!?
A John Dove driven not by careful, logical evaluation of the situation and standardized algorithms of behavior, but by simple honesty and irritation.
‘I only need to succeed once’, was it!? Who the hell are you trying to convince, you powerless show-off!
A John Dove who truly, honestly does not care about what other people think of him, only about the inner conviction even the boy himself is not aware of.
And what was it with those flirty words sprinkled all over the place!? Were you seriously trying to appeal to her feminine emotions to raise her favorability towards you!? Are you out of your mind!?
A John Dove truly capable of acting on his emotions and impressions, untainted by implacable rationality.
Even my thoughts are all over the place now! Seriously, what the hell was that!? It was the colors, right!? Those colors messed something up in my head!
By the way, because John Dove is a mediocre piece of shit who cannot not fail at anything, he forgot to ask Ultra about his artifact, Ishtar Irkalla.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Thing is, Babalon’s symbol is the inverted seven-pointed star. If there is somebody who could potentially neutralize that baleful artifact, it might just be the embodiment of Thelema’s life-giving goddess—
AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
At this rate, he is going to start hitting himself on the temple, like he is an old TV that needs a good whack to work properly. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—, old habits die hard, and it is not as if being rational is a bad thing. The usual John Dove protocols gradually settle back into action, and his racing (and raging) thoughts are smoothed down by the immediate need to assert the situation and perform damage control.
“…my apologies,” he finally says. To his credit, he sounds his usual apathetic self. He does not lift his head off the table, though, because he still does not trust the look on his face at the moment. “I think the week may have exhausted me more than I thought. So, um, did I miss anything?”
As expected of a skillful liar, it is not a complete untruth. He is certainly tired, if only mentally. Unfortunately, by this point it is questionable whether he will have the chance to rest tonight. No, even if he had absolutely nothing else to do, this hapless boy is now so addled by his own actions that he would just lay awake on his bed until sunrise.
…was that really me?
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